This isn’t evidence of bias, more lack of evidence of disinterested coverage.
Imagine a pro-Palestinian Israeli, accused of passing information to West Bank ‘militants’, being shot to death in front of a cheering crowd of right-wing zealots. People gather round the body, taking mobile phone shots, before the mother of an Israeli killed by ‘militants’ is led from the crowd to stamp on the head of the corpse. Finally the crowd are allowed their turn, stamping the body flat into the dust.
I’d think the BBC would cover it – almost certainly with a voice-over or editorial comment about Old Testament vengeance under the skin of a supposed modern, civilised democracy. Don’t you think they would ?
(via DFH)
UPDATE – talking of suppressio veri – a lovely little (domestic) example here. BBC sub-editors can do this sort of thing without even thinking.
well, i’ve just watched newsnight and there was bugger all about it.
funny that. and your comparison is somewhat inaccurate, as it doesnt mention who did the execution.
it was Islamic Jihad that shot the guy – by your comparison, it would have been the IDF that would have shot the guy first, and then the crowd jumping in.
and even worse and more brutal scenario, dont you think?
in light of that dreadful story why do i have a license fee? when i am finding out more about whats going on via the internet?
just think about it folks. during the war of the past month, where did you get the most information from?
It’s the Israeli occupation wot’s to blame, innit? After 39 years of oppression and occupation, people are angry and feel alienated….grievances…no infrastructure…lack of aid…etc.
I blame Israel for this poor man’s death. If Israel had not come into being in 1948, this would never have happened.
Yes, the above is a pile of steaming horse-manure masquerading as an excuse but I am sure Orla and Jeremy would agree – context is everything, remember.
taol -> we all know what the underlying pretext is.
“if only hitler had finished the job”…
if you scratch the surface, thats what you’ll find.
I don’t think they’re anti-semites in that sense. They’re just guilt-stricken western liberals, with that wonderful racism of low expectations (from one side) and impossibly high expectations from the other.
Truth is like water. it is fungible but always water.
Lies are like acid.
Jonny was a BBC writer, Jonny is no more. For what he thought was h2o was h2so4.
please drop by my site on the other side of the pond.
Strange isn’t it that every sob story of alleged “abuse” at Gitmo is picked up by al-bbc but the very real slaughter and mutilation of this man is ignored by the Corporation. Disgusting.
I suspect that the BBC simply shares my prejudice, ie that these degenerates are incapable of civilised behaviour.
I have just heard on Radio Four a report on development in Gaza since the Israelis left. Virtually zero apart from a few beach cafés. Shortage of building materials apparently!
No shortage of the means of construction of their tinpot rockets mind!
After viewing the pictures, I am just ready to Nuke all of them and let God sort it out.
Congradulations and a big thumbs up to all those from the British Intelligence and law enforcement offices and foiling the terrorist plans to blow up the 10 airplanes.
I also saw that pitiful site of a domestic terrorist on Al-Jerkoff TV( George Galloway) what a loser that guy is.
Ask for a refund of the licence fee because they won’t report this:
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/a_demonstration.html
cant seem to find this story either
on the bbc.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,208356,00.html
Laban:
“I don’t think they’re anti-semites in that sense. They’re just guilt-stricken western liberals”
“Liberals”, my foot, they are arse lickers of dictators and oppressors all over the world
s.h.
Why can’t we find the story about the Holocaust Denial Exhibition on the BBC?
Obvious, isn’t it? Only “about 50 people attended the exhibition’s opening”. The BBC would never cover something political attracting so few participants. 🙂
Gordon –
I suspect that the BBC simply shares my prejudice, ie that these degenerates are incapable of civilised behaviour.
Now it may well be that these beasts are incapable of civilised behaviour, but what pressure is there on them to reform? Where are the incentives? The murder of that man in Jenin (hmmmmm…. where have I heard THAT name before?) is not at all unusual for the Palestinians. We’re talking about possibly the most dysfunctional people on earth. And yet, each year the US and EU give them hundreds of millions of dollars while the MSM gives each and every atrocity a free pass.
No pressure, no discrimination, no incentive, no change.
By the way, I emailed the yahoo and riehlworldview links to Paul Reynolds. To be fair to him, he has responded in the past when I’ve mailed him regarding errors or omissions and edited pieces to right them, so we’ll see what happens with this.
Hmm, offensive cartoons produce justified outrage and violence, at least according to the BBC. So, for example, if an Israeli jet just happened to fly to Iran and put a missle or two into the building, would the BBC condemn or ‘understand’ the action?
I put on the 10 o’clock News a bit late last night and missed the start of Orla Guerin’s heart-wrenching report from southern Lebanon. At one point she was pointing to a pile of rubble and saying something along the lines of “it was with these (catapults/pop guns/water pistols?) that the Hezb’ollah fighters defeated the tanks/planes/cannons of the Israeli army.”
Can anybody enlighten me as to what exactly she had been pointing out at the time?
