Saturday, September 19, 2009

M. Pot, may I introduce Mme Kettle ?

"They live in a politically parallel world where everyone they know believes the same as they do."

Believe it or not, this is Guardian columnist (and now BBC correspondent - iPlayer link) Gary Younge. He's not talking about the Guardian or BBC - he's talking about the American Right. My cognitive dissonameter is off the scale. Tu quoque, Gazza !

Not that the Left hasn't got a few people who see things in that blinkered way. Gary's nowt if not fair.

The left has such people too, but they are marginal. With no news channels to promote them or Congressmen prepared to advocate for them, their views rarely reach the mainstream.
No news channels ? To be fair, he's talking about the US, where that might be the case (apart from the New York Times, Washington Post and the ill-fated Air America) - but he must be aware that in the UK the Guardian, Indie and BBC ensure that a Polly Toynbee could have a 30-year career and never hear a dissenting voice - at least until the Guardian introduced comments and a tsunami of criticism was unleashed.


Hat-tip - DB at Biased-BBC.

6 comments:

Ross said...

To quote the now seemingly defunct "Blame Bush" blog:

"all we progressives have left to counter the Right-Wing Noise Machine is ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, TBS, NPR, CNN, BBC, HBO, HSN, MTV, VH1, Showtime, The Abortion Channel, Gore TV, Reuters, The Associated Press, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The New Republic, the Nation, The New Yorker, TV Guide, People Magazine, Teen People, Us Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Oprah Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Woman’s Day, The Advocate, .... [edited down to stay within character limit] ....Coast to Coast with George Noory, Pravda, Granma, and Al Jazeera.

So much for that right-wing myth about the “liberal media!” "

Anonymous said...

I think we limeys might think much of the US media is right wing but most of its firmly liberal. Only Fox seems to promote a right wing stance. Its interesting to watch because just not having a relexive left/liberal agenda is a refreshing. However as its basically neo-con propaganda, so its a fake right wing ie not actually conservative.

The Peoples Popular Front said...

Anonymous said...2:45 AM
I think we limeys might think much of the US media is right...


Spot on that man.

Or woman.

He said.

Thinking of The Life of Brian.

dearieme said...

"its a fake right wing ie not actually conservative": well, truly conservative people would surely have no truck with television?

Anonymous said...

And of course, they hate Fox because the very existence of Fox makes it more difficult for them to pretend they're politically 'moderate' rather than liberal-biased.

Reefknot said...

We should start to campaign for the BBC to allow comments on all their News web-site pieces,instead of the carefully contrived 'Have Your Say' - rather like the Guardian's online CIF.