. Study this BBC Views Online article, Ex-Minister fined for being drunk, then complete the following sentence:
The ex-Minister is a member of the ________ Party.
Clue: See this Times article, Ex-minister in wine frenzy, which does manage to mention Twigg’s political affiliation – yes, it’s the same party that’s just pushed through 24-hour drinking legislation.
For advanced players, The Times also provides many more details than the BBC article, with which you can create further examples of BBC Views Online Blankety-Blanks!
OT
I notice the BBC being remarkably coy in its coverage of investigations into Chris Langham. Both the website and Radio 4 Today referred only to “internet crime” whereas a search of Google news made it quite clear that there was a link to child pornography.
Is this a worthy example of innocence until proven guilt or is this because Langham was being trumpeted 24 hrs ago as a great BBC success in the Comedy awards? Would the BBC be so reticent if the subject of the investigation were a Tory MP?
A variant of the Blankety-Blank theme I suspect
“Would the BBC be so reticent if the subject of the investigation were a Tory MP?”
Well, they don’t seem to be reticent about naming non-Tory MPs and stating the full nature of the “internet crime” in other high-profile cases:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2651871.stm
It looks like the BBC just covers the backs of members of its own Beeb-family.
I think JH has hit the nail on the head.
I noticed this and sent an e-mail to natalie immedately after reading ‘internet crime’. I thought what internet crime? Phishing? ebay fraud? 🙂
The independent, as independent as can be, are running an almost identical article.
The duty mole (dan?) at Al-Beeb is busy – I see the Langham story now refers to ‘net porn’ with the obligatory parentheses.
Another blank on the race and religion of the suspected murderer of PC Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford. Also the story doesn’t merit the front page [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/4533308.stm] like when white people are victims of racist murderers [http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4480000/newsid_4489300/4489328.stm[
“The duty mole (dan?) at Al-Beeb is busy”
Indeed he/she has!
JH’s initial post was at 09:44. The Beeb’s edit was at 10:38 GMT.
At least time stamp has been updated. Looks like “Moley” is a beginner and doesn’t know about the stealth edit history of Al-Beeb.
Blankety Blank, blank blank
It’s that plumbing terrorists again!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4534594.stm
Has anyone analysed whether Al-Queda is a “secret” plot to create a plumbing monopoly?
Dan, Dan. Was this terrorist motivated by Plumbing or Islam?
” Dan, Dan. Was this terrorist motivated by Plumbing or Islam?”
😆
🙂
‘The Plumbing Terrorist.’
Sounds like a musical. Don’t tell the Graniad.
I was thinking more along the lines of “BBC plumbs new depths”
In fairness, the Langham story is now the top story in the UK Version Entertainment section, linked to in UK News and there is a background article which is also quite clear. All of which seems a bit over-the-top to me actually. Maybe the BBC are leaning backwards for you guys now!
Probably not. Though sometimes you folks at B-BBC are very quick of the mark to critisize when a story is “still breaking”. I think the BBC makes an effort to get stories onto their website a.s.a.p. and that’s bound to mean follow-up edits in the hours that follow. I suppose they could wait until their articles are polished and complete, but my guess is if you saw the story somewhere else 30 minutes before it was on the BBC site you’d be down their throat for not covering it.
I agree with the basic premise of this site, that the BBC has a shocking (sometimes breathtaking) left-liberal bias, and that should be exposed and debated. But in posts like this one I think the site is just about turning BBC-bashing into a sport, which actually detracts from the core mission.
Bill,
This site will die when the BBC make a mistake that favours the correct wing 50% of the time. At the moment mistakes allways seem to favour the coerced collectivist cause.
OT
Have you seen that 2 aid workers are being unlawfully detained in Ehiopia?
What will the BBC do? moreover, what will Tony do?
The BBC do say Twigg is 38. At the time we last had a Tory government he would have been 30 at most.
I could be wrong, but I don’t remember many ministers in John Major’s government being that young.
Where is Dan “And my comments stopped last night because I left work to go home!!” today?
Slaving over a hot keyboard in White City and too busy to join us?
OT
Apparently the moderators of the HYS topic titled How serious are the Sydney riots?
are asleep at the wheel. They have a limit of 500 characters for this ‘fully moderated’ topic – which the most recent contributor managed to exceed by cutting and pasting his long comment into four short ones. (And doing it clumsily, so that the comment on the top of the page starts in the middle of a sentence.)
Well, I guess the moderators were asleep at the wheel here. On the other hand, their lack of attention to their own rules could have something to do with the fact that the long comment conforms to the BBC worldview.
OT
Newsnight on trial
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4530000/newsid_4534700/4534752.stm
Newsnight editor distainfully responds to complains with quips including:
Viewer Question:
“I felt that it was pure propaganda against America and Britain. This is supposed to be the flagship programme.”
Editor Response:
“Have you been reading the Sun, Sir…or perhaps writing it?”
??
constablesavage has learnt well. You’ve got to be quite the detective and pick up all the clues if you want to know the facts from a BBC news report. Don’t pretend though that had it been a Conservative ex minister his party affiliation would have been give pride of place in the headline.
sorry that should have read “would not have been given…”
Well, actually Mark, you could just look at the photo at the top of the page and clock immediately that he looks far too young to be an ex-Tory minister.
No need for all that strenuous math.
PC-Plod,
and the description as plumber rather than islamic?
OT – The results are in! 4th Best Blog in the UK for 2005. Not bad…..
Will the BBC report this? Suitable fodder I would have thought for their BBC News Online ‘Entertainment’ or ‘Technology’ sections….I’d love to see them linking to B-BBC in the sidebar of a report..!!
Best UK Blog 2005
http://weblogawards.org/2005/12/best_uk_blog.php
BBC News – England section:
Children shot at outside school
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4535078.stm
Headline sounds serious, story not quite as serious, and right at the end we have …The youths involved are all described as white and wearing tracksuit-type clothing with the hoods up…
Assuming ‘white’ is BBCese for English, why does the writer think this story needs this addtional information? Especially considering that the reports on the recent and much more serious Birmingham riots intially avoided all mention of the ethnicticity of the warring factions.
Is this here to assure readers that:
1) Don’t worry these were not your usual ethnics at it yet again.
or
2) Hey look English kids are naughty with guns sometimes.
(Are BB guns real guns that actually kill people? I’m not an expert.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4535162.stm
Where are the 3 wise men?
Cheers for the link Neil
At last, BBC right-wing bias…………….
That is one god awful picture of the puffy eyed uber-lord.
Interesting contrast between naming the ethnic background of the BB-gun boys with not naming the ethnic background of the girl who slashed that white school girl’s face up with a knife.
As Fran Unsworth might say, the ethnic background of the BB-gun boys was so much more newsworthy than that of the face-slasher.
Bill makes a fair point that we do fall over ourselves here at B-BBC to find fault and pick holes. However there is a definite cult of looking after their own, be they luvvies, politicians or fashionable interest groups. Similarly they always seem to take the opportunity to mention the political allegiance of somebody falling from grace as long as they are a Tory or a US republican.
Another example of blanket blank comes to mind – Naughty tories are always identifed as ‘disgraced ex -tory” ie Archer, Aitken, Hamilton but when Tory boys come good it never gets a mensh.
Seb Coe is a good example – The Lord of the Rings and the man who won the Olympics for London. Very much persona grata with Al-Beeb now but mention he was a Conservative MP? Only in the smallest print. ‘Ex Tory wins Olympics for London’? – I don’t think so. Move along, move along, Nothing to see here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/4519100.stm
JH,
There is a point of view (widely held in the UK Blogosphere) that the Olympics are not a good “win” for the UK. Of course this point of view was never mentioned by the Beeb.
I so agree with Ritter’s comment above, on the Newswatch item:
“Newsnight editor distainfully responds to complains with quips including:
Viewer Question:
“I felt that it was pure propaganda against America and Britain. This is supposed to be the flagship programme.”
Editor Response:
“Have you been reading the Sun, Sir…or perhaps writing it?”
I thought that editor’s comment was utterly disgusting, patronising, contemptuous, disregarding of majority opinion, and way out of order especially since we are all forced to contribute to his salary. So if a viewer holds such a view they must be reading the Sun. It seems BBC staff are just totally out of touch with other views, they just can’t believe average people can hold those views.
There should be a large banner over the door where staff enter all BBC buildings, saying:
RADIOS AND TVS SWITCHED ON OR OFF, NIGHT AND DAY 24/7, THE WHOLE UK IS CONTINUOUSLY PAYING YOUR SALARY AND NEVER YOU FORGET IT.
I saw Jeremy Paxman interviewing the Syrian ambassador the other night, the day after a brave Lebanese Christian editor of an anti-Syrian paper had been blown up. It was the automatic subdued pussyfooting interview treatment for any Arab, well maybe Paxman doesn’t want to go the same way.
OT – Remind me why the UK should offer to pay more into the EU?