It IS bias. When the BBC doesn’t cover a story which reflects negatively on the Palestinians but publish piece after “heart-rending” piece about the “brutality” of the Israelis, that’s bias.
steve E
it was a vehicle mounted anti-tank weapon
No mention on the BBC about this:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/pol…cle1219289.ece
Fortunately, the BBC is there to smooth any fears about Sharia law with this extremely sympathetic piece:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/sharia/index.shtml
I think things have sadly reached the stage where if Michael Grade or Mark Thompson were to meet me in the street and say, “Hello,” I’d really have to ask myself whether I believed them.
Rob –
can’t get your Independent link to work… can you say what the story’s about?
Cheers
My apologies – it wasn’t a complete link:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1219289.ece
Rob –
Cheers
Rob –
Thanks for the link to the BBC on Sharia Law – “It’s often associated with the amputation of limbs, death by stoning, lashes and other medieval punishments. Because of this, it is sometimes thought of as draconian”
Wow – only sometimes????
As reported in Sunday’s Observer and Monday’s Telegraph, there seems to be disagreement between the newsy types and Mary Fitzpatrick, the Beeb’s newly-appointed Head of Racism, who thinks their correspondents are ‘too white’ and should be of the same ethnic background as the country they report from. Presumably that would mean only Arabs allowed to report from Lebanon, Gaza, Syria etc. The Beeb replies:
————
The BBC said last night it was “absurd” to suggest that correspondents of the calibre of Fergal Keane, John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin “lack credibility with our audiences because they are white”.
—————
Quite right too. Simpson & Co lack credibility because they are grossly manipulative, deeply compromised drama-queens who make the average time-share salesman look like a beacon of integrity. Their colour has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
We must defend these barefaced collaborators from unjust criticism.
Oops, posted that on the wrong thread. Apologies.
Orla Guerin – Busted!
Caught telling whoppers yesterday.
Rog, that’s an excellent expose. Admittedly, it’s not difficult to criticise the preposterous Guerin, but this particular transgression is held up to merciless, forensic deconstruction here!
Along similar lines I remember this –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1132168.stm
The BBC correspondent wasn’t qute as appalled as he could have been, noting that the girl wasn’t badly hurt by the lashes.
“noting that the girl wasn’t badly hurt by the lashes.”
“and was able to walk away”. So that’s alright then. Where would these sicko beeboid reporters draw the line when it comes to Islamic barbarity?
“it is sometimes thought of as draconian”
dear god – the bbc really does its level best to gloss over the sheer inhumanity of barbaric Islamism, doesnt it.
the american system of “3 strikes and your out” is what i would call “draconian” – where a shoplifter , if he offends a third time, gets a 20 year prison sentence.
thats “draconian”.
sharia law punishments however, are not “draconian”- they are barbaric.
Look, can we just leave Dracula out of this?
And one of my favourite comic book heroes, Draconian the Barbarian.
Cheers
Pete notes that:
“The BBC correspondent wasn’t qute as appalled as he could have been, noting that the girl wasn’t badly hurt by the lashes.”
What are the BBC’s opinions on corporal punishment in schools?
There must be a fair number of BBC staff who are Muslims. And I doubt that they are cleaning the floors. They’re probably in editorial positions, calling the shots and determining what gets published or omitted, and twisting and distorting what does get pubished.
Then there are the left-wingers who are appeasing the Muslims. This deadly combination is dragging the BBC down.
It is starting to resemble a third-rate propaganda outfit in an Islamic dictatorship. It will soon lose altogether that distinctive British flavour for which it was once so renowned – qualities like a stiff upper lip, the ability to hold one’s own in conversation, a sense of fair play and the well-turned phrase.
The decline is becoming almost unbearable to watch.
“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1132168.stm
The BBC correspondent wasn’t qute as appalled as he could have been, noting that the girl wasn’t badly hurt by the lashes.
Pete | 15.08.06 – 5:39 pm |”
theres a blink-and-you’ll miss it moment in that report, thats even worse than the actual punishment
“The girl, Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, was sentenced under Islamic law after three men forced her into having sex last September.”
so she was gang raped.
and then she was lashed, for being raped.
note how Al Beeb dont mention the word “gang rape” but transform it into the milder “forced her”.
i really am getting sick and tired of this glossing over of utter barbarity.
pete – > note this earlier report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1115657.stm
again – rape isnt mentioned.
“for having had sex before marriage”
if you want to see what the Islamists would like to have implemented in the UK, in their Islamic urban enclaves, rather than nationwide iinitially) – for that is what will happen – just take a look at Nigeria.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/924573.stm
“It will soon lose altogether that distinctive British flavour for which it was once so renowned – qualities like a stiff upper lip, the ability to hold one’s own in conversation, a sense of fair play and the well-turned phrase.”
Even those of us who don’t fully agree with the prevailing political views of commentors to this site can agree wholeheartedly with that. Good show!
“where a shoplifter , if he offends a third time, gets a 20 year prison sentence”: archduke.
Seems fair to me. Prison is an example of the freedom of association. Civilised society doesn’t want to associate with people who are unable to stop parasiting on it’s members.
