BBC & RT news rivalry can only benefit the public

The chap criticising RT on the Today programme declared that it was a state-sponsored national broadcaster subject to government control and which represented the views of the establishment, before pausing awkwardly for a second or two as the leaden weight of the irony filled his soul. It was, I imagine, as he glanced about him with a sinking feeling knowing where he was and who was broadcasting his opinion.  Yes, of course RT and the BBC are equivalents; of course both broadcast untruths and of course both represent the view of their controlling establishment through biased production values that no-one is advised to take at face value. 

And that is exactly why their news rivalry is of the greatest public benefit. With RT exposing the BBC's fake news and the BBC doing likewise to false RT stories, by flicking between them one can get an approximation of the reality. 

The watershed was Aleppo and the BBC's mythical White Helmets reporting from the besieged enclave. Except they weren't there. They didn't exist. No-one there had seen them, and when the final rump of rebel fighters surrendered there was no trace of them. Either they escaped to Idlib disguised as rebel fighters - hardly the behaviour of an aid organisation - or they were never there in the first place. Despite which the BBC continued to broadcast their fake accounts of life under siege until near the end, accounts in all probability originating no further from White City than Vauxhall. 

Have you heard a single mention of the White Helmets since the fall of Aleppo? It's as though the MSM has realised that the secret is out and is desperate for people to forget all the past lies. 

Back at the height of the Cold War I used to tune to Radio Moscow on a short-wave valve radio receiver whose qualities I now greatly miss; the xylophone gongs of the 'Moscow Nights' station ident before the news quavered over the ether, with an impression of great distance. The Soviet news if all was well would be predictably dull; a speech from the Agriculture Convention of the 34th Plenary of the Uzhbek Soviet, mine production output gains in Novobyersk and so on. The absence of war rhetoric was, at the time, some sort of assurance that the 4 minutes had not yet arrived. 

Now forty years on we're back in the same place - trying desperately to find the truth in the ground between the liars.