A feature of the Today programme is the succession of Americans from the arts world who invited to tell us just how much they dislike George Bush. Today we were treated to this ‘Today’ interview (RealAudio) with veteran American director Robert Altman, in which he was invited to hold forth at length on American politics (‘the wrong war, wrong time, wrong leader’).
(One tiny note of reality intrudes, where interviewer and interviewee are discussing how a new wave of socially aware films (e.g. Bareback Mounting and .. er ..) reflects the changing political awareness of America. The interviewer points out that though critics loved them, the public weren’t quite so keen.)
UPDATE – Scott at the Ablution points out that this is a double – yesterday the Today programme treated us to a plug for George Clooney’s Syriana.
“The interviewer points out that though critics loved them, the public weren’t quite so keen”
Spielbergs “Munich” also tanked in the US
i guess the Yanks didnt quite buy the “Mossad agents as just as bad as the Palestinian terrorists” line…
http://imdb.com/title/tt0408306/business
A quick look a US box office numbers show that only one of the ‘progressive’ films breaks the top ten, Brokback Mountain, and it was out grossed in fewer weeks by that innovative and progressive file ‘Cheaper by the Dozen – 2″.
‘Munich’ just makes the top twenty, and was outgrossed by a remake of the Pink Panther in just two weeks..
So much for a new popular wave of politically aware films in the US…
OFF TOPIC
At the Royal Television Society Awards the BBC carried off the top awards in both the home and international categories. Children of Beslan (BBC2) won the international. Runners-up were ‘Israel and the Arabs – Elusive Peace (BBC 2) and The Hurricane that shook America (BBC 2).
In fact, not only did the BBC win, but all the shortlisted programmes in both categories were made by or for the BBC. BBC News 24 won the channel of the year award.
Does this mean that the entire television industry is biased? Well, not only did these programmes scoop awards, they also scored highly in terms of audience appreciation. As does the Today programme, by the way. Maybe the greater part of the audience is biased too? Could it be that almost everyone is biased, except the regulars on this blog? Terrifying thought.
OT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/default.stm
CHECK out this page:
Its the Tony Blair show:
Blair says this, Blair says that, you’d think he’s the only person in British Politics?
What about poor old Gordon?
I hear now conveniently, but not surprisingly Blair is deciding to stay on longer, as opposed to handing over sooner..
I think Gordon has been set up royaly, he was conned into voting for the govt last week, and now this week, Blair doesnt want to know him…
i could have predicted that one!!!!
HA HA, Gordon mate, you’re wasting your time, there’s no way you’re getting into No.10
But that said Gordon, as Chancellor, and you too Tone, any chance of substantially increasing Defence Spending please?
Our guys and gals need lots of new equipment and NOW!!
Yes, Reith, the regulars are the only right-wing people in the world. That’s why the Sun sells so badly, that’s why you keep seeing all those unsold copies of the Daily Mail.
Of course, real people choosing to spend their money on a product isn’t quite as good a measure of value as a the approbation of fellow luvvies.
Yes, that is sarcasm. The fact that, according to the TV industry, all the compelling documentaries last year happened to be hardcore Lefty is a pretty good hint that these people cover the whole gamut of opinions from A to B. (but what happened to all that talk of ‘diversity’ ?).
Dear John
Come on admit it – the BBC are paying you. And if they aren’t, they should be. Of course lots of people(and maybe a majority – who knows exactly?)just love to hate George Bush, believe all Americans are evangelical Christian morons, think the war in Iraq was all based on ‘lies’ and the quest for oil, and believe that Israel is full of racist, neo fascist monsters. Approval ratings and awards just reflect the hegemony of these attitudes – self perpetuated by the media coverage. But this does NOT mean than it isn’t biased, or that the intelligent, independent minded, dissenting voices on this website are deluded. It just means that the BBC is very powerful and very influential. But the posters on this site, make it clear that there is a challenging, dissenting voice. If the BBC were truly ‘balanced’ and unbiased they would take notice of it, rather than engage in your sad attempts at ridicule.
