has a good example of BBC think:
Abroad Again in Britain
BBC2 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Salisbury Cathedral
Salisbury Cathedral boasts the highest spire in Britain. Jonathan Meades, who was raised in its shadow, returns to one of the country’s finest medieval buildings. He wonders how an atheist can love a building dedicated to the propagation of medieval superstitions and fears.
Can you imagine that last sentence being used to refer to, say, a mosque or a temple or a synagogue? No, me neither.
If BBC Online had existed in 1943, here’s what it would be posting:
“Hitler is a talented watercolorist, a tender-hearted vegetarian who can’t stand the thought of killing animals, an afficionado of Wagnerian opera, and a lover of small children. Read a sample of his sensitive meanderings about animal rights, opera and vegetarianism, and view some of his exquisite watercolors here.”
PS — I wonder how much time the BBC has for the poetry stylings and opinions of English literature from the family members of the 11 people killed in the 1995 Metro attack.
Well I think its disgraceful a country like France cant be trusted to handle these terroists.We should treat them like Turkey,and not let them into the EU.
susan said: If BBC Online had existed in 1943, here’s what it would be posting:
Susan
The BBC did exist in 1943. and 1944, when it signalled the beginning of D-Day.
And in 1940, when America wasn’t in the war. And all the way through it in fact.
You might not agree with what the BBC is doing now, but please remember that people in Nazi occupied territory were sent to prison camps for the ‘crime’ of listening to the BBC and it was a vital party in co-ordinating resistance against the Nazis.
I’m sure you’ll pull something or other from my post, but is it too much to suggest that you don’t fantasise about what the BBC might have said when moddle-coddling Hitler, when it fact it consistently said the opposite?
steve jones,
Of course I know that the Beeb existed in 1943. But I understand it was quite a different organization then than it is now. Hence my sarcastice parody of applying current BBC values to the 1940s. . .Oh, what’s the use?
And you Brits say us Yanks are “irony-challenged!”
PS You could have noted I specifically posted “BBC Online”. Did the Internet exist in 1943?
> And you Brits say us Yanks are
> “irony-challenged!”
Suggesting that the BBC would have given comfort to the Nazis in World War Two because you disagree with the current political line of the BBC is an insult to every member of the resistance and war against the Nazis. Because you don’t like some of the BBC’s views on a current war you suggest it would have been/ was a Nazi collaborator in World War Two.
To compare the two is obscene and absurd.
Susan. An excellent post.
Steve – I think you miss the point. You are right, the old BBC that was loyal, patriotic and ‘British’, behaved as a ‘national’ broadcaster during WW2, supporting the British people during a horrific war against a sadistic, relentless enemy.
If the current BBC folks were running the show back at the time of WW2, you would most certainly be hearing shameful articles about Hitler and SS Officers, in the same was that the BBC are glorifying “Mr Ramda’s many fine qualities”.
Can you imagine this headline in 1943:
British Navy stops listening to BBC due to bias in favour of Hitler ?
No, of course not.
Fast forward to 2003.
The Guardian:
HMS Ark Royal switches off BBC
http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,932307,00.html (registration req’d)
Military leaders have axed the BBC from the nation’s flagship amid claims of pro-Iraqi bias.
The navy has switched off rolling news channel News 24 aboard HMS Ark Royal following weeks of grumbling from the crew.
Sailors on the Portsmouth-based aircraft carrier currently in the Gulf have become increasingly disenchanted with the BBC’s slant on the war.
Ark Royal is one of a handful of taskforce ships to receive live TV directly from Britain.
Rolling news and two entertainment channels are beamed into the warship as part of the navy’s efforts to improve the crew’s creature comforts.
The sailors appreciate being kept in touch with home and world events but officers and ratings alike have been angered by the BBC’s coverage of the war to date.
A BBC correspondent has been on board the flagship. The crew has no gripe with his reports but they were particularly incensed by remarks presenters and commentators made about the carrier’s Sea King tragedy a fortnight ago, when the BBC suggested poor levels of maintenance played a hand in the deaths of seven troops.
Sailors also believe the BBC places more faith in Iraqi reports than information coming from British or coalition sources.
“The BBC always takes the Iraqis’ side,” one senior rating complained.
“It reports what they say as gospel but when it comes to us it questions and doubts everything the British and Americans are reporting. A lot of people on board are very unhappy.”
