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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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John Pilger, the lefty, cliche-a-minute “journalist” was on World Have Your Say this evening:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=i&q=World+have+your+say&go.x=49&go.y=7
(Click on top of sidebar on the right. Link probably valid till tomorrow evening.)
To avoid the predictable mush pumped out by Pilger (and lengthy messages of support for Alan Johnston from his friends and colleagues) skip the first fifteen minutes.
Then Miranda from Venezuela comes on the line and instead of propping Pilger up gives a most politically incorrect description of Venezuela’s endemic murder and robbery.
But it gets better. Nelson, also from Venezuela, tells Pilger that as far as his description of the country goes, he “doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he’s been paid to say that,” and then goes on to give a detailed breakdown of the crappy state of Venezuela under its crappy leader, Chavez.
After Nelson someone else tells Pilger that Pilger “has never met a socialist he didn’t like.”
And here the BBC was thinking it was all set to pump out uninterrupted, anti-American lefty propaganda.
Great stuff.
106 Black Caribbeans
183 Black Africans….
John Reith | 09.05.07 – 4:30 pm | #
Blimely. That is odd. Seems a very low number.
Please no one read anything racist into that. I grew up with / know quite a few families. Did not think I knew / know a sizable chunk of a town’s population.
LurkingBlackhat | 09.05.07 – 10:27 pm
Reith’s figures came from here which do show another 29 “Other Black”:
http://www.cre.gov.uk/diversity/map/northwest/blackburn.html
Reith also failed to mention the 1,262 “Mixed”.
Off Topic sorry:
“Celebrity heiress Paris Hilton is backing an online petition seeking a pardon of her 45-day prison sentence because she enlivens “mundane” lives.
“
Mr Teeth wrote;
“Oh grow up. The BBC has no bias against Christianity.”
I agree Mr Reith. The BBC had no problem turning the other cheek when so many Christians complained about a certain Jerry Springer Opera.
By the way is anyone listening to this year’s Reith lectures? Which should be renamed the Reith Moonbat lectures. This year Jeffrey Sachs told us that if we tackled ‘extreme poverty’ in Africa by giving shedloads more aid plus, of course, sorting out global warming, all Africa’s problems would be solved – including war, terrorism and bad governance. Asked what he’d do about conflicts like Darfur he replied that he saw Darfur entirely as a problem of water shortages amongst extremely poor people. If the West dealt with this peace would soon break out (he inferred). He didn’t even support sending in UN ‘peace keepers’. This might sound like pure drivel to you and me, but it keeps planet BBC happy. Sachs was as damaging and delusional in his own way as the infamous Adam Power of Nightmares Curtis. Any chance of getting Paul Wolfowitz, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald or Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak next year, Mr. Reith? After all they are your lectures.
“Experts seek new climate strategy”
“Delegates to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol are meeting in the German city of Bonn.
The two-week summit of about 2,000 delegates from 190 countries will focus on how to forward the Kyoto Protocol.”
“Officials will look at how to widen the deal to include the world’s richest nations and the growing economies, such as the US, China, Brazil and India.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6631419.stm
So who are the “experts” and what are they “expert” on?
It looks like the BBC are using the word “experts” here to misguide us all into thinking that the “experts” are “climate scientists”
But scientists do not produce strategies – “officials” do.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010050
“ASTRONOMER’S OUTBURST”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/default.stm
Was it really an outburst (A sudden, violent display, as of activity or emotion) – or just a point of view.
Mr Teeth wrote;
“Oh grow up. The BBC has no bias against Christianity.”
Mr Teeth clearly didn’t watch the final episodes of Waterloo Road, the drama series about a failing comp in Rochdale. Evil American Evangelical Christians tried to buy out the school and brainwash all the pupils with their creationist, gay bashing, moral fanaticism. All the cliches were out in force. The ‘good’ teacher who made a big speech denouncing Christianity and bravely announcing he didn’t believe in God to the assembled school was the hero who got the girl. The bad Christians were sent packing. A BBC fairy tale for our times. I noticed the BBC was careful not to mention ‘Christians’ in their plot synopses, and not even Wiki details the content. However some Christian viewers on the BBCs Waterloo Road website (now removed) which attracts impressionable teenagers were really upset by this hatchet job on their religion. Not anti-Christian Mr Reith – do you actually watch any of your output?
