BBC Views Online often seems to report unexplained phenomena – for instance, from the last few days, off the top of my head, we have:
- Inquiry as stolen car kills woman – I presume the car stole itself and ran the woman over, rather than a car thief (or suspected car thief even) being responsible;
- A 15-year-old boy is being prosecuted in connection with the case of a girl who fell pregnant at the age of 11 – did he trip her up then? Girls obviously need to be careful in case they fall over and get up pregnant;
- A woman was killed and several people were injured when a stolen bus went on a five-mile rampage through Dublin – naughty, naughty bus – don’t do that again.
I’m sure readers of Biased BBC can spot many more unexplained phenomena reported by the BBC. Let us know in the comments – and mind how you go – it’s a strange world out there!
archduke
To right they do. But it would take a revolution for that to happen here.
The fact is that the most likely type of revolution here, would result in anything but these desirable things from taking place.
Just came across an interview on Worldscreen.com with the hated-by-the-BBC Fox News chief Roger Ailes.
To the question:
“How do you respond to the criticism that there is a conservative bias to Fox News?”
Roger Ailes replied:
“Bias is not what you say; it’s what you eliminate. We don’t eliminate anybody. Everybody gets equal time. They do eliminate a conservative voice at many of these other networks [which in the UK means all the broadcasters], therefore we appear to be more conservative, because we treat the conservative point of view with as much respect as we treat the liberal point of view.”
Hear bloody hear! I think that’s something that we can all agree on, eh chaps?
“Hear bloody hear! I think that’s something that we can all agree on, eh chaps”
he makes a good point. but human nature being what it is , generally means that
right-wingers generally end up running a business or working in the stock market.
leftists end up doing “media studies”
or making films.
of course there are big exceptions to that rule.
In the U.K. right wingers tend to end up in the free-market.
Whereas leftists end up in the extortion funded sector.
G Cooper
Stop trying to be clever, and failing or I will start calling you a Nazi again. I was refering to the past. Dont try and teach me anything about cricket. I am a dedicted England fan and have been all my life. I was at the oval last year for the last 3 days of the Ashes, was you? For some one that thinks voting BNP is the answer to our countries problems, your got a cheek infering im on the wrong planet.
Gary Powell writes:
” For some one that thinks voting BNP is the answer to our countries problems, your got a cheek infering im on the wrong planet.”
Ah, the sage of B-BBC speaks.
Would you like to justify that accusation with a direct quote, or would you prefer to keep teetering on the edge of libel?
Gentlemen, kindly take your squabbling elsewhere. Thank you.
“Gentlemen, kindly take your squabbling elsewhere. Thank you.”
hear hear. it does get somewhat tiring.
archduke writes:
“hear hear. it does get somewhat tiring.”
I’m quite content to abide by Andrew’s judgement on this – it’s his call, after all. I’m just a guest.
But perhaps it might be worth just a squeak that quite a few things get “somewhat tiring” – and the greatest of these, I would suggest, is off-topic ranting.
If nothing else, I do at least try to keep my comments on topic. Though I accept that Andrew’s reprimand was quite reasonably applied to one occasion when I didn’t.
Lengthy report in the Sunday Times
Private sector tells BBC: Get off our turf, you’re distorting the market
Internet, music and publishing companies are claiming the BBC is abusing its power
& comments on the licence fee level from 1 expected & 1 surprising source
Richard Collins, professor of media studies at the Open University, said: ‘I think there is a case for giving the BBC a tighter remit and less money.’
David Elstein, a former chief executive of Five and current chairman of the Commercial Radio Companies Association, said: ‘The BBC will be lucky to get a bare inflationary increase, plus a bunch of stuff to help pay for the switchover to digital. If that’s what they get, it will be more than they need.’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2179161,00.html
will quotes:
“Private sector tells BBC: Get off our turf, you’re distorting the market
Internet, music and publishing companies are claiming the BBC is abusing its power”
I’m never very sympathetic to the bleats of music companies – but magazine publishers surely have a case?
