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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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I’m sure that is enough for JR to add me to the 5-6 BNP members from this site.
archduke
Fair points you made at 18.11.06 – 2:14 am above. Some one third of current Victoria Cross holders are Ghurkas. Their contribution to British forces the world over needs no embellishment. The Ghurkas can stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone. And to our country’s eternal shame the Ministry of Defence still insists they should receive a lower pension than other troops and the Home Office stands by the ruling that Ghurkas do not have the right to live and work in Great Britain.
On Today this morning we had Kirty Lang dripping with bias in her questioning/grilling of
Rita Verdonk on the proposed ‘burqa ban’, first we are told how unfair/discriminatory to Muslims
this is by Dutch Labour and Green MPs. Lang tells Verdonk that this was done because there
are elections comming up, and there was me thinking that MPs are supposed to represent the electorate.
And on their website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/
* LATEST NEWS
* Blair accepts ‘disaster’ in Iraq
* Muslims condemn burqa ban
* Death row man ‘glad to be home’
” LATEST NEWS
* Blair accepts ‘disaster’ in Iraq
* Muslims condemn burqa ban
* Death row man ‘glad to be home'”
Government to BBC:
We have a problem with some Muslims, your mission is to make them appear to be integrated and just like everyone else.
BBC (Social Engineering Department of the Government) to Government:
Ok, leave it to us. Thats what we`re here for!
JBH
This may be of interest to you:
http://www.slate.com/id/2149992/
An Open Letter
Alan Dershowitz vs. the Guardian.
(filched from a link through American Thinker)
Happy reading.
‘DOES MY OPINION (I DO LIVE THERE AFTERALL) NOT AGREE WITH THE BBC OUTLOOK ON THE WORLD?’
As the BNP verdict shows most of our opinions don’t agree with those of the BBCers. They know it, they know what they are, they have meetings to discuss it and block the release of any records of it.
When a broadcaster becomes so out of step with its audience usually it would fold but of course we HAVE to pay for the BBC.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt
Have you written to Noam Chomsky with your evidence?
He’s at chomsky@mit.edu
Worth a try?As if he’s interested he might be able to provide contacts who can help?
Thought there was something wrong with the ‘john reith’ persona.Thanks for the heads up.
Archduke, there are a lot of ghurkas who are royally pissed off at the current government for various reasons and who may take it in to their heads to simply bugger off home anyway. I wonder if that voluntary self-repatriation would make them BNP supporters…
John, sometimes a little bit of reductio ad absurdum can be useful in an argument. I know that John Smith was none of the things you outline. I also know that the old Labour party shares many common planks with the BNP. They both believe in wealth redistribution. They both believe in nationalisation. They both believe in a welfare state. The crucial difference, the point where they diverge, was nationalism. This doesn’t make one party bad and one god but it does influence polilcy. Nationalists put their country first. Internationalists but the glorious future and international solidarity before any national need, except (as stalin so beautifully demonstrated during the so-called Great Patriotic War, aka World War 2) when it gets people on their side.
Yes, the BNP are national socialists. Funky stuff. Nazis supporting Israel’s right to exist? The world is seriously screwed up…
Now, having studied the BNP website in some detail over the last few days, I have to say I’m confused. I can’t really find any of the policies you mentioned. No sterilisation policies, no anti-mixed-race-marriage policies… you could almost call then New BNP, they’re so spun in that regard. Or perhaps the party has genuinely changed. Who knows?
Still wouldn’t vote for em. Socialists and all that. Sure you understand. 🙂
Griffen’s biggest constituencies are northern and working-class areas with large muslim (not ethnic, muslim) conclaves, traditional labour strongholds that have always voted labour. Socially they’re conservative, but politically they pick the party that they think will attempt to return them to the good old days when everyone could get a job at the local mill, or its modern equivalent. Support for nationalisation is very strong up here. They also resent immigrants who arrive and take up the pooorest paid jobs that they can’t get anymore because of minimum wage requirements. A minimum wage requirement wouldn’t have been necessary, they reason, if there weren’t any private companies…
You’ll find that more labour voters than tories are voting for the BNP. Again, as I said, not because they’re racist bigots, but because the BNP is saying it will give them what they want, what they believe they need. No other party is even considering the issue, let alone explaining their position.
