Anthony Cox — who will forever be remembered as the author of that WMD 404 page — notes an interesting exchange with the BBC on his blog.
After BBC News published a call for President Bush’s assassination, Cox wrote to them to ask for it to be removed. In a very curt, two sentence reply, BBC News claimed they never published the call for Bush’s death — because, as it happened, the comment had been deleted. The BBC eventually admitted that they had indeed published the call for President Bush’s murder, and apologised to Cox for having done so, and for getting it wrong when they claimed they hadn’t.
How did such a statement make it onto the BBC’s pages in the first place, though? That’s anyone’s guess.
Off topic
The BBC reporting Venezuela
By Aleksander Boyd
London (27.11.03) • Two days ago I received a letter by the BBC’s Programme Complaints Unit (PCU). Further to a previous one received the 2nd of November, the latest communication by the PCU slaps me as an insult. The nature of my complaint is the biased and propagandistic document “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. Since I felt/feel disgusted by how Kim Bartley & Donnacha O’Briain have portrayed the tragic events of last April, I wrote to the BBC demanding my right to reply to be enforced and respected.
I shall transcribe here the content of both letters and my response.
Programme Complaints Unit
30 October 2003
Mr Aleksander Boyd
Dear Mr Boyd,
Further to your email of 27 October 2003 I am writing to let you know that we are looking into the subject of your complaint. As it will take little time to review the relevant material and talk to the people responsible, we will not be able to give you a reply i
As you say, the BBC examined the comment before choosing to include it on the website. They selected this one & rejected others. The BBC did not consider it offensive or inappropriate to call for Bush’s execution.
Views such as the one deleted are almost certainly representative of a large section of their respondents (since they are representative of a wide section of world opinion). If BBC Online is going to omit comments that they consider offensive or inappropriate, then much of the time they cannot fairly claim that the comments published are representative of the comments received.
Confirming my point, BBC Online replied to Anthony Cox with:
“We got 9,000 emails in the 24 hours after Saddam was captured and many of them expressed strong opinion on all sides of the debate. We apologise for the fact we did on this brief occasion publish this comment.”
Obviously, many of those many were not represented.
It follows that the whole “Have Your Say” exercise is fundamentally flawed – and has no place being on the website, let alone so closely associated with actual news stories.
The only fair options are a completely open and unedited comments system, or a ‘letters page’ wh
The only fair options are a completely open and unedited comments system, or a ‘letters page’ where readers are clearly aware that comments are selected for the benefit of the host (such as with newspapers).
Uh…according to the Black Triangle site, not only did the BBC publish the remark, they put it in one of their little sidebars. I had always assumed that they thus singled out quotes they considered noteworthy in some way. True, they didn’t put the call for Bush’s death in the sidebar, but I’m mystified as to why they should plead press of work when they had enough time, and thought enough of the comment, to stick it in a sidebar.
BBC1 News provides an opportunity for a representative of “Liberty” to claim that we have our own Guantanamo right here (refering to the 14 undesirable aliens detained without trial in UK jails).
The BBC does not correct this claim by pointing out that, unlike Guantanamo, these 14 people will be provided with a plane ticket out of the UK. They only have to ask. Instead they prefer to waste our taxes on court hearings.
OT — Without Saddam to carp about or quagmireitis (how many US deaths in all of December, a few?), the BBC.com has switched into “but Iraqis are miserable” mode –
Two articles prominently featured on the web site:
“Iraq freedom and poverty tug-of-war”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3330409.stm uses a sneering “Free to be Poor” link from the front page).
What’s interesting about this piece though is that it is a largely upbeat report about how happy they are to be rid of Saddam. Its as if the webmasters would have none of that and attached a much more grim non sequitor to the lead.
Then, there’s “Iraqis return to reality after party”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3323805.stm
“The power has gone again in Basra and if people here are still celebrating the capture of Saddam Hussein, they are doing so in darkened streets or by the light of oil lamps in their living rooms.”
In the end there is no real trouble to report. So, they swi
to continue —
In the end there is no real trouble to report. So, they switch to speculating about the possiblity of of trouble. Our intrepid reporter offers “If the situation has not improved by the end of June… trouble is almost guaranteed.”
Really? Almost guaranteed, but not quite?
In the end the thing that offends me most about the BBC is not the wretched soft-left bias, the inability to fact-check simple assertions, the irresponsible editorializing disguised as “facts”, the stealth edits or anything of that nature.
No, what really gets me is The Tone — the preachy, moralizing Tone, putting forth in all but plain words the basic evangelical Message: “Repent, all ye sinners! Accept our tranzi politically correct agenda as your personal Lord and Saviour, Amen! Or be branded as a Bad Person forevermore if you don’t.”
Loathesome.
Susan,
I’m so glad it’s not just me that hates the BBC! I just can’t watch any of their politicised output anymore.
Rob.
Off topic (although it’s about offensive material)
(All links at http://wolves.typepad.com/menshour/)
The BBC saves me from being depravity and corruption but in my case it’s too late, I’ve been reading the BBC website
STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING: I’m WARNING you I’m NOT using strong language, but I am WARNING you I AM I’m discussing it here (*s have been added because some people don’t like it, as a courtesy to them. All the *s have been added by me. The linked pages include the full word).
For purely innocent reasons (honest!) I had occasion to type in a Bob Geldof word into the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk. If you type a word into either of the main page search boxes you get results divided into 3 parts –
Results from all the BBC
Results from BBC news
Results from the web
The word was f*** and to my surprise was I got a message
Sorry
This search may produce some results that could be considered offensive.
If you wish to continue with this search you c