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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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So the hot topic is this: IS THE BBC BIASSED?
John Lennon controls the Catholic church and the BBC. He does this by not linking Catholic priest hood with some kind of psychopathology in this article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6563565.stm
They confirmed that two handguns – 9mm and 22mm weapons – were recovered at the scene of the second shooting, and that one of them was also used in the first incident.
Wow, a “22mm weapon” – that would pack one heck of a punch!
Dear BBC, I think you mean 9mm and .22 calibre.
Where do BBC ‘journalists’ learn to write?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6562243.stm
The agent, Nicola Calipari, was shot dead on his way to Baghdad airport.
Mr Lozano is standing trial charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder. He denies the charges.
He was escorting Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist who had just been freed by kidnappers.
Mr Lozano was not escorting Giuliana Sgrena, Nicola Calipari was.
(3/10 – must try harder)
Credit where it’s due – the BBC published my comment, even though it was slightly OT. I’m comment 11 here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/04/how_you_can_help.html#commentsanchor
I could’ve been more scathing of course – given that ‘Alan’ as we must all now call him, was endlessly biased against Israel, whitewashed Palestinian criminality, and dismissed the seriousness of being kidnapped by those friendly, bumbling, hospitable Palestinian kidnappers. But I chose not to be, because the truth is that I hope he is released alive. Alan Johnston may be a misguided or malicious anti-Israeli tool, but he remains a human being, and the people who have kidnapped him deserve our contempt whatever the ironies of the situation.
wikipedia has an extensive page on the Virginia Tech shootings with lots of details (and regular updates)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shootings
six o clock news… “gun control” comes up.
no mention of the VT Campus being “gun free” BY LAW
This law was passed in the VA House of Reps last year.
Matt Frei BBC News :-18.15
“The professor, a Holocaust survivor, who saved the lives of his students at the expense of his own life was a Rumanian Jew who moved to USA 40 years ago.”
CNN news 18.15
“The professor, a Holocaust survivor, who saved the lives of his students at the expense of his own life was an ISRAELI citizen, whose sons live in Israel. He often signed off assignments from his students with his TEL AVIV address. He will be buried in JERUSALEM.”
If I hadn’t seen and heard it myself I would not believe the ommission of the FACTS.
T
I meant to add:-
The possibilty of an Israeli Jew committing an act of heroism and martyrdom to save others seems to have been ignored by our friend Matt.
matt frei seemed to want to end the conversation when the VT minister started to talk about the “Lord Jesus”
in fact, he cut him off.
(and he wasnt talking in a foaming at the mouth southern baptist way – he was shaken, quiet, measured, and reflective, almost wondering how his faith could stand up to such a tragedy, and how counselling for students will be sorely needed in the weeks/months to come…. he should have been let finish his piece. purely out of respect.)
BBC 19.04
Matt Frei still saying the professor was a Rumanian Jew who was a Holocaust survivor who came to America after the Holocaust. Still no mention of his Israeli citizenship.
Can’t BBC journalists get the facts correct ?
Yeah…….I know!!
As I write the BBC broadcasts its daily attempt at humour between 6:30 and 7:00 on Radio 4. Who is on? Surprise surprise it’s Jeremy Hardy, complete with desperately unfunny slaggings off of Margaret Thatcher and the Bushes (father and son).
What hold has this member of the SWP got on the BBC commissioning editors? Is it his political loyalties? I don’t believe for a moment that were he a member of the BNP he would be allowed to sully the BBC airwaves with any brand of “humour”. But the BBC continually offers us this dismal lefty (together with his pals Mark Steele and the “Now Show” crowd) consistently boring against England: is this the best talent the BBC can scrape up to entertain its audience?
BBC comedy (as with its news):
biased – probably
crap – certainly.
the “rumanian jew” that Matt Frei mentioned.
jpost:
“israeli professor killed in US attack”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152816138&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
and more references here:
http://www.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=israeli+professor&btnG=Search+News
and is his act of selfless heroism mentioned by the BBC? and that he was a holocaust survivor?
nah. not a chance…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6563565.stm
buried at the bottom:
“and another was Liviu Librescu, a Romanian-born Israeli expert on aeronautical engineering.”
even in the face of overwhelming tragedy the BBC’s anti-israel hatred shows up. pathetic.