Ark Royal switched off News 24 on Sunday, replacing it with rival Sky News.
(and that’s not from a Murdoch paper.)
What on earth is the BBC for and why am I forced to pay for it?
steve jones,
No it’s not. The contrast between the 1940’s Bbc and todays !bBC is scary.
After she says it’s irony he still doesn’t get it! To explain Steve the BBC is not the BBC of 1943 or even of 1963! It has been taken over by the politically correct and has consistently over the past few years bent so far over backwards to be even handed that it has now evolved into an apologist for every form of evil on the planet – its problem with the “t” word just a symptom of this.
Susan’s comments are well made since in its present hands even Hitler would be made to sound like a misunderstood saint. The mere fact that it finds time to give a suspected terrorist air time in this manner is indicative of this unfortunate change in its ethos – this is not in any way to denigrate the wonderful job it did in World War II in bringing hope to the peoples of occupied Europe.
Steve Jones
Feel free to come back and respond to the piece Miam posted.
Pete – respond to a 2 year old news report? Sure.
Troops/ bloggers getting cross at media coverage of a current war does not equal collaboration with the Nazis in World War Two. To suggest so is bizarre.
Happy?
I have seen it stated that during most of the 1930’s Churchill said that he was not given the opportunity to broadcast on the BBC. He was classified by some as being a “warmonger”. Churchill complained of his being ignored by Auntie (she who thinks she knows best).
During the Falklands war it was mentioned on a television programme that the reason why the enemy bombs were not exploding was because they were being dropped from the wrong height. I seem to recall that shortly after this very helpful programme some of our ships went west. Can anyone recall which channel made that very helpful programme? (irony, steve, irony)
nope, not irony, just sarcasm
steve jones,
Never mind. My weak attempt at trying to reach the irony-challenged is hereby withdrawn 🙂
Suggesting that the BBC would have given comfort to the Nazis in World War Two because you disagree with the current political line of the BBC is an insult to every member of the resistance and war against the Nazis.
Well that doesn’t follow. If we forget Susan was making an analogy the BBC was actually quite positive about the Nazis before the war (as were many Brits).
The actual issue is why the BBC (and others) are humanising a murdering terrorist.
Key messaging alert:
BBC inserts gratiutous key message — US foreign policy bad — in, of all things, an article about the Discovery space shuttle launch:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4718347.stm
“Right now, we’re seeing a lot of concern over US export control regulations and a lot of low opinions of US foreign policy. We’re seeing the Europeans, the Chinese and the Russians co-operating in many spheres,” said Dr Sadeh.”
Key messaging folks, always the key messaging!
Steve Jones
Troops/ bloggers getting cross at media coverage of a current war …
Getting cross? And why do you think that is? The crew of our flagship blocked the BBC’s signal because it was batting for the other side, and yes, if TODAY’S BBC were around in 1939 they most certainly would have done their best to undermine the nation’s spirit, morale and war effort.
steve jones is either trolling or, well, a bit dim. Either way best to ignore.
Hats off to Sue !
Troops/ bloggers getting cross at media coverage of a current war does not equal collaboration with the Nazis in World War Two. To suggest so is bizarre.
Happy?
steve jones | 26.07.05 – 9:56 pm | #
I don’t know what sort of mind fails to see the implications of this event, but perhaps one challenged by more than simple ‘irony’. This is not ‘media coverage’ this is THE MEDIA OUTLET, supported by payment, under threat of prison or heavy fine for failure to do so, of most every citizen of this country. THE MEDIA OUTLET that is supposed to represent the values and objectives of the society that pays for it, yet the soldiers fighting for our society WANT IT SHUT OFF
What don’t you understand, or shall we try to spell it out better for you?
“…but please remember that people in Nazi occupied territory were sent to prison camps for the ‘crime’ of listening to the BBC…”
And here we are in 2005, sixty years later and a whole other century; and Britons in Britain are sent to prison for the crime of ‘listening’ to not only the BBC, but any other channel without paying for permission from the state. Isn’t freedom wonderful!
And yes, Lord Reith, the hero of deluded idiots who think there was a golden age of the BBC, was an admirer of the Nazis – and conspired with Chamberlain to keep Churchill off the airwaves with all his silly warnings of approaching war.
.