EU Funding NET givers and takers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/europe/04/money/html/who_pays_what.stm
Rob Read
I share your (and the UK Blogosphere’s) opinion that the olympics may not be a good win. There is a whole lot of nauseating hypocrisy about the whole olympic ‘movement’ and its pseudo-Utopianism, self regarding pomposity and ruthless suppression of the uglier side of the picture – Drugs, cheating etc. No wonder communist countries used to love it – Utopianism? Pomposity? one-sided picture? Now who does that remind me of? No wonder Al-Beeb views the whole thing with starry-eyed wonder.
Stand by for a BBC smugathon of epic proportions in 2012.
JH: Regarding Seb Coe, this BBC article from earlier this year prominently mentions him having been an MP, his party affiliation and friendship with Hague.
Like I said earlier, I broadly agree with the views expressed on B-BBC, but sometimes the most “biased” things to be found here are the accusations against the Beeb.
And to Hazel: I too saw Paxman interview the Syrian ambassador (Sami Khiyami) this week. It was a short interview. A while ago, I saw Paxman interview him at length after the Hariri murder, and that was very far from “subdued pussyfooting.”
Greg Dyke:
The people who complained about the BBC’s coverage of Israel were almost entirely Jewish and there was some evidence that their campaign against the BBC was being “encouraged” by the Israeli Embassy in London.
We investigated many of the complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn’t accept that but then they had a different agenda.
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article332622.ece
Greg Dyke On Broadcasting
The BBC should never give in to pressure – or even be seen to
Published: 12 December 2005
I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson’s visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Sharon has never hidden his intense dislike of Guerin or the BBC’s reporting of the Middle East and Guerin was recently accused of being “anti-semitic” and of “identifying with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups” by a former Israeli minister.
At the very least the BBC should have foreseen the suspicions that would arise from the two events – Thompson’s visit and Guerin’s departure – and separated them by several months. As it is, the timing of the announcement to move Guerin inevitably raises the question of how much pressure the Israeli Government put on the BBC, which in turn allows some to question the BBC’s impartiality.
In my time at the BBC the two biggest areas of complaint about our news coverage – ignoring the never ending whinges from the Iain Duncan Smith-led Tory Party that they were not being taken seriously enough – were about our coverage of Europe and our coverage of Israel. In both cases the complaints came from groups who believed passionately in their causes and had convinced themselves that the BBC was, in their respective areas, institutionally pro-European and institutionally anti-Israeli. I would argue passionately that neither was true.
The people who complained about the BBC’s coverage of Israel were almost entirely Jewish and there was some evidence that their campaign against the BBC was being “encouraged” by the Israeli Embassy in London. There was no doubt that Prime Minister Sharon put enormous pressure on his ambassador in Britain to try to force the BBC to change its coverage to make it more pro-Israeli.
We investigated many of the complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn’t accept that but then they had a different agenda. The problem with reporting the Middle East, as with reporting so many conflicts, is that both sides are adamant they are right. As I explained to a meeting at a north London synagogue recently, the BBC’s role was to try to report all sides in the Middle East conflict “fairly”, which was not what they or the Israeli Government wanted to hear.
But the point is that the passionate advocates of a particular view on any issue are not “impartial” which is why their allegations against journalists who are doing their best to be fair always have to be dealt with seriously but also with a degree of scepticism.
The argument I used with both the Euro-sceptics and the pro-Israel lobby was the same as the one I used with Tony Blair during the run up to the Iraq War. Given their passionately held views how could they possibly be the judge of impartiality? They were in no way objective.
One prominent Jew who did not believe the BBC was biased against Israel was the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I invited him to speak to a management group at the BBC one morning and he would have none of the argument that the BBC was doing anything other than trying to report a difficult situation fairly. But he wasn’t typical amongst the Jewish community in Britain.
I once went to receive an award for the BBC’s coverage of the first ever Holocaust Day from a prominent Jewish organisation and was told, in no uncertain terms, that the award was for our coverage of that event only. I shrugged, accepted the award and thought to myself “Well they would say that wouldn’t they?”
No-one summed up the whole position better than the BBC’s World Affairs editor John Simpson when he wrote that in recent times the BBC has reported a series of conflicts as fairly as it could. On every occasion the Government of the day had tried to bully the BBC into supporting a particular line and on each occasion the BBC had resisted. “Governments have as much right as anyone to put pressure on the BBC; it’s only a problem if the BBC caves in.” The same applies to the Israeli Government.
With Friends Reunited like these, who needs enemies?
