Andrew McCann has written of his attempts to put his views across to the Beeb over Sweenygate. I am referring, of course, to the bullying, hectoring behaviour (caution, highly entertaining stuff) of the BBC’s fearless sleuth, John Sweeney, as he ventured into the deep hidden danger facing us all from Tom Cruise’s religion, Scientology. McCann’s words are well worth reading. Summary account of the incident here.
He points out the BBC’s complacent reliance on the freedoms accorded them in the US and UK. He demonstrates what true objectivity might mean- the fearlessly equal treatment of all on an equal basis. His analogy was the most obvious one going- between the BBC’s treatment of Scientology and its treatment of Islam- but the point is a deep one.
Talking of his approach to the BBC’s phone-in minders he says:
“I posed a rhetorical question as to whether Sweeney would have lost his temper if treated in the same way by Muslims outside the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. In other words, would Sweeney have behaved that way had it not been for his own prejudices and the environment in which he found himself?”
Indeed. PS. I notice that Sweeney has done investigations in Saudi Arabia, but one does indeed wonder if he treated the Saudis as imbeciles as he did so, or whether it was their religion he was interested in targeting.
Any chance of the BBC actually doing an investigation into the corruption at the World Bank and the real reasons why Soros et al are trying to undermine Wolfie’s attempts to stop corruption etc given that dozens of World Bank staff have been sacked, arrested or are under investigation for corruption?
You know, the sort of thing Channel 4 does so well nowadays that the BBC for all its billions cannot or will not do?
Merci!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2007/05/papers_tell_different_stories_1.html
The way different papers such as The Guardian reported the story compared with the Washington Post and NY Times….guess which version the BBC are pushing?
dave t 15.05.07 – 10:48 pm
You posed a question to the world’s most impartial news organisation:
Any chance of the BBC actually doing an investigation into the corruption at the World Bank and the real reasons why Soros et al are trying to undermine Wolfie’s attempts to stop corruption etc given that dozens of World Bank staff have been sacked, arrested or are under investigation for corruption?
The answer to your question is “no”.
Am I right or wrong, John “impartial” Reith?
Hello Bird hunter, I’m one whole minute into that video.
Ultraviolets, JBH. I’m gagging with excitement here. Can you let us know just as soon as you’re finished!
I’ve got Project Two on the launch pad right now! Check out last month’s BB post on The Inquirer’s razor-sharp analysis of the BBC. Much to admire in it, of course, but there is one killer phrase which sums the bastards up. Those tax thieves out at Shepherds Bush employ newsreaders who are: “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”.
I’ve loaded the perfect track on to the mp3 player and it’s yours to use soon as you like…Pulp’s “Common People”.
Nails it in in one, I’d say.
HillHunt:
Something tells me you’re rattled. I like it. I like it a lot. And I’ll like it even more when the Internet gets plagued with videos of real-life press articles about real-life BBC bias. All it takes is a sponsor to come forward and it will happen.
Anyone got Lord Ashcroft’s phone number?
JBH
What I dont understand John is why you have persused this so much when you are clearly on a complete hiding to nothing.
The only way the BBC would ever investigate this properly never mind make a documantary and the BBCs role in it. Is if it was infact tottal nonsense and could make you seem a right wing lunatic moron or a simpleton fool.
What on hell was you expecting the BBC to do. A documentary outlining the BBCs blantent abuse of their power in order to directly influence government elections?
Christ! Not even God himself would do that. The BBC is many things including god like but selfdestructive by nature it has never been.
Were you one of those kidds at school that used to cry untill you went red in the face when you did not get your own way?
However dont give up anyway and good luck.
The problem, JBH, is that too many people are obsessed with “Reality” instead of being interested in reality.
If you could somehow work in a singing, dancing, ice-skating, modelesque reality/soap star your message would be national within hours.
Gary Powell:
“Were you one of those kids at school that used to cry until you went red in the face when you did not get your own way?”
