or How the Children’s BBC Website Channels the Anti-Globalisation Lobby. Inspired by a comments debate here I typed in the word “trade” into the search box of the Children’s BBC Newsround site and took a look at what I got. Some of the results referred to illegal trade in animals or animal skins. I excluded these from consideration – perhaps prematurely.
My first significant result was “How fair is international trade?” – a lesson plan on the CBBC website provided by Christian Aid.
That’s three issues for debate before we even start. A lesson plan from Christian Aid on the BBC. A right little tranzi love-nest. Excuse me, why are the BBC doing lesson plans anyway? I must have missed the widespread public consultation that preceded the decision that a portion of your license fee was best spent giving a state-subsidised body market share in the lesson plan business. Tough luck on anyone in the private sector who thought that there might be an honest penny to be made providing resources for teachers. Never mind, anyone who wants to make a profit from education is obviously evil and best kept far from our little ones. Why, they might start saying “on the other hand” and contumaciously adding counter-arguments to the lesson plans that Christian Aid provides. At least we can trust the BBC not to do that. I’ll come to what changes the BBC does make to Christian Aid material later. For now, just bear in mind that the lesson plan includes this sentence:
Such companies can provide work and enrich a country’s economy – or they can exploit the workers with low pay and destroy the environment.
OK, so what else does this Christian Aid lesson stamped with the BBC imprimatur plan actually teach? It starts with an “icebreaker”:
Ask the class:
What do we know about the fairness of rules?
What are the risks if powerful people make up the rules for trade? Prompt: Rig them in their own favour, they behave unfairly.
How can we make sure the rules of trade are fair? Prompt: Let everyone get involved in making them, have a referee.
An exceptionally independent-minded child might wonder if the “powerful people” who rig the rules in their own favour might include governments or the referees their club appoints – but as any observer of playground dynamics knows, most children are not independent minded.
On to the next one. Fair Trade chocolate. It’s OK: an account of a cocoa-growers’ association. Two and a quarter centuries of economic theory make the reference in the opening sentence to a “fair price” controversial. Maybe one day the BBC will hire someone who is aware of this.
Could trade replace aid? Another lesson plan, this time from the Fairtrade foundation. I don’t have any blanket opposition to people using that wonderful capitalist spur to ethical behaviour, the brand name, to enable bodies like the Fairtrade foundation to get advantageous terms for producers and let consumers buy a feelgood factor with their coffee. But is there any good reason why the BBC always publishes (or perhaps commissions?) lesson plans written by bodies like the Fairtrade foundation and never by free-market think tanks, or indeed multi-national companies?
This plan is basically the same format as the Christian Aid one: get the little bleeders to prepare for a career as bureaucrats by writing some Rules. Do not get them to discuss why they or anyone else should assume the right to write Rules governing voluntary exchange between other people. After a diversion into Marx’s Labour Theory of Value (“The producers will get a price that reflects their effort”) the plan goes on to finish with that old teacher’s standby, the quotable number. We are told that someone from CAFOD says “Poor countries currently lose £500bn a year in unfair trade.” I was amused by the care taken to source the unimportant part of the quote (which fellow-tranzi said it to whom) compared to the blithe unconcern about the important part (how the figure was calculated and whether it is true).
My next result was “How Fair is International Trade?” Good heavens, a lesson plan from Christian Aid! So good they named it twice. The one I mentioned earlier dates from March 2005. This one carries the date September 2004. My energy ran out before I could establish whether there were any minor changes of wording but I can confirm that the background is white rather than blue and the incomprehensible picture of papier maché puppets is placed at the top rather than to the right.
What is Fair Trade? This tells you what its supporters think fair trade is and says famous people like it.
“Make Trade Fair has celebrity supporters such as Coldplay’s Chris Martin and U2’s Bono.”
Or, as the Daily Ablution described him, “the philosophe and future Nobel Laureate” Chris Martin. Why the BBC failed to mention the “theologian/ethicist Thom Yorke of Radiohead” is a matter between the Board of Governors and Mr Yorke’s publicist.
