Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
While I’m here, a little plug for my next post coming up in a few minutes. It’s about the BBC’s readiness to entertain a foolish anti-Israeli conspiracy theory about the Entebbe raid. My view is that, given that we have had thirty-plus years of Palestinian terrorism, I would really need rather a lot of evidence to take seriously the claim that what appeared to be Palestinian terrorism was actually a plot concocted in secret alliance with its apparent victims. Unlike the BBC who report this claim seriously ‘cos some guy said it.
I am equally sceptical and for the same reason of the claims made by some commenters below that Alan Johnston must have engineered his own kidnap because he apparently set out to meet his kidnappers. He was trying to get a story. That’s how Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, too. Palestinian/Islamist terrorists kidnapping people is not so rare an event as to require convoluted explanations.
And I’ve banned “the_camp_commandant” for nastiness on this subject unleavened by any trace of legitimate debate.
‘Boycott reminiscent of totalitarianism’
Baroness Cox, who served as a former deputy speaker at the House of Lords, lampooned in the interview the disturbing alliance between the Left and Islamists in the UK.
“This very unnatural alliance is part of the present ethos and culture of political correctness which some of the media defer to and which shapes the emotions and understandings behind the proposals for such a boycott,” she said.
Cox conceded that years of asymmetric reporting on Israel have impacted the way the British public view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even as she noted a “growing malaise” about the BBC’s anti-Israel reporting.
From the Observer report on BBC “cuts”
One of the BBC’s best-known correspondents told The Observer yesterday: ‘There isn’t a great deal left to cut. There have already been some savings, and the output is expanding. There is more work to do, more podcasts to record and more writing for the internet. I don’t know anyone who’s having an easy ride.’
As a former local government worker I find this very familiar. It was said throughout the 18 years of Tory misrule. But hey, it was still relatively cushy right thru until the New Labour rescue.
& the BBC using the same tactic as local government, waving the bleeding stump of the news service – something that is possibly justfied as licence funded – when there are endless hours of junk shop & house buying shows etc etc which could be axed.
“..You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.”
Isn’t this what the BBC are supposed to do?
Great apes ‘facing climate peril’
“Great apes are facing an “inevitable crisis” arising from climate change, a leading conservationist has warned.
Dr Richard Leakey said that growing pressure to switch from fossil fuels to biofuels could result in further destruction of the animals’ habitats.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6704549.stm
What a misleading headline. It should be “Great Apes facing habitat destruction due to environmentalists obsession with climate change”
Maybe a bit long but more accurate.
Biodegradable:
Save the planet, eat a vegan
Horse & Hound | 03.06.07 – 2:08 pm
Is hillhunt a vegan?
Biodegradable | 03.06.07 – 3:06 pm |
Not as far as I’m aware, he just rants off at Jeremy Clarkson & Jeremy Clarkson wrote the article.
Another stinking smug socialist pig who rants off about Clarkson is one Will Self. The encapsulation of all things vermin. Tally Ho.
Jeremy Bowen’s highly selective revisionist analysis of the Six Day War on Saturday’s From Our Own Correspondent (no transcript available but suffice to say that all those poor Arabs states didn’t deserve the shit-kicking they got from the Israeli “Goliath” – kid you not) concluded with this barely concealed justification for current day Palestinian terrorism: “In 1967 Israel’s defence minister Moshe Dayan predicted that the Palestinians would use violence to fight the occupation. When a colleague asked him how he knew he said, ‘Because that is exactly what I would do if I were in their place.'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/default.stm
Can anyone source that quote? I can’t find it online and would like to know the exact date and context.
Jon:
This is George Bush on “Intellegent Design”.
“”Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about,” he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: “Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.”
Not sure that the BBC has to be impartial between science and idiocy.
A bit like asking them to achieve balance between NASA and Flat-Earthers.
But if Dubya thinks it’s OK, what can an honest chap say?
