Tasty Words

Some moons ago (and now I understand why that phrase isn't as popular as "many moons ago") I wrote, in passing, that among the BBC's compendium of techniques for subtly insinuating their institutionalised subjectivity into their ostensibly objective reporting was the way that people who argued for things of which they (the BBC) approved were supportively dubbed "campaigners" whereas those who argued for things of which they (the BBC) disapproved were dismissively dubbed "lobbyists". Lobbyists, I noted (I didn't so much note as imply, mainly because I'm pretty sure no-one but me reads this and I already know what I meant) are professionals, but the BBC was quite ready to call a lobbyist anyone who advanced an agenda inimical to BBC values, paid or otherwise.

However, I imagine I must now eat a good portion of those words, since the BBC yesterday published an article describing the latest setback in the courts for pro-hunt campaigners, describing them in exactly those terms. It is, of course, inconceivable that the impeccably metropolitan, "modern", inclusive, diverse BBC could, as an institution, possibly have any sympathy whatsoever for the nasty Tory aristocracy and the class-betraying, forelock-tugging lickspittle peasantry who participate in the hunt (and who, if you think about it, together comprise an insituition far more diverse and inclusive than the slumped-in-homogeneity BBC, which believes that diversity consists in it not mattering if everyone thinks the same as long as they look different). But it would at the same time be cynical to assume that it was just a slip by some hapless subber and that it'll be changed to "lobbyists" or "seal-clubbers" as soon as someone in authority notices it, so I'll just stick to eating my words.