The BBC shamelessly uses its massive broadcasting power to promote a whole string of magazines, against which rival publishers cannot hope to compete. Gardening and wildlife are two perfect examples of this, where the BBC is clearly leveraging its licence fee to the disdvantage of bona fide publishers.
Here’s a humdinger of an example of the BBC’s bias: its coverage of
the Duke University rape scandal, as shown here. The
extent to which the Beeb gets the story completely wrong is utterly
astonishing.
The BBC is trying to spin the story as a Southern story, and is thus
ignoring everything that does not fit the picture. For a start:
The centrepiece of the campus is a soaring gothic spire that might
have come from Oxford. Indeed. That is the air Duke has tried to
put on, which will be more relevant shortly.
The details are sordid and they have split campus and community,
town and gown, along racial and political lines. Actually, they
haven’t. The city of Durham, white and black, is united in digust and
anger against Duke and its lacrosse team. Moving on through the article.
The university was founded by a tobacco family, the Dukes, who, by
the standards of a century ago, were undoubted liberals. Again,
another whopper. The Dukes were liberal by Southern standards, but not
by the standards of North Carolina. The Jim Crow laws were on the
books in NC, but were laxly enforced, and in some areas enforced not
at all, particularly in nearby Robeson County, dominated by Lumbee
River Indians, and in the larger cities, such as Durham. But don’t
expect the Beeb to tell you this.
Also, don’t expect the Beeb to tell you the real story. Duke
University has tried to position itself in the elite and become less
of a provincial university. To that end Duke has been recruiting
aggressively for high school graduates in the Northeast. To that end,
Duke got itself a well-funded and coddled lacrosse team. Another
detail that the BBC is omitting is that lacrosse is not a popular
sport in the Southern US. The game was invented by the Red Indians,
and played most avidly by the Iroquois tribes of upstate New York,
Quebec, and Ontario. The game remains popular mostly in that selfsame
region. Southerners show little interest in it.
This is why there was not a single North Carolinian on the Duke
lacrosse team. They were all from the suburbs of Washington, DC and
New York City. From very wealthy suburbs where there is a boorish
youth “culture” associated with high school athletes, one notorious
for inculcating a sense fo entitlement among the ‘lads.’ This is the
source of this sordid story, not the culture and history of North
Carolina.
Duke University’s admins did not win any good feelings in Durham when
they decided to make the place more cosmopolitan. They generated a
good bit of resentment when in order to appear more elite they
recruited prospective students from the Northeast. They generated more
resentment when said Northeasterners started acting like boors. And
now that Southerners are being tarred by association with this
scandal, Duke-Durham relations are at an all time low. In the week the
scandal broke, students were afraid to leave campus for fear of attack
by white and black Durhamites. And now, if Duke shut down completely,
many North Carolinians would be glad.
None of this complies with the preconceptions of the BBC’s reporters,
so of course none of it was reported. But then the Guardian and the
Independent did no better. Their coverage of this story goes a long
way towards explaining to Americans why in Britain, reporters are
regarded with contempt. In Britain, reporters deserve it.
Now, where to start.
Well, it began with an extraordinarily misleading article on the “Sunday” programme by Katya Adler (Radio 4 – try 7.35 or thereabouts) on the reasons for the haemorrhage of Palestinian Christians from the PA in recent years and particularly since Hamas took over.
Unsurprisingly, Adler was unable to find anyone who would attest to the increased fear of the Palestinian Christian community since Hamas (dedicated to introducing Shari’ah Law to the Territories) took over.
Instead, the blame was placed at the door of the Little Satan, who has shooed the tourists away since the Intifada of 2000. Nothing to do with Arafat’s corruption, misuse of international aid, protection money to be paid in the thousands to Muslim gangs etc.
