A little something about 'scare-quotes'. (also posted, in very similar form, at B-BBC)

Just an observation really. Much annoyance is created by the BBC's often suggestive, often hamfisted use of 'scare-quotes'- which as the name implies appear intended to shove a certain interpretation of a story forcefully at the reader.

I noticed,Drudge and the BBC headlining the same story of the discovery of some of GWB's military service payroll records. Drudge put it "Bush 'destroyed' Military records found". The BBC put it "Bush 1972 payroll records 'found'".

Drudge was right, the BBC (typically) wrong- and suggestive. You see, what is called into question by the finding of these records? Obviously it is the original statement that they were destroyed- that statement now looks a bit fishy. What is beyond doubt is that they have been found.

What these scare-quotes do is suggest that the Bush campaign have somehow been hiding them all the long, just waiting for the right moment to reveal them. It's an act of interpretation that radically restricts my freedom to interpret- precisely because it's not true and the only application must be ironic.

I wrote to the BBC earlier on and said I had one word in response to their choice to showcase this story (and I spared them the detail but I suppose I really meant 'in that manner'): Berger. The story of Sandy Berger, pants-stuffing or sock-stuffing, whichever or both, was of course nowhere to be seen by this time, but I have to say I am more suspicious of the BBC's choice to highlight this Bush story than I am entertaining of the idea that Bush (or Rove) incubated these documents until the media was ripe to hatch them. Thus, for me, is the BBC politicised and untrustworthy.

And, in case that seems an overreaction, this is how the Democrats responded:

'The supposed discovery of these records on Friday afternoon, as reporters converge on Boston to cover the Democratic National Convention, is highly questionable...

What this little tale suggests is a)the BBC's intense interest in the outcome of this coming Presidential election, and b) Their inability or unwillingness to see what is necessary for impartiality in the US political context.