Beeb Bashing Gets Serious

[Update at end of post]

Following the old adage that one should strike while the iron is hot, the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre – with help from a like-minded Astroturf lobby group – has continued to put the boot into the BBC for being insufficiently deferent to Young Dave after his less than jolly good trip to Brussels last week.

“The biased BBC made it sound like the world had ended after Cameron’s veto” thundered James Slack as he rolled out yet another rantfest to the order of the Vagina Monologue. Slack suggested that the mood of the reports should be “celebration, or at least applause”, which would of course enable the Mail to kick the BBC from the other side for not being critical enough.

On the basis of zero evidence other than assertive bluster, readers were treated to this magnificent non sequitur: “To the BBC, however, it was a betrayal of one of the Corporation’s most trenchantly held views: that Britain can prosper only if it agrees to do everything Europe demands of it”, followed by “the veto was reported from the perspective of the EU”. At least the first four words of the latter quote are right.

Clearly, the word had gone out that last Saturday’s spin cycle was insufficient. So out comes the flagrantly untrue “the Corporation is fully aware of its pro-EU bias” [backed up with nothing], “BBC’s instinctive response ... has been to assume that Britain is doomed”, “Labour MPs ... largely given a free ride” and “sense of glee in BBC newsrooms was palpable”.

Leaving aside the fact that the BBC would have to be pretty desperate to allow this Mail hack into one of its newsrooms, we arrive at the comment from a supposed “expert”, this being Kathy Gyngell of the Centre for Policy Studies, that Astroturf lobby group which – you guessed it – declines to say who pays to keep the inmates in the style to which they have become accustomed.

The name may be familiar: Ms Gyngell has previous for claiming pro-EU and anti-Conservative bias in the media and especially the BBC. And “News-watch, the independent broadcasting monitor”, mentioned in the sub-heading of her piece, appears not to exist. So the headline “The Brussels Broadcasting Corporation pins failure to save the Euro on David Cameron” is predictable.

Does Ms Gyngell bring anything new to the table? Sadly not: “BBC’s historic Europhile bias ... Cameron’s historic lone man stand [sic] ... national broadcaster’s studied blindness to EU realities ... EU auditors have not signed off the EU’s accounts since it began (wrong) ... When the battle gets tough for the Europhiles they play dirty ... BBC, with their Eurocentric lens”.

Make a proper complaint? They won’t. Full of wind and piss. No change there, then.

[UPDATE December 14 1800 hours: the frontal attack on the BBC by the Dacre hacks has been broadened today as A N Wilson has contributed a characteristically tedious piece trying to call out David Attenborough for "fakery" over scenes in Frozen Planet.

What Wilson fails to tell his readers is that the only reason that the use of scenes filmed in a zoo (for instance) had been included in the series is that the Beeb made the information freely available on its website. So the claims of "fakery", "fib", and "deception" are baseless (yes, I know, the Daily Mail accusing others of dishonesty). Once again, no change there, then]