Tuesday, September 02, 2003

THE NYT DEFENDS ITS FRIENDS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

The New York Times has just spoken out about the huge row in Britain over the BBC -- which has pitted the Left-leaning public broadcaster against a Leftist British government that was still not Leftist enough for the BBC! There is nothing worse than a family spat! The NYT's version of the controversy is however hilarious. They say that the broadcaster's reputation for fairness and accuracy has been compromised by "just 20" words! Given years of complaints about BBC bias (there is even a whole blog devoted to it), that has to be the understatement of the year! But we all know that the NYT makes selective reporting into an artform. Stalin himself would be hard put to be better at it than they are.

Perhaps most amusingly, however, the NYT quotes without the slightest sign of derision the defence that the BBC gave of their reporter just making stuff up: "Greg Dyke, the BBC director general, and Richard Sambrook, the director of news, had defended Mr. Gilligan's style to the governors as "one in which he reported in primary colors, or bold colors, rather than shades of gray." So if a conservative thinks something is simple, he is a "black and white thinker" but if a Leftist tells lies he is "reporting in bold colours". So much nicer!

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