Saturday 26 December 2015

Turkish Propaganda on the BBC

Screenshot from the BBC News website. It has ads because I'm currently in New Zealand.
I happened upon the BBC News website again today and was immediately hit with this little gem on their homepage: "Erdogan talks man out of suicide". The Turkish President's Christmas PR stunt had been selected as one of the top three stories on the BBC. Now, without some context, this would bewilder most people. Even if it happened as described and wasn't staged for publicity, it doesn't seem newsworthy. What relevance does it have to anyone? This appears to be straight out of Erdogan's propaganda department: a Christmas good will story so we all think "what a lovely guy he is" as he murders journalists and props up Daesh.

To explain, Turkey has been on Santa's naughty list this year. They shot down a Russian jet, killed a few journalists, invaded Iraq, and are accused of buying stolen Syrian oil from Daesh. Nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately for journalistic integrity, if Turkey's image is ruined, it reflects badly on NATO, the EU, Turkish President Erdogan, and the Cold War enthusiasts who still appear to rule the Western world. It makes Russia and Assad look like the good guys, and NATO look like they'll let any backwards country join their alliance if it will annoy Russia. In the language of war: counter measures must be deployed!

Now, we know the BBC are pro-establishment and toe the NATO line on just about everything. They fed us the Iraq War propaganda, and they've denigrated all those who've stood in NATO's way down the years (Gaddafi, Assad, Putin, Julian Assange, etc). If anything threatens the established order, it's a target for the BBC hawks. So when they stick "Erdogan talks man out of suicide" on their homepage, lets just say my lack of surprise was the only thing keeping my eyebrows fastened to my head. I mean, was there really such a lack of news that they made this one of their three main stories? Was there really such a lack of positive news about Turkey that this is the slice of Turkish propaganda they decided to serve us up for Christmas dinner? I guess, with it being Christmas, a good-will story always goes down well, right?

Let's be clear: this "news" was selected to serve a purpose; that being to alter people's opinions of the Turkish President in a positive manner to reinforce the current pro-West, anti-Russia narrative desired by NATO. Let's also remind ourselves that the BBC still isn't a source of unbiased news; and frankly, it's getting worse.