(D)HYS:
– In vowing to ‘fight them on the beaches’ is Churchill a warmonger?
– Is RAF’s anti-Lufwaffe policy justified?
– Germans: are you afraid of being under suspicion?
– Pearl Harbour: what are the root causes?
Axis fighters: is the government right to intern them without trial?
Well said Susan and Rob Read.
Is conscientious objection to paying the licence fee permitted under UK law?
Would one qualify for Legal Aid?
Would the BBC cover such a challenge?
PL:
FDR: Member of the international Jewish banking conspiracy?
Lord Haw Haw: Traitor or misunderstood victim?
Eisenhower: Will his affair with female British army officer damage crucial Allied relationship?
etc., etc.,
In “Van Gogh killer jailed for life” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4716909.stm) the BBC fails to mention that not only mosques “were the targets of vandalism and failed arson attempts” but also churches were targeted in retaliation by muslims… I wonder why they didn’t mention that.
Rob Read Reader
It’s a “breach of human rights” to have to pay the license fee!
Hate to tell you, Steve, but Lord Reith was a well-known admirer of Hitler’s in the 1930s.
I meant to add that it’s especially a breach of human rights to be threatened with arrest for not paying for something you didn’t want in the first place. I hear the liberals using the phrase “breach of human rights” for everything all the time. Why not give them a taste of their own medicine?
Pete and Susan on (D)HYS:
I’d be willing to bet that’s exactly how the reporting would’ve sounded back then with the current BBC.
According to the logic I’ve seen in a few posts here, taxation is a crime. Most sensible people would beg to differ.
But surely this is a simple matter. Hitler had just invaded another country and was in the process of invading more. UK, Canadian, Indian, Australian, French, and other forces had little choice on any basis but to declare a war nobody wanted. I would not have expected the BBC to be sceptical at the time, and it wasn’t.
In the first Gulf War a similar story was played out on a much smaller scale in the case of Iraq/Kuwait. The international outcry was smaller because the country that invades is commonly viewed as “the bad guy”. Internaional public opinion wasn’t highly sceptical as it is today, and neither was the BBC.
The BBC’s coverage today reflects international public opinion, that invading Iraq because of numerous scare stories about weapons, imminent attack, etc., goes against informed geopolitical reasoning.
BBC Fan:
should the BBC be reflecting opinion in it’s news coverage or should it be reporting facts and letting people make their own judgements?
“According to the logic I’ve seen in a few posts here, taxation is a crime.”
No, that’s just your ignorance getting in the way. The television licence isn’t a tax – it’s a licence; it is specifically a legal permission to install and use television reception equipment.
The imposition of this licence fee for the reception of information almost certainly does breach the European Convention of Human Rights, but our UK courts seem amazingly resistant to finding out…
.
I think the BBC’s role should be to inform with the facts.
I do not think the BBC should necessarily reflect international opinion. If it were to reflect opinion then surley it should be that of the constituency which pays for it.
because the country that invades is commonly viewed as “the bad guy”.
With the exception of Argentina? The BBC thought it somehow improper to target the enemy’s largest warship.
Yep, the old BBC was a completely different animal.
BBC used MI5 to vet pacifist staff
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/36/36191_bbc_used_mi5_to_vet_pacifist_staff.html
In the 1930s, Mi5 were on hand to vet BBC staff to ensure the national broadcaster was not turned into a mouthpiece for the subversives.
“The MI5 files contain intriguing references to one “William Farrie, whose broadcast had to be stopped” and later, during wartime, to an electrician who was “very left-wing in his views and is defeatist and unpatriotic”.
Maybe time to re-instate the Mi5 vetting policy?
slightly morer informative article in Guardian, same subject
BBC used MI5 to vet pacifist staff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,593137,00.html
Employees with communist or fascist sympathies were initially targeted but from the onset of the second world war BBC management tried to terminate the jobs of those with “pacifist or defeatist views”.
There they go again, telling us about the wonderful, peace-loving Muslims and their religion of helping little old ladies cross the road.
VIEWS FROM INSIDE ISLAM’S SCHOOLS
Five young Muslims attending madrassas in Pakistan and Kashmir spoke to BBC Urdu Interactive about studying in the religious institutions and how they compare to secular education.