The Head of BBC Documentaries is a member of the far left. He used to be the editor for the ill-fated ‘News on Sunday’. The story of the News on Sunday was recently covered by the BBC! I wonder if the man that commisioned the programme, also got paid an appearance fee? No conflict of interest there….
Here is what the Radio Times has to say:
This programme tells the story of the News on Sunday, a disastrous attempt to launch a left-wing mass market Sunday newspaper. The paper went bust in June 1987, just 8 weeks after it launched, its demise mirroring that of the Left in the late 1980s.
The impartiality of the BBC is something I think we can all be proud of. Who could complain about being forced to pay for such an ‘inclusive’ organisation?
_______
By the way, did anybody else hear Today this morning. The presenter (I think it was JN) claimed that the German Chanellor had called Cameron ‘bonkers’. Thankfully Osbourne stood his ground. JN was forced to admit “bonkers is my expression”.
You’re right John Reith, it must just be us that are biased. Certainly not the BBC.
One tiny note of reality intrudes, where interviewer and interviewee are discussing how a new wave of socially aware films (e.g. Bareback Mounting and .. er ..)
Oh please tell me that no-one used that phrase, please please tell me that two cowboys bumming each other under the stars isn’t hasn’t been described as ‘socially aware’.
Off Topic:
Natalie,
Is there any chance of having the BBC’s contact/complaints details added to the site?
Thanks,
On the 10pm news they managed to find another actor to criticize Bush • George Clooney, who took the ‘I’m brave standing up to Bush and won’t be cowered’ line. Wow • brave guy.
The piece also took the line that Hollywood is becoming ‘bravely political’ this year, though didn’t mention any films which portray Islamofascists as villains nor any which portray entrepreneurs as heroes who take risks to build wealth for their communities.
To be fair, the piece was balanced by an ex Reagan staffer who smilingly shrugged his shoulders and took the ‘It’s Hollywood • what do you expect’ line.
Meanwhile, QT was a disgrace. They had some Z-list airhead actor of whom I have never heard with unchallenged gems like (and I am not quoting verbatim):
‘Some countries aren’t ready for democracy’ and
‘We don’t follow democracy either • look at the way we ignored the democracy of the UN.’
One would get the impression actors are some of the smartest people in our society. Makes me soooo mad.
YOU want more islamophobia, just look at this, and From Hilary Clinton too!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4744086.stm
If anyone saw her on the news at 10 last night, they’d be astounded by what she was implying, i.e. that a non western company shouldnt own a US company or affiliated company because security would be comprimised?
That is downright racism, i wonder how the Blair’s will react to this?
John Reith
Of course the BBC makes quality stuff, which I very much enjoy.
The problem is that many people are unhappy with the political slant in what is a publicly funded news organisation (that is why there is no Biased Channel 4 blogsite). Perhaps three or four times as many people read centre right newspapers as centre left in the UK, yet the BBC newsrooms are packed with journalists and reporters who clearly do not take the Telegraph for their daily. All we ask for is a bit more balance!
I’ve just got off the phone to Auntie and asked her if the Head of Documentaries, commisioned the series ‘Lefties’ and if he also received an appearance fee. I’m awaiting a call-back now.
Could be quite interesting…..
DumJohn & Oscar
The real world does not split into Daily Mail readers versus BBC viewers and listeners. All the surveys of the Today programme/Radio 4′ audience’s newspaper reading habits show a big overlap between listening to Today and reading the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Times. In fact MOST Today listeners will take one of these papers. (the Guardian only sells c 350,000 copies, the Daily Fisk, even fewer).As for the Sun – you have to have a long memory to remember when that was a right-wing paper – it backed the People’s Party in three successive general elections. Its daily diet of booze, birds and blairism may be popular and profitable but tends to be inimical to conservatives, whether cultural or political.