At last from John Reith himself-“the word English.The problem for the BBC is that it is a rather imprecise term”
No it is not.It describes that part of the population-the much greater part that is of Anglo Saxon/Danish/Celtic descent.Mass immigration until very very recent times did not happen.Between the 10th and the mid to late 19th centuries there were the Hugenots and an imposed Norman elite.That was it.The English know who they are and do not need these endless lies from the apologists for an imposed multiculturalism.
The Scots and the Welsh are indulged in their sense of being a people by the wretched liberal elite.God forbid the English should claim the same right.It must be the BBC’s worst nightmare.
More on Jeffrey Sachs from Wiki – sounds like he should be a good friend of Mark Malloch Brown:
Sachs has received personal payments from the United Nations totalling US dollars 75000 dollars a year since (at least) 2002 for his work on the Millennium Development Goals, as revealed by a UN investigative blog (www.innercitypress.org) He initially claimed to be working pro bono for the UN and stopped accepting such personal remuneration only in 2006 when it was discovered. The research project that he headed (the Millennium Project) is the most expensive in the history of the United Nations which continues to heavily subsidise his research Most recently it has been alleged that his researchers from that project were hired as UN staff members without competitive tendering. [13] has a report the press conference in which Sachs acknowledges the payments and the controversy about the Millennium project is reported on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs
Funny how these people who want to help end extreme poverty seem to start off by helping themselves into extreme wealth.
Sachs on Darfur
Now let me also add quickly that I believe that some of these situations are not simply as transparent as they look, and that’s where I would invoke again expertise as being vital, and I’ll take Darfur just as an example. What is in essence happening in Darfur, in my opinion, is that seven million Darfurians do not have enough water, and enough food, to survive. That problem needs to be addressed first and foremost, in my opinion, as recognising that those people are among the very most desperate in the world. They are hungry, they are desperate, and what they don’t need, in my view, is simply sanctions and peacekeepers. That will never solve these problems. What they do need is a development approach.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture5.shtml
“(BRUSSELS) – The European Commission has dropped its attempt to ban Imperial weights and measures in the face of British opposition, an EU spokeswoman said Tuesday.”
http://www.eubusiness.com/Consumer/imperial-measures.83
Can’t seem to find this on the BBC
Jon writes:
“Can’t seem to find this on the BBC”
I should know better, but stuck in the car (again) I listened as Eddie ‘silly’ Mair ‘interviewed’ an EU Commission spin-doctor on PM, this evening.
The man spun like a top. Mair interrogated him with all the ferocity of a damp sock puppet.
Here you go, Jon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6637587.stm
“Straight forward robbery is far less painfull to listen to, less economically and socially destructive, infinitely less dangerous and far far more honest then socialism or their political representatives.”
Who’s been reading C.S. Lewis?
“At last from John Reith himself-“the word English.The problem for the BBC is that it is a rather imprecise term”
No it is not.It describes that part of the population-the much greater part that is of Anglo Saxon/Danish/Celtic descent.Mass immigration until very very recent times did not happen.Between the 10th and the mid to late 19th centuries there were the Hugenots and an imposed Norman elite.That was it.The English know who they are and do not need these endless lies from the apologists for an imposed multiculturalism.”
I suppose part of the problem is relying on a state to tell you who you are. A state you pay taxes to.
“Anglo Saxon/Danish/”
The Germanic component is rather dubious. The English language is certainly Germanic but the English are the English. They’re not Germans or Scandanavian.
I suppose a crucial component is collective experience. Obviously when a group of people live on the same piece of geography sharing a common language and livelihood they will have a similar experience and a substantial something in common. But in this iPoded blogging modern time Londoners have more in common with New Yorkers than with the home counties 50 miles away.
This could go on and on.
Reith: “English is a rather imprecise term”. Classic! Can’t wait for him to deconstruct ‘Muslim’, ‘Asian’, ‘Extremist’, ‘Militant’, ‘Terrorist’ – none of which terms, used constantly by the BBC, are ‘imprecise’ of course…
Those comments on the Alan Johnston HYS
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&threadID=5911&start=0&tstart=0&edition=2&ttl=20070510062903&#paginator
that were cruelly separated from their recommendations
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/3253162701720140571/#340352
have now been happily reunited with them, along with one or two extra ones.
