The Right's Distorted Take on The BBC-Trump Controversy

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/the-bbc-is-the-voice-of-western-self-loathing/

The BBC was guilty of misrepresenting Trump's speech but Hume is also distorting the facts. Trump absolutely incited the riot and numerous people connected to him also played a part.

Is the BBC often pompous and pedantic in its manner? Undoubtedly this is the case and I am often frustrated by their coverage. And yet, since there are no American audio outlets that will seriously cover international news, I'm left with almost no alternatives but to turn to them. I have relied on the World Service for years. The BBC has now put up a paywall for its website and so I'm more or less done in terms of reading their material, but I still utilize the audio on an almost daily basis - at least for the present.

Trumpites are so divorced from history and even reality that they cannot understand why Trump's actions have people upset. He is a neo-fascist and is (in short order) dismantling institutions and intangible trusts and relationships that took decades to cultivate. And he's obscene and many are reeling, trying to figure out why society has embraced the likes of him.

Of course as I'm watching the ball drop in Times Square and then having to turn off the live feed because the news directors insist on showing men kissing - they in turn do not understand the frustration of many within the culture. The mainstream and liberals seem to forget that many of things they take as givens were still reckoned fringe and even obscene just ten or twenty years ago.

The BBC and outlets like NPR often distort the facts when it comes to geopolitics and in particular when it comes to coverage of Russia or other non-liberal nations. They occasionally flirt with outright disinformation but more often than not it's a question of framing, omission, and sometimes obfuscation. In addition, they rely on the Establishment for their interviews and often just parrot the official line. It's a real problem and thus the person who wants to know the truth must look beyond and dig deeper.

But Right-wing outlets like FOX and Newsmax, as well as the host of podcasters and influencers are just disinformation assembly lines. I must admit that channels like CNN and MSNBC have fallen and are often guilty of little more than editorial. But with the Right-wing outlets, that's all there is. There is virtually no actual news. The entire package (including many of the the commercial sponsors) is about stoking fear and anger. It's a travesty and demonstrates some of the real defects and dangers that can (and will) emerge in the context of something like the First Amendment. Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate the law on one level, but it's not moral, nor should it be deemed an absolute. And don't be fooled, no one else thinks so either as both political camps wrestle with the fact that despite the lip service, they too want a clampdown on speech.

Hume has selectively chosen to report on Trump's speech and actual words and has also elected to sweep the larger context of events under the rug. But what do you expect from Trump apologists? Why would they tell the truth? Trump doesn't - in fact he's incapable of it, and (it would seem) those who are on his team fall into the same patterns.

Hume also claims an anti-Israel bias in BBC coverage. Again, I listen to the BBC just about every day and I can say this - the BBC is better than say, NPR when it comes to challenging the Israeli narrative. This is not because of Left-wing bias or Anti-Semitism but the absolute (if misguided) commitment to Enlightenment Liberal values - the same values that are enshrined in the US Constitution. More could be said at this point about modern Britain and its own sense of identity and narratives about itself in the post-World War II context. For good or ill, it is a nation that has lost its way. For my part, I don't really think a return to the glory days of Empire is the answer either. Truth be told, apart from the gospel there is no answer for empires or nations. They're lost and always will be. The only question of import is with regard to the Church and how it interacts with them. But I digress.

Israel has committed a genocide - and it didn't start in response to 7 October 2023. It's been going on for decades. Israel is a rogue state. The real crime of BBC coverage is the fact that it (like all the mainstream outlets) will not fully investigate, explain, and expose the nature of the US-Israeli relationship. The genocide and butchery in Gaza is just as much as US operation as it is that of the butcher Netanyahu.

I will agree with Hume that the focus (even fixation) on Sodomite perversion by the BBC and other outlets like NPR is obnoxious and offensive. But again, when Enlightenment Liberalism is absolutized, this is where it leads. Throw in the pseudo-science of psychology and we can witness the self-absorbed path of self-destruction that characterizes the modern West.

I guess in the end I might say I find the BBC to be fairly loathsome but still less so than the Trumpite movement and its mouthpieces. Since Hume seems to lament the fact that the BBC is no longer the mouthpiece for 'imperial pride' then we must also include him in the loathsome and morally bankrupt category. Again, the issue here is (I think) more a question of modern British identity. Maybe my digression is actually the point to all this.

Hume's article degenerates in demagoguery and talk of civilisation and barbarism as well as offering a repeated defense of populism. In other words, Hume is not interested in anything like truth or journalist ethics. He's just mad at the BBC and views it as a mouthpiece for the Establishment. It is, but I contend that he doesn't understand what that Establishment is. He uses meaningless terms like 'woke' and can't compute the fact that the Western Establishment is certainly liberal (even libertine) when it comes to morality and individualist sexual mores but quite right-wing when it comes to economics and the kind of geopolitics and militarism that result. The BBC has championed the campaign against Moscow and the bias on this point is so overwhelming that I'm not sure the reporters can even understand why would anyone would question them or doubt the way they have framed the narrative. The same was true with the travesty that was the Syrian Civil War.

In the end Hume plays his card - the BBC is evil because it doesn't trumpet the glories of old empire and the order it stood for, and Britons need to elect Nigel Farage to scrap it.

To which a Christian should respond - the BBC is evil as are virtually all media outlets to some extent. It has value even if that value is limited and requires discernment. The British Empire was also evil and should have never been supported by anyone professing Christ. Nigel Farage is not the answer to anything, nor is Trump, and the Christians who support these men are deluded, dangerous, and on the road to apostasy. We're talking about power and great forces connected to wealth and war. We should never be deceived by any of this but taking a firm stand as Christians we show our allegiance to the Kingdom, denounce the world - and especially expose and denounce the myriad forms of false Christianity that seek to deceive God's people into taking up the sword and coin in the name of the Kingdom that is not of this world.