The point about the award-winning programmes was that they WEREN’T ‘hardcore lefty’. I don’t know if you saw Israel and the Arabs, but I thought Ariel Sharon got a good shout. (or, post-Gaza, post Likud…is he a hardcore lefty too?)Oscar, you make a good point about the media’s power to establish a hegemony of attitudes, but the point about the BBC is its intrinsic pluralism. For instance, for every James Naughtie, there’s an Ed Stourton. For every John Humphrys there’s a Nick Clarke. And strewth – there are women too.
There just isn’t a corporate ideology.
John Reith
“but the point about the BBC is its intrinsic pluralism”
Priceless.
John Reith -> i’m actually left of centre. its the politcally correct stuff on BBC News that really gets on my goat.
the leftist bias in news reporting and the pandering to islamists also gets on my nerves.
(israel : bad palestinians: good)
i actually want to see more right-wing reporting, because i actually believe in democracy – i want to hear more viewpoints, so that i can come to a more rounded judgement on certain issues.
John Reith
Many educated people (generalising here I mean those who read a quality paper) listen to Today, PM, the World Tonight etc because there is little else to listen to in the current affairs/news sector. Can you suggest any alternatives? It doesn’t mean that we agree with the editorial slant of the presentation.
“for every James Naughtie, there’s an Ed Stourton. For every John Humphrys there’s a Nick Clarke”
here must be something profound here, but please could you expand?
this hasnt broken yet on the bbc news site (i checked the northern ireland section, and its not there…)
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=173850382&p=y7385yx88
MI5 Kept police in dark over Omagh bomb
MI5 withheld vital anti-terrorism intelligence just months before the Omagh bomb atrocity, it was revealed today.
Even after the outrage which killed 29 people, MI5 failed to inform Special Branch of the threat, and details have only just emerged as part of an investigation into an FBI agent who infiltrated the Real IRA, the dissident republican group, which carried out the attack.
Eamonn
I don’t know how James Naughtie votes, but I do know that before he went to the BBC in the late 1980s he was the political editor of the Guardian. I’d guess, therefore, he was ‘a Labour man’ – at least in those far off days of Kinnock. He speaks with a Scottish accent and (except when talking about opera) exudes a general demotic earthiness. I don’t know how Ed Stourton votes, but he is the Ampleforth-educated son of a hereditary peer. He is English and something of a toff and went to Cambridge. Humphrys is a Welsh autodidact. His preferred style is to get into a rough and tumble, argy bargy, call it what you will. The cool, unflappable Nick Clarke, by contrast, is always scrupulously polite to interviewees but asks penetrating questions in a steely forensic tone. Different backgrounds. Different educations. Different outlooks. Different ways of doing the same professional job of work. As I say, there are many others doing similar jobs, they include Jewish journalists, Catholic journalists, Ulster protestants, Blacks and Asians. Intrinsic pluralism.
Off Topic:
Has anybody noticed that the Beeb have changed the question used in the HYS about the Mosque bombing.
It now reads:
Is Iraq descending to civil war? Are you an Iraqi – what do you think? Is the US out of step with the Middle East? Is US policy doomed to fail?
They’ve introduced ‘US policy’ to the debate. I don’t credit the HYS team with much intelligence, so this is probably a coincidence. It now makes all the comments blaming the US, seem a little less crazy.
Now John Reith is really interesting here. “For every James Naughtie, there’s an Ed Stourton. For every John Humphrys there’s a Nick Clarke.”
My guess is that our John is prepared to accept that Naughtie and Humphrys are predictably voices from the left, but that they are balanced by Ed Stourton and Nick Clarke, who are predictably voices from the right.
Is that your contention, John?
That’d give us all a fascinating fix on where you think the centre may lie.
It’d also tell us that you think the BBC’s ok if it counters left wing ideology with right wing ideology. I’d say there are times when this is an appropriate stance by broadcasters. But news reporting isn’t one of them. My problem with the BBC is really that it’s ability to do, or recognise, straight reporting is now regularly compromised by what I regard as its self-indulgent enjoyment of promulgating an ideology which is recognisably its own.
