Times – “Bias at the Beeb – Official“
There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you – that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West. The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded with something equally blindingly obvious. It said that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Almost anyone in Britain could have told the BBC that for free, but maybe it’s better to have it in an official report.
Even taking into account the small but insistent internal voice pointing out that the Times is part of the Great Satan Murdoch’s media empire, there’s not much to disagree with there.
” … what emerges from the report is a picture of an organisation with a liberal, anti-American bias and an almost teenage fascination with fashionable causes … the BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club.”
Telegraph – “BBC report finds bias within corporation”
The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded. The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased – and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.
After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial. But it says coverage of Live 8, the 2005 anti-poverty concerts organised by rock star campaigners Bob Geldof and Bono and writer Richard Curtis, failed to properly debate the issues raised. Instead, at a time when the corporation was renegotiating its charter with the government, it allowed itself to effectively become a promotional tool for Live 8, which was strongly supported by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Geldof, Bono and Curtis were attempting to pressure world leaders at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, which was taking place at the same time, to help reduce poverty in developing countries under the banner ‘Make Poverty History’.
Mr Blair said the campaign was a “mighty achievement”. The huge Live 8 concerts across the world were its culmination and the BBC cleared its schedules to show them, with coverage on BBC One, Two and Three and Radio One and Two. Around the same time it also screened a specially-written episode of Curtis’s popular sitcom The Vicar of Dibley that featured a minute long Make Poverty History video and saw characters urged to support it. And it aired another Curtis drama, The Girl in the Café, in which Bill Nighy falls in love with an anti-poverty campaigner – even giving Gordon Brown an advance copy. The BBC also ran a week long Africa special featuring a series of documentaries by Geldof and a day celebrating the National Health Service, prompting Sky News political editor Adam Boulton to tell a House of Lords select committee it was in danger of peddling government propaganda.
The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.
(En passant, the BBCs uncritical coverage of the millionaires Geldof, Bono and Curtis illustrates neatly a feature of modern philanthropy. In Victorian times a rich man with a conscience would put his hands in his own pockets to fund a worthy cause – a tradition which continues in America (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett) to this day. Across the water the favoured option of a charitably inclined multimillionaire is to get poorer people to fund your favourite causes via higher taxation – while in some cases avoiding such taxes yourself.)
Strangely the Observer headlines its report “Vicar of Dibley accused of breaking BBC guidelines“. Can’t imagine why. But they also have BBC insider Richard Tait’s view of the report.
UPDATE 18/06 – Commenter Richy is clairvoyant !
“If overly critical then surely the it’ll be placed in the “england” section or the “entertainment” section.”
“Entertainment” it is !
You can find the report here. Plenty of pdfs to get through. The “impartiality monitoring group” doesn’t look like a diverse cross-section of British political opinion to me – you do wonder what political perspectives the man who “co-founded the Democracy Coalition for Children and Young
People” or Kat Fletcher bring to the party.
More coverage at Times (also under Entertainment), Telegraph, Mail, more Sunday Times. Oh, and apologies for calling a BBC Trustee a BBC ‘insider’. Cultural misunderstanding … via commenter JBH, the Michael Crick anecdote about BBC execs all being Guardian readers. Sounds too good to be true – Mr Crick seems to have a puckish sense of humour. But I’m sure it “illustrates a wider truth”, as Dan Rather and Piers Morgan would say.
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | 19.06.07 – 11:30 pm
Sorry about the 24 hour delay in responding, but that’s work for you. I did indeed see Loyn’s Taliban interview/ feature on Newsnight last October and I recall being surprised at the time that the tone of the piece appeared to be difficult to distinguish from a straightforward panegyric to the subject of the interview (a summary (?) of which is still available on the BBC News south asia/Newsnight site). I ought to have been more specific in my criticism, for it was the Keane-esque pseudo-lyricism of the piece (which I think still comes across from the web version) rather than any failure on DL’s part to ask the right questions that continues to cause me concern.
David Gregory (BBC): I understand your reluctance to criticize a colleague and I accept your reasons for not doing so. But I think that if a topic on climate change is being discussed the interviewer should do a bit of homework first. Statements like “6,000 scientists agree on MMGW” is allowed to pass without comment. Every figure quoted by Al Gore should be divided by 10 and then it would still be an exaggeration.
