as they present The Conspiracy Files this week on 9/11.
The Editor’s blog has some interesting comments that the BBC have left up:
Comment 44:
Anyone who has read and absorbed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” will know it is all part of their megalomaniacal plan to give us a one world government. They are using events like Sept 11th, July 7th in London (another government sponsored terror event) to fear us all into giving up our liberties! The sheep need to waken up and smell the coffee. The British are as bad as the US, they are run by the same group of Zionists. Blair and the cash for honours scandal? He was under growing pressure from it and BANG, a “plot” to behead a muslim soldier and an apparent pandemic of Bird Flu put that story firmly to bed. Waken up people! We had few problems with terrorists pre 9/11, now it seems the goverment on both sides of the atlantic are hell bent in creating this monster that is Islam against us when the whole concept was made up in one of their think tanks !
Apparently “Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the author has approved them”. The editor being Mike Rudin.
Well BBC Info are actually Capita and based in Belfast – I’m not sure who does the moderating on the blogs but it isn’t Capita so who knows how long the Byzantine lines of communication that exist between the different bits of the BBC will get the message
Martin,
The BBC system being pants does not excuse them allowing racist material to sit on their website. I wonder what the Met Police will think of it as an excuse if someone reports them.
Sorry if this appears multiple times, it won’t seem to post.
This could be where all the crazies at the editor’s blog came from:
http://digg.com/politics/BBC_9_11_Documentary_Likely_Hit_Piece
Which links to:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/150207bbcdocumentary.htm
(prisonplanet is a crazy home that I’ve actually come across before)
And in this article they say:
This weekend’s highly anticipated BBC documentary on the 9/11 truth movement is likely to be a sophisticated hit piece, according to those who were interviewed for the program and others wary of the motives behind the creators of the show.
Commenting on his radio broadcast yesterday, Jones said “They’re pulling out all the stops on this one, they’re going to try to mix in anti-Semitism,”
“They always wanted to bring up the most tenuous evidence, they always wanted to argue about that,” said Jones.
Jones said that upon conclusion of filming, the producer started laughing and proclaiming his disbelief at everything Jones had stated.
“It’s going to be one mega hit piece,” he concluded.
They mean “hit piece” as in it’s going to try and completely destroy the conspiracy theories. It sounds like a lot of people expected the wonderfully European left wing BBC to go along with their theories and are rather sour that the BBC just isn’t as crazy as them. But I must say; while I would have laughed at the guy too, is it really professional of the BBC producer to do so?
I hope the “tenuous” evidence part isn’t true though, otherwise why did they even bother making the show? The core parts of the theories can be smashed by anyone who actually listened in school. Then again, it doesn’t seem like the BBC employs anyone with scientific knowledge anymore so they probably would have fumbled it anyway.
Hi Ralph, I wasn’t saying it did excuse them, I was just providing a bit of info. Often when people say “the BBC did this” what they are actually saying is the company sub-contracted by the BBC is not doing the job properly.
As I mentioned before, I’m appalled #44 is still up there, I’ve complained twice on the blog itself and used the /complaints form as well.
Martin Belam 16.02.07 – 11:40 am,
But if I understand The Conspiracy Files series premise right, the show at the weekend will *not* be about showing that 9/11 was the work of anyone other than Islamic terrorists – it will be looking at the phenomena of the conspiracy theories surrounding the events, showing clips from the conspiracy theory movies, and then debunking them.
That’d be good. And the same point was made on the mammoth open thread by someone called Wrangler, I think. But in Rudin’s post on The Editors there wasn’t the slightest suggestion that 9/11 conspiracy theories might be unwarranted.
I think that is what disgusted a lot of people. It led me to assume that the actual documentary will simply be more of the same.
“Well BBC Info are actually Capita and based in Belfast”
Capita – aren’t they the firm that got letter bombed last week?
I think the explanation is pretty obvious by now – the BBC don’t have a problem with it and aren’t taking any notice of the complaints.
Oscar | 16.02.07 – 11:41 am
My feeling as well. Where does the buck stop here? Presumably it makes a temporary stop at Helen Boaden’s door. After all, she’s the chief of The Editors blog. She’s also the one who was dripping with sympathy for Barbara Plett when the latter came under fire for weeping over Arafat.
Here’s what she said at the time:
Plett unintentionally gave the impression of over-identifying with Arafat.
I found that statement priceless, especially the over-identifying bit.
Before giving the BBC too much of a kicking over this program about 911, are we sure they’re going to side with the conspiracy theorists?
