Commenter DG writes:
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/8577/bbc1mt9.jpg
The above link is to a screenshot of a BBC Football webpage. Please do not view the image if you are offended by four-letter swear words.
Sport isn’t covered on B-BBC very often but, certainly in Scotland, the most frequent examples of BBC Bias are in this area, nearly all aimed at Rangers FC (the above being just the latest example).
The article concerns the recent transfer of Kevin Thomson from Hibernian to Rangers, and displays a picture of Thomson in his first outing for his new club. The issue is that the image’s filename contains his first and last names with a choice obscenity in between (which I doubt will be found on his birth certificate).
The obscenity was on the filename on that page for about 12 hours before being changed, but the original filepath is still valid!
Despite hundreds of complaints, no apology has so far been issued or disciplinary action confirmed.
The BBC in Scotland has a history of rank indiscipline as far as Rangers are concerned. Not only are they ultra-sensitive to the actions of Rangers and their (considered un-PC) supporters, they have consistently used the airwaves and website as a platform for snide digs and outright insults poorly disguised as humour.
I could also discuss the travesty of their many undertalented sports reporters setting themselves up as social commentators, but that’s for another post…
The BBC story is here.
UPDATE: The Sunday Mail has a story about this.
Natalie – I’m afraid I cannot see this image it seems to be obliterated by other “objects” which must have been on your desktop when you saved the image.
Jon, is that a joke?
Anonymous no not a joke – there are two boxes on the screen – one save image and the other element properties. So the caption cannot be seen.
Um, I don’t think that the caption is the important bit.
As an upstanding citizen, I say ‘tut-tut-tut.’
As a Celtic fan, I say ‘Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!’
“Ibrox fans were outraged after Kevin Thomson, a new signing from Hibs, was called a “c***” in an official Beeb website report.
The insult was in a caption, on a picture of the former Hibs player that appeared on the website on Friday night. It was taken down at 9am yesterday.”
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/tm_headline=fury-after-beeb-slur-gers-star&method=full&objectid=18572369&siteid=64736-name_page.html
Well it must be just me being thick today but I cannot see it.
Jon, please take a moment to actually look at the picture. The implications of what is there will become obvious very quickly.
Darnit, I should take advantage of the cool “new post” feature.
Look at the filename.
Sorry chaps – bit on the slow side today.
I detest Rangers, as it happens, but – good grief! Is that even legal? It is certainly disgusting.
IIRC, Celtic is Catholic and Rangers Protestant.
I have always thought that Celtic was preferred to Rangers by the beeb and this is just the same as in NI.
Catholics gerry adams and martin mcguiness, who are widely believed to be organisers of, if not actual participants in, murder always seem to be favoured by the beeb whereas Protestant Ian Paisley, a man of principle who has been proven right, has always been disparaged.
(Incidentally, if the Thatcher gov had banned IP’s voice from the airwaves, does anyone think the beeb would have organised an actor to read out what he had said? I admit it would not have been very much work for the actor since Paisley was more or less totally ignored by the beeb.)
The beeb are not pro-Catholic in other cases (their treatment of the Pope’s speech and gay adoption) so what is their motivation in these 2 cases? Is it because Catholics in both areas are seen to be poor and lower class and therefore a natural victim group?
“The beeb are not pro-Catholic in other cases (their treatment of the Pope’s speech and gay adoption) so what is their motivation in these 2 cases?”
The heroic struggle of Irish freedom fighters against the evil imperialistic British government of course.
Speaking as a Catholic former soldier, it was always a mystery to me why the IRA was supposed to be fighting for the Catholics….for example the 2IC of the so called Belfast Brigade at one stage was “Micky the Mad Prot” and until they started fighting over drugs and areas of influence for crime etc the so called freedom fighters were actually rubbing along…Gerry Adams is alive today because a Protestant off duty soldier saved his life during an assassination attempt. Indeed more Catholics were murdered by the IRA with their indiscriminately targetted bombs and deliberate policy of killing informers and those who would not obey the IRA than the Prots ever did.