If you are tempted to see the clip you can see it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q…related& search=
I know that you will be able to answer Peter Hitchins question to name a greenhouse gas.
Yes the report does not dismiss climate change. It does however show that other explanations are possible and that the climate models which are held up as evidence of CO2 being the culprit is on shaky ground to say the least. I have not read one paper that says climate change does not happen, it is the cause of climate change that is in dispute.
Sorry the link should be
“But in the case of Mr Gore I’m not sure I can be much more help.”
Actually I don’t think anyone can help Al Gore his symptoms are just too far gone for any remedial treatment.
Jon writes:
“I have not read one paper that says climate change does not happen, it is the cause of climate change that is in dispute.”
Precisely. Climate changes. That is (more or less) what ‘climate’ implies – a mutable state.
I’m genuinely pleased that Dr Gregory has joined our debate, but troubled that he is unwilling to tackle the issue of how a fraud like Al Gore is allowed to spout “science”, unchallenged by the BBC, when, by any useful definition, Gore’s testimony on ‘climate change’ is about as useful as that of Matthew Hopkins on the subject of witchcraft.
Dr G cannot defend the BBC by ducking the issue. His 1.30s may be impeccable. But what about the endless hours of arrant nonsense?
There is not bias at the BBC just because the BBC now says there is bias at the BBC. There may or may not be bias at the BBC. Nobody knows or can tell for sure, as bias is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
It is disgraceful that we are compelled to pay for the BBC’s version of the truth. We need to free the BBC from the licence fee so that its version of the news is as independent as all other news sources.
Who was embedded with the Taleban? When?
David Loyn. October 2006.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6081594.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6091532.stm
It was mentioned here on this blog at the time, but you weren’t trolling here then – probably revising for your mock GCSEs.
Ms Plett’s teary moment has been criticised publicly by the BBC. Everyone makes mistakes.
Oh yeah – funny how all these “mistakes” are in the same direction. Any Beebie weeping over Ariel Sharon being incapacitated? As if! If a Fox News reporter admitted weeping over Ronald Reagan’s passing you’d be all over that like flies on shit.
It says so much about this blog that it harbours people who actually believe that BBC staff want their own families put at risk from terrorism.
No, not their own families. You’ve just invented that. Their record however long demonstrates their lack of support for British troops in the field. As long as George Bush gets a bloody nose they don’t give shit about death tolls in Iraq or anywhere else.
David Gregory wrote:-
…when I do stories about people who baco-foil their bedrooms to block out the mobile phone signals because of health worries…
*Sigh* There we go again.
You’ve already made up your mind that those who dispute the need for a socialist solution to climate change are roughly intellectually equivalent to “those who baco-foil their bedrooms”.
Anon:
Who was embedded with the Taleban? When?
Loyn? Y-e-e-e-s. To gain temporary access is not the same as being embedded. That it?
Ms Plett? One sniff does not bias make.
It says so much about this blog that it harbours people who actually believe that BBC staff want their own families put at risk from terrorism.
No, not their own families. You’ve just invented that.
Really? Here’s John Boy | 18.06.07 – 10:58 pm:
the BBC is staffed by people who secretly wish the USSR had won the cold war, the IRA had driven the British from NI and feverishly await the next terror attack so it can be blamed on the disaster in Iraq.
And as for this…
As long as George Bush gets a bloody nose they don’t give shit about death tolls in Iraq or anywhere else.
No-one at the BBC has family or friends among the British Forces?
Biased BBC: Britain’s Got Talent. But None Of It Posts Here.
Al-BBC’s stance on Iraq is very similar to the Whig stance during the Peninsular War. There was nothing that would have suited the Whigs better than for Tory Wellington and his army of patriots to get routed by the “progressive” French. How they howled with rage when the buggers kept winning instead.
Gordon_Broon_Eats_Hez_Bawgies
“*Sigh* There we go again.
You’ve already made up your mind that those who dispute the need for a socialist solution to climate change are roughly intellectually equivalent to “those who baco-foil their bedrooms”.”
Woah! Hang on there!
