Thanks to Henry and Richy in comments here, to Little Bulldogs, and to several anonymous commenters for the tip. Both the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard carry stories about how
“a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.
The quote from Andrew Marr (“The BBC is not impartial or neutral … It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”) might join the others on the sidebar eventually, including the earlier one from him (“Every time I ask people – show me a case of that bias … they seem to be unable to do so”). Compare and contrast, you might say. Another potential addition to the sidebar is the fact that Washington correspondent Justin Webb “said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’ it in his reports.”
Before we get into gloating, let us acknowledge that the fact that the BBC was sufficiently aware of the problem to hold the “impartiality summit”, an account of which has been leaked to the Evening Standard, is a good thing. It is encouraging that Mr Marr does now see what he could not in 2001. Mr Webb did better not worse than some others when he became aware of the problem and took steps to correct it.
Then we can – er, never mind.
Expect more on this story.
NB: Post expanded a little from the original version.
John Reith,could you find out who it/they was/were that introduced/imposed ‘lone parent’ on us,please?
Also,had a quick gander at ‘Suez’ on television.A scheme cooked up in secret between Eden,Ben Gurion and the french.If the British representative hadn’t been cajoled into signing a piece of paper there wouldn’t have been a trace.(If you do work for the BBC)Your purported impartiality that decried the Conservatives calling Blair a liar without absolute proof when there was a precedent of how these war schemes are conducted (ideally) without records.Prevented people mocking the absurdity of the governments obviously concocted ‘evidence’ by denying an outlet.You de-brand the Conservatives while allowing and supporting the Labour/New (improved) Labour brand renewal exercise while also preventing the common sense criticism of childishly flawed ‘evidence’ by denying a media outlet until ‘proof’, which history tells there would be none,was forthcoming.A real double whammy against a true democratic process.The BBC is as usefull as tits on a bull.
The next stage after overcoming being in denial is to do something to remove the bias…
(We can only but hope.)
Part I
Reith:
“Reith, why in the hell do you think the BBC called “an ‘impartiality summit’ in the first place?”
A couple of days earlier the BBC tested its fire alarms. It didn’t mean the building was burning down
——————
Comments like this are why I, and quite possibly this site, allow people like Reith to comment. Every time they open their mouths they show what morons they are.
Did the BBC test their fire alarm in secret like they did their ‘impartiality summit’?
Testing your fire alarm costs nothing. How much did the ‘impartiality summit’ cost the BBC?
Fire alarms are held regularly. Has the BBC ever held an ‘impartiality summit’ before? If so, when and how often?
You have a fire alarm and test it so everyone knows what to do in an emergency. Did the BBC call an ‘impartiality summit’ because of some past emergency?
The fact that the BBC’s top people “lined up to lambast” the BBC for its bias shows this wasn’t a fire drill but a real fire. The ‘impartiality summit’ was called to put out the fire, moron.
Reith:
You quote the Daily Mail’s spin on the story as if it were fact, highlighting tabloid hyperbole such as ‘dominated by trendy, left-leaning liberals…..’
Even eight-year-old Mail readers know those are the bits you’re not supposed to take literally.
—————–
You ignore the Mail’s assertions:
“BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.”
Are you claiming that the Mail is lying? If so, why hasn’t the BBC rebuked the Mail for lying? Is the BBC planning on a court challenge to the Mail?
Reith:
However, when I say some, I mean some. Again the words you choose to highlight (‘so biased’……….’scorn and derision’ ) are the Mail’s loaded paraphrase, not Webb’s direct speech.
———————-
Again, you ignore Webb’s “direct speech” I linked to where, in his BBC report, he braggs about how he is deliberately painting a false picture of America.
You truly are a well trained beeboid Reith. You cherry pick items, spin them to try and refute an argument and ignore direct quotes and evidence that refutes your position. A true beeboid and moron.
As for the BBC’s anti American reporting, this site and mine have well documented that.
Part II
Reith:
The moment you see the full article you realize that the Neverdock masthead is itself a lie, or at least a calculated deception. Webb’s words, torn from their context and paraded as some sort of admission or mea culpa. Which they never were. USS Nevertrust Again.
————————
A lie? Really? Here’s a link to Webb’s online BBC report.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4400865.stm
Webb:
“America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.
I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture, and that picture is in many respects a true one. ”
Webb goes on to admit that in the summitt.
Reith, you and the BBC are the scum of the earth and a danger to us all. Your left wing,communist and Islamist propaganda is far worse than Pravda ever was.
And you, dare I say it again, are a moron.
Marc,
Leaving aside the fact that such musings may well be inappropriate from a ‘news reporter’ can you really dispute the truth of the whole (not cropped) statement? How is it a false statement? The rest of the piece is a full-on homage to US democracy.
I don’t think it belonged on a public service broadcaster and much of the Beebs output is indeed undefensible kneejerk ant-Bush crap but it’s a far better balanced article that anything I’ve seen (for instance) on the usual blog sites recently which are increasingly diasppearing up their own backsides in a fit of ultra-partisan, selective ‘fact’ harvesting, mutually backslapping self righteousness. From both ‘sides’.
There was an article in this morning’s FT on Iraq – raising the usual concerns of what’s happening there and the thinking behind it but aruing that this specific instance doesn’t invalidate the Bush doctrine of aggressive pursuit of democracy – that is so far in excess of the cretinous ‘arguments’ and sniping I’ve seen on the web recently that its untrue. Fightback of the MSM?
“Leaving aside the fact that such musings may well be inappropriate from a ‘news reporter’ can you really dispute the truth of the whole (not cropped) statement? How is it a false statement? The rest of the piece is a full-on homage to US democracy. ”
Perhaps Webb was starting to feel guilty about the unabashed anti Americanism in the BBC’s reporting. Listen to Webb’s statments in this latest BBC revelation.
“Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it ‘no moral weight’. ”
Trying to read into Webb’s thoughts, I wondered, was Webb saying that the BBC’s anti Americanism was so institutionalized, so in bred in him, that he needed help to tone it down in his own reports?
Note he says “to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports.
That sounds to me as if Webb realizes the BBC has so ingrained anti Americanism in him, and he now realizes it’s wrong, that he needs outside help to “correct” the anti Americanism.
And let’s not lose the forrest for the trees here as “fire alarm” John Reith would have us. When you add up all the reporters who have displayed open anti Americanism, anti Israeli, anti war and pro Islamist bias and couple that with the BBC’s own admissions in the Mail’s report, it is a truly damning portait of the BBC.
The BBC’s Paul Adams admits the BBC lies in its reporting in Iraq. Plett cries on air when Arafat is airlifted to hospital. The BBC’s Middle East reporter declares at a Hammas rally that the media are standing sholder to sholder with the Palestinian people. The BBC hired the editor in chief of al Jazeera to train its reporters. Jenny Bond says on air that Bush looks like a chimp and sounds like a baboon. The BBC’s John Simpson calls al Qaeda the “resitence”, the 7/7 Muslim terrorists “misguied criminals” and declares Iran is a democracy. The BBC’s reporter in Iran blames all airplane crashes on US sanctions, even though the latest crash was a Russian plane with a burst tyre. On several occassions the BBC has used well know anti war activists to fabricate stories of alleged war crimes by US troops. Google Jill Wilding and Peggy Gish. The BBC fabricated a story about desertions by UK servicemen. The BBC falsely claimed the UN had cleared Kofi Annan of wrongdoing despite Paul Volcker’s public declaration that he had indeed not cleared Annan of wrongdoing. The BBC claimed US rescue efforts during the tsunami were “superfulus”. The BBC stacked an on air debate about the effects of the 7/7 Muslim terror attacks on the British public with 5 times as many Muslims as non Muslims. The BBC censor out the word Muslim in its reports on Muslim terrorism. In the Middle East, Palestinians are killed while Israelis die. The BBC in its “Power of Nightmares” claimed al Qaeda was a myth, an illusion. That myth blew up six months later in London. The BBC’s John Simpson was caught red handed lying about Iraq war casualties. Two BBC radio presenters called the American Senators investigating George Galloway “twats” on air. The BBC’s Iraq reporting was so anti war that the crew of the Ark Royal switched to Sky news. The Hutton report was so scathing of the BBC that the two men at the top were forced to resign. When Ronald Reagan died, the BBC’s report never mentioned the cold war of his calls to tear down the Berlin Wall. Instead the BBC referred to him as a B movie actor. The BBC fails to report on the militant backgrounds of Muslim “leaders” it likes to quote. Muslims such as Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais who to the BBC was nothing but a benign, kindly cleric promoting (to quote the BBC) “community cohesion” between Muslims and their neighbors. The BBC often quote CAIR without noting CAIR’s well documented links to terrorism. The BBC will quote CAIR’s findings that Muslims are being persecuted despite reports that point out obvious flaws in CAIR’s report. The BBC’s staff were warned not to “participate” in anti war marches. One of BBC’s “most senior news managers,” Hugh Berlyn, criticized BBC’s news reports as untrustworthy, littered with errors, inaccurate and potentially libelous. During the last US presidential elections the BBC had 5 people on to interpert them. Clinton Administration hack Sidney Blumenthal, Madeleine Albright, George Soros and wait for it, Michale Moore. And James Woolsey.
And on and on and on….These are merely the tip of a huge iceberg and these are from my site alone! Biased BBC has lots more and, until he returned to the States, The American Expatriate had more.
Don’t cheery pick items that seem weak or lame and ignore the more outrageous examples of BBC bias. Add them all together and you get just what the Mail revealed and the BBC finally admit to – a BBC that is rotten to the core.
Here’s my case against the BBC. Bear in mind I haven’t put everything I’ve documented in here and this doesn’t include what Biased BBC has documented.
Anyone, anyone who defends the BBC is simply ignoring the truth.
The BBC is a danger and must be stopped.
that last was me, Marc.
oops. forgot the link
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/01/bbc-is-turn-off-its-official.html
John Reith | 23.10.06 – 6:01 pm,
This time – accidentally I imagine – you give the last bit, which I’ve never seen before. It reads: ‘….and that picture is in many respects a true one.’
You are so obsessed with defending the BBC that you really are losing the ability to think logically. Do you really think it was accidental and marc didn’t notice that he’d included that part of the sentence as he was highlighting the previous part in bold?
I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture, and that picture is in many respects a true one.
But this takes the cake:
Impartiality is one of the BBC charter obligations. So discussing it is a perfectly sensible management activity.
Right. That’s why they ignored the perfectly sensible recommendation from their very own Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review that they call terror terror.
John Reith,could you find out who it/they was/were that introduced/imposed ‘lone parent’ on us,please?
Schoolboy Error | 23.10.06 – 10:38 pm
I expect it was the Benefits Agency – or whatever it was called in those days (‘dah social’?).
I only say that because the people most in need of the helpful distinction between single-mums-shacked-up with-a-boyfriend and single-mums-living-alone (and not forgetting widows) would be those concerned with calculating how much dosh they should get.
Or it could be the same lot that brought us ‘inner cities’ – prompting the DTel’s Way of the World to consider the plight of ‘inner cities of both sexes.’
How is the imposed introduction of a ‘term’ cranky?That was only to give an example of the BBC for its own reasons,IMO trying to remove a term that ‘they’ ie someone on their editorial side thought was stigmatising.Thus proving they impose language and don’t necessarily use the common everyday language as it is used by the populace.I call that SOCIAL ENGINEERING.Hopefully some day soon,with speech recognition software improving all the time,it will be possible to employ programmes to detect what words are used and in what frequency.That will make it difficult for the BBC and others to indulge in their games anymore.It will flag up any imposed terms and also Labour or New (improved) Labour being used to suit the content of the story. Newssniffer is an example on the text side but I expect within 5 years you’ll get a speech version.
jr
I see your’e monitoring biased BBC at the moment.
When the BBC first mooted sending you overseas, was that to be in front of the camera or in a technical or supporting role.
The Editors have a discussion just started looking at the bias story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/bias_at_the_bbc.html
Schoolboy Error | 24.10.06 – 11:26 am |
You are being a bit slow on the uptake today.
‘Lone parent’ doesn’t replace ‘single parent’ it MEANS SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
It hasn’t been ‘imposed’.
A single mother doesn’t live with the father of her child (but may be living with a new boyfriend).
A lone parent lives with the child/children but without any boyfriend/partner etc.
geddit?
Don’t be coy jr
It wasn’t in use by anyone except statisticians,though was it?It was introduced by someone on the BBCs editorial side.A decision was made.It had nothing to do with the language as used.Who made the decision?The same person who decided ‘Tory’ should be used in news broadcasts when describing the Conservative party?The same people who use(d) Labour/New (improved) Labour to suit the context of the report.’Labour’–‘traditional socialist values’.New(improved) Labour–‘the vision for the future’.They can be used interchangeably in the same report as they mutually reinforce.Conservative/Tory don’t (as to many people they mean different things.geddit?
Dont believe the BBC, but take the Daily Mail as gospel.
Read the BBC blog from Helen Boaden and apologise for your false accusations.
QED
@ John Reith
You quote the Daily Mail’s spin on the story as if it were fact
How is the Daily Mail’s spin – on anything – any less authoritative than al-BBC’s spin?
USS Nevertrust Again.
Remind me again how much I pay for the USS Neverdock licence every year.
Not so fast Simpson:
From todays Daily Mail page 17, a column by Tim Luckhurst a former editor of bbc news. I have no link but I will type a few paragraphs.
Any regular viewer of BBC News will be familiar with key examples.
For instance, BBC editors go into spasms of self-doubt about whether to grant airtime to any politician who argues multiculturalism has sponsored racism rather than eliminated it, or to interview people who criticise the EU. They treat progressive notions as gay marriage as the norm.
The range of the corporation’s bias is endless. News programmes persistently fail to question the replacement of meritocracy in education by policies that promote social engineering at the expense of academic excellence. Anyone who argues that comprehensive education has erected a barrier to social mobility is lambasted.
Mass immigration is debated only when unrepresentative lobbyists agree to present it.
Cont….
in a positive light.
Twenty years ago the Communist East Germany condemned books it did not people to read to a ‘poison room’.
Today, the BBC reserves a similar fate for ideas that challenge its rigid, liberal-conditioned orthodoxy
And he should know.
John Reith:Sorry,I somehow missed your last post before my first this morning (zeal)?.However my point is still that the BBC imposes/drives language rather than using those terms in common use.Someone makes the decision.Sorry about the ‘geddit’,the whole thing was my fault.
Schoolboy Error
Understood.
I’m also a bit puzzled by your objection to the word Tory.
Conservative politicians use it all the time.
George Osborne in party conference speech, for instance.
If you go to the Conservative Party website and enter keyword ‘Tory’, 202 documents come up.
If ‘Simpson John’ believes Helen Boaden’s weasling contortions are anything other than a howling joke, he needs to have a long lie down in a darkened room.
I read it this morning and am stll chuckling.
Maybe they’ve had expert advice?! I think they’re wrong though.(Unless they’re going to ditch Conservative)?
camp commandant
How is the Daily Mail’s spin – on anything – any less authoritative than al-BBC’s spin?
“On 21 May 1915, Northcliffe wrote a blistering attack on Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was considered a national hero, and overnight the paper’s circulation dropped from 1,386,000 to 238,000. 1,500 members of the London Stock Exchange ceremonially burned the unsold copies and launched a boycott against the Harmsworth Press. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith accused the paper of being disloyal to the country.”
“In 1924 the Daily Mail published the forged Zinoviev Letter …..(In some Labour circles, eg by former Labour leader Michael Foot, the paper is often referred to as ‘The Forgers’ Gazette’).
“In early 1934 Rothermere and the Mail were sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Rothermere wrote an article, Hurrah for the Blackshirts, in January 1934, in which he praised Mosley
“Rothermere was a friend and supporter of both Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, which influenced the Mail’s political stance toward them up to 1939. During this period it was the only British newspaper to consistently support the German Nazi Party. Rothermere visited and corresponded with Hitler on many occasions; on 1 Oct 1938, Rothermere sent him a telegram in support of Germany’s invasion of the Sudetenland….
“Rothermere and the Mail supported Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail
History Boy writes:
“”Rothermere and the Mail supported Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement””
Absolutel fascinating, History Boy, but all that happened over fifty years ago.
The BBC’s credibility has been dissipated during the past two decades – most notably in the past six or seven years.
Do try to keep up.
Hey, History Boy – I don’t care! I don’t have to pay for The Daily Mail. And I don’t think that the Reithian BBC was particularly opposed to Hitler either. After all, Churchill complained vehemently about the BBC’s refusal to allow his opinion to be broadcast.
History Boy
You’ve convinced me. I won’t buy the Daily Mail until Rothermere steps down.
It’s the BBC that’s history.
A couple of people have commented that their comments on the Helen Boaden article on The Editors are not being published.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/bias_at_the_bbc.html#commentsanchor
They are publishing quite a flood, but mine, sent a bit after midnight also didn’t make it.
Hmmmmm.
I don’t see being biased against Christianity and for multiculturalism a bad thing. Biased against all organised religion would be even better, but I can’t hope for too much too soon.
Absolutely wonderful, methinks
Deepti
That’s cause you’re a bigot.
Same for the guy who thinks it is perfectly objective to call Americans ignorant and unsophisticated, among other epithets.