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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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sicktodeathofit | 27.06.07 – 10:34 am | #
From the Telegraph link/article you supplied, the following interesting snippet caught my eys –
“A YouGov poll for The Telegraph last week found that almost two thirds of those surveyed agreed that the licence fee should be abolished because so many households had satellite or cable television.”
Hey, this blog is obviously in the mainstream and not the repository of a deranged fringe — as some commentators here often suggest.
All you Beebers, start clearing your desks and getting your CV’s up to date – P45land is a-looming
.
“We deny that our members are employees of Hamas,” Simon Wilson, Jerusalem’s BBC Bureau Chief told the Post.
… We can’t however deny that our employees are members of Hamas ….
Apologies if this has already been mentioned. But the BBC just can’t resist a freedom-fighter.
Especially when they, y’know, don’t hate Jews and Americans.
Incidentally, this is why it’s useful to read LittleGreenFootballs, HotAir and the Jerusalem Post. You get to hear news that the world’s number one news provider doesn’t get round to.
BBC news: It’s what they don’t do.
TERRORISM: THREE ARRESTS IN NORTHEAST SPAIN
Barcelona, 26 June (AKI) – Spanish anti-terror police on Monday in the northeastern city of Barcelona arrested three Moroccan Islamist suspects allegedly belonging to a cell aiming to recruit, proselytise, and radicalise Muslims. “The cell’s objective was to attend training camps in Africa’s Sahel region,” police said in a statement. The three men arrested are Mohammed Laksir, 23, Moulay Lahoucine Miftah Idrissi, 27, and Mohammed Akazim, 32.
Laksir and Idrissi have links with al-Qaeda, according to investigators. Their arrests were carried out in cooperation with Moroccan police after the Moroccan authorities issued arrest warrants in 2005 as part of a police probe of an alleged Salafite linked terror cell with operatives in Spain.
Idrissi is the brother of Mohammed Idrissi, who has been in custