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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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Also Mr Reith, can you explain why the murder of Lawrence has always been reported as a racist murder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/2965569.stm
I can’t remember anyone being convicted of his murder, yet the BBC seems to know the colour of the attackers and would, given the chance, conduct some sort of kangaroo court to convict who they think is guilty.
Grateful if you could send a link to prove that it was in fact a racist murder.
Amazing thing happened at 5.20pm.
News 24 reported on the Kriss Donald trial.
jr:
Many of us have pointed out frequently that we would have no truck with left-wing organisations like the bnp.
You know this and you are demeaning yourself (not for the first time) by this ad hominem crap.
As I mentioned previously I have just returned from 3 weeks in the USA. When I left BBC News was giving a running commentary on Hamster Hammond who had been involved in a near fatal car crash. 3 weeks later and another piece on the nearly dead hamster. Pity you, have you really been subject to 3 weeks of this stuff and nonsense?
Tonight the BBC presenter on News 24 gives the distinct impression that he finds the Borak film about Kazakhstan hilariously funny. Could this be because such countries are vied as right wing? If such a country was Muslim or in Black Africa would the BBC be taking this line? In a similar vein the BBC ran a short piece of K Livingstone spouting about ‘Nazis’ when will they run a piece on someone spouting about ‘Commies’ or can’t they find any? Or are they even looking?
“Far be it from me to suggest the lady is drunk”
What a nasty little man you are JR.
When the argument is lost, just resort to abuse. It’s not the first time either.
Anyone else find it amusing that Hammond has so little respect for the BBC he did his first interview with the Mirror.
Francis
There must be something wrong with your computer.
I just entered ‘Kriss Donald’ and got 208 BBC stories.
I entered ‘Anthony Walker’ and got 393 • but some were about a different Anthony Walker.
So I included in the ‘with at least one of the words’ filter: ‘Merseyside’ and ‘murdered’ • which produced 267 BBC stories.
As for the Lawrence case, I think you’ll find that the Macpherson Inquiry ruled it was racially motivated.
BBC style guide for Israel/Palestinian reporting, with comments in the EDITORS blog:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/13/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_6040000/newsid_6044000/6044090.stm
Why not have an interview with Bin Laden? Inform?Educate?
How is that bias?
I will take your non response as an admission that I’m right.
If I say CJ 10 BBias 0, does that mean I won the argument?
JR
So can you tell me why the BBC censors me when I exposed a valid argument with references and did not result to insults such as the ones from others in the BBC website who were calling the coalition forces assassins. In fact, why even does the BBC have a right to censor?? I understand cursing to be censored, but arguments should not be censored. Why, in a claimed “open debate” on “Have Your say,” would the BBC allow to be posted ONLY the comments that have THEIR say. Why did they censor opinions that disagree with the BBC’s views??? Is that freedom JR??? Why does the BBC have a view at all, if it should just be reporting the facts along with the evidence to proof that they are facts.
The answer is simple: The BBC is biased and it applies its bias to its “news.”
Interesting 6 pm news on beeb1.
They had a report on the Kriss Donald case. However, the report didn’t contain any specific new developments and was simply an interim report. Do you think jr is reporting this blog’s concerns back to the beeb’s news feuhrers?
The supposedly ‘unreported’ story sure got a lot of coverage:
“A 15-year-old Glasgow schoolboy who was stabbed and set on fire was attacked because he was white, according to one of the men who abducted him.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5409734.stm
The first BBC story on Kriss Donald was on the day after the killing:
“The body of a teenager found in Glasgow’s east end is that of a 15-year-old boy who was abducted, police have confirmed.
The victim, named as Kriss Donald, was forced into a silver Mercedes or BMW car after a struggle shortly after 1500 GMT on Monday.
He had been approached by five Asian men in Kenmure Street, Pollokshields.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/scotland/3517042.stm
Here is a small random sample of other reports:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6044474.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4022261.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4016631.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6076884.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6048974.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6055446.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5406912.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4296434.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4022567.stm
Another hit on the 6 pm news.
They reported on a michael j fox ad for the democrats saying that the Republican candidate was against stem cell research, which would help alleviate/cure fox’s Parkinson’s Disease. They then reported that Rush Limbaugh had commented that fox was exaggerating his condition during the ad.
The real story is that fox is on record as saying that he deliberately doesn’t take his medication before events such as interviews or ads about PD in order to accentuate the impact of his case.