That made me smile. No Gary, I was a nice, normal, child, who believed in good over evil, said my prayers, and was even a statutory chorister for five years in Manchester Cathedral Choir.
So what would you do Gary in my position? The best thing I’ve ever achieved in my entire life is exposing a truly fantastic story of how The Guardian helped oust from power the last Tory government with a bogus story hung on a liar’s endorsement, following which the Guardian escaped redress by enacting a criminal cover-up.
If I am right, and I am right, this story is the biggest weapon to expose the dishonesty of The Guardian and its mouthpiece the BBC that there ever could be.
But for some reason that I can’t at all fathom, even those who one might have thought would be my natural supporters don’t see my work as a weapon in their armoury but instead think that I should walk away from this story, let the liars succeed in having had their lies accepted, and go and get a job driving 44-tonners.
I’m not a conspiracy-theorist and I’m not going to die being remembered as one. I’m a good investigative journalist who uncovered the story of a lifetime. So now you know.
And thanks for your good wishes.
Wayne:
That made me smile too. Thanks.
Holy Poo Poo,
Is Jonathan Boyd Hunt like a proper human being and everything? Complete with significant job? (self employed or otherwise).
“We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb”
Iran should be attacked before it develops nuclear weapons, America’s former ambassador to the United Nations said yesterday.
Mr Bolton’s stark warning appeared to be borne out yesterday by leaks about an inspection by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Iran’s main nuclear installation at Natanz on Sunday.
The experts found that Iran’s scientists were operating 1,312 centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium. If Iran can install 3,000, it will need about one year to produce enough weapons grade uranium for one nuclear bomb.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ZOJHLOBXEOCEHQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/05/16/wbolton16.xml
And again on radio 4, the slant on the Wolfowitz fit-up is breath-taking. Naughtie’s interview with the female ‘chair’ of the World Bank’s Staff Association was another notch on the BBC’s pole of soft/biased questioning. Still no mention on the confirmed fact that Wolfowitz sought to recuse himself from proceedings concerning his girl-friend but was told by his (now) accusers that it was best to obtain her transfer to a position elsewhere. BTW, given that Wolfowitz is clearly an intellligent and capable man, is it beyond expectations to believe that his girl-friend would also be intelligent and capable i.e. worthy of promotion??
The Today programme just surpassed itself (if that’s possible) in their interview with MP Andrew Phillips about the situation in Gaza. According to Phillips the anarchy, poverty and fighting are entirely the fault of America, the Israelis and the British. He actually said that since the Israeli pullout, Gaza had become an “occupied prison” without any apparent sense of contradiction. (suggesting that the Israelis shouldn’t have pulled out? – Montaquinn didn’t ask for clarification). He then had the chutzpah to call Haniyeh a “moderate” and denounced the “hypocrisy” of the West. The only intervention from Montaquinn was to suggest that the great Gordon could sort it all out.
Oscar
You beat me to it. What about this one from Phillips:
“Frankly to hell with America”
“Frankly to hell with America”
Abandon ship! | 16.05.07 – 9:07 am |
Yeah – incredible wasn’t it – and not a murmer from Montaquinn.
I just checked the ‘Listen Again’ facility for Today and the Andrew Phillips interview isn’t there at the moment. I wonder why?
Gary and the other call me dave apologists.
http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=4944828
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6658613.stm
As I said I do not accept the line that all his IBC spin is just a show till he gets into power.
This is the evidence you need to show that all he wants is the Conservatives to be New Labour II.
It will not do.
Cameron has left Britain.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010050
says it all. I didn’t hear the Today piece but frankly all I have ever heard from the BBC is that Wolfie is bad, he tried to help his girlfriend and he’s now trying to wriggle out of the consequences.
It’s disgusting bias which routinely omits the fact he tried very hard to get out of making the decision himself because of the patent conflict of interest.
Is this the standard of broadcasting we should expect? nope
Hillhunt
You seem to have missed out on the concept of a blog.