Now I, personally, believe that this problem could be solved without the whole nationalisation thing. Immigration needs to be tightly controlled, and I actually do agree that many of them should be asked to leave. They aren’t here for work and they aren’t here because their country is dangerous, or because they were facing any sort of unfair or illegal sanction, so why are they here?
On to your other point:
I never forget it. Indeed it is almost the sole topic of conversation round the water-cooler these days.
You might remind yourself of that pearl of wisdom next time you are tempted to ascribe absurd motives (e.g. support for Islamofascist terrorism) when the BBC reports an Israeli air-strike in Gaza.
I would agree. Reporting an israeli air-strike in gaza in and of itself is proof of nothing more than reporting an air-strike in gaza. However, as has been repeatedly pointed out on this site, the BBC tends to take sides in these matters in the way it describes victims and aggressors. Each individual account could be dismissed as just an isolated incident, but as the evidence builds, as each account is compared to others and assembled in to a whole, a pattern emerges. When you have a pattern you can start to assume intentional behaviour or, at the very least, a very strong influence in a certain direction.
The big picture takes on a particular form, just like those scary head the BBC was using to advertise itself a while back. Each individual little head seems isolated. But then you start to compare them; you find that a lot of them are very similar. Glotted together the similarities become obvious and, suddenly, you have John Simpson telling you how he liberated Kabul.
That’s what counts, you see. Taking each individual article on its own is meaningless if you don’t consider the whole output of the BBC, and that output tells a very disturbing story.
User paid to uninstall Windows XP
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6144782.stm
“A Sheffield man has won a refund from Dell for not installing Microsoft’s Windows XP on a laptop he bought from the PC giant”.
The BBC describe Dell as a “PC giant“. And that would make the BBC…. what?
“…two days later, Dell rang him and told him to expect a refund to his credit card soon after. “They only took two days to respond,” he said. “I was pretty gob-smacked that it was so easy.” The total refund was for £55.23, which Mr Mitchell took to be the value of a pre-installed version of Windows XP Home.
A couple of days after the refund was agreed, an invoice from Dell arrived through the post, which described the refund as “goodwill unspecified”.
Although Mr Mitchell has now waived the right to use the copy of Windows XP Home on his laptop, Dell has not asked for the installation disc to be returned. “I’ve cost Dell £50, not Microsoft, which is a slightly annoying,” said Mr Mitchell.
nasty, nasty Microsoft!
How do I uninstall the BBC to get my licence fee refund of £131.50?
Simple answer is – you can’t. One can uninstall any Microsoft product and not pay for it, infact if you wish, you can have a Microsoft free existence. The BBC products are forcibly fed into my household via satellite, cable or airwaves. I have no choice whether to recive or not. I have no choice whether to pay or not.
Maybe that’s an example of the BBC ‘accountability’ a previous poster referred to?
.
“Fury over Halal Christmas dinner”
“PARENTS expressed outrage last night over a school’s plans to serve pupils a Muslim Christmas dinner.
The headteacher announced that she intended to replace the children’s traditional turkey meal with halal chicken.
She explained that eating poultry which had been slaughtered in the Muslim way would create an “integrated Christmas”.
More: http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=732
TPO:
Schoolboy Error:
Thanks for that.
Everyone:
Notice how “John Reith” goes as quiet as a lamb whenever I repeat my offer of £1,000 to charity in return for finding two BBC journalists to sit through a day-long demo of The Guardian’s cover-up? (Whenever “he” gets a bit uppity in the future you know what subject to bring up to put him back in his place.)
P.S. TPO: For cor-blimey’s sake print out TWTW, read it, and get back to me!
😉
Don’t let schadenfreude get the better of you, but Strathclyde police are seriously thinking of charging the BBC with inciting ‘race hate’:
Probe into Newsnight flag story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6161100.stm
“Prosecutors are investigating a BBC Newsnight programme in which Scottish youths smashed up a car decorated with England flags, police said.
…SNP MP Peter Wishart welcomed the report to the procurator fiscal. He said: “I trust there will be a thorough and robust investigation and all the circumstances surrounding this ridiculous prank will be examined.
“I still believe this was a stupid stunt by the BBC and that the anger it generated was justified.”
Tut tut BBC, inciting ‘race hate’. Whatever next?, the BBC deck out a trailer in the nativity scene and park it outside a mosque to ‘see what happens’?
Somehow, I doubt it.