In addition, the Republican was not against stem cell research per se, only embryo stem cell research (because it involves the death of embryos) so fox was lying about that as well.
As usual, half a story from the beeb.
Carl Johnston
You can have an interview with Bin Laden once he is behind bars and awaiting trial for his murders.
Bin Laden funded the attacks on 9/11 and has admitted through his videos of promoting and carrying out terrorist acts.
A journalist or reporter should practice journalism which is defined as “The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/journalism
Therefore, a journalist has a duty to uphold the facts, and the fact is that Osama Bin Laden is wanted for acts of terrorism, if the reporter gives more value to keeping Bin Laden’s hiding place secret than to the fact that he is a murderer and a terrorist, who, if given the chance, would kill the people that the journalist reports the news for, then that reporter is not practicing journalism. The only thing honorable for a reporter to do would be to inform the public of the location of Osama Bin Laden, that would be NEWS, but Osama Bin Laden’s opinions or points of view are not news because they don’t represent facts.
Carl, I can start naming reasons, about 3000, why Osama Bin Laden should not be interviewed until he is captured, all this reasons have first and last names.
How would Osama Bin Laden “inform” or “educate” us, please explain to me how would a terrorist “inform” or “educate” the public?? I would really like to know that one.
All the links supplied by JR on the Kris Donald murder are in the BBC’s Scotland section. I would have thought that a racist murder/mutilation would have been in the national lead page.
John Reith, you are a liar.
Go to your poxy website (www.bbc.co.uk) and in the search box on the top left type in
‘anthony walker liverpool’ and press ‘Search’.
30 PAGES.
Do the same for ‘Kriss Donald’.
7 PAGES.
Since my original posting I think we have an extra 2 pages for the current court case but still a big difference.
Yes Reeth it has the trial has been reported on the Scotland page. Don’t you think such a vile crime like the kidnap, torture and burning alive of a child should be on the main page. You know yourself that Anthony Walkers murder was extensively covered and rightly so.
But as you know the bbc is bias
Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a ‘very senior news executive’, about the BBC’s pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: ‘The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.’
John Reith,
of the few references you supplied, have any ever been in the headlines section of your website or always hidden deep in the West Scotland section? The latter I believe.
As you probably know, the BBC also uses the media of TV and radio to present us the ‘news’. I’d put my hand on the bible (or the Koran if you prefer) and swear that I have NEVER heard his name mentioned on these outlets. Not so for Anthony Walker.
JR your gullibleness goes beyond imagination
From YOUR ARTICLE
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotl…est/ 5409734.stm
look at the names of the accused:
Zahid Mohammed
Imran Shahid, 29
his brother Zeeshan “Crazy” Shahid,28
Mohammed “Beck” Mushtaq, 27
AND the BBC still dares to say without quotes: He told the court that he had driven around with a group of Asian youths
ASIAN!!!, GIVE ME A BREAK, LOOK AT THE GUY’S PICTURE JR, LOOK AT THE NAMES
ANd you are gonna tell me that the BBC is not biased, please!!!
AND ANOTHER PIECE OF GREAT ENGLISH FROM THE BBC:
“Zahid Mohammed was jailed for five years in 2004 after admitting he had assaulted Kriss Donald.”
How was he “jailed for five years” if from 2004 to 2006 there have only been 2 years BBC, where is the calculator!!!
On a second note, the guy only got 5 years for abducting a person, being an accomplice to murder, and lying about it!!!! what is this?? what kind of crap justice is that??
No wonder the 3% of Muslim feels free to overpower the majority of British, of course, they will only get 5 years in prison if they help kill a Briton. Kidnapping and abduction in the US will definetely get you many more years than that, because the point of justice is that if people don’t feel a moral obligation to not break the law, at least they will be aware that they will suffer very harsh consequences if they do break the law.
Terry Johnson wrote;
“This is the kind of drivel I imagine that Nazi publications would print about the Waffen SS. Can the traitors at Al-BBC sink any lower ?”
Oh yes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/video/62000/bb/62955_16x9_bb.asx
pounce | 25.10.06 – 8:17 pm
Sorry, can’t watch that again.
As Stephen Fry said in another context, it makes you realise that there is just not enough vomit in the whole world to do justice to that report.
Diana, yeah it’s nuts.
If criminals are actually locked up, there will be more people in prison (makes the incarceration stats look bad), and more prisons would have to be built, since they are at capacity (80,000 inmates, I think) Prisons — bad. (Guantanomo — triple bad). You know the spiel.
