BBC, Anti-americanism and the need to not step too far outside the circle

The audio grab linked below is of a BBC Radio 4 broadcast from Friday 20 January was brought to my attention by a comment on the excellent Biased BBC blog. The programme is called Feedback, and featured quite an exchange between BBC News Justin Webb, Stephen Sackur, and caller from northern Ireland whos cackles went straight up at the mere and singular mention by Webb that Americans may throw their hands up in the air at anti-Americanism.

It begins about 30 seconds in.

This need to apologise by Webb heard at the end is a simple example of why state broadcasting has built-in problems: he actually MUST be all things to all people if they pay their TV tax. State ownership means that there will always be millions of thumbs in the pie.