ConNiPtioNs

I Want My BBC

by John Nichols, The Nation

LONDON - Frustrated by the failure of US-based broadcast networks to provide a realistic account of the political machinations that led to the Iraq war, millions of Americans tuned in British news reports - which were picked up on public broadcasting and community radio, the internet and television stations.

Already high American audience figures for BBC World News bulletins spiked by 28 percent in the first weeks of the war, and BBC officials delighted in e-mails like the one from a New York viewer who wrote, "The BBC seems to be the only decent source of news on this conflict. American networks are appalling."

While Americans expressed admiration for the BBC's straight take on the news, British viewers who caught reports from US broadcast and cable networks have been shocked by the bias that permeates coverage of the Bush Administration and its military adventurism abroad. The general director of the BBC bemoaned the "gung ho" coverage of the US networks while a veteran British Cabinet minister dismissed US news coverage of the war as "old-fashioned propaganda." [read more]