Last I read there was a plan to pay foreign prisoners to serve their sentences in their home countries – next plan was to revert to prison ships.
at least they will be aware that they will suffer very harsh consequences if they do break the law.
Diana | 25.10.06 – 7:30 pm | #
That’s so true, I wish it was so here! Unfortunately the BBC is chiefly responsible for whipping up a liberal frenzy about how hard done by criminals are. I think it was Pym Fortune, who magnificently gate-crashed the Dutch consensual political system when he said, I paraphrase, ‘hold on, what is happening when we are paying more attention to the fate of criminals than our old people in nursing homes.’Why is it that people worry about criminals sharing cells, and that old people in nursing homes doing the same doesn’t seem to matter? Don’t we have our priorities wrong here?
The BBC, or its editors, in the last few weeks have run headlines throughout the day on prison overcrowding and the ‘lamentable’ conditions of youth offenders. The BBC is tugging on the heart strings of the public regarding the fate of criminals! It is really quite sick. That together with the Institutional Islamism of the BBC is enough to make one weep.
Common sense says build more of them and make the penalties harsher! For some reason the BBC seems to think that we ought not to do that. We are witnessing a strange ritual,
Building more homes for people to live in- yes.
Building more prisons for criminals- no.
At the same time they get worried that there isnt enough room for the criminals? Like bad magicians they seem to think that if they shut their eyes hard enough, the problem just might vanish when they open them again. When they do, they find that they have even more criminals, and yet they still haven’t built any more prisons, and then the BBC runs a headline again. What is to be done… It’s quite mad!
Lynette, totally agree. It’s frightening to think that guy will be released in just three more years.
I think Bush proposed a plan about privatizing some prisons but I don’t recall exactly what it was. It would be good to be able to analyze it, since it may reduce the costs of prisons and making prisoners work might be a kind of rehabilitation.
Stuck in the car again this afternoon, with nothing worth troubling a spare braincell over on R4 (not much change there) so the press of a button takes us to R5 and…. behold!, there’s little Billy Bigmouth trying to stuff his half-baked political views down the listeners’ ears yet again .
Does a month go by when somewhere on the BBC, this Marxist stooge isn’t given a platform for his opinions, free, gratis and entirely at our expense?
I must add my voice to the chorus of disgust at Reith, incidentally.
There seems to be no belt so low that he won’t aim beneath it. Now B-BBC is castigated for allegedly allowing a platform for the same views as held by members of a perfectly legal political party.
On the very day that his employer airs stomach-churning billing and cooing over the Taleban.
Eye, mote, beam….
Kondapoga:
The northern Russian town where race riots broke out.
BBC 24 nearly mentioned the M word, but settled for the phrase that:
“the Chechen immagrants at the centre of the riots had taken refuge in a local mosque”
That is a step in the right direction, a small one, but a step all the same.
And living up here I can confirm that the coverage of Kriss Donald’s murder is being reported albeit often not as the lead story. However it is NOT being reported nationally as much as Reith claims.Indeed the BBC National News had five minutes on a funeral for Jesse James the lad shot (almost certainly by a member of his own race if the TRIDENT Squad are involved) in Manchester but yet again nothing about Kriss.
This wishy washy approach by the liberals is the CAUSE of much of the problem and they have the cheek to wonder why some uninformed people think the BNP can solve their problems! It is liberal morons via the BBC and Guardian etc that are driving people into the arms of the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum!
John Reith writes in this comment: “I was just looking through the comments on Helen Boaden’s editors’ blog trying to spot the B-BBC regulars when I came across one peddling a familiar line.
Someone called Richard Davies wanted to know why Stephen Lawrence is a household name and Kriss Donald isn’t. He then (wrongly) claims the BBC haven’t reported the case outside Scotland.
That’s been said in these threads • and in just the same terms • a number of times recently. To murmurs of general agreement too.
[snip]
But something nagged at me about the suspiciously similar wording. So I googled a bit • and sure enough the BNP site, stormfront and various other of a similar ilk are all peddling the same lines. [snip]
Not the first time B-BBC has been playing Little Miss Echo to a BNP propaganda meme.
Just thought you ought to know. You do, after all, have a reputation to keep up.”
This absurd argument doesn’t do your reputation any good.