This article also features external links to Fairtrade and Make Trade Fair. Naturally there are no external links to any group failing to toe the party line. Internal links take you to the other BBC articles in the series, called “What is the World Trade Organisation?”, “What are transnational corporations?” etc. I had a go at them in my earlier Fair Trade 4 Kidz post. Back then I raged that in all the four articles I linked to there was literally half a sentence (from the transnational corporations one) saying that trade might be a good thing, and that was instantly quashed in the closing clause. The sentence I was referring to was:
Such companies can provide work and enrich a country’s economy – or some say they can exploit the workers with low pay and destroy the environment.
Yes, that’s right. It’s exactly the same wording as the sentence from the Christian Aid lesson plan except that the BBC, stern upholder of impartiality, added the words “some say.” I would like to know who copied whom. Did Christian Aid copy the Beeb, as the dates suggest? Or did the BBC lift a standard Approved Phrase from the Christian Aid website? Either way, the BBC is too close to a political organisation.
OT – Does anyone else really struggle to read the comments here in a productive fashion?
Usually there’s some good debate, but without threading and hierarchy etc. it’s difficult to see who’s replying to whom, who’s starting off on a new thread etc.?
(Of course this should be a new thread, but there’s no-where to put it….)
A
Way to go, with another “serious” criticism of BBC bias. A post on another blogging snarkfest in which a bunch of midgets fight over bugger all, and end up making themselves look like schoolchildren.
It’s not a juicy morsel, it’s just another boring blog diatribe, ten a penny on second rate blogs, in which by some internet warrior with a really derivative name is oh-so-clever in the hope someone will notice him.
It’s frankly sad that you rejoice in your chum’s trolling – a sign that when Natalie lets go of the reins this blog the idiots take over the asylum. No doubt somewhere some dork is patting himself on the back because he got a namecheck off another blog. I’m sure the MSM media is quaking in their irrelevance.
[Disclosure: I’m not antagonised. I don’t work for the BBC. I don’t care about rottweilers or puppies.]
Oh spare us! Another Beeboid comes here to pen a long post about how he doesn’t really care, he’s not bothered, he’s not listening, TRAAALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
Hey – anyone know what the scientific term is for people driven insane by loss of media monopoly ?
Well, actually, it *is* quite rare for a Beeboid minion to counter-attack, and this is what Ed’s latching onto.
As for the notion that what’s going on here is ‘just another boring blog diatribe’, I’d suggest you actually *read* Rottweiler Puppy before making such remarks. We *don’t* hunt for hits, and we *don’t* engage in inter-blog snarkiness. Point of fact, this is the very first time we’ve criticised another blogger, and this was only because it’s important for people to grasp the extent of the BBC’s bias in puffing up only those blogs which are either neutral or hard-left.
Now, consider. The more influential U.S. blogosphere has taken some important heads (Rather, Jordan, Newsweek). If we Brits are ever going to get the scalp of a Hawley or Paxman, we need enough readers to generate the firepower to take out the more important Beeboid parasites.
Don’t you get this? At all? Then let me spell it out: The BBC are trying to generate interest in any and all sections of the New Media that *aren’t* a threat to them. This is why they puff-up poor, deranged Hammy. And why they ignore Biased BBC.
Anonymous, Re. your “Disclosure” – “[Disclosure: I’m not antagonised. I don’t work for the BBC. I don’t care about rottweilers or puppies.]”
Ed’s post congratulates RP for antagonising “the enemy” – and the enemy is in all intents and purposes the “elite” who support or practice extortion funded political bias in the BBC.
By assuming the role of “enemy” and thereby actively supporting the BBC’s political bias, you are in effect working for it; whether you receive monetary gain for doing so or not. This makes nonsense of your “disclosure” … and thus I can safely deduce that you, dear anonymous, live in a house packed to the rafters with well cared for rottweiler puppies ;p
calm down dear,its only a blog…
Biased BBC used to be a bit more than a blog. It used to be a well-reasoned, well-written critique of the BBC.
I’m not sure why it lost its way, but I suspect too many editors; or perhaps the editors have too little time. They’d be better off posting something substantive once a week than the stuff that’s been going up recently.
I used to be able to recommend Biased BBC to counter the still spurious claim that the BBC is somehow impartial. I wouldn’t anymore – the standard of writing is pure ammunition for the BBC and its apologists. Sorry.
A
Oh Ali, trying so hard to reduce the credibility of blogs – precisely in the manner of the BBC, as related by the Rottweiler Puppy.