I also suspect that this ideology is entrenched by social and economic (ie career) sanctions against anyone who steps out of line. How dreadful it must be to be a BBC journlist.
Michael Taylor
No, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. As I say I have no way of knowing on which side of the party political divide these guys fall. Because John Humphrys has written a column in the Sunday Times that seemed to me to have a eurosceptic tone from time to time and because he sometimes seems exasperated by political correctness and Labour junior ministers, I doubt if he is ‘of the left’. But that is a guess.
One must always bear in mind the example of Brian Redhead, late of the Today parish. He was always being attacked for alleged bias towards Labour. But after he died it emerged that he voted Tory in general elections and Labour in local ones. Now there’s even-handedness for you.
Grimer -> well spotted. that “have your say” seems to be blaming Condi Rice for the unrest
“The unrest coincides with the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s tour of the Middle East to promote US policy in the region”
it is also apparent that the question leaves out the one big elephant in the room :
Iran
Moqtada Al Sadr and his Mehdi army (who are involved in the current anti-Sunni violence) are pro Iranian – and guess where Sadr visited a few weeks ago?
yup – you guessed it – Iran
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012301701.html
its also interesting that Sadr didnt just visit Iran – he’s been on a Middle East tour recently:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/21/AR2006022101899.html
That “Have Your Say” question is deliberately phrased to pin the blame on the U.S. , while ignoring the possibility that there are Iranian forces here at work – there IS a wider geopolitical context going on here, which the BBC chooses to ignore. and thats infuriating, and downright idiotic.
Michael Taylor …..sorry I neglected to answer your main point:
News should be an ideology-free zone. Whether in bulletins on the hour or half-hour or in reports from BBC correspondents in the field, there should be no room for subjective editorializing.
But most of programmes like Today is not news. It is current affairs comment, analysis and discussion. Here it is important not only to balance left/right ideology by inviting appropriate guests but also to cover a wide field of opinion…including mavericks, extremists and nutters if they have a place in the debate. As for where the centre lies, it lies somewhere in the middle.
But after he died it emerged that he voted Tory in general elections and Labour in local ones.
and there is a beautiful section on tape where he gives Nigel Lawson a few moments to frame an aplogy on this very subject
John Reith
– you said:
In fact MOST Today listeners will take one of these papers.
You’ve hit on a fundamental here that Eamonn later picks up on, namely people choose a newspaper from a wide variety of dailies, each with it’s own agenda and political coverage. The only thing we have to take is BBC National Radio which is fully funded, not exposed to competition, therefore I have no choice but to listen as ‘Today’ is the only national news radio programme to listen to in the mornings.
Channel 4 will hopefully be providing serious competition to Radio 4 and therefore CHOICE to all of us. Raymond Snoddy thinks so, and I hope he is right:
Raymond Snoddy on media: Channel 4 radio will hit Auntie hard
http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/media/article/537579/raymond-snoddy-media-channel-4-radio-will-hit-auntie-hard/
If I had a say (which I don’t), I would split the PBS national radio budget with at least 3 broadcasters, eg BBC, Ch4 and ITV. Competition benefits all. It would help the BBC focus their product (so called ‘impartial & trusted news’) and the listeners could choose.
£126+ from every household per year is a huge sum of money to be handed over to one broadcaster.
Ritter
Don’t get too excited about Channel 4 – have you seen Jon Snow’s even-handed approach? Surely the point of this whole blog is that there should be NO PBS (or any) broadcasting paid out of taxation. If you want PBS (without ads) than subscribe.
new update on the shrine violence from Iraq by “zeyed” , an iraqi blogger:
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
O/T
Reported on the BBC today
Was the Banning of Ken Livingstone from his parliament for 4 weeks, for his racist statement.
In a sociaty that is supposed to be liberal this is clearly wrong. This should be opposed, by anyone who describes themselves as liberal in anyway.
