(Henry V 3.7.102, Constable to Orleans). Norm Geras finds John Pilger in discovery of a new friend for Tony and George. Unbelievable!
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And in the very next post he points out that the Beeb did not mention a Labour Conferenc vote favourable to Tony Blair’s stance on Iraq.
While I’m here, I’ll mention that that the BBC have given very little coverage to the massacre of 35 children in Baghdad.
Apart from in the fairly unambiguously titled ‘Children massacred by bombs’??
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3702710.stm
And the Labour conference vote is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3702270.stm
Oh indeed ‘Anonymous’ – the story is there, if you know where to look. In this case, little more than 24hrs after the atrocity, it is relegated to a small out of the way headline on the Middle East page, three clicks from the top of News Online.
Contrast this with the ‘World wants Kerry for President’ nonsense that was headlined prominently for nearly three weeks recently on the Americas page – as highlighted on this blog – so, just because you can point to a url doesn’t prove that the BBC staffers don’t manipulate the news as much as they can get away with when it suits them to.
True but since then in the Middle East the Yanks have kicked some backside in Samarra, the Israelis have trundled into Gaza and Al Quaeda have put out a video, thus filling the three big Middle East slots. It’s not the Beeb’s fault if important things are happening.
The ‘Troops out of Iraq call defeated’ story is top of the Labour conference section, wheras Natalie implies it was not mentioned at all.
Anonymous wrote: “The ‘Troops out of Iraq call defeated’ story is top of the Labour conference section, wheras Natalie implies it was not mentioned at all.”
No, Natalie links to normblog, who mentions that the (favourable to Blair) story didn’t get any mention on the Ten O’Clock News.
I’ll stand corrected if I’ve made a mistake, but I don’t believe I have. This is why. I videoed the ten o’clock news and watched it at 11.00. When I got to the end and there was nothing on the Iraq conference vote, I found it so odd that I went back to the beginning to check I hadn’t begun watching the recording some way in. I hadn’t. Anonymous, the fact that you can find an item about this on the BBC website is neither here nor there with respect to what I said in my post.
O/T
A report in yesterday’s (30/09/04) business section of the Telegraph online was headed: “Capital way to check BBC Fascism”. The report dealt with the merger of the radio stations Capital and GWR. Inter alia it stated that the “liberal fascism of the BBC” could be best dealt with by the new company noting that viewers were leaving the dominant TV networks and turning to radio stations that espoused profits,free enterprise and personal responsibliity.Great news!
Continuation of above. The viewers leaving the dominant TV stations refered to the situation in the US
My problem is not with TV stations being biased, it is with them being biased whilst pretending to be impartial.
One thing I have noticed: Whereas right-wing outlets make no secret of their biases, their leftist counterparts love to see themselves as “impartial” and “seeing both sides of the story”, even when they patently do not.
FOX is indeed absurdly biased, but so is the BBC, and I have to pay for the Beeb.
Zevilyn,
You must get real.
For most news media outlets such as the BBC ‘left of centre’ is really ‘centre’.
“For most news media outlets such as the BBC ‘left of centre’ is really ‘centre’.”
Except the political centre of the UK moves constantly with the zeitgeist, making the concept of a centrist BBC absurd. As Blair has commented in the past, the country moved rightwards significantly under Thatcher. The BBC didn’t, and now finds itself “left of centre” and in denial.
One of the left’s favorite tactics is to present leftist viewpoints as “normal” and “what all sane people believe.” Meanwhile anything conservative they present as “deviant” and all the other nice terms we are used to hearing.
Part of this tactic is to present left-wing news outlets like the BabbleC as “centrist,” so anyone who differs with their world view automaticlly becomes one of the “deviants.”
Getting back to Kerry’s post, I find the idea of Shakespeare quotes and comparisons to the various dramatis personae in the BBC saga very appealing. But my mind’s gone blank (“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below”). Greg Dyke as Lear?
Natalie
I too was amazed at the failure to report in much detail on the massacre of children. Clearly it was partly to do with the Labour Party conference and Tony Blair’s health – but I think it was also because it didn’t fit in with the left-liberal narrative which is of course that the “occupation” forces in Iraq are facing a broad based resistance.
The very fact taht teh children were fraternising with the troops in itself does not fit in with the dominant narrative.
David
Alan,
I agree that the BBC drifts too far leftwards at times but I’m not sure you’re right in identifying the UK’s political ‘centre’.
Whilst the country moved right during the Thatcher years (leaving the BBC behind), it has since edged back leftwards (economically at least) as some of the downsides of Thatcher’s economic policies have become more apparant.
When the BBC implicitly criticises increased private involvement in the public sector or makes snide remarks about Tory tax cut plans (or lack of), rightly or wrongly it isn’t out of step with the public. Where it is out of step is the excessive political correctness on issues of law and order and ‘human rights’.
There was an article in the Economist (I think) this week about a poll in which a demographically weighted sample placed themselves and politicians on the left-right spectrum. ‘The public’ were a tiny bit to the left of what was perceived as the centre, Blair was bang on the centre, Howard and the Tories quite a long way right, Brown and the Labour party a long way left.
Rich – indeed. While the Beeb does have a mild centre-left bias (compared to the public) on crime, it’s not far from the centre on other issues.