“Not sure that the BBC has to be impartial between science and idiocy”
I think you should read what I wrote – Even if Intelligent design is questionable or not was not my point. One post criticized Bush because of Intelligent design it was nothing to do with greenhouse emissions. The other post which was to the point and not off topic was censored.
the BBC seems besotted with Gordon Brown – they have been breathlessly reporting what Brown is ‘considering’ wrt terror laws – top story ALL day.
Its all put in a positive terms.
BBCs loathing for Tony Blair is responsible for “panty wetting” coverage of Brown. Blair took the BBC to the cleaners when they confronted him by fabricating the Andrew Gilligan story. Gavyn Davies … a Brownite .. was forced to quit and the BBC for once didnt have its begging bowel filled to overflowing. Hence the miniscule cuts it is having to contend with now.
If Brown sticks to his left wing statist aura the BBC as a statist left wing monolith will continue to fawn like a lap dog … probably a poodle on every word he utters.
Contrast the pictures they use to accompany stories on Brown, compared to the ridiculing images that they use to when posting stories about George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard.
Here for instance Howard looks like an aroused penius
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6716429.stm
Brown on the other hand looks the composed and magestirial defender of civil liberties (when he has just in effect announced proposed laws that infringe on civil liberties)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6716865.stm
How come ITV news can report Ahmadinejad’s latest prediction for Israel’s future (or lack of it) and the £3 billion/year tax payer funded bunch of ***kers can’t/don’t/choose not to.
Hillhunt:
Okay, so in your book there isn’t a God. No doubt you think this world is an accident – a jigsaw puzzle that would have assembled itself given infinity.
Hey, you might be right. Hey, it could even happen that if you drop a fifteen thousand piece jigsaw puzzle from a block of flats, a million times a day for eternity, one day the whole thing might just land fully assembled.
Try it for a few months and let me know how you get on. I reckon you’d be pushed to find two pieces landing interlocked, let alone the whole jigsaw puzzle.
Your dumb assessment of supremely complex concepts makes me mindful of a dog looking blankly into a television set, convinced that nothing so magical and inexplicable could have been the result of intelligent design. But TV sets are, and just because the dog doesn’t have the intelligence to work out how it came to be made doesn’t mean some superior intelligent and resourceful being – er, man, that is – didn’t design and make it.
In my belief that this wonderous world is not an accident (and that good should triumph over evil) I’m encouraged by the mathematical research into the probability of God of my old classmate from school, Stephen D. Unwin Ph. D., who, through exporing the “Bayes’ theorem” (don’t ask me – I only got maths ‘O’ level) concludes that the probability of the existence of God is around 67%.
Listen to Stephen Unwin’s interview by BBC Five Live here.
Stephen Unwin’s home page is here.
So maybe Dubya ain’t so stupid after all. Hey, who knows, once day you too might see the light.
JBH – Interesting thing this “Bayes’ theorem”
“If politicians understood Bayes’ theorem, then they could spend our taxes far more efficiently. If journalists understood Bayes’ theorem, then they would not let politicians get away with fallacious statistical arguments. And if everybody understood Bayes’ theorem, then politicians would be less tempted to advance those arguments in the first place. All our lives would be improved, as a result.”
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAA2B.htm
The BBC, its hatred of America and a meal of a story
Meeting the world’s heaviest man
To really appreciate Manuel Uribe’s size, you have to do a bit of lateral thinking. Picture in your mind an ordinary adult male. Then another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And, finally, one more. Seven fully grown men in all, standing in a line. Now, add up their weight. Only then would you be getting close to Manuel Uribe.
…………….
No-one knows for sure why Manuel joined the ranks of the hyper-obese, or morbidly obese, as his doctors call it. He lived for 14 years in Dallas, Texas, and he himself blames an unending diet of burgers, pizzas and fizzy drinks. But the doctors and other scientists are not so sure
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6612719.stm
I did a search on this man and came up with a large (no pun intended) number of articles on him. Not one mentioned that he lived in the United States. So do I presume from the above article that he became fat from spending approx 1/3 of his life in Dallas or can people become fat without having lived in the US. (Maybe the BBC should interview the obese people in the UK and ask them if they have visited Disney Land??)
