Reality and the Beeb

In case you think I'm giving the BBC too much attention today, Denis Boyles provides some balance as he compares the BBC and Reality television. The BBC comes off the worse.

For fairness and accuracy, Reality TV is probably your better bet. Not only does Reality cover stories the BBC totally ignores, they observe the old-fashioned protocols and conventions of journalism far more assiduously. Every episode of Cops, for example, begins with a reminder that the people they cover are all “presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” Cheaters doesn’t go that far, but they don’t have to: nerdy host Joey Greco has caught it all on video (“…and here we see them going into the motel together…”).

That’s more than can be said for the BBC—and especially for its Foreign Office-funded, leftwing playground, the World Service. The news for the last two weeks—what am I saying? The last three years (I reported on the BBC’s invasion coverage here)—has featured the breathless journos of the BBC chasing American perps across the Middle East and around the world, all to support the narrative that has America playing the role of an outlaw nation, presumed guilty of whatever happens, wherever it happens. A few weeks of this, and you want to grab a beer, take off your shirt and go face-down in the front yard until the British Broadcasting Cops show up.