For the REAL explanation of the exodus of Christians (quite often to Israel) see here
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/16736.htm
and here
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/16737.htm
and here
Click to access Christian-Persecution-Weiner.pdf
Adler also failed to mention the forced closure of the Palestinian Bible Society’s offices in Gaza.
http://www.comeandsee.com/
Now, why should this be? Is Adler really unaware that Palestinian Christians are frightened of the violent reprisals which they might suffer if they tell the truth to the media about the daily discrimination they suffer? If so this is extraordinary in a BBC correspondent. Or is she seeing only what she expects to see – that Hamas can do no wrong and that the israelis are the only villains of the piece?
Either way, the listeners to this piece will be left misled and uninformed and furthermore ….
…… when I telephoned the BBC and asked for a response from the editorial team of Sunday, the man on the end of the phone told me that I shouldn’t expect a response because I was just expressing my personal opinion, and the broadcaster was expressing hers!
Er, excuse me? This man said he’d been doing the job for eleven years. Has he been fobbing off complaints by telling disgruntled callers that they are only “expressing a personal opinion and the broadcasters are expressing theirs” for ELEVEN years?
More Kafka anyone?
Telemaque:
Nice post. Help expose the BBC and Guardian in the States by disseminating a link to my recent piece for Accuracy in Media:
http://www.aim.org/aim_report/4488_0_4_0_C
.
Oh dear. It’s Sunday and the media studies grads are in for some double time at the BBC …..who thought this one up?
Are you an American abroad?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1772&&edition=1&ttl=20060514105908
Are you an American citizen in need of guidance abroad?
Are you an American citizen abroad on business? What are your experiences of cultural faux pas? What tips would you give businessmen visiting your country?
Can I have some ‘tips’ please in avoiding the racist faux pas of the BBC leftists, masquerading as ‘comment’ on (D)HYS?
“Bias is not what you say; it’s what you eliminate.”
And for a good example of “elimination” it’s worth monitoring the nearly Conservative free zone of the Today programme – in the week after they made significant gains in the local elections and should have been in the news – and indeed were in the news even in other areas of BBC output – Today did their best to nearly expunge them. Instead they went into overdrive on the Brown -v- Blair story giving the impression that Gordon Brown is the official opposition in what they present as virtually a one-party state. I know that the Today programme is so aggravating it makes listening to it a pain – but I think it deserves a special ‘Today watch’ thread of its own on B-BBC as one of the worst (and most influential) offenders in the bias stakes.
Good points Fran – I’ve had very similar brush-offs when ringing the BBC to complain.
Newspaper to shut after a century
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4768531.stm
and more to follow in the months and years to come as the BBC robs us of ever more money and puts local papers out of business.
Ritter writes:
”
Can I have some ‘tips’ please in avoiding the racist faux pas of the BBC leftists, masquerading as ‘comment’ on (D)HYS?”
Indeed! And how about some for BBC journalists working in the USA? As Telemaque’s excellent comment highlghts, the behaviour of the Corporation’s hacks leaves a lot to be desired in several, vital respects. You know, like truth, objctivity, impartiality, accuracy…
Interesting article from Justin Webb, stoopid headline though.
Ohio losing faith with President
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4765255.stm
……..”I was chatting to Carlos about the president and John Kerry, the Democratic contender he beat in 2004.
Carlos agreed that Bush had his troubles. “But,” he said, “he’s better than Kerry.
Why? John Kerry supports abortion rights.
From the bottom of the pile in American society – from a man who is not yet even a proper citizen here but whose children will be – comes a message that hostility to abortion and to homosexuality – a belief in other words in Bush values – is going to be the wave of the future.
In a few decades, more than a quarter of the people of this nation will be Hispanic immigrants and the great majority of them – like Carlos – will be socially conservative.
Too late of course to save this president, though not too late to re-write history in his favour.
The headlines scream “Bush finished” and in the short term the headlines are right.
But America is full of surprises.
