Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:


Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

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190 Responses to Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

  1. Anonymous says:

    .
    Christian groups accuse BBC drama of inciting anti-Christian bias

    The BBC are facing accusations of anti-Christian bias after a BBC drama portrayed evangelical extremists murdering Muslims.

    One Christian group said the corporation had a “sinister” and “malicious” agenda against their faith, while another claimed the BBC1 Spooks programme could be an “incitement to hatred” against them.

    The row comes in the wake of recent revelations that senior BBC executives had admitted that the corporation was guilty of bias against Christianity at a special “impartiality” summit.

    The programme also depicted a rogue Bishop, who was also a government advisor, organising the assassination of a radical Islamic preacher.

    More
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=413730&in_page_id=1773
    .

       1 likes

  2. archduke says:

    racism in full flow

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6104828.stm

    but then , its ok to bash the Romanians and Bulgarians because they are white.

       1 likes

  3. Anonymous says:

    .
    An Islamic cleric legitimizes the rape of non-veiled women • and the Left’s guardians of women’s rights have nothing to say

    Muslim Rape, Feminist Silence
    By Jamie Glazov
    http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=25226
    .

       1 likes

  4. archduke says:

    “The BBC are facing accusations of anti-Christian bias after a BBC drama portrayed evangelical extremists murdering Muslims. ”

    what i find odd about this scenario, even though its “fiction”, is that we have a prime example of a country with lots of Christian fundementalists and easy access to guns and explosives – that country is the United States.

    That country also suffered 3000 dead at the hands of Muslim fanatics on 911. So, therefore, logic dictates that one would have expected bands of Christian fundies going around shooting any Muslim they could lay their hands on inthe wake of 911.

    But , apart from rare isolated incidents, this just hasnt happened. Therefore one can deduce that “Christian fundie terrorist” is about as unlikely as a Quaker joining the Marine Corps.

    This removal from reality reveals the bubble that the Beeboid mindset operates in – and hence , you get the OK from commissioning editors for “Christian fundie terrorists” or “Mossad = Al Qaeda” plotlines.

       1 likes

  5. Dave Hill says:

    I was frankly appalled this morning while listening to the Today programme to hear a shamelessly biased attack on the great British traditions of free speech and moral self-improvement. Some layabout called Tom Hopkinson was given free rein to editorialise against what he called do-gooding busybodies” (or somesuch) insisting that we became better informed about things like toffee and youth work. In this enterprise he was gloatingly egged on by presenters Humphries and Montague. As a licence fee payer I am disgusted that a so-called “flagship” BBC news programme has been hijacked by seething Right-wing polemicists who make no attempt whatever to disguise their opinions from the listenership. first Anne Atkins, now this. I trust you will raise this matter with the True Blue Broadcasting Corporation immediately.

    Yours sincerely.

    Woof woof etc.

       1 likes

  6. TPO says:

    Dave Hill
    Don’t ever get a job as a comedian.
    Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

       1 likes

  7. TPO says:

    The BBC stands accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence-fee payers’ money after deciding to send an army of senior TV executives on a junket to Istanbul.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=413726&in_page_id=1773

       1 likes

  8. Pete_London says:

    The BBC stands accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence-fee payers’ money after deciding to send an army of senior TV executives on a junket to Istanbul.

    Simple solution TPO, don’t pay’em and they can’t waste your money.

       1 likes

  9. JimBob says:

    Two articles from the same report

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6101970.stm

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2431623,00.html

    and as you can guess, the BBC portrays us as decadent westerners.

    I loved this quote “factors such as poverty and mobility had more of a role in sexually transmitted infections than promiscuity had. “
    Nothing to do with education or condoms then?

       1 likes

  10. Voyager says:

    SPOOKS:

    A Christian group claim responsibility for a number of attacks on the Muslim community. As threats of further attacks emerge, Adam goes undercover to find out when and where the attacks are due to occur.

    The group have also attracted the attention of the Israeli secret service, who believe that they have an anti-Semitic agenda as well as an anti-Muslim one.

    As Adam discovers details of the next attack, Mossad hit men storm the building and target Adam in his ‘Christian extremist’ guise.

