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“inaccurate as usual”
i think he means that Mark Thompson has never had a life outside of the BBC – besides that stint at Channel 4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thompson
1979 BBC trainee
1981 – assisted launching consumer programme Watchdog
1983 – assisted launching Breakfast Time
1985 – Output Editor, Newsnight
1988 – Editor, Nine O’Clock News
1990 – Editor, Panorama
1992 – Head of Features
1994 – Head of Factual Programmes
1996 – Controller, BBC TWO
1999 – Director, National and Regional Broadcasting
2002 – Chief Exec channel 4
2004 – D.G of the BBC
mea culpa about Thompson. I was referring to his recent background.
He seems to have become Editor of the Nine O’Clock News just nine years after joing the BBC as a trainee – and he appears to have had nil journalist experience in politics or mainline news. How could that happen – except at the BBC ? Would someone become Editor of the Times or suchlike on the basis of such skimpy experience ?
Grade is certainly not a news man.
The BBC’s standards of journalism and its bias are under so much attack these days, there really seems to be no proper oversight by the Governors. Who actually runs John Simpson, for example ? He seems to be a loose cannon able to pontificate endlessly about quagmire and civil war in Iraq, grinding away at his own agenda. When do we see him doing what he should be doing – interviewing the movers and shakers in Iraq, the senior political and religious leaders, the senior military? – rather than yapping his own views all the time.
Why is the BBC giving such blanket coverage to the totally-dodgy rendition story – and very little to the FACT that 17 suspected home-grown terrorists have been arrested in Canada with 3 tonnes of explosive material ?
The authorities have indicated that the canadians had links with jihadists in other countries – including Britain. The story of the plumber arrested at Manchester Airport yesterday is suggested to be linked in some way to the Canadian arrests.
THESE are the stories the Brits are interested in. NOT some obscure Swiss politician huffing and puffing with nil direct evidence about rendition.
THIS should be the BBC’s headline news concerning the war on terror :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5054198.stm
Instead, they have been pumping out speculation on rendition as lead item all day and all round the world.
Any stick to beat the Americans with ?
Re Yvonne Ridley and the de Menezes ‘family spokesman’, Asad Rehman, on today’s Today.
Of course, their views should be aired on Today and every other news programme because they work for a legitimate political party. But all I ask for is full disclosure when they are interviewed.
Rehman is a political beast and he has popped up in two guises now: regularly, as the aforementioned ‘family spokesman; latterly, as a Newham residents’ spokesman.
He may not be appearing “in his capacity” as a Respect spokesman or an Islamist activist but it is important to highlight his other activities to listeners and viewers, surely?
If X were invited onto Today to talk about racial issues and X just happened to be a member of the BNP, would the BBC withhold this information from us? No, of course not.
GCooper
‘Mix in the almost naked biases of offerings as diverse as You and Yours, The Food Programme, The Now Show, Four Corners and what you have is a constant feed of Left-liberal ideas’
I know what you’re getting at. I sometimes feel that myself. Then I reflect that we do, after all, live in a fairly left-liberal country where NuLab have won three elections on the trot.
The answer, I find, is to pour myself a gin and tonic and settle down in the deckchair with my retro Roberts radio tuned in to Radio 4 and reflect how discomfited the Islingtonians, the multi-culti brigade and those Guardian- reading year 4 Geography teachers of yours must be by Gardener’s Question Time, or Matthew Parris introducing a programme about WC Grace, by Simon Heffer, Frederick Forsyth and Peter Hitchens on Question Time or Peter Oborne on the Week in Westminster, by the ‘almost naked’ sod-the-proles bias of Nigel Rees’s Quote Unquote and by that sublime antidote to the Now Show, Humphrey Littleton’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
I’m alarmed to note your inclusion of the Food Programme. I haven’t heard it for ages. it used to be presented by a namesake of yours, Derek Cooper – a decent seeming old cove who knew his single malts and could tell you a thing or two about unpasteurised cheese. Has it been hi-jacked by the Muslim Brotherhood?
Derek Cooper – a decent seeming old cove who knew his single malts and could tell you a thing or two about unpasteurised cheese. Has it been hi-jacked by the Muslim Brotherhood?
Has he mentioned pork or bacon recently?
;-Þ
The Beeb & Government are happy with the forced marriage issue amoungst Muslims. I imagine that they also have no problem with six year old girls being married off to 50 year old men.
It’s the way the article won’t mention the dreaded M word when suggesting the problem is not exclusively South Asian.
