BAD NEWS – LITERALLY – AT 10:30 A.M. ET:  Journalism is bad enough.  We don't need to make it worse.  But that's what's just happened.  CBS News has made a baffling agreement to join with Britain's BBC in a joint operation.

The BBC is, stretching it, a second-rate news organization, perhaps the most overrated news outlet in history.  It is famously left-wing, snotty, rather anti-American, with some historic anti-Semitic overtones thrown in.  Other than that, it's great.  It is overrated by the chattering classes in large measure because it sounds so good.  They speak well at BBC.  Very big on enunciation and the Queen's English.  The pseudos love that kind of stuff.  If it sounds good, it must be good.  Not like those Americans.  From The Hill:

CBS News on Thursday announced a new "editorial and newsgathering relationship" with BBC News "that will significantly enhance the global reporting capabilities of both organizations," the networks said in a joint statement.

“CBS News is completely committed to original reporting around the world—a commitment clearly shared by the BBC,” said CBS President Ben Rhodes. “There’s no better partner to strengthen and extend our global coverage than BBC News. I look forward to working with James Harding as we increase the capabilities of both organizations.”

Ha ha.  A little Freudian slip there.  It isn't Ben Rhodes, it's David Rhodes.  He is the brother of Ben Rhodes, the famously deceptive Obama administration operative who openly bragged that he established a false narrative to advance the Iran nuclear deal. 

I hope David Rhodes is a bit more honest.

“There’s never been a more important time for smart, courageous coverage of what’s happening in the world,” said BBC Director of News and Current Affairs James Harding. “This new partnership between the BBC and CBS News is designed to bring our audiences—wherever you live, whatever your point of view—news that is reliable, original and illuminating.

"Our ambition is to deliver the best in international reporting on television. We’re really looking forward to working together.”

BBC was founded by Lord Reith of Britain in the 1920s.  Reith later became, while head of BBC, an admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement in Germany.  That is not a controversial statement.  His sentiments are found in his diaries and in acknowledgments of his own daughter.

One of the great myths about BBC is that Winston Churchill used it to rally Britain to the anti-Nazi cause in the late 1930s.  In fact, Reith constantly tried to keep Churchill off the BBC.  Churchill used other means to deliver his message. 

Some recent government reports in Britain have been highly critical of BBC's bias in international reporting.

Nice move, CBS.  Nothing like digging the grave deeper.

July 13,  2017