We used to hurl rubber bullets at the screen whenever the BBC tried to explain with impartial and balanced reporting the Irish Situation because it was so obvious they were on the ‘Nationalist’ side. They always let some gobby ignorant American rant about imperialists etc but never pointed out the other side; the fear that many Prots felt. Yes lots of discrimination against Catholics in the years before 1969, but no, killing people was not the way to resolve it.
No change there then given the way the Beeb like the underdogs such as the PLO,even when they are blowing up planes etc!
Oh come on, guys. Ian Paisley a man of principle? Like shrieking at the Pope “You are the anti-Christ” in the European Parliament in Strassburg? Please. If that is principle, give me compromise any time.
Hi again everyone, thanks Natalie for promoting my comment into an actual post and highlighting Auntie’s indecency.
Personally I think the BBC have soft-soaped Irish Republicans over the years while portraying Unionists as hardline refuseniks, even if Sinn Fein’s superior PR operation had much to do with this, but none of that is relevant to how Rangers are treated by those inhabiting Queen Margaret Drive.
BBC Scotland’s news and sports coverage is slanted by those with either an outright pro-Celtic mindset, or others from provincial towns with chips on both shoulders and a serious inferiority complex.
These attitudes lead to the hyper-sensitivity I mentioned earlier. The flagship news programme, Reporting Scotland, once LED with the “news” that a post on an unoffical Rangers fans’ forum showed a South Park-esque cartoon of Neil Lennon on a hangman’s noose.
Childish? Yes. Poor taste? Definitely. A death threat worthy of headline news? According to the BBC…
If people can’t see the obcenity in the screenshot then check out this URL. The BBC have still left it on:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42528000/jpg/_42528941_kevincuntthomson203i.jpg
Pro Celtic DG?
Why does Chick Young have the best eyesight in the world?
Cos he’s the only man who can support St Mirren from the middle of the copland rd stand!
Rangers fans need to get a life.
Maybe Kevin Thomson is a C***
Sean Murphy – I wonder what team you support!?!
There is definitely an anti-Protestant bias in BBC Scotland’s output. Sean Murphy isn’t bitter or a bigot.
“I could also discuss the travesty of their many undertalented sports reporters setting themselves up as social commentators….”
It’s not just sports reporters. It’s gob-smacking how many assorted f-list presenters find themselves appearing as talking heads, and then celebrities. And all because they landed a job reading words off a screen/autocue/bit of paper. (Or in Radio Solent’s case, FAILING to read..)
And my heart sinks when I see the ugly, ugly world of football reach this comment forum.
Chuffer – you can blame the BBC’s ugly ugly language for that!
FJMS – it has long been insinuated that Chico is a Rangers man. If he is then he certainly hides it well!
DG – I blame the BBC for lots of things, but I cannot bring myself to blame for ‘football’ – with all its swearing, spitting, diving, cheating, overpaid thugs, overegoed managers, and – most depressingly – b-BBC commenters starting to insult eachother on this forum because Gary A. happens to wear one coloured shirt while kicking a football round a pitch, while Gary B. wears another colour.
Harumph.
Re: Football,
BBC always had a soft corner for Zidane and his head-butt. The day he did that, BBC had this in Have your Say section:
“Your tributes to Zidane”..
Dominic, the day he did that he retired from arguably one of the top 5 or 10 footballing careers of all time. Defining him with one incident lumps you with the imbeciles who declare that Maradona couldn’t be great because he handballed against England once and thus his career is iredeemably tarnished.
Chuffer, don’t know what your leisure pursuit of choice is, however football is the national game, one of the few things which can genuinely unite most of the country at times and should therefore be covered with quality and respect on the national broadcaster.