‘Baroness Scotland said people with links to the Middle East, the Balkans and Africa were also affected’
Bleedin Muslim Countries the lot of them, just bleedin say it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5054286.stm
I may be at risk of a public lynching by saying this but I think The Now Show is the funniest programme on the wireless without exception.
Well, with the possible exception of ISIHAC.
Oh well. Each to his own.
When is reith going to come up with the answers to all those questions he was researching ?
Dumbcisco
‘he appears to have had nil journalist experience in politics or mainline news. ‘
Not so. The wiki cv is somewhat abbreviated. Thompson was, I think, at Tiananmen Square at the crucial time. He also worked in the US bureau. And for much of the time between 1980 and 1988 when he wasn’t helping to launch Watchdog and Breakfast, he was working his way up the ranks at Newsnight: assistant producer, producer, output editor etc.
none of the progs mentioned by reith have people slagging off opponents of Bush, slagging off socialism, slagging off enviro-nutters etc. Slagging off things the lefties don’t like.
Whereas the programmes mentioned by GCooper do slag off things the right doesn’t like.
By far the worst area of bias in non-news progs is the endless drivel dished up as “humour” where most of the so-called comedians are far-left. Till Death Do Us Part was funny because it included both extremes – the rabidly right Dad and the layabour leftie son-in-law. That is called BALANCE, counterpoint, and it adds to the comedy.
Many of the current “comedy” shows eg in the 6.30 slot are simply UNFUNNY – just a platform for lefties to rant at us.
And we are forced to pay for it.
Thompson did not have HEAVYWIGHT journalistic experience before he was appointed as editor of Newsnight. Certainly not heavywight in the political arena compared with some of the pol. correspondents of the national dailies.
Saying Thompson was in Tianenmen Square is meaningless. The BBC sends planeloads of people to things like that. Is reith trying to kid us that it was Thomson solo bringing us the news from Beijing, like John Simpson solo relief of Kabul ?
David cameron is quite rightly criticisng the hip-hop crap that Radio 1 puts out. The BBC response has been a waffly liberal defence.
There really is no need for Radio 1 to be funded by the licence tax. It is NOT public service broadcasting. It should be privatised to help reduce the licence tax. And in the meanwhile the supine BBC Governors should be getting Radio 1 to clean its act up.
Sky News “Doors Locked after Anthrax Alert in Parliament”
BBC “Reports of something thrown in lobby, now to today’s business news”
Traitors
This interview with Laura Ingraham is all about the failure of TV channels and major newspapers to report fairly on Iraq – always accentuating the negative.
Halfway through there is a swipe at the BBC for that disgraceful John Simpson report on Ithaca based on stuff fed to him by our enemies.
http://www.exposetheleft.com/2006/06/07/ingraham-iraq/
John Reith wrote;
>>”Pounce
You forgot to mention the Bison. The Canadians have about thirty or so in Kabul.”
The BBC invites you to have your say. Was Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor a bad thing?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=2017&&&&edition=2&ttl=20060607201720
Was Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor 25 years ago justified?
Israeli warplanes set back Saddam Hussein’s nuclear programme when they bombed his main reactor in 1981.
The UN Security Council condemned the attack and called on Israel to account for its own undeclared nuclear programme – a demand Israel still ignores.
Do you think Israel was justified in bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor? Is it right for any state in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons when the region is so unstable?
dumbcsco
Thompson becoming editor of the nine o-clock news at around 30 wasn’t SO out of line with Fleet Street.
Charles Moore was editor of the Spectator at 28 and editor of the Sunday Telegraph at 36.
Michael Gove joined the Times from the BBC in 1996 aged 29. By the time he was 35 he’d already been comment editor, news editor and assistant editor.
Simon Heffer was Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph at 33.
More BBC support for terrorists:
Taleban vow to defeat UK troops
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5057154.stm
“We have to give them a teeth-breaking defeat again,” he told the BBC in an exclusive interview.
Thatcher was right about the “oxygen of publicity”. The BBC will stoop to any depth to promote and support those who wish us harm when given the opportunity.
The MoD should slap some ‘D’ notices on them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5056728.stm
Oh dear! A teenager, poor soul! Note that we never hear about a would-be terrorist (sorry, ALLEGED terrorist) being a muslim, pakistani, arab etc in a BBC headline. Teenager, yer sertainly: that implies the police are brutalising the minority “communities” again… Buried in this crap piece was the little-known (if you read only BBC) fact about major al-Qaeda projects in Canada. Funny, BBC have been remarkably quiet about that upton now. What’s wrong, can’t find the Iraq angle?
