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Sunday afternoon Beeb-bashing

posted at 4:15 pm on July 15, 2007 by Allahpundit
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I’m heading out for a bit but please enjoy these fine BBC takedowns from former employees courtesy of the Sunday Telegraph. From the first piece:

It is not so much that their ideas and arguments are harebrained and impracticable: some of their causes are in fact admirable. The trouble – you might even say the tragedy – is that their implementation by governments eager for media approval has progressively damaged our institutions. Media liberal pressure has prompted a stream of laws, regulations and directives to champion the criminal against the police, the child against the school, the patient against the hospital, the employee against the company, the soldier against the army, the borrower against the bank, the convict against the prison – there is a new case in the papers almost every day, and each victory is a small erosion of the efficiency and effectiveness of the institution.

I can now see that my old BBC media liberalism was not a basis for government. It was an ideology of opposition, valuable for restraining the excesses of institutions and campaigning against the abuses of authority but it was not a way of actually running anything. It serves a vital function when government is dictatorial and oppressive, but when government is ineffective and over-permissive it is hopelessly inappropriate.

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Enjoy your 90 minutes of fresh air, AP! :)

lorien1973 on July 15, 2007 at 4:31 PM

But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.

Not only in Great Britain but all over the world. The start of the fall of our Western Civilization.

SIJ6141 on July 15, 2007 at 4:44 PM

lorien1973 on July 15, 2007 at 4:31 PM

Enjoy your 90 minutes of fresh air, AP! :)

AP actually go outside? He’s just going into another room where he can look at the outside from a safe and comfortable distance… :)

doriangrey on July 15, 2007 at 5:04 PM

WTF?
There are none so blind….

spike on July 15, 2007 at 5:05 PM

AP actually go outside? He’s just going into another room where he can look at the outside from a safe and comfortable distance… :)

good point. outside could be relative ;)

He said he only gets out 90 minutes a week during one of his iphone posts, though. so I assume he knows what grass and trees are; even if he sits in his rocker and stares at them :)

lorien1973 on July 15, 2007 at 5:24 PM

I think Antony Jay, the author of the article on BBC bias is the same Antony Jay that was one of two writers who did the BBC produced Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister series. These series are hystericallly funny….They were made in the mid-1980s

swampleg on July 15, 2007 at 5:33 PM

lorien1973 on July 15, 2007 at 5:24 PM

good point. outside could be relative ;)

Yep, he only said he was going out, not outside. Going out to a uber-geek like AP could mean going out of the room his computer is in, to oh I dont know, maybe sit on the patio, which is probably fully enclosed and air conditioned.

doriangrey on July 15, 2007 at 5:37 PM

Exellent post Allah. You could replace BEEB with MSN and there wouldn’t be a difference.

sonnyspats1 on July 15, 2007 at 5:42 PM

The Beeb sings the Groucho song:

“(No Matter What It Is, or Who Commenced It) I’m Against It!

You’re proposition may be good.
But let’s have one thing understood,
Whatever it is, I’m against it!

And Even When You’ve Changed It Or Condensed It,
I’m Against It!”.

Only they’re not funny.

(Unless you live in a moldy cave in Pakistan.)

profitsbeard on July 15, 2007 at 5:58 PM

I like this quote too.

But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.

Says it all right there.

Hawkins1701 on July 15, 2007 at 6:05 PM

These observations are remarkable and seem stunningly accurate, in my limited experience with that failed media system.

But I don’t think they accurately reflect the worst failures of American journalism, which are much more partisan in nature, repeatedly celebrating in Democrats what they condemn in Republicans.

Jaibones on July 15, 2007 at 6:32 PM

Those same media liberals who today demonise Margaret Thatcher simply cannot understand why she won big majorities in three successive general elections and is judged by historians around the world as having been Britain’s most successful peacetime prime minister of the 20th century.

An excellent article well worth the reading time.

