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Anorak News | The BBC News Is Satire’s Spitting Image Says Cosmo Landesman

The BBC News Is Satire’s Spitting Image Says Cosmo Landesman

by | 19th, August 2007

JOHN Redwood unveils the Conservative’s plans to cut red tape for business. The BBC illustrates the story with pictures of him mumbling his way through the Welsh national anthem when Welsh secretary in 1993. The BBC is staffed by people who are not in business. They work for the state.

The Sunday Times’s Cosmo Landesman writes:

Is this just another case of BBC bias? Yes. But I suspect we have something more at work here. The choice of the Redwood footage is the work not just of some peeved anti-Tory leftie, but also a closet satirist. The Redwood item bears all the marks of someone who grew up on Spitting Image and dreams of going on Have I Got News for You. What we are dealing with is a wider cultural change within the BBC.

News programmes are full of current affairs nerds and swots who think they have a sense of humour. For them serious politics has become too unsexy and stuffy. In the old days real BBC newsmen and women wanted to be serious journalists like Richard Dimbleby or James Cameron; now they all want to be Armando Iannucci, Ali G and all the other political pranksters.

Problem is that stands for satire is often just taking the piss and name calling. This clanking BBC satire is simply making sure the victim is a politican or a royal and laughing at their pointy ears and big backside…



Posted: 19th, August 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink