Racism (really nationalism) and the BBC

[davewitley]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Kathryn" <kcawte at k...> wrote:

> So why is it that it's practically a criminal offense to insult 
coloured
> people but the 'Frogs' and the 'Krauts' are fine, and if they 
complain we
> just say they have no sense of humour?

I would say that in sports reporting generally the standard of 
journalism is lower, both in the press and the broadcast media.  The 
standard of English is lower, the thinking is less coherent, the 
standard of scrutiny when there is suspected skulduggery is less 
exacting.

On nationality in particular, I think sport contains what Marx would 
call an internal contradiction between its competitive nature and the 
ideal of bringing people together through it.  Part of winning is the 
psychological warfare that surrounds the actual event (think of 
boxing press conferences for an extreme example) and part of that is 
pumping up your own supporters, and part of that is caricaturing the 
opposition.  One solution is to detach the participants from their 
nations, as is theoretically the case in the Olympics, but that 
example shows how hopeless it is.  For team events you still need 
some basis for team formation.

In that respect, nationalism is harder to eliminate from reporting 
than racism.  The first B in BBC stands for British, after all.

David