The BBC and half a story;
Muslim women debate more rights
Muslim women politicians, business leaders, academics, cultural figures and activists are meeting in New York to try to improve women’s rights. Organisers hope to use the event to launch the first international Islamic advisory council for women.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6160846.stm
And what the American Society for Muslim Advancement actually say;
On November 17-19 at the Weslin in Times Square ,New York City, WISE will convene over 100 distinguished Muslim women leaders from academia, civil society, arts, politics and religion to network ,strategise and share best practices around the joint mission of advancing the rights of Muslim women.
http://www.asmasociety.org/home/wise.pdf#goals
It seems the BBC leaves out the fact that the conference is all about giving more rights to Muslim women in Specific Islamic locations and not as it appears more rights to Muslim women in non Islamic countries. Pity the BBC rewrites it to promote the opposite
The BBC and half a story
The BBC and Victims
Death row man ‘being counselled’
A man who is back in the UK after spending 18 years on death row in Pakistan will not return to his Yorkshire home for at least a week.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6160868.stm
Victim;
“Amjad Hussain said: “It’s been quite an ordeal for him and he needs some space and time and needs to adjust.”
Victim;
“In a statement read on his behalf by MEP Sajjad Haider Karim, he said: “It has been a tremendous strain to be separated from my family and loved ones.”
Victim;
“Freedom is a great gift. I want to use this freedom to get to know my family again, to adjust back to living here and to come to terms with my ordeal.”
Victim;
“My thoughts remain with all the prisoners I have left behind.”
Victim;
“He is staying at an undisclosed location in the south of England while he adjusts to life outside of prison.”
Victim;
“Hussain thanked those who helped win his release including President Musharraf, Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Prince of Wales and the Muslim Council of Britain.”
And just to make sure that we know he is a victim pound to a penny the BBC will ensure they have a world exclusive in getting this mans story across that he was in fact a victim.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6160868.stm
Now contrast how the BBC reports on this story of injustice and any story concerning a British soldier wrongly accused of a killing.
The BBC and victims
pounce – I think the story is half right. The paper you link to mentions bringing awareness of rights in Western countries as well as the “nuanced understanding” of “specific locales” (whatever that means, I think it is a deliberately obscure reference to some of the usual suspects) – but also the conference appears to be a challenge from women to men (as with most things of their ilk like 60 years of Womens Hour. Where’s the 60 years of Mens Hour?)
Al-Beeb has it in its headline today: “Dutch Muslims condemn burqa ban” Does this mean that every single
Dutch Muslim (including the elusive ‘moderate’ ones), wants all Muslim women to be able to wear a burqa in Dutch society?
The headline story should really read: “Overwhelming majority of
Dutch voters support government
ban on burqa”. And the same result would be true in UK, but would be reported differently in al-Beeb.
.
“America’s Future is Red, Europe’s is Green”
Whatever one may think of the wisdom of invading Iraq, this, however, is the course which history has taken. We are stuck with the situation as it is today, just as the world was stuck with Hitler in 1933. The question is: What next? And also: What if something worse than 9/11 were to occur?
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1667
“”What we today call ‘environmentalism’ is … based on a fear of change.”
YES! I’ve been saying this for years!!
Enviromentalists – Liberals in general – are control freaks. They not only want to order the world as they see fit but to keep it in permanent stasis. And they have extraordinary difficulty in accepting that nature is a process not a steady state phenomena
“The American PBS network is going
after the dangerous Muslim Brotherhood and its operations in a forthcoming expose”….
“Independent British production companies are making several of the documentaries, including the Muslim Brotherhood special.”
Source: ‘PBS targets dangerous Muslim Brotherhood’,
http://www.acage.org
Does al-Beeb have any plans to show this programme?
“The only people the BBC is accountable to are liberal, Leftist Guardian/Independent readers.”
You seem to be forgetting the whole charter thing there.
“Much, no doubt, like MisterMinit.”
Oh really?
“private news organisations dont threaten me with prison time if i refuse to renew my subscription to them.”
And what has that got to do with accountability? And it’s not the BBC who threaten you, it’s the government. It is the government that decides to make TV owners pay £130 per year. The BBC don’t threaten you with imprisonment any more than the NHS or the Army do if you don’t pay your income tax.
But back to the original dicussion. AntiCitizenOne said that the BBC are unaccountable and I disagreed. It seems to me that they are very accountable. Do you agree with what AntiCitizenOne said?
