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The `Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation'

US conservatives take aim at the British news media

California State University - Northridge, USA, melissa.a.wall{at}csun.edu

Douglas Bicket

St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY, USA, dbicket{at}sjfc.edu

This article assesses the US conservative attack on the BBC during the post 9/11 terrorism wars, finding conservative blogs, print media and think tanks notably hostile. The processes of media criticism taking place within this conservative triad are viewed through the analytical concepts of news repair and boundary maintenance. The findings suggest that the BBC's perceived transgression was that it threatened to reveal the fallacy of an argument that conservatives had long worked to establish: that the US mainstream news media are liberal and harshly critical of conservatives. This conservative triad supported its attempt to repair this paradigm breach in three main ways: suggesting that reporting multiple viewpoints of the war was evidence of bias; magnifying any reporting errors; and warning against the perils of public ownership of news media.

Key Words: K E Y W O R D S • boundary maintenance • British Broadcasting Corporation • news repair

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