John Reith | 07.06.06 – 5:41 pm
“The answer, I find, is to pour myself a gin and tonic and settle down in the deckchair with my retro Roberts radio tuned in to Radio 4 and reflect how discomfited the Islingtonians, the multi-culti brigade and those Guardian- reading year 4 Geography teachers of yours must be by Gardener’s Question Time, or Matthew Parris introducing a programme about WC Grace, by Simon Heffer, Frederick Forsyth and Peter Hitchens on Question Time or Peter Oborne on the Week in Westminster, by the ‘almost naked’ sod-the-proles bias of Nigel Rees’s Quote Unquote and by that sublime antidote to the Now Show, Humphrey Littleton’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.”
A glimmer of sense from jr!!!!!!
Our argument here is that the proportion of airtime taken up by the above non-leftie output is miniscule compared to the amount of leftie crap (excuse the tautology) we have to endure and for which we have to pay or go to prison.
A small example for you to ponder:
Which of these two contemporary political editors represents the grauniad?
Michael White: 569 appearances on the beeb since 1982;
George Jones: 191 appearances on the beeb since 1986;
Op Ed
Thomson had far less practical journalistic experience focussed on politics than any pof the people you mentioned.
9 years from BBC trainee to get to Editor of the main evening TV news is NOT a match for what the others did.
Point me to a single important interview he carried out, or an important article he wrote.
And aside from Thomson, no-one can deny that the Chairman of the Governors has no news background.
The BBC sorely needs an editor-in-chief of Alastair Milne calibre. Someone who is a journalist to his fingertips. I don’t see Thomson as a journalist – he is a manager.
Good God! After months of trying I got onto HYS(D)!
“Oh dear. Yet again even when the Swiss senator and the separate EU commission survey both ADMIT they have NO EVIDENCE people still cry foul…..so the bad guys get off free thanks to human rights and their lawyers but the US/UK etc have to be charged found guilty and hung without any evidence…..two different enquiries no evidence yet a story is run claiming this is true.
Get a grip. Reporting the story if there WAS evidence is fine. Stop spreading rumours and unsubstantiated rubbish.
dave t, elgin”
Does this mean it will be August 2019 before I get on again? Damm. Perhaps we need to start up our “daftest name on a comment” competition again?
Al Qaeda in Iraq apparently think they are losing in their military struggle – things getting worse for them year by year.
When will John Simpson refer to this captured Al Q document ?
When will pigs fly ?
Simpson will avoid it, smother it, because he continues to play along like a pawn in Al Q’s media war. He just grinds out his spiel about failure.
Simpson is a danger to the Coalition cause and therefore to our troops, because he concentrates on negative stories and seldom brings anything positive. He just pops over to Baghdad every few weeks and opinionises.
Piss-poor reporting.
Some of us remember war correspondents like James Cameron or Martha Gellhorn.
Simpson is a self-regarding blatherer compared to people like Cameron and Gellhorn.
Here are the references to the Al Q in Iraq document
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/morale_slippage_in_iraq.html
“daftest name on a comment”
tobias d hebebece
John Reith
(Accept my apologies I didn’t check straight away when I posted)
Here I will post it again
John Reith wrote;
”Pounce
You forgot to mention the Bison. The Canadians have about thirty or so in Kabul.”
No I didn’t. I quoted;
“The LAV doesn’t have windows, but armoured ports”
LAV is actually an acronym for Light Armoured Vehicle.
The Canadian Armed forces took the route a few years back in which to replace tracks for wheels.(A route the US and UK are now following) To that end they developed a family of wheeled armoured vehicles based on the original Swiss Piranha which they classed as LAVs
The Bison falls under that category and its chassis is based on that original Vehicle.
(That may explain why they all look somewhat similar)
Oh yes the Canadian army web page on the Bison;
http://www.armee.forces.gc.ca/lf/English/2_0_26_1.asp?uSubSection=26&uSection=1
Note they have all getting configured to be used in the support role. That means Ambulances, Sigs, NBC and recovery. (Not troop carrying)
BTW.The Bison doesn’t have windows either. It has armoured ports.
I have my pills.
I believe I am ready for Question Time tomorrow night.
(I guess I will last 5 mins tops)
(and I have a £100 bet on that no one will ask “where is the evidence of torture or rendition flights”)
Rob White – why don’t you ask the question yourself if you are attending?
re – the chat about thompson.
i really thought Greg Dyke was ok – at least he had a private sector background. and remember that he was the guy that brought in Jeff Randall, who is quoted on the right hand side of this blog – Randall was specifically told by Dyke to shake things up.
having said that – thompson is understandable – a safe pair of hands in the wake of the Hutton stuff. but a safe pair of hands is bad for the license payer – it just means that the BBC has turned into an arm of the government – numerous glowing tributes to Gordon Brown are a testimony to that kind of “safe” mindset.
omg! sorry, being sexist here, but theres a bit of hot totty anchoring Newsnight right now.
sorry folks…
newsnight have a piece on child brides in India right now.
its happening in the province of Rajasthan.
i am left wondering – what is the religion that is encouraging this “child bride” culture? its never mentioned in the newsnight report.
i dont care if the religion is islam, hindu, sikh, spagetti monster or whatever – but whatever it is , is a key factor in the culture of child brides there.
why newsnight refuse to mention the religious context throughout the entirity of their report is beyond me.
and no – before other folks jump the gun – rajastan isnt a muslim province. its only 8% muslim.
which leaves me still none the wiser as to why child-brides are happening in that part of the world…
i was intrigued and interested in this report – but the BBC didnt give me the answers.
Oh look Al Beeb isn’t happy at the verdicts reached at Military tribunals where soldiers wrongly convicted of crimes are found not guilty.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5056944.stm
In fact on a number of these case ,which the BBC appears to be very upset over,
It has transpired that a lot of these allegations (Now there’s a word the BBC loves to use in which to defend those who wish to kill us) have been fabricated for financial gain.
Mind you I must admit I had to stifle a laugh when I read this from Al beeb;
“Some touch on the conduct of British forces in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion”
Now add this little article from AL Beeb about how the Taliban are going to give us a good kicking;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5057154.stm
Add the feel good factor from the BBC about Sharia law in Somalia, A female Muslim preacher in Egypt.(Err Al Beeb I think you will find that woman are forbidden to lead prayers or preach to men. In fact Al Beeb go to any major mosque in the Uk (never mind the rest of the world) and you will find that woman are not only forbidden to pray along side men (either at the back or in another room) you will find they have to enter from a different door)
So why is the BBC currently promoting the image that Islam is all happy faces, could the fact that aspirant terrorists are currently getting arrested around the western world. Anything to take that nasty taste away eh Al Beeb.
P.S
All these stories about the CIA spiriting people away, funny how every one of those people who claim they were kidnapped by the X fools..is able to complain about it. Now contrast that with any third world country where people really do disappear.
(Strange how Al Beeb doesn’t put as much time and effort into those stories…)
It seems that the North Americans are having the same problems with the definition of Muslim/terrorists vs plumbers.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmRjMThlNDA0YmNmZWU1NzM4MGQ0NmVkOTUwMzExZTA=
Tim Blair has a good take on identities here.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/csi_toronto/
The World Service is endlessly pushing the rendition story. And in the midst of all the blah blah blah they come up with little gems like the following:
Rendition is the secret transfer of suspects whom the Americans believe in some way have been complicit in the war waged as they see it by terrorists.
In spite of all the evidence, the BBC just can’t concede that Islamic terrorists are waging a war on civilization because then they would have to concede that the war on terror is not just something dreamed up by George W Bush.
And we have chief Gaza propagandist Alan Johnston in fine poetic form:
Gaza has always been a hopelessly crowded, very poor place, battered by decades of Israeli occupation….
Johnston must have forgotten about the years inbetween intifadas and earlier when Palestinians would pour into Israel to work in jobs such as construction. Some battering.
….and years of internal political instability.
Johnston always finds a way to make himself appear evenhanded.
But….it is now driven to deeper levels of poverty by the American and European economic boycott.
Colourful turn of phrase here. It’s the first time I’ve heard a disinclination to hand over cash for terror being described as a boycott.
mick in the uk
That article about never mentioning the Elephant in the Room when terrorists are discussed fits the BBC very well.
The BBC gives a platform to moonbat Yvonne Ridley so she can whinge about poluce brutality.
But does not bring us real info about the East London arrests :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=389508&in_page_id=1770
But even worse bias was that BBC parade of loving photos of Ayatollah Khomeini. The same guy who declared categorically that Islam IS jihad. But of course the BBC won’t report that – becasue Islam is an RoP.
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
google launched there online version of Excel today.
big stuff – and it has implications for Microsoft’s share price.
do i see any mention of this on BBC news – err… no.. i dont.
GB: “dumbcisco | 07.06.06 – 1:32 pm
Actually, later in the prog Shaun Ley did allude to there being no real evidence.
