Monthly Archives: July 2004

, heh- Instapundit and friends clean up the BBC over a falsehood followed by a stealth edit: it’s what happens when you have 100,000 potential fact-checking assistants passing by daily.

As for the BBC story about French intransigence over UN sanctions against Sudan, the change is dramatic:

‘It’s now: “France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, it also has significant oil interests in Sudan.”

It was: “France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq, and as in Iraq the US also has significant oil interests in Sudan.”’

-according to one of Glenn’s several emailed sources.

In this story of a dispute over the Olympic flame in Cyprus the BBC gives us this geographically-challenged nugget:

The flame, which is transported in a structure similar to a miner’s safety lamp while in flight, arrived earlier on Thursday at the coastal resort of Pathos, in the south-west. [emphasis added]

Someone needs a holiday. Paphos will do.

Another attempt to pass lamentable anti-free speech laws in the UK, but note this sloppy slide:

‘Current race hate laws do cover some religions, such as Jews and Sikhs, but not others.

Some Muslim groups have been pushing for that anomaly to be redressed.’

This is, of course, not true. Current race laws deal with Jews and Sikhs as races, not with Judaism and Sikhism as religions. Similarly, they cover Arabs or Persians, but not Muslims – for the very good reason that ‘Muslim’ is not a race.

Never fear, though, because the UK is just chock-full of ‘Islamophobia’ – whatever that is.

In this piece, a roving correspondent for the BBC went to Sydney to see what is happening with one Aboriginal community in Australia’s most notorious and crime-ridden Aboriginal ubran area, Redfern.

Unfortunately, we get shallow, noble savage rot:

‘I imagined them to be a dark-skinned people, the men with bushy beards, eking out a living in the country’s outback.

Instead I found a lost people, bereft of their culture and struggling to survive as outsiders in a European society they have no real hope of being integrated in.’

This really just shows how ill-informed the writer is about the amazing variety of Aboriginal tribes, languages and ways of life – for example, most Aborigines live in cities or large country towns, not the ‘outback’, which in Australian terms is too non-specific to mean much (Australia is the size of Europe or the US excluding Alaska).

The article also appears to have missed the inquest currently being held into the Hickie death.

Not only does this tendentious, Rousseauvian twaddle miss the successes of Aborigines in Australia (and of course there is still a long way to go), it also betrays the preconceptions of the writer:

‘Just before I left Sydney I went to the opening of the new Redfern community centre. It was ironic that at the launch, the organisers had to bring in didgeridoo players from outside to entertain the guests. There were no local Aboriginals who could provide this service.’

Perhaps that might be because the didgeridoo is not exactly native to inner-city Sydney?

‘It is also ironic that I was unable to find Aboriginal handicraft made in Australia.

Tourists are going home with boomerangs made in China.’

Funny that – my large Aboriginal art collection is all made by Aborigines in Australia. Go to a trashy tourist shop in any city in the world and you will find tourist tat made in China.

When I saw it, this article was on the front page of the BBC news website. Australia’s reputation has already been trashed by the BBC, which paints it as some racist, concentration-camp erecting country off the edge of the world (completely untrue) – this propaganda hardly helps.

Via Instapundit, two interesting links. The first is to a Telegraph article citing BBC internal memos to the effect that the BBC’s credibility is on the line online if fact-checking doesn’t improve. The second link also offers some good advice.

Have you noticed how paranoid fantasies of the most laughable sort have been edging towards the mainstream lately? So long, of course, as it is the right sort of conspiracy theory i.e. has Dubya and Mossad in it. Rob Hinkley of Semiskinned reports how a Wayne Madsen was quoted by the BBC as a credible source. Note and follow the copious links Rob provides to demonstrate the general tenor of Mr Madsen’s beliefs. Sample quote: “Anyone who closely examines Patriot II will realize that the document represents the same sort of power grab by Hitler after the Reichstag Fire of 1933.”

