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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest
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Jack – I never heard the “Tory Guy” on PM – but I heard Ian Duncan Smith and David Cameron being interviewed and I think they both gave as good as they got. IDS especially. And may I say I am sick of being ignored and slagged off by the beeboids because I have been married for 26 years, I am employed have three kids all with degrees and no criminal records. And if that does not deserve recognition for benefiting society I don’t know what does.
Newsnight’s take on David Duke was a model of accuracy and objectivity compared with how the Radio 4 PM programme covered it.
“Jon | 11.12.06 – 10:40 pm | ” – I heard IDS as well. did a good job of trying to get the bloody obvious onto the political map.
and thats a complement – IDS 1 , politcally correct lunancy 0… and judging from the response of the beeboids, i got a certain sense that the tide is turning. finally…
paxman tonight
“if you are member of the KKK or the Nazi party then there’s only one place to be today – Tehran…”
ho ho – david duke pops up… thanks newsnight. you’re getting your balls again…
and no that wasnt being sarcastic…
I wouldn’t wait for JR’s answer on that one.
JimBob | 11.12.06 – 4:22 pm |
I wouldn’t wait for JR’s answer on anything.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt,
I hate to tell you this, but you really are wasting your time expecting John Reith to cooperate with you on any issue – especially one which which is likely to result in the truth being revealed.
John Reith | 11.12.06 – 10:38 am,
Yes I read your pathetically childish comment in which you objected to the BBC interviewing a Christian demonstrator.
No need to get so shrill, old chap. Now, if you would remove your tinted glasses and take a clear look at the Middle East you’d notice that hell would freeze over before Hezbollah would share power with infidel Christians. Your vast knowledge of Lebanese politics would be far more impressive if you recognised that simple fact.
BBC propagandists aim to fool people into believing that harmony is possible – that’s why they were so understated about Hezbollah’s involvement in the demonstration and why, I reiterate, they brought in the Christian demonstrator.
Now why would the BBC be pushing this particular agenda? Maybe you can deal with that one, Mr. Reith – a straight answer to a straight question.
I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait a decade or two for your answer.
apologies to people without newsnight right now – its about the holocaust denial conference in tehran , sponsored by Iran.
” Bryan | 11.12.06 – 11:05 pm | ”
yeah – but the christians are well armed. there will be negotiations… but conducted with barrels of guns at each other.
hez wont get their way. those lebansese christians have been there for thousands of years. not a chance…
Lets see, the only people mentioned turning up to the holocaust nutters convention were david duke and some stupid white french thing.
Also 3 interviews with the iranians most didnt know anything , other opposed the convention..yeahh thats the balanced view of the iranians.
Newsnight also mentioned the jews who turned up to the holocaust denal convention, they didn’t menton however, this from LGF
“These so-called “Jewish rabbis” that Reuters casually drops into the article are in actuality members of Neturei Karta—an insane sect with a tiny membership that makes a practice of supporting evil around the world. Sort of the Jewish equivalent of Fred Phelps and his sick bunch. But to Reuters they’re just like any other “Jewish rabbis.”
Replace Reuters wth Newsnght,
so the programme showed every nutter from the US, Brtain and Israel who showed up but not once mentioned the islamic world and their many representatives.
But the interviews they did have with the muslims were opposed or indifferent to it.
Another story being assiduously ignored by the BBC.
Peacekeepers kill 3 refugees in Darfur
Perhaps Desmond Tutu could go and investigate…
Idiotic headline from an idiotic organisation:
“Pinochet was ‘evil’, says victim..”
Well, yes. No doubt.
But we will hold the BBC accountable when that even greater despot, its beloved Fidel Castro, pops his clogs – which, one can only hope, won’t be too far off, now.
And if there is one jot less condemnation, one iota of equivocation about that murdering scumbag’s record, or one awfully accessible victim’s account less graphically portrayed, then I will personally track down and haunt the serial bias denier “John Reith” until he admits the truth.