“Matt Frei still saying the professor was a Rumanian Jew who was a Holocaust survivor who came to America after the Holocaust. Still no mention of his Israeli citizenship.”
he didnt. russia, then romania, then israel, and THEN america.
from jpost:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152816138&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Librescu was sent to a labor camp in Russia as a child and saved by the townspeople. His father was deported by the Nazis.
As a scientist working under Nicolae Ceaucescu’s oppressive regime, Librescu was forbidden to have any contact with sources outside Romania. He defied the ban, continuing to publish scientific articles secretly.
His Zionist affinities eventually caused him to be forced out of his job. In 1978, the Librescus emigrated from Romania to Israel, where they raised two sons. In 1986, the family moved to Virginia for Librescu’s sabbatical. While they only planned to stay in the United States a year, but have lived there ever since.
Librescu’s second son, Arie, told The Jerusalem Post that his father had served as an “ambassador” for Israel in a community with many Muslim residents, but few Israelis.
The Foreign Ministry has taken charge of flying Librescu’s body back to Israel. The funeral is expected to take place in Ra’anana on Thursday, although that date has not been confirmed.
Can’t BBC journalists get the facts correct ?
Yeah…….I know!!
Edna | 17.04.07 – 7:13 pm
They probably could if they really wanted to, but their deliberate bias by omission serves their agenda.
The professor did not emigrate to the US 40 years ago, he emigrated first to Israel and has been in the US, as an Israeli citizen, since 1986.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152812105&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The couple immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978. They then moved to Virginia in 1986 for his sabbatical and had stayed since then, Joe told Army Radio.
Shame on Matt Frei – shame on the BBC!
considering that the professor was an “israeli ambassador” at the college ,this would infer that his pride of Israel and advocacy of Israel was very well known and not exactly hidden.
which infers that Matt Frei knowingly twisted the facts for his 6 o clock news broadcast.
i think some explanation is needed from the BBC.
oh look. the bnp are going to field double the amount of candidates that they had in the last local elections
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6562523.stm
oh wait. maybe not. (the bnp that is…)
C4 are now mentioning the professor and his heroism. and mentioned his holocaust survival.
john snow is now interviewing his son (from tel aviv)
the professors page on the VT site
http://www.esm.vt.edu/php/person.php?id=10023
kudos to C4 for spending time on the heroism of that professor.
i think some explanation is needed from the BBC.
archduke | 17.04.07 – 7:31 p
We won’t get one.
One of his sons lives in Israel, he also taught at Tel Aviv University.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388753,00.html
and he wasnt any old professor either. we’re talking about a tech college here.
“He is the professor with the highest number of publications in the history of Virginia Tech. In the past, he taught at Tel Aviv University and the Technion”
and despite all that – despite the holocaust – despite the communist experience – and all that potential egomania that goes with all that success, he still had the humanity to put his students first, and to sacrifice his life for them.
absolutely incredible. what a human being. i’m utterly speechless.
On Jermy Hardy:
“His experiences in Palestine during the Israeli army incursions of 2002 became the subject of a feature documentary Jeremy Hardy vs the Israeli Army (2003)”
Just the right credentials for the BBc.
But even the Beebs friends at the Guardian sacked him “allegedly for supporting the Socialist Alliance in his columns”
“..on his last appearance on Just A Minute in 2000 he earned boos from the audience and a reprimand from fellow panellist, the former Liberal MP, Clement Freud, when he responded to the subject “Parasites” by talking about the royal family.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hardy
Via Little Green Footballs – this piece of conspiratorial moonbattery from former Panorama reporter Alan Hart (and note which journalists this nutter regards as “second to none”):
There is a case for saying (repeat a case) that the party with most to gain from Alan Johnston’s permanent disappearance was Israel. It would not be the first time that Israeli agents had dressed as Arabs to make a hit.
If Alan Johnston is dead, it’s my hope that the BBC at executive management level will rise above its fear of offending Zionism too much and allow its reporters (Frank Gardner and Jeremy Bowen are second to none) to make a full, thorough and honest investigation.