This is not the BBC.
There is no editorial line.
We are all contributing as individuals without any editing.
We are not paid by anyone to contribute.
Mostly we do not even know who the other contributors are.
We are like minded to an extent or we would not be contributing here.
Your constant repetition of the same line in almost every post you make is hugely boring.
Your assumption that we do not read any of your previous posts is one that we are coming to wish was true but alas is not the case.
The fact that one person wrote of the young persons with inpenetrable regional accents is for them individually.
Where is the surge of other agreeing with that on here?
Nowhere, because such a reaction did not exist.
I assume that you have a strong regional accent and that you are young, or you would not be so outraged.
Personally I have no problem with a regional accent, in fact I have one myself.
I am concerned by the age issue though as I worry by your general level of comment that you are still of compulsory educational age and that you might be posting when you should be in lessons.
I trust posting here is not causing you to bunk off.
rightofcentre:
I really can`t believe that Newsnight are inviting nominations for a “Brown Nose Award”
Did anybody else see J. Paxmann on the American The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night (More 4) plugging his book “On Royalty”. A classic quote from Paxo that should be put on YouTube
“I’m only talking bollocks to amuse you”
JR
The BBC does not ‘refuse’ to report Mr Wolfowitz’s initial attempt to recuse himself. The BBC has reported it many times. But we are way beyond that issue now.
No, whereas the BBC has mentioned it (usually in passing rather than as the most significant point of the whole case) earlier on but now routinely omits it, which creates a false and unbalanced impression about his guilt.
Will we see more champagne bottles littering the floors of BH if he is deposed by this witch hunt?
Paxo was laughing along as happy as a sandboy in the interview at the suggestion that our Royalty are “genetically inbred” and why the Palace has never been “stormed” before.
Worth remembering next time BBC Newsnight have a “serious” discussion led by the “serf” on the Monarchy!
BBC objectivity is our watch-word
Will we see more champagne bottles littering the floors of BH if he is deposed by this witch hunt?
D Burbage | 16.05.07 – 11:06 am
The Woflie witch hunt is truly sick making. Yourself, Dave T, and others have made mincemeat of JR. Could you just imagine how different the coverage would be if a left wing Democrat was being hounded out of a right leaning institution in this disgusting manner?
Is it just me or is the Wolfowitz issue p*ss in the wind. It might well be that he’s facilitated a few extra k to his bird, but really what’s a couple of hundred grand in the context of a multibillion dollar multinational institution.
If the whole thing is a proxy for a battle between Wolfowitz’s and Europeans policy ideas then why can’t we have some detailed analysis of this? At the moment one has to read deep into the Economist and the like to find some. My perception is that W has done a very competent and pragmatic job (in stark contrast to former Bush administration types farmed out elsewhere), but I’d like to see some expert opinion on this and the alternative view.
While Kassam rockets continue to rain down on western Negev the BBC’s Middle East section offers the following headlines:
Dawn raid shatters Gaza ceasefire
Israel Jerusalem policy condemned
Israelis held over ‘hate’ murder
Gaza violence
A Palestinian in Gaza City describes life ruled by the gunmen
Under the gun
Bullets and not politicians are doing the talking in Gaza
Hebron turned into ‘ghost town’
There’ll be no mention by the BBC of the Kassam attacks until Israel takes action to stop them, then we’ll hear about Israeli “incursions” etc.
The BBC and half the story.
Robbiekeane | 16.05.07 – 11:28 am
I agree, this whole Wolfowitz thing is such a non-story. It has me switching off quicker than when watching “Victoria’s Empire”.
I assume it’s only a story because Bush spoke up for him.
Maybe if Bush speaks up for Kofi Annan then the BBC will report on the scandal involving him to a similar extent. Or maybe not…..
baggiejonathan
Cameron has not left Britain because common to all PMs but Thatcher none of them ever have been completely here, in order that they could completely leave.
To my knowledge none have had proper jobs or anything like normal lives.