However, that ws only to discomfit a Conservative MP who was taking an interest in the subject”
Heard the prog. – thought it was okay. Shaun Ley is generally alright in my experience – interested in the story for the story’s sake – as it should be.
bbc news 24 just did a report on outsourcing to india , mentioning “lower wages”.
i think you’ll find that “lower wages” arent the only factor.
just look at Ireland – no outsourcing to India going on there – in fact , the outsourcing is in reverse.
hmmm … i wonder why – tax levels maybe? better educated workforce maybe?
archduke: “google launched there online version of Excel today”
’twas on the Tech page of Views Online yesterday though – I honestly don’t reckon this is that big a story in itself (outside the Tech. pages) – Google is certainly a developing force vis-a-vis Microsoft – but this alone is no real threat to MS – yet. If Google were to launch an Office suite online or offline (a la OpenOffice), I reckon that would be a story worth a mention in passing on the TV news.
archduke: “hmmm … i wonder why – tax levels maybe? better educated workforce maybe?”
Do I detect a spot of green trumpet blowing there? 🙂
I expect taxes would be a damn sight lower here too if we had the same arrangement with the EU as the Irish do!
Not sure what the figures are at the moment, but a while back it was a case of here’s one Punt for EU, and here’s six Punts back for us… 😉
Yes the Shaun Ley piece did end up with some balance. But the coverage on the World Service was FAR worse, and was being recyled twice per hour.
The main question is – why did the BBC give this matter such extreme prominence all day. The average Brit couldn’t give a monkey’s, and there is more important news going on.
The ONLY reason is that there is an editorial wish to embarass the US at every possible opportunity.
Even if the story is based solely on allegations, not fact, the BBC will run with it.
But where there are documented facts – in this case about what a particular person has repeatedly said, the BBC covers up the facts if they don’t fit. Here is some info on Yvonne Ridley – it surely shoud be the duty of the BBC to preface any pice involving her with a statement that she has explicitly sided with terrorists :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Ridley
John Reith writes:
“Then I reflect that we do, after all, live in a fairly left-liberal country where NuLab have won three elections on the trot.”
Oh, we do, do we? Maybe this is where the germ of the BBC’s problem lies. Hint: compare circulations of Daily Mail and Telegraph with those of Daily Mirror and Guardian. For further consideration, consider the hatred of the Bliarite tendency by the vast mass of Leftist activists (both within the Labour Party and the BBC). “2005: Did Britain really vote Labour?” Please write on both sides of the paper.
As for the rest of your response, this technique of yours is getting pretty tired – as I’m sure you must be uncomfortably aware. The examples of bias pile up on this site, day after day. You respond by picking a nit here, a nit there. I offer almost the entire output of R4’s piss-poor drama department as an example of the BBC’s relentless liberal-Left bias. How do you reply? By avoiding the issue – suggesting that GQT isn’t similarly skewed. Hardly worthy of comment, is it?
As for Matthew Paris and the rare appearances of Hitchens, Oborne et al are you really inviting a round of ‘count the appearances?’. Want to play ‘let’s count the times Billy Bragg is given air time’? Or, ‘How many namechecks does Nadine Gordmer get this month’? See your Simon Heffer and raise you a Tony Benn.
Just two more things before I get back to reality. Even ‘I’m Sorry…’ has the obligatory ‘Bush is a moron’ quips, these days. And Derek Cooper was eased-out many moons ago, in favour of some sharp Lancastrian harpy by the name of Sheila Dillon. Those who actually listen to R4 will be familiar with the mix: much drooling over the wonders of organic farming, plenty of ethnic cuisine, endless attacks on modern farming, big business, supermarkets, ‘exploitation of the third world’… Not a lot about single malts, actually. More like a Greenpeace handout, in fact.
Perhaps it isn’t wise to comment on what you clearly don’t listen to?
Which of those Wiki edits were you DC?
I see someone has added ‘And a nutcase’ to the first line, which is in itself a reversion of the previous version, which someone abridged to read:
“Yvonne Ridley (born 1959?, Stanley, County Durham) is a British journalist and politician. And a nutcase. And a total bitch i fukin hate her”
to which I must add, allegedly!
Andrew | Homepage | 08.06.06 – 12:18 am
I dont agree with your judgement of Shaun Ley. Like all of his beeboid type he’s easy on nulab, easier on old lab, even easier on libdims and truculent towards Conservatives.
I recognise that if he didn’t act this way he wouldn’t get anywhere within the beeb.