Ken Livingstone is an odious fool, but his comments where in no way an insitement to violence or intimidation.
Muslim extreamists theatening beheadings most clearly is.
The current British establishment does not seem to understand this basic and very important difference, which is bad news for all of us.
In a liberal sociaty laws requiring “no personal offence” CAN NOT WORK and I assure all of you will cause more problems than they solve.
But then as we should know, that is why this goverment brought these laws in, in the first place.
livingstone report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4746016.stm
what a complete and utter waste of time.
who are these people?
dont they have any real jobs to do?
Ritter
‘choose …from a range of papers …each with its own agenda’
Quite. But what the people of Britain say time and again in surveys and through their democratic representatives in Parliament is that what they want is a source of comprehensive, impartial coverage WITHOUT any underlying political agenda. They also say they want BBCi. Often they do have a choice: Sky or News 24. Commercial radio or BBC radio. Overwhelmingly, given the choice, they vote with their remotes for BBC news.
They pay less for 5 TV networks, 6 radio stations (including local) plus some digital extras AND what is probably the best website on the net than they do for the Daily Mail (which, in any case, is half full of ads.) They also recognize a good deal when they see on and are wise enough to know that without the BBC it would be ‘goodbye freeview’ and after analogue switch-off they’d have to either pay Mr Murdoch £300 or more or go without TV until the internet delivery technologies catch up. Also they know that if we lived in a pay-to-view environment, the likely cost of watching one programme would be more than a whole day’s worth of licence fee. i.e. thay know they’d lose out both in terms of quality AND cost.
As for Channel 4 – it is a ‘public service broadcaster too’ but unlike the BBC it is not an independent body under royal charter, but is owned by the State.
Umbongo,
Not everybody is against the licence fee. Some are just against the biased nature of the BBC’s news and current affairs section.
If they made the BBC subscription based and split it into ‘entertainment’ and ‘news and documentaries’, I might sign up for the entertainment package. However, in its current state, I would never pay for the news service.
That is why I currently don’t pay at all.
the German Chanellor had called Cameron ‘bonkers’.
Poor old James Noughtie (deliberately written as “zero”) – he does not know Angela Merkel. She says very little – she certainly would not comment on Cameron publicly – so there is no way Noughtie would know what she thinks.
This woman is discreet and ruthless with no need to pander to the media. That is the refreshing wind blowing in Germany – someone who does not court media or soundbites
I never realised that Channel 4 was owned by the government, but paid for through advertising. The system clearly works.
Abolish the Licence Fee now!
archduke re Ken Livingstone – yes, and you know what the missing word in the BBC story is …. clue: it’s not “Conservative”
“if we lived in a pay-to-view environment”
As I understand it your argument is that the BBC would not be able to function at its current level if it was funded by subscription alone, because there would be too few subscribers.
And that it only functions because people who would not subscribe to a subscription-only BBC are *forced* to help pay for it.
In Britain in 2006 it is not possible for someone to legally own a television or video recording device without also paying for the state’s broadcasting service. Even if the BBC was genuinely and obviously unbiased and spin-free, how could anyone not doubt its impartiality, given that it is funded by the state?
John Reith “They pay less for 5 TV networks, 6 radio stations (including local) plus some digital extras AND what is probably the best website on the net than they do for the Daily Mail”
But how much would the Daily Mail cost if everyone who owned a TV was also forced to pay for a Mail?
Further complaints of how the bottomless pit of funds extracted by the BBC stifles competition:-
An independent report commissioned by the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA), due out on Monday, will say that BBC radio’s “growing market dominance” is a threat to the future of commercial radio and needs to be controlled.
The report, by Indepen, the consultancy, says that factors including the BBC’s proposed increase of 2.3 per cent a year in its licence fee could kill off commercial radio.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2055938,00.html
John Reith
I have no problem with watching adverts, which is why I still watch the BBC.
