10 Responses to Beeb editorial equations, p111152:

  1. Andrew Bowman says:
    January 3, 2005 at 8:33 pm

    I didn’t hear the piece on Today, but the write-up of it here on BBC Views Online certainly caught my eye for its less than rigorous commentary on the subject, including the tawdry tacking on of a Howard comment from November (nothing like being up-to-date in this 24 hour news world, eh!), concluded with “Mr Blair denied the Tory claims and argued that progress had been made on making the EU economy more competitive” – so that’s alright then – another issue covered fairly and squarely in an unbiased objective manner 🙂

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  2. rob says:
    January 4, 2005 at 1:27 am

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4144213.stm

    “The bombing formed part of a wave of violence in Iraq which seems to have been gathering momentum with the approach of controversial elections scheduled for 13 January, the BBC’s Jim Muir said.”

    The elections are opposed by anti-democratic forces who will kill anyone to further their ends.

    The BBC seemingly considers that the insurgents opposition makes the elections “controversial”.

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  3. Michael Gill says:
    January 4, 2005 at 2:47 am

    Somebody tell Jim Muir that the date for the election is January 30th.

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  4. Chris says:
    January 4, 2005 at 4:30 am

    On the 7 pm news headlines (Radio 4), something like, ‘British deaths in the tsunami will probably be 199, far fewer than in the 9/11 attacks, when 66 British lives were lost.’ I am at a loss to understand what point is being made here, save that it’s presumably anti-American.

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  5. cockney says:
    January 4, 2005 at 11:11 am

    What strikes me about this piece is that there are absolutely no remotely tangible reasons given as to how the European constitution will be beneficial to Britain, just some woolly rubbish about ‘efficiency’ and internal relationships. The only relatively hard comment is Howard’s who at least comes up with some potential impacts albeit unqualified with any statistics or evidence (dunno if these were provided in the full speech).

    This is pretty representative of media coverage of the EU overall. I appreciate that the private media simplifies things to bang home the various partisan views of their owners, but one would have thought that the BBC could treat us like grown ups and give the detailed arguments and statistical backing for the pros and cons of Euro initiatives and membership as a whole.

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  6. marc says:
    January 4, 2005 at 11:56 am

    Have has anyone seen the number of US missing, 5000, reported anywhere in the UK media? I haven’t.

    OFF TOPIC

    The BBC are once again using a well known anti-war activist to fabricate an anti-American story in Iraq.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4066835.stm

    My take on it is here:

    http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/01/bbc-exposed-using-anti-war-activist-as.html

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  7. dan says:
    January 4, 2005 at 12:22 pm

    Way off topic

    This might be of interest to fellow anti-anti-Americans.
    I received a Lonely Planet guide to Florda as a gift.
    I’m amazed to find it has a strong party political attitude. e.g.

    It ends an account of Bush stealing Florida in the 1990 Presidential election by recounting that Bush could not walk the final 4 blocks on Inauguration Day.

    “The hissing crowd had pelted his limo with eggs, trapping him inside. And Americans who’d complained that their votes didn’t really count were finally vindicated.”

    I will not bother with further Lonely Planet guides, the above may guide you in your purchases.

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  8. Richard says:
    January 4, 2005 at 2:48 pm

    And in a later comment by Dr North there are useful contrasts with the way the BBC misrepresents or rather, fails to report US Aid to the South East Asian region through reference to Reuters news sources. It’s pretty good.

    http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/#110480140472594632

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  9. Susan says:
    January 4, 2005 at 6:36 pm

    “Have has anyone seen the number of US missing, 5000, reported anywhere in the UK media? I haven’t.”

    The Beeb did report that 4,000-5,000 Americans were missing a coupla days ago, but they didn’t make a big deal about it like they did with the Swedish missing toll.

    Chris: 199 dead is “far fewer” than 66 dead? Please tell me that was a typo, not actually verbatim from the BBC?

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  10. Chris says:
    January 4, 2005 at 9:13 pm

    Duh! Yes, sorry, of course it’s a typo. New Year cheer takes a long time to clear my system.

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