    Writer & Director JULIAN SIMPSON

    Producer ANDREW WOODHEAD

    Creator DAVID WOLSTENCROFT

    Executive Producer SIMON CRAWFORD COLLINS

    Executive Producer JANE FEATHERSTONE

    last week’s episode of Israelis pretending to be Muslim terrorists written by Raymond Khoury

    Raymond Khoury moved to Rye, New York, from his native Lebanon at the outbreak of the civil war there in 1975. After graduating from Rye Country Day School, he returned to Lebanon to study architecture at the American University of Beirut. During his years there, in between repeated flare-ups of fighting, he illustrated several children’s books for Oxford University Press’s Middle East office. Khoury completed his degree just as the civil war erupted again, and was evacuated out from the city in February, 1984, by the Marine Corp’s 22nd Amphibious Unit on board a Chinook helicopter.

    Khoury moved to London and joined a small architecture practice. The architecture scene in the mid-80s throughout much of Europe was going through a severe downturn, and the work was far from fulfilling. He decided to explore other career options and applied to the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau, France. After graduating from its MBA program, he moved back to London where he joined Banque Paribas Capital Markets, selling gold-linked convertibles and other far less exotic financial instruments.

    He left the world of investment banking to return to his creative roots. During a visit to the Bahamas to explore a real-estate opportunity there, he met a Wall Street banker who dabbled in the film business, developing screenplays with writers in Hollywood. Khoury bounced an idea off the banker, the idea stuck, and they agreed to develop it into a screenplay by hiring a professional screenwriter. Several conference calls later, the outlines coming back from Los Angeles weren’t quite what Khoury had in mind. He decided to write an outline himself, to give the screenwriter a clearer picture of how he saw the movie. Upon receiving the outline, Khoury’s partner called him up and told him, “Our man in L.A. isn’t going to write this movie for us. You are. You’re a writer.”

    Khoury wrote the screenplay, which was shortlisted for a Fulbright Fellowship in Screenwriting award that year. His next screenplay, a semi-autobiographical screenplay about his college years during the civil war, was also shortlisted for the award a year later. In 1996, he optioned the film rights to Melvyn Bragg’s novel, THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE, writing the screenplay adaptation himself while completing an original screenplay, THE LAST TEMPLAR. THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE found its way to Robert DeNiro, who shortly after announced in Variety that he would be producing it and playing the lead role of Colonel Hope.

    Since then, Khoury has been working as a screenwriter and producer both in London and in Los Angeles. He is currently working on a fifth season of the BBC hit series Spooks, known as MI-5 in the US, as well as writing the screenplay adaptation of THE LAST TEMPLAR and preparing his next novel.

       1 likes

  11. Steve E. says:

    Having used the recent Lancet report to paper over any good news coming out of Iraq (The Parliamentary vote the same day to go ahead with plans for a Federal structure in the country), I’m glad to see the Beeb have kept up the momentum of attacking any dissenting views that the casualties may well amount to less than 655,000 • which, of course, has become the default figure for the anti-war lobby.

    Shamefully, they have used other Iraqis to attack Omar at Iraq the Model, who trechantly opposed the Lancet figures.

    The BBC summarise…

    “A recent report in the medical journal, The Lancet, about the casualty figures in Iraq resulted in a storm of blogging from inside Iraq.
    The Lancet study estimated that about 655,000 civilians had died in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.

    One entry from Baghdad blogger Iraq the Model caused upset by disputing the authors’ claims:

    Thursday Oct 12, 2006: To me their motives are clear, all they want is to prove that our struggle for freedom was the wrong thing to do. And they shamelessly use lies to do this … when they did not find the death they wanted to see on the ground, they faked it on paper! ”

    They then find some bloggers to attack Omar with the following…

    Wednesday October 18: Kid accused Iraq The Model of being “an example of the mentality that currently prevails the Green Zone, nervous Iraqis who just want to make a few bucks by catering to an audience and telling them what they want to hear”

    Konfused Kid sent a mass e-mail to a sizeable group of Iraqi bloggers, demanding that they give their opinions about the general viewpoint and direction of Iraq The Model.

    Miraj: “he wants to follow other Iraqi bloggers to US and what is better than sucking up to the Americans.”

    Iraqi Screen: “I am sure they are dying for asylum in the USA to be close to their dear Bush. Did they ever read about Haditha massacre, Ishaqi and Falluja?”

    Khalid Jarrar: “being a traitor is not an allowed option, and should not be legitimized by ranting about freedom of speech, I swear reading them is just like reading a White House statement.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6078278.stm

       1 likes

  12. Ritter says:

    It seems attacking the BBC and it’s “unique method of funding” is becoming quite a popular pastime. Good.

