, Tony Blair said the BBC’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina was “full of hatred of America.”
Tony Blair wasn’t the only critic. This article from the Financial Times says:
Bill Clinton, the former US president, and Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation, also criticised the tone of the BBC’s coverage during a seminar on the media at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York.
Sir Howard Stringer is also a former head of CBS news.
Mr Clinton said the corporation’s coverage had been “stacked up” to criticise the federal government’s slow response.
Even if we add a pinch of salt to the views of Mr Murdoch, a commercial rival to the BBC, here we have the Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the former Democratic President of the United States, not to mention the former head of a media organisation that has itself been heavily criticised for liberal bias, all criticising the BBC. They may have spoken more freely because they were at a semi-private gathering.
The coverage was so bad that these comments from Clinton, Blair and Stringer don’t surprise me, really. If we are talking about bias, then others are too. The stuff from Wells and Frei on the hurricane was beyond the pale.
the fact that the prime minister has confirmed that the bbc has shown “hatred for america” in its katerina reports is an important victory for this site.
it may be the best news we have had for a while.
now will the bbc defend itself or ignore what does not suit it?
also do not forget that an independent panel formed by the governors of the bbc had said that the organisation has shown “ignorance and stereotyping” in its reporting on europe.
And will the Beeb be reporting these criticisms?
Er…thought not.
That was my comment above. Sorry, I didn’t intend to be anonymous.
Not only will these reports be heard? will action be taken to (a) ensure this never happens again and (b) those responsible are severely reprimanded.
Quite frankly, as a professional journalist i would expect reporters to conduct themselves based on fact not fiction.
I will not witch hunt as certain BBC journalists have. I will merely conclude by saying, the BBC acted disgracefully as usual, and their credibility as a broadcaster is seriously in doubt.
You do not need A labour or democrat leader to tell you that. and i am especially disappointed that we need to have these kinds of people speak out against the BBC before action is taken.
I find it both discriminatory and ignorant on behalf of the BBC and i think wholesale changes are needed.
Many people have discussed possible change, and i feel it time that radical change was pushed forward.
The BBC for too long has been able to get away with unsubstantiated, biased news coverage. And this must stop now.
I will personally not relent until i see change, and permanent change at that.
The whole purpose of a broadcaster is to report fact, not fiction.
Will the BBC apologise? will it acknowledge the criticism?
Most importantly what will the government of the UK who own the BBC do to quell such outrageously low standards?
The pressure is on here, not just the BBC, but the government too, and for that matter OFCOM.
I wait eagerly to monitor how this debacle develops, yet, knowing the BBC i suspect we will see ignorance prevail.
It’s about time that Blair and others point this out. But they need to realize that it isn’t just the reporting on Katrina but everyday reporting on other things as well.
May they be hoisted by their own retard.;)
Denise W makes a very telling point.
By focussing the dissatisfaction with the BBC’s reportage (henceforth filed under “Fiction”), No 10’s press office is intentionally drawing a fence round Katrina and saying, “this was a problem”. Watch them continue to try to isolate the complaint and limit it to Katrina coverage. They will focus on it very strongly for a few days – reviews, discussions, meetings and finally, an apology that “in our coverage of Katrina, we failed in our mission to report the news impartially … blah blah blah boilerplate, boilerplate”.
All the thousands of other complaints about the BBC’s rampant bias in hundreds of other stories, and it’s furtherance of the leftist agenda will be pushed out of the limelight.
Mark my words. This is a put-up job by Downing St and is to deflect the heat that Biased-BBC and other blogs are are inexorably bringing to bear on the entire output of this organisation. This is exactly how Downing St operates. Smoke and mirrors instead of daylight. This has all the telltale fingerprints of the No 10 press office.
Another good critique of the Beeb from RottyPup.
http://rottweilerpuppy.blogspot.com/2005/09/blair-strangles-kyoto-bbc-strangle.html
Blair expresses doubts about the Sacred Kyoto Holy Writ; the Beeb studiously ignores it.
Just want to say THANK FOOK the BushPee thread isn’t top anymore.
You can add Israel and Australia to the growing list of democracies that view the BBC News with…erm..distaste. A news service on its last legs, without doubt.
Not In My Name, an oft heard protest and one that I think now needs to be applied to the BBC.
Withdraw funding from this vipers nest of dangerous Socialist Authoriarians NOW.
Write to Blair,write to your MP.
What else cann one do?
OT “Lembit’s conference party guide”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4242514.stm
“But the BBC end-of-conference party on a Wednesday evening is the must-have invite of the week, according to Mr Opik.”
And whose tab does that go on d’ya reckon?
What are they doing giving parties? I thought Britons paid – under duress – for a TV licence to finance TV and radio programmes.
