…doesn’t mean the Beeb has to agree. This “story” is bogus. President Bush, after all, was not slow to declare a state of emergency along the Gulf Coast. Mayor Nagin’s reaction to this “news” is laughable and hypocritical but the Beeb is happy to serve us New Orleans sludge.
Update: DFH, one of our B-BBC commenterati has two very helpful posts here and here. Auntie can’t get away with what she once did.
Ah, silly me.
The UK edition of ‘Have Your Say’ was not in my orbit. I always access the World Service HYS.
They have a brand new topic up there now:
Is the Internet a global rumour mill?
Answer: Yes, but countless ‘rumours’ turn out to be fact. Like the ‘rumour’ circulating on the Internet that the BBC is a blinkered, leftwing, anti-white, anti-America, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, Muslim-loving, unthinking, amoral propaganda machine.
Er, I just posted that on HYS.
Must be feeling optimistic.
Is the Internet a global rumour mill?
They’re really desperate to discredit the one thing that tries to keep ’em honest, aren’t they?
archduke, thanks very much for the transcript.
Hmm, the Bush Katrina story is slipping down the news pecking-order.
The Beeb has made a fundamental error here, though one sometimes has the feeling that the BBC has not let the facts get in the way of a true story.
“Overrun” and “breach” have wildly different meanings, as do “had purchased uranium from Niger” and “sought to obtain uranium from Niger” but, hey!, who cares!
Er…
no problem susan. as an irish person, i find the BBCs jumping on Gitmo to be unbelievable – considering the British history in Ireland. (internment camps in the 1970s)
indeed, an American could easily point to the Brits far worse case history – such as the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4.
its this overbearing pumped up self-importance and wilful ignorance of Britains own history , that is so off putting. One can only begin to wonder how it feels for an American living in England.
What i cant understand, is that this reeks of tabloid leftie journalism – this is Radio 4. isnt it supposed to be more highbrow?
cant we have a kind of Radio 4 Cato Unbound, where a REAL and thorough intellectual debate on the matters of the day can be conducted, without the hysterics i have been hearing recently.
“Today” has seriously lost the plot in my view – it is not a serious program.
taol -> a good indicator of whether a story has “legs” is Matt Drudge.
the bush/katrina thing was on there one minute – then gone. vanished. puff i.e. it didnt have legs.
Even my mother – who is perched well to the left of Trotsky, is staunchly anti-war and not too fond of Dubya – remarked that Today “is obsessed with Bush and Guantanamo”.
Archduke:
the transcript was fascinating.
I always believed the purpose of an interview was to get to the truth for the benefit of the audience.
Quite frankly, Humphries was doing a P*** poor job.
In between the ‘have you quit beating your wife’ questions, he was peddling his own opinions. The constant interruptions demonstrated that he placed more value on these than the words of his interviewee.
If he wants to ‘soapbox’ -fine, but the BBC can’t dress this up as journalism.
I don’t listen to R4, but if this is the usual standard of Humphries’ work I’m surprised he’s still got his job.
oh by the way – Colleen Graffy is probably Irish American.
Colleen is an angliscised version of the Irish gaelic “cailin” – girl. its a commmon Irish-American first name. just thought i’d wave the flag there a bit, if ya dont mind.
“the transcript was fascinating.”
its amazing when you have it in black and white isnt it?
i think i’ll do this more regularly.
there’s obviously a reason why Today dont offer transcripts of interviews.
oh by the way – Colleen Graffy is probably Irish American.
Even though I loathe lawyers I am quite attracted to her and find her charming
Slightly off topic on this story, but watching BBC World News, the American Presenter effectively asked a BBC Correspondent how those arrested for the 53 million pound robbery had done it? The Correspondent replied that it is for the Courts to decide whether they did it or not. Am I alone in remembering a BBC where it would be unthinkable that a BBC interviewer would ever ask such a question?
the bush/katrina thing was on there one minute – then gone.
Gone but not forgotten by those who’s agenda it suits.
Like the Lancet 100,000 dead, the plastic turkey, Saddam as imminent threat etc myths.
hippiepooter -> i have no idea what you are on about. it IS for the courts to decide. thats the law. people are innocent until proven guilty – and in that regard, i think the BBC correspondent did the right thing – rather than waffling on and thus endangering the trial.
or are am i missing your point completely?
