BBC bias on World Youth Day

This morning, one of my Deacons told me that he had been glued to EWTN for much of the past three days, watching coverage of the World Youth Day. I advertise EWTN (free) in my newsletter every week and have been encouraging people to watch it for what I knew would be "wall to wall" coverage of the World Youth Day events. I did so because I suspected that it would not get very good or balanced coverage in the British media. My Deacon confirmed my suspicions when he said that he had from time to time watched the BBC news which had focussed almost exclusively on the Holy Father's apology for sexual abuse by clergy. Fr Ray Blake fills out the picture: WYD: but the BBC.... Apparently, the BBC did not focus only on the apology but gave space to report on the homosexual activists handing out condoms. Viewers relying on the BBC to find out what is happening in the world would gain the impression that the World Youth Day was an act of a defensive and beleagured religious leader rather than a joyful celebration of youthful faith and Christian hope.

This is utterly iniquitous, cynical and contemptuous bias on the part of our so-called "public service" broadcaster which most people in Britain have to subsidise through the outdated license fee because they use a television.

Last April, Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC was given a platform for in Westminster Cathedral to lecture us about how the BBC was fair and balanced and how a programme could cause people to react in different ways. (Cf. Apologia pro BBC sua.) The coverage of World Youth Day gives the lie to this evasive self-justification. Anyone who watched rolling coverage of the WYD would have seen hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic young people welcoming the Pope and would have heard his sensible, balanced and joyful messages of hope for the Church and the world.

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