How can we find out how much the BBC spent of other people’s money on “entertainment”, like end of conference parties, lunches and dinners with journalists, etc.
Is there going to be more end of conference parties for the Labour conference and the Conservative Conference? How can we find out how much money they’re pissing away on parties?
How many single mothers have gone to prison because they couldn’t pay their £120 licence fee to pour down the gullets of journalists and politicians?
This is obscene.
Verity wrote:
“Mark my words. This is a put-up job by Downing St and is to deflect the heat that Biased-BBC and other blogs are are inexorably bringing to bear on the entire output of this organisation.”
You might well be right that the B-BBC blog may be having some affect on the BBC. The blog is quite measured in it’s criticism – I hardly ever agree with the blog but it does provide interesting and well written food for thought for a pansdy liberal leftie like myself.
However, some of the posts on this forum are really let the blog down. Whenever there is any dissent many, tho not all posters, resort to ill informed and sometimes offensive rants. One of the things that really gets my goat is the free bandying about of the word “socialist” as a form of abuse. I owuld point out a couple of things:
1. Any socialist would not see that as a term of abuse.
2. The term socialist has a very specific meaning and to be honest I doubt there are actually many “socialists” at the BBC who actually belive in . Most of the folk at the BBC that most of you are attacking are actually more likely to be liberal social democrats. The left as with the right has many strains – indeed the left has many, more strains than the right. If you are real socialist in GB tehn there are at least 12 different parties you could join. The continual fragmentation of the far left is one of the reasons why you right wingers need not fear that the far left will become organised enough to lead a revolution of the working classes 😉
Socialism is Fascism is Nazism.
Good points lurker (are you in a burkha..?). A polite yet striking post will always be better than an ill informed or stark staring mad rant…
‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’ applies here!
B-BBC is probably my favourite blog simply because of the broad spectrum of political views and reasoned and polite DEBATE that forms the bulk of the comments rather than a few nasty comments. Long may yer thingie reek!
No Socialism is the superset containing National Socialism (victim group=jews) and communism (victim group:financially succesful)
“A lurker” is correct, being rude to someone is very unlikely to make them agree with you.
I just like the people who post here. Although, some of you owe me $$$ for causing me to spit Dr. Pepper all over my keyboard and monitor every once in a while.
I tried to find the BBC’s annual report, but it is all presented intentionally confusingly with anodyne messages mimicking a real corporation, yet I could not find any accounts. Then they have something called BBC Worldwide, a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC. What is BBC Worldwide? It seems to have a separate annual report.
I just want to find the BBC’s most recent accounts. Does anyone know where they are? I want to know how much parties cost the fee-payer. How did giving parties become part of their broadcasting remit?
The Rott Puppy did a very nice job of detailing the Beeb’s sin of omission. (or is it onanism?)
Verity,
I don’t see this as a smoke and mirrors plot from #10. I can understand that Clinton might join Blair in some sort of plot, but I sincerely doubt that they could hook Murdoch into co-operating in it.
Consider that it might just be the truth coming from all of them. Oh, go on, you can do it.
Stranger things have happened. In any case, it is the truth.
Surely Murdoch would have said what he said anyway? No problem roping Clinton in. He has already said several very sensible things about NO on the radio with President Bush’s father. Clinton’s another one (like President Bush) who is not stupid. Poses as “a poor boy from Hope”, always failing to mention that his step-father owned the town’s only Buick dealership. His family wasn’t rich the way the Bushes and the Gores and Teresa Heinz Kerry are rich, but he did not exactly grow up poor.
Sorry, Stinkerr, Blair doesn’t do truth.
I don’t see this as a smoke and mirrors plot from #10. I can understand that Clinton might join Blair in some sort of plot, but I sincerely doubt that they could hook Murdoch into co-operating in it.
These are allegedly private comments, so I don’t think there’s any kind of plot here. It will be interesting to see if Blair confirms or denies them.
Think the topic will come up ad the next “Prime Minister’s Questions”?
The Beeb’s agenda is ridiculous, but what annoys me even more is seeing the other main news channels (SKY excepted) trying to copy them. ITN was just as bad, implying racism, utter incompetence on the part of the President without even mentioning local levels of authority let alone that they were Democrat-controlled, and when he made his most recent speech, suddenly switching tack to the budget-deficit and the apparent “tax-cut he’d promised rich Americans”. The most telling one for example was ITN’s coverage of the abuse hurled at Cheney when he went to visit New Orleans, implying that it was what he’d been receiving a lot of. Only on FOX later did the rest of his comments become clear, when the cameraman asked if he’d had much of that sort of thing, and he said that was the first. Channel 4 news actually succeeds in being worse than the BBC, again irritating that it’s taxpayer-funded.