“Like the Lancet 100,000 dead, the plastic turkey, Saddam as imminent threat etc myths.”
maybe i should place a bet with in the bookies – on what date will Today drag up the “100,000 dead issue”? on what date will “abu garaib” or “gitmo” be dragged up again… and so on and so forth.
the odds will probably be piss poor though.
seriously though – when was the last time you heard an operational report from the British military or Centcom on the likes of “Today” about military activities in Iraq or Afghanistan? a kind of summary of whats gone on in the past week, month or so? what have our boys done over there? what were the successes, failures? that sort of thing. i mean, doesnt Rumsfeld, or the Pentagon do weekly briefings to the press? why arent they covered by the BBC?
i’ve yet to hear it. i’d be interested in hearing it. but the bbc deems it not “important” enough to report – its more “important” to report on imprisoned terrorists who would dearly like to cut my head off if they had a chance.
quite frankly, i’m coming more and more to the opinion that the BBC is on the side of the enemy. an enemy that would love to destroy the liberties and freedoms our ancestors have struggled for centuries to attain.
I understand that Gitmo detainees are being held as enemy combatants and thus cannot be interviewed or tried.
Why does John Humphreys not understand this ?
All Today can offer is a sixth form grasp of issues. Why the dishonesty?
beats me Soc
its downright condesending to former Today listeners like myself.
thats why i listen to Terry Wogan in the morning now.
i leave my “TODAY” listening to later on in the day, via the website, when i’ve had a fair number of strong coffees in my system.
as i said above – we seriously need a “cato unbound” form of Today. stuff to get your teeth into – stuff that just lingers with you throughout the day.
stuff that just makes you “think” for bit. full on intellectual analysis – seriously high brow , but a total brain-food feast at the same time
– rather than the sixth form ranting that we’re getting at the moment.
when was the last time anyone from the European Central Bank interviewed on today for example?
or anyone from the cutting edge of derivatives or futures trading?
thats just two hardcore mind-food kind of interviews i have in mind.
your “sixth form” analysis is very apt.
or anyone from the cutting edge of derivatives or futures trading?
thats just two hardcore mind-food kind of interviews i have in mind.
It’s because none of them have ever had any real jobs or studied anything real in college. They go straight from “political sciences” or “media studies” to the BBC. They think they know everything, when in fact, they know nothing.
indeed.
the amount of knowledge about the world economy in that square mile of the “City” is incredible.
and its not tapped or used. in the beeboid universe it barely exists
The (D)HYS on Ken Livingstone
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&threadID=1145&edition=1&ttl=20060303231220&#paginator
has closed. The second comment on the “most recent” is an attack on George Bush. Well, whaddya know?!
Newnight Review discusses “The Road to Guantanamo” (C4 next Thurs) – the story of the Tipton Three.
All agree that it is the story told only from the point of view of the young Muslims.
But this is a good thing, declares the chairman (a Scottish sikh, oft seen on More4’s “Last Word) – because it counters all the propaganda put out by the Coalition.
So that will be the uncritical whitewash broadcast by the BBC & most of the MSM will it?
i find it highly offensive that they use the moniker “tipton three” – as if thats equivalent to the birmingham 6 or guildford 4. i really do find that comparision incredibly offensive and downright plain WRONG.
To reprise “the bush/katrina thing was on there one minute – then gone.
In Today’s interview with ex Fema chief the interviewer accepts that there was no warning of a breach of the levees, & obtains Brown’s agreement to this fact.
So after Thursday’s continual lies by the BBC (& ITV (where their Washington reporter stated that Bush had been told “precisely” that the levees would be breached) & C4) the Today programme at 07:31 on Friday puts the lie to rest.
Who heard, who knows, who will remember the BBC belatedly telling it straight?
Blimey.
The BBC is running a report on an attack on a very, very holy (Christian) church in the Middle East.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4772364.stm
Don’t worry. It was an Israeli wot did it, not ‘a man of Mediterranean appearance’. That’s why it’s on the BBC news, I suppose.
Will
Re Newnight Review and the “Tipton 3”
“But this is a good thing, declares the chairman (a Scottish sikh, oft seen on More4’s “Last Word) – because it counters all the propaganda put out by the Coalition.”
The shock in the studio was palpable when David Aaronovitch pointed out that 1. the mosque in question which the Tipton 3 just “happened” to visit is/was the centre for recruitment of jihadists in the whole region 2. fighting had started in Afghanistan 3-5 days before the Tipton 3 had become involved (ie they knew what was happening when they went there).