Remember the BBC person being interviewed about their coverage of the Kriss Donald case on the BBC no less? What other news organisations regularly hold such debates on their news coverage?
“thats something called the market – something that you should open your tiny brain up to and actually try to figure out.”
I understand free market capitalism perfectly well thanks – and I’m a great fan by the way.
“And to our country’s eternal shame the Ministry of Defence still insists they should receive a lower pension than other troops and the Home Office stands by the ruling that Ghurkas do not have the right to live and work in Great Britain.”
That is something that I’ve never understood, and I agree that the actions of our govenerment on this matter are shameful. You may want to look here if you want to help out:
http://www.gwt.org.uk/
MisterMinit writes:
“You seem to be forgetting the whole charter thing there.”
No, it is the BBC that forgets “the whole charter thing”.
That is why we are here, to discuss the BBC’s constant refusal to honour its charter obligation to be an impartial broadcaster.
“That is why we are here, to discuss the BBC’s constant refusal to honour its charter obligation to be an impartial broadcaster.”
Which means that the BBC is not unaccountable then, surely?
MisterMinit writes:
“Which means that the BBC is not unaccountable then, surely?”
Are you being deliberately obtuse? I saw someone the other day suggest you were a troll. I thought, at the time, he was being harsh but in the light of the above, I’m starting to wonder.
The BBC is unaccountable because it chooses to respond to accusations of bias and the evidence of bias with nothing more than blank denials and obfuscation.
It is so bad in this respect that when finally, after a barage of criticism, it commissions a report into its behaviour, it refuses to make the findings public. Surely, the very definition of unaccountable?
“And to our country’s eternal shame the Ministry of Defence still insists they should receive a lower pension than other troops and the Home Office stands by the ruling that Ghurkas do not have the right to live and work in Great Britain.
Pete_London | 18.11.06 – 9:16 am | ”
bloody good point.
and where is the BBC “agenda setting campaign” about that very fact? eh?
seems to be more interested in Osama Bin Laden burqa clad IslamoNazis who want to blow us up, rather than those brave souls from Nepal.
utter fubar.
sickening -it really is…
” Anonymous | 18.11.06 – 6:04 pm ”
thought provoking article there alright.
a bit of realpolitik is probably what is required to keep the Wahabbi Sunnis in check – by talking to Shia Iran…
sounds horrible, but maybe thats what we just have to do.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1667
Debate not going the way the Beebies like it…
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=4756&edition=1&ttl=20061119012225&#paginator
Points:
IF the Beeb are going to be investigated for the English flags on a car stunt then The Scotsman should be too as they did the same thing but with several reporters and all over Scotland. Apparently Aberdeen was even worse than Glasgow in the attitude to people wearing England shirts….
Gurkhas – do have the right to stay and live after discharge. Hence 20 odd Cardiff bus drivers are ex Gurkhas and there are several up here living in nearby Inverness.
A minor point: the soldiers won 13 VCs out of 26 awarded to the Gurkha regiments (the other 13 were won by British Gurkha officers). My own regiment has 40 almost all won by soldiers not officers….and there are English regiments with even more. They are brave wee buggers but no more so than any other regiment you care to name.
The whole point is that the Tripartite agreement with India divided the Gurkha regiments between us and India and the wages were set at a level that was higher than the norm for Nepal anyway. Don’t blame MoD for things that were agreed in 1947 – they have now changed and things are getting better for Johnny Gurkha but at the end of the day they ARE foreign troops paid by us and we can’t even use them in most of the places the rest of the Army serve because of political reasons. This is why they have never served as whole regiments in Germany or Northern Ireland for example. Indeed I haven’t seen any Gurkha infantry battalions in Iraq although they have been in The Stan for years now.
I promise this is the last time I’ll defend the BBC and MoD!
The BBC and how it portrays Israel as compassionless;
Human shield deters Israel strike
The Israelis have called off a planned air attack on a house in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza after hundreds of Palestinians formed a human shield.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6162494.stm
and how the BBC portrays radical Islamic terrorists as compassionate;
Travelling with the Taleban
The BBC’s David Loyn has had exclusive access to Taleban forces mobilised against the British army in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.
