Monthly Archives: May 2006

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!

To improve the readability of the comment threads please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, until such time as another open thread is started. Please keep comments on the other threads on the topic at hand. Please note, this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – it’s merely an attempt to keep order. Thank you.

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…

Viewers of this evening’s BBC News were treated to a Hugh Pym report on Chip and Pin card fraud centred around a small number of Shell petrol stations (256Kbps, WMV format).

Near the end Pym appears next to a till with a card terminal to wrap up his report – strangely though not a till in a Shell petrol station! No, Pym manages to get himself downstairs to the BBC Shop in Television Centre, where he lounges, quite coincidentally, next to a prominent display of signed copies, no less, of the new book, Blood & Sand, by his colleague, Frank “Help me, I’m a muslim“ Gardner.

Still, I suppose the nearest Shell service station was at least, er, a mile away, with another six within just a little over two miles!

For those who wish to sample Frank’s rather sorry for himself account of events the book was serialised in The Sunday Times over the last three weeks, The day I was shot, Being Daddy and The sweet joys of Arabia.

Update, May 12th: In response to a couple of comments, I think if I were in Frank’s predicament I would undergo an instant ‘conversion’ to Islam too, but I’d also be quite happy to include that detail in my account of events afterwards. As for feeling sorry for myself, I certainly would, but I’d feel a lot more sorry for poor Mr. Cumbers who didn’t survive to tell the tale – I know which of the two outcomes I’d opt for. To be fair, perhaps this is down to the Sunday Times editing of Frank’s account – if you know different please do comment.

Throughout their coverage of last night’s local election results the oh-so-pleased-with-himself Jeremy Whine repeated, ad-nauseam, the oh-so-clever sequence in the clip above with such enthusiasm he seemed at risk of wetting himself with excitement.

I wonder how many other groups the BBC would dare to depict thus…

For those that can’t play the clip:

“And it will also be the first test for the new LibDim leader, er, LibDem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell…”

Right on sister!

‘Note to Biased BBC, you are getting under their skin. You will be pleased to know you are the recognised enemy.’

Well, funnily enough I feel the same way about them.

Guido Fawkes was at the opening night of some We Media thing which the BBC is hosting, and has observations to offer.

There are of course many reasons for not resisting the temptation to become an enemy of the BBC, but one among them is the routine bias– bias like this incident noticed by Ian Dale.

When the media critique a group or institution they tend to do so with a kind of coordination: the BBC becomes all uncoordinated when it comes to Nu-Labour scandals, as Stephen Pollard notes.

Recently I was looking into the worst local government corruption scandal of all time: the Donnygate affair. Searching the BBC produced no ‘Q & A’ article, and the article which reported the conviction of coucillor Peter Birks failed to mention that he was A LABOUR COUNCILLOR- which is rather unlike their approach to a rather less seriously indicted Conservative from the same town- article here. Donnygate was a Nu-Labour scandal (in the sense, especially, that Nu-Lab was a cunning laundering of Old Labour money- metaphorically speaking!!!) through and through, and yet commentary of what it implied about Nu-Labour strategy/culture, occurring as it did in the constituency of one- friend of John Prescott- Rosie Winterton, was not forthcoming.

Well, political winds blow where they will, but the BBC is shelter from the storm for a certain pink tinged political party.

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Guido is his usual kind self to Nick Robinson over the genial political editor’s apparent defensiveness concerning the Prescott-monster with his Clintonesque escapades. Just as we are, Guido is

‘willing to give Nick Robinson the benefit of the doubt when he says “I’m not covering up for Prescott!”‘

The choice presented is this: either Robinson knows things and isn’t prepared to enlighten his employers, the public, or he doesn’t know about what many, many people are now saying is Prescott’s egregious philandering on public time with public money. After all, Robinson is the BBC’s political editor.

Dishonest or incompetent? Or perhaps just nannying. The old dilemmas we wrestle with concerning the Beeb. Guido puts it very well.