    CBI chief criticises BBC’s licence fee bid
    http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1936069,00.html

    “Richard Lambert, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, last night poured cold water on the BBC’s bid for an above-inflation licence fee increase.

    Delivering the annual Wincott Lecture in honour of former Financial Times editor Harold Wincott, Mr Lambert, also an ex-FT editor, insisted there were “good reasons for challenging the view that an arrangement which made sense when the BBC was the only national broadcaster around is still the best option available today”.

    “Moreover, the existence of a state-financed broadcaster curbs the opportunities for market-driven news providers. For example, the BBC’s 24-hour news service provides direct competition to Sky. And its highly successful news website makes life very hard for newspapers which are competing for the same audience and which are not supported by the BBC’s vast newsgathering resources.”

    and

    “Mr Lambert’s call comes in the same week that a group of 14 senior academics attacked the BBC’s commercial competitors, insisting are attempting to “diminish” the corporation by lobbying for a lower licence fee settlement.

    The academics, who included Professor Steven Barnett from the University of Westminster and Cambridge University academic Georgina Born, wrote to the Financial Times insisting that the BBC be given a settlement which “allows it to fulfil all the programming obligations laid out in the white paper”.

    Academics? Lefties scared of losing their regular BBC appearance fees more like.

       1 likes

  13. Pete_London says:

    So, Khatami, ex-President of a country which hangs homosexual 16 year olds, receives his gong from St Jock’s University:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6100846.stm

    Not good. Shame on the university. You know, I’d like to write a letter of protest to the Chancellor. Unfortunately, the BBC piece doesn’t mention who the Chancellor is. Any ideas? Would it be anyone the BBC has heard of? Maybe the Chancellor is shy in front of a camera and microphone.

       1 likes

  14. Oscar says:

    The BBC are facing accusations of anti-Christian bias after a BBC drama portrayed evangelical extremists murdering Muslims. ”

    Michael Gove had some trenchant comments in today’s Times on the anti-Israel bias in Spooks as well. Spooks has become a mini-BBC hatefest for all their favourite victims (Evangelical christians and Israelis clearly at the top of the hit list….).

    “For the second week in a row the Spooks scriptwriters have portrayed Israeli government servants as trigger-happy troublemakers engaged in murderous intrigue, bringing their conflicts to British soil. Who’s writing these scripts? The Syrian Defence Minister?”

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1055-2429977.html

       0 likes

  15. Voyager says:

    Who’s writing these scripts? The Syrian Defence Minister?”

    read higher up in the threat where I answered that question – Julian Simpson this week and Khoury the previous week

       0 likes

  16. Pete_London says:

    Paul Reynolds –

    I know you’re in here somewhere. Do be an honest journalist and correct what is either a lie or ignorant reporting on your part:

    Pentagon gears up for new media war
    Last Updated: Tuesday, 31 October 2006, 17:50 GMT

    Paragraphs of blah blah blah, followed by:

    A cautionary tale comes from the Vietnam War. There, the war was lost when viewers in the living room realised what was happening on the battlefield. No amount of spin could change it. The turning point in the media war came when the veteran CBS News presenter, Walter Cronkite, went to Vietnam after the Tet offensive in 1968. He came back and declared that there was “stalemate”.

    No, the war wasn’t lost when viewers in the living room realised what was happening on the battlefield. The war was lost when Walther Cronkite and others lied to obscure what was happening on the battlefield. This was covered in here on the 19th and 20th October, following Bush remarks apparently likening Iraq to the Tet Offensive (again, another case of skewed reporting by the BBC).

    I’ll check back to see what you do with the piece.

       0 likes

  17. Oscar says:

    Voyager
    Very interesting information on Khoury (Michael Gove was obviously not far off…) I tried to check out Julian Simpson but could find very little on him.

       0 likes

  18. Biodegradable says:

    You know, I’d like to write a letter of protest to the Chancellor. Unfortunately, the BBC piece doesn’t mention who the Chancellor is. Any ideas? Would it be anyone the BBC has heard of? Maybe the Chancellor is shy in front of a camera and microphone.
    Pete_London | 01.11.06 – 1:16 pm

    😆

    You may be able to find it here, I can’t be a**ed:
    http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/staff/work.shtml

    Oh… here it is:
    http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/generalcouncil/chancellor.shtml

    😉

    Via http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/10/31/khatami_at_st_andrews.php

       0 likes

  19. John Reith says:

    Voyager & Oscar

    Khoury is not a Muslim. He’s a lapsed Catholic.

