Thu, 26 Oct, 2006
BBC News: a disappointment…
I always considered the BBC World News as the best TV News around, and believed in the aura of impartiality that it tries to convey about itself. Until now, that is…
There were some major raws and street fights in my home country, Hungary, at the beginning of this week; these raws actually followed a series of protestations, turmoils, etc, that have been going on for several weeks now. This week’s events were exasperated by the commemoration of the uprising of October 1956. I do not want to go into a detailed (albeit personal) analysis of all these events, it would take too long; suffices it say that, in my view, what happened is the failure of the whole political establishment of the past 15 years (roughly since the regime changes).
However: what the BBC showed in its reports, in the tone of its “Hard Talk” programme, etc, is an incredibly one-sided view of the events, almost fully dictated by the hypocritical attitude of the current opposition parties and personalities. This in spite of the fact that the responsibilities of those in the raws and street fights are also enormous. We have not heard at all about a number of appalling and, frankly, frightening events around the so-called “opposition groups” on the streets of the past few weeks: making a list of all Jewish members of the current government, carrying around a red-white striped flag (the so-called “Árpád stripes”) associated to the worst fascist movements of pre-war Hungary, or that one of the slogans they shouted was “throw the prime minister into the (river) Danube”. The current opposition tries to wipe these under the carpet, which is part of their policies to regain power. It is all understandable though despicable. But why did the so-called objective BBC News did the same?
Oh well… one illusion less, I guess 