————————————–xxxx———————————————————–
“We rose up and saved almost the whole country from the evils of corruption and corrupt commanders. That’s why people are supporting the Taleban again now.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6081594.stm
Right so the evil Jews not only phone up first and tell the people they don’t like that they are going to blow their house up so it would be best if they left. But they refused to fire when non combatants are in the firing frame. Yet the religious Taliban who have no problem slitting throats of little girls, blowing up shopping markets, why they have no problem chopping off the heads of women for showing their hair and the BBC paints them as just.
Yup something smells rotten in the state of white city. Problem is it isn’t the sewers.
Thanks Dave for the gen on the little green men. I tried to post exactly the same as you but for some reason this site doesn’t like me posting from Opera.(I hate to admit this but the majority of my posts are from using IE7)
I’ve worked with the Gurkhas since 1982 (69 eng sqn) 7Gr in Belize and a few other spots around the world.
Nice bunch of blokes and its nice to see that they (looking at Dover) they can now bring their families across.
Sudan ‘begins new Darfur attacks’
BUT, what about this
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday after talks on Darfur in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, that a compromise had been reached for a hybrid UN-AU force in Sudan’s western region.
But Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said shortly afterwards that “there should be no talk about a mixed force” and that there would be no UN troops in Darfur.
Mr Akol said that the UN would simply provide technical support.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6161692.stm
So yet again the UN shown to be useless.
But no hint of criticism for Kojo’s dad. Just consider the BBC’s stock phrases that would be trotted out if a US/UK/Israeli leader had been rebuffed – “humiliated”, “scorned”, “humbled” etc.
The BBC and half a story.
Remember how the BBC went out of its way it which to debate wearing the poppy?
Well look how it defends “children in need”
It’s that time of the year again. The BBC’s newsreaders jettison their double-breasted suits and power jackets and don something sparkling instead to show us a side of them we rarely (well, annually) get to see.
And if you don’t like it, it’s all in the name of charity, so you can shut up.
and
Children in Need has raised more than £400m for good causes since its creation. It seems to break its own record every year, raising ever greater sums. It brings people together in the name of fundraising, helping, in turn (and this bit will irritate some readers) the BBC to fulfil its role as a force for good in society.
I defy anyone to watch the piece we broadcast this morning about the little girl with Down’s Syndrome who attends a voluntary group funded by Children in Need and not think that it is all worthwhile.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/for_a_good_cause.html
And the British legion doesn’t do the same, only it doesn’t get slated (like the BBC’s ‘Children in need’) for wasting charity money.
The BBC and half a story
GCooper: Only half right, I think. That the BBC doesn’t choose to deal with complaints as you or I would wish isn’t what makes it unaccountable.
The fact that it can do so without any kind of consequences is what makes it unaccountable.
You make it sound like the Beeb just has to say the right thing and it’d be justifiable. Sadly, there is no one view that the BBC could take and find itself representative of everyone. It is not because the Guardian is bad that it appears biased to many Telegraph readers, or vice versa.
If the Independent did all it could to get exclusive, Taliban supporting, interviews, I’d shrug my shoulders, roll my eyes, and get on with life. When the BBC does it, it does it with my money.
When it lies about trade, it forces me to participate in its lies. I fund electoral dirty tricks against the conservatives. I support the whole neanderthal conservative mindset. Through my funding, I stir up anti american hatred and deride my faith. I cannot pay my license fee with a disclaimer. There is, in fact, nothing I can do, other than spend my time complaining like a bitter old man.
I should note that most of the above is only somewhat true, since I’m not in the country much and haven’t paid a license fee (or many other taxes) for years. Still, my aversion to engaging in actions that I believe to be evil (I feel quite strongly about impoverishing third world citizens through anti-trade rhetoric) is one of the emotional pushes for me to stay out of the country and not pay. It shouldn’t be a part of the burden of living in the UK. It could be better (have some decent coverage of the northern Irish parties, for instance), but it could never be legitimate.
.
“Blair hit by Saudi ‘bribery’ threat”
SAUDI ARABIA is threatening to suspend diplomatic ties with Britain unless Downing Street intervenes to block an investigation into a £60m “slush fund” allegedly set up for some members of its royal family.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-2459780-523,00.html
Focus: “My life as a spy at the heart of Al-Qaeda”
Al-Qaeda trained Omar Nasiri in its Afghan terror camps as a bomber and sent him to London. Unknown to them he was also working for western intelligence. Here he reveals his life as a double agent operating at the very edge of the law
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-2460306-523,00.html
“Energy plants may get armed terror guards”
A SPECIAL armed police force is being proposed to protect Britain’s main oil, gas and electricity installations from terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-2460263-523,00.html
.