       0 likes

  20. Oscar says:

    After over two months I’ve finally received a response to my complaint about Orla Guerin’s report from Bint Jbeil (remember that one?)during the Hizbollah war. It seems that the term “impressionist phrase” is al beebs new euphemism for “lying”. Here are their weasel words:

    “Thank you for your e-mail regarding BBC News on the 14th and 15th August
    and please accept my apologies for the delayed reply.

    Orla Guerin’s report on the 14th August for ‘The Ten O’Clock News’ from
    Bint Jbeil in Southern Lebanon made clear at the start that she was
    reporting on the perspective of Lebanese people returning home in their
    thousands.

    She reported: “I haven’t seen a single building that isn’t damaged in some
    way. Many have been flattened. Many have been singed. This town has really
    been wiped out”

    Orla did not say that every building had been wiped out. She was using an
    impressionistic phrase implying extreme damage which is justified by the
    scale of what she saw.

    Similarly Clive Myrie’s report on the 15th was clearly focusing on what
    Lebanese people might expect to find on returning home.

    Having passed through Bint Jbiel that day his view was that “I don’t think
    there’s one building fit for habitation”. Again this was clearly phrased
    as his impression of the extreme damage he witnessed.

       0 likes

  21. pounce says:

    The BBC

    Interviewing Madonna
    Peter Barron
    1 Nov 06, 09:36 AM
    What’s harder to get – an interview with the Taleban or one with Madonna?
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/interviewing_madonna.html

    Well seeing as the BBC is the voice of the MCB in the Uk. It appears that getting Madonna to remove her cross before being interviewed by a veiled Muslim kind of made Madge tell the Beeb to go away and fornicate. So it appears the BBC had a lot of bargaining to do before Madge agreed.
    The Taliban on the otherhand work at Bush house and as we have seen they have no problem in getting interviewed by a veiled woman. Unless of course if it is on a Friday then it has to be a veiled man.

       0 likes

  22. John Reith says:

    Jonathan Boyd-Hunt

    I asked you a question on another thread. It was probably the wrong thread on which to raise it. Sorry.

    In your answer you wrote:

    “Like me John, you might be disgusted that this important fact • {that Whiteman was Mohammed Fayed’s tax adviser} which face it, throws an entirely different light on the Mobil affair – wasn’t reported by any of the court reporters, including the famously impartial BBC’s.

    Like Pounce says:
    The BBC and Half the Story
    Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 30.10.06 – 8:19 pm |

    What you allege is untrue.

    The BBC DID report it.

    “Mr Whiteman was Mr al-Fayed’s tax adviser too”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/575299.stm

    So here is an example of you making an allegation against the BBC which just doesn’t stand-up.

    If you can go so badly wrong on such a simple matter as this (10 secs on Google would have set you straight), why should the BBC pay any attention to the far more outlandish allegations of conspiracy that you make on your website?

    Surely Mark Thompson was right to have given you the bum’s rush?

       0 likes

  23. will says:

    Michael Gove in The Times also considers the alternative to the Humphrys’ search for god programmes

    Might we ever be lucky enough to hear God in Search of Humphrys, in which a religious figure tests the arguments of the supremely talented presenter? I can just imagine how a pilot might sound . . .

    There’s the curious reverence shown in his presence for ancient figures whose purpose is lost in the mists of time — the process known as the genuflection before the Blessed Menzies Campbell. And then there’s the requirement that certain time-honoured words are repeated every morning without fail — the demand that the visiting minister, whatever the text of his sermon, display Full and Honest Penitence for Iraq.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-2429977,00.html

       0 likes

  24. will says:

    Pete_London re “Pentagon gears up for new media war”

    This item led the world service news bulletins a couple of days age, with the announcement “The Pentagon are to establish a new propaganda unit”.

    Not wishing to damn it in advance, of course.

       0 likes

  25. sean. says:

    why should the BBC pay any attention to the far more outlandish allegations of conspiracy that you make on your website?

    Surely Mark Thompson was right to have given you the bum’s rush?

    because alot of people see a problem,
    me included with the bbc.have you ever asked yourself the question why
    it is,that every person who defends the bbc on here,seems to have more in common with ken livingstone than bill
    o’reilly.

       0 likes

  26. D Burbage says:

    O/T

    http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=4616&edition=2&ttl=20061101144948&#paginator

    This HaveYourSay isn’t going the way the BBC might hope either….