As For Allahpundit’s away mission, my guess is it includes a trip to the freezer section at Costco combined with a quick stop at a grocery store for odds and ends.

FloatingRock on July 15, 2007 at 6:35 PM

This is a general trend in Western society today. The organizations that fought for civil liberties for minorities and women have now found themselves in an environment where they are virtually irrelevant. To make up for this, they go overboard with their ideologies, which ends up with the Amnesty Internationals crying foul about alleged stories of Korans in toilets, and the ACLUs defending terrorists.

It is a time where all these institutions are having to invent problems to justify their existence, which results in laws or policies that are often the inverse of what their mission statements once were.

Seixon on July 15, 2007 at 6:42 PM

As For Allahpundit’s away mission, my guess is it includes a trip to the freezer section at Costco combined with a quick stop at a grocery store for odds and ends.

I went to buy beer.

Allahpundit on July 15, 2007 at 6:45 PM

Well at least you have your priorities straight. :)

FloatingRock on July 15, 2007 at 6:52 PM

For a time it puzzled me that after 50 years of tumultuous change the media liberal attitudes could remain almost identical to those I shared in the 1950s. Then it gradually dawned on me: my BBC media liberalism was not a political philosophy, even less a political programme. It was an ideology based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine. We were rather weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and shied away from arguments about practicalities. If defeated on one point we just retreated to another; we did not change our beliefs. We were, of course, believers in democracy. The trouble was that our understanding of it was structurally simplistic and politically naïve. It did not go much further than one-adult-one-vote.

This is incredible. This is moonbat liberalism in a nut shell, the “Bush lied, people died” crowd. You defeat them with logic, they will just keep parroting the same lines again and again. They will never cede any point to you. They’re a broken record.

I’m just fascinated because I don’t think I’ve ever seen it summed up so well in one place before. I’m also amazed because I had never considered how long this mindset has existed, nor it’s place in other countries.

Hawkins1701 on July 15, 2007 at 6:53 PM

The whole iconoclast view is utimately self destructive. I’m glad that some truthers are starting to get an inkling about the truth.

Mojave Mark on July 15, 2007 at 6:58 PM

Not only in Great Britain but all over the world. The start of the fall of our Western Civilization.

I’m not convinced yet that Western Civilization is headed for a fall but I think its obvious to everyone here that things are going to get worse before they get better at the very least.

aengus on July 15, 2007 at 7:25 PM

Antony Jay in the pullquote:

I can now see that my old BBC media liberalism was not a basis for government. It was an ideology of opposition, valuable for restraining the excesses of institutions and campaigning against the abuses of authority but it was not a way of actually running anything. It serves a vital function when government is dictatorial and oppressive, but when government is ineffective and over-permissive it is hopelessly inappropriate.

Translated: Oops! Sorry! We advocated and agitated and finally got our liberalism codified, and there’s probably no turning back on the road to despotism. But damn, we sure meant well.

RushBaby on July 15, 2007 at 7:28 PM

Amazing! So the liberal mental disease is curable? All it takes is a willingness to confront the truth.

IrishEyes on July 15, 2007 at 7:31 PM

It serves a vital function when government is dictatorial and oppressive, but when government is ineffective and over-permissive it is hopelessly inappropriate.

I wish I had written this sentence. It just gets to the heart or our problems in one sentence. I didn’t even realize that something is almost a bumpersticker, even an entire bumper bumpersticker, could so get to the heart of what ails us. It’s simply brilliant.

thuja on July 15, 2007 at 7:34 PM

I wrote a short essay relevant to this post a little while back.

aengus on July 15, 2007 at 7:35 PM

Um let me the link again.

aengus on July 15, 2007 at 7:36 PM

This article is of historical importance since the writer witnessed the transition from war time reporting to the beginning of biased reporting in the late 50’s. He also gives a detailed outline of the tactics that have evolved to what we know today as the MSM.

sonnyspats1 on July 16, 2007 at 12:04 AM

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