Have I ever said I believe or report that the only solution to climate change is a socialist one? I’ve just explained the general process I go through as a Science Correspondent when reporting issues like this. As I said earlier, most scientists who study climate believe global warming is a reality and it is man made. But beyond that when it comes to what we do about this, well everything else is politics and up for debate.
I’m sorry if you feel the mobile phone comparison is wrong, but you know I still get emails from people saying I’m wrong when I talk about evolution and that God created everything. In my job I’m not going to put the views of creationists on air. People hold these views but my job is to report the scientific facts.
GCooper: I’m not sure what you want me to say about Al Gore. Two things inhibit my comments here, I’m employed by the BBC and so can’t really slag them off in public and secondly if I was very frank about something on here I do worry it might end up in the BBC “Sidebar of shame” on the frontpage 😉
So with that in mind I think I have to be honest about what I am prepared to say here. I can discuss my stories, how I work and more general science/environment reporting issues but beyond that I do have to be a bit cautious.
A deep debate about climate change might be of more interest somewhere like badscience.net
But that question from Peter Hitchens is a very good one!
David Gregory (BBC)“people saying I’m wrong when I talk about evolution and that God created everything. In my job I’m not going to put the views of creationists on air. People hold these views but my job is to report the scientific facts.”
So if creationists (& it seems, intelligent designists) are wrong, who or what did create everything, Mr Gregory?
David
Thanks for your contributions. Refreshingly free from the half-truths and evasions practised by our other Beeboids.
David Gregory,
Your acceptance of the theory of evolution as an unquestioned fact for a bbc science correspondent grieves me.
No, I’m not a creation scientist, but that does not mean they are not making some valid points (perhaps more the ID movement more than the ‘purer’ creation scientists).
Your dismissal of them without even considering them puts you up there with radical BBC agenda.
There are some problems with evolutionary theory, if push comes to shove even the Dawkins of this world would admit that things have had to be ‘amended’ to smaller or greater degrees over the years with the theory in order to fit the facts.
Over the years various hegemonies have dominated science in an almost fundamentalist religious way but many of these have either been amended, superceded or discredited.
Newton was totally in the ascendant before Einstein.
The four elements were accepted for centuries before our modern understanding of elements arose.
The BBC Science went hook, line and sinker for the asteroid killed all the dinosaurs line till quite recently and published it as fact, including for children.
Now it acknowledges that it is at least challenged and probably not the sole factor involved.
There was no getting round the what happened to the frogs argument.
Sometimes it is necessary for science correspondents to recognise that what is now scientific heresy may in future accepted as scientific fact behind the new hegemony and therefore consider and report alternatives on their merit.
Sometimes this in necessary even for BBC science.
*sigh* Oh dear. I really didn’t mean to upset anyone here who believes in creationism. And as a scientist and a journalist I do indeed realise that what is “heresy” now could become tomorrow’s fact.
What I’m trying to do here is explain the processes of my job and how I decide to fill up my one minute and thirty seconds.
As Science Correspondent if I do a story on evolution would you like me to include a creationism viewpoint for “balance”? If I did that then I really think to be fair I should at least mention “pastafarianism” too(http://www.venganza.org/). To really play devils advocate I guess I should also include something about Islamic creation stories as well.
With all that in mind I personally think my job as science correspondent is to stick to science.
Have I ever said I believe or report that the only solution to climate change is a socialist one?
The point is that you reached for an analogy of how you arrive at a decision to exclude certain viewpoints from discussion of climate change.
In doing so, you rather gave the game away, by reflexively and instinctively comparing people who don’t buy the IPCC line with loonies. And that Freudian slip is exactly the issue. There are undoubtedly some climate change heretics who are loonies, but the overwhelmingly majority are not and simply hold one or more of views 2a to 2m above in my previous post. There are also pro-Kyoto types who are loonies too – pretty much all of them, in my opinion – but you’d never dream of characterising them as such. It’s only those who don’t fall into line behind the big state solution who get that treatment. If you were trying to characterise the pro-Kyoto movement, would you characterise them as, say, the Roman church in about 1540? A great big gormless mass of ignorant opinion, none of whom has ever looked down a telescope, but every one of whom is adamant there’s nothing to see?
You might well argue that this is politics, and thus beyond the remit of a science correspondent. And you’d be right if this were science, but it’s not – it is politics.