       0 likes

  27. john says:

    Interviewing Madonna
    Peter Barron

    Perhaps my characterisation yesterday of the bonnie Kirsty Wark as the only true “Hello” journalist from the BBC 2 Newsnight team was a little too down market for the BBCs millionairess. It appears her editor, Peter Barron, agreeing with Madonna, believes she is the new Scottish Oprah:

    “So, presumably, when the queen of pop decided the time was right to give her side of the story we had sufficiently prepared the ground so she instantly thought: Oprah Winfrey and Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark. Obvious really.”

    Can’t wait for Kirsty’s planned interview with the artist Tracy Vermin, presumably- as is customary and has been noticed by Kirsty watchers with psychoanalytical training- she will play with her hair a lot when the subject of that dirty unmade bed is raised?

       0 likes

  28. Anon says:

    “A few months ago, Mogadishu’s chaotic roads were ruled by red-eyed, open-shirted militia, speeding along in their technicals – the open vehicles with anti-aircraft guns mounted on the back – weaving from one side to the other to avoid the potholes.

    Today, one of the world’s most dangerous cities has been tamed: law-abiding men and women motor along without a gun at their side, keeping steadily to the speed limit, and not daring to swerve for craters.

    This transformation is down to the rule of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which took control of Mogadishu in June and much of southern Somalia since then. ”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6106398.stm

    At least the traffic runs on time under sharia law, that makes it worthwhile…

       0 likes

  29. john says:

    Amazing influence, one could quite possibly argue, that the effect of the BBCs “The Secret Policeman”, shown on TV in 2003, has ultimately had on the police.

    Outrage as police spend £450m on ‘equality and diversity’

    In the past year alone £187 million – six per cent of the Met budget – went on ‘equalities-related expenditure’.

    I wonder how much of the BBC budget is spent on such things? It’s probably illegal to ask such a thing since Greg Dyke’s “hideously white” admission.

       0 likes

  30. Jonathan Boyd Hunt says:

    John Reith:

    Your disingenuousness is outstanding. When I referred to the BBC’s failure to report that Mobil’s tax adviser Peter Whiteman QC also happened to have been engaged as Mohamed Fayed’s tax adviser for the previous fourteen years, I referred of course to the BBC’s failure to report that fact on any of its main TV and radio news bulletins in which the BBC reported the Mobil issue at the time of the trial.

    For the BBC to omit to mention on its TV and radio news bulletins Peter Whiteman’s double role is an gross betrayal of its Charter public service obligation to inform and you know it.

    As it happens, the Mobil issue and Peter Whiteman’s “Hamilton demanded £10,000” allegations are covered on three BBC web pages, not one.

    Copy exactly:

    Mobil Hamilton “Peter Whiteman” site:bbc.co.uk

    – and paste into Google and hit return.

    And hey presto! There they are, all three of them. However the one that counts the most • the only one that was published during the hearings on 3 December 1999, informing the good people of this country about the trial • didn’t mention Whiteman’s employment by Fayed at all. Here it is:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/548514.stm

    Nor was Whiteman’s relationship with Fayed covered on the next BBC bulletin that covered Whiteman’s allegations, published following the verdict on 21 December 1999. Here it is:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/574126.stm

    In fact, the only web page that mentioned Fayed’s engagement of Peter Whiteman, was the one you cited, and that was the last one the BBC published, on 22 December 1999.

    For you to have the bare-faced neck to cite a single web page out of the three BBC pages that covered Whiteman and Mobil, and it’s the last one at that, published after the trial, is, frankly, so stultifyingly dishonest, you merely add more weight • and very high quality weight at that • to the charge levelled on this blog that the BBC is inherently dishonest.

    I mean, if the Beeb’s #1 defender • you • is content to be so disingenuous on this blog, where you’re only too aware that your dishonesty will be open to examination and exposure, God Almighty only knows what you and the rest of the Beeb’s backroom boys get up to when you’re together.

    Your attempt to create the impression of balanced reporting of the Mobil issue has failed, John. In doing so, you’ve merely drawn attention to the fact that the BBC’s website is also inherently biased. If it wasn’t, Peter Whiteman’s gross conflict of interest would have been at the top of each of those three web reports, not mentioned as a bracketed aside in the last one to be published and left out completely from the other two.