Some time ago I saw a comment about I-forget-what on this blog that set alarm bells ringing in my head. It purported to come from just another ordinary commenter, but the language just sounded too press-releasy to be true. I googled and found the exact same words in a BNP press release. So I deleted it. (Not primarily because I dislike the BNP, though I do, but because I don’t appreciate our space being used by stealth as a launch point for their press releases) For a moment, that is what I thought you meant in this case, i.e. that you had a reasonable point to make. But this idea, that we should flee from discussing certain entire subjects because the BNP has also discussed them, is just the counter-productive strategy we have come to expect from your employers. The BBC should be ashamed that the manifest disproportion of coverage by the BBC of the two murders has given the BNP an opening.
Incidentally, don’t use the BBC’s own search function to find all the stories. Typing the domain name bbc.co.uk into Google works much better.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6081594.stm
“The BBC’s David Loyn has had exclusive access to Taleban forces mobilised against the British army in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.”
pardon me, but aren’t we supposed to be at war with Taleban?
or does the BBC think its a pretendy-war?
afghanistan – time to press the panic button?
http://eureferendum2.blogspot.com/2006/10/time-to-press-panic-button.html
kind of fits into my “pretendy war” thesis. there just doesnt seem to be a sheer political WILL to defeat the taleban.
Question for Mr John Reith.
Please be so kind as to explain how you may see me as some sort of closet BNP supporter?
kind of fits into my “pretendy war” thesis. there just doesnt seem to be a sheer political WILL to defeat the taleban.
That’s exactly what it is, a pretendy war. It’s a pretendy war which enables Blair to strut and posture on the world stage and fill his and the wicked witch’s boots with dollars when he leaves politics.
Serious people with serious intentions know that war is so bad that when you prosecute it you do so with overwhelming violence generated by as much power as you can put in the field. Our forces should only be in Afghanistan if we have enough men and equipment to prosecute a swift and overwhelmingly violent war against the enemy. Right now we don’t have anything like that number. There is not even the prospect of putting anything like enough men and equipment in the field because we just don’t have enough of either. Conservative and Labour governments have hacked and cut and slashed at the Armed Forces until there’s little left.
Conservative governments did this out of sheer stupidity because most things they do are out of sheer stupidity. Labout governments have done this and continue to do this because they are still a bunch of commie bastards who hate the Armed Forces, hate their excellence, hate the fact that the Soviet Union fell and becasue they want to destroy one of the few remaining reasons to be proud of this country.
So you are coming out of the closet as well now pounce? 😎 Bloody hell, newly declared gay ex Muslim, former sapper and Reith’s best mate – at this rate you’ll have an episode of ‘Spooks’ all to yourself!
‘Taliban Special’ on BBC2 Newsnight now.
“That’s exactly what it is, a pretendy war. It’s a pretendy war which enables Blair to strut and posture on the world stage and fill his and the wicked witch’s boots with dollars when he leaves politics.”
my thoughts exactly Pete_London. The BBC reported tonight (and indeed many other sources have reported) that the Madrassas of Pakistan are virtual “taliban factories”. In real war, what would you do? You’d bomb Pakistan, thats what – or at the very least, *threaten* to turn Pakistan into a glass desert.
its pretendy – and our boys are dying out there.
And who the hell was that jerk on Radio 4 just after (I missed) the Moral Maze? He droned that “Europe appreciates that there is more to be gained from immigration …” Europe? No definition provided.
And there was mentioned the Danish People’s Party which published an electoral pamphlet which showed a blonde 4-year-old Danish girl saying that when she is a pensioner, Denmark will have a muslim majority: said pamphlet was accused of fostering division etc BUT absolutely no inquiring as to whether there was any truth in its assertion.
It was – from The Times – presented by the former government adviser, Geoff Mulgan, and one of the sonic atrocities which he uttered was that those on the left are better educated than those on the right. Those on the left have had more of the polytechnico-leftist-BS kneaded into them than those who studied real subjects such as engineering and sciences.
newsnight – richmond car tax. good to see newsnight to point out that the chinese will cancel out any “eco friendly” initiatives by money grabbing councils.
Excerpt from the TBC (Taliban Broadcasting Corporation) newsnight interview with Adam Ingram (Armed Forces Minister)
Paxman “We spoke to a building contractor in Afghanistan who put up six schools. Two of them are now madrassas, two of them have been burned down by the Taliban, and two of them have been bombed by the Americans”.
Adam Ingram “And? Does that mean that we (the British) somehow condone this? no it doesn’t. What’s your point?”