I am only giving advice which you are under no obligation or presure to take. However it is less then grown up or personally responsible to refuse to eat your dinner ever again just because your mummy insists on giving you carrots that you do not like very much. You will only starve to death and that helps no one.
Today is Alan Johnston’s birthday.
On BBC Five Live Message Board – World News, an islamic warrior (Documentaryevidence) is allowed to post garbage:
Did Israel abduct Alan Johnston?
I tried to start threads on Alan Johnston but my post(s) were banned.
BBC Mods are just Hypocrites
Jonathon Boyd Hunt:
“The best thing I’ve ever achieved in my entire life is exposing a truly fantastic story of how The Guardian helped oust from power the last Tory government with a bogus story hung on a liar’s endorsement”
It says so much that the BBC and the Guardian refused to publish your scoop. Bastards (and bastards with impenetrable regional accents, I have no doubt).
But they have many rivals in the media… enemies, almost. They must have been bursting to broadcast the glad news. The Mail? The Telegraph? One of Mr Murdoch’s many outlets – boy, does he resent the Guardian/BBC pinko conspiracy – surely? ITV? Channel 4? Dispatches? Fox News? Horse and Hound? The Spectator, perhaps? I know… Richard Desmond’s family-values empire – the Star, the Express or even Red Hot Filth or whatever he calls his smut channel?
We’re bound to read all about it in one of them soon.
Surely?
Hillhunt – I stopped reading Horse and Hound once Hugh Grant left them as their star reporter to live with some bint in Notting Hill.
Oscar/JimBob et al. We see again the same sort of witch-hunt that the BBC led against John Bolton. Amazing how whenever a liberal institution reeking of corruption such as the UN/World Bank/EU etc are handed over to guys who try to make them work and perfrom to acceptable and legal standards then the knives come out with anon emails etc. Whistle-blower after whistle-blower who exposes corruption in the EU/UN etc end up being sacked or hounded when the real guilty people such as Neil Kinnock and those who failed time and again to get a grip of the EU fraud are moved or promoted!
More to the point WHY is Malloch Brown c/o George Soros allowed to address the World Bank staff in the building? Will I be allowed to do the same next Thursday after school because I have just as much right as he does! ANother question is why are the BBC not pointing out the Chinese connection – ie stop trying to stop corruption or we won’t play any more. And in the same breath the BBC put up a puff piece on China appealing for the rest of us to help Africa. Yeah right – the Chinese are asset stripping Africa across the whole continent!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6660341.stm
this report was changed – it originally said this morning that China calls on the world to help Africa more with little about the Chinese role in Africa. Hmm…
All these questions and more are being asked by newspapers and media in the US/UK/Oz and not just by the so called “right wing evil Nazi Murdoch press empire titles”. Even the New York Times etc are reporting some of the other side if not all. As usual the BBC are put to shame. If Malloch Brown gets the job then watch the loans flooding out to anti American countries and governments….
The BBC act as apologists for the thugs in Iran. Compare and contrast:
“Human Rights Watch expressed concern that Iranian authorities have subjected Esfandiari to arbitrary detention and coercive interrogation.
But according to the IBC:
“Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the arrest of Haleh Esfandiari was lawful and she would be treated like other Iranian nationals.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6652533.stm
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/12/iran15914.htm
While al-Beeb never tires of telling us how overcrowded Gaza is, and how poor and hungry it’s inhabitants are, take a look at the home of “top Fatah official” Abu Shbak:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6660227.stm
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42932000/jpg/_42932075_shbak203ap.jpg
Even BBC Radio 2 Travel muppettes are at it! 1055, today (16 May) – hear ‘Bobbi’ [I bet it’s spelt with an ‘i’] and the unamusing Scot do a little double act being rude about the new French president. Why? Stay listening and hear the news bulletin, which briefly mentions the swearing-in of the new ‘right-wing’ president….
Hillhunt
Lunchbreak…
Trolling with an inpenetrable regional accent.