Fact BBC
“Uribe was a chubby kid and weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17509907/
Fact BBC
For the past five years, Uribe has been bedridden
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2396655
Fact BBC
Specialists say that the Mexican man suffers from a very rare form of obesity. Manuel used to weigh only 130 kilos before. The situation went out of control several years ago.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/lifestyle/2006-09/11/content_686216.htm
Oh and BBC here is a picture which really shows this poor creature as he is;
http://pub.tv2.no/multimedia/na/archive/00245/Manuel_Uribe_245144y.jpg
Now the question I have to ask BBC if this man has been bed bound since 2002. Who has been provided him with food since then? The Americans?
The BBC, its hatred of America and a meal of a story
Jon | 04.06.07 – 12:09 am:
Blimey, this Beyes’ Theorem is quite something, eh? Chetham’s Hospital School scholars –
1) proving the existence of God
2) proving the controversy that “helped bring down the last Conservative government” is the invention of a criminal newspaper
– it’s what we do.
If you got HYS – visit it they are doing a survey and taking views from the visitors.
Here’s the opinion I posted under things I dislike about HYS:
1. Refusal to debate certain topics:
Examples:
– the widespread sectarian and race hatred in Mosques demonstrated on the C4 dispatches program – was ignored.
– no Have Your Say on the case of “Lina Joy” in Malysia a Muslim who was not allowed to change her religion by the law of Malysia.
2. Bias on behalf of those that set the questions
Example:
Catholic cardinal denounces abortion, and says Catholic politicians who back abortion should consider their stance on receiving Communion.
Have Your Say Debate question: “Should the church intervene in politics” ..Should politics and religion be kept separate?
Anglican Archbishop criticises the government over its case for war in Iraq and says that there has been a loss of trust in the political system.
The BBC invites comments on the following question: “Is Archbishop right to speak out against the government?”… Have you lost your trust in politics?
(See http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2007/05/interventions.html)
3. Bias on behalf of the moderators
Many harmless comments censored while other objectionable comments allowed.
4. Selectively Closing Debates early
“This debate is now closed” There is much evidence that you close debates early if they don’t go the way of a BBC (liberal left) mindset.
bijan daneshmand:
If I may say so, your original presentation of your theory (re Hamas, Alan J’s kidnapping etc) did sound a little bit like a slightly loopy ‘conspiracy theory’ – the sort of thing, I imagine that Natalie might fear would bring discredit to this site. However, your latest presentation (above, 10.21) is much more convincing and interesting. The point you are making is clearer (to me, anyway – perhaps I didn’t read your first effort carefully enough). That the whole thing might be a set-up by Hamas, and that the BBC might now know this, is certainly a possibility; but I don’t think one can say anything more definite than that at the moment. It will be interesting to see what happens.
The Rt Rev JBH QC:
Your dumb assessment of supremely complex concepts makes me mindful of a dog looking blankly into a television set, convinced that nothing so magical and inexplicable could have been the result of intelligent design. But TV sets are
God’s name is Sony?
Hillhunt:
I once knew an agnostic dyslexic insomniac – he used to lie awake all night, wondering if dog did indeed exist…
Pounce: great detective work. I’ve spent some time in the US and have managed to lose weight over there because I spend less time in front of the computer and because I drink less over there (we all know it’s cheaper to get plastered in the UK or Germany).
There was a great story on Spiegel Online (for once) about the G8 protestors going to McDonald’s for food. Hypocrisy? How do you spell that again???
Commisars of the global conspiracy survey the situation.