I think at that stage Ingram should have just told Paxo to f*ck off with his juvenile questions. To take up the popular WW2 analogies, this would be akin to Paxman berating Churchill because the nazis are killing jews in numerous places in Germany & Poland and concluding therefore the whole British war effort was a waste of time.
newsnight – pensioners.
i’ve got a very simple solution.
Scumbags like the Al Gurabaa lot all seem to survive on “welfare”. Throw in the millions of layabout chavs and the millions of “disabled” loungers – and bingo – you’ve got a ton of money for pensioners.
simple.
(i wait with baited breath if this is mentioned on newsnight)
Following John Reith’s lead on the (non-) reporting of the mutilation and murder of Kris Donald in that far-away land of which you know little if the BBC has its way, I visited the BNP’s website and found:
“High-profile cases such as Stephen Lawrence and Anthony Walker, which have received an extraordinary amount of media coverage, have entered the public consciousness much more than equally horrific murders, such as the abduction and murder of Scottish teenager, Kriss Donald, in March 2004 by a gang of Asians. Also, the brutal murder of Christopher Yates in the same year by a gang of drunken Asian youths in Barking, East London.”
That is pure, unadulterated racism. How can the murders of whites be “equally horrific” to those of blacks? JR, I see your point.
Allan@Aberdeen writes:
“I visited the BNP’s website and found:…”
Meanwhile, I watched the BBC 1 news, where the Donald case was virtually dismissed with a few seconds coverage near the end of the broadcast.
Not for the first time, I have to conclude that John Reith lives in a parallel universe.
As someone else remarked, no wonder people are being attracted by the BNP. The BBC is its best recruiting sergeant.
Dave T wrote;
Bloody hell, newly declared gay ex Muslim, former sapper and Reith’s best mate – at this rate you’ll have an episode of ‘Spooks’ all to yourself!
I’m sure the BBC would love me to be Gay. As would a certain faith that happens to be a victim in the Uk.
Funny enough I was in front of the Oscar Charlie today and I found out he actually is.. Wow how the world moves forward.
If the victim was called Zahid Mohammed and the accused were Donald, Smith and jones we would never hear the last of it.
Our forces should only be in Afghanistan if we have enough men and equipment to prosecute a swift and overwhelmingly violent war against the enemy.
Pete_London:
Watching that Newsnight film of the Taleban, I was reminded of that criticism that went up a few months back….where the hell are the RAF? For the Taleban to drive around like that in conveys with impunity, weapons on show,strikes me as very odd.
Hezbollah were not doing that in Lebanon they were too afraid.
Err with only half a dozen Harriers for the whole TAOR (Tactical Area of Responsibility) it is a bit difficult to cover an area the size of Wales. Even the Ruskies found it hard and they used hundreds of aircraft and choppers.
PS : Using Firefox version 2. Spell checker works great!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6086042.stm
The propaganda war on the net. No mention of the propaganda being broadcast by the BBC on behalf of the Taliban…..
As pounce and others have commented. This Al Beeb paean to the Taliban and their bestial form of Islam is astounding even by the Al Beeb standards.
[The remainder of this comment has been deleted. ]
Edited By Siteowner
Bijan,
Natalie reprimanded me for a violent personal attack on Jeremy Bowen during the Israel-Hezbollah war. We have every justification to be angry with the BBC but we need to be careful how we channel that anger.
Your observation is funny and may even be true but, as Natalie said, we should play the ball and not the man.
[Added by NS: yes.]
Edited By Siteowner
What was it that House of Dumb was saying about the “Berlin Wall moment”?
Here’s more concrete coming off in big chunks:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23372115-details/BBC++'guilty'+of+ignoring+public+opinion+says+senior+executive/article.do
BBC ‘guilty’ of ignoring public opinion says senior executive
A senior BBC executive has admitted the politically correct views of the corporation are at odds with most of its viewers.
BBC commissioning editor for documentaries Richard Klein admitted the broadcaster was out of touch with the British public, saying it was guilty of “ignoring” mainstream opinion.
Speaking to a room full of TV viewers and BBC staff, he suggested that if the current situation continued it could affect the organisation’s long-term future.
Klein said: “By and large, people who work at the BBC think the same and it’s not the way the audience thinks. That’s not long term sustainable.”
“We pride ourselves on being ‘of the people’, and it’s pathetic…..Channel 4 tends to laugh at people, the BBC ignores them.”
His comments, reported in the corporation’s in-house magazine [!!!!!], come on the back of news earlier this week that a string of BBC executives and journalists have admitted that the corporation is institutionally biased.