Blogger is being intolerably slow for me at the moment, so here is a miscellany of Beeb-related items all in the same post. Comments to the effect that a lower proportion of my musings per link constitutes an improvement will be met with a Paddingtonian Hard Stare.
– Adloyada writes in critical vein about Andrew Marr plugging Robert Fisk plugging his book on Start the Week. On the other hand, ever just, she describes the BBC coverage of recent intra-Palestinian violence as sensational. Follow the link if you don’t believe me.
– I praise BBC correspondent Justin Pearce for going secretly to Zimbabwe in a post for Samizdata.
– The Independent runs through some media bigwigs’ views about BBC reporting of Israel/Palestine. Ex-BBC correspondent Tim Llewellyn says:
What the BBC does not do is go into the West Bank and live there and be there. If it did that, and lived life as a Palestinian Arab lives, then it would experience the daily humiliation of that existence.
However reformed Today editor Rod Liddle says:
To use a singularly inapt metaphor, they see the Middle East as David versus Goliath – except that David isn’t a good Jewish boy any more, but a stone-throwing Arab. Foreign affairs really are that simplistic for some producers and reporters.
– Here is a new Beebwatching blog coming from the other side of the hill: Blogging the Beeb. The first post says:
What does the word ‘British’ mean for the BBC today? How does the BBC reflect contemporary Britishness? What does Britishness mean after devolution, the enlargement of the European Union, the challenges of globalisation, 7/7, the current debates on multiculturalism?
This is a blog about a book – or rather, a blog in advance of a book.
I am writing from the perspective of someone who believes strongly in public service broadcasting, and the BBC being at the heart of that. I believe in an independent BBC, supported by the licence fee. However, I don’t believe that the BBC is perfect. I think the BBC itself needs to avoid defensiveness, and engage with its critics. It needs to be alert to the dangers of its own internal culture dominating the way in which it covers the external world.
Natalie: “Does the fact that it has no comments mean that no one has been able to see it until just now (3.58pm GMT),”
Yes.
APL is right. It certainly wasn’t up this morning.
Well, thanks for letting me know. Making this test post seems to have made the earlier post visible. Or it may all be coincidence.
As Mr Briffa knows, I think it’s a great mistake to think that there is a logical explanation for anything Blogger does. In reality it is a matter of pitting the strength of one’s elan vital against the irreconcilable hostility of the machines to mankind.
I think that the problems that Natalie is experiencing is due to a communist conspiracy of internet geeks who are working hand in glove with the BBC
OFF TOPIC
How about this article at the BBC – massive anti-Catholic slant, but no commensurate outrage at Muslim anti-gay prejudice?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4331958.stm
The BBC wouldn`t dare take on Islam, the lefty tossers at White City are appeasing Muslims in the hope that Islam will somehow soften over time. Fat Chance.
As for Rod Liddle (former Today Editor, now deputy Editor of The Spectator and now dressing to the Right) I say “where were you when you could have reformed the leftwing Cesspool that is the Today Program”.
Liddle knows on which side his bread is buttered.
OT
Further comments on the Beeb by Dr North
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/#112906722135606179
Has anyone thought about starting a thread on:
a) the BBC’s intention to raise the license/tax to £200
b) the BBC’s side-lining of the story about the arrest of the former French UN ambassador in the Iraq/UN oil scandal?
” The BBC wouldn`t dare take on Islam, the lefty tossers at White City are appeasing Muslims in the hope that Islam will somehow soften over time. Fat Chance. ”
If the Beeb could finance “Popetown”, then it should have produced “Islamopolis” for balance.
How about a series critical of Islam during Ramadan – after all, the Beeb likes to rub Christian noses in the dirt during Christmas and especially Easter.
Is the BBC Pig-Ignorant about I-slam?
Rob
I think the BBC is too LARDY-DA to discuss the Religion of Peace.
Not RASHERnal enough.
JinL
Kindly leave the room!