One former senior executive of ITV wouldn’t have been too pleased last week when ITV announced that it had bought the Friends Reunited website. When I saw this particular former executive recently I commiserated that his marriage had broken up, and out of politeness I asked him what had happened. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that he was a victim of “fucking Friends Reunited”.
Of course he’s not the only one. There are literally hundreds of stories around of people going to the school reunion, or getting reconnected through Friends Reunited, only to rediscover their boyfriend or girlfriend of many years before, and the two of them deciding to get together. It’s becoming a classic story of the baby boomer generation.
All of which makes you wonder what sort of programmes ITV chief executive Charles Allen was referring to when he said that the acquisition of Friends Reunited would result in the creation of an exciting new programme for ITV which would be the modern-dayBlind Date.
In the world of reality television no one is going to be interested in a bunch of 50-year-olds meeting up at the school reunion and then nothing happening, so it seems we can look forward to a new Saturday night show in which we all have to guess who will have an illicit affair with whom and, as a result, abandon their current partner back home. Maybe they could call the show Surprise Surprise.
I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson’s visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Sharon has never hidden his intense dislike of Guerin or the BBC’s reporting of the Middle East and Guerin was recently accused of being “anti-semitic” and of “identifying with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups” by a former Israeli minister.
At the very least the BBC should have foreseen the suspicions that would arise from the two events – Thompson’s visit and Guerin’s departure – and separated them by several months. As it is, the timing of the announcement to move Guerin inevitably raises the question of how much pressure the Israeli Government put on the BBC, which in turn allows some to question the BBC’s impartiality.
In my time at the BBC the two biggest areas of complaint about our news coverage – ignoring the never ending whinges from the Iain Duncan Smith-led Tory Party that they were not being taken seriously enough – were about our coverage of Europe and our coverage of Israel. In both cases the complaints came from groups who believed passionately in their causes and had convinced themselves that the BBC was, in their respective areas, institutionally pro-European and institutionally anti-Israeli. I would argue passionately that neither was true.
The people who complained about the BBC’s coverage of Israel were almost entirely Jewish and there was some evidence that their campaign against the BBC was being “encouraged” by the Israeli Embassy in London. There was no doubt that Prime Minister Sharon put enormous pressure on his ambassador in Britain to try to force the BBC to change its coverage to make it more pro-Israeli.
We investigated many of the complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn’t accept that but then they had a different agenda. The problem with reporting the Middle East, as with reporting so many conflicts, is that both sides are adamant they are right. As I explained to a meeting at a north London synagogue recently, the BBC’s role was to try to report all sides in the Middle East conflict “fairly”, which was not what they or the Israeli Government wanted to hear.
But the point is that the passionate advocates of a particular view on any issue are not “impartial” which is why their allegations against journalists who are doing their best to be fair always have to be dealt with seriously but also with a degree of scepticism.
The argument I used with both the Euro-sceptics and the pro-Israel lobby was the same as the one I used with Tony Blair during the run up to the Iraq War. Given their passionately held views how could they possibly be the judge of impartiality? They were in no way objective.
One prominent Jew who did not believe the BBC was biased against Israel was the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I invited him to speak to a management group at the BBC one morning and he would have none of the argument that the BBC was doing anything other than trying to report a difficult situation fairly. But he wasn’t typical amongst the Jewish community in Britain.
I once went to receive an award for the BBC’s coverage of the first ever Holocaust Day from a prominent Jewish organisation and was told, in no unce
TottenhamLad
the modern so-called BB guns come in two types:
1, A low-powered air pistol which fires a metal ball.
2, A very, very low powered airgun which fires a plastic ball (yellow things; you can see them everywhere kids have been playing)
The first are dangerous and can cause a lasting injury if a person was hit in the eye.
The second are called ‘airsoft guns’
and are extremely unlikely to cause any permanent damage.
From the reports, it seems the young hooligans were frightening the schoolchildren with Airsoft Guns.
The major point with the ASG is that the manufacturers tend to make them look as much like real weapons as possible, so the police are inclined to get very excited.
Mora
Thank you for the ‘Independent’ article. It save many of us from swelling the rag’s coffers.
re. Greg Dyke:
Oleaginous self-justification.
To quote the man himself;
‘Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
Mora
I couldn’t give a toss whether ITV are doing a cheap crappy reality TV show based on Friend Reunited – I dont have to watch it and I dont have to pay for it.
Credit where credit is due – ‘Bleak House’ was outstanding.
Totally OT, but potentially important.
