Guardian and BBC v/ Fox News

The Guardian, while reporting on Fox News and others having been cleared of the charges of biased reporting during Iraq: The Regime Change, joins the BBC in some seriously biased reporting. You'd have thought, given the topic, that the writer of the article would have done his best to avoid taking a really obvious slant.

Apparently, though, bias is only a bad thing when Owen Gibson disagrees with you; in the cause of (self) righteousness, having a powerful editorial slant is absolutely fine.

Witness:

Television watchdogs have thrown out all of the complaints they received about news bias during the Iraq war, including those against notoriously pro-war US channel Fox News.

Or, how about this one?

Fox's flag-waving patriotism was unrelenting throughout the conflict, from the reporters embedded with the American "heroes" and "liberators" on the front line in Iraq to the Rumsfeld-lauding talk show hosts back at New York HQ.

Damned unrelenting, flag-waving patriotism. Imagine Owen looking grief-stricken: "No, I'm not biased on this subject at all. What are you talking about?"

Oh, but there's more fun to be had.

Fox's star interviewer, Bill O'Reilly, told viewers the US should go in and "splatter" the Iraqis...

Hey, wait, whatever you think of O'Reilly, note that he isn't paid to be objective. He's a talk-show host and he gets paid to be an opinionated loudmouth. What's your excuse, Owen?

As if to prove his stance on the subject, Owen gives equal time to those expressing his exact same viewpoint.

The BBC director general, Greg Dyke, last month hit out at the "gung-ho" stance of Fox News and other US news providers during the conflict.

"Commercial pressures may tempt others to follow the Fox News formula of gung-ho patriotism, but for the BBC this would be a terrible mistake. If, over time, we lost the trust of our audiences, there is no point in the BBC," he said.

Of course, the only acceptable point of view for a BBC "journalist" (God, I love using scare quotes) is, of course, anti-American. The BBC almost made the beloved Baghdad Bob seem reasonable by comparison.

Alright, I'm being a little unfair. Fact is, Owen does give time to the ITC (a media watchdog organization) findings concerning Fox and notes that Fox does have some politically diverse shows. He does make a vague attempt at showing the other side, but only after using some pretty loaded terminology to describe Fox and its reporters.

Fox is slanted in its policy. There is no doubt about it--but its reporting seemed pretty reasonable and it does quite a bit to counter the liberal spin given by most mass media outlets.

Read the story.

Posted by zombyboy at June 19, 2003 01:34 PM | TrackBack