on a BBC reporter’s Mid-East handiwork:
‘it is so completely wrong that it can only signal an ignorance so profound that its author has no place anywhere near news scripts – or a bias which is equally profound.’
I know from memory that this is not the first time the BBC have misrepresented a certain Mr Barghouti.
Looking at the BBC website I can see the BBC’s attitude is to pretty unrelentingly downplay Barghouti’s crimes. They describe him ‘currently serving five life sentences on terrorism charges in an Israeli prison’. Excuse me Auntie, but wasn’t he convicted of five counts of murder? Isn’t it also normal to describe people convicted as serving sentences for the crimes they were convicted of, rather than the charges originally brought(even assuming one had accurately related them)? Can it be the BBC don’t trust the Israeli legal system- the one which ordered Ariel Sharon to re-route his wall? And anyway, what place does the BBC’s trust or mistrust of the Israeli legal system have in their function as a new provider?
It looks to me that the BBC are trying to help anoint a new Arafat. The king is dead (Arafat), long live the king (Barghouti):
‘But it is believed that he is the most popular Palestinian leader. He is seen by many as a hero and a major figure in the fight against Israeli occupation, our correspondent says.
He has been described as charismatic and determined, and was often thought of as a natural successor to Arafat, our correspondent adds.’
Israeli “occupation”, surely?
OT but slightly. It’s 22.30 and I’ve just watched the Beeb’s redoubtable Carolyn Hawley report on Iraq and Fallujah and amazingly, it’s all the Americans’ fault! She’s a national treasure, isn’t she! The new Kate Adie viz Norman Tebbit’s objections to Libyan reports from said “impartial” reporter. Any comments, Lefties?
Forget whether you’re a leftie or a rightie. The fact that Bharghouti is a five times murdering slime-ball, or that the Black Watch does the same thing to Arabs and their houses that the IDF does in the territories doesn’t seem to phase Auntie! The only solution is to conclude that STATE SUPPORTED BROADCASTING IS INCONSISTENT WITH DEMOCRACY. Break up the bbc with the assent of the people, i.e. parliament. Those who are inclined can set up commercial stations. They can be monitored by an FCC style body with a bit more teeth than the wishy washy paper tiger currently operating in the UK.
Ever since there was a demonstration in I believe. london,s Bloomsbury, to call for the release of the “illegally held” Barghouti several years ago, he has been the beeb’s golden boy.
To be fair his list of murders pale in comparison to Arafats’.
And the Beeb needs to replace it’s dead hero,of which they spent so many years whitewashing, eventually leading to nobel prize candidatature.
However the Beeb’s huge arabic market needs careful nurturing, and revealing the list of horrors commited by Barghouti, or under his orders, would surely lead to a grave loss of “market share”.
No doubt future reporters will be recruited from the likes of the ISM or Sinn Fein supportive reporters.
I take it you were all out on the piss on Friday and didn’t see Newsnight. You missed BBC correspondent ‘Carver’ (I forget his first name) do a report on the ‘cultural divide’ in the United States.
It seemed a decent piece until the end when he showed an animation of ‘slave owning states’ from the civil war, then showed an animation of ‘Bush states at the last election’ with a voiceover narrative of ‘little has changed’. I almost fell off my seat! How the hell do they get away with this?
Monkey- that’s typical Tom Carver I’m afraid. I had a post on this tendancy at another place.
OK, here is the latest not yet committed bbc atrocity. On Thursday,Dec 2, BBC Four will broadcast My Land Zion. According to the promo in The Eye (The Times), and I don’t know if the film maker or the bbc is saying this, wait for it:”Now the mother of teenagers whose lives are threatened every day just taking the school bus, she wonders about her parents’ nationalism — did their expulsion of the Palestinians mirror their own treatment during the Holocaust? And was it worth it?”
I, nor any other serious historian has ever heard of Arab expulsion during the 1948 conflict. Even the Arabs accept that they ran away and stood by anticipating the slaughter of the Jews. This is the pits of sorry bbc revisionism in the latest string of inaccurate and opinionated emissions. At the very least the untruth ought to be explained, or the transmission pulled.
BK
Monkey – I didn’t see the Carver piece but surely even he must have realised the crassness of stating that little had changed since slavery – The South was solidly democrat then – Lincoln was a Republican – But then such complexities are lost on those interested only in the trite sound biteS which match their ingrained liberal left prejudices
I was looking to see if Mr Carver’s piece had been transcripted on the BBC website and I stumbled across some of his other pieces. Including..
