Narrowing the News

At Biased BBC, Ed Thomas looks at the BBC's editorialising of the news:

Faced with the very foolish Muslim anger over the Pope's rather erudite (and I might add, as a non-Catholic, rather excellent) speech, the BBC states baldly:

"The BBC's Arab affairs analyst, Magdi Abdelhadi, says the reason for the vehemence of Muslim reaction is simple: America's global "war on terror" is perceived by many Muslims as a modern crusade against Islam."

As the post points out, what this amounts to is a kind of game, in which special pleading on behalf of Muslims gradually becomes the "news" itself - the process can be extended almost indefinitely, until all that's left is a wholly partisan viewpoint.