In what The Editors refer to as a Moron Free Zone, Newsnight reveal thier pick of viewers videos
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/12/warning_moronfree_zone_1.html
far from being Moron Free, there is much evidence of the Moronic in plain sight.
I have deconstructed the moronic vids here:
Video 1- There are people of all different sorts in London.
Video 2 – If you loose your flat you may become homeless.
Video 3- Starving Africans will attend school for food.
Video 4- Cocaine is made from dangerous stuff.
Video 5- ID cards will get you killed.
Video 6- People in the Dole office are horrid when you go to get free money.
Video 7- Offsetting carbon emissions is a con (moronic to think that it was anything else)
Video 8-Forget China, Britain is to blame for climate change.
Video 9- The good `ol days are coming to an end in Cuba.
Video 10- Cyprus, we`re all just people, right?
Video 11-Minarets and corner shops.
Video 12- If we all just pay enough tax, we can be just like Sweden. Vote Labour.
Video 13- couldn`t get sound on this one but it looks like hard working Bulgarian folk just trying to earn an honest living in UK.
Moron Free Zone- Saints preserve us!
Bryan | 11.12.06 – 11:05 pm
You say:
“Jonathan Boyd Hunt,
I hate to tell you this, but you really are wasting your time expecting John Reith to cooperate with you on any issue • especially one which is likely to result in the truth being revealed.”
Thanks Bryan. I’m aware that I’ve been walking a fine line by thumping on about the Hamilton affair, and if your comments conceal a well-meant sentiment along the lines of “please put a sock in it”, I agree it’s probably time that I let the matter rest for a while.
My purpose in raising the issue here in the way that I have, time and time again, challenging the BBC’s arch-defender and able researcher “John Reith”, has been two-fold:
1) to establish authoritatively in this public arena of shrewd and analytical individuals that there does indeed exist a major untold story relating to one of this country’s biggest political controversies of all time: namely, The Guardian’s concoction, aided by Mohamed Fayed, of a bogus story of political corruption, which, led by The Guardian, the BBC-dominated media then used to help oust from power a democratic government; coupled to a subsequent criminal conspiracy conducted by The Guardian, Mohamed Fayed, and their associates, which succeeded in perverting the official parliamentary inquiry into the affair.
2) to show that, despite the undoubted public interest in such an enormous story showing how parliament was wrongly tainted and the democratic process skewered; and despite the BBC’s public service remit; and despite the BBC’s supposed policy of airing all points of views relating to stories (including those of the Taliban!); and despite its immense resources; since first becoming aware of the story a decade ago the BBC has steadfastly failed to air it and not even bothered to establish its merits (despite scores of articles in the national press; despite several high-profile news events; and despite being made fully aware of its merit and importance in scores of written communications at the highest level).
In so doing, I have strived to establish before the contributors and founders of this blog that as such it is without doubt the most explosive case of scrupulously documented, deeply unlawful BBC bias yet to be brought to the fore for this country’s • and the world’s • future benefit.
bbc and half the story
thousands of post offices set to close
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6163931.stm
hmm… and the elephant in the room that the BBC doesnt mention?
why its the EU Postal Services directive – due to be introduced in 2009
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/post/index_en.htm
“I’m aware that I’ve been walking a fine line by thumping on about the Hamilton affair, and if your comments conceal a well-meant sentiment along the lines of “please put a sock in it”, I agree it’s probably time that I let the matter rest for a while.”
We’ve heard that one before you tease.
Reading the last 55 or so comments on here reminds me of this post from John Reith:
John Reith:
Richy | 11.12.06 – 11:18 am
“By my reckoning this has been a pretty good year for BBC bias spotters.
We’ve had the new Randall and Marr quotes added to the sidebar. The BBC have also established the Editors page as they’ve sought to explain their editorial decisions.”
Yep. I reckon that just about sums up this blogs ‘achievements’ over the past twelve months.
Onward and upward, eh? Who know, next year you might discover just one genuine example of bias.