Is it the views of the illegal immigrant that Justin is surprised at? I love the irony – leftists would normally be drawn to the poor downtrodden ‘alienated’ illegal, but…. the illegal supports Bush! Err what to do? Does…not..compute??!!
Today did their best to nearly expunge them. Instead they went into overdrive on the Brown -v- Blair story giving the impression that Gordon Brown is the official opposition in what they present as virtually a one-party state.
Soon the BBC will discover that Gordo was really adopted after his “parents” found him, in a meteorite but I prefer to think he was built by a hobbyist watching the $6 Million Man using parts obtained in the Tandy closing down sale
Are you an American citizen abroad on business? What are your experiences of cultural faux pas?
Don’t ask an American for a fag. Don’t suggest to an American woman playing squash that you have a knock-up.
Don’t tell an American the phone line is engaged.
Don’t tell him Shell Oil is an Anglo-Dutch company
Don’t tell him that in Europe Daewoo cars are called Chevrolet
Don’t tell him that The Church of England is not State-funded but that Us churches get generous tax breaks.
Don’t suggest that in Britain the main TV station is licensed by the Government and funded by taxation and that the recent top management funded the ruling political party, but despite all this it is really independent…………….he might think he is in Russia and caught the wrong flight
.
Richard Collins, professor of media studies at the Open University, said: ‘I think there is a case for giving the BBC a tighter remit and less money.’
Now tell me how much money the BBC has spent on lobbyists to ensure that this does not happen !
Ritter:
The difficulty that Justin Webb had stomaching working class Hispanic support for the hated US conservative administration helps explain why the mighty truth-telling fact-seeking famously impartial BBC has only mentioned this:
http://www.muslimsforbush.com/
once:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/4340611.stm
An American prosecutor says that the problems with MI5 are because they do not recognise we are in a war against Islamist extremists. This lacksadaisical attitude seems to continue the idea that during the 1990s MI5 had been happy for London to be a haven and an organisaing/recruiting centre for may people whom other Governments regarded as Islamist treerrorists.
In other words, MI5 does not really see all this as a war on terror.
Just like the BBC and its constant use of the phrase “so-called” WoT.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/14/nmifive14.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/14/ixuknews.html
Nick Cohen writing in The Observer
Broadcasters are not always as aggressive as they pretend. On every great issue, they choose a public figure to represent their views. He or she enjoys the easy life and august title of Official Spokesperson for the Media Class.
So it was with Ming and Iraq. Go back through the archives of Channel 4 News, Today and Newsnight and you won’t find an allegedly tough presenter asking him a single hard question. Not one. Naturally, the powder-puff interviews made Ming appear a formidable politician. It is only now that the luckless Lib Dems are discovering he is nothing of the sort.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1774558,00.html
Could you say that the LibDems elected Ming on a “false prospectus” (© Ming 2002-2006)
Further to dumbcisco’s link to the Telegraph article on Islamic terrorists.
The point being made that we are at war &, according to the damn Yankee “You continue to treat Islamic terrorism as if it were a problem of law enforcement. It is not. You are not dealing with criminals.
The process of the criminal law will hamstring the security agencies in their efforts to frustrate terrorism.”
This is what UK (& many US)politicians & media can’t grasp about Guantanamo. After the problems highlighted this past week over the limitations of working within the ECHR one would expect this message to be heard. How long before a case arises where the inability to hold a UK based terrorist is such an affront to the people that the media will not be able to side with the terrorist in the way that they did with the UK Guantanamo detainees (who were not, of course, terrorists but tourists).
Also in the article
Yet one MI5 officer told this newspaper in October 2001 that Abu Qatada was a “joke figure” – a description he also applied to Abu Hamza, the preacher who turned the Finsbury Park Mosque in London into a centre for Islamic radicalism.
Is the same mistake being made with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Telemaque- I concurr with JBH.
One thing though: do you think it’s possible this article has been edited signiificantly in recent times? I am sure I saw a worse earlier version of it a few days ago, and there is a ‘last updated’ sign from yesterday. In its latest form, for instance, it acknowledges some of the elements of your criticism, such as the fact that most students are from outside N.C.
I wonder if there’s a way of accessing the earlier version. Anyone know how and care to explain?
The politics show at midday talked about the growing English disatisfaction about treatment of the English in devolution.
I think the BBC pulled its punches,particularly with Menzies Campbell,who said there is no evidence the English would like their own parliament.The interviewer could have asked him why he thought that,particularly as there was a teletext poll with 95% in favour of an English Parliament.
The meeting at Penrith was well attended I hear,so why did the BBC concentrate on the empty first row(people only reluctantly occupy the front row in open meetings)and on the faces of the older folk?
I note that visits to the BBC’s Radio Times website results in this cookie
AdInfoserving-sys.com
which my anti-spyware tells me is a tracking cookie.
Could news such as this shake the BBC’s mantra of Democrat good: Republican bad, or is nothing better expected from Southern rednecks?
A Democratic candidate for Alabama attorney general denies the Holocaust occurred and said Friday he will speak this weekend in New Jersey to a “pro-white” organization that is widely viewed as being racist.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj–alabamaattorneyge0512may12,0,1010796.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey
(Via Instapundit)
Nick Cohen’s article in today’s Observer about how the BBC fawned on Ming Campbell as he was anti-Iraq invasion is in the same issue as this article about the ongoing threat within Britain from Islamist extremists :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1774548,00.html
“Terror suspect numberss soar to 1200”
“MI5 source reveals a current, relentless and increason security threat”…
That’s nothing to worry about, though. The BBC simply calls it the so-called war on terror. So they are just so-called terror suspects, and we will only be so-called murder victims.
The BBC truly is acting like a fifth column.
I haven’t noticed Frank Gardner rushing to warn us of the greatly increasing Islamic security risks in our midst. His reports are generally anodyne, numbing and complacent. Playing down the threat, and blaming us rather than the warped version of religion that drives them.
“Following Mark Thompson’s email earlier today, Top of the Pops are pre-recording a show tonight for transmission on 21 May and they need a live audience made up of BBC staff.”
Doubtless many BBC staff will feel obliged to attend for career purposes.
This reminds me of that classic sketch by Punt and Dennis about embarassing dads dancing to TOTP:
“Hey, what’s this, it’s got a good beat!”
Here we see the BBC preparing for what it no doubt sees as the “logical” transfer of power with a nice piece about Gordon Browns school days
(warning! picture of Brown trying to smile)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4766189.stm
Since when were they doing Gordon Browns PR
I stupidly watched BBC News 24 this morning at 9am, this news service is so bad, it begins with flashy editing as if it was cutting edge and state of the art, satillites etc., and then it just repeats stuff that is yesterdays news.
Apropos of their “live” coverage of the murder of volunteer police-woman Bisha Patel-Nasri, we had a stuttering buffon of a journalist called Keith Doyle repeating ad infinitum about the police seeking a “white”(sic) couple who may have seen the man”. Yes the “M” word is very much in use. I read in print inthe newspaper this morning, a statement from a neighbour:
Pravina Kothari, about the suspect:
“He was black skinned, in fact, he had particularly dark skin- he looked African rather than Caribbean. He was not wearing a hooded top as everybody has been saying. It was more like a thick wollen hat”
And what do we hear on BBC News 24 at 4pm news? This time they have another “live” journalist, Jake Lynch, standing outside the house, talking yet again of the “hooded man”.
Yet again no attempt to inform us of the ethnicity. The BBC has liars for editors. I remember hearing one interviewed on BBC Radio 4 Feedback, that they never withhold the ethnicity, this was concerning a 25 man Somalian gang arrested in Camden Town.