Bryan
Boaden’s statement is priceless – ‘over-identifying’ sounds like some kind of Freudian perversion…
For me keeping that comment on their ‘moderated’ blogsite as the jargon has it ‘crosses the line’. A few weeks back when John Reith was still blogging I commented that some elements of the BBC were getting to be openly anti-Semitic and cited the prominence they give to holocaust denial. Reith of course would have none of it. I’d say this is proof.
Dave Alton:
Before giving the BBC too much of a kicking over this program about 911, are we sure they’re going to side with the conspiracy theorists?
I thought that it has been obvious for days that they’re not going to side with the conspiracy theorists. But isn’t it worrying that we weren’t sure and that the actual conspiracy theorists seemed to expect the BBC to side with them (read my previous comment)?
I posted a fairly long and uninflammatory post on Rudin’s blog last night around 5.00pm.
I said that every sane, rational person I knew understood exactly what happened on 911 because they, or someone close to them, saw it unfold in real time on TV.
I suggested that the whole idea of “investigating” what happened was only likely to encourage the kind of mentally impaired or malicious individuals who were so evident in the other posts.
Needless to say my post hasn’t appeared this am and last time I looked every single post today was from some kind of “truther” head case.
I think it’s highly dangerous to stir up these lunatics with the present politically charged climate and the BBC ought to be ashamed of itself.
As if!
Martin Belham
“… if I understand The Conspiracy Files series premise right … it will be looking at the phenomena of the conspiracy theories surrounding the events, showing clips from the conspiracy theory movies, and then debunking them…”
That is not the impression given by the website with the comments we are discussing. That clearly states that “Trying to prove or disprove these alternative theories is not easy”, which is a blatant lie. If they talk to people who know what they are talking about (I am a pilot, so know a crashed aircraft whenI see one) then disproving the “alternative theories” is very easy.
Before that they say “… if we had been able to film the wreckage from flight AA77 we would have had extremely strong evidence that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon” which is ridiculous, as the photographs already on the internet provide such evidence.
I can recogise the parts from a jet airliner in the close-ups of the crash site, I have seen comments by people claiming to be aircraft engineers that the parts are consistent with a Boeing 757. If the BBC went to the hangar next to where I am now (where they maintain 757s) with those photographs then I am sure someone could identify them as parts of a 757 or not. I am equally sure that they haven’t done anything of the sort, as they are crap journalists.
John Bosworth
I just looked at that “Truthseeker” website. It’s great – they seek the truth so carefully that they have a history of the “Priors of Sion”, despite the fact that a couple of French academics admit to having made it up when they were bored!
That information is so secret and hard to discover that I had to find it out from a TV programme about The da Vinci Code on national terrestrial TV (Channel 4 I think).
I’m glad to see that my comment is still there at No. 50
Will stay anonymous as Reithy’s mates will be able to track me back and see who I post as on this site.
FTP:
I thought that it has been obvious for days that they’re not going to side with the conspiracy theorists.
Sorry mate, I should have read those post a bit more thoroughly, rather than just skimming through them. I agree with you about the conspiracy theorists.
On an unrelated note, I got a nice letter from those Capita people this morning informing me that I bought a DVD recorder recently (It was a Christmas present for my father), and I really should buy a TV licence for it. Strange, considering I’ve already got a licence in my name for the same address. I look forward to months of increasingly threatening letters from them.
Who exactly is this “third party” responsible for moderating the BBC’s forums?
What sort of organization or company is it?
What is their criteria when moderating?
Enquiring minds need to know.
Oscar,
Good point. For as long as I’ve known Reith he’s been in emphatic denial of the BBC’s anti-Semitism. He obviously feels very strongly about it. I wonder why.
FTP,
Maybe I’m being a bit thick, but I don’t see why it’s obvious that Rudin is going to debunk the conspiracy theories.
Another 11 comments have gone up since last night, all of them pro-conspiracy theories.
Comments 79 and 80 are the same, just with a slightly different pseudonym. So whoever is “moderating” the comments is probably doing it quickly, with just enough concentration to sift the pro and anti-conspiracy comments and post the pro-conspiracy ones.
I just checked again.
Still 100% tinfoil hats brigade this morning and no sign of my post.
Interestingly posts 79 & 80 at 9.44 and 9.56 are identical with slightly different usernames – both nutters of course.
How come the moderation was sharp enough to weed out my post while passing two sequential, identical truther ravings?
Like Bio , I’d like to know who the moderators are, where they’re based – and, lets say, whether their employees are representative of the general population.