“The candidates’ home states symbolise the cultural poles of America: Texas is often referred to as “red-neck”, Massachusetts is seen as home of liberals. ”
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3535825.stm)
and…
“One in three American Christians call themselves evangelicals and many evangelicals believe the second coming of Christ will occur in the Middle East after a titanic battle with the anti-Christ. Does the president believe he is playing a part in the final events of Armageddon? If true, it is an alarming thought.”
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2921345.stm)
I see a pattern emerging.
It offends the BBC midset that people can call themselves Christians AND believe the Bible.
The only Christians that get the BBC seal of approval are
1.Women priests
2.Gay priests
3.Ones who don’t believe the Bible
4.Wooly peacenik ones like Bruce Kent
5.Ones who appear on Thought for the Day to criticise the USA
6.Ones who support Palestinian charities with shady links to Hamas
7.Ones who deny the existence of “sin”
8.Ones who consider truth “relative”
9.Black ones (apart from the anti-gay ones from Africa)
cont. on page 2345
The BBC also assists in the de-Christianising of the main festivals particularly Christmas (Winterval anyone?) and Easter. Eamonn should have mentioned the current Archbishop of Canterbury – the first careerist agnostic to occupy the post. His Christmas card does not depict Christ in any form and on a touchstone issue like abortion, he is mute; the female priest who instructed proceedings on the cleft palate abortions got no support from this disgrace of a cleric who prostrates himself before Islam (apologising for the Crusades).
Given that liberals have been responsible for approximately no death, destruction and state-sanctions slaughter ever, while religiousites (and their totalitarian cousins) have been responsible for enormous amounts of the above, it would appear socially responsible of the BBC to favour harmless moderate religious people over the dangerous lunatics who’ve historically made life horrible.
The BBC mainly favours appeasers – whether of the Bruce Kent-so-called religious variety, or anyone who criticises the US.
And appeasement caused far more death and destruction in the past cebtury than robust action against evil regimes.
“Monkey – I didn’t see the Carver piece but surely even he must have realised the crassness of stating that little had changed since slavery”
Yes, Carver must have omitted the awkward fact that the chief slavemaster Bush has successively appointed not one but two black Americans to the nation’s most senior Cabinet post (Secretary of State). No way to fit that into Carver’s “theory” so I assume he just left it out? The BBC is shameless.
Hey Beeb, lookey here — “racist” Bush has just nominated a first-generation immigrant Cuban as Commerce Secretary, to go along with the black woman at State, the Chinese woman at Labor, the Japanese man at Transporatation, and the Mexican at Justice. And just how many black and brown people are there in the French Cabinet, I might ask?
Oh, and, speaking of the Cuban Commerce nominee, look at this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4052893.stm
The little Commie shits over at Beeb Online decide that the major “news” angle of this appointment is that Guiterrez will have purview over the US’s trade embargo on Cuba:
If confirmed by the Senate, among Mr Gutierrez’ duties will be overseeing the trade embargo against Cuba.
Earlier this year, the US government tightened its sanctions, limiting visits to relatives in Cuba to once every three years – rather than the once a year which had previously been allowed.
It also cut permitted spending to $50 a day from $167 – and cut back the allowance for remitting money from the US to Cuba.
At the same time, government grants to Cuban dissident groups were increased.”
(cont’d from above) He’ll be the Commerce Secretary for the world’s largest economy, but the Beeb thinks the “REAL” story is that he’ll help the big bad USA beat up on brave, noble little Commie Cuba; the meanie Yanks are keeping more Yankee dollars from making their way into the pockets of Noble Billionaire Fidel Castro.
The Beeb is beyond parody.
‘The little Commie shits over at Beeb Online’
Oh Susan, remarks like that make all us UK citizens wish that you were in charge of the BBC.
Remind us, where in Britain do you live, so that we can pray thanks for your (*incredibly* interesting to the UK licence fee payer) views on how much the current US President ‘cut back the allowance for remitting money from the US to Cuba.’
Your point about the BBC being?
steve jones ,that was not MY statement regarding the remittance money from the US to Cuba, that was the Beeb’s. I neglected to start the first sentence of the quotation with an apostrophe. Still, if you’d bothered to read the link I posted you would have figured it out.