Bouncebackability.
End break bell rings…
Biodegradable:
While al-Beeb never tires of telling us how overcrowded Gaza is, and how poor and hungry it’s inhabitants are, take a look at the home of “top Fatah official” Abu Shbak:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6660227.stm
From Bio’s link:
Later Hamas gunmen ambushed a jeep and mistakenly killed five fighters from their own side detained by Fatah men.
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
Looking for a recent but now closed IBC (D)HYS.
I came across the eurovision one.
Total comments : 5488
Published comments : 2255
Rejected comments : 284
Well my maths tells me that leaves 2949 comments which whilst not actually de jure rejected have in fact been de facto rejected.
Only 41% published, was this typical?
I checked others
Tony Blair legacy 40% published
Smoking and driving 46% published
Doctors jobs 89% published
Only published if it fits the agenda it would seem…
How odd. A moderated comment page that, er, moderates its imput.
Damning, too, that they censor the Eurovision page. What have they got to hide?
Of course! “Excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”
Hillhunt
troll zzz…
Troll? zzzz?
Be fair. Eurovision is stuffed with “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”. Practically a definition of the show: I’m bang on topic with that one.
Still waiting for details about the imminent publication of Mr Boyd Hunt’s magnum opus on the Guardian/BBC criminal nexus.
Should I renew my acquaintance with the News of the Screws, perhaps? Or possibly the Harrods House Mag?
Hillhunt 16.05.07 – 12:06 pm
There have been quite a few articles. You’ll find some of them here, interspersed with testimonials like this one from Iain Dale.
But such is the BBC’s suffocating Orwellian power in this country, unless it’s on the Beeb, no matter what the story is, it fizzles out within a day or doesn’t even get to fizz in the first place.
By its very nature, the BBC’s propensity for bias through omission is impossible to detect unless it concerns its failure to report a newsworthy event that has been placed into the public arena by one or more of the organisations that make up Britain’s mainstream media.
Remember the Mail on Sunday’s exposé of Cherie Blair’s financial dealings with convicted fraudster Peter Foster, published in 2002? In this case, not only did the BBC fail to report the story for days, BUT SO DID ALL OF BRITAIN’S OTHER NEWSPAPERS, BROADCASTERS, AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, BRITAIN’S PRINCIPAL NEWS AGENCY THE PRESS ASSOCIATION, ON WHICH BRITAIN’S MEDIA RELIES.
In fact, “Cheriegate” constitutes a remarkable case study showing how the British media’s news journalists are given to act in concert to suppress a story. Indeed, the story would have suffered a quick death had not the Daily Mail used its colossal clout to force it out into the mainstream by publishing headline articles day after day, together with op-ed pieces fielding attacks on all other newspapers plus the Press Association in which the Mail is a major shareholder.
As a case study Cheriegate begs the question: if British news journalists and editors can act in such concert in order to try and bury a sensational story involving the Prime Minister’s wife and a convicted fraudster, no less, splashed as it was across the front page of one of Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday newspapers, how then might they react to news of an investigation by two lowly provincial freelance journalists, exposing how the iconic Guardian had perverted one of the biggest Parliamentary inquiries in decades and then had succeeded in duping each of the organisations that make up the media into accepting and repeating its false versions of events?
More follows
Continuued:
And Cheriegate isn’t the only example of a news blackout to surface. Remember Charlie Kennedy’s drink problem? Apparently the whole Westminster press pack had known about it for months. That story only broke out because ITN’s Daisy MacAndrew decided she didn’t want to play ball.
Under the late great Frank Johnson The Spectator gave me so much coverage The Guardian was provoked into publishing a double-page splash attacking The Spectator for doing so. And yet, despite the newsworthiness of such a media spat broadcasters still kept the story buried.
Don’t forget what Robin Aitken said at the conclusion of his interview with Tim Montgomerie of 18 Doughty St. “We need a version of Fox News in Britain.” (I paraphrase). My own experience is as much proof as anyone needs that that is exactly what we need.