The reason I mention this is because I find it such a pity with ITN especially, who easily have the best presented news coverage of all including SKY, that they have to constantly try to out-BBC the BBC. They might actually attract some more viewers if they were just impartial.
Tony, you could be right. But it wasn’t a private affair. It was “semi-private” – whatever that means. Had it been private, there certainly wouldn’t have been reporters there. So whoever was speaking to whom, they knew there was a press presence.
I saw that Cheney moment on Fox. He almost burst out laughing, but continued on with what he was saying. I think it was Sheppard Smith who asked him if he got much of that sort of thing.
The guy who yelled it made a video of it and is/was selling it on eBay. Apparently it’s been taken down four times. This is the latest listing.
If you want a clearer way of understanding the basic dividing lines of polictical views try this. It depends on which amount if any you believe the state should control your and other peoples life. Socalists of all types have one thing in common and that is that they not only believe in ever inceasing state power but also compleatly overestimate the ability of any state to inprove the quality of life in the long term of anyone.I think you can confidently describe them as left wing.
Right wing is now a reactionary force opposing this with a new confidence that the individual is not only far better at creating progress and wealth but the only protection of human freedom.I no longer even ask myself which way the BBC have stood for the last 30 years as thay are a product of the state and could not exsist without it.It should (after 8 years of the labour party in charge) be clear that they will never reform or even seriously challange the BBC which help put in power and assists in keeping them there.
There seems to me only one way to stop the states corperation from dominating the political debate any more and that is to canvas the view of your local Tory MP and VOTE CONSERVATIVE.
please.Sorry if the truth was painfull.
ITV teletext refers to a report in the Scotsman (on Sunday?)on Blair/BBC/Katrina.
Andrew Neil torn twixt his ties to Murdoch & the BBC?
also in The Business, & the BBC, they know nothing
On Saturday evening, BBC executives appeared to be unaware of the British Prime Minister’s criticism of its coverage and of Murdoch’s comments. When contacted by The Business, a BBC spokesman said: “We have received no complaint from Downing Street, so it would be remiss of us to comment on what has been reported as a private confirmation. However, it would appear opportune to underline the fact that the BBC’s coverage of the Katrina devastation was committed solely to relaying the event fully, accurately and impartially, an approach we will continue to take with this and other stories.”
http://www.thebusinessonline.com/Stories.aspx?StoryID=7A661262-08BA-4CA5-BBC5-916FA8594257&SectionID=F3B76EF0-7991-4389-B72E-D07EB5AA1CEE
“a lurker” is offering post war arguements to a post cold war zeitgeist.
nobody (least of all here) fears any kind of Revolution by the working classes, indeed the working classes are far too well off for all that old school Socialism. Rather it is the Great and the Good of the Intelectual Multi Culti Islington Media Classes who offer the danger from thier post religious post colonial Relativism and PostModernism view of the world.
it is your so called working class who are picking up the tab for the damaging and dangerous fecklessness of New Labour Man and Woman.
As a resurgent Right in the US demonstrates, Conservativism is the natural home ordinary hard working folk, it is the Liberal agenda that most damages civil society (rights for criminals over victims, abortion on demand, ever higher taxes,ghettoisation of minorities and a failure to discriminate between what is good and what is less good).
Lurka in a Burqa – Bravissima!
When I read this
COMPANIES are paying fees of up to £40,000 to advertise their products covertly on BBC programmes, often in breach of the corporation’s rules.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1785536,00.html
I thought that was a “good thing”, reduce the licence fee.
But the Sunday Times disagrees
The licence fee payer is the loser from the multi-million-pound trade. By maintaining the fiction that “brand placement” agencies are no more than tradesmen supplying props, the BBC can fend off pressure to sell conventional advertising. But for relatively paltry benefits in kind it hands over promotional slots worth thousands of pounds.
What would “benefits in kind” be? Goodies for the mamngement?
During recent decades the BBC has drifted into political bias to a degree that makes its licence-supported status as a “public-service broadcaster” a mockery. Alongside some excellent programming exists a mind-set almost always slanted leftwards.
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1956512005
Charles Wheeler, the veteran former US correspondent for the BBC, said ….. The coverage I saw was extremely good and got better and better. Matt Frei was very good. He got quite angry, which is what might have annoyed people.
‘I don’t see why people should be unemotional; I never was. You have to tell people what you feel and what you hate – that’s part of legitimate reporting.’
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,12123,1572747,00.html
At least Blair’s comments will force some sort of reaction from the beeb, whether positive or negative. The bbc could have an racist pro hitler anti disabled maoist nihilist line for all I care, what i do care is that I’m forced to pay for it.
Charles Wheeler (thanks Dan, above) says: “The coverage I saw was extremely good and got better and better. Matt Frei was very good. He got quite angry, which is what might have annoyed people.”