This guy has been nominated to be in charge of a 12 trillion dollar economy.
His purview, if confirmed for the job, would be enormous: huge trade deficit, falling dollar, etc. All of which are far more newsworthy than the US’s trade dealings with Cuba, a microscopic portion of the Commerce Secretary’s purview.
But the Beeb, being the Beeb, never misses a chance to bash the US, and will insert the most tangental subject matter into a story to push it’s US-hating agenda.
(conti’d) Bush appoints a Cuban immigrant as Commerce Secretary? Oh, let’s put in a nasty little dig at how mean those Yanks are to poor lefty saint-idol Fidel Castro, right up front, as if it were the most important thing about the story. Anbody else would naturally do the same thing. Umm — not really.
Like I said, simply beyond parody.
PS — I live in the US, and I found this story on the “America’s” page. Obviously they are expecting Americans to read it, or otherwise they wouldn’t be reporting US football scores and the like.
PS — if “little Commie shits” isn’t acceptable, can I call them “distressingly predictable leftoid drones”?
Susan
Right on target. The BBC is beyond parody these days.
Steve
Even if the BBC did not broadcast in the US Susan would still have the freedom to comment on it. But they do broadcast in the US anyway. Applying your principle consistently would mean only registered US voters would have a right to comment on the recent US election. So, no more attempts by UK liberals to tell the voters of Clark County how to vote, no more bitching, squealing and whining from UK liberals about the nasty Bushitler.
Now I think about it …
True but equally we have the freedom to discount her views as being stereotypical of the undereducated, unsophisticated, evil obsessed religious nutters of the borderline third world American ‘heartland’.
We can’t discount the views of license fee payers in the same way, however barking, as they have to pay for the BBC.
Anonymous,
If I say described all black people as “undereducated, unsophisticated, evil obsessed religious nutters of the borderline third world” I might be quite correctly described as a hate filled racist.
I might also be described as wrong because nearly every US state is richer than every large EU state. But then facts are only facts, you FEEL you’re right.
Finally I’m a license payer. The BBC jails people to fund it’s programming. It has to go.
“The BBC jails people to fund it’s programming.” Umm..fines?
‘The BBC jails people to fund it’s (sic) programming’
the bbc doesn’t jail anyone. The UK government, via the UK justice system, does.
Take your complaint to them
The license fee has to go. In the digital age those who wish to pay for the BBC can do, those that don’t want their programs don’t have to. As TVOD becomes the standard over the next decade or so the argument that the national broadcaster role of the BBC will be lost to those who don’t subscribe will cease to be valid and the license fee can at last be laid to rest. Finally one can own a standard domestic appliance without paying for a piece of paper for the privaledge of using it.
Anonymous
“undereducated, unsophisticated, evil obsessed religious nutters of the borderline third world”
If I’d have posted such a comment I’d want to be anonymous too. Read the following report. You’ll discover that France, Germany and Italy each have lower per capita GDP rates than all but five of the US states:
http://www.timbro.com/euvsusa/
Pete,
Whilst I wouldn’t agree with anon, a raw comparison of GDP rates gives a far from complete picture of ‘quality of life’ in Europe and the States. For example, the fact that productivity levels per hour are higher in Germany and France (but not Britain) than in the States suggests that there are no fundamental problems in investing in skills and technology. Europeans have made a choice to work fewer hours and accept less disposable income.
Don’t forget the red tape overload of the EU Rich, at the moment Europe couldn’t catch up with the US if it tried.
Pete, I’m sure Swedish economists know what they’re doing etc. but the report from your link uses figures from 1995.
Very true, but again its partly an issue of personal choice. The EU red tape enforces certain standards that companies must meet in their treatment of employees. This gives employees a guaranteed standard of working environment but makes the overall economic advancement of the EU (including those employees) more sluggish. In comparison US labour law ‘flexibility’ sometimes enables companies to treat individual employees poorly. It’s a cultural trade off and I personally don’t think one is ‘better’ than the other. The problem is that within the EU there are different working cultures increasingly bound with the same legislation.
Having said that one of the problems in Britain is that people seem to expect economically impossible US style renumeration with EU style working priveledges and moan like buggery when they don’t get it.
Rich “In comparison US labour law ‘flexibility’ sometimes enables companies to treat individual employees poorly. It’s a cultural trade off and I personally don’t think one is ‘better’ than the other”
But the 10% unemployed of France & Germany may cease to appreciate the “cultural trade off” that prevents them from getting work.