The BBC its hatred of Israel and half a story
How 1967 defined the Middle East
By Jeremy Bowen
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6709173.stm
The BBC its hatred of Israel and half a story
Tim Franks first report from Jerusalem on Today on what was billed as being about the Six Day War. It kicked off with a quick description of Israel’s victory making it sound as if they were purely the aggressors – with the caveat that “Most Israelis and most Jews around the world” believed they were in mortal danger. What only the jooos? Not everyone else? So far so bad. It then jumped straight onto the ‘checkpoints’ – their inhumanity etc. etc. No intervening history at all – just a tale of poor oppressed Pals. Franks gave one aunt sally of a caveat which he immediately knocked down – “the Israelis SAY checkpoints and the wall are to prevent terrorist attacks” (what – you mean they don’t prevent terror atttacks?) And then the next putdown. The Palestinians say the checkpoints are driving them to ‘resistance’. Franks only interviewed Palestinians – no Israelis at all. The report ended with an interview with a ‘moderate’ who called for the dismantling of all the Jewish ‘settlements’ around Jerusalem (i.e. the Jewish population living in the suburbs). Parting shot – ‘the Jews’ regard Jerusalem as their Holy and Everlasting City – but not one other country agrees with them. And the last word of this report? The last forty years have been a “curse”.
And Tim Franks hasn’t even been held hostage by Islamists for three months, but still manages to produce better propaganda than Alan Johnston supposedly speaking “under duress”.
these reports are going on all week and need to be watched. So far so absolutely one sided.
As Pounce always says The BBC and it’s hatred of Israel
“In 1967 Israel’s defence minister Moshe Dayan predicted that the Palestinians would use violence to fight the occupation. When a colleague asked him how he knew he said, ‘Because that is exactly what I would do if I were in their place.'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/progr…ent/ default.stm
Can anyone source that quote? I can’t find it online and would like to know the exact date and context.
Anonanon | 03.06.07 – 10:14 pm | #
I can’t source the quote either Anonanon but will try. But I think you can see how out of context it is – if indeed Dayan said it all – by this newspaper report from 18 August 1967
“Mr Dayan stating that he was expressing pesonal views said there could be no renunciation of Israel’s land of the Bible”
He absolutely was NOT in favour of giving up the land – al beeb once again mislead the public with their selective (or perhaps fabricated) use of information to distort the true history.
With reference to Oscar’s 8:14 post: It appears that the offending piece has been removed from Al-Beeb’s website.
#7 IN A SERIES OF ADMISSIONS OF THE BBC’S INSTITUTIONAL BIAS FROM BBC STAFF AND ITS LEFTWING ALLIES:
COPY AND PASTE INTO NEW DOC AND KEEP HANDY FOR REFERENCE IN FUTURE EXCHANGES WITH BBC BIGOTS
BBC journalists are aware of their duty to be impartial but they understand it intellectually not instinctively. While the BBC would never endorse one political party, its dominant attitudes are rigidly social democratic. Those values are so dominant that they are treated as virtues not opinions. It is why a BBC correspondent cried when Yassir Arafat died and a Today presenter referred to the Labour Party as “we”.
These political prejudices are innate because too few BBC employees have ever experienced life in the free market and those who have are often refugees from it. The corporation grows its own managers in preference to recruiting from outside and advertises for staff in left-wing newspapers. The left-wing consensus can only change if the BBC reforms its selection procedures and eradicates a hierarchy that is modelled on the Civil Service. Changes proposed by the present Director-General do not address these issues. They must, because the BBC does not accurately reflect the diversity of opinion in Britain.
(Former BBC News editor Tim Luckhurst, The Times, 8 April 2005)
Oscar,is your bood boiling yet? Mine is. Perhaps the best approach is to avoid the BBC reports from Jerusalem this week.
All I heard this morning was the slot from 8.10-8.25 on Today, and the BBC’s message was: “It’s all about the occupation”. Now where have we heard that before? In the background I could hear the crackling of paper being burnt, which was the BBC’s last copy of the Balen report.
You know the BBC are getting it seriously wrong when they are at loggerheads with Shimon Perez!
.
Re: Six Day war,1967 –
The following is an alternative piece to the recent BBC crap on the matter.