In America the system is much more deregulated. However the media has a strong LIBERAL bias. In the true sense of the word. Why do people with Nazi tendancies like yourself fear FREEDOM so much? The fact that so many British people do, is a testimant to how confused the BBC has helped make them.
The airline industry is more deregulated than in the past. Fares now are very low the industry very compeditive and extreamly safe. It caters for all classes religions and races in sociaty. It also exsists in a free market, gives excellent value for money, and contributes vaste amounts of cash to the goverment.
The BBC does none of these things. If you can trust you life to BA why do people like you think you cant trust grown-up business men to run the media. Diversity and deregulation is the KEY to Liberty, yours and mine.
[Mr Powell, the term “Nazi tendencies” is offensive and absurd. Do not repeat this behaviour – NS]
Edited By Siteowner
John Reith writes:
“News should be an ideology-free zone. Whether in bulletins on the hour or half-hour or in reports from BBC correspondents in the field, there should be no room for subjective editorializing.”
Undoubtedly true. So stick around BBBC a little longer and watch the unfolding series of occasions on which BBC news is shown to be regularly slanting headlines, carefully applying news selectivity and pursuing agendas set by a handful of unaccountably over-represented SIPG, all, by some strange trick of fate, on the Left.
naughtie v osborne on Today:
realplayer link here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today5_osbourne_20060224.ram
very interesting what osborne had to say – he’s back from Ireland, looking at the low tax regime there.
naughtie: “a lot of people in ireland look at their celtic tiger and say – aha! -whats done us most good is the European Union and the Euro, which your party is against”
thankfully osborne corrected him on that aspect.
quite true – i’m irish, and nobody i know pins the celtic tiger on the EU – in fact its got damn all to do with the EU. EU membership is bonus, but the underlying cause of the tiger is a combination of low taxation, low regulation and massive investment in education. And anyway the Tiger started happening around 1995, way before we joined the Euro.
where Naughtie gets his ideas from about other countries like Ireland, i cant quite figure out. maybe he just makes it up as he goes along.
John Reith,
Just to go back to my initial disgust with the al Sadr conspiracy theorist being given airtime yesterday, and your views on appropriate current affairs commentary: I would just really like to know why Kevin Marsh et al thought the nutter had a place in that debate. What did it add?
Further, if anyone in the BBC seriously thought this might be true, then this without any doubt NEWS (an extraordinary scoop, in fact). In which case, the programme is honour bound to treat it as such, and try and stand it up, or disprove it.
My worry – no, let’s face it, my anger – is that no-one on the Today programme seems to have given a moment’s thought to what they were doing. They just went ahead with it with no checks, no balances, and in doing so fails not only common journalistic standards, but also the standards Kevin Marsh very clearly laid out for himself elsewhere on the BBC website.
What galls me more is that, apart from this site, I know of no way in which these people – in positions of public trust – can be called to account for what seem to me to be really bad failures of judgement and professional standards.
That’s why once again, I’d appeal to someone from the Today programme, and preferably Kevin Marsh, to get online and explain what he thought he was doing. I don’t see this as an unreasonable request, and I don’t see why I should be prepared to accept that I should “get over” my sense of humour lapse.
If you are, in fact, employed by the BBC, I’d encourage you to ask him to consider explaining himself. I had no idea when I raised this that this was his last programme for Today, but a sullen refusal to justify himself is the worst possible exit.
Michael Taylor ->
that Al Sadr interview isnt available (07:11)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/zthursday_20060223.shtml
Radio 4 – Feedback with Roger Boulton at 1.35pm.
The BBC has been accused of “cultural cringe” by referring to Mohammed as the “Prohet Mohammed” on the website, whilst denying Jesus any special status in this way.
They get Stephen Mitchell, Head of Radio News (stupidity be upon him) at the BBC to comment upon this. His answer? Wait for it……..
Mohammed is called the “Prophet” Mohammed on the website so that people don’t get him mixed up with all the other Mohammeds around the place.