“Anonanon | 17.04.07 – 8:12 pm”
if a tough bastard like Ariel Sharon or Bibi Netanyahu was in charge, i’d give a bit of credence to that theory.
and to be honest, in purely military strategic and “war” terms it would be a justifiable policy. targetting the enemy propaganda outfits and their hangers on and supporters (like the bbc) is always done in warfare..
thing is israel is currently not AT war. the islamists certainly are.
so that discounts that Mossad theory out of hand.
and whats barely mentioned is that the current Israeli government is as Blairite and P.C. as Blair is.
its actually a left wing government.
(hence the hezbollah stalemate…)
by “tough bastard” , i mean that in admiration terms. Netanyahu for his ability to convey the case for Israel in the Western MSM and Sharon for his strategic thinking.
Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was a final masterstroke – whether you like it or not, no longer could the claim of “occupation” be used as an excuse.
and what do the Pallywooders do? why they start having a civil war and start killing each other.
Sharon 10. pallywood. 0
Umbongo/Jon.
Don’t waste time listening to R4 “comedy”. Catch up with Dennis Miller instead.
http://dennismillerradio.com/programhighlights
archduke – to give any credence to that bollocks is to excuse the Islamofascists.
Anonanon: – I have never listened to Radio 4 “comedy” since Kenneth Williams ,Peter Jones, Clement Freud and Derrick Nimmo stopped doing Just A Minute. – That was brilliant stuff.
Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was a final masterstroke – whether you like it or not, no longer could the claim of “occupation” be used as an excuse.
archduke | 17.04.07 – 8:32 pm
I disagree. The result was to ethnically cleanse Jews from a part of their historic homeland while the BBC and it’s followers still describe Gaza as ‘occupied’.
It’s been a lose lose situation.
The only advantage is that it has freed up some military assets, but not for long I fear.
The BBC and how it defends the rights of Muslims in Muslim countries;
Egypt anchorwomen battle for hijab
The last four years in the lives of TV presenters Hala El Malki and Ghada El Tawil have been a continuous struggle brought about by their employers’ refusal to implement two court verdicts.
It all started in 2002 when the two presenters decided to wear the hijab head covering worn by many Muslim women.
But their employers objected and they were excluded from appearing on the state-run TV station where they work.
Believing that they had a right to appear on the screen the TV anchors took their case to the civil court. The court ruled in their favour and ordered they be returned to the screen in 2003.
When the state TV station refused to comply with the ruling, the two presenters went to the state court which also ruled in their favour in 2005. But again the station did not comply.
But last month, when they tried to force the station to abide by the earlier rulings, they were rebuffed, with the court saying it had already dealt with the case.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6565145.stm
Maybe the BBC could get a certain Female British convert to bitch about how evil this Muslim country is.( I wonder who that could be???)
The BBC and how it defends the rights of Muslims in Muslim countries
More nonsense from the MPACUK forums.
This time regarding the NUJ boycott
Quote:
Originally Posted by TryAgain
Traditionally, we expect journalists to report the facts and remain impartial. Otherwise you end up in the situation where you cannot trust what you read.
Reply from utbah:
This isn’t about being impartial, this is about standing for those who are opressed. If there was a modern day version of Nazi Germany (which I believe Israel is anyway) I very much doubt you would utter those stupid comments.
It looks like the BBC have a man in MPACUK (utbah), well he certainly speaks the Beeb lingo.
“Biodegradable | 17.04.07 – 8:45 pm |”
i think of it more of a temporary withdrawal. in my view, it will eventually be part of israel proper in the long term.
sometimes, in a military sense, the better option is to retreat and regroup.
thats exactly what happened with gaza.
” Anonanon | 17.04.07 – 8:38 pm”
you put it more succintly than i would.
i agree.
“mick in the uk | Homepage | 17.04.07 – 9:09 pm”
i wont even begin to respond to that. i am sure that everyone on here is intelligent enough and well read to be fully aware of the full horrors of the holocaust and the details of that.
such a comparision leaves me in utter despair. its as if some people havent learned the lessons of history (or refuse to even bother learning history).those folks really do not know what they are talking about.
they are , for want of a better word, idiots.
and the bbc has the gall to portray the Yanks as “dumb”. i hate to say it, but we have far dumber (and more dangerous) people within the UK itself. we have lost the right to sneer at the americans a long time ago. (about 1956, suez, i think… )
The BBC and how its hatred of the US has born fruit (just like after 9/11 and the London tube bombings) in its latest HYS.