Lots of science is political, but it is standard practice by those pushing a political agenda to dress the politics up as science to make it more palatable. For example, it is pretty much beyond argument now that there are three distinct human sub-types. Pharmaceutical companies put smaller doses of paracetamol in headache pills sold in Japan, most sufferers from sickle cell anaemia are black, and most sufferers from skin cancer are white. If the BNP started advocating the segregation into ghettoes of blacks to protect whites from sickle cell anaemia and blacks from skin cancer you’d see right through the fraudulent science in an instant because of who was saying it. Why no such similar scepticism to all science? It’s all paid for by somebody, and if it’s been paid for then somebody’s been bought.
Climate change (including both warming and cooling) is not “man made”, it is inevitable. Although some scientists believe that Christians are responsible for global warming (see http://pennance.us/?p=38 ) there is no evidence for the presence of Christians on, say, Pluto where climate is also changing. Since most scientists lack sufficient training in one or more of the areas (e.g., non equilibrium thermodynamics, statistics, atmospheric chemistry, partial differential equations, etc.) needed to arrive at rigorous conclusions concerning a system as complex as the climate, many so called “scientific” opinions should be treated as little more than anecdotal.
Gordon_Broon_Eats_Hez_Bawgies: First of all what makes you think I treat the people who think put baco-foil around their bedrooms as loonies? You may think that, but I don’t. Often these are people who have very real symptoms, who really are suffering and who believe their problems are caused by mobile phone technology.
My job is to explain the science as it stands. So I have no prolem with covering the “baco-foiled bedroom” story as long as we point out that so far no useful scientific study has found any evidence of an effect.
The two confirmed ways mobiles can make you ill are crashing your car because you are using one and worrying yourself sick about a mast (So it’s quite possible all these scare stories, while having no scientific basis, could make people ill. Oh the irony)
I reached for that analogy because its another issue alongside climate change with strong views. But my job is to report the science as it stands. And that’s what I try to do. I think very carefully about all this, which is why I don’t call the “baco foil brigade” loonies. And I apply just as much care and attention to issues like climate change.
I don’t ask for a so called balance.
‘Balance’ is not unbias.
What’s the point in ‘balancing’ right and wrong.
What I do expect is that scientific theories are at least examined whoever is suggesting them, not merely dismissed just because of who is making the theory or suggestion.
For example is an Islamic creationist states a fact that evolution does not predict or explain and suggests a mechanism that causes the occurrence and is in earnest in doing so I believe it should be looked at.
The fact of who it came from is in this case irrelevant even if I do not approve of the source for many reasons.
This is true of other branches and not just science, but it seems particularly true where scince meets another discipline, for example history.
Many have cast the lie that the Chrisitan church taught the world was flat in the middle ages and that everyone believed it.
It was also held that those that taught otherwise were persecuted for it.
Not only is this not true about the teaching it is also almost exclusively not true about the persecution.
They claimed that the church taught about the four corners of the earth.
Not so, go to Hereford Cathedral and look at the mappi mundi, from long before Columbus – the world depicted is round it has no corners.
If the BBC is so much better than the other broadcasters round the world as you claim perhaps it could start making an example of all the lazy ploughman’s lunches across the disciplines.
David Gregory – 2 quotes from you-
“But my job is to report the science as it stands.”
“What I’m trying to do here is explain the processes of my job and how I decide to fill up my one minute and thirty seconds.”
How can you possibly achieve the former, given the constraints of the latter?
This is listed under the BBC’s ‘Entertainment’ section:-
“BBC to fund C4 digital switchover”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6224572.stm
Shouldn’t that read:
“BBC licence-payers to fund Channel 4” ?
The glories of democracy, accountability, and spending other people’s money.
I do have a great deal of sympathy with David Gregory. He is right that 1 min 30 seconds of air time is not enough to put forward complex scientific theories. I have to say that if you check out most of the coverage of MMGW it is not a debate between scientists or even scientific correspondents who do the interviews. It tends to be “environmental” correspondents – such as Sarah Mukajee or Richard Black(?) – but by far the most coverage of any matters on MMGW usually comes from a left wing politician and a benevolent interviewer.
No doubt, Al Beeb will be reporting this tomorrow:
“New group for those who renounce Islam”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk (go to ‘News’).
