Monday 4 June 2018

Mark Easton and the English Temple of Doom



And finally in today's tl;dr review of Mark Easton's preliminary overnight 'Englishness' spectacular, it's back to that main BBC TV report of his, first broadcast on last night's BBC News at Ten

This was somewhat subtler (bias-wise) than his Today report. (The programme reaches a wider, less 'Radio 4 audience' after all, so he doubtless tweaked it to reflect that, and its higher profile too).

But, nonetheless, here was Mark, the BBC's home editor...

...(a) deliberately talking about "England's identities" rather than "England's identity"...

...(b) beginning at a near-pantomime event of 'English nationalism' in Nottinghamshire with three vox pops variously (i) asserting themselves not to be ashamed to be English, (ii) protesting about being called racist and (iii) being hesitant about being "a little bit" Welsh...

...(c) editorialising that "England emerges as strangely wistful now" as he cites the polling evidence that people who feel English are "nostalgic for times past"...

...(d) maintaining as a fact that "Englishness is a variable quality"...

...(e)...{and this is a big (e)...stating the stats with bags of spin [as detailed in previous posts]...

...(f) featuring three Englishness-squeamish students without questions (unlike with the St. George folk in Nottinghamshire)...

...(g) featuring two ethnic minority Londoners from what Mark called  "a truly international city where identities can be discarded, absorbed into lifestyle", neither of whom felt comfortable with thinking of themselves as English - one squirming with angst about it, the other - acting as the final vox pop in the report - affirming the wonders of diversity and multiculturalism...

...and (h), as discussed in detail earlier, Mark's final, message-clinching words about the 'divisiveness' of 'Englishness':
Being English, unlike being British, is seen as an exclusive identity, an honour bestowed only upon those eligible. That is its weakness and its strength. Mark Easton, BBC News, England.
This was an entirely typical Mark Easton report for BBC One. 

Also, by featuring voices 3-5 against 'pride in Englishness', the BBC might, if I know them well enough, attempt to claim 'balance' by saying that 'both sides' were heard from and, thus, 'broad balance' and 'due impartiality' was met, but...

(a) It was a 3-5 imbalance against 'pride in Englishness, and...

(b,c,d and e) the three 'pro-pride in Englishness' vox pops were (very obviously surely to an impartial observer?) given far shorter (do a word count and weep!), far less substantial, lower quality contributions and and far more questions from Mark Easton than the five 'non-pride-in Englishness' vox pops.  

I don't think this BBC report came within an English mile of being impartial in the (alleged) BBC fashion. It felt, as I first watched it last night, like agenda-pushing, St. George-slaying, by Mark Easton. 

This morning's Today report from Mark Easton took us further, fathoms-deep, into BBC bias, but this less blatant piece still stank of bias to me. (No offence!)

Please read the transcripts for yourselves (or, if you can, watch or read the originals) and let me know what you think (in agreement or disagreement)...unless the whole thing has completely worn you out!

6 comments:

  1. Hmmm .... World Cup starts soon doesn’t it ? Let’s hope England win it and Easton’s biased opus buried under a mound of St George flags.

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    1. That would be funny.

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  2. I have previously described Easton as being like one of those grim commissars in charge of ideology who prospered in the politburos of post war Europe - the sharp expensive suit aside. This does nothing to dissuade me from making that comparison.

    He clearly is one of the most influential voices within the BBC, steering its opinion and policy. We can now safely say the BBC loves Irishness, Scottishness, and Welshness - but hates Englishness...

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    1. Early in 1990 something, I had to regularly visit a library in darkest Islington. Upon my first visit I noticed the display on the counter for the upcoming St David's Day. That day came and went,and on a subsequent visit there was a display for the upcoming St Patrick's Day.

      My reason to visit the library stopped shortly thereafter, but I decided I would go back one more time to not see a display for St George's Day. So I went back and there was no display for St George's Day.

      Hatred of English identity has long been a leftist marker. Easton and the BBC are so marked.

      Mark Easton lives in Islington.

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  3. Possible that they had a 28-gate type meeting and decided to start this campaign to try to take-back England/English from Tommy's lot ?

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  4. Seems to be part of the wider plan to deny that there may actually be an indigenous English population (see also: "we are all immigrants", "country of immigrants", "mongrel nation", Cheddar Man....)

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