If we can’t trust the BBC, how on earth can you?

LONDON, U.K. – Imagine my embarrassment to stumble upon this obnoxious billboard advertisement from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s American arm, BBC America.

It is a little old now, I grant you, but I hadn’t come across it before, but I sort of wish I had, because my blood pressure a year ago was far more capable of taking the hit than it seems to be able to lately.

“BBC America,” the carefully positioned billboard reads, “We’re above the trash”. Some marketing guy thought he was being incredibly clever, of course, not realising that from a distance the lower weight of the words “We’re above” makes it read, “BBC America. The Trash” to anyone taking a fleeting glance.

The arrogance of an organisation that forces British television owners to cough up over $230 for the privilege of a biased, Left-leaning media corporation, is really quite galling. On any number of issues, be it domestic politics, foreign affairs, or indeed in its entertainment programmes, the BBC has been shown time and time again its inability to judge issues “down the line”. This of course runs completely contrary to its founding principles of balance. A fine example from recently is how the corporation devoted over a dozen articles to the conspiracy theory of Yasser Arafat’s death, versus a small, Reuters-copy article about the Israeli soldier brutally murdered on a bus while sleeping.

Report upon report finds that the BBC’s broadcasting is biased On the European Union question and on the Middle East in particular. They even spent half a million dollars in legal fees suppressing an internal report into the latter, no doubt for fear that it would bring the entire organisation into disrepute. [contextly_sidebar id=”61bc7ab2f2646f15fd2201d8a39cd99a”]

But it has not been able to hide its demons in an age of internet-driven transparency. Over the past 18 months, the BBC has fallen foul of numerous scandals, including its huge pay-offs (at cost to the average television owner) of former staff, and indeed of a paedophile ring that seemed to operate within the organisation, hiding in plain sight.

The BBC, you see, is too big for its boots. And the arrogance of calling other media organisations “trash” is reflective of an inherent snobbery within.

Even its own, in-house staff have admitted a “liberal bias”. Yet the average Brit is forced by law, if he or she owns a television, to pay for a “licence” which returns over £5bn (over $8bn) for the organisation.

If you happen to not be of a liberal-leaning, pro-European Union, anti-Israel mindset, how on earth can you compete against such gargantuan sums of propaganda capital?

And I know what you’re thinking – a lot of the mainstream media is trash. Fine. I grant you that. But the BBC is no different in that regard, and it seems to be well aware of the need to try to set itself above the crowd by crassly insulting other institutions.

But the fact of the matter is that Britons, more and more, are beginning to question “the Beeb”, even if they don’t realise its true cost.

Trust in the BBC is now at an all-time low, and rightly so. Much like many of the left-liberal institutions that have blossomed over the past few decades, the entire notion of the a state-sponsored media outlet is coming under question. As Britons felt the pinch of recession, they no doubt a cast a skeptical eye towards anything they have to pay for, which is completely suspect in its motives.

Opt out? We wish. Avoiding the BBC licence fee is punishable by fine or imprisonment. At least you guys have the opportunity to switch over to a different television channel, safe in the knowledge that you’re not actually paying for what’s being broadcast on the other side.

Am I asking you to boycott BBC America? Of course not. I’m asking you to forget it even exists.

Raheem Kassam is the founder and editor of TrendingCentral.com. He tweets at @RaheemJKassam

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