“I am a Brit married to an American lady living in Houston. I find the comments from Brits lecturing and pontificating on guns frankly ridiculous. In UK you have teenage gangsters shooting each other,people jumping on trains with explosives in backpacks, every month there are more arrests for broken plots so lets have a little less of the we know best nonsense.”
Ian Harrison
“I would like to say I am absolutely appalled by many comments left here mainly by British people. This is a time of great sadness and an opportunity for sensible political debate yet many here have taken the opportunity here to write unprovoked personal attacks against America and American people. Shame on you and shame on the BBC moderators for letting such offensive messages be published.
I would like to offer my condolences to all the victims. God bless you all.”
Luke Bray, Yeovil, United Kingdom
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&threadID=6121&start=0&tstart=0&&%25EF%25BF%25BDpaginator&edition=1&ttl=20070417210936
And of course the BBC moderator didn’t see this one did he;
(Took me a while before I knew where I knew those names from)
With Britain’s tougher gun laws, we both feel all the much safer when out at night.
Charlene Ellis, and Letisha Sh…, Aston, Birmingham
Which begs me to ask the question do the BBC only vet the pro American, British and Christian values letters.
pounce -> ha ha ha. took a while for that to register with me.
i’ve screen grabbed it for posterity.
Archduke:
Here’s another quote from the same place, and the whole forum is littered with stuff like this.
The BBC is run by Zionist sympathisers so that makes it easy to believe how they can allow known pro-Israeli people to peddel their poison.
Surely we here at B-BBC can’t be wrong can we?
I am incandescent with rage at the BBC’s treatment of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Matthew Bannister’s morning phone-in on 5Live invited comments with the following on the 5Live forum:
“On Five Live this morning, Matthew Bannister is asking why Americans put up with gun crime.
This may be the worst gun massacre in US history, but it’s part of series of similar attacks.
So what is it about the USA that makes guns part of society? Could they learn from us about how to control guns? Or have they decided the risk of rare but catastrophic killings is the price you have to pay?
Get in touch with Matthew by emailing bannister@bbc.co.uk or text 85058.”
Unbelievable.
Oh, and the idiots phoning in were making all the usual bigoted comments about “gun crazy Americans” long after it was clear that the shooter was South Korean.
Here’s the thread on the 5Live MB, for anyone interested:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbfivelive/F2148565?thread=4064971
My answer to the question – the answer that was clearly the one that this loaded question required, is near the end ;).
Re the gun control angle on the Virginia Tech Massacre we have this excerpt from the Wall Street Journal online:
“But there is another side to this argument. Longtime readers may recall the lead item in our Jan. 18, 2002, column, which concerned a shooting spree at another Virginia institution of higher learning, the Appalachian School of Law. The gunman, Peter Odighizuwa, killed three, and probably would have killed more but for another student’s gun:
Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, officials said.
“We saw the shooter, stopped at my vehicle and got out my handgun and started to approach Peter,” Tracy Bridges, who helped subdue the shooter with other students, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. “At that time, Peter threw up his hands and threw his weapon down. Ted was the first person to have contact with Peter, and Peter hit him one time in the face, so there was a little bit of a struggle there.”
Appalachian is a private institution, Virginia Tech a public one; and Virginia law prohibits guns on campus. Early last year there was an effort in the state Legislature to change that law, but it died in committee. As the Roanoke Times reported at the time:
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
Ouch!
sarah ->”A gunfree zone is a safe haven for the armed criminal.”
which is EXACTLY what happened at VT.
VT had a big virtual “we have no guns here – come shoot us…” sign over it..
laban tall has the details
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2007/04/here-we-go.html
the bbc is spinning VT as being a result of americas “gun laws” , when in fact, it was a direct result of ANTI gun laws passed last year in Virginia.
the anti gun lobby has blood on its hands right now in the USA. and by god do americans know about this.
Evan Davis Watch.