“Do they actually appear anywhere else though?”
Yes I have seem them in Newcastle, Gateshead, Durham, and Darlington.
Bryan
Just noticed you spotted the same thing while I was typing my last post.
Unfortunately I don’t really think it matters whether the programme comes down on the side of reason.
Just having the debate seems to be enough to reinforce these loonies.
Foxgoose,
Unfortunately I don’t really think it matters whether the programme comes down on the side of reason.
True, it doesn’t really matter. Either way it will just add another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of the new-look BBC.
I’ve now emailed Helen Boaden about ‘no.44’- interesting to see how she responds (or doesn’t ….)
PS And is seems that John Reith is back (see other thread)
I emailed Rudin’s blog link to Charles at LGF and he’s just put it up on the site:
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/-
A result!
“Thank you for your telephone call regarding a post on the Editors blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/911_questions.html
I raised your concerns with editors at the site and the inappropriate post
was put up error and has been taken down. Please accept our apologies for
any upset caused.”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Fran – I got a similar email
Thank you for drawing our attention to the comment on the Editors’ blog entry. The comment was published in error and has now been removed. It is not, as I’m sure you’re aware, our practice to publish comments which are anti-Semitic. We apologise to you for any offence this might have caused.
“Published in error” Hmmmmm.
One of the conspiracy nutters quoted in Rudin’s article is Alex Jones. Here’s Jones’ take on the London bombings from his moonbat conspiracy film Terror Storm:
“Prime Minister Tony Blair was facing an uphill battle in parliamentary elections. National polls showed that his pro-war party was sure to lose, and then right on time the bombings of 7/7 and 7/21 occurred.”
You see – the July bombings were designed to ensure that Blair was re-elected in 2005. Except he had already won the election in MAY, two months BEFORE the terrorist attacks. What serious journalist would give an idiot like Alex Jones the time of day? Er… well there is one, judging by this prominent endorsement on Jones’ own website:
“This guy is a national treasure, a light breaking through the electronic Berlin Wall of the US media establishment.”- BBC Reporter Greg Palast.
Yup, Newsnight’s favourite American reporter thinks that crazed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is “a national treasure” and a beacon of light. Thank goodness Newsnight is no longer a serious current affairs show or that sort of thing would be very embarrassing to the BBC.
Good news, team!
I’m curious to know who made the decision to remove the comment. I was browsing and came across a post by Helen Boaden on the Editors, from October 2006, claiming no bias at the BBC. It attracted 333 comments, right up until a week ago, but not one response from Boaden. Evidently she doesn’t have much idea of what a blog is.
Meanwhile Rudin’s blog has had the comments fiddled with. The duplicated comment at nos 79 and 80 (which I expected to find at 78 and 79 since 44 has been removed) has been shifted up to 89 and 90 – so it seems that ten comments were held back and then inserted after the fact. I’ve seen this before quite a few times on BBC forums. Weird.
Meanwhile Rudin posted a follow up on the blog this afternoon, though it doesn’t really say much:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/
Unfortunately NewsSniffer doesn’t monitor the Editors’ “blogs”.
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/
Bryan, that Rudin follow-up piece is also on the BBC’s Magazine website. The first response in the comments (from Steve Wilson, Weymouth, Dorset) begins:
“I totally disagree with the author of this piece. Obviously he must work for an undercover government department…”
And he doesn’t appear to be taking the piss.
The article I linked to above is by Guy Smith (producer of 9/11) not Mike Rudin (series producer). The reference to the amusing first comment still stands.
Anonanon,
I don’t live in the UK and so wont be able to watch the conspiracy programme.
But I have a feeling I wont be missing much.
Alex Jones is “a national treasure”
Perhaps as a national, rather than international, treasure he thinks that elections in all countries take place in November.
Look, guys, not to be a wet blanket, but if it was Capita that was managing this blog, then everything is explained. Capita, according to Private Eye‘s repeated and never challenged accounts over many years, has an absolutely matchless record for expensive and stupid cock-ups. The only question is: since absolutely everyone in the media reads Private Eye as a matter of course, why would the BBC, after years of reports of cock-ups and disasters of every kind, entrust its own blogs – which are part of its public image – to a company that Private Eye, to signify its quality, consistently calls Crapita?
My cynical Italian mind can only think of one reason – the same why various Government departments continue giving Crapita contracts and taxpayers’ money. A judicious application of what we call “little envelopes” (bustarelle). After all, if you want someone else’s money, you’ve got to put in some of your own.
“Who exactly is this “third party” responsible for moderating the BBC’s forums?
What sort of organization or company is it?”
Biodegradable | 16.02.07 – 1:33 pm | #
——————————————————————————–
It’s obviously the Bilderburgers. The whole program is a ploy to divert attention from the real secret, shadowy group bent on world domination.
Think about it.
The Bilderburgers have almost totally vanished from the news.
Ah well.
Back to the medication.
FTP: “Comments praising Britishness, capitalism, America and so on are blocked”
Do you have any examples?
RE: the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” comment. Obviously tinfoil-hat material, but was it so bad that it needed to be removed?
Nono, it’s obviously the evil Joooooos! They mean to take over the world and take revenge on everyone by, er, spreading rumours that they want to take over the world and that they’re trying to take revenge on everyone.
Yeah.
Paulc, save some of those meds for meeee….
>> Meanwhile Rudin’s blog has had the comments fiddled with. The duplicated comment at nos 79 and 80 (which I expected to find at 78 and 79 since 44 has been removed) has been shifted up to 89 and 90 – so it seems that ten comments were held back and then inserted after the fact. I’ve seen this before quite a few times on BBC forums. Weird.
Warning – dull software notes. The Editors Blog uses different software to the Have Your Say forum. The blogs are based on Six Apart’s Typepad/Movable Type platform. I don’t know if you are familiar with it – but if comments are in pre-mod they appear in the order they were submitted, not in the order they were approved, so that is probably how the ‘extra’ comments appeared. One of the annoying things with the MT software comment moderation system is that although the comments appear on the front-end as oldest first, in the back-end they appear most recent first. Also, the comments don’t appear attached to individual posts in the back-end. You just get a long string of all the comments submitted to the whole blog in reverse chronological order. Of course, the BBC may have made some modifications to the software, but that is how it behaves out-of-the-box.
>> One of the conspiracy nutters quoted in Rudin’s article is Alex Jones.
Alex Jones is quite a case actually. He was in Jon Ronson’s “Secret Rulers of the World” who filmed him whilst he tried to infiltrate Bohemian Grove
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove
The thing was, he got great under-cover footage of the “Cremation of Care” ceremony, and when I watched it I was thinking “Wow, that is pretty freaky. If you told me powerful business men and presidents of the USA dressed up and did a play in front of a forty foot owl I would call you mad. But here they are doing it”
And then Alex Jones and his sidekick go on about how they’ve witnessed them sacrificing a child and worshipping satan, and I’m left wondering “Where you watching the same footage I was? I mean you were there filming it, and there is clearly no child, no satan worship etc”
He’s a grade-A tin foil hatter
archonix & Paulc, did you ever wonder if the Bilderburgers were actually the driving force behind internet forums and comment systems eh?
That way, anyone who cared about anything would spend their whole time in online flmae wars, whilst the Bilderburgers quitely built their moonbase/secret volcano hideout or whatever dastardly plan they are up to this week.
…if comments are in pre-mod they appear in the order they were submitted, not in the order they were approved…
Well, thanks for that. It may also explain why the total no. of comments for Mike Rudin’s latest offering on The Editors blog is given as 4, but only one appears:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/answering_conspiracy_questions.html#commentsanchor
MisterMinit:
FTP: “Comments praising Britishness, capitalism, America and so on are blocked”
Do you have any examples?
Some people have taken to posting their comments here because they never appear on the BBC site. But the threads here are long and jumbled so the best thing would be for everyone to give their own personal experiences.
Three posts above mine Anat says:
In recent weeks there has been a noticeable change. As an Israeli, I had previously got used to having all my comments rejected, while now every single one gets published. A change of policy, no doubt.
I’ve given up trying to contribute to HYS, but it does seem better now so I might try again. I’ve never tried to comment at the Editor’s blog.
And this is biased how?
It’s been my experience that The Editors blog is much more relaxed about posting comments critical of the BBC than is HYS.
Here’s the antidote to 911 conspiracies:-
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
Pity Rudin couldn’t have checked it out – could have saved them (us) a pile of money.
I thought it was a decent programme. I was worried that it would pander to cranks, but it didn’t.
I agree it was pretty well researched and convincing – to anybody of reasonable intelligence with an open mind.
What worries me is that a lot of the people we need to worry about are just going to close their minds to the rational bits and cherry pick the “conspiracy” bits to reinforce their existing prejudices.