Its so good of you to condescend to the level of Biased-BBC so that you can inspire them to be “more than a blog” once again!
Curious Garry’s star turn on the “telly” occurs the day after his big stick defence of the BBC in this site’s comments.
I don’t see a conspiracy, but I certainly don’t see mere coincidence.
Nice to know they’re looking in.
.
“They’d be better off posting something substantive once a week than the stuff that’s been going up recently.”
I don’t want to appear ungrateful – blogging takes more effort than commenting – but I have to agree with this.
A good clean knock-out blow once a week would generate more credibility than little ankle bites every day.
For example, Wednesday’s bit about “fair trade” is very good. The BBC should not have an institutional bias against free markets, and it certainly should not be brainwashing kids by feeding lesson plans to teachers.
But – Saturday – what do we really have against the BBC reporting hate broadcasts by the Palestinian authority. Reporting hate broadcasts doesn’t amount to endorsing them, and if it’s true that few people watch them, it’s not wrong to report that, either.
Bottom line: don’t take a “reds under every bed” approach and scratch around for tenuous signs of bias. Choose cases where any sensible reader would say “Yup, that’s bias, all right”.
I would agree that the ease and possibilities of posting on this site, and to locate threads and previous posts, as well as new ones, is not the best available. I realize that this site seems to have been primarily set up for a blog, and not a conference type forum. But judging from the various threads running through each main post, perhaps a different type forum would serve a lot better. Just for the hell of it I have set up somthing that could serve our purpose. If the folks here agree that it would work better than that here, I will happily turn it over to Natalie for her to administrate it.
Check out http://biasedbbc.proboards45.com/index.cgi
“a bunch of midgets fight over bugger all”
Great stuff, nice one!
Seeing how everyone here is talking about the bloggers, check this out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4603883.stm
“a bunch of midgets fight over bugger all”,
I dont suppose there`s a website or blog on earth to which that small shard of satire could not be directed, or as Jonathan Swift would have it…………..”Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own”
” Seeing how everyone here is talking about the bloggers, check this out:”
I spotted a very funny line in the story: “Despite overwhelming support for the constitution by the governments of both France and the Netherlands….”
I know both governments were for the constitution, but this makes it sound as if they get a vote. Or maybe there’s an opinion poll that concluded that one hundred percent of French Governments were in favour and zero percent opposed.
Reminded me of the Brecht crack that in case of a serious conflict between Party and People, the Party will have to elect itself a new People.
>calm down dear,its only a blog…
Alex you thief, I used that one a few weeks ago…
>I suspect too many editors
Editors? This isn’t a newspaper.
Sorry Scott, I hadn`t realised that, thought it was an original quip!
Many people use “quips” without realizing that they originally come from me. Professor Norman Fusty, editor of The Oxford Guide to English Wit, estimates that almost 20% of the best witticisms in the English language come from me. (Fusty also reckons that about 30% of the worst come from me as well, but his methodology is open to dispute in this case).
By ‘editors’ I meant those who are authorised to post new stories; I apolgise if I erred in my jargon.
The credibility of _this_ blog is what’s at issue for me, not blogging generally. Having (what appears to be) little quality control seriously diminishes B-BBC’s authority. It swings from really good critiques to silly ranting, not only diminishing the good stuff, but undermining the whole ‘project’ of highlighting bias at the Beeb. The Fair Trade piece was excellent, but it’s sandwiched between two really dreadful pieces.
If B-BBC simply wants to preach to the converted, fine – but to be a force for change, there needs to be better ‘editorial’ judgement.
A
It’s funny how many new people we have never seen before have suddenly shown up to gush about how much they **used** to like this blog, and how terribly **concerned** they are that it isn’t quite up to snuff anymore.
Very funny indeed.
OK, you choose whether a) I’m genuinely concerned, attempting to make reasoned criticism or b) it’s a CONSPIRACY!!!! I’m probably a BBC mole, but so brainwashed I don’t even know it!!!
You’re making my point for me.
A
I’m not new and I haven’t gushed about this blog. I’ve never loved it exactly, but it’s always been interesting to see what being written about.
It’s not the first time a commenter has noted the low quality of the posts.
The issue is more that for people who are interested in BBC bias, or who believe the BBC may be biased come looking here and, Natalie’s posts apart, find some half-baked conspiracy theories heavy on interpretation and light on context.
