Have a look at this recent BBC article about Russian birth rates. Like some unpaid p.r. agency for non-Western nations Aunty pretends that basically things in the Bear’s garden are getting rosier:
‘In the latest in our series about the role of the state in encouraging couples to have more children, Patrick Jackson in Moscow looks at how a rising birth rate is bringing cheer to Russia but mortality rates among adult males remain dangerously high.’
When it was published I thought, eh? Because I read Mark Steyn I felt fairly sure that reporting a ‘population boom’ before setting the scene of a dire decline, and seeing it firmly in that light, was pure misreporting. That’s not to mention the fact that they wilfully confuse reporting Moscow trends with those of Russia as a whole.
Interesting how it takes the Russian President himself to talk about Russian news, rather than our crusading BBC journalists. In his state of the State address, Putin talked ‘about the most acute problem facing Russia – demography’ and ‘The problem of low birth rates’.
It’s not that the BBC weren’t aware, but that they were intent on ‘managing’ the news, diplomatically tip-toeing, balancing the factual blows with rhetorical ‘balance’.
As Mark Steyn would say, there are no ‘fears’ involved (or needed) when interpeting demographics, only the hard reality that children not born now won’t grow up.
The Beeb, it seems, were expecting something different from Putin. They followed what they are now calling the ‘The conventional wisdom… that Mr Putin would concentrate on foreign policy’.
Well, the conventional wisdom was wrong. If you’re going to copy, copy someone who knows what they’re talking about- my definition of bottom line common sense which the BBC seems incapable of, with all their public resources. Now if they would stick to reporting the facts instead of interpreting them (incompletely and wrongly), at least they’d get marks for effort…
News24 had discussion on the US’s reservations about the Putin regime.
A Independent hack excuses any Russian democratic shortcomings (because to take any other stance might appear to be siding with the US). Hack claims that we are expecting too much from Russia, after all it is only 15 years since the end of the USSR. Creating a proper democratic state takes longer.
So just how much time were the left (including The Independent & the BBC) prepared to allow Iraq to establish democratic institutions? (all the time making the task more difficult by giving legitimacy to the anti-democratic insurgents & their terrorist methods)
Hey folks,
Brace yourselves. This one’s a real grabber :o)
= = = = =
The BBC pro-Israeli? Is the Pope Jewish?
The Times
May 11, 2006
by Martin Walker
Despite a catalogue of examples to the contrary, the governors insist there is bias against the Palestinians
THE OFFICIAL REPORT for the governors of the BBC on its coverage of the Palestine-Israeli conflict found predictably that there was “was little to suggest systematic or deliberate bias” but then went on to list a series of measurements by which the BBC could be said to be biased in favour of Israel.
This produced mocking guffaws in my own newsroom, where some of the BBC’s greatest hits — or perhaps misses — remain fresh in the memory. There was the hagiographic send-off for Yassir Arafat by a BBC reporter with tears in her eyes and that half-hour profile of Arafat in 2002 which called him a “hero” and “an icon” and concluded that the corrupt old brute was “the stuff of legends”.
There was Orla Guerin’s unforgettably inventive spin on the story of a Palestinian child being deployed as a suicide bomber, which most journalists saw as a sickening example of child abuse in the pursuit of terrorism. Guerin had it as “Israel’s cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes”.
There was the disturbing case of Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC Arabic Service correspondent, who addressed a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001, and was recorded declaring that journalists in Gaza, apparently including the BBC, were “waging the campaign shoulder to shoulder together with the Palestinian people”. Pressed for an explanation, the subsequent BBC statement said: “Fayad’s remarks were made in a private capacity. His reports have always matched the best standards of balance required by the BBC.”
There was the extraordinarily naive coverage of the London visit of Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais, the predominant imam of Mecca, to open London’s largest new mosque. He was described as a widely respected religious figure who works for “community cohesion”, and a video on the BBC website was captioned “The BBC’s Mark Easton: ‘Events like today offer grounds for optimism’.”
The BBC must have missed his sermon of February 1, 2004, that said “the Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring, infidels . . . calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers . . . the scum of the human race whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs . . . These are the Jews, a continuous lineage of meanness, cunning, obstinacy, tyranny, licentiousness, evil, and corruption . . .”
etc –> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2174641,00.html
GROUNDHOG DAY
More whitewash for nulab from the beeb in the “You have my full confidence” documentary.
1. They went as far back as Profumo to present the Conservatives as having been sleazy for the longest time.
2. No mention of Thorpe (of the Liberals, now the LibDims).
3. No mention of the Ecclestone affair, where Andrew Rawnsley (no Conservative supporter he) wrote in his book that BOTH brownstuff and bliar HAD LIED.
4. Mentioned the mandelson loan from robinson but didn’t include the fact that mandelson completed his mortgage application FRAUDULENTLY, an offence for which common people like us are sent to prison.
5. Didn’t mention that both mandelson and blunkett had been caught out twice.
Do the Labour Party have a policy of free membership for beeb employees? If they do then they are getting a good return on the subs foregone.
Can you guys not read? Please put off-topic comments on the open thread and keep this space for on-topic comments about Ed’s post. Thank you.
Has the BBC ever told us that the conviction rate in most Russian courts averages 99% and commented about what this says about the fairness of their justice system?
Clinton caused this: the way he used IMF loans to bolster Yeltsin and flooded Russia with “consultants” out for a fast buck and almost sponsored the scam merchants who got rich on Yeltsin “privatisations” along the lines of the Teapot Dome Scandal and the baning crash that was engineered, it seems pretty obvious that his successor would bide his time until oil prices floated the Russian ship of state before learning to bite and bark.
Frankly, Clinton messed up in Russia by being venal and giving ordinary Russians the feeling of being colonised by foreign capitalists. The BBC does not concentrate on Russian mail-order brides filling the Web because they would have to reveal that Russian men have poor prospects, life expectancy, employment etc and so cannot be dependable as fathers.
Russian women are not interested in being single mothers. No doubt the BBC correspondent is thinking of the girls in his office he has just impregnated or the friends who invite him to their dacha.
Just when did BBC correspondents mix with ordinary Russians ?
Curtis LeMay,
You wandered into the NO SMOKING section with a lit cigarette. Meet you upstairs on the OPEN THREAD for a beer and a chat on the governors, if you’re still around.
Can I add a personal anecdote. A relative by marriage, living in Novosibirsk, capital city of Siberia, aged 60 has just died of a stroke.
She had suffered from headaches for some time. I don’t know what medical advice she received on those. Anyhow one evening she lost consciousness and the family called an ambulance. The paramedics looked at her and said she was just asleep, then they left. The family disagreed with that but couldn’t make the paramedics act differently. Later she had a second worse stroke, this time they took her to hospital where she was put on a life support machine. Her condition got worse and they turned off the machine after 2 days.
I’m told by the family that there is a high level of incompetence, callousness, and plain lack of caring, about Russian health services. Contributing factors may be a lack of money, lack of training and expertise, and difficulty in suing when things could wrong.
So we shouldn’t be surprised at the amazingly low life expectancy, and that people don’t want lots of children.
Hazel
Rick
I think I can guess how much the BBC mixes with ordinary Russian people. The exact amount it mixes with ordinary British people.