Anglican Mainstream

Compare and contrast two reports from Newsnight:

 

British people opposed to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI: human rights activists concerned about child abuse and Aids victims.

 

Americans opposed to the New York mosque: racists and loonies.

 

In its coverage of race and immigration in the United States, the BBC has a very simple formula from which it rarely strays, and this is no exception.

Firstly it will use the word “Right-wing” as often as possible to describe the bad guys (here it used it twice in the first sentence).

 

Secondly, it will play hillbilly music to accompany any gathering of conservative white Americans, to signify to metropolitan British viewers that these are stupid hicks who almost certainly have sexual relations with family members (I notice it didn’t play a 50 Cent soundtrack when showing the black crowd).

 

Then it will suggest Right-wing Americans are “scared”, or as Newsnight put it: “President Obama spells the end of America as they know it… Barack Obama is the symbol of the other… and that terrifies them… President Obama has been accused by his opponents of representing another America, one they fear.”

 

When discussing immigration, a programme will interview the thickest, laziest, fattest white American possible, who will naturally explain his opposition in economically illiterate terms. It will then interview the most hard-working foreign labourer in America, who has four physics degrees back home and sounds more articulate than the average Harvard Law Professor.