Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The BBC World News is Not Helping International Relations

I appreciate WNYC's attempt to bring us New Yorkers a sense of what's going on in the rest of the world by broadcasting "BBC World News." However, the anchors of that program do nothing but infuriate me. They ask the stupidest questions and when their subject doesn't reply with an adequately alarmist answer, the anchors make it seem like it's the guest that is in denial. Not only that, but they are often rude and disrespectful.

Case in point: yesterday, the male anchor...something Bennett-Jones...interviewed a bunch of people about the sharp decrease in the Chinese market and how it affected the rest of the world markets. Everyone he interviewed - from the finance correspondent in London to the small investor in India - all said the same thing. You go into the stock market for the long term not the short, a dip like this is more like a correction because many stocks were overpriced, everything will be fine, blah, blah, blah. You could hear the disappointment in Bennett-Jones' voice. He kept asking the most non-specific, ill-informed questions hoping to freak someone out or rile someone up. But no one took the bait.

I imagine this is what it must feel like to listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Bill O'Reilly.

1 comment:

Melissa said...

But occasionally they ask a really tough question to some American idiot that no American journalist would ask... and that keeps me coming back.