It incorporates behind the scenes and the wider geo-political context of the era, rather than just regurgitating current ‘in vogue’ stereotypes, canned views and PC narratives.
“The Soviets’ Six-Day War
By DANIEL PIPES
May 29, 2007
“One of the great enigmas of the modern Middle East is why, 40 years ago next week, the Six-Day War took place. Neither Israel nor its Arab neighbors wanted or expected a fight in June 1967; the consensus view among historians holds that the unwanted combat resulted from a sequence of accidents.
………..
Moshe Sneh, an Israeli communist leader and father of the country’s current deputy minister of defense, Ephraim Sneh, told the Soviet ambassador in December 1965 that an adviser to the prime minister had informed him about “Israel’s intention to produce its own atomic bomb.” Leonid Brezhnev and his colleagues received this piece of information with dead seriousness and decided — as did the Israelis about Iraq in 1981 and may be doing about Iran in 2007 — to abort this process through airstrikes.
Rather than do so directly, however, Moscow devised a complex scheme to lure the Israelis into starting a war that would end with a Soviet attack on Dimona. Militarily, the Kremlin prepared by surrounding Israel with an armada of nuclear-armed forces both in the Mediterranean and Red seas, pre-positioning matériel on land and training troops nearby with the expectation of using them.”
More Here –
http://www.nysun.com/article/55348
Perhaps this and other similar recent pieces are the reason why Al-beeb felt it had to get its dis-information in 1st.
.
.
Hundreds of jobs to go at BBC News
BBC News employs 2,000 journalists and has a £90 million budget, covering everything from Radio One to the World Service.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=F3IOLSJPVEXM3QFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/04/nbbc04.xml
I suppose you could say “No (BBC) news is good news”
Oscar,is your bood boiling yet? Mine is. Perhaps the best approach is to avoid the BBC reports from Jerusalem this week.
Abandon Ship
Oh yes – my blood has been boiling for around two hours now – can’t be good for my health – maybe I should just avold the dirty disinformation pouring out of al beeb.
You’re right about Shimon Peres – to get on the wrong side of him is quite something. And did you hear Jeremy Bowen’s snide little shot at Peres later on – when he said the interview showed he couldn’t shoulder the blame but could only blame ‘the other side’? (a gross bit of editorialising that I thought was supposed to be against the BBC guidelines – in effect it ws saying – Peres is prejudiced take no notice of him.)
OK – time to simmer down. It’s good to be amongst friends on this site at least.
Re ^
Look to:
Abandon Ship! | 03.06.07 – 6:12 pm |
who has it covered in the Observer.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2094286,00.html
I particularly like this bit;
Former foreign correspondent Martin Bell said: ‘The BBC is its own worst enemy when it deploys its resources wastefully, sending rival correspondents to cover the same event or flying presenters overseas to stand on rooftops.
That Beeb executives are considering closing down the excellent BBC Four rather than scrapping the high-ratings populist programmes shows how seriously the BBC takes its public service remit – I thought the whole point of the telly tax-funded beeb was to provide output that the commercial channels wouldn’t?
.
Further adventures of a GITMO old boy (completely innocent of course!) being duely ignored by Al-Beeb –
“Saturday, June 02, 2007 Editorial: Descent into nihilism and anarchy”
“A hundred-strong group of terrorists armed with rockets, hand grenades and automatic rifles, assaulted the house of a government official in the Tank district of the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) on Thursday and killed 13 men, women and children in an act of “Islamic execution”.
……..
The warlord offended with the family was one-legged Abdullah Mehsud, an old inmate of Guantanamo Bay released by the Americans some years ago.”
more here –
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200762story_2-6-2007_pg3_1
And I’m supposed to get all hot’n’bothered and climb out of my pram over Al-Johnston —– not in a million years pal.
.
Abandon Ship:
You know the BBC are getting it seriously wrong when they are at loggerheads with Shimon Perez!
