(last Wednesday’s BBC news to be exact): the announced withdrawal of 1600 of our troops and the funeral of the 101st British soldier to die in Iraq were the lead story. Via a transparently thin linkage (“One father who will be pleased at today’s news is…”), the story gave a cameo appearance to Reg Keys. I think the BBC were a little rash to run him (with so little excuse) quite so close to an item reminding us that there were 100 other possible candidates. It prompted the question, why does he get so much more value from his licence fee than the parents of the other 100? It also suggested an answer: bias. But that really is old news.
Old News
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This isn’t about the BBC but the media in general.
I work with a young ex-reporter for a local newspaper who was sent to interview the mother of a casualty in Iraq, she had three sons serving in the forces and the other two were due to go out.
The young she-cub came back with a story saying how proud the mother was of her sons and that she was sure that her sons going out would do a good job, but of course she was concerned for them as one of her sons had already been badly injured.
The editor, or sub-editor, rewrote the story to stress the mother’s concern and remove all approval of the job that her sons were doing.
The she-cub was unhappy with the edit but what made her resign and leave journalism was a call from the mother berating her for lying.
As a retired PR bloke once said to me “you may think you have a journalist as a friend but in fact you just know a journalist”.
Reg Keys is one of the most vocal of the dead soldier’s family members it is not that shocking that they use him. Lazy but not biased.
Hmmmm….Ralph Keys has been hanging around some rather dodgy people:
Tony Benn
Andrew Murry
Claire Short
Jeremy Corbyn
Poor guy,think about all those “Darling” dinner parties that he has to attend…..
‘Keys has been hanging around some rather dodgy people’
That too is not shocking. All Keys is doing is looking for any platform to rant from and doesn’t care which ones.
But this still isn’t an example of BBC bias just very, very, very, lazy work.
Conspiracy? Incompetence? Why speculate?
Bias is bias, whatever the reason for it.
Ralph.
The thing with Reg is that the poor guy has two axes that arn’t linked directly:
1. UK Soilders not equipped properly.
Spot on,Iraq exposed the problem of logistics (stratigic and tatical)and equipment ,but there were already reports that we were under equipped when we had an “ethical” FP in SL.
Prahapes an increase in defence spending overall and a stratigic policy review involving the military,spookdom and gosh the public?
What about another Strath Type report for wider media understanding.
2.Going to Iraq….”illegal”,”B & B lied”….
He would be taken far more seriously if he just highlighted the first one.
need I say more?
The Lord Haw Haws of the BBC love counting up those dead soldiers.
And terms like ‘grime milestone’.
There are main lines of assumption and the BBC embraces falsehoods deemed to be “truth”. The mythology surrounding Wilberforce and the history of the abolition is an example( but read first Dr. Eric Williams “Capitaism and slavery”) :-
1.Britan was not the European nation first to pass anti-trade legislation – it was Denmark.
2. Wilberforce and Pitt excluded from their active circle any ablitionists wanting immediate abolition – and thus the “gradulalist” movement worked considerably to Britain’s advantage. Both Wilberforce and Pitt were the activists in this approach. Britain had slaves working in the fields and they looked good ( Wilberforce and Pitt included) in actively blocking competition from other European competitors. Then to top the legislative exercise off – pay the slave owners 20 million pounds in compensation for the loss of their “property” for the people who were worked as slaves with no pay or compensation. But Britain oh so proud of this as well as of the fact that Elizabeth 1 had funded John Hawkins to go for the “niggers” in Africa to make great wealth for Great Britain.
3. It is assured that the BBC will never give the counter arguments to the reporting on an event like this – the 200th anniverasary of the 1807 Act!
4. so the beeb celebrates along with the apologists for the Britsh engagement in the crime against humanity that the beeb will never on a balanced basis ever report.
Nuff said…
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