The BBC can't help but (heart) hate

To the outrage of many Britons, a white-supremacist fringe party riding a wave of electoral success has been invited to participate in a BBC prime-time TV show on politics.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party government says it is appalled that the far-right British National Party will get such high-profile exposure to millions of viewers. The BBC, however, says as a publicly funded broadcaster it must cover all political parties that have a national presence.

“It's not for the BBC to make decisions about what parties it does and doesn't like,” a BBC spokesman said yesterday on condition of anonymity, in line with company policy. “That, quite rightly, is a decision for the electorate.”

All you “net neutrality” and “fairness doctrine” types, chew on that while dreaming of your fair and balanced utopia.

A fringe party that most Britons find repulsive has found their way onto tax-payer funded British T.V. Because most of the other mainstream parties have been so scandalized over their own use and abuse of tax-payer money (does this sound familiar?), the Brits are now exposed to something they clearly don’t want. Too bad - all sides must be heard whether they like it or not.

Maybe, just maybe, we should leave well enough alone and let competing interests develop personalities, messages and formats that appeal to the broader public as the determining broadcast factor be it the radio, T.V. or the internet. Crazy, we know.

This current administration is playing its hand openly as to how they would like to see things operate with respect to the media.

That’s all fine and dandy when it’s your party in power, though, huh?

The irony in all this is that in the name of fairness, equal time, diversity or whatever you want to call it, political illegitimacy is being given a legitimate platform to broadcast their views.

Here, in America, they would simply be ignored, or more accurately, not heard as the decision as to who and what gets air time is left to the consumers.