The BBC News is one of the most censored, biased news reporting orgs in existence. Its also a complete waste of time. Tax payers money on journalists and vans parked outside a house in Wembley witholding the actual latest news from us, yet trying to pretend that they are cutting edge-what a joke!
In other words, MI5 does not really see all this as a war on terror.
Just like the BBC and its constant use of the phrase “so-called” WoT.
dumbcisco | 14.05.06 – 1:34 pm | #
I recommend you reflect on Stella Rimington, former Head of MI5 appointed bu John Major. Look at her autobiography – not a word about Islam or Algerians – but she was appointed because of her work for the Conservatives in infiltrating trades unions and setting up the scam accusing Scargill of getting money from Libya.
The issue was simple – the IRA and trades unions were “the enemy within” but the Algerians etc were “foreign guests”.
They simply had tunnel vision. Then MI5 wanted a new role and was given police jobs on drugs and people-trafficking for which MI5 is very badly equipped and where Arabic language skills were probably not in demand.
Then again, who would want to join MI5 ? In wartime it has a much higher calibre of staff than in peacetime where it reports to The Home Secretary who in recent years has been listed in their files.
Just how can someone report in to Straw, Blunkett or Clarke – all of whom were in MI5 files ? Reid is probably there too as a former Communist.
The whole thing is weird – I bet MI5 has no presence in Leeds, Bradford, Bury, Oldham or any other areas where Urdu, Gujerati, are spoken and Arabic taught. It was probably a London-based job with trips to Belfast.
BBC News is crap which is why I ignore it. I do not watch BBC TV at all – in fact I only watch foreign TV on satellite, though I do hear BBC radio news which is repetitive – so the Short Wave lets me hear other radio stations and the Net lets me read other papers.
I bet most people do not even watch the News and probably think Blair has transmogrified like Dr Who into David Cameron and that Charles Clarke was cavorting with Prescott’s secretary
An American prosecutor says that the problems with MI5
dumbcisco.
I remember that it was reported that in one of the first kiss & tell books written by an MI5 woman head, there was nothing on Islamic terrorism in it. Im just guessing but like the CIA, the involvement in recruiting to fight the Russsians was second nature to them. I think that the relations we deleveoped with Pakistan in funding the Taliban were considerable and still are. The same people in the same positions, same mind-sets. Like the BBC too, their anti-Russian sentiment is still audible.
What I find so amazing is all this talk about recruiting amongst ethnic Arabs and Muslims right now ( we had on BBC London News the other day, BBC journalist Assad Ahmed(sic) and Baroness Scotland, pictured in front of headquarters calling on ethnic minorities to be recruited for MI6. Imagine if this were Russians? Look at the spy scandels we had, the same thing will happen 5-20 years down the line with Muslims as double -agents, but probably with more serious consequnces.
Guys, check out the guest list at the Islamophile Butt-Kissers Conference in Copenhagen:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=20554_Denmark_Islamophobia_Conference#comments
Amongst the usual suspects — Yvonne Ridley, Red Ken, is this man:
Session 6: The issue of Palestine & the growth of Islamophobia – Palestine a lasting peaceful solution
16:25 16:40 Sheikh Ahmed Abu Laban •Scholar
16:40 17:00 Hon Bob Hawke-Former Prime Minister Australia
17:00 17:10 Phil Rees • BBC Producer & Director
17:10 17:20 Outlandish
Of course. OF COURSE.
16:25 16:40 Sheikh Ahmed Abu Laban •Scholar
Is he the guy stirring things in Denmark?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/danish-imam-who-faked-cartoons-linked.html
Sheikh Ahmed Abu Laban – yes and he is also the one caught on TV threatening to have his opponents killed which he then denied….but the BBC won’t report that of course!
Phil Rees of the BBC seems to have snuggled up quite close to a few “militants”.
In thgisa ionterview he says he hates using the T word.
But how odd – he used the T word in the title of his book. To sell more copies ?