Are all these blogs hosted by the same server? And is there a problem? I notice that the most recent Adloyada entry is several days old, and The Daily Ablution is about a week old.
Any ideas?
Cheers.
JH
No credit is due to the BBC for anything whatsoever. Bleak House would have been produced in a marketplace that was not dominated by the BBC, if talent exists it will find expression.
To give “credit where it is due” is to accept the very premise of State Funded Entertainment, “News” and Information distribution.
Credit will accrue to the BBC when it competes in a free market and when I am not forced under penalty of the loss of my Liberty to pay for it.
If you wish to give credit to a thouroughly discredited Department of State, do it on the Bring Back the USSR bulletin boards.
On tyhe subject of the olympics, was I the only one that found that the national BBC coverage of the commonwealth games was a rather cynical, dismissive and generally snobbish affair?
SiN
Sorry – I despise the BBC as much as you do – Stalinist, pompous, arrogant, one-eyed, see my previous posts – but whoever made it, Bleak House was good.
So it was, so is Just a Minute, and I`m Sorry, I havn`t a Clue. The Office is the best thing i`ve seen but neither Dickins nor Shakespeare were State Sponsored, their work emerged regardless.
On a level playing field, Bleak House would have been funded and produced.
SiN
I think we are violently agreeing with each other – Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisted (Granada)and the entire output of Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen and Noel Coward owed nothing to the dead hand of the socialist state.
But the only TV adaptation of Bleak House around at the moment is the one we’ve just watched – On the BBC.
On the other hand, the current R4 dramatisation of David Copperfield is risible.
Kulibar Tree, when you’re on the blogs in question, try holding down SHIFT and clicking Reload/Refresh at the same time – that should force any cache (perhaps at your ISP) to get you the latest version of the site in question, instead of just the most recently cached version. Sometimes you need to do this twice. Hope this helps.
P.S. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the significance of your rather evocative nom-de-plume?
Andrew –
Many thanks for the info – glad to know the web hasn’t gone into meltdown.
I certainly don’t mind your asking, but it isn’t a nom-de-plume.
No – just kidding: it’s merely a private joke, the explanation for which the world is not yet prepared.
Cheers.
Greg Dyke As X personal friend of the Blairs, committed socalist and supporter of Labour old and new,I hardly think he is the best judge of impartiality. The fact that he seems to believe the BBC is impartial shows that he is compleatly out of his mind or a lier. He seriously seems to think that the centre ground in modern politics is the state running everything but your toilet training. And of cause BIG BUSINESS which always seems to get away with it. If it has been contributing to the “right” political party. Which, as we all know is where all the REAL money for political partys comes from.
Thank God he is gone. Only problem is since his departure, the BBC has become ever more out of touch with the British public and indead reality.
Greg Dyke is so wrapped up in New Labour politics that he thinks he actualy invented it. He admitted that he had a road to Damascus event when he had the bright idear that in order for socalism to fulfill its goals it did not have to waste time creating a socalist econemy.(The state really is crap at it and you have to be able to actualy do or know something ). Just let capitalism ripp and force the private sector to do it for them. The pay off for big business was to screw there competion. By the vertual distruction of small business using red tape new rules and unavoidable taxes. Only thing was a German corporal had had the same idear 75 years earlier. His idear was also to turn the population of the country against itself by creating racism where ever he could. Clasic divide and rule tactics. So the state would seem to the people there only salvation and its leader there only true friend. All neads clever propergander though. Enter BBC and Greg.
The only reason that the new nazi party / dictatorship of Europe currently called the EU talks so loadly about cival rights is to hide there true anti-democratic dictotorial elitist identity. As all smart people know this is imposible to hide forever. That is why a small minority of British people still believe in democracy. Europe never really did.
BBC’s coverage of the Middle East
Sir: Greg Dyke’s article (Media, 12 December) does not reflect the Chief Rabbi’s views on the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East.
At the meeting with a BBC management group to which Mr Dyke refers, the Chief Rabbi argued that there was in his view a failure to provide viewers with an Israeli perspective on events in the Middle East. He urged the Director General to commission a documentary that would do this by contextualising these events. He followed up this request by letter. He repeated his concerns when he addressed a subsequent gathering of BBC producers, at their request, several months later.
The Chief Rabbi shares the concerns held by the Jewish community about the BBC’s Middle East coverage, and is constantly reminded of these on his frequent visits to communities both in the UK and abroad.
ZAKI COOPER
HEAD OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS OFFICE OF THE CHIEF RABBI LONDON N12
If you can’t tell he’s Labour just from the BBC news item, you must be particularly thick.