I think DA can kiss goodbye to any further appearances on Newsnight Review.
from The Telegraph
Naughtie’s forbidden love
The Today presenter Jim Naughtie once used the word “we” to identify himself with the Labour Party on the Radio 4 programme, but he still clearly numbers one of “them” as a friend.
At the opening of the Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury, he put an arm around Lord Archer in what looked like the start of a hug. The recipient blocked the manoeuvre, however, by stepping backwards. Jeffrey would say nothing about it, but Naughtie emailed Mandrake the morning after to say he was not “a hugger… and stetsons don’t suit me, though I wouldn’t mind the boots”. Mandrake had wondered whether Jim had ever, perhaps, gone fishing with Jeffrey on Brokeback Mountain.
hmmm – i’m a liberal when it comes to social mores. so , brokeback mountain is a non starter with me. i couldnt give a rats arse about it..
……..I think its a joke……..
Donald Rumsfeld says that media like the BBC are playing Al Quaeda’s game for them :
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/04/wguan04.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/04/ixworld.html
The BBC eg John Humphrys refuses to see that there is a war going on, worldwide.
A single blogger using a simple animation shows us more than the BBC with its £1 billion-plus news budget has ever done :
http://chromatism.net/bloodyborders/flash.htm#top
http://chromatism.net/bloodyborders/
http://chromatism.net/bloodyborders/maps.htm
All based on data collected at this blogsite :
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
Cancel your tv license.
Do not fund lies, propaganda and a political agenda you disagree with
Thanks to all of those who helped me track down the BBC’s hiding of an interesting HYS page on Islamism. Obviously some of you are far more adept at ferreting out the BBC’s ‘dumping grounds’ than I am. (What the hell is with that ‘search twice and it magically appears’ thing anyway?)
Someone directed me here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/world_have_your_say/4763380.stm
Which, despite the title, has as many comments on McDonalds as it does on Islamism. It has also removed the fact that the vast majority of opinion on HYS saw Islamism as a large and dangerous threat, the subject now being pared down to make it look like it wasn’t a completely one-sided debate (with plenty of room, of course, being given to accusations of the West torturing and killing and being responsible for everything bad that happens).
Someone else (excuse me for not checking back for names) directed me to here: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=1213&start=0&tstart=0&&&&&&edition=1&ttl=20060304012338#paginator
Where you can still see the whole debate (pretty much in the same state it was disappeared in), with the vast majority of opinion apparently seeing Islamism as a huge and potent threat.
I’m sure that disappearing HYS topics in the middle of the night is a regular BBC tactic, but ‘disappearing things/people in the night with no notice’ smacks to me of the same tactics employed by secret police in totalitatrian states. Glad to see the BBC is sticking up for our values.
Regards to you all,
Niko
Even Associated Press has had to put out an apology for its misleading report on the Bush Katrina business.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013316.php
Will we now get a BBC apology or correction to match this ?
Will Kirsty Wark apologise for effectively accusing Bush on Thursday night of being a liar ?
Will Newsnight sack Peter Marshall for completely cocking up their story when the AP stuff had already been widely corrected in the media and the blogosphere – and by the White house, I believe ?
Will the BBC ever learn that it ought to check its stories more carefully – that in a time of de facto and de jure war against Al Q it should sound out a few opinions that are not totally biased against Bush before launching into yet another attack on the elected leader of this country’s main ally ?
Will the BBC ever see that there is actually a lot of news value in showing both sides of the story – in this case the real story was a bit like Rathergate, it was the way the media lied that was the story, not the lie itself.
Will pigs fly ?
It seems well overdue for a Paul Reynolds correction piece – all the facts have been out there for days now, he is well behind the curve on this one, the BBC is still looking a complete ass.
I mention Associated Press because ALL the stuff on Bush and Katrina this week waas based on the AP releases.
Looking back on it, I reckon I could have done a far better job than any of the editors , reporters or presenters at Newsnight, Today etc on this Bush/Katrina story. It is actually not very hard to be about a day ahead of the BBC. As soon as the AP stuff started, I KNEW the BBC would lap it up, play it for all it is worth – even though the fatal flaw in the story was made apparent almost immediately, just like Rathergate.
Newsnight review cuts out just before Aaron gets to speak. What a surprise….
Let’s call ’em the GBC – Guantanamo Broadcasting Corporation!
It is actually not very hard to be about a day ahead of the BBC.