“The decline is becoming almost unbearable to watch.” : Bryan
I hope others are following my example and declining to pay the TV-tax.
Cockney,
Thanks for concurring.
archduke
re: Bariya Ibrahim Magazu
She wasn’t gang-raped. Her father, it emerged later, handed her over as some form of security to three creditors. At first, she said any one of them might be the father of her child – so probably she was used as much as a sex slave as security for a loan.
However, the first court hearing didn’t believe her story about the the three men and sentenced her to 80 lashes for defamation and 100 for fornication.
At this point she changed her story – retracting the accusation of rape against the three farmers. 3 reasons for this have been suggested: 1. it wasn’t true (mmm???) 2. She was pressured by the village community to retract ‘cos otherwise the men would have been stoned to death for adultery (or whatever sharia prescribes) and their wives and children thrown into the gutter; or 3. a plea bargain.
Whatever… when she retracted she was let off the 80 lashes for defamation.
So when the story you link to was published, the offence she was convicted of was fornication, tout court. Rape hadn’t entered the formal defence.
One thing’s for sure: the BBC DID NOT minimize this story or its barbarity but carried it across various platforms. Barnaby P in particular….
also, not all the facts were known throughout. In common with most moving stories, the truth emerged in dribbles. Quite often on this blog people point to an early BBC story and ask why didn’t they say this or that?
Often the reason is that this or that hadn’t come out yet.
“At first, she said any one of them might be the father of her child – so probably she was used as much as a sex slave as security for a loan.”
… so thats ok then. So speaks JR.
It still sounds like gang rape (or worse) to me. Thank you BBC for covering it up.
John Reith writes:
“Quite often on this blog people point to an early BBC story and ask why didn’t they say this or that?
“Often the reason is that this or that hadn’t come out yet.”
And when it does? As was repeatedly pointed out during one of the convenient lacunae in your tireless defence of the BBC, it rushes to report an incident which supports its underlying bias (the alleged atrocity at Qana, for example)and then is remarkably reticent to redress the damage it has caused.
GCooper
You write as if Qana were a fiction…a Pallywood-style production. You must now be almost alone in believing that.
The raid at Qana happened. The IDF have acknowledged it.
Journalists (including BBC) visited next day.
There was much unfounded speculation here (and on other blogs) about Green Helmet – who was cast as some sort of Hezb PR man who’d fabricated the whole thing.
Now it has emerged that Salam Daher was the civil defence co-ordinator for the district – and this has been confirmed by the Lebanese authorities.
Not even LGF think it was all faked. The worst crit they’re now making as that Mr Daher was a touch insensitive in his enthusiasm to display dead bodies to cameras.
So it wasn’t the BBC who got the story wrong. It was you ….with your
lurid fantasies.
So how about some acknowledgment of that?
Reith “The worst crit they’re now making as that Mr Daher was a touch insensitive in his enthusiasm to display dead bodies to cameras. “
No they are not so bothered about Mr Daher. We expect no different from people who are prepared to circulate videos of heads being hacked off.
What hacks us off is that you hacks are prepared to publish Mr Daher’s macabre theatrics, claiming them to be pictures snatched during a rescue operation, showing genuine grief.
Reith writes:
“So it wasn’t the BBC who got the story wrong. It was you ….with your
lurid fantasies.”
Which “lurid fantasies” would these, be?
Would you care to quote something I have written which could possibly qualify for such a description?
Or shall we simply conclude that, as usual, you are behaving like a rattled BBC shill, reduced to making baseless insinuations?
Yes, something at Qana happened.
But it was not the story with which the BBC rushed to judgemental broadcast and from which it has yet adequately to retreat.
You, if my memory serves me right, have in the past attempted to defend your employer by saying how it habitually doesn’t rush to publish stories
Well it damn well did this time, Reith old boy – and whatever gloss you are trying to put on the Hezbollah PR stunts, so ably exposed by the likes of LGF and Richard North, what remains plain is that the BBC was caught bang to rights: again.
reith
You are misquoting LGF
But that is typical of you.
LGF regards Green Helmet Man as a Hezbollah stooge.
Just like you are a BBC stooge.
GCooper | 16.08.06 – 8:57 pm,
That’s an able rebuttal of yet another cherry-picking defence of the BBC by John Reith.
I’m reminded of how the BBC rushed to judgement on the deaths of the family on the Gaza beach and its eventual, and miserably reluctant, admission that there was an Israeli counter-claim as to what caused the explosion. I remember how chief Gaza propagandist Alan Johnston rushed triumphantly into print with the ‘findings’ of the ‘expert’ from Human Rights Watch that the explosion could not have been caused by a landmine since the trauma was to the upper part of the bodies. That bit of his ‘evidence’ was, I noticed, never repeated. People lie down on the beach, duh.
That’s the BBC. Embedded with the enemy.
John Reith,
Did you know that Green Helmet has a “shrine” to Heb’Allah in his flat?
Would that not change your mind as to his connection to the organisation?