THE BEEB'S BUBBLE

On News 24 today, BBC reporter Matt Frei gave a clever little smirk when he was asked about Hurricane Rita's effect on Bush's ratings. He certainly has a way of getting  his disdain across. Frei's colleague Justin Webb sounds every bit as condescending in this dispatch. No wonder Ann Althouse is irked. (Via Instapundit)

National Review editor Rich Lowry is running out of patience:

The other day I was standing in a colleague's office when his phone rang. He refused to answer it. In response to my puzzled look he said, "It might be the BBC." A few moments later, my cell phone rang--caller ID: "unknown"--and I answered: it was the BBC, looking for my colleague, who began waving his arms in don't-tell-them-I'm-here gestures.

Why the fear? As far as I can tell, it's because the BBC is relentless, clueless, and anti-American. Conversations with its producers tend to be long and pointless, and no media appearance is as unsatisfying as one with the BBC, since no one you know will hear you and you will make no head-way against a tide of maddeningly conventional leftism.

Not everyone agrees, however. Frei's New Orleans coverage finds a defender in ITN anchor Mark Austin :

Austin and Matt Frei of the BBC worked side by side in New Orleans. "I spoke to him a lot about it, and I don't think he said anything that we weren't saying. What Blair said to Murdoch is surprising."

UPDATE: Iain Murray has problems with Channel 4 News as well. The Jon Snow interview that he links to is a gem. BTW, I wonder how Snow's colleague, Alex Thomson is getting on with that idea for embedding journos with the Iraqi insurgents?

In the ideological and military clash of Christian fundamentals with Islamist fundamentals, the western media are simply off-limits to the latter. I am still getting emails every week from viewers demanding why we are not in Falluja, Tikrit, Amara covering this war properly and showing the other side.

UPDATE 2: Andrew Sullivan thinks criticism of the Beeb should be a little more nuanced. Fair point, although I think the weight of assumptions underpinning almost every programme is beyond dispute.

Andrew still found Justin Webb's piece "dumb and ill-informed". Stephen Pollard is even blunter:

I mean, really. It's not even Marxism, just puerile student Spartist drivel.

Comments

[Rob Read]

If you British and you still pay the TV-Tax maybe because you are afraid of the authorities, then DONT!

The TVLA Gestapo have no right to enter your property. You do NOT have to speak with them, or have you any duty to respond to their letters or communications. Just make sure your TV is out of sight.

Do NOT aid your enemy. The gramscian and institutionally left-wing !bBC is trying to destroy the British/Anglosphere culture.

The BBC does NOT have to keep its customers happy, because it only has one customer, namely the TVLA. Hit the BBC where it hurts do not pay the License fee and do not buy goods from the BBC (If your British just copy them as you've already paid for them if you were a former payer of the TV-Tax).

End the war on freedom, end the BBC, end socialism.

[Dan Collins]

The BEEB sucks. They could do a commercial with Liz Hurley playing guitar in a skimpy dress, and Mike Myers singing about their channels, but it still wouldn't make me watch their news.

[Bill Timmons]

It's unbelievable that in a world of Murdoch and Rush and Instapundit that you guys are so afraid of being challenged in the media. I have never in any instance found myself thinking the BBC is anti-american. Right wing profiteers and neocons aren't the only Americans and the sickening wad of corruption in the White House is not the true heart of America.

BT

[Section9]

Timmons, you can't be seriously defending an intellectual gaggle of left wing gangsters who thieve tax money from the common Subject at the point of a gun so they can, in their turn, trash the United States of America. Remember, they were angry at the United States before Katrina precisely because Bush had the temerity to fight Islamic Fascism.

Which, apparently, is something the anti-Semitic fellow travelers at the Beeb take offense at.

[MisterPundit]

It's unbelievable that in a world of Murdoch and Rush and Instapundit that you guys are so afraid of being challenged in the media.

Actually, sounds to me like you're the one who is afraid of having the media challenged. And it's pretty hillarious how you mention Murdoch and Rush, as if the two of them combined come even close to topping the combined total of leftwing mouthpieces out there. Lame.

[starboardside]

The day I buy a license to watch a television,will be the day Hell freezes over.

[Joel]

Even the BBC's American counterpart the NPR can't stand what their mates are doing:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4845302

I'm sorry BBC, but when even another country's public service who normally supports you in 99% of the cases finds fault with your coverage, you know you are in deep trouble.

[Jim C.]

Could someone please give me a bit more info on what "Spartist" means and where the term comes from? I gather it means something like extreme left-wing ranting political jargon. Thanks in advance.

The only web references I can find are these:

Private Eye magazine once referred to socialist London Mayor Ken Livingstone as "Red Ken Leninspart".

a Usenet posting: "I belive the 'Eye' uses the word 'Spartist' to refer to the loony lefties that populate places like Universities, Labour councils etc, derived from the name - Red Ken Lenin-Spart"

another Usenet posting: "I think that even the most rabid British Commie would agree that the Morning Star had absolutely no humour. What's more, it used syntax, which you might almost call political jargon, that simply wasn't heard in 'real life'. It became a standing joke (known as 'Spartism', or the 'Spartist tendency': but that's another story)"

(There is a site www.spartist.com, but it belongs to the artist S. Petrovic.)

[QuickRob]

Justin Webb basically ONLY writes biased reports on America. He reports on American culture as if it is a virus which needs to be examined through a microscope and handled with rubber gloves. He's a rude condascending prick and manages to succesfully convey the caricature of snobbish Eurotrash effortlessly.

What a classless schmuck.
http://www.quickrob.com/weblog/?p=198

[Dicky]

"Spartist" is short for "Sparticist" which is a brand of Trotskyite Marxism.