Americans in droves tuned to the BBC in search of credible news during the Iraq invasion. Meanwhile, a BBC executive says he fears becoming like Fox and the networks here.

So embarrassing was the U.S. coverage of the war - and so conscious was the rest of the world of collapse of basic journalistic standards - that BBC director general Greg Dyke found it necessary to promise that, "In the area of impartiality, as in many other areas, we must ensure that we don't become Americanized."