I was generally pleased with the programme, but …
1) It was a pity that the Truthers got the last word on the collapse of the towers – with them suggesting that Popular Mechanics has no authority on the subject. The programme should have reinforced the lack of doubt over the cause of the collapse by pointing out that no questions had been raised by any eminent structural engineer (i.e. the point made by Monbiot in his very fair recent column).
2) Why did the programme have to claim that the lack of total transparency by the authorities post 9/11 was a “conspiracy”? A government’s attempt to keep secrets is, however regretable, not a conspiracy in the way that the word had been used in the rest of the programme.
Hi
I am an ex BBC staff member. I think the programme last might is probably quite well aligned with the view of the regulars on this blog (it’s very well-read in the beeb I am sure you will be pleased to read).
So, it’s very interesting that before the programme was broadcast there are so many posts written on the basis that it was going to follow an anti-US agenda. Because the BBC is biased obviously.
And yet when the programme is broadcast, and it is sane, and shows the various conspiracy theories considered to not stand up to the most basic scrutiny, there are not many posts of the ‘well I am surprised by that’ nature 🙂 Now why might that be?
If you look at the relevant thread on The Editors again you will see that Rudin is now having the ‘BBC corporate news hegemony’ stuff chucked at him by a quite a large number of (I guess) conspiracy theorist supporters.
I found this ‘paradox’ fascinating when I was at the beeb, and still do. I am just curious what the regulars here make of it?
(Of course some of you I am sure will find evidence of bias in the programme and will expect a narrative stating ‘these people are idiots’ but facts have a habit of speaking for themselves…)
Cheers
Andy
Andy:
The first trailers for the series were confusing, but I thought it was obvious that the episode was going to be anti-conspiracy once the nature of the series had been shown in the Diana episode. I don’t know why others here were so slow to pick up what the show was really about, but it’s not like The Editors blog made it obvious. Was the blog so vague in order to make more people watch?
Personally, I’m more surprised that the conspiracy theorists themselves actually thought the show was going to support them. I would have thought that they would be used to the media laughing at them, so why did they expect the BBC to be any different? Maybe they had their hopes raised by the initial trailers for the series, maybe they expected the “enlightened” left wing BBC to support them, or maybe they’re just completely mad.
I’m also surprised again by how scared they seem to be of this BBC show and are now “debunking” it. Why are they more concerned about a BBC documentary than actual scientific reports?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/answering_conspiracy_questions.html#commentsanchor
FTP – I find some of these posts amazing.
There is some chance of a conversation here. (I never thought I would type that 🙂 )
But none whatsoever with people who think that posting FACT before some untruth or twisted logic and then getting angry about it constitutes debate. Actually, they probably aren’t interested in that…
Anyway, back to my original point. Many take the simplistic view that if both left and right are annoyed by the BBC, then that constitutes a form of impartiality. Personally, I find that too easy and trite.
Yet, the BBC is clearly capable of being seen to play both for and against the ‘Anti-USA’/’corporate news hegemony’ agendas at the same time.
I am genuinely intersted in hearing why people here think that might be.
Have a look at the BBCs most read and emailed article of 19th February. Its title as provocative as it is misleading. Its also a classic case of how BBC creates the news it wants to set its agenda.
(1) First we have the alarming headline.
US ‘Iran attack plans’ revealed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6376639.stm
A more accurate title would have been US ‘Iran contingency plans’
Now there are a serious issues with this sensationalist piece:
Not a single reference to the source. Not even a vage indication of where the BBC obtained these “US attack plans” – we have vage references to diplomatic sources, who are themselves relying on unidentified CENTCOM sources talking about a “fallback plan” distinct presumabley from the “attack plan” and that it! Now any idiot knows that its the job of CENTCOM and all military commands to make contigency plans. ESpecially when other Military commands are doing provocative things like “playing wargames”
(2) Then we have the news never alluded to by the BBC
This military commands for instance has been doing a great deal of it in the last few months.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=war+games+iran
Not that you would know if you searched the BBC website:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=d&q=iran+wargames
(3) Then we have Frank Gardner (BBC Arabist/Analyst) inform us of 2 “triggers for such an attack” which are his supposition.
(4) Then we have France Harrison (BBC Tehran “Reporter”) (and I use the word reporter in the loosest meaning of the term as she only reports what the islamic government in Iran agree to have her report telling us that “the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians. Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says.”
(5) Then we have a quote from an FO Old Hand telling us that the attack will fail miserably:
“Britain’s previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term.”
All told the end product is a stunning in its fact based shallowness. This type of sham shoudln’t be allowed on cBeebies let alone a Worldwide service for grown ups.