How typical of the BBC to seek out a man whose miserable career extended no further than PM, Defence, Finance and Foreign Affairs, and who is currently a candidate for the Presidency as well as a Nobel Laureate.
Will no-one tell these Beeboids that we require a proper spokesman to put the Israeli case?
Biased BBC: Our Cake. And Eat It.
Bio: Apropos the recent nonsense about this:
Lecturers call for Israel boycott
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5029086.stm
And your comment here:
’I’m so glad that my mother, who lived through WW2, always forbade me from wearing anything black because she associated it with Oswald Moslely and Hitler’s blackshirts.’
Biodegradable | 03.06.07 – 12:05 pm |
My late uncle had a gift for languages and was fluent in 6 European languages. He wrote textbooks concerning foreign languages and was a lecturer in French and Spanish literature.
In the 30’s, having been a member of the Labour party he became one of Mosley’s blackshirts parading around London. He even talked my paternal grandmother into pasting ‘Jews Out’ stickers on walls.
In 1940 he was put in prison before he was conscripted into the Army to work as a private in the laundry section of the Pioneer Corps until the end of the war. He then became a member of the Communist party (I think up until the Hungarian Uprising) and then transmuted back into Labour and then finally the Liberal Democrats.
He was an intellectual of the first order without one bit of common sense in him. Another uncle once convinced him that the dipstick on his car engine was worn out
When academics start to pontificate I tend to head the other way. When the BBC starts to pay them head then its time to run.
Dennis The Menace:
And I’m supposed to get all hot’n’bothered and climb out of my pram over Al-Johnston —– not in a million years pal.
Please. Stay in the pram.
But while I’m on….
What is the connection betwen Johnston, Gitmo, and unfortunate events in remote Pakistan?
And who requires you to leave your baby-buggy in response?
Biodegradable | 03.06.07 – 3:12 pm,
That HYS debate has some fascinating and jarring moments – like PA (mis)Information Minister Moustafa Barghouti whinging that in ’67 the Palestinian economy was “crushed” by Israel and going on about Israeli “oppression” while in the background we see the 1st-world buildings, orderly green areas and paved roads of Ramallah.
The Israeli guest, Cabinet Minister Isaac Herzog, responds by pointing out that in fact the Palestinian economy boomed after ’67.
The discussion gets quite heated from around 30 minutes in with the two talking over each other and Lyse Doucet trying vainly to control them. Then Doucet ends the exchange, effectively booting Herzog out of the studio by telling him, “I know you have to leave us now.” Nobody knows what happened next because a few seconds later the screen is blocked by a couple of stills of Herzog and Barghouti and when we next see Doucet she is sans Herzog. Bizarre. He was not even given the chance to say, “Goodbye, thanks for having me on the show.”
Still, the show was pretty balanced, I thought. Quite extraordinary, for the BBC.
People are invited by the HYS team to continue the debate on the website. Go there
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&edition=2&ttl=20070604102832&messageID=2927468�
and you’ll find this
Added: Sunday, 3 June, 2007, 13:41 GMT 14:41 UK
Israel has no business existing, it is that simple and whatever is done to encourage them to go is only to be expected. Israel were the terrorists killing UK troops and people in order to steal Palestine. Never will Israel have a right to exist.
Imagine if they had stolen an area of land to make Israel in England, and the UN with no right to do so had accepted the theft. Nothing would ever stop the fight back until they were not in our land for all time. Any means would be OK. No time limit.
James StGeorge, London
Recommended by 28 people
A balanced debate followed by a Hamas-like call for yet more Jew-killing which clearly breaks Have Your Say’s own rules?
The BBC giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other.
From another informative piece by Melanie Phillips:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1537
The Alan Johnston video was clearly made under duress but the British licence-fee payer might must have wondered why Fatah al Islam bothered to kidnap him for eleven weeks in order to get him to blame Israel for everything — and blame Britain for Israel as well as for Iraq and Afghanistan — when such views are transmitted by the BBC virtually every day of the week. The Hamas/al Qaeda script on Israel is now the British orthodoxy. And this week’s 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War will usher in a wave of hate-fuelled demonstrations by people supporting those who are working on that same script towards the destruction of Israel, Jewish peoplehood and Jews worldwide.