The problem isn’t red tape, it’s far, far too much red tape.
Germany’s problem is the former east which has far higher unemployment rate than the old west. France’s rate is dropping at a pretty steady rate, while the USA’s (5.5%) is rising.
http://www.forecasts.org/unemploy.htm
Erm no theghostofredken the US unemloyment rate is not rising is any meaningful trend.
Click to access 26650599.pdf
Whatever way you look at it, the US economy is outstripping any European economy you can mention, be it employment or outpur.
theghostofredken “France’s rate is dropping at a pretty steady rate”
In what way is 9.6, 9.6, 9.6 dropping?
Click to access 18595359.pdf
Anonymous wrote:
“True but equally we have the freedom to discount her views as being stereotypical of the undereducated, unsophisticated, evil obsessed religious nutters of the borderline third world American ‘heartland’. ”
I’m an athiest Californian with an excellent wine cellar. Lots of “Third Worlders” here (1/3 of the population is foreign-born), but they are not homegrown. . .Vietnamese, Chinese, Philippinos, and of course, Mexicans and other Latin Americans. And of course we do have four of the world’s top universities: Stanford, UCB, UCLA and USC. Most of Europe’s universities do not rate anywhere near them, except for OxBridge.
And yeah, the Beeb Online is exactly as I described them. I have a slightly better opinion of AirBeeb, but the Online unit is simply the dregs.
Hey Aonymous:
Do I also have the freedom to discount boring, stuck-up Eurobigots who mouth ignorant cliches about Americans? If so, consider it done in your case.
GORK: Check it out:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=2&u=/nm/20041201/bs_nm/economy_dc
“ISM’s employment measure spelled good news on the hiring front. It rose to 57.6 from 54.8, stirring hopes that Friday’s November employment report could show another burst of job creation.”
Not that you’ll see it reported on the Beeb.
Susan
It may surprise you to learn that many UK residents are interested in news about the ‘Americas’. ‘US football scores and the like’
You can call the BBC anything you like – ‘distressingly predictable leftoid drones’ is slightly less abusive, but adds little weight to your argument – whatever it is.
Sane discussion about the ins and outs of the de/merits of a broadcaster funded by a yearly licence rather than charged at the point of delivery is so different to abuse/ snobbish rants (‘excellent wine cellar’) lol.
steve jones
Susan was simply responding to an ignorant insult from “anonymous”.
nd the debate here is about BBC BIAS – on which Susan often delivers glorious examples.
Andrew P: “the US unemloyment rate is not rising is any meaningful trend.”
I think I was just trying to add some context to what Pete was saying about GDP of the US, in a ‘round the houses’ type way I was making the point that not one economic factor could be used to judge quality of life (the UN have had Canada top of their ‘quality of life’ study for the past 8 years). In any case it has raised to 5.5 in the October figures.
Dan: “In what way is 9.6, 9.6, 9.6 dropping?”
Well, France is now 9.5 for October and I think if you look at none standardised figures, there has been a gradual decline for the past five months. I can’t be bothered to find the info I had yesterday though so I wouldn’t back myself on this with any great certainty.
I’ve just read an article which said the number of unemployed in the US has dropped for October. Oh well, I’ve never trusted economists anyway…
I think it would be fair to say that US economy is a bit of a mixed bag at the moment wouldn’t it?
People like General Motors seem to be doing very badly despite economic growth in general being quite good.
Given 9/11 was a mere three years ago, I’d say it’s doing pretty well. Let’s not forget the massive damage to the American/World economies caused by that event.
I think I’m right in saying though that US manufacturing has been distinctly ropey for quite some time. The hefty tariffs that the US has on steel imports and Canadian lumber seem to indicate as much.
I have stocks in US technology and they are doing very well, thank you. The economy was hardly an issue in the US election – they are doing very well in employment terms.
The main worry is huge imports – especially from China. European imports are not a problem – Europe doesn’t make much worthwhile these days !
No of course not. Who would want the worlds best telecommunications systems anyway? Especially when you potter around in some of the worlds least safe and poorly constructed cars instead.
Also John, why the huge tariffs on steel then?
steve jones, do you have a cognition problem? I clearly pasted the insult that Anon. directed at me in my responding post. Did you not see it?
I don’t judge people by what kind of wine they drink but clearly Anon. does. That’s why I responded as such.