Is this an edition of Father Ted or what? Was I listening to Dougal or can this really be the head of Radio News?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/news/stephenmitchell.shtml
Will
I should have said that as well,I am glad you did.
As for radio. Talk sport has become the largest national radio station in Britain, by a long way, in only 6 years. It caters for working class men. For 70 years of BBC radio no such station on the BBC exsisted, and still does not. A hole in the market that the BBC must have know exsisted, but refused to cater for.
WHY?
They did not want working class men or anyone else, to know what working class men really think. They also really really dont like us. The only time they have met one is when they have charged them twice what they make in a day, for changing the middle class twits tap washer.
John Reith said: “I don’t know how James Naughtie votes…”
I do, James “if we win the election” Naughtie votes Labour as his Freudian slip demonstrates:
http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2005/03/james_naughtie_.html
So I have glanced at the BBC religions website and, behold, there was evidence of bias.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/
On the Christian web page we have:-
“The Christian holy book is the Bible”
Whilst on the Islam web page we have:-
“The Muslim scripture is the Holy Qur’an”
Note, not just holy Qur’an but Holy Qur’an to achieve full dhimmi brownie points. No doubt there is more of this, if I can be bothered to look.
Michael Taylor
If you want an answer from Kevin Marsh, why not write to him?
If you want to make a formal complaint, why not go to the complaints page of the corporation’s website. If you relish the idea of debating the issue – try Feedback.
I have no way of knowing how the editorial decision was made, but I can guess……try this:
….bomb goes off in Shia shrine…..situation unclear whether this will spark civil war and massive attacks on Sunnis. Some Shia DO attack Sunnis. Other clerics call for calm. Question: what are the Shia leaders who take their cues from Iran doing? Are they fomenting civil war or trying to stop it? Al Sadr’s bunch are pretty close to Iran but not slavishly so….capable of jumping any which way. Solution: call up an al Sadr supporter and ask what he thinks…….blimey, he blames the CIA….a sure sign that Al Sadr doesn’t want a civil war with the Sunni just yet. Time passes….and blow me down…..Iranian leaders blame ‘Jews and Americans’. Mmmmmm…after time to digest all this…..time to interpret it as: Iranian backed Shia plus Al Sadr are trying to stop their folks from attacking Sunnis by laying the blame on Americans/CIA?Mossad?Elders of Zion…..why are they doing that?
Talksport’s football coverage is excellent, combining good analysis with the typical football fan bluster, rhetoric and humour. If it could afford Premiership commentary instead of being outbid by the poll tax funded BBC it would be the perfect football station. BBC football coverage, both on TV and radio is wooden and old-fashioned compared to the commercial coverage. Only snag with Talksport is that it is really necessary to buy a DAB radio to listen. On medium wave it sometimes reminds me of my time as a youngster listening to pop music on Radio Luxemburg with all the fading in and out. The BBC hogs FM at the expense of of rivals who need to please an audience to get an income.
John Reith writes:
“If you want to make a formal complaint, why not go to the complaints page of the corporation’s website.”
Have you ever tried making a complaint to the BBC? Or (as increasingly seems likely from the drift of your arguments) would that be making a complaint against your employer?
Complaining to the BBC is like shouting into an empty well. The Corporation seems to regard criticism as evidence of its success.
“Al Sadr’s bunch are pretty close to Iran but not slavishly so”
Iran, Hezbollah support al-Sadr
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040407-124311-9361r.htm
Al Sadr vows to defend Iran
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8EDB62B2-567D-40E9-BA51-11302206E336.htm
” Iranian backed Shia plus Al Sadr are trying to stop their folks from attacking Sunnis by laying the blame on Americans/CIA?Mossad?Elders of Zion…..why are they doing that?”
its pretty obvious.
why have the ummah fighting each other when you have a certain bunch of infidel soldiers in a country between the Tigris and Euphrates, and another bunch of kuffar infidels in control of the city of Al Quds.