Bryan | 04.06.07 – 10:48 am
Which rules do you think that post breaks?
Have you alerted a moderator?
jr
I always try to keep our exchanges amicable and will continue to do so, but your post above is a bit daft.
Have you alerted a moderator?
John Reith | 04.06.07 – 11:12 am |
It has been established on this blog to everyone’s satisfaction (with the exception of the apologists) that there is a cynical manipulation of the HYS posts and that ‘alerting’ a ‘moderator’ is little more than a joke.
I heard radio 4 this morning on the six-day war of 1967. The correspondent, whilst mentioning whether arab armies were massing to invade Israel, said “what is certain is that Israel went on to win…..”. Surely it is a matter of record that arab armies were massing to invade Israel. Such are the depths plumbed by the BBC.
Bryan:
Biodegradable | 03.06.07 – 3:12 pm,
That HYS debate has some fascinating and jarring moments – like PA (mis)Information Minister Moustafa Barghouti whinging that in ’67 the Palestinian economy was “crushed” by Israel and going on about Israeli “oppression” while in the background we see the 1st-world buildings, orderly green areas and paved roads of Ramallah.
One of the several emails I sent while the programme was on-air asked that Mr Barghouti explain exactly what economy had ever existed in “Palestine”.
I suppose it was fairly balanced, as these things go, apart from Barghouti being allowed to rant uncontrollably for far too long.
Allan@Aberdeen | 04.06.07 – 11:22 am
I heard radio 4 this morning on the six-day war of 1967.
Me too.
I turned on the Today programme at around ten minutes past eight.
First voice: an Israeli tour guide.
Then an Israeli former Brigadier General who was on the General Staff at the time.
Then a former Israeli para called Shimon Kahane.
Then a settler from Gush Etzion.
Then an Israeli novelist.
Then Shimon Peres.
By this time I was thinking – blimey aren’t they going to have just one Palestinian voice?
But instead of rushing here to complain about this ‘blatant pro-Israel bias’, I checked the Today website and found this was just one of a string of items on this morning about ’67.
I assume a piece of similar length on at around 7.15 must have had some Pally contributors. So -all in all- the thing probably balanced out over the whole show.
But imagine the outrage there’s be here if the Pallies had got the coveted 8.15 slot and the Israelis had had to make do with the 7.15!
TPO
Maybe you were on your recce in Alberta, but a while back someone posted here the fruits of an FoI request showing that the BBC outsourced its moderation to the same commercial agency that serves ITV, Channel 4 and a whole load of other corporations.
Since then I’ve taken allegations of ‘biased moderation’ with a pinch of salt.
John Reith:
will | 03.06.07 – 2:19 pm |
Perhaps Hillhunt can point me to where the BBC have distanced themselves from the NUJ proposals
Dunno about hh, but I can.
As John Reith is among us I will cheer him up by saying I thought the BBC DID give fair and balanced coverage to the UCU boycott debate on yesterday’s Sunday programme. An interview by Jane Little gave both Tom Hickey, the guy who put forward the boycott resolution, and Prof. Geoffrey Alderman speaking against the boycott, well judged questions and allowed proper space for adequate replies. It has to be said that Alderman was the better speaker, which meant that the case against the boycott was well presented. But this was R4 at 7.30ish on a Sunday morning, so it was hardly a prominent slot.
Any good effect was entirely wiped out by two hours of straight pro Palestinian propaganda from Jerusalem on Today this morning – coverage the terror groups themselves can’t improve on. And of course ratings are many many times higher on Today than they are for Sunday
Slightly amending Bryan’s statement – the BBC giveth (with a teaspoon) and taketh away (with a shovel).
Oscar | 04.06.07 – 12:02 pm
two hours of straight pro Palestinian propaganda from Jerusalem on Today this morning
Unbelievable.