And would you believe it, they’re all good boys. One however, does need to follow events a little more closely:
I do not support the terrorist attacks. Just take the example of Guantanamo Bay. A few copies of the Koran were put in the toilet. I think desecration of any holy book whether it is of Christians, Jews or Muslims is an act to be greatly condemned. – SHAKIRUR RAHMAN, Daraul Uloom-e-Islamia Hunfia, Peshawar
I assume he means by US guards at Gitmo. Not true. Newsweek did retract its story that guards had desecrated bundles of paper with writing on them but not until scores had been killed in Muslim riots. We know that Muslims themselves have desecrated the Koran in Gitmo, a number of them having torn them up and put them down toilets. Maybe the BBC needs to inform people of this.
By the way, if you want to make a complaint about the obscene BBC “Letters from Belmarsh” ‘terrorist’ edition:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?FILENAME=20050728/20050728_2000_49700_24257_30
that will be aired Thursday at 8pm on R4, you can do so online here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
What is it with the left, the BBC, and their humanising of terrorists and acts of terror?
The day the BBC splashes and keeps repeating that the Newsweek story about Koran abuse was a fabrication is the day I say steve jones is not blind to bias. Their coverge helped fuel the madness that led to the bombings.
Lord Reith detested Churchill and admired Hitler. He blocked Churchill from broadcasting warnings about the extent of German rearmament and its militaristc intentions, when the BBC was the only broadcaster.
That is the best proof of all that the BBC CAN be biased.
Reith ws great man, very clever, but he had a fatal flaw. He did not recognise the evil at the heart of fascism. And many of today’s presenters, reporters, editors and other news staff have refused to research or recognise the evil that is Islamofascism. The deadly evil in our midst, for which they still allow apologies or spurious justifications. The BBC has been the main platform for the “real causes” brigade. Its imbalance is as bad as the Guardian. As mch sense of balance as a drunken sailor.
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=753
The Telegraph carries an interesting survey of opinion of Britishness nd lso on reltions with Islam. There are differences of view, of course, but one can sense a kind of “central view” plus significant threads of opinion that are counter to this central view.
The BBC has 2 huge problems. Its “central view” is way out of step with the British people. And it then blocks or mocks the expression of that central view of the British people – the people who pay for it.
The Guardin has a circulation of a miserable 300,000 and falling. But the BBC mindset is the Guardian mindset. Totally unrepresentative of us plebs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/27/nbrit27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/27/ixnewstop.html
“Suggesting that the BBC would have given comfort to the Nazis in World War Two because you disagree with the current political line of the BBC is an insult to every member of the resistance and war against the Nazis.”
Given that today’s BBC is an extremist leftist institution, whose complete acceptance of ideological multiculturalism has led it to relentlessly propagandize on behalf of Islamic supremacists for the last four years, it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that this same BBC might have appeased German supremacists back during WWII.
In fact, given that the BBC’s jihad-whitewashing gives aid and comfort to our enemies at a time in which they are engaged in a self-declared war against us (as opposed to 1930s style appeasement, which was aimed, however naively, at forestalling conflict), ‘collaborators’ rather than ‘appeasers’ would probably be the more appropriate term.
At his monthly press conference Blair was vehement in condemning those who suggest that Iraq in any way justifies the London bombings. And by implication he was attacking those who give a platform to this false argument, whichh the BBC has been doing day in, day out.
The BBC’s report on Blair’s monthly press briefing is on the link below. A VIDEO CLIP of a snippet of it is linked at the right hand top corner of this page.
The page that then pops up plays an excerpt of Blair in RealPlayer. AND at the right hand side of that page you can connect to the video of the entire press briefing. Time and time again, weaselly hacks were trying to trip him, and he really spat back at them. Very fierce stuff, for over an hour.
Maybe Blair started off being hacked off that the BBC refused to call the London bombings terrorism, and then went far too far by excising all mentions of the T word from his 11 July Commons statement ?
I think he first toughened his line a few days later, speaking to a Labour conference. His speech that day seemed to be pure Norman Geras, attacking the “real causes” brigade.
But you will notice that the popup page links to another clip. A report by Frank Gardner at the BBC. Who yet again gives a platform to the notion that the daily suicide bombings in Iraq are Muslim against Muslim BUT – the weaselly BUT – it is all Blair’s fault originally. And it is noticeable tht Gardner describes the suicide-bomb murderers as insurgents, not as terrorists. Yet he knows damn well that they are not Iraqi, so they cannot be insurgents under any normal meaning of that word.