The BBC should either refrain from fiddling with people’s cookies (if that’s what is happening) or explain what is going on.
Funny how these people who want to help end extreme poverty seem to start off by helping themselves into extreme wealth.
Oscar | 09.05.07 – 11:37 pm
I listened to about five minutes of one of his lectures on the World Service. That was all I could stomach.
Typical of the left, Sachs skirts carefully around the problem while remaining wilfully blind to its cause:
They are hungry, they are desperate, and what they don’t need, in my view, is simply sanctions and peacekeepers. That will never solve these problems. What they do need is a development approach.
Oscar | 10.05.07 – 12:12 am
No, what the African Muslims of Sudan need first and foremost is for the government-backed Arab Muslims to stop killing them and driving them from their homes. And they need terror-friendly journalists, such as those from the BBC to develop a conscience – or at least a sense of professional ethics – and expose this attempted genocide.
It also would have helped over the years if BBC journalists had exposed the Chinese for propping up the brutal Khartoum regime because of its oil interests in the region.
Hell, the BBC was in there, boots and all, denouncing the Apartheid regime and no doubt rejoicing when it was brought to its knees. Where was the BBC while the racist, genocidal Arabs in Khartoum were making the Pretoria regime look positively benign by comparison? And where will the BBC position itself as the dispossession and killing continue?
The BBC has now begun (far too little and far too late) to timidly explore the above-mentioned oily relationship.
This could have something to do with the fact that the UN is also beginning to timidly act on Sudan. (And we all know that in BBC eyes the UN is a wonderful, moral organisation of great stature and one from which we should all take our lead.)
It could also have something to do with the fact that Jonah Fischer, the BBC’s Sudan correspondent, was recently expelled from the country for “hostile reporting.”
You can’t make this stuff up:
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article21326
The Today Programme
IRAQTonyIRAQBlairIRAQNaughtieIRAQWelshIRAQWindbagIRAQ….adIRAQinfinitum
…continuedIRAQTonyIRAQBennIRAQ…..
Today
Predictability:
Tony Benn states on the Today programme that “The Afghan war is morally wrong”.
Predictability:
This statement doesn’t even trouble Naughtie’s radar, who passes seemlessly on to other matters.
The only difficult question is: who is the biggest t—-r, Benn or Naughtie?
Bryan
…exposed the Chinese for propping up the brutal Khartoum regime because of its oil interests in the region.
PetroChina does have extensive interests in Sudan and provides comfort (i.e. greenbacks) to the Khartoum government.
But do not make out that this is the ‘yellow peril’.
One of the most significant shareholders in PetroChina (2.6 billion shares)
is Berkshire Hathaway Inc – AKA Warren Buffett.
But do not make out that this is the ‘yellow peril’.
That’s not my intention. But I imagine that the BBC would be howling with outrage if BBC-unfriendly countries were actors in this drama.
Anyone who has followed the BBC closely over the years will have noticed that it has an uncritical approach to China.
This could, of course, have a lot to do with Mao. The BBC evidently can’t overcome its collective communist indoctrination, no matter how many millions are murdered by communist regimes.
It could also have a lot to do with the fact that China is positioned as a counterweight to American power.
All we are asking the BBC to do is be consistent in its approach to various conflicts across the board.
But that would mean ending its love affair with Muslims and Arabs and reporting dispassionately on Israel and America – and other countries such as Australia.
This the BBC simply will not do. It cannot be untrue to its prejudiced self.
The only difficult question is: who is the biggest t—-r, Benn or Naughtie?
Abandon ship! | 10.05.07 – 9:06 am
Hmmm tough one. I also noticed that Benn was allowed to get away with the preposterous statement that Blair had allied himself with “three of the most right wing leaders of modern times – Bush Jnr. Belosconi and Sarkozy.” No definition here of what Benn means by extremely ‘right wing’, and in the case of Sarkozy, considering he was only elected President on Sunday, totally absurd. Of course Benn entirely overlooked the hideous characters he and his chums like (or liked) to cosy up to -Saddam Hussein, Castro, Chavez and Ahmadinejad. But Benn did usefully highlight the BBCs three favourites for demonisation. One gone, another about to go – they’re only left with Sarko, who is certainly shaping up to be their top target. (In that sense Naughtie and Benn are as one).
More on the Wolfowitz witch-hunt from Melanie Phillips:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1512
Naughtie on radio 4 this morning was absolutely unbearable – I had to turn it off.