David Gregory writes:
“I’m not sure what you want me to say about Al Gore.”
Oh, nothing, really. Even if you weren’t (very understandably) constrained by concerns about your employment, anything one says about Gore is dwarfed by the sheer arrogant stupidity of the man. What’s to say?
Indeed, I take Jon’s point and agree with him. My complaint isn’t with you, or your kind of journalist, and I don’t recall seeing many specific complaints here about hard science reporting.
Most complaints are (I believe quite rightly) addressed to the broader issue of the ill-informed commentary provided day in, day out, by the BBC’s talking heads. And I accept there’s not much you can do about that.
Incidentally, my apologies to Dr John Ray, whose name I spelled incorrectly, in an earlier comment.
Alan | 21.06.07 – 6:13 pm
Please do some research first and try not to give ammo to the beeboid trolls:
Ignore Islam, ‘ex-Muslims’ urge
David Gregory (BBC):
Two points I want to make.
The first one is that even if we accept there is a consensus, there are two groups of people who diverge from the consensus – those who are unconvinced by MMGW (or the solutions offered thereto) and those who routinely exagerate the effects or the likelihood. It seems to me that plenty of time is spent dismissing the former group in “tin foil hat” terms. However the latter group seems to be generally tolerated as “wrong but their heart” is in the right place. To take an example, the IPCC estimates of sea level rise has shown reductions over several reports. Yet I am routinely handed leaflets by the likes of the Green party which show rises way above even the high IPCC estimates. Surely some even handed ridiculing of the extremists is in order.
Take for example the ideas contained in the film “The Day After Tomorrow”. Clearly, there is a possibility that the gulf stream might change direction, but who seriously argues that it will happen overnight? Yet there are people (I’ve met them) who believe this stuff. One is a science teacher at my son’s school.
The second point I want to raise concerns the reporting of consensus. Many times in the past a consensus has been shown to be wrong. Usually this has resulted in no serious consequences. Examples might include the slow acceptance of tectonic plate movement or the big bang theory. The scientist faced a hard time but people didn’t die.
In contrast, we have several historical consensii (?) where the lack of challenge ultimately resulted in much death and suffering. An example being the virtually universal acceptance of eugenics prior to 1939. To evade Godwin’s law, let’s ignore Germany and go instead to Sweden for evidence which conducted a little known compulsory sterilisation program that ended only in the mid 1970s or the similar programs in Democratic US states. Consensus was against the transmission of disease by germs or John Snow’s discovery about Cholera. Consensus (albeit under more extreme circumstances) underlay the disaster caused by Lysenkoism.
Debates about global warming rarely challenge the putative solutions put forward by the green movement. Indeed several people who support the consensus view but offer an alternative solution (eg Bjorn Lomberg) are dismissed as global warming deniers. We hear a lot about saving the planet from warming but little about the potential dangers of preventing development that would be an inevitable byproduct.
In other words consensus in this case is not risk neutral. Challenging BOTH the advocates and the sceptics is essential because year zero solutions will cause deaths just as much as perhaps doing nothing.
Even the left wing Israeli press has no problem calling an Israeli a “terrorist” – why can’t the BBC call Hamas a terrorist organisation?
Suspected killers of Jewish terrorist unlikely to be indicted
Acre Magistrates Court Judge Moshe Alter reduced all restrictions placed on the suspected killers of Jewish terrorist Eden Natan-Zada, who was lynched by a mob after murdering four Israeli Arabs on a bus in the northern town of Shfaram in August 200
Jeremy Bowen’s Dazzling Verbal Gymnastics
“There is no dialogue with those murderous terrorists,” Mr Abbas said, referring to Hamas militants.
Thanks for the explanation Jeremy.
Biodegradable.
If ex-Muslims are publicly launching a meeting tomorrow, presumably they want publicity.
Mick McDonald:
David Gregory – 2 quotes from you-
“But my job is to report the science as it stands.”
“What I’m trying to do here is explain the processes of my job and how I decide to fill up my one minute and thirty seconds.”
How can you possibly achieve the former, given the constraints of the latter?
Bloody good question. It can be hard. But sometimes I get up to 2 minutes…
.