See my last post.
I only caught ten minutes or so – but pretty much all was delivered in an Israeli accent.
But imagine the outrage there’s be here if the Pallies had got the coveted 8.15 slot and the Israelis had had to make do with the 7.15!
John Reith
I’m afraid this is a very crude way of assessing bias. According to you an Israeli interview = pro Israel. A Palestinian interview = pro Pal. You know very well it doesn’t work like this . The ground for the BBCs anti Israel bonanza this morning was set by Tim Franks report that went out at 7.15am – and I suggest you listen to it to discover quite how biased it was. It wasn’t billed as an interview with Palestinians – it was billed as an exposition on the 6 days war. It didnt do that – instead it set up a massively biased framework for everything that followed. Yes Israelis were interviewed after 8am but in such a way that they were framed ENTIRELY in terms of being ‘occupiers’ This was the only perspective given. There was NO information about terror attacks and persistent Arab refusal to negotiate, (from Nasser’s famous NO NO NO at Khartoum to Arafat launching the second intifada in 2000). NO information about Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories from Sinai to Gaza. NO reference to how the withdrawal from Gaza has lead to incessant rocket attacks on Israel and the rule of lawless militias inside the strip. NO mention that the Oslo accords led to the worst terror attacks on Israel they had ever known. In 1995 – at the height of implementation of the peace deal 149 Israelis died in suicide bomb attacks. But nothing on that. No mention either of the hostages being held by Palestinian terror groups – BBC sympathy only extended as far as Alan Johnston who got a statutory mention at the end. The whole programme was just one long relentless pounding, – you are illegal occupiers That was the one and only message delivered. So they interviewed some Israelis? So what – when you load the dice as totally as this?
There was NO information about terror attacks and persistent Arab refusal to negotiate, (from Nasser’s famous NO NO NO at Khartoum to Arafat launching the second intifada in 2000). NO information about Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories from Sinai to Gaza. NO reference to how the withdrawal from Gaza has lead to incessant rocket attacks on Israel and the rule of lawless militias inside the strip. NO mention that the Oslo accords led to the worst terror attacks on Israel they had ever known.
No mention of water either. :-/
Oscar | 04.06.07 – 12:02 pm
this was R4 at 7.30ish on a Sunday morning, so it was hardly a prominent slot.
Oscar | 04.06.07 – 12:24 pm
I’m afraid this {time slots} is a very crude way of assessing bias.
I’m with you there….but surely some inconsistency on your part?
According to you an Israeli interview = pro Israel.
Well not necessarily but I’d have to struggle to think of one that wasn’t.
I feel sure that the Brigadier General, the parachutist, the Gush Etzion settler, the novelist….and even Peres would qualify as ‘pro-Israel’.
As for this nonsense about ‘no mention of …..blah blah blah.’
I don’t know. As I say I only heard ten to fifteen minutes.
There was probably no mention of the Limerick pogrom either.
This was after all a look back at the Six Day War, not an entire history of Zionism from Herzl to the present day.
John Reith:
This was after all a look back at the Six Day War, not an entire history of Zionism from Herzl to the present day.
You just don’t get it do you?
That’s what we want at Biased BBC. All day, every day.
I feel sure that the Brigadier General, the parachutist, the Gush Etzion settler, the novelist….and even Peres would qualify as ‘pro-Israel’.
The people of course are ‘pro-Israel’ but what about the interviews themselves? The listen again links are “down for maintainence” so I haven’t been able to hear them yet, but are you saying that the John Bolton interview was pro-American?
There was probably no mention of the Limerick pogrom either.
OK John Reith – be facetious if you like. You obviously don’t care about accurate history – after all you do work for the BBC.
But bear in mind it’s on it’s history that Israel is being judged and condemned. How would you like to go to a court of law where only the case for the prosecution was presented? That’s what the BBC did this morning (and on many many other occasions too). These omissions ARE bias. And when it comes to Israel bias can kill.