Fair and Balanced

We think that the Daily Mail's quota of bile is damaging to the public sphere, but it's nothing compared to what goes on in the US.

Roger Ailes is the head of Fox News, that bastion of objectivity, and the fish clearly rots from the head. He gave a very interesting interview. Amongst the revelations is this: the staff at NPR are 'Nazis'. NPR? National Public Radio, a very, very underfunded station which spends most of its time begging listeners to donate so they can continue making interesting documentaries - it's like a nervous version of BBC Radio 4.

They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don't want any other point of view. They don't even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda.

I wonder where the Tea Party gets its rather confused ideas about Obama being a Communist Nazi?

On Obama (no, I have no idea what he means by this either):

He had to be told by the French and the Germans that his socialism was too far left for them to deal with.”

Ailes had defended Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck's attacks on George Soros by saying that there are "left-wing rabbis who basically don't think that anybody can ever use the word, Holocaust, on the air." Beck said that Soros, at age 14, accompanied a Hungarian to help him “deliver papers to the Jews, and confiscate their property, and then ship them off… Here’s a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.” Beck added that Soros had no choice but that he didn’t understand why Soros had done no “soul searching” about his past.

Ailes also made a coded attack on Barack Obama, claiming: "He just has a different belief system than most Americans" – a rubric used on Fox News, leading bloggers at New York magazine to note: "Ailes spouted exactly the same rhetoric about President Obama that you hear on his channel." Similarly, Jeff Bercovici at Forbes points out: "It's a commonplace by now at Fox that the President is a socialist."

 What a healthy atmosphere over there.

Currently listening to…

Leila Josefowicz's recording of John Adams's Violin Concerto. If you're not a classical fan, know this: there's a massive difference between performances. Josefowicz is famously brash, enthusiastic and brilliant, despite once being written off as being yet another hot young violinist being marketed on looks rather than talent.

There's a legendary BBC live recording of this - but copies are now around £50 because it's been deleted. You can hear an American recording here, thanks to NPR, the US's version of Radios 3 and 4.

This is the news

Obviously I've plenty of work to do, so I'm wondering how other countries deal with news and what they prioritise.

Here's the English version of Deutsche Welle (the equivalent of BBC World): vaguely liberal and highly international. Good European citizens.

France24 is also wide ranging, featuring Madoff, the Honduras coup, Argentina's election, Afghanistan and Jackson. There doesn't seem to be any particular focus on French colonial links.

The BBC's World page is, of course, top quality, though it does feature stories with a UK link slightly more often that the others.

I have a real soft spot for America's NPR (National Public Radio), which always struggles financially but produces great programming on a minuscule budget, a bit like Radios 2, 3 and 4 put together. It's not quite the equivalent of countries' international channels, so is far more domestic, but it's an interesting read. There's a particularly good review of my favourite Renaissance music ensemble, Stile Antico and a concert to listen to online.

Any other international services you lot rate? Back to hiraeth for now though… Here's the news in Welsh, though rather disappointingly, the BBC appears to think that Welsh-speakers are only interested in Wales.