The Daily Express gets with the Biased BBC program, only much later than the rest of the blogosphere — this was their main front-page headline today:
FURY OVER BBC’s BIAS TO MUSLIMS
They pack TV terror debate with anti-British audience
by Martin Evans
BBC bosses faced a furious backlash last night after they were forced to admit that they packed a TV terror debate with Muslims.
Angry viewers complained that the programme was anti-British and failed to offer a a balanced view of the danger posed by Islamic extremists.
They were incensed that the opinions and feelings of the victims of the London bombings, which claimed 52 innocent lives and left 700 injured, were not given enough airtime in BBC1’s Questions of Security.
Instead, the “news special” which was watched by millions, was dominated by militant factions in the audience who were heavily critical of the police and security services.
BBC bosses admitted they deliberately set out to give Muslims a louder voice in the debate hosted by Huw Edwards.
One irate viewer told the BBC “I felt that the audience for this programme was not reprasentative of the British public.
“What methodology was used to recruit the audience? And why were the views and concerns of the victims of the bombings, as well as the public and commuters, so down-played?”
Another added: “I did not pay my license fee to watch an unrepresentative Muslim audience like this.”
Despite Muslims making up only 2.7 per cent of Britain’s population, 15 per cent of the audience were from the Islamic community…
(No link, I’m afraid).
Thank you for posting about this Scott – I wonder if the BBC covered the Daily Express front page in their Breakfast news coverage and in BBC News Online’s Front Pages and their online newspaper round-up?
Even though I’ve tried hard (through Google, other caches and the BBC’s own search engine), I only seem to be able to track down links for Wednesday and Friday. Can anyone out there provide a link for Thursday’s News Online newspaper round-up please?
Perhaps the proportion of Muslims in the audience reflected a desire within large sections of the public (not many people who visit this site, obviously) to understand more about some extreme sections of the Muslim community and what their grievances are?
Know thy enemy?
Knowing the enemy is one thing. Promoting them is another.
Where are the Muslims by the way who actually like England? Whynot represent them?
The final thing is that I could understand people on the far left admiring Communism, because on paper it does preach tolerance. But flacking for extremists who would kill the very things the leftists claim to be for – religious freedom, womens’ rights, tolerance for sexual preference, the arts, freedom of speech, etc. – it is just insane that anyone who supposedly is for those things should be sympathetic to these murderers.
I agree.
But surely the best way to make people see the truth of their hateful, despicable ideology is to actually show people how reprehensible it is.
That means giving them a forum to air their views. I don’t see that as `promoting` anything. I see it as freedom of speech.
I personally would advocate all extremists being given this chance on the BBC – the BNP included. Perhaps the BBC should do that on the next Question Time, I suspect that might placate people on here for a few moments at least.
All hearing extremists does for me is stiffen my resolve to oppose them.
The entire Question Time argument for me is just another spurious way for the Express to attack the beeb for having the audacity to not censor free speech.
It was obvious that this particular Question Time would be centred around Islamic extremism. Now, if the proportion of the audience that were Muslim matched the proportion of the British population that is Muslim, does no-one see that a debate on the role of Muslims in society would be less successful?
It’s like trying to let footballers air their views on the status of the game, then only inviting the proportion of the country who are footballer’s into the studio to actually join the debate.
Of course, the Express and Biased BBC don’t want extreme Muslims to be part of any debate anyway, which is the real issue. While purporting to fight a war against those whose despise freedom of speech and democracy…
“Despite Muslims making up only 2.7 per cent of Britain’s population, 15 per cent of the audience were from the Islamic community”
And what proportion of LONDON’s population (you know, the city was attacked) is from the Islamic community?
Strange how Biased Biased BBC doesn’t consider that.
It’s a fair point Pumpkinsboy.
I watched the programme and didn’t feel as incensed as I had expected to based on the Express article and knowing the imbalance of audience participation. Largely because of the panel involved. It would have been a very different matter if they would have had Galloway, or someone of his ilk, on the panel
Pumpkinsboy: “Perhaps the proportion of Muslims in the audience reflected a desire within large sections of the public (not many people who visit this site, obviously) to understand more about some extreme sections of the Muslim community and what their grievances are? Know thy enemy?”
Tosh Pumpkinsboy – I’m all for the BBC exposing extremism to the wider world, so that we can be better informed and able to handle it. The point here is that the BBC stacked out a hand-picked audience with more than five times as many Muslims as a proportion of the population, and:
1) they weren’t honest about this at the beginning of the programme – with Question Time masquerading as the great British public asking questions of its leaders, rather than being deliberately stacked;
2) the Muslims in question seemed rather unrepresentative of British Muslims generally – where did the BBC get/find them?
3) as Teddy Bear says, if the panel had been less sensible than it was, this would have been another shameful damaging unrepresentative Question Time, just like the post 9/11 Question Time edition was.
The BBC had a lucky escape. The researchers set up the muslim+ stacked audience. If Galloway had been on the panel talking about Kalashnikovs and RPGs and the of ‘raping’ muslim daughters it could have easily been a repeat of the 9/11 disgrace.
I would have more respect for the BBC if they had ‘come clean’ about the make-up of the audience up front. The fact that they didn’t leads me to the conclusion that this was a cynical and sinister plan to completely control the message that the BBC thinks we need to hear.
And to think we’re hearing today about how the communists in China have plans to tighten control of the messages their media give to the Chinese public. It’s sad that the BBC are our very own Chinese ‘thought police’.
I would have more respect for the BBC if they had ‘come clean’ about the make-up of the audience up front. I’m still waiting for the BBC to come clean about it’s role in Saddam’s Iraq. Either they were under the same restrictions as CNN, who eventually admitted forced bias in order to go on operating there, or they were doing it willingly.
I actually believe the latter.
Speaking of Muslims … There was mention of the Arab mob that beat to death a Jewish terrorist who murdered four Israeli Arabs on a bus. Although all in Israel agree that the terrorist was slime, the bbc did not mention that he had been subdued and handcuffed before he was killed by the mob. HOW WOULD THE BBC HAVE REPORTED THE STORY IF AN ISRAELI MOB HAD BEATEN AN ARAB MURDERER TO DEATH?
No prizes for the correct answer!