That coverage has degenerated into slapstick pseudo laddishness (Lineker and Robinson) imbecility masquerading as ‘personality’ (Motson and Green)and pitiful attempts to replicate partisanship and thus be down with the ‘real fans’is endemic of declining standards generally. And if I EVER again have to stomach another MOTD2 featuring the ‘punditry’ of BOTH Ian Wright and Lee Dixon (“yes, clearly Arsenal were brutally kicked out of the game and Arsene is in no way a whinging deluded clown”) I am going to join the no license fee paying brigade.
Cockney: both Maradona and Zidane are troubling because, if you look at their careers carefully, you will find that cocaine in the one case, thuggery in the other, are constants. Sure, they were highly gifted players, but you cannot deny that they also were regular law-breakers which, outside of football, would have developped a close acquaintance with the inside of jails. And that is not only the case in football: Michael Schumacher, for instance, may have been one of the greatest car racers of all time, but he also was a vile bastard who used every dirty trick in the book and regularly put his opponents’ lives in danger. I prefer to support players who do not break rules.
I quite liked Boris Johnson’s head-butt.
Even at the height of the Troubles the Irish Guards were recruiting far more soldioers in Dublin each year than ever joined the trrrorist thugs as “volunteers”.
Fabio,
Find me an unquestionable genius in any pursuit who is unquestionably morally pure also and I’ll be very impressed. Only the foolish or those with ulterior motives attempt to put people on pedestals – see Mandela/Thatcher etc coming from different political perspectives. Are you telling me you can’t listen to Sinatra because he was an extraordinarily dubious scumbag? Why not just enjoy Maradona/Zidane for what they were? Astonishing sportsmen.
Football is a game where the best players play at the edge of their emotions. It is a fact that some of the greatest players also have a dark side that surfaces on occasion – maybe they need that to help them push themselves to the top. Players who are both great and gentlemen (e.g. Zola) are extremely rare. I would have no problem writing a “tribute” to Zidane or Maradona, nor would I think it wrong of the BBC to ask for tributes – the good outweighs the bad by some distance. Roy Keane and Eric Cantona are two other examples – great players, but flawed characters.
In the current climate, player moves from one club to another to play at a better standard (hardly unusual in the modern game), and finds himself called a C*** by the national broadcaster. Now that IS a disgrace; I wonder what sort of response John Reith or Mister “I can’t spell” Minit can conjure up for this one?
My leisure pursuit, Cockney, is rugby union. A game chock-full of one word: respect. Look at supporters mingling. Check out the policeman:crowd numbers ratio. Listen to the ref’s mic during international matches. You’ll hear the word ‘Sir’ coming from the players when talking to the him. Imagine the ‘back ten yards’ rule, used at the slightest back-chat in rugby, being used in football. Both teams of foul-mouthed illiterate imbeciles would spend the whole game on their own goal-lines.
And as for football being the national game, uniting most of the population; I’ve always loved the statistic that more people go to museums at weekends than go to football league matches. Probably a myth, but it’s a great line anyway.
Football – yuk.
Humph grumph.
Are you telling me you can’t listen to Sinatra because he was an extraordinarily dubious scumbag?
I can’t listen to Sinatra anyway.
Why not just enjoy Maradona/Zidane for what they were? Astonishing sportsmen.
Then you have to strip the word sport of the most important aspect of its meaning.
I know guy who became so disgusted with the “professional” foul and other negative aspects of the game that he no longer watches it.
Now that IS a disgrace; I wonder what sort of response John Reith or Mister “I can’t spell” Minit can conjure up for this one?
They’ll find something. Probably along the lines of, It’s not serious in the light of the BBC’s current effort to legitimize the C-word.
Rangers fans wave the Union flag,tend to support Scotland and if they are not in a tournament then will follow (God forbid) England.
Celtic fans wave the Irish tricolour, tend to support the Irish Republic and absolutely loathe England, except when they want to get into the Premiereship.
Chuffer – I am a big egg chasing fan as I am a wendyball fan, but dont think all of rugby is as rosy as you paint it.