It’s amusing to watch right-wingers here make exactly the same mistake that they accuse the BBC of, in mistakenly believing that their comparatively strong views represent the mainstream…
Rich “Where it is out of step is the excessive political correctness on …’human rights’.”
Displayed again today re the detained undesirable aliens.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3712318.stm
The BBC nearly gets there with “but who cannot be sent home because they might face death or torture.”, but as usual do not point out that these undesirables can leave any time they want.
I really do not understand what the country is expected to do with foreigners that we don’t want here, but who will not leave. Are we just expected to throw in the towel & let them loose in this country?
Further to above, on R4 “Today”, the Liberty spokeswoman is given the opportunity to dismiss the aliens ability to leave as they would face torture in their home country.
The BBC man poses the Home Sec’s dilema about seeking public safety but not going to trial. The assumption being that either these people must be tried or freed. He doesn’t ask Liberty what on earth we are expected to do with these people if Liberty etc succeeded in getting their detention declared unlawful.
He doesn’t ask Liberty what on earth we are expected to do with these people if Liberty etc succeeded in getting their detention declared unlawful.
Release them and then watch them like hawks to make sure they don’t go and do terrorist things (or that if they do, then we know about them and can stop them and arrest their terrorist colleagues), presumably.
Easy, eh, john b?
Why not just deport them?
The bleeding hearts do not want them detained here or returned to their own countries. They think it awful that their own government may execute them. But the bleeding hearts are quite prepared for those same countries to dictate our foreign policy with their votes in the UN.
“It’s amusing to watch right-wingers here make exactly the same mistake that they accuse the BBC of, in mistakenly believing that their comparatively strong views represent the mainstream…”
Again, john b, (and how many times do we have to say it before it sinks in?), no one here expects the BBC to represent our “strong rightward bias.” We expect the BBC to present news objectively,full stop.
This idea that a news organization should “represent” the majority views of its viewing public is very bizarre to me. The purpose of a news organizatoin is to report the news as fairly and objectivley as possible. Do Europeans have a different view of what a news organization should be than Americans? An American news organization will at least pretend to be objective, and will not make excuses that they need to “represent the majority views” for bias.
john b, “Release them and then watch them like hawks to make sure they don’t go and do terrorist things (or that if they do, then we know about them and can stop them and arrest their terrorist colleagues), presumably.”
Yes, presumably. And presumably there are plenty of public funds available to do that with. And also, presumably there are plenty of public funds to do the same for the next round of Islamonutters and other troublemakers who manage to wash up on Britain’s shores, and the next and the next?
God forbid that vast sums of public money should be spent on impoverished WWII veterans or some other worthy cause, instead of on making the human rights lobby feel good about itself!
I cannot beleieve they do not make a crime of “staying in the country when you have been asked to leave by the home secretary” so we can keep the islamobastards in jail where they belong.
Rich: “…’The public’ were a tiny bit to the left of what was perceived as the centre, Blair was bang on the centre, Howard and the Tories quite a long way right, Brown and the Labour party a long way left.”
And where would you put the BBC on this spectrum? Myself I would suggest they are about halfway between Blair and the rest of the Labour party.
john b: “It’s amusing to watch right-wingers here make exactly the same mistake that they accuse the BBC of…”
I don’t see any right-wingers in a position to force the nation to pay for their propaganda in the same way that the left wing can with the BBC.
john b: “…in mistakenly believing that their comparatively strong views represent the mainstream…”
Except I don’t believe that. I do believe, however, that the position of the political center-ground is unduly influenced by the BBC and other left-leaning broadcast media, and that at the very least, I should not be forced to pay for it.
Alan, that would make them the Lib Dems which sounds about right to me.
Er no, arguably the LibDems are to the left of the Labour Party these days (in spite of the Orange Book tendency therein).
Whatever, the BBC view of the world should be objective – not nuanced one way or the other – at least for as long as a) they wish everyone to pay for them; b) they are so large that they crowd out alternative broadcasters and set the agenda themselves.
Sorry, I was referring to the Economist poll again rather than my opinion.
Personally I take the view that people who can easily be termed left/right wing are the ones who are more concerned with bloody mindedness than reality.
Rich, john b –
Its very simple. If I want right wing reporting I can go to Fox News, if I want left wing reporting I can go to … any one of a large number of outlets. The al-BBC Charter states that al-BBC must be impartial, al-BBC claims to be impartial, yet it is not impartial.
From al-BBC I want facts. Nothing more, nothing less. In actual fact from al-BBC I want a plan to disband the organisation but what I have now is my property being taken by force to be used for propaganda purposes against my wishes.
From al-BBC I want facts. Nothing more, nothing less.
But which facts should it cover? The most important ones, presumably – but in whose opinion?
Even the most unbiased reporting is necessarily biased in the choice of stories covered. Given that, any source with pretentions towards unbias ought to run on values that are broadly centrist within the culture where the source exists.
(or not exist at all, admittedly).
Even the most unbiased reporting is necessarily biased in the choice of stories covered.
Yes, and choices must be made, but there are some pretty clear patterns (as documented on this blog and others) which indicate that some stories are more equal than others.
You can see this kind of thing in the way the BBC highlights elements of a story which fit its “script”. This story tells us plainly that http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3690341.stm
“[Rumsfeld] has now cast doubt on whether there was ever a relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.”
Compare it with the AP’s “Rumsfeld Doesn’t Expect Civil War in Iraq”http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041005/D85GU9B80.html