BBC backs Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Compare this BBC report on HT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6162690.stm
with Western Resistance’s report on HT
http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/003372.html
We have to pay the BBC for a factually inaccurate and misleading report that shows support for a radical Islamic organization, while an excellent expose of HT is done for free by a blogger.
My post fisking the BBC is here:
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2006/11/uk-bbc-supports-hizb-ut-tahrir.html
gee – thanks BBC for using my taxmoney to do islamic propaganda.
front page of digg
http://digg.com/videos_educational/Islamic_Inventions_Scientific_Contributions_that_changed_the_world
heaven and earth are interviewing Yusuf Islam now.
i wonder if they’ll ask him about his support for the fatwa on Salman Rushdie.
OT – but plenty thought provoking articles over at the Brussles Journal:
The Outcome of Two Cultural Revolutions: While China Turns Christian, Europe Turns Muslim
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1650
bad headline time
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6161500.stm
“UK and Pakistan forge terror pact”
shouldnt that be “anti terror pact”?
Anonymous 1:30 I don’t like commenting on BBC websites as you’re being subsumed into their orthodoxy.Better to officially complain to right a wrong if you’ve detected one rather than reinforce something that is the ultimate organ of the state with ‘comment’ that costs them nothing but enriches their position as opinion formers/manipulators immeasureably.
something you wont see on Al-Beeb
“Exposed – the extremist agenda”
http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/11/glenn-becks-exposed-extremist-agenda.html
Fair weather friend of the BBC, The Observer, spots a threat to it’s income stream from our very own broadcasting giant that is Al-BBC:
Licensed to kill off support from the press
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1951482,00.html
“Those whose licence fees the Whitehall gods wish to renew below inflation, they first leave alone and defenceless: or, in the BBC’s case, lacking friends in the press who might otherwise rally round. Take two examples.
We know that the Beeb would like to put ads on its bbc.com website (for overseas customers only, of course). And now another leaked memo confirms the intention to raise between 40 and 100 advertising millions a year by developing this hugely resourced and visited site – leaving newspaper websites trailing a year far behind.
But where, if you’re the Times, Telegraph, Guardian or FT, expanding online around the world, are you hoping to raise ad revenue from? Yes: exactly the same pool of possibility that the BBC is aiming to drain.
We also know that local papers around Britain are suspicious about BBC plans to wheel out local TV news services. The BBC director-general has said he might pay good licence-fee money to local papers for providing much of the news. But how does that fit with these same newspapers running their own broadband news services?
Somehow the logic here keeps tripping over itself. Do you hear a mighty swell of BBC affection rising through local Britain, demanding a generous settlement and making ordinary MPs sit up and take notice? Alas, you hear only a rather sullen, unhelpful silence.
Exactly. Scrap the licence fee!
A Scottish perspective on the BBC:
or
Licence fee ‘shite’ – official
£180m a year… and the best that we get for it is Happy Birthday Broons
http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1712542006
“The ‘highlights’ of BBC Scotland’s contribution to TV culture were a sitcom which shows signs of staleness now that it is in its fifth year, the kind of solid news coverage we’d expect of a broadcaster that consumes £343 of licence fee money every minute and a handful of mindless entertainment shows which appear to have been commissioned solely on the basis that a mindless celebrity is on board.” ………
“……Either way, they are shortchanging us all as licence fee payers and viewers. Renton was nearly right: it’s shite being stuck with BBC Scotland.”
Hat-tip to other who spotted this earlier..
For a good cause…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/for_a_good_cause.html#commentsanchor
David Kermode, Editor BBC Breakfast
17 Nov 06, 02:58 PM
“It’s that time of the year again. The BBC’s newsreaders jettison their double-breasted suits and power jackets and don something sparkling instead to show us a side of them we rarely (well, annually) get to see.
And if you don’t like it, it’s all in the name of charity, so you can shut up.”
I’m not sure how an Editor telling their viewers to collectively ‘shut up’ complies with producer guidelines on offensive comment, but it’s also innapropriate political comment. Since when was it part of a BBC Editor’s role to decide which charities are or are not worthy of BBC patronage, support and airtime on broadcasts wholly funded by the licence fee payer?