No. What annoyed people was Matt Frei, despite living in DC, didn’t understand the structure of the United States and, in his little ill-educated way, thought it was identical to that of Britain. People don’t want to pay for an angry Matt Frei’s pig ignorant opinions.
Charles Wheeler “doesn’t understand why people shouldn’t be emotional”. Fine. Join a theatre group. The people who pay for what we laughingly refer to as “a service” want impartial facts from seasoned reporters who know the score, not weepy drama queens.
A new landmark has been reached!
Read this crap by Tim Butcher (the name says it all) and you know what I mean: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4252762.stm
What a scumbag!
By the way, the headline was “Bethlehem baby
How will my son react to having such a famous birthplace?”
I can tell you how he should react, Tim, me ole China:
[Remainder deleted]
Edited By Siteowner
I’m beginning to get mad here… “disputed city of Jerusalem”…??? Disputed by who? Christians and Jews? I’m not sure I’m following. Have there been any recent disputes between Christians and Jews about Jerusalem? No, I don’t think so.
So who might be involved in this dispute? Jews and Muslims maybe? I hear you, Tim but [next sentence deleted]
So what do Muslims have to do with Jerusalem after all? Where’s their right to Jerusalem?
I guess I need a strong drink now. You can’t beat the BBC when it comes to raising your blood-pressure!
Edited By Siteowner
One more quote before I head to bed with a bottle of whatever:
“A baby has just been born in Bethlehem and, while the birth might not quite have the same global impact of its illustrious predecessor, for Jane and me it was our own modest miracle.”
What’s he saying here? His son is not quite in the same league as Jesus? I wouldn’t think so – a BBC reporter with a Jesus-type son – hard to believe.
[Next paragraph deleted.] God help us!
[NOTE TO JOERG FROM NATALIE SOLENT ACTING AS COMMENTS MODERATOR: You are hovering on the edge of being banned. ]
Edited By Siteowner
But what will you do Blair? A man with a foot in every camp.
“The whole purpose of a broadcaster is to report fact, not fiction”
Which reported facts are you disputing?
Joerg: “So what do Muslims have to do with Jerusalem after all? Where’s their right to Jerusalem?”
From what I’ve heard about it, Muhammad once visited a city which Islamic scholars think MAY have been Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock was built on the Temple Mount to commemorate this hypothesized visit.
That is their claim to it.
dan: “What would “benefits in kind” be? Goodies for the mamngement?”
Sounds to me like what we call “graft” in the US… which gets the grafter and graftee landed in prison if they’re caught ;).
anon: “Which reported facts are you disputing?”
Jesus wept! Anon… I wouldn’t even know where to START with this question!
Wonderful! the bbc is crap. So what is the purpose of this site if something can’t be done about it? How about starting with some questions in Parliament? I’ve contacted my MP, who blubbers and stammers a lot in an affirmative way mind you, but does bugger all.
For a start we can ask for the sacking of the appalling Justin Webb, the self-admitted America distorter. Then to get the whole awful house clean we can ask ditto for the likes of One-Sided Guerin, Crybaby Plett, and Unbalanced James Reynolds. The list is getting long, but perhaps more important than the so-called “reporters” are the Shadows, the Dark Ones behind the scenes in thrall to the Foreign Office, who have to be purged. No pensions! Take your kiddies’ pix off your desks, hang your heads, and go now!
Well, hush my mouth. The king has no clothes, and the lion finally stirs. How about a Biased BBC petition? I’d be happy to sign my name right across the main body of the text.
Further, it isn’t just the BBC. The US media has spent the last couple of weeks bemoaning the notion that Bush didn’t spend enough on shoring up the levees when these pictures have been available since at least Aug 31.
Barge picture #1
NOAA satellite shot, taken sometime after the storm was over. This would be sometime after Lake Ponchatrain started settling back down; note that the water is draining from the city back into the 17th Street Canal. The barge is the long red rectangle just above and to the right of the breech.
Barge picture #2–note date on map
Another satellite map, from Google, showing the barge. This one is distinctive for the date frozen in time at the top of the image.
More barge shots
This forum has some excellent, closer images of the barge.
I’ve been saying for more than a week (although I don’t remember if I said it here) that refugees in Baton Rouge who lived in the area of the breech on the 17th Street levee (the big breech) claimed that they saw a barge banging against the side of the levee just before it breeched. I’ve been looking for evidence to back this up, and just found it tonight.
NOW the big question is: WHY is the ENTIRE news media ignoring this??? The thing is just sitting there for all the world to see!
it was pleasant to see the vile iranian dwarf in the un ranting away while the seats reserved for the usa were empty.
Are we seeing a PM and wife who are preparing to jump ship from Bush to their prospective ally in Hilary Clinton? Is this the reason for the sudden change of heart about the BBC?