I think that answers your argument.
Ye-e-e-e-s.
I particularly like the leader in the journal of Chartered Institute of Journalists (funny how little we hear of the CIOJ, and how sad, too) which reads: “I cannot say whether Jonathan Boyd Hunt’s allegations are true.”
Conspiracy proven, then.
Rusbridger – out. Thompson – out.
JBH: Code Red it is. Bring your “impenetrable regional accent” and let’s roast some pinko zombie ass….
I found an interesting comment on Beb’s Have-your-say. I wonder how did they published it?
“Why is the BBC not reporting the dozens of missiles that are currently falling over mainland israel shot from gaza? Residents of sderot in the negev desert are being evacuted and many have been injured. The BBC finds space to right about a knife killing by a psychologically ill French-Israeli, an event that does not represent anything, yet the bombardment of a civilian population with dozens of kassam missiles goes unmentionned. Interesting choice of stories.
anton, jerusalem”
During these two days, 15.05 – 16.05, 40 Qassam missiles were fired on Sderot, Negev and the vicinity of Ashkelon. There are wounded, schools are closed, people are leaving the city of Sderot. Neither BBC nor CNN nor Sky report it.
Oscar: I wasn’t aware that Haleh Esfandiari is an Iranian national. I thought she was a US citizen. Seems Al Beeb doesn’t care though – let’s all be Iranian nationals so we can enjoy the fair treatment by the Mullahs.
Arm op delays Abu Hamza hearing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6662189.stm
Abu Hamza lost his hands and one of his eyes in a mine explosion while working on reconstruction schemes in Afghanistan in the 1990s
Bullshit! Where did the writer get that bollocks from? This piece of Dominic Casciani twaddle?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3752517.stm
Actually, it was a “work place” (well mujahid training school) accident…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article641949.ece
One day Assad Allah told us about an accident that had occurred during his own explosives training. His group was learning how to make nitroglycerine, and one of the brothers wasn’t paying attention. He let the materials get hotter than he should have.
Luckily, the trainer saw the thermometer. “It’s going to explode!” he shouted.
There was a sink full of ice right next to the trainee, and he should have poured the materials on that to cool it down. But instead he rushed towards the door with the liquid timebomb in his hands. Just as he got outside, the mixture exploded. It blew both his hands straight off and destroyed one of his eyes.
“Did the brother survive?” I had asked. “Yes,” Assad Allah replied. “He lives in London now, and preaches in the mosques. His name is Abu Hamza.”
Good Afternoon.
Sorry Bit late in today-but I did see on BBC WN some rather frightened journalists trapped in gunfire in Gaza.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6660227.stm
And not an Isreali to be seen?
Tell us JR…how is the search for your pal AJ going? Getting lots of co-operation for all the good work you’ve done I bet….
So Harry not going to sunny Iraq:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6663053.stm
Wouldn’t be anything to do with this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6660585.stm
‘Chlorine bomb’ hits Iraq village
“At least 32 people have been killed and 50 injured in a suspected chlorine bomb in Iraq’s Diyala province, police say.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6660585.stm
Usually this sort of mayhem is jumped upon as “I told you so” story so why not this?
Plenty of death and carnage here?
Now I seem to remember being told “categorically no chemical weapons in Iraq and only crack-pots and lunatics think that Saddam hid them”….
Another (D)HYS not going the way Beeboids would like…
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=6316&edition=1&ttl=20070516174213&#paginator
Jerry Falwell: Your comments
Absolutely not Your Tributes!
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&threadID=6319&edition=1&ttl=20070516174655&#paginator
Well IiD, chlorine is a verrry common chemical used in industry. They could have stolen it from anywhere, they could have got it from Iran and not saddam. Though if Saddam did hide chlorine gas there’s no reason why he shouldn’t.
But yes, as a chemical weapon it has great terror value – a gruesome death to scare the enemy.