“Well, that might be the traditional view. But of course, there are plenty of people who do feel uncomfortable, or worse and who find their toes curling at the sight of such frivolity.
And this is a forum to air such issues.”
Er, except at the weekend. You’ll notice that this article is timestamped as posted on Friday afternoon at 2.17pm. 2 days later (Sunday pm) and how any have joined the forum to ‘air such views’? Er, 0, none, zero, zilch, nada to be exact.
BBC so-called ‘blogs’ are crap when it comes to ‘interaction’ and so heavily ‘moderated’ as to make the whole exercise a complete waste of time. (from the BBC’s point of view however, maybe that’s the idea….)
“So are we right to do it? Of course, I have an opinion. But before we get to that, let’s look at the defence.
Children in Need has raised more than £400m for good causes since its creation. It seems to break its own record every year, raising ever greater sums. It brings people together in the name of fundraising, helping, in turn (and this bit will irritate some readers) the BBC to fulfil its role as a force for good in society.”
Hmmm. ‘force for good in society’? Anyone got a source/reference for that claim? And if it exists – to who or whom is the BBC accountable to for delivering on this ‘role’?
“I defy anyone to watch the piece we broadcast this morning about the little girl with Down’s Syndrome who attends a voluntary group funded by Children in Need and not think that it is all worthwhile.”
Emotions one feels relating to the viewing of a film only relate to the viewing of that film. This does not inform whether it is appropriate for the BBC to support one particular charity over another.
“Well, I would argue that as we’re in the business of communication, yes they do. To communicate effectively, we have to look like we’re fellow multi-dimensional human beings and this is a great opportunity, in the name of a good cause, to do that.”
Really?
“And tonight, we’ll see a whole lot more than the usual whole lot more. It may make you laugh, it may make you squirm. It won’t land Bill Turnbull a job as the new Bond. But it will help raise lots of money for a good cause. And it is only one night of the year…”
Ooh, just one night per year?. Oh well, that’s ok then…..
What a bunch of poppycock.
I listened to the repeat last night of The Moral Maze, I thought one of the most revealing panellists was actuallyIan Hargreaves his BBC bigotry really came to the fore in his questioning, as well as his skittish characterisation of the bnp’s manifesto (ethnic cleansing, gas chambers) especially when he was questioning the journalist Mary Kenny. Clearly he got very upset by Mary’s very accurate comment:
“Richard Dawkins says worse things about the Catholic church, every day of the week it seems to me on broadcasting than Nick Griffin said about Islam.”
I think she has hit the nail on the head, and with broadcasting she really should have said the BBC. Hargreaves, former Managing Editor, then Director of BBC News and Current Affairs, unleashed volley after volley of stereotypical assumptions. Clearly his mindset is not too dissimilar from current BBC management that prohibits genuine political discussion and is openly “impartial”!
In the BBC discussion didn’t living Marxist Claire Fox reveal her Leninist training ideologically slapping the United against Fascism man around like that- strange how the left like to devour themselves so. Accusations by marxists of being less left wing or of not living up to known principals always has that blood-curdling violent Stalinist cutting edge.
BTW it must be a bit worrying for the BBC that only 9 messages have been posted about this prog. on the actual debate site. I think we have seen more people post here about it?
Fresh from being embedded with the Taliban, al-Beeb’s David Loyn goes to the heartland of Sunni opposition to the Americans:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6162442.stm
This guy seems to be able to operate in the most anti-western parts of the Islamic world – I wonder why it is so easy for him?
IPPR WATCH?
Do the BBC and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have some sort of hotline between the two? They were on again today spouting some nonsense about batteries, and calling for huge tax increases — surprise!
Every word uttered via this leftwing think tank is faithfully reported by the BBC, they feature on average about once a week. Almost always with the introduction; “a leading think tank today revealed….”, they never “claim” (to be more accurate), and their leftwing credentials and links to the Labour Party are rarely if ever mentioned.
Right of centre think tank like the Adam Smith Institute, or Civitas must go green with envy when they see how much fawning coverage the IPPR is given by the BBC.