Damian Fowler’s report on the continuing controversy over Fahrenheit 9/11, you are led to believe some shifting of tectonic plates has occurred in US politics. No, this is not just Michael Moore going for a walk, it’s a real ‘liberal’ (liberal as in MoveOn.org) awakening in the US.

The introduction is a classic bit of emotionalism, depicting the awakening in tears of a former US marine whose twin brother was killed in Iraq:

‘Ivan Medina fought back tears during a recent screening of Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.’

Fowler continues,

‘Mr Medina was joined by other military family members who shared his outrage. Until recently, voices such as these – not typical die-hard liberals – have been less than conspicuous in challenging the government.’

Well, it all depends on your definition of ‘recently‘, or even ‘conspicuous‘- because Mr Medina’s story has been featured in the media since March and was featured on the Larry King show on CNN in April, where he said

‘this was another plan from the president to win reelection and show and try to get his popularity back up when the truth is, we were not needed in Iraq… My brother and I never supported the war’.

So, not quite such a Damascene conversion after all, and certainly not the result of Fahrenheit 9/11- but why let that spoil a good story?

Polly Toynbee, a strong supporter of the BBC, in a Guardian article advocating that smacking children be banned, says:

Debating the generally excellent Children Act, the Lords votes on a ban of all hitting of children, an amendment which is supported by every children’s organisation and charity, social services directors, chief police officers, bishops, the NSPCC and most relevant organisations. To find opponents outside Westminster, the BBC has to resort to obscure Christian fundamentalists and the more extreme fathers’ groups.

Not has to, Polly, chooses to. Whatever your own opinion on the issue (mine would take too long to explain here) you can be quite sure that the supermarkets and school gates of Britain contain thousands upon thousands of completely ordinary parents with no connection to Christian fundamentalism or obscure fathers’ groups who smack their children on occasion and think they have a right to do so. They don’t get interviewed for the same reason that American Democrats who don’t like Michael Moore’s latest don’t get interviewed.

, says Charles at LGF (check out some of the informed comments too). I think he means that with respect to the BBC’s journalistic reputation, to be caught reporting that the Jordanian people ‘are largely of Palestinian origin’ is demonstrably to be caught trying to turn the truth on its head:

‘However, the Jordanian people, who are largely of Palestinian origin, are strongly opposed to Washington’s policy in the region, particularly in Iraq and Israel. ‘

Still, I am sure such a ‘potted history’ would please the Glasgow Media Group [update: post edited- I was confused by the stealth editors at the BBC, who changed ‘largely’ to ‘many of whom’ in a subsequent version. You can see what someone was trying to imply in the original though].

Last Sunday’s Sunday Times’ News Review section had a revealing article by Richard Brooks, entitled Me and Michael, the stupid fat man (possibly requires free registration).

If you don’t have time to read the full article, here are a couple of paragraphs to give a flavour of it: “Moore’s world — like America — is divided. For him there are the good guys and the bad guys. But which one is he? There is the good Moore, who says he gives away a sizeable chunk of his income to worthy causes, and whose movies often side with the little man and the underprivileged.

And then there is the bad Moore, who can be a bully and a hypocrite. He uses private jets, demands the best hotels and sends his daughter to a fee-paying school in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Yet he also claims to be the ordinary working-class guy from the downtrodden town of Flint, Michigan, where he set his first and best documentary, Roger & Me, which looked at how General Motors treated its workforce. In fact his father was a well-paid manager who was able to retire in his early fifties to play golf.”

Especially pleasing is the news that Moore is subject to a more rigourous critical analysis than the BBC has managed, in a new book, Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke, as well as a forthcoming documentary about Moore by Mike Wilson, Michael Moore Hates America. I won’t hold my breath waiting for the BBC to show it!

As Ed Thomas mentions in his blog, he & I corresponded a few weeks back about the BBC’s uncritical obsession with Michael Moore. I did a write up about it back then, but didn’t get round to posting it. If there is sufficient interest I’ll dust it off and post it this time – let me know.