Even in soccer you would not have a player wading into the terrace and laying half a dozen punches on a fan who did not fight back, and that at a major fixture!
I’m afraid the museum/soccer attendance myth is 100% bull, still I’m sure it sounds clever and funny.
As for football bias I have posted several times before about al beeb backing London teams and Man U and despising all others particularly midland teams.
The fact they also do likewise in Scotland Re Celtic is no surprise. It follows the Al Beeb pattern.
It is still all wrong of course…
Chuffer, I very much take your point about on field respect (although the friend of a friend who got lamped by a player at the Ulster v Toulouse game referred to by BJ might take issue with the gentleman angle).
However, the fans mingling stuff is too often (in England at least) a profuct of the fact that nobody gives a t*ss and are there purely for the beer. The ‘atmosphere’ at Twickenham is truly a disgrace to international sport.
Anyway the Beeb does at least seem to give rugby internationals the respect they deserve although I did notice a somewhat forced ‘banter’ element creeping in on saturday.
Cockney:
a profuct…
Freudian slip? Ah no, the “f” too close to the “d”!
if only i was that witty…
Re: Football,
BBC always had a soft corner for Zidane and his head-butt. The day he did that, BBC had this in Have your Say section:
“Your tributes to Zidane”..
Of course…he was from BBC Victim Group #1.
Nice one, Natalie. Yet another example of why no one should be jailed for not paying these c**** their poll tax.
It always bears repeating. You can choose not to read a newspaper like the Guardian. BUt in this country, you go to jail for not supporting the Guardian on TV, the BBC. In the digital age. They might have been able to justify it once, but not now.
Five Live’s football coverage is quite good I think, much better than the BBC TV coverage, which is better than Sky’s. The only gripe I have about 5live is the presence of “expert” analysts, usually ex-pros who can’t speak english properly (unless they european ex-pros!)
I’d also like a bit more football debate, and less of the cretinous 606, but the commentaries are good.
I’ve never noticed any bias towards any english team, they all get treated fairly, and the commentators usually call it as they see it, but when it comes to Scotland I have noticed a pro-Celtic bias. Last year Rangers got to the Champions League quarter finals, a great achievement, but not covered overly much by the BBC. ow if it had been Celtic, especially when managed by their favourite luvvie Martin O’Neill, it would have been a different story.
Cockney – I take your point about Motson and Green, but they are a lot better than anyone on Sky who really do stick to the cliches. Personally I like them both, especially Green.
Thank God I cannot stand football – as it appears it is no longer a sport but a tribal gathering.
I get it all the time you meet someone – they ask you “what team do you support”? -as if it matters. Football = 22 grown men kicking a pigs bladder around a pitch, maybe this will put it into some context.
“In the current climate, player moves from one club to another to play at a better standard (hardly unusual in the modern game), and finds himself called a C*** by the national broadcaster. Now that IS a disgrace; I wonder what sort of response John Reith or Mister “I can’t spell” Minit can conjure up for this one?”
Of course it is. What makes you think that I would think otherwise?
I dunno, MisterMinit. You worry us sometimes.
what’s this – an acceptance that the bbc is at fault ? surely some mistake ??
me above
This earlier comment is absolutely spot-on, and says all that need be said.
Sparky:
Rangers fans wave the Union flag,tend to support Scotland and if they are not in a tournament then will follow (God forbid) England.
Celtic fans wave the Irish tricolour, tend to support the Irish Republic and absolutely loathe England, except when they want to get into the Premiereship.
Sparky | 05.02.07 – 12:18 pm | #
Frank Sinatra was not a scumbag when he sang. Zidane was certainly a thug when he played. I do not ask for the extraordinary human qualities of a Gianfranco Zola: moderate respect for the rules is enough. Besides, if you can only win by breaking the rules, what do you think you have achieved? The rules are the game.
Frank Sinatra was not a scumbag when he sang.