John Reith | 11.12.06 – 11:34 am | #
——————————————————————————–
Quite a few good examples of BBC Bias in the last 24 hours, John Reith, let alone the last year. Maybe you – because as a Beeboid you obviously know more than we do – could explain to us how the Radio 5 presenter (Allen), Newsnight, Radio 4, the failure to disclose David Duke’s background, the Sports Editor on Zara Phillips; were actually the BBC giving a balanced view, as opposed to giving half the story, stirring up controversy needlessly, attacking one interviewee but not the other or deliberately omitting vitally important facts as we all initially thought? Maybe you’re still on lunch from yesterday, in which case I forgive you, but your silence on these is deafening.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt
Have you tried 18 Doughty Street?If they’d do a piece with you,that might raise your profile?(and how did you get on with Noam Chomsky)?
JBH writes:
”
My purpose in raising the issue here in the way that I have, time and time again, challenging the BBC’s arch-defender and able researcher “John Reith”, has been two-fold:”
Whatever your reason, “John Reith” deserves all the confrontation he can get – particularly in the light of his arrogance and insouciance when confronted by the countless examples of BBC bias reported here every week.
Indeed,it occurs to me that “he” may be one of the last people remaining at the BBC who doesn’t realise there is a problem.
Unless, of course, that curious noise is “Reith” whistling in the dark.
Incidentally, while the Chomsky suggestion was astoundingly bizarre, the 18 Doughty St one wasn’t. It could be worth trying.
Cockney | 12.12.06 – 10:03 am
Yes, very funny and well taken – but I did say for “a while”, not for good 🙂 !
Schoolboy-Error | 12.12.06 – 10:10 am
I’ve written to all the presenters of 18 Doughty Street TV and sent them copies of my book plus reviews plus various DVDs but heard nothing – despite key anchor Iain Dale having written to me on 13 November 1998, three weeks after the launch of my book Trial by Conspiracy, in which he wrote:
Dear Jonathan,
I wanted to write to say what a superb book you have written. I finished it at the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it – if enjoyed is a word which should be used in the context of how two decent people [i.e. Neil and Christine Hamilton] have been ruined through no fault of their own.
You are to be congratulated on your efforts. I imagine that you may be feeling a bit disappointed at the lack of review coverage or media coverage in general. Don’t be. The media cannot ever accept that they have got something wrong. However word of mouth is a powerful thing and I suspect that word about your book will get round.
To cheer you up we have sold over 60 copies, which for any hardback is an excellent number.
Kind regards,
Iain Dale
So did 18 Doughty Street sell out to the MSM even before it began transmission? Your guess is as good as mine. Why don’t you read my book, digest the first documents from Sections One-Three of my website, write to Iain Dale with your suggestion and then report back to this blog. A lot of work, clearly, but maybe you’ll achieve a result.
As for Noam Chomsky, yes, well, I know he’s had a run-in with the Gruaniad, but he’s of the hard Left and so believe me he won’t want to know. These guys stick together when the chips are down. Just like the BBC has done for the last nine years plus, in fact.
archduke | 11.12.06 – 11:09 pm,
I really hope you are right about Christians prevailing in Lebanon. But I’m not optimistic. Hezbollah Shia thugs have the arms and support from Iran and Syria. Who will come to the defence of the Christians when the chips are down?
Jonathan Boyd Hunt,
Please don’t feel obliged to put a sock in anything on my, or anyone else’s account. And good luck with your ongoing quest.
Al Beeb seems to be having difficulty reporting this story:-
‘Palestinian officer’s three sons slain’ http://www.globeandmail.com (12 Dec.)
Al Beeb finds it hard to blame the U.S. or Israel for this, but its reporter does conclude, without irony, that: ..”Hamas denounced the proposal to hold another election as
a ‘coup against democracy'”.
‘Outrage over killing of Gaza boys’
http://news.bbc.co.uk (11 Dec.).
The BBC and half a story;
Gaza protest erupts in violence
Supporters of rival Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas, are reported to have exchanged gunfire in the Gaza Strip, wounding at least four people. The gunfire broke at a demonstration against growing lawlessness in the southern town of Khan Younis.
Tensions have soared in Gaza after the brutal killing of three young sons of a security chief and Fatah loyalist. No group has said it carried out Monday’s attack. Fatah and Hamas have both condemned the killings.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6172021.stm
and how the locals report the same story?
Hamas Militiamen Open fire on Fatah Stone-Throwers
Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority police forces opened fire on Fatah stone-throwers in southern Gaza Tuesday, wounding at least four of them.
PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has also deployed the militias loyal to his Fatah faction.Tuesday’s shooting took place in Khan Younis, the village adjacent to the former Jewish communities of Gush Katif.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=117264
Oh and just in case anybody picks me up for using a Jewish news source;
Here is how AP is telling the same story;
Hamas gunmen open fire on Fatah protest
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip – Hamas gunmen opened fire on demonstrators from the rival Fatah movement in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, wounding four people in the first factional violence following the fatal shooting of three children of a Fatah loyalist, officials said. The demonstration was organized to protest the deaths of the children, whose car was riddled with bullets as they were driven to school Monday morning. Fatah officials have accused Hamas of being behind the shooting. The children’s father is an intelligence officer who is considered an enemy of Hamas.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061212/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_shooting
Now how quick is the BBC is slating Israel for shooting stone throwers, yet when its ideological masters do the same the BBC is quick in which to re-label throwing stones as gunfire.
The BBC and half a story. (Or should that be a Half Charlie?)
JBH writes:
“As for Noam Chomsky, yes, well, I know he’s had a run-in with the Gruaniad, but he’s of the hard Left and so believe me he won’t want to know.”
Which is why I described the suggestion as bizarre. I can think of few people more inappropriate than Chomsky.
It’s curious that Doughty St hasn’t shown any interest. If it was doing its job properly, it should at least cover this story. It would certainly make for better viewing than some of the cosy “three guests on a sofa” stuff.
Meanwhile, like Bryan, I wouldn’t want to see you stop chipping away, either.
Top Panorama reporter quits over dumbing down
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=421978&in_page_id=1770
Awww how lovely. It’s the heartwarming story of how a couple found love and married across caste lines in Somalia. The BBC’s man in Mogadishu, Mohammed Olad Hassan, is on hand to recount how islam made it all happen:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6168807.stm
G Cooper:
Bryan:
Thanks for the sentiment – I do enjoy putting Reith between a rock and a hard place but I’m also sensitive to the prospect of becoming a stuck record. It also smacks of vaingloriousness to be banging one’s own drum.
Seriously, B and GC, why don’t you both drop Iain Dale a line at Doughty Street and suggest having me on the prog to discuss some of the evidence Keith-Hill and I unearthed? You could quote what he said in his letter to me.
I could sit on one side of the set and cash-for-questions author David Hencke could sit on the other, answering simple questions. It should make riveting television.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 12.12.06 – 10:50 am
I have taken the liberty of copying your post on Iain Dale’s blog – let’s see what happens.
Keep keeping on about this. If Carlsberg were in the business of creating scandals they would probably have done this one.
JBH
My comment is now showing on Iain Dale’s blog under the Panorama topic.
G Cooper:
“If Carlsberg were in the business of creating scandals they would probably have done this one.
It simply cannot be put any better than that. Let’s see how Iain responds.
JBH writes:
“G Cooper:
“If Carlsberg were in the business of creating scandals they would probably have done this one.”
Nope – that one belongs to gordon-bennett. and jolly well put, it was!
Socialism is Necrotizing:
Top Panorama reporter quits over dumbing down
For those not following SiN’s link, this loss is as bad as it could be. The reporter leaving is John Ware.
JBH
Please don’t give up on your good work, though seeing as the BBC is, according to your evidence, complicit in the peddling of the Guardian’s lies, John Reith will be forced to duck and weave around the issue as if it is a Brett Lee bouncer until the end of time. We all know that the BBC is NEVER wrong, and when it is wrong, it NEVER will admit to it. So unfortunately, the chances of John Reith acceding to your request are somewhere between zero and diddly squat, I would think. The other problem that you may have – I hope you don’t mind me saying this – is that this is the kind of story that would appeal to a young, hungry journalist trying to make his/her name, but that is exactly what you were and you ended up being smeared and lied about to the point of your career being irreparably damaged.
The Iain Dale option is a good one – his blog has a lot of readers, and a fair few influential ones, and 18 Doughty Street may well be willing to expose the Grauniad. I know that the NW guy at ITN (I forget his name, Bob Greaves or something?) was a great fan of your work, but would they not be worth another try, something like Tonight with Trevor McDonald? Think along the lines of “Who has a vested interest in seeing the Guardian and the BBC exposed as liars willing to stoop to the lowest levels of journalism?” Many will think it too risky, others no doubt will be frightened off, but I would wager that there will be someone out there who will fancy taking the story on.
The enduringly good thing about this story is that it exposes corruption at the highest level, and once it is exposed by someone, other much larger broadcasters and newspapers will pick up on it. Your evidence is also compelling and fairly watertight. The first step is the hardest, but I’m sure the truth will out eventually. You could also look at improving the Google listing for your story with just “Neil Hamilton” as the key words.
Good luck.
J B-H
I could sit on one side of the set and cash-for-questions author David Hencke could sit on the other, answering simple questions. It should make riveting television.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 12.12.06 – 12:06 pm
No. Not more talking heads.
18 Doughty St is film-hungry and you are underselling yourself. You are an award-winning TV documentary-maker with a shed full of already shot film.
Ask them to clear the schedules for a whole evening and put together a …say…..4 hour doc really explaining yourself.
You can paper over the gaps with stills (they’re not fussy about production values). Get it all out at once.
And don’t rant.
Then we’ll see if your case stands up.
Gordon-Bennett:
Humblest apologies wrongly ascribing your brilliant analogy. G Cooper said it all for me.
Heron:
You make some excellent points but I’ll focus on just one:
“Who has a vested interest in seeing the Guardian and the BBC exposed as liars willing to stoop to the lowest levels of journalism?”
Sadly, very few in positions of real power in this country would like to see the BBC and Guardian exposed • at least not via the Hamilton affair.
The Guardian succeeded in duping the entire British MSM into repeating its barefaced lies. Telegraph and Mail journos have apologised to me for not being able to do anything to get the story aired. A principal home affairs journo on the Telegraph said to me, when the paper pulled its punches in an article about our research:
“We can’t go about accusing other journalists of conspiracy Jonathan!”
My exasperated response:
“Well, if the Telegraph isn’t going to break this f***ing story out, who the f*** do you think will?”
Meanwhile, Windmill Dave and his liberal-strokers are in such thrall to the BBC and Guardian they’re quite happy to see the history books record a pack of lies for eternity, dump on Churchill and suck up to Polly F. Toynbee.
As for The Boy George, in the 2001 General Election, as part of my plan to either break the news blackout on our research or confirm lucidly that the MSM had indeed imposed one, I stood as a white-suited independent candidate in Tatton on a “Neil Hamilton is innocent” ticket.
(To digress, The Guardian had flagged up Tatton as a seat that would again be the focus of much national news coverage. But despite the near equivalence of a former RTS-shortlisted Granada TV reporter standing in a white suite on a “Hamilton is innocent” platform to that of the previous stance taken by the incumbent MP, the former RTS-winning white-suited BBC reporter and Hamilton detractor Martin Bell, most curiously, in the event the entire media stayed away.)
Anyway, one local independent newspaper did cover my candidature, as it did everyone else’s. The paper required us to write our views on five subjects, and ask the other candidates a single common question and answer all theirs. My question to George Osborne was this:
“If you were offered the opportunity to examine evidence showing that Neil Hamilton’s accusers lied and presented false documents to Sir Gordon Downey’s inquiry, would you take that opportunity?”
