Bias at the Beeb

Denis Boyles looks at the bias of the BBC’s World Service. (Having followed the BBC for several years, I think the examples he cites are mild. He pulled his punches.) An excerpt:

Cosmopolitans take great comfort in the World Service’s furious coverage of the conflict in Iraq. From the outset, the Beeb’s allegiance was clear: its reporting, said controller of editorial policy
Stephen Whittle, “must reflect significant opposition in the U.K. (and elsewhere) to the military conflict.”

Not a problem. The World Service swiftly found a “Middle East expert” to describe the first U.S. missile strike on Baghdad as “pure American imperialism.” The service left listeners in the dark, however, about the so-called expert’s affiliation with an Arab-funded pro-Palestinian lobby. As the war continued, and the BBC remained the sole provider of news to Iraqis, the broadcaster aired calls for suicide bombers to fight the coalition and ran interviews with angry anti-American Iraqis, sometimes without telling listeners that Ba’athist minders were on hand. When the Americans claimed to be in Baghdad, BBC reporters denied it—even as CNN carried video of tanks rolling through the capital’s streets.