    The BBC is first and foremost a public service broadcaster. Not a censorial pubic disservice website provider. It’s what the licence fee is primarily for. It’s on the TV and Radio that such information about Whiteman should have been broadcast to the nation in BIG FUCKING LIGHTS. Not left to a single token web page for people like you to cite in a specious defence of the Beeb’s bias.

    The proof of my argument is that you yourself didn’t even know about Whiteman’s double role as Fayed’s tax adviser until I informed you the other day, did you John? If the Beeb’s reporting had been impartial, everyone in the country who had an interest in the Hamilton affair would have known for the last seven years.

    Enjoy your power while you can. It’s ebbing away fast.

       0 likes

  31. D Burbage says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/6061394.stm

    Those naughty bans. They should stop hitting people.

       0 likes

  32. Diana says:

    At least the traffic runs on time under sharia law, that makes it worthwhile…
    Anon | 01.11.06 – 3:19 pm

    Sure, and maybe if you say it doesn’t run on time you will be stoned, or for that matter, every woman out of the street without a veil might get stoned too.
    I think most reasonable people will agree that they rather have bad traffic than live in a society where there is no due process of law, no individual rights, and where a religion is imposed, oh oh but wait, you will have good traffic yet you won’t have freedom, great compensation right???!!! You should make that a slogan Anon: Have good traffic in exchange for surrendering all your civil rights and freedoms.

    “Trials are swift and punishments public: publicity is their policeman. ”
    I am not sure if by swift they mean summary trials where everyone agrees the person is guilty and where there is not an impartial jury. Maybe by public punishment they mean stoning to death or hanging or cutting people’s hands, maybe the BBC should be more specific because swift and public may not necessarily mean it is good. For example, many cubans were given “swift” trials of 20 minutes where they were automatically sentenced because they did not have an impartial jury or receive due process of law. Many were sentenced and still are sentenced to 20 years in prison for disagreeing with the communist government. Many more were murdered in the firing squads held by Che Guevara and these firing squads were televised, so is that considered effective “public punishments” according to the BBC.

    “Dissenters argue that this authoritarian attitude is eating away at Somali culture and traditions, from dulling their dress code to muting their music.
    But for most this is an argument for another day.”

    Which day BBC??? the day when the Somalians are absolutely silenced by the regime’s oppression such as in Cuba, will that be the day to claim one’s freedoms.
    “Dulling their dress code” does that mean enforcing the veil, talk about freedom right??!!
    “Muting the music,” ohhh that reminds me of when the cuban communist regime called listening to American or British music an act against the communist ideology, thus, it was illegal to do so.
    Where’s the freedom BBC??? or is that concept not a right of every human being according to the BBC???

       0 likes

  33. Ritter says:

    Somalis learn to follow the law
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…ica/ 6106398.stm

    At least the traffic runs on time under sharia law, that makes it worthwhile…
    Anon | 01.11.06 – 3:19 pm | #

    Has that article been sponsored by the Islamic Revolutionary Council? And the BBC say they don’t take adverts…….

       0 likes

  34. Ritter says:

    pleeeease, pleeeeeease……

    Strike threatens BBC News output
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6106788.stm

       0 likes

  35. Steve E. says:

    tee-hee, who got under the old goat’s skin?

    http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1936720,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704

       0 likes

  36. Rueful Red says:

    Ritter:
    Oh yes!! Let’s hope they show the potter’s wheel instead of the news!

       0 likes

  37. Bob says:

    JBH: now you’re commenting regularly, you’ll soon get used to JR’s sneaky-creepy attempts to dredge up irrelevant links, desperately trying to shore-up the Beeb’s appalling bias-by-omission and plain ‘half a story’ techniques. He did it recently with the Kriss Donald case (at the same time proving it had been shamelessly confined to the local pages). On the other hand, he’s very good (if a little boring) on the burning lone/single parent question…

       0 likes

  38. Ritter says:

    Simpo’s World:

    “It was only by reading the newspapers that most of us in news recently discovered our core values had been called into question by our own colleagues.

    You have to remember two things. The first is that much of the British press dislikes the BBC for ideological or commercial reasons, and will print anything to do us down. It’s a fact of life; no reason to get upset about it, but we shouldn’t take overmuch notice of what the papers say about us.”

    Simpo’s line on the recent criticism seems to be “f*ck ’em. As long as they keep paying the licence fee, who gives a sh*t?”

