I Want My BBC
05/08/2003 @ 7:47pm
John Nichols


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."

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pide6