Who was it who said, “Two souls dwell, alas, within my breast”?
Could sinatra separate his scumbagness from his singing when in front of the microphone?
I suppose it comes down to the eternal argument, in the end: is it really possible to define the good and bad deeds of a man and then declare them good or bad based on the relative levels of the two? On the one hand you can find yourself admiring the talents of Sinatra, who was an excellent singer and a scumbag, and feel relatively safe. On the other you can look at Churchill and see only his authorising the bombing of dresden, and feel morally superior.
It’s an unfortunate problem. In an absolute objective world it might work as a means of judgement; if the good outweighs the bad then you’re probably in the clear. But. We aren’t in an objective world. People are able to dismiss all the bad about a man because he did some small apparently good deeds. It’s the logical extension of this attitude that has people excusing saddam hussein because he was an avid gardener, and lenin because he was doing it “for the right reasons” and accusing Bush because, while he might have the right ideas, he can’t speak properly and might be an idiot.
In the end there’s no answer to the above, as it’s one of the flaws of the greek idea of compartmentalism. I love Sinatra’s music, but that admiration is tempered by the fact that he was a scumbag, and it makes it hard to appreciate the art. On the other hand, his music brought joy to many people, so what am I to think? Do I separate his personai and treat him as two people? Do I ignore one part of him? Do I take the whole and try to explain away the bits I don’t like?
I think I’ll go back to drinking whisky and spamming people about it. I’m on safer ground there.
I’ve always thought that it’s a dangerous game to go beyond admiring people for their talents. In the majority of cases, I think expecting too much of them as human beings usually leads to disappointment. I am happy to admire footballers for their footballing ability, actors for their acting ability, writers for writing, singers for their records and politicians for their political acumen. Michael Jackson is the most obvious case in point: does the fact that he appears to be a very ****ed up human being detract from the fact he is (well, was) a brilliant artist and performer? Not for me.
Where does BBC bias come in to this, then? Well, the BBC has a rather annoying habit of gaining the views of a selection of such people in order to further its political agen… sorry, add balance to its broadcasting. Last night Newsnight…
“Is the Jewish establishment in Britain too in hock to Israel? That is
what a new organisation “Independent Jewish Voices” claim – and they
have the backing of some prominent members of the community including
Mike Leigh, Harold Pinter, Stephen Fry and Susi Orbach.”
So that would be a playwright, a comedian, a film director and whoever Susi Orbach is (a writer?) forming political opinion on our National Broadcaster’s airwaves. I can vouch for the fact that the first three names are very good at what they do. However, they are no better qualified to discuss political worldwide affairs than, say, Tal Ben Haim, the Israeli football captain and Bolton Wanderers defender. It would be ridiculous to ask Ben Haim for his views, so why is it apparently acceptable to ask for a Salfordian Film Director’s opinion? The fact that these people are almost always selected from the Arts exacerbates the situation. These people are probably less informed than many on this blog (and yes, I include John Reith in that statement) on political affairs. Why should they be experts; that’s not their job – yet they are still allowed to broadcast often ill-informed opinions to the nation. Worse, they will more often than not do so through the very narrow prism that is the World of Arts – a very left-wing, socialist prism. This can only give the public a distorted view of the World.
I am not necessarily charging the BBC with deliberately distorting the public by doing this because of its bias; too often these people are far too readily available for comment, especially closeted pillocks like Pinter (good playwright though he is). At best this is sloppy journalism. Politicians are now paid excellent money for being politicians – they should be asked their opinions more, with the main parties equally represented. I have nothing against a public view to bring politicians and the public together, but that is exactly what it should be – a public view from a wide cross-section of society. A group of writers and actors is hardly likely to give you a balanced opinion. Much as Stephen Fry is a lucid, intelligent and funny man, but I have no more interest in his political views than I do in those of Rio Ferdinand (who is neither lucid, intelligent or deliberately funny…)