It's an easy target, but it's time to stop mocking the States. They could sure teach the Brits a thing or two.Once again, this time for a report commissioned by the broadcaster itself, the ostensibly neutral BBC stands accused of a sneaky preference for dressing to the left. Much of the evidence for this is, at best, wobbly, but one witness employee, Washington correspondent Justin Webb, needs to be heard. The organisation, he peeved, is anti-American; it treats the US with scorn and derision and accords it 'no moral weight'.
He is, thus far at least, correct. The last 10 years have seen American stories relegated to a slew of 'and finally' freak shows, a vast country's talents reduced to synchronised gas-guzzling as choreographed by Paris Hilton. The trouble is that it is not just the BBC; disdaining Americans has become a national sport, regardless of the fact that it requires the skill of all sports involving fish, guns and barrels.
Everybody knows the check-list, only their priorities vary: stem cells, lethal injections, indelicate warfare, creationism, the second amendment, Wal-Mart, reproductive choice, pointy white hoods, chewing tobacco and obscene chocolate. We may add personal quibbles: that they call this paper The London Observer, on the solipsistic basis that if all their newspapers are mono-citied, then so must be everyone's. Or that now they finally screen Formula One, they go to ad breaks during clusters of pitstops because, apparently, stationary cars are boring. Jeez.
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