Saturday, December 01, 2012

No-one who could be in left in much doubt about where the BBC's sympathies lie in the Rotherham Council adoption case. Last night a BBC news report referred to it as "that scandal over the foster children." For a supposedly impartial broadcaster, using the term 'scandal' does seem rather harsh. So let's look more closely at how the BBC has dealt with the issue, and with reporting on UKIP generally.

When children slowly grow into young adults, they will at some time start to appreciate politics and what each political party stands for. So even though the Rotherham couple may treat their foster-kids with love and care, the kids themselves might have eventually suspected that their foster parents did not approve of others, like them, from abroad. No-one has to be a member of a political party. But remember, in this case, the couple actually chose to support UKIP, and what it stands for.

Would this story have even been worthy of a news report if the couple had been members of the BNP? And would BBC News spend a day talking about 'mounting criticism' of Rotherham Council if the kids had instead been moved out of a BNP family environment? Perhaps CBBC's Newsround understood this consideration.

As mentioned in my previous blog, BBC national news had little, if anything, to say about the anti-gay remarks expressed by UKIP's culture spokesperson, Winston McKenzie. Nigel Farage indicated his backing for McKenzie when he told Tim Willcox yesterday that he completely supported Winston’s "Christian" position opposing gay adoption.

BBC's News at Ten, last night, included a report on the three by-elections, but nothing was said about UKIP's anti-equality stance. Neither was a word said about those discrimination issues on Newsnight's discussion shortly afterwards on BBC Two.

In the view of Newsround Blog, David Cameron was quite right to call UKIP generally "fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists basically." Clearly, from what we saw during the Croydon North by-election campaign, he could have added 'homophobes' to that list. It's a pity that Ed Miliband has not similarly stood against UKIP's bigotry.

But the real 'scandal' here is the BBC giving this obnoxious party so much free and uncritical publicity.

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