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  39. john says:

    I have been unable to find anything on BBC News web site about the absolutely gruesome murder in Dublin of the Somalian
    Farah Noor by the so called Irish ‘Scissor Sisters’.
    Why is this beeboids, not in the interests of European multiculturalism?
    Murder, mutilation and dismemberment: Ireland transfixed by ‘Scissor Sisters’ case

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  40. pounce says:

    Remember how the BBC went out of its way in which to defend the veil after little girl blue decide to wear one to school up north in Saville Town.
    SALWA, 27, CAIRO;
    “I sensed that women who did not wear the Hijab were regarded as not respectable. Society seemed to look on them as if they had something wrong with them. Women who did not wear the hijab were subject to all sorts of harassment, usually verbal. Because of this harassment, and to avoid wagging tongues and accusing looks, I decided to wear the hijab. It was also a way of getting closer to my God. Once I covered my head, others changed the way they treated me. Those who used to criticise me for the slightest thing, became pleasant. The level of harassment decreased.”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6059860.stm

    There you have it folks the BBC finds a girl in Cario who states that harassment fell after she covered up. As men respected her more.

    How fitting that the BBC decided to publish this story from Cario;

    Cairo street crowds target women
    By Magdi Abdelhadi

    Egyptians are horrified by the news that women have been assaulted by hordes of young men in the centre of the capital, Cairo. The incidents were first reported online by Egyptian bloggers, some of whom saw large number of men harassing the women and ripping off their clothes.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6106500.stm

    I bet the BBC wished they never went all OTT on defending the Burka, veil, Hijab now it transpires that their favourite religion doesn’t respect females at all.

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  41. Little Bulldogs says:

    The BBC can’t even bring itself to use the word terrorist properly after the man was convicted of it in court.

    http://littlebulldogs.blogspot.com/2006/11/bbc-and-terrorist.html

    Despite acknowledging in the opening paragraph that this man was sent to prison for terrorism, they still use the infamous quotation marks in the headline.

    Little Bulldogs

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  42. john says:

    There is a political trial beginning today in England of the BNP that is generally accepted as a consequence of a BBC TV documentary made by Jason Gwynne. Whereas a very interesting article in The Times have reported it- it is news touching on any number of subjects (Free-speech, Islam, Koran, Censorship, role of BBC, Racism, etc.)- the BBC are rather reticent. I don’t understand the logic, is it because they are too proud of the documentary (as per the BBC magazine) and feel therefore incapable of impartial & objective reporting of this case? If so this would be a novum for the BBC!

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  43. Jonathan Boyd Hunt says:

    Bob:
    Thanks for the tip.

    Steve E:
    Ritter:
    All B-BBCers:

    Re: John Simpson defending the BBC’s impartiality from the pages of The Guardian.

    I’m trying to think of an apt analogy that suitably illustrates the comic posturing of this event. Can anyone help me?

       1 likes

  44. john says:

    Quick before John Reith gets his oar in, they have buried this, blink and you will miss it:

    Rowdy scenes for race hate trial
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6105946.stm

       1 likes

  45. TPO says:

    JBH
    Ref an anolgy for Simpson.
    The only thing of note I can recall about him was his portentous announcement that he, and the BBC had liberated Kabul.
    Oh, and his whining when he got in the way of an American aircraft about its business in northern Iraq.

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  46. Afagddu says:

    Before I even realised you existed I decided to start my own infrequent watch of the BBC’s bias on my Blog http://theshatteredrealm.blogspot.com/

       1 likes

  47. JohnOfBorg says:

    John

    Bias/incompetence in your linked BNP trial article.

    They seem rather coy about the fact that it is a re-trial, don’t they…

    ‘Re-trial’ is used precisely once, halfway down the page, and there are no links to coverage of the previous trial in the ‘related links’ section. And obviously no link to the BNP’s own website.

    Ooops – I nearly forgot! For those of you who care, the usual thoughtcrime disclaimers apply re the BNP.

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  48. joe says:

    The bbc/anti BNP demonstrators amounted to 50-60 first year students and their 10-15 middle aged manipulaters. Quite a few of the students were waving red flags with revolution wrote on it. What a joke!

       1 likes

  49. Allan@Aberdeen says:

    JBH has sent me some of the material from his recent ‘dealings’ with The Guardian and the BBC – quite powerful stuff as well. I’d advise him to retain the contributions made by JR for future use.

       1 likes

  50. DofF says:

    hahahaa

    did anyone just see boris johnson on the tv awards on ITV?

       1 likes