If you follow the link headed
“Moral dilemma : Nicaraguans divided over decision to ban all abortions”
on the BBC’s front page you arrive at this article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6162670.stmpro
It is by no means the most stridently anti Catholic pro abortion piece you will see on the Beeb, indeed it appears to regard Catholic moral opposition to abortion as sincere. But there are plenty of subtle signifiers. The link • see above • is the most obvious one. From the story, dissenters seem to be rather thin on the ground in Nicaragua. It is no doubt true that Nicaraguans are divided, in that support for a total abortion ban is clearly not unanimous. But you will not see any reference to division in cases where the populace is 80-20 on the same side as the BBC.
But also the issue is framed in terms of the Catholics’ moral certainty versus the medical profession’s “clinical judgement.” The anti abortionists are mystics, the pro abortionists are experts and pragmatists. But not grubby pragmatists • sincere and moral pragmatists :
And on the other side, a matching sincerity in the view that a woman’s right to control her own body and health cannot be compromised by a set of religious doctrines.
Compare these stories about the Philippines and the death penalty • where unusually the BBC finds itself on the same side as the Catholic church.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3437217.stm
Arroyo’s ‘lives for votes’ gamble
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5112696.stm
In these stories we have a headline which in the crudest possible way attributes the decision to resume the death penalty to the basest of political motives, and continues with that theme throughout. It’s no use saying that the “lives for votes” bit is in quotes. It’s been put in the headline. We don’t see the Nicaragua story headed
“Baby-killers” routed in Nicaragua vote
do we ?
And although we have a pro death penalty spokesman quoted, there is no BBC editorial overview, as with the Nicaraguan abortion story, attributing either pragmatism or sincerity to the “anti-life” side.
In the second story • where they abolish the death penalty again • we get one sentence about the views of the opponents to abolition; unlike the abortion story where half the article is reporting the opposition view.
The BBC and ‘Not the 9 o/clock news.’
Here are a few snippets of Islamic bad press which the BBC keeps off the front page.
Muslim leader sent funds to Irving
Islamic activist admits he donated cash to jailed historian who denied the Holocaust
One of Britain’s most prominent speakers on Muslim issues is today exposed as a supporter of David Irving, the controversial historian who for years denied the Holocaust took place.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1951773,00.html
Iran calls on Muslims to destroy Israel
Iran’s foreign minister Saturday called on Islamic and Arab countries to sever their relations with Israel and prevent cooperation with Israeli companies. Manouchehr Mottaki told the executive committee of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Saudi Arabia that Muslims must destroy Israel and restore the legitimate people of what he termed “occupied Palestine” to power.
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20061118-124219-6168r.htm
Muslims facing ‘hurricane’ of attacks, says London conference
UK Conference-Islamophobia
The 1.8 million Muslim community is facing a ‘hurricane of official and unofficial legal, political and physical attacks in a climate of Islamophobic hysteria’, a London conference warned Saturday.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0611181161180629.htm
Muslim feminist says regimes deny choice
Islam’s rulers are alienating ‘a generation, especially women’
Young Muslims searching for a more moderate Islam are being denied that choice by dictatorial Muslim leaders preaching an inflexibly dogmatic brand of the religion, says a prominent feminist Muslim who will be the keynote speaker at Muslim Canadian Council of Muslim Women’s annual conference in Ottawa today.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=575d4567-8538-4ad4-b1cd-f4a42f31e473
More Buddhists killed in Thailand’s Muslim south
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Suspected Muslim militants shot dead a Buddhist man in Thailand’s restive south on Sunday in another apparent response by separatists to Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont’s peace visit last week.A policeman said the victim, whose neck had also been partially severed, was the third Buddhist killed in the last three days in the southern province of Yala in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign to force Buddhists to leave.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111900045.html
Pakistani test bowler fined for ball-tampering
MULTAN – Pakistani paceman Mohammad Khalil has been fined for ball-tampering in a domestic first class match in Karachi, an official told Reuters on Sunday.
http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/sports/2006/November/sports_November726.xml§ion=sports&subsection=cricket
HIZBULLAH USES MERCERNARIES AGAINST ISRAEL
WASHINGTON [MENL] — Hizbullah recruited nearly 1,000 Al Qaida-aligned Sunnis to fight Israel in the war in Lebanon in mid-2006.
A United Nations report said at least 720 Sunnis from Somalia were recruited by Hizbullah to fight Israel in the 34-day war that ended on Aug. 14.,/b> The report said Hizbullah brought the insurgents to Lebanon in July 2006 at the start of the war.
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2006/november/11_17_1.html