The hell. It’s not hard to be a week ahead of the BBC. Or, as in the case of the Oil-for-Palaces scandal, something like a year ahead of al-Beeb.
They go straight from “political sciences” or “media studies” to the BBC. They think they know everything, when in fact, they know nothing.
Susan | 03.03.06 –
English degrees mainly I think Susan……and French/Spanish and the like. Most BBC staff are female, it is just as you get to the top of the executive money-tree men outnumber women; but 60% BBC Radio employees are women.
Otherwise your observation is reasonable.
I see they are still trailing “Angry Young Muslims in Europe” on BBC World Service…….maybe “Irritated and Angry White Christians” might be a good sequel. The thought of BBC pretending Europe was a Christian heritage infiltrated by Muslim colonisers is so near the truth as to be impossible for them to report
Up early, checking the channels over breakfast. Guess what – News 24 is leading with Guantanamo. 5Live inserts a cheap dig at Bush – “he is being told trhe rules of cricket on his trip to India, that won’t work, he couldn’t understand the rules of snakes and ladders”. Not funny IMHO, just cheap.
And that is what the BBC has become. A load of cheapskates – costing us a fortune.
Go to http://old-ironsides.blogspot.com/ for another recent example of the Beebs twisted perspective, this time in the Middle East – its those wicked Israelis again…
The wonderful Peter Glover has also noticed the BBC’s obsession with Guantanamo: http://petercglover.livejournal.com/185294.html
What we have here [according to Mr Glover] is a tale of two T-words. On the one hand the Beeb will never use the word ‘terrorism’, not even to describe the act of blowing up 700 hundred London commuters – the term is ‘too judgemental’ – on the other hand the (presumably non-judgemental) word ‘torture’ can be freely used to describe the act of force-feeding a starving man. Yet another BBC double standard.
tessa jowell – the story that wont go away.
“tessa jowell splits from husband”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4773468.stm
according to Mr Mills lawyer – their marriage had been put under “strain” by the recent controversy.
anyone else find that to be extremely odd?
Susan
“Should water meters be made compulsory?”
Being Anglo-Welsh I am aware that it rains a lot in Wales. I now live in the South East, which is drier. A few years ago a sensible solution to the eternal hose pipe ban was mooted, namely construct a water pipeline from Wales to England.
It was dropped, perhaps because some one realised that “shortage” equals “higher prices”
Thames Water tried on a scam in the South East (me included) whereby they told everyone who had an extension built that they had to have a water meter fitted. When i slammed the door on the Thames Water propaganda official he pushed the form through my letter box.(It was ignored).
My house still has lead pipe supply but Thames Water says if I want to update this I must pay for it myself.
Why does the BBC not highlight these iniquities instead of pushing the Government line?.
David H
I love Glover’s strapline to the BBC News 24 logo –
“Where the truth is tortured 24 hours a day”
The short answer, archduke, is “yes”. It seems that a certain “lady” is either playing for
for sympathy or is tring to save her own neck before more of the brown stuff hits the fan.
Tessa Jowell is dumping a liability to save her career. Fair play to her, this is ruthless even by NuLabour standards.
As for Five Live’s dig at President Bush, nothing describes the decline of British culture into sneering, ignorant stupidity than Radio Five. A succession of football-obsessed ill-educated morons who think they are clever. Like a long, slow-developing illness it is often difficult to see the decline, but one day it hits you in the face and you realise how low things have got.
Tessa Jowell cabinet minister signs government documents all day long. Does she read these papers and letters which impact on every day lives or is she apparently nothing more than a professional letter signer?.
Her BBC White Paper is due soon, will she have read it?
The White Paper
Q1806 Chairman: Basically it is an agreement between your Department, the Government, with the BBC?
Tessa Jowell: Under the seal of Her Majesty the Queen, as it is a Royal Charter.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldbbc/50/5072003.htm
Does she read these papers and letters which impact on every day lives or is she apparently nothing more than a professional letter signer?.
No, she gazes into Tony’s eyes in Cabinet meetings and tells him how wonderful he is, how admired he is, and how blessed she is to be in his divine presence
decline of British culture into sneering, ignorant stupidity than Radio Five. A succession of football-obsessed ill-educated morons who think they are clever.
You are so right…………this station is the best argument against the licence-fee and the best for advertising-funed commercial programming – time to sell Radio 5 to Kelvin McKenzie