The comments section is similarly light on substance. It’s quite funny the way the same accusations, from the same people always come out: defenders are always moonbat beeboids, sent over from the BBC death star to tackle the plucky little blog exposing “the truth”. Such self-aggrandizing delusions are mildly amusing, but don’t lend themselves to any kind of information exchange.
Anonymous:
If B-BBC is so “lightweight” why do you bother to comment here? You’re not getting the quality “information exchange” you’re seeking so why not go elsewhere?
Because I disagree. What’s the point in commenting on something you already agree with, with people who all sing from the same song sheet?
Out of interest, given you receive a fraction of the BBC’s content, why does the BBC concern you so much that you comment daily?
Anonymous:
Because I disagree. What’s the point in commenting on something you already agree with, with people who all sing from the same song sheet?
First you imply that the criticisms here are trifling and absurd. So now you are saying that the criticisms here are not so trifling and absurd after all? Because otherwise, why would you condescend to refute trifling and absurd criticisms?
why does the BBC concern you so much that you comment daily?
Sorry, the last comment got cut off:
why does the BBC concern you so much that you comment daily?
I like it here. The Beeb is a target-rich opportunity for cheap amusement. What with the running commentary on Haw-Haw Hawley, Orla Bin Goering, Justin “Tangled” Webb and the rest of the crew, the entertainment value is hard to beat.
I said the criticisms were light on substance, not trifling or absurd.
The criticisms are light on substance and often tendentious or highly interpretative.
If light on substance = trifling, you’d have a point. But as it is, there is no inconsistency in debating a point where you believe someone to be highly selective, partial or plain wrong.
So – why does the BBC interest you so much when you don’t receive the bulk of it or pay for it?
Really I do think the criticisms here are a bit low, even if I do say so myself. More ‘crushing of dissent’, methinks.
The reason: this was a LINK POST, people. You’re meant to follow the link, and comment if it interests you, either at the link or here. Thinking that a post such as this one is a ‘poor post’ is absolutely irrelevant. What you mean is that you dislike the link- so say that and justify it (because no one has bothered to do that so far). I think PJF had it right, and R.P. were onto something.
If you dislike the tone of the post all I can say is that it was written with several things in mind- none of which were to do with the post per se, but with its chosen link. Once again I say, comment on THE LINK (and no, I don’t mean throwing around the ‘troll’ insult at someone who’s put in a fair amount of work to string coherent sentences about a subject he has also bothered to document.) I don’t think critics will be as enthusiastic in that task, somehow, as it might require a little thought.
I just noticed Anon’s recent post here. I would like to know how many bloggers consider it ‘trifling’ to be the centrepiece of a BBC story? I would also like to know what they imagine Glenn Reynolds would think if he just gave thirty thousand hits to a blog that had recently given him a ringing endorsement. If nothing else the Beeb story is naif and amateurish in its understanding of the medium if it doesn’t recognise that giving centre-stage to a firm supporter is really a no-no if you want to appear credible on a subject of importance, which is not to mention the extra responsiblity the Beeb carries with its public service code.
It’s absolutely proper to comment on the tone of Ed Thomas’ paragraph that is linking out: it gives the same impression as the Dr Who article, ie obsessional, slighly hysterical ranting, at odds with the good stuff on the site.
Look, I’m on your side, but I’d love to see B-BBC be a serious point of reference to counter the BBC’s ‘impartiality’, rather than just another sometimes-amusing right-wing blog.
I accept, of course, the choice is yours.
Ali Smak- as I thought I just pointed out, that was ‘my’ post I was just defending. The tone of the original in question was somewhat throwaway because if you might care to notice there are links to my own personal blog from the R.P. post linked (which predated the link from B-BBC). Additionally there was a link to this blog. The tone of the post was intended to allay the concerns of serious people that people like us just enjoy exchanging traffic- and I think serious people took that message.
Actually traffic is not that big a deal for me, but since the BBC article in question revolved around the issue of patting your own supporters on the back, it seemed foolish not to go for a humorous tone. What I feel is fairly consistent about B-BBC critics is that they have some specious idealism about what a blog like this is and can be, and that they seldom actually read the posts carefully, or follow the links responsibly before posting. DumbJon had it right at the beginning.