On the matter concerning the retention of imperial units, from the BBC’s report linked above, one reads:
We are trying to put ourselves forward as a modern country putting our imperial past in perspective, like slavery, and here we are glorifying one element of it
Roz Denny, UK Metric Association
What a pervert! He has linked pounds, feet and inches with slavery and the BBC highlights it.
Oscar
“But Benn did usefully highlight the BBCs three favourites for demonisation.”
There are others, as Stephen Pollard points out on his blog today:
That evil antipodean fascist John Howard is still going strong, much to the chagrin of Beeboids.
Other malign influences still on the go:
Paisley
Sharon
Tebbitt
Thatcher
Wolfowitz
Bolton
In other words, everyone I admire.
Another (D)HYS not going the BBC’s way.
What would you like to ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres?
Added: Wednesday, 9 May, 2007, 19:09 GMT 20:09 UK
I would ask why the children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees who have received citizenship in other nations are still considered refugees, while the children and grandchildren of every other refugee group that have citizenship elsewhere are not considered refugees. Why the double standard?
mt, bushari
Added: Wednesday, 9 May, 2007, 19:07 GMT 20:07 UK
Why are Palestinians the only group that continue to have “refugee” status while other groups are settled into the countries they have migrated to? Cubans, Vietnamese, etc. are not considered “refugees” even though they fled their homelands. Jews kicked out of Muslim countries in the 1940s and 1950s are not considered “refugees”. Why haven’t the Palestinians become citizens of the countries they moved to? They currently receive more funds per capita then any other group.
mike b, Silver Spring, United States
Recommended by 22 people
Added: Wednesday, 9 May, 2007, 16:44 GMT 17:44 UK
Should the estimated 800,000 – 900,000 Jewish refugees thrown out of Arab & Islamic countries be compensated?
Isn’t it the case that the Arab nations did not integrate the ‘Palestinian’ refugees and thereby created a refugee crisis, whilst Israel did take in the Jewish refugees and made them Israeli, thereby preventing a refugee crisis.
Should the ‘palestinians’ living in Jordan still have refugee status even though Jordan is mainly ‘Palestinian’?
The Elitist
Recommended by 22 people
I wonder if any of those questions will actually be put to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, and if so what his response will be.
re: Monday’s BBC 1 Panorama
jr=what astonishes me ensconced within that bubble world of the BBC (you admitted many moons ago you had a financial interest) is how you can accurately gloss over what is happening (appeal to statistics etc.) and yet are unable to see the wider picture:
“The subject of the programme was the phenomenon of social and geographical segregation in the town. ”
A key theme of the programme ‘white flight’ • the propensity of existing residents to leave a particular neighbourhood once Muslim numbers reach a critical mass and the character of the area changed.”
As Muslims become a majority, pubs shut. The character of the district changes.
One can almost believe that you don’t see this as a positive process you even use emotive scientific terms such as “critical mass”. A committed multiculturalist would never be so profane and still attempt to create or see some notion of “enrichment” or “diversity” in all of this, a way out even, or repeat the mistaken mantra of some historical analogy “there has always been such movements in the historical past” or an appeal to the demographics of the East End of London, etc. However, what does seem to escape you is that this is not happening by chance, what is happening in Blackburn (and other English towns & cities) is one of the well known and trusted instruments of Jihad chosen to spread Islam, namely demographic conquest.
“Islam bans alcohol” as you put it, quite right, in a foreign culture though? Panorama was not really about social and geographical segregation, error. This is not about Belfast, or of segregated protestant and catholic communities. The BBC is trapped in the “Religion of Peace” fallacy and the “so called” War on Terror mind set that recoils from seeing any such developments as a possible threat. To do so, after all, would be an admission of Islamophobia.
As an Englishman first, and Brit second, I hate to see my country, its history and culture (including pubs & churches) and my people being ethnically cleansed. If that is a “fetish” than so be it (By your BBC logic do the Scots have a fetish with their Parliament, history and rich culture?)
The interviews with those English people taking flight, selling their homes to move away reminded me of the Vertriebenen in the 2nd world war. The enemy almost at your doorstep. Contrast now the prissy tone of the BBC Panorama interviewer with those from the BBC interviewing say the Evacuees in the 1940s forced to leave their homes because of a perceived threat.
Unlike the Roman, Anglo-Saxon or Norman invasions, I see nothing positive or beneficial about this. European culture doesn’t gain, it can only be a win-lose outcome. The Christian idealist Bishop Tom Butler interviewed is mistaken too. Likewise only cultural fools could embrace the prospect of a megaMosque in London- I’ve personally seen the effect of Friday prayers and a Mosque in North London. It is a very serious threat. I see it yes, as an invasion, paradoxically, Blair’s policy of devolution has provided both Wales & Scotland with Nationalist buttresses. In England, as you admit the BBC (that is really the London psyche writ large) is loathe to remind so many of this imprecise term, because being English is seen as a move which discriminates and excludes “British Asian Muslims”. You also express the dilemma of Greg Dyke yourself, “hideously white”, or?
But what about the c 50% of Blackburn’s Muslims who were born in Lancashire?Are they ‘English’ as well as being British? Who decides?
I know I don’t want the BBC deciding for me, similarly, I don’t want it decided by naive politicians who invited the suicide bomber Khan to the Houses of Commons to congratulate him on his sterling work for the community. The BBCs Panorama reminded me of the homeopathic approach to a sickness. The astonished gasps at the colourful computer traces of segregated taxi lines- hopefully resolved by (mostly) Christian & Muslim children forced to sit and draw together?
Following the suspected terrorist arrests yesterday in “the northern communities”, including the wife of one of the suicide bombers from 7/7 the Today programme BBC editors totally ignore it as a news item the following morning! Niel Kinnock, Daphne du Maurier, Dead Ringers…The BBC just contribute to the sleepwalking mode of life.
How long before TreasonDee and TreasonDum get a friendly fireside chat on Radio 4?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/6641983.stm
And why the low profile of this on the BBC? It isn’t on the main World or UK news pages.
One can only presume that this reluctance to specify “whites” according to their religion part of the BBC’s well known bias against Christianity.
I would say that it is more the BBC adopting the language of the Muslim or more particularly the Subcontinent Muslim living in England. I’m just glad they don’t call them kuffar.
Abandon ship!
Mr Farmer told the judge that the researcher has simply been unlucky to be in the position of working for anti-war MP Mr Clarke.
Note that the BBC doesn’t say that it was the MP Clarke who actually went straight to the police! It presumes that if you are anti-war treasonable acts (especially anything anti-Bush) are a logical consequence.
Should I read this as saying he was “unlucky” because an anti-war MP shopped him?
I’m just glad they don’t call them kuffar.
deegee | 10.05.07 – 12:56 pm
I would prefer them to call me kuffar. Why beat about the bush?
Apologies for the above, they don say it.
It was passed to Northampton South MP Anthony Clarke, who called the police.
Brownstuff will need to be properly opposed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6642153.stm
This sort of immature inept student union type call by minging and call me dave will lead to the inevitable reply that brownstuff makes at the end of the article.
Zero chance it would be taken seriously.
Just gives the IBC the chance to type it up and publish this nonsense so it can be mocked.
This country is a parliamentary democracy and does not elect prime ministers.
Just what did they hope to achieve.
Schoolboy stuff.
This does not bode well.
compare and contrast the banner “big news” focus
on sky
http://news.sky.com/skynews/home
with the bbc
http://news.bbc.co.uk
says it all really, doesnt it.
sky seem to know what story is *vastly* more important to the people of Britain right now.
sky news:
“I’m also being told that a town or village has been sealed off near Seville in southern Spain. It is not a long journey to get from the Algarve across the border.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6637389.stm
Did anyone see this? about the hamas use of mickey mouse.
“An Israeli media monitoring group said Farfur was teaching “Islamic supremacy and hatred of Israel and the US”.”
Is it to much for the b-bbc to mention the name of the monitoring group.
“Walt Disney has not yet commented on any copyright infringements.”
Eh walt disney died of cancer on december 15th 1966, perhaps it should have read the walt disney company has yet to comment.
But they did walt disneys daughter called hamas pure evil, but the b-bbc woudn’t say that would they.
“Naughtie on radio 4 this morning was absolutely unbearable – I had to turn it off.”
Your’e not the only one…did you see the BBCs RAJAR figures today?
