“Next time you hear the BBC bragging about how much superior the Brits are delivering the news rather than Americans who wear flags in their lapels, remember it was the Beeb caught lying.”
Click here to view this wholly entertaining editorial snippet from a recent FOX News broadcast, featuring news host John Gibson waxing rhapsodic on last week’s resignation by the BBC’s director general Greg Dyke in the wake of Lord Hutton’s report on editorial misconduct in the network’s coverage of aspects of the British buildup to Iraq and, specifically, the network’s usage of the now infamous “sexed up” terminology.
While editorials certainly occur with some restrained degree of frequency on a number of local news outlets across the country, and usually only in events of great compelling interest, can anyone recall having seen such an editorial stance having been adopted by news hosts on other national cable news networks, e.g. CNN and NWI? The one minute of airtime devoted to the BBC matter comes off as especially ironic, given the fact that the Hutton inquiry was largely a distinctly non-American issue; it’s almost as though Gibson is gloating when he says above, “…remember it was the Beeb caught lying.”
The operative word, of course, being “caught.”
One thing’s for sure; ITV and BSkyB would never have behaved in such a crass fashion.
(Previous–and very relevant–reflections on FOX News.)
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2 replies on “Beeb Sky Beeb”
The Hutton inquiry was indeed an American matter too. After all, Lord Hutton investigated the charge of intelligence tampering to persuade England to go to war. The U.S. relied, in part, on British intelligence as well as their own.
And journalism itself is somewhat borderless, especially in the age of the Internet. Gilligan can be ranked up there with Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass and Rick Bragg. Granted, his trangression was not as serious, but he still sullied the reputation of the news organization he worked for.
Gilligan’s the guy who was facing the wrong way at the airport–where he didn’t see any big ugly americans! Even after his own TV anchor pointed out to him that they had live video of the troops at the airport, he wouldn’t turn around.