David Gregory (BBC) | 21.06.07 – 7:45 pm | #
——————————————————————————–
No one disputes that your task is a difficult one and that in a 1 – 2 min slot it is almost impossible to provide a fully rounded expose on matters such as the MMGW hypothesis.
However from time to time it should be possible to devote a slot to examining some of the contrary positions and cases.
Such as –
“Read the sunspots
The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change – and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling”
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4
and
“Will the sun cool us?”
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=17fad0e2-6f6b-41f3-bdd8-8e9eeb015777&k=0
and for a laugh –
“The Sound You Hear Is the Polar Bears Weeping Over a Photograph of a Stranded Human on a Dwindling Palm Springs Golf Course”
http://www.ninme.com/archives/2007/06/the_sound_you_h.html
The people concerned are not idiots and highly eminent in their particular field (apart from the last one).
Their carefully researched counter propositions at least deserve some airtime.
You at least owe it to yourself given your scientific education and background.
Balance is not absolutely necessary, just some dispassionate, scientific objectivity for a change instead of all the hyperbole and rhetoric.
.
.
David G. – the following might also help explain the difficulties some of us MMGW agnostics are having.
“Pathological science, as defined by Langmuir, is a psychological process in which a scientist, originally conforming to the scientific method, unconsciously veers from that method, and begins a pathological process of wishful data interpretation (see the Observer-expectancy effect cognitive bias). Some characteristics of pathological science are:[3]
1. – The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
2. – The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
3. – There are claims of great accuracy.
4. – Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
5. – Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
6. – The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.”
Points 5 & 6 are particularily relevant from my (agnostic) point of view given they emphasise the supremacy of ‘consensus’ and ‘heresy’ over healthy scepticism.
.
“A complete list of things caused by global warming”
“and all on 0.006 deg C per year! ”
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Is it any wonder that people question the science. Even if there is a grain of truth that may lie behind the CO2 hypothesis – it is being drowned out by “alarmists”.
Here is a pertinant comment from Vaclav Klaus.
“Vaclav Klaus: You ask how much environmental damage I need to see before I am willing to do anything? My problem is that I do not “see” sufficient and persuasive evidence for environmental damage you have • probably • in mind, and I wonder whether you see it yourself, or whether you just read about it.”
http://hecubus.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/the-global-warming-tax-and-global-warming-catch-up/
Doesn’t this hit the nail on the head. I worked in the Steel Industry in the 1970s – everything was grimy – houses that were within a couple of miles around the steelworks seemed to be constently covered in “soot”. Small becks and rivers were dirty and full of rubbish. You don’t see that today. We are told that this and that are happening because of MMGW but we don’t see it for ourselves.
Our “information” is coming to us via environmentalists or politicians. It would be very interesting to see a program on the BBC that tells us for example that Al Gores “carbon offset” payments are paid to to his own company.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54528
Hope springs eternal – Even a 15 year old can see through the MMGW hysteria.
“15-Year-Old Outsmarts U.N. Climate Panel, Predicts End of Australia’s Drought”
http://newsbusters.org/node/12968
I’d rather listen to white noise than a BBC clone screaming MMGW.
So trendy, so lefty, nu-Cuba, al-Beeb.
Loyn? Y-e-e-e-s. To gain temporary access is not the same as being embedded.
Well, if you’re behind enemy lines “travelling with armed Taleban fighters…” then that surely counts as being as embedded as Gavin Hewitt riding in an armoured vehicle with coalition troops.
Ms Plett? One sniff does not bias make.
The BBC’s governors’ programme complaints committee thought otherwise – they said Ms Plett had “breached the requirements of due impartiality” – i.e. she was biased.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1651260,00.html
Anyone with an IQ greater than an amoeba would realise she was biased from the rest of her output anyway.
No-one at the BBC has family or friends among the British Forces?
Now that’s worth considering – how many of the BBC’s 2,000+ journos actually have family or friends among the British Forces? I’m betting that it is less than any other sample of 2,000+ UK citizens.
the BBC is staffed by people who secretly wish the USSR had won the cold war, the IRA had driven the British from NI and feverishly await the next terror attack so it can be blamed on the disaster in Iraq.
Undoubtedly there are people amongst the Beeb who think exactly along those lines. Former (indeed current) Communists, pro-Republicans and those who will of course blame any future UK terror attack on the Iraq war work there.