Why bother then in replying to unfair comments? Why the hell not anyway, on occasion.
“If we Brits are ever going to get the scalp of a Hawley or Paxman, we need enough readers to generate the firepower to take out the more important Beeboid parasites.”
This statement strikes at the heart of the problem with anti-BBC sites. It’s embarrassingly absurd and one of the reasons I tend to agree with anonymous and Ali Smak.
When female pundits on regional newspapers begin their columns with “We women…”, you know straight off the bat that you’re not in competent hands.
Nonetheless, “If we Brits are ever going to get the scalp of a Hawley or a Paxman…”
Who, exactly, wants Paxman’s scalp? Not me, and I loathe the BBC. Paxman is a mad dog that savages everything in its path, and he’s often entertaining. He’s also good on Uni Challenge. You can’t even begin to compare him to a pompous, braces-wearing liberal blowhard like Rather.
Raging at the presenters in this fashion ensures that any genuine powerbrokers who might feel inclined to visit these sites now and again, will write off both bloggers and their readers as an unholy mixture of dim-witted Billy Britains and Dr Who-loving cranks.
And Rotty Pup, ask yourself. How has the American blogoshphere brought down those msm figures? Easy. There’s more US bloggers, the quality of their content is consistently high and the bloated American liberal media balloon only really needed someone with a pin.
The difference between here and the US is that Fleet St offers a daily menu of the best journalism in the world. The right-of-centre is more than adequately covered by the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Times. The journalists there are competent and keep watchful eyes on the BBC.
In the US, right-ish opinion has been largely confined to the letters section.
Meanwhile, back in Gotham, the Beeb plopughs on; the jobs of 29,000 state-sponsored liberals safe for another year after a couple of tame days of disgraceful industrial action. But wait, Dr Who’s got a story about kids in the blitz, with DISTURBING MARXIST OVERTONES!!!
Quick, Natalie, Rotty Pup, Andrew, et al., To the blogpole!!!!
So – why does the BBC interest you so much when you don’t receive the bulk of it or pay for it?
I just told you. I like laughing at it. Its firm belief in itself as The Moral Bulwark of All That Is Good and Great and Proper In the World makes the Beeb a huge target for criticism, satire and ridicule. I like criticism, satire and ridicule. And Brits tend to do them lots better than Americans.
Ali Smak wrote:
>>I used to be able to recommend Biased BBC to counter the still spurious claim that the BBC is somehow impartial. I wouldn’t anymore – the standard of writing is pure ammunition for the BBC and its apologists. Sorry.
Anon wrote:
>>29,000 state-sponsored liberals safe for another year after a couple of tame days of disgraceful industrial action. But wait, Dr Who’s got a story about kids in the blitz, with DISTURBING MARXIST OVERTONES!!!
Quick, Natalie, Rotty Pup, Andrew, et al., To the blogpole!!!!
Ali Smak wrote:
“I used to be able to recommend Biased BBC to counter the still spurious claim that the BBC is somehow impartial. I wouldn’t anymore – the standard of writing is pure ammunition for the BBC and its apologists. Sorry”
Weird, what happened to the rest of this above? Well, a quick reprise:
Natalie Solent is a national treasure and shows how it should be done: Forensic, reasoned, measured dissection of BBC bias – and she writes like a dream.
It really is important not to overstate the case and get carried away with our emotions when exposing BBC bias. This is a critical cause in the defence of democracy that demands we are all at our best.
NB: I changed these >> for these “” in quoting the above and this time it worked.
Sorry, same snafu with the previous …
Anon wrote.
“29,000 state-sponsored liberals safe for another year after a couple of tame days of disgraceful industrial action. But wait, Dr Who’s got a story about kids in the blitz, with DISTURBING MARXIST OVERTONES!!!
Quick, Natalie, Rotty Pup, Andrew, et al., To the blogpole!!!!”
Anon, do you think your own criticisms might apply to yourself?
One of Goebbels favoured methods of propaganda was to produce a Coronation type series for the cinema with the odd bit of anti-semitism thrown in here and there to subtley make it seem normal and soften up the German people for what lay in store for the Jews.
Much BBC bias is subtle, and they have been getting away with so much for so long that it has steadily becoming less and less so.
