Propaganda and the BBC

"A SPOOF of Big Brother-style thought control" is how a media campaign group has described a BBC report on the United Nations.

In its latest Alert, Media Lens details its correspondence with journalist Barbara Plett following her article 'Debuts and diatribes at the UN'.

It told her: "Through an unsubtle mix of swoons and snarls we're told who are the 'good guys' and who the 'bad guys'. The BBC insists its journalism is carefully balanced with all personal opinions omitted - but this is not journalism, it is propaganda."

Plett had written with breathless enthusiasm of the American head of state: "New US President Barack Obama set the stage with a sweeping speech announcing America's re-engagement with the UN. Coming after the winter years of the Bush administration, this was a gale of spring air."

By contrast, the "quixotic colonel", Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, "embarked on a diatribe that rambled on for an hour-and-a-half."

Plett added, regarding the UK's Prime Minister: "After the Libyan leader finally sat down, an indignant Mr Brown changed his speech to defend the founding principles of the UN."

And as for the Iranian president: "Mr Ahmadinejad himself didn't mention Iran's nuclear programme in front of the assembly, nor did he seem distracted by walkouts to protest his denials of the Nazi Holocaust, and what many see as his fraudulent re-election. In typical style he lambasted Israel and the West for double standards, failed ideologies and imperial interventions."

The Media Alert includes Plett's reply in which she speaks of "stains on the US record". Media Lens don't pick it up, but this is a joke in itself. Forget "stains". The whole US record in international affairs is one huge filthy slick of aggression and hypocrisy. And so is Britain's for that matter.