Biased BBC: Britain’s Got Talent. But None Of It Posts Here.
In your case that is certainly true.
Given that he’s famously based in Gaza, self evidently he’s going to have experience the results of Israeli aggression rather than vice versa??
Cockney | 20.06.07 – 10:04 am
Goodness gracious, Cockney. Don’t you have any resistance at all against the tired old cliches of the Palestinian “narrative”? Self-defence against Palestinian terror is not “aggression.”
Obviously Johnston would have experienced the results of Israeli self-defence. But he would also have experienced Palestinians –
*Teaching their young hatred of israel and the West from the cradle on up
*Killing “collaborators”
*Celebrating in the streets after every suicide murder of Israeli civilians.
Problem is, it would never have crossed Johnston’s mind to report honestly, if at all, on these events.
And he would never have spoken of “Palestinian aggression.” It’s not in the BBC script.
Anonymous:
Loyn: Case not proven. Embedded implies a substantial period with troops; not a quick in-and-out.
Ms Plett: Her not-impartial sniff alone does not prove routine BBC bias.
BBC’s bomb-wishers: A touch disingenuous. You accused me earlier of lying – of wrongly suggesting that Biased BBC posters believed that BBC folk wanted their own country bombed. Now you’re adding to the lunacy by suggesting that Shepherds Bush really does harbour people who’d prefer their nearest and dearest to meet a horrible end (never mind the daft notion that Stalinists & IRA members staff the place).
Biased BBC: More wriggle than a snake.
For what it’s worth at Midlands Today a group of us have just had a weekend away with the army as a team building exercise and to build links. We do it every year. And at least one member of our team is in the TA.
The BBC “bias” report gets futher coverage in today’s Times.
snippets
In the past two years it has been hit with two critical reports, which endorse the conclusion that the Corporation failed to report Eurosceptic views fairly, and its coverage of business has been heavily criticised. There was also a complex report about the BBC’s Middle East coverage, whose text, although not its summary, indicated an antiPalestinian bias.
Would the ME report be the Cardiff study that measured only airtime given to the opposing sides, rather than take into account the tone of the BBC’s questioning?
Mr Byford argues that the BBC gives vent to a broad range of views “every week on Question Time”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1968952.ece
This most certainly proves that the BBC is institutionally biased.
And so does this.
And so does this.
Debate over. B-BBC won. You lost.
Hillhunt:
My post above should have been addressed to you.
Loyn: Case not proven. Embedded implies a substantial period with troops; not a quick in-and-out.
Was Loyn with the Taleban for more or less time then Gavin Hewitt was with coalition forces in 2003? In any case I didn’t know there was a “substantial period” test for being embedded. If your behind enemy lines travelling with the enemy you’re embedded.
Ms Plett: Her not-impartial sniff alone does not prove routine BBC bias.
Yes it does. Her recording presumably went through various BBC offices in Jerusalem(?) and London before making it on the air. Nobody thought “hang on – this is a bit off”. Even the complaints were rebuffed at first and the complainers had to go to a higher authority.
Plus the lack of tears for Ariel Sharon or any Israeli/American or right-winger by any Beeboid.
Case proven – BBC biased.
As for BBC and bombers, here is what I actually said (not what you try and distort)…
Undoubtedly there are people amongst the Beeb who think exactly along those lines. Former (indeed current) Communists, pro-Republicans and those who will of course blame any future UK terror attack on the Iraq war work there.
Hillhunt – more distortions than a fairground Hall of Mirrors.
jbh:
This most certainly proves that the BBC is institutionally biased.
And so does this.
And so does this.
Debate over. B-BBC won. You lost.
Evidence 101.
1. Predictable opinion from predictable sources is not evidence of anything. Almost everything you quote comes from the usual less-than-impartial sources.
2. Media-on-media criticism these days is increasingly tinged with self interest. Broadcasting and print now compete aggressively with each other and their new rival, the web, for the same audiences and, increasingly, the same revenue.
3. Murdoch and the Mail have been at it for a very long time indeed. They’re entitled to these views. But they are by definition biased.
4. The Telegraph and various right-wing magazines are politically opposed to the existence of a public service broadcaster like the BBC. That’s not news.
