On fire?

  The very same BBC professionals - via its brilliant 'Focus on Africa' magazine, surely not the happiest branch in the House after being hit quite hard by funding cuts- mimic the (often extremely) biased coverage of African affairs by their partner World News department by putting together some sort of Quarterly Quotes 'special issue' on African leaders recommending their people not to travel to the UK due to potential security issues after the Tottenham riots broke in.

"Britain, I understand, is on fire" (R. Mugabe) or "Those who can delay or postpone their trips should consider doing so" (South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation) are part of this fresh quote collection. But to get the metaphor right the coverage should actually be restricted to student distress and demonstrations over tuition fees - and totally ignoring the rest of the stuff (including Premier League, unfeasible therefore). Just featuring angry people at the economic havoc - that sort of thing anyway.

Even if I'm aware it's not easy to be a journalist under certain circumstances in certain African countries, I don't think any sensible newsperson would buy such a biased approach. But mainstream media are nowadays sucked by the political whirlpool and lie farther from objectivity than ever. Then again, no one seems to care too much about it - save maybe for some scattered Occupy people here and there.