I suspect in some ways I am like many on here, in that I had my eyes opened to the bias of the BBC by a particular report. I’m sure we all had our different ‘revelatory’ moments, but mine was a few years ago when the BBC economics editor Evan Davis was on Newsnight discussing Gordon Brown’s changes to the tax on pensions. Unfortunately I don’t have a transcript but I can confidently say (without fear of legal action) that Davis said Gordon Brown’s £5 billion a year tax grab from pensions was; “A good idea because it will encourage people to save more for their retirement”. As someone who could see what Brown’s tax grab would inevitably do, I sat openmouthed at such economic ignorance. At least I thought it was ignorance — now I realise that it is almost certainly bias, and conscious bias at that.
Evan Davis became BBC economic editor about the same time as Labour gained power, i.e. 1997, when BBC was still a fairly well trusted institution. In the short-term, Brown has not been as disastrous as previous Labour chancellors, but I suspect that much of the Labour governments “reputation” for economic management comes from favorable reporting, and nobody is more influential than the BBC, and arguably Evan Davis.
So, and contrast these three recent articles, all trotted out since Gordon Brown has been taking some belated but well-deserved criticism for his pensions grab. I say “contrast”, you won’t find much contrast between them. Rarely has Evan Davis been so flagrant in his fawning support for Gordon Brown. The comments submitted to his blog are suitably derisory, even though many have been rejected.
Polly Toynbee (ex BBC, current Guardian columnist, and well-known defender of Gordon Brown)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2048801,00.html
Will Hutton (Guardian columnist, Gordon Brown apologist)
http://business.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2058986,00.html
Evan Davis (BBC economic editor, supposedly independent journalist)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/evandavis/2007/04/that_pensions_raid.html#commentsanchor
bodo -> that Davis said Gordon Brown’s £5 billion a year tax grab from pensions was; “A good idea because it will encourage people to save more for their retirement”.
*******************
i can concur with that. i remember it clearly because the next day i rang my pension broker and said i wanted out.
i suffered a loss of course as i had only starting investing in previous 2 years or so, but i since then have moved into my own privately managed etrade account. managed by myself.
but i can back up your statement – i remember it as if it happened yesterday. got the wife’s pension shut down as well…
This is what 3 billion pounds worth of layers of fact checking will get you:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6564075.stm
“Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, was an Israeli-born Romanian academic in the Engineering Science & Mechanics Department. He was also a Holocaust survivor and moved to Virginia in 1985.”
Its ours and the employers fault.
“”And secondly, it was open to us to keep our pensions alive, by investing more in them if we wanted to fill the hole he had left. The chancellor may have put an obstruction in the pensions road, but he wasn’t driving the car that crashed into it. That was in the hands of employers who were free to increase contributions but chose instead to accelerate the closure of final salary schemes.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/evandavis/2007/04/that_pensions_raid.html
Could you imagine what Evan Davis and his friends would have said if a Conservative Government had raided pensions? It would be front page headlines and constant smear – the BBC is an absolute disgrace.
“Librescu was teaching his class in Norris Hall when the killer entered the building randomly unloading his gun in class rooms. The Mechanics and Aeronautics professor stayed behind to stop the shooter from opening the door. When the attacker finally got into the classroom, threw himself in front of the gunman, a student told Israel’s Army Radio.”
http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_24663-Liviu-Librescu-A-Holocaust-Survivor-Killed-At-Virginia-Tech.html
A very selfless heroic act.
Umbongo | 17.04.07 – 7:18 pm |
I used to listen to the R4 comedy slot on my way home from work. No longer, it became too dangerous to drive and scream invective at the radio at the same time.
With the exception of Just a Minute and OUAT the News Quiz the rest is pure propaganda. Whenever you hear that jazzy trumpet theme tune or ‘written by Simon Brett’ you just know it’s going to be another limp lefty ‘comedy’ where strong women get the better of weak or vile men.
archduke | 17.04.07 – 10:13 pm |
ISTR the economics & buiness pages of the a number of papers being aghast at Browns pension swoop. But listening to Evans on Jeremy Vine the other day he said no one objected at the time. The real problem is that we are not dying early enough to make Browns mismangement less of a problem …
I used to like “Sorry I haven’t a Clue” but I have not listened to that for ages – Has that been taken over by the Jeremy “Hardly Ever Funny” brigade?