(nb. The following post was originally destined for B-BBC. For some reason it failed to post. Then I thought it might have been too long anyway for the B-BBC blog, and it reiterated anyway feelings I had made clear there in posts like this one. Rather than waste the efforts I'd spent though, I thought I'd paste it here.)


The BBC's appalling anti-Americanism

No, I am not about to give some startling example of BBC ignorance or callous misrepresentation of the US- holding as I do no brief whatsoever for going into bat for the US of A- as though we need it spelled out in lurid language just how anti-American the BBC is.

But, I just can't get over the BBC's coverage of the Pakistan earthquake, and how they have neglected quite wilfully to report the US' response to it.

I noticed today the BBC reporting that one of three British chinook helicopters destined for Pakistan had left the UK, on board a transport plane. I'd have thought there might have been a case for saying this is a little bit late in the day and that the BBC might have been justified in saying it- but that, I think, would be to misconceive the BBC's political role. Its considerations include not offending one of its paymasters, the Foreign Office. They also include winning the favour of millions of totally biased muslims and others by acting as a sceptical (not to say completely jaundiced) eye on the US. In this case it was a blind eye.

Because just look at what the US has been doing. The US has devoted no fewer than 17 helicopters, with 20 more en route to the region. Furthermore,

'Television news broadcasts have been filled in recent days with images of U.S. Navy cargo ships offloading relief supplies in Karachi, olive-drab Chinook helicopters disgorging bundles of tents and blankets in isolated mountain villages, and American soldiers -- some diverted from military operations in Afghanistan -- working with their Pakistani counterparts to evacuate the injured.'

nb.- those would be domestic Pakistani news broadcasts. I'm not sure what other channels have reported, but I think the BBC (at least through its website) has been bending over backwards to avoid it (even in its overview of the disaster- where we hear from the oh-so-important Mr Egeland of the United Nations and of the role of Pakistani military helicopters. Please feel free to join me in an in depth search of the BBC site to see if the US efforts have warranted a serious mention; and of course report any good- which is to say, corrective- TV or radio broadcasting. I don't think we need to bother ourselves with the highminded idea that the BBC is concerned just to report the needs and the human stories out in the Kashmir instead of naming political names. After all not only did the egregious Egeland get a starring role- who is this unelected turnip anyway?- the UN got its own article, where we heard about the poor old thing's 'worst nightmare'.)

Why is this important?

Well, with the BBC regularly playing up the world's (and especially muslim) hostility to the global superpower, now comes a time when the US has a chance of refuting its unfairest critics and the BBC sits on its hands and bleats about the UN while other media can report testimonies like this:

'Obviously, this is the other side of the United States," said Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Shujabadi, a prominent religious scholar in the port city of Karachi. "For the first time in so many years I have seen the American planes dropping relief and not bombs on the Muslim population."

In fairness to Mr Shujabadi its possible he could have sought out the the BBC for his international news during the tsunami last year, which might help explain his ignorance of US aid efforts to muslims. Of course as the WaPo says 'It is too early to say whether the aid operation will have any lasting effect on public attitudes'(in Pakistan), but that doesn't mean we can ignore a global media empire which shows its ill-will by studiously ignoring concrete and positive images of the US when at their most newsworthy. The BBC, having been heavily criticised for allowing political considerations to dominate its handling of the Kelly affair in 2003 (and this was a unique application of the magnifying glass to BBC business as it usually unfolds), is still playing politics. It doesn't understand its responsibilities.

As Laban Tall's post at B-BBC indicates, muslim attitudes to us infidels can cost lives. Is it too much to ask the BBC to forget the political agendarising, to ignore their hatred of George Bush and to damn well do the job they're paid to do by reporting the major events and contributions, by telling us what is happening when it is happening rather than playing for their Islamic viewing figures and the approval of FO mandarins (or any other of their priority audiences)?