Is there any better definition of hypocrisy than that ?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s1360332.htm
Amir Tahiri slices Rees’ book to shreds – and exposes his hatred of the US and Israel:
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/13495
The guy seems to have made a career for decades at the BBC as a US-hater.
Oh – and he was the producer for that ridiculous programme “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic”.
Great As far as I can see, this guy comes across as apologist for terrorism – he deniews there is any such thing. And we are forced to pay his salary.
Try getting your comment accepted for HYS. Difficult?
Yet on a HYS topic Are you an American abroad?, something irrelevant to the topic, but dear to the heart of the BBC can be published, & recommended
The US is around 5% of the world’s population, but consumes a quarter of the world’s energy production.
Faris Sayegh
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&edition=1&ttl=20060514201535&messageID=807839󅎟
Another obnoxious cretin visits Red Ken and gets uncritical acclaim from the beeb. This time it’s Ugo Chav.
gordon-bennett writes:
” Another obnoxious cretin visits Red Ken and gets uncritical acclaim from the beeb. This time it’s Ugo Chav.”
And didn’t he just? These are the sorts of incidents on which our esteemed BBC stooge, Reith, rarely deigns to comment. He’ll pick a fight over a detail, while the great broad wash of his employer’s bias passes by without comment.
An example. Stuck in a car one afternoon last week, I endured two R4 programmes one after the other. The first was an essay on ‘faith communities’ in the UK, undertaken by the usual wishy-washy Leftie C of E type who has helped make that body the thriving and dynamic force it is today.
During it’s leftward course around radical pentacostals and the like, he encountered the barking mad Bishop of Birmingham (no limericks, please!) John Sentamu, who, when asked if there should be fewer rich people in Britain, exclaimed “Of course!” as if amazed such a question needed to be asked.
I’m sure our programme presenter must have been beaming, as he nodded with agreement at the sub-Marxist drivel the Bish was spouting, and as PC cliché followed PC cliché.
As if that hadn’t done enough to elevate my blood pressure, this nonsense was followed by a programme which purported to follow two journeys through England – one by car, the other by public transport. As any seasoned R4 listener would have expected, it was solid ‘Watermelon’ propaganda: green on the outside, red in the centre: complete with some joker from Sustrans – one of two Jags’ early beneficiaries and an openly political loonie spending at the taxpayers’ expense. He was, of course, not alone.
Why this matters is because Radio 4 conditions the attitudes of middle England and it does so at an almost subliminal level: from plotlines in the Archers, to endless plays about the tribulations suffered by immigrants, 6.30 ‘comedy’ shows that are barely disguised SWP party politcal broadcasts, even down to the openly Green/socialist nonsese paraded on the Food Progrmme (for heaven’s sake!).
R4’s output is almost universally slanted in a Left-liberal direction and does a great deal to further the Gramscian cause.
This probably isn’t a conspiracy. But neither is it an accident.
very interesting documentary about Hannibal on the beeb tonight – after the drama-docu that was on.
key lesson of Hannibal – because of he attacked and because of the enormous loss suffered by the Romans at the battle of Cannae , they resolved to expand Roman civilisation throughout the known world – in other words , to prevent another Hannibal ever happening again.
comparisions to the present day raced through my head.
This probably isn’t a conspiracy. But neither is it an accident.
GCooper | 14.05.06 – 11:53 pm
I agree that it’s not exactly a conspiracy but it is the outcome of a deliberate policy of recruitment in their own image.
Lefties (=shallow “thinkers”) make sure that they employ or invite on air only people of their own kind.
However, I take encouragement from the beeb’s declining audience (I’m referrring here to their numbers not their intelligence).
and panorama tonight was back on fighting form. an expose of immigration policy, that pulled no punches.
quite shocking really , considering how panorama had gone down the tubes recently. this was real investigativve journalism.
maybe , just maybe, the beeb realises that Cameron is going to be the next PM?