5. Liddle revelled in the role of in-house maverick at the BBC, pushed it too far and got fired for the very partiality that you rail about. Now he performs a similar function, mostly for right-wing media.
6. Pollard may be a Labour supporter but that does not make him any less partial in his predictable views, Blair himself is no fan of the BBC.
The one exception to all this is Robin Aitken, but he has had his say and not much changed.
Your journalistic obsessions are two-fold:
1. That Neil Hamiton was treated unfairly. You have no compelling evidence to prove this, other than a general unease that Fayed was the source of the original allegations. No less a figure than Stephen Glover has told you this in clear terms.
2. That, by collecting a mountain of press cuttings of criticism about the BBC, you have evidence of something. It is evidence that papers with an inbuilt animus to the BBC keep attacking it.
Most good investigative journalists find themselves frustrated when editors fail to share their belief, evidence comes up short, or opponents outsmart them.
The good ones put their obsessions on hold, find a fresh story, build a case on hard evidence and prove a point. If new evidence emerges, they may then have another pop at an old obsession.
But opinion is not evidence. Until you see that, you’re doomed to a Flying-Dutchman existence…
Hillhunt: Career Advice. For Free.
Anonymous:
Embedded: How long is a piece of string? Let’s agree to disagree.
Plett’s tears: She made an error of judgement which has been widely criticised. You seem to be suggesting that criticism (including that from within) is not enough, and only blubbing over Sharon and Reagan would end the bias. It would do the reverse – prove another BBC corr showed bias, just in a different direction.
Bombers: You accused me of lying over the notion that BBC staff might welcome further UK attacks. It was true: John Boy had made that nasty allegation on this blog. You then try to slyly suggest that BBC staff would want to gain advantage from such terror. I suggest the distortion is all yours.
Most good investigative journalists find themselves frustrated when editors fail to share their belief, evidence comes up short, or opponents outsmart them.
The good ones put their obsessions on hold, find a fresh story, build a case on hard evidence and prove a point. If new evidence emerges, they may then have another pop at an old obsession.
Sorry to disappoint. I like the story I have already – principally because it exposes the Guardian and its mouthpiece the BBC as two inherently dishonest, unlawful organisations. The Guardian over its criminal cover-up and its perversion of the Downey Inquiry; and the BBC over its sustained illegal news blackout of the exposure of the cover-up.
Why on earth would I want to move on to another story? Given the BBC’s contention that the controversy in question “helped bring down the last Conservative government,” I’m not likely to find any story that’s bigger than the one I have already! And the longer the BBC maintains its silence the bigger it gets day by day!
jbh:
Why on earth would I want to move on to another story?
Because you don’t really think like the investigative journalist you pretend to be.
They all ditch stuff that’s not got traction.
Curiosity is never limited. Time is.
Get on with something else and earn your credits that way….except you don’t want to. Do you?
hillhunt BBC
“Media-on-media criticism these days is increasingly tinged with self interest” etc
Y-e-e-e-s! Absolutely shocking isn’t it all those despicable unreliable media outlets. Attacking the BBC its just not right. They’re all worthless and have legenday bias don’t listen to any of them they all have an axe to grind. The BBC is best. It stands alone as a beacon when all around flounder.
Filthy media, only the BBC will do.
“the USA’s primary overseas voice seems to have fallen into the same trap (as do the world’s premier news agencies, among them Reuters and AFP).” etc
Y-e-e-e-s! Those wonderful media types. Reliable unbiased experts who do so much good work. They go for the same line as the BBC totally justifying everything the fantastic BBC does. Co-operation and accuracy under BBC rule.
The BBC sets the example. Media shall talk unto media.
confused.com:
Absolutely shocking isn’t it all those despicable unreliable media outlets. Attacking the BBC its just not right.
No, it’s not shocking. Or wrong. It’s free speech and they’re welcome to it.
It’s just not evidence. It’s opinion from a predictable source.
The Mail on the BBC is like Billy Bragg on the Thatcher years. You know what you’re going to get and it plays well to the devoted.
But it doesn’t prove very much.
Hillhunt:
Get on with something else and earn your credits that way….except you don’t want to. Do you?
No, I don’t. I like this story far too much.