Let’s not have such a dearly loved series such as Dr Who go the same way as The Archers – or for that matter be what ‘Eastenders’ was from the very beginning.
Indeed, Hal. Let’s just try transfering the Beeb’s bias from politics to race – let’s see if that is silly ranting.
The Doctor could end the Blitz episode by reminding Londoners to ‘keep the black out’, episodes set in the future could feature alien immigrants who seek to invade the Earth while an episode set in the present day could feature an alien cult which seeks to intimidate humans by flying UFOs into tall buildings.
You might say this is outrageous racist nonsence, but this is just a recasting of preexisting Dr Who episodes to take a racist line rather than a Liberal line. If you claim my new episodes are prejudiced then it follows that the originals were as well, but it was a prejudice you agreed with.
Speaking for myself, I agree Sci-Fi can address important issues in ways most other fiction cannot, but if that’s your bag don’t try and sell us on the idea that you’re merely making kid’s stories. Admit you’re pursuing a political line and don’t be surprised if some of us wonder exactly why we’re paying for partisan political nonsense.
This thread started with the BBC’s link to: http://bsscworld.blogspot.com/ so I thought I’d return to hamsterworld to see what the sudden fame & fortune of being ‘discovered’ by Aunty does to the up & coming blogger. With a reported 2000 hits on the site in the 7 hours after Weblog Watch revealed this new forum for informed debate, was the rodent’s realm going to be innundated with pithy comment?
Well actually no.
I did a quick analysis of posts to the site back to 26May and found a total of 72. Not bad for someone nobody’s heard of before.
I then looked at times of posting and divided the posts between those that were made before WW published it’s exclusive and those after.
Result.
Almost exactly evens. No increase.
Of course if you persevere with the tedious task of actually reading them you begin to understand why.
A large percentage are one liners informing [deleted] Garry what a clever boy he is. Fourteen are from the furry one posting on his own site which does raise the tiniest smidgen of suspicion that some of the above might be of doubtful provenence. Ten are from a mum in Arizona who’s homepage shows a laudable obsession with breastfeeding her infant and her webfriends comments on her baby photos….
Look, I don’t want to be unkind here but this is a kid’s web log. It’s remarkably well written and presented but it’s a zero compared to some of the sites I’ve been linked to from this one.
So I went back to the BBC story and followed the link to the other site they puffed: http://hollywoodlog.typepad.com/nickerblog/ which is a great place to go if you’ve a fettish for brightly coloured bits of plasic or Cameron Diaz.
I quote from the original article: “This week, we’ve got two examples of great blog posts that have got themselves some decent linkage and nice writing without the hassles and perks of doing it for a day job.”
Is this the best they can do? What links apart from the BBC one that started all this? Are we to believe that with the millions that the Corporation lavishes on its website this is the depth of its journalistic talent?
The BBC piece commences with the words: “Critics claim blogs have nothing to say. Weblog Watch aims to find evidence to the contrary”. If that’s the stated aim of the BBC then if you ever see one of their journalists with a gun the safest place to stand would be right in front of him.
No, I think the game the Beeb has played here has been remarkably subtle. Anyone interested in blogging is confronted with two links that take you to world of abject tedium comforting only to the sort of syncophant who would correcty guess that a blog calling itself “I Believe in the BBC” wasn’t an exercise in cynicism.
There is however a third link in the article which leads the follower to the gritty realism of a Guardian reading Iraqi reporting from the wartorn streets of American occupied Baghdad: http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/ a venue that will be familiar to many of us.
And the message becomes plain. Blogs may be for vacuous US actors or well meaning lefty UK students. But they also bring us the voice of the the oppressed from beneath the boot-heel of western imperialism.
Happy blogging comrades.
Edited By Siteowner
OT:
Perhaps this is the place to mention that biased-bbc got a mention in the Wall Street Journal online: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006778.
Sorry folks, I don’t remember how to make a link.
Oh! It linked by itself. Handy feature for us computer impaired types 😀
What’s this. You guys are still speaking about me? I’m flattered, really.
I wonder if I could just add a fact into this little debate.
Have a look here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4613799.stm
Is that a link to Daily Pundit I see there on that BBC page which only promotes left-wing and neutral blogs?
Why I do believe it is.
I’ll be back in a week or so to see if you’re still speaking about me. ;o)