So here comes my big BUT – I have seen it claimed that Frank Gardner is himself a Muslim. And you COULD use the word “insurgent” if you are talking of the Ummah rather than the nation-state of Israel. Is Gardner using it in tht sense ? We surely have the right to know where he is coming from – just as in the Aslam case at the Guardian.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4716505.stm#
Seen on SkyNews, don’t know if also on News24, a street press conference with Muslim bigwigs in Birmingham.
Birmingham’s grand mufti could have just come out with some cliches criticising bombers & our unity of purpose.
But no he has to come out with the big buts.
Encouraged by the BBC et al line, he just had to tell us that Hutton & Butler were stooges & therefore no justice in the UK. As Blair is a liar then he can see some Muslims justifying terrorism. He did not accept that 7/7 bombers were necessarily Muslim.
The BBC & other lefty media are doing people like him no favours. He doesn’t realise that he has missed a good opportunity to shut up.
Can you imagine this headline in 1943:
British Navy stops listening to BBC due to bias in favour of Hitler ?
No, of course not.
Fast forward to 2003 – and it still isn’t true. Hey, but corrections are for pacifist, beardy weirdy pussies.
The Guardian:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,933025,00.html
“The BBC has dismissed claims that its news channel, News 24, has been banned from a Royal Navy aircraft carrier in the Gulf because the crew felt it was too pro-Iraqi.
News 24 was available aboard HMS Ark Royal for an 80-day exclusive period, then the crew sampled rival channel Sky News but had now gone back to the BBC service, according to a BBC spokesman.
“We think it is great that they have this choice. They apparently sampled Sky for a while and have now returned to News 24,” he said.”
OT? maybe not..
ponder this beeboids, almost completely ignorant of the Middle East as you are:
Violence has been an integral part of Muslim history, irrespective of whether it is sanctioned by Islam, and Muslims who unhesitatingly use violence to advance their political ambitions have created a climate within their faith-culture that any Muslim who questions such practice is then deemed apostate and subject to harm.
Jil
I have no idea if Frank “Help me, I’m a Muslim” Gardner is indeed a muslim but I say let’s take him at his word. It wouldn’t do to accuse a BBC journalist of dishonesty. A little more on him appears in this comment here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002149.php#c22420
David Frum, as usual, puts it succinctly. His latest piece is here (“Publicists for Jihad”):
http://www.davidfrum.com/archive.asp?YEAR=2005
Talking of the media in general:
But for the often embittered, often underemployed second-generation Muslims of Leeds, Roderdam or Milan, Iraq is not a place. It is a metaphor for their own local resentment. When Westerners like the mayor of London pin the blame for everything wrong in the Middle East on some alleged Western betrayal 80 years ago, or pile accusations against President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, they do not appease the angry people in their midst: They embolden them.
Oh how could I forget? Christopher Hitchens (“boo … hiss … splitter!” – pipe down john b) surely speaks the truth in the face of the ‘it’s all our fault brigade’:
http://www.slate.com/id/2122395/
Why did Saddam Hussein, that great lion of the Arab and Muslim world, denounce the American bombing of the Muslim-killing Milosevic? Why did Qaddafi do the same? For the very same reason that Christian fascists in Serbia now denounce the intervention in Iraq: They know that the main foe is the United States and that this fact transcends all the others. There has been a great deal of nonsense published in the last week to the effect that an alliance with the United States can put other countries like Britain in the position of being “targeted.” Why deny this? I reflect on what was not done at Srebrenica, and on what ought to have been done in Rwanda, and on what was put off too long with the Taliban and the Baathists, and I think what an honor it is to have such enemies. Co-existence with them is not possible, which is good, because it is not desirable or tolerable, either.
Pete
Thanks for those links. I did not know Frank Gardner has a lot of “form”. I started off simply being disturbed by apologist reporting recently, skewing the news with weasel words.
Violence has been an integral part of Christian history, irrespective of whether it is sanctioned by the bible, and Christians who unhesitatingly use violence to advance their political ambitions have created a climate within their faith-culture that any Christian who questions such practice is subject to harm
cf Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, witchhunts, sectarian violence in NI.
And for the record, Lyle’s BNP-lite diatribe and my parody are both utter nonsense.