People are turning off in their 10s of thousands on a weekly basis……TalkSport was up 5%, and it’s billion pound competition from the BBC managed to lose just as many……
The BBC is obsolete…a sad old dying joke.
NEWARK, N.J. – “One of the six Muslim men suspected of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix had bomb recipes in his car and referred to Osama bin Laden as “Uncle Benny,” a former co-worker said Thursday”.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070510/ap_on_re_us/fort_dix_plot;_ylt=Aow7Arou3P1Wmr1IhMBpB3_MWM0F
Your’e not the only one…did you see the BBCs RAJAR figures today? People are turning off in their 10s of thousands on a weekly basis
Block 813 – Err I hate to burst this optimistic bubble but people don’t actually seem to be switching off the Today programme (more’s the pity).
Meanwhile, Radio 4’s flagship morning news programme, Today, has put on 280,000 listeners year on year nationwide, and now claims a weekly audience of 6.4 million.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/100507/rajar_listening_figures_bbc_speech_radio_radio4_five_live
truth will out,
walt disneys daughter called hamas pure evil, but the b-bbc woudn’t say that would they.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6637389.stm
what a pathetic report bbc,heres a few bits you missed out,from j.r’s
favourite newspaper..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/10/whamas10.xml
Saraa asks a young viewer by telephone how she would “sacrifice her soul for the sake of al-Aqsa” mosque in Jerusalem. “I will shoot,” says the girl, “we will annihilate the Jews… I will commit martyrdom.”
Another child tells Farfour: “It is the time of death, we will fight a war”.
Oh FFS!
BBC’s Johnston wins press award
BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was abducted in Gaza nearly two months ago, has won a major journalism prize at a London awards ceremony.
He was named broadcast journalist of the year by the London Press Club for his work reporting from the Gaza Strip.
Words fail me.
I don’t understand these supposed listening figures.
I question how they are compiled.
I have talked to large and diverse group of people from work, church, sports, clubs, family and friends – NOT ONE is listening to the BBC nationally more (1,3 and 4 were particularly disparaged, 2 and 5 less so), the evidence for local radio was more mixed, but plenty were listening to the BBC less or not at all.
I admit this is anecdotal rather than scientific and perhaps its speaks volumes of my different social circles but this is based on well over 50 people I have made a point of speaking to in the last year or so.
In fact if it wasn’t based on several different groups I think I would be known as a one track mind sad act.
Strangely enough in at least two different social groups cases it was not me who brought this up so I think the BBC is successfully causing controversy if nothing else!
Being of special interest to me I have specifically brought up the Toady programme and PM on several ocassions and though several said they had stopped listening (me included) others said they had started to do so, in fairness I think that is a mixed result.
Are the figures compiled on the same basis as television viewing figures or by some other means?
Watch the “Palestinian ‘Mickey'” for yourselves:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21699862-661,00.html
The only surviving child of Walt Disney has called Hamas “pure evil” for using Mickey Mouse to teach Islamic radicalism to children.
Diane Disney Miller said she was disgusted that a rip-off of her father’s iconic cartoon character was being used on a new Hamas TV show to encourage Palestinian children to take up arms against Israel and America.
“Of course I feel personal about Mickey Mouse, but it could be Barney as well,” Ms Miller, 73, told the New York Daily News.
“It’s not just Mickey, it’s indoctrinating children like this, teaching them to be evil,” said Ms Miller, who owns a winery in northern California.
“The world loves children and this is just going against the grain of humanity.”
…
“What we’re dealing with here is pure evil and you can’t ignore that,” Ms Miller said.
…
Hamas officials denied they were using the show to incite children against Jews.
“Our problem is not with the Jews,” Yehia Moussa, a Hamas leader in the movement’s Gaza Strip base, told The Associated Press.
“Our problem is with the (Israeli) occupation and the occupiers.”
Yeah, right.
BioD
Re “Broadcaster of the Year: previous winners have been
2000 Sue MacGregor, BBC Radio Today programme
2001 Orla Guerin, BBC TV
2002 Andrew Marr, BBC TV
2003 Rageh Omaar, BBC TV
2004 Rachel Amatt, Sky News
2005 Caroline Hawley, BBC TV
so it’s hardly a surprise.
Umbongo | 10.05.07 – 5:45 pm
No surprise that Johnston has probably been given the award more for his status as martry/hostage than for the quality of his reporting. I’d bet the decision was made after his abduction.