The Boy answered:
“Frankly, pouring (sic) over the details of the Hamilton case would not be my first priority as the new MP for Tatton. There are real battles to be fought over CCTV for Knutsford, the Byley gas plant, the safety of the A556, the noise from the second runway and so on. And it’ll be on these things that I will spend my time.”
So, Heron me old mucker, you can see it’s quite a job I have on my hands here.
(D)HYS today, a fully moderated thread:
Olmert’s ‘nuclear’ gaffe?
Do comments by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, amount to a change in Israeli policy?
Israel was supplied nuclear technology and expertise by France in the late 1950s. Te French helped them buld the “Dimona” ncllear reactor. Kennedy tried to stop them and look what happened to him!
As I said, this is a fully moderated thread.
Link – http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=4981&&edition=1&ttl=20061212131610
Whoops, let’s try putting that in full:
Added: Tuesday, 12 December, 2006, 12:34 GMT 12:34 UK
Israel was supplied nuclear technology and expertise by France in the late 1950s. Te French helped them buld the “Dimona” ncllear reactor. Kennedy tried to stop them and look what happened to him! Israel is thought to have between 200 and 500 nuclear weapons, and it is believed to have nuke capable subs. They, with initial French money and assistance, bult their own nukes.
– Kelly Bolton, Tokyo
scroatsville
http://extraspecialpc.blogspot.com/2006/12/scroatsville.html
an average friday night in an average british town.
John Reith:
You’re a clever sod John. You come across as so reasonable I’m inclined to believe I misunderstand you.
But the fact is I shouldn’t have to make a film to interest the bloody BBC. Any one of nine news events and forty national press articles over the last nine years should have been enough for that – never mind the personal lobbying of BBC staff over the same period.
Had I known at the outset in October 1997 just how biased, self-serving, tribal, and plain cowardly the average MSM journalist is in this country I wouldn’t have bothered wasting my time writing books and lobbying news organisations but would have raised cash to make a film straight away.
We’ll see though. Anytime you want to step in with funds feel free.
Why is it that the cognitively-challenged element on this blog can’t get their heads around the fact that ‘bias’ is the noun and ‘biased’ the adjective?
It’s not that Natalie, Ed, Andrew and Laban show poor parenting skills • the site is, after all, called ‘Biased-BBC’.
First there was Gary Powell getting it consistently wrong. Then Pounce donned the dunce’s cap. Now newbie Bodo. All going on about ‘bias reporting’.
Bodo sounds like the cheerful monkey in one of those first-picture-books for babies between six and twelve months old • maybe that’s his present reading age.
What is to be done?
I see on another thread that the excellent Mike Baker recommends Reading Recovery. Natalie has her doubts. I’m with Natalie on this one. You just can’t beat synthetic phonics.
Come to think of it, I shouldn’t be promoting a remedy. The fact that so much of the criticism of the BBC in these columns reads as if it were put together in the reception class can only be good for the corporation.
Keep drooling over your plasticine, numpties.
John Reith:
Furthermore, thanks for the kudos but they’re undeserved.
I’ve never made a documentary in the accepted sense of the term and I’ve never won a broadcasting award either. My only credit is having been shortlisted for a regional award: Best NW RTS Reporter of 1997. (Alan Urry won it for the BBC)
Why are Jews at the ‘Holocaust denial’ conference?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6171503.stm
Why are Jews attending a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran at which star guests include deniers of the genocide? Clue: they also want an end to the Israeli state … Some of them belong to Neturei Karta (Guardians of the City), a group of a few thousand people which views Zionism – movement to establish of Jewish national home or state in what was Palestine
It must be because the Palestinians had their own homeland before the Jews chased thenm out.
John Reith | 12.12.06 – 1:39 pm
I infer from that post that you are getting a bit rattled.
J B-H
I am reasonable.
For instance, as I have told you before, I’m pretty well convinced that Hamilton didn’t take cash in brown envelopes.
I certainly wouldn’t take Fayed’s word on anything. If he said today’s Tuesday, I’d check my diary. I saw him • cool as anything • telling that conspiracy programme the other night that Diana had told him she was pregnant on the phone from Paris. Then up popped Rosa Monckton saying Di had been with her a short time before • and was having her period. Case closed, as far as I’m concerned.
Where I think you go wrong is trying to spatchcock all sorts of different lies, half-truths and plain old-fashioned anomalies into a great unifying conspiracy theory.
On some of it (e.g. your fanciful account of the Guardian’s ‘secret campaign’ to take over the Observer • I KNOW you’re wrong. You really ought to mug up on the history of the Corrie, the Guardian’s reaction to the IoS launch etc. before you make a complete tit of yourself.)
As for Hamilton • there’s a difference between ‘not-guilty as charged’ and ‘innocent’. I believe he did use his political position to enrich himself in ways that fall short of the standards expected from MPs.
Also • you keep saying the BBC is ‘anti-Hamilton’. Who kept N & C afloat after the debacle? From daytime TV to Have I Got News for You to Louis Theroux?
Maybe the editorial discipline of having to make a reasoned documentary will help you take out some of the nuttier ranting that so disfigures your website. …and so weakens your case.
Have Your Say
Olmert’s ‘nuclear’ gaffe?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&edition=2&ttl=20061212134741&messageID=1958536&
Do comments by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, amount to a change in Israeli policy?
In a television interview on Monday, Mr Olmert said Iran couldn’t be compared with what he called responsible nuclear powers. He then listed America, France, Israel and Russia.
Mr Olmert’s political opponents in Israel say his comments have undone decades of deliberate ambiguity about Israel’s nuclear capabilities. Mr Olmert’s aides deny this.
Do you think Ehud Olmert’s comments amount to an admission that Israel has nuclear weapons? Should Israel come clean over its nuclear status? What does the row mean for Mr Olmert’s political standing at home? How could this affect the standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme?
Added: Tuesday, 12 December, 2006, 12:39 GMT 12:39 UK
No, that implicit admission won’t change a thing: Iran will proceed with its nuclear weapon program, Europe will stand-by cowardly and in the end as Curtis Mayfield sang: “if there is hell below, we all gonna go”.
Oh, by the way, none of the comments posted so far are related to the questions asked, they are just tokens of the usual Israel bashing and prejudice. Is somebody moderating something at the beeb or can we allready call it a “BBC World … Without Zionism”?
Laurent Szyster, Brussels
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Jeremy Bowen was plugging his book in yesterdays Independent. The feature made for some very interesting reading.
…Bowen is more concerned about the opinions of the millions of BBC viewers, and users of its website, who turn to him for his interpretation of the shifts in the sand that affect the most vexing question of our times, the Middle East. He admits there is room for improvement here, and cites the continuing bafflement of viewers as a sign that there is a “perceived and quite serious flaw in our coverage”.
“The Middle East is one of those areas where most people don’t have any kind of hinterland. Even if they are well-informed people who take their news-watching responsibilities seriously, it’s actually quite hard for people to understand. The BBC is the biggest broadcaster in the world and to be the BBC person whose role it is, more than anybody else’s, to try to explain the most complex and newsworthy place in the world is a hell of a big job, really.”
Not only must he demystify the Middle East, but he must do so in language that does not, through an inappropriate phrase or image, inflame suspicions that the BBC is biased. Bowen, who is a contributor to the BBC’s new College of Journalism, is honest enough to say that objectivity is beyond him. “We all come from somewhere; we all have a prism through which we see the world; we all have an education, and views and experiences. It’s a false objective to be objective.
Read it all. Especially if you post here as ‘John Reith’.
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2062708.ece
Just popped over to the Pinochet (D)HYS site. The tinfoil wearing lefties were in abundance.
Perhaps we should update the concept of left-wing and right-wing from being based on socialist and capitalist beliefs.
I suggest that from now on we apply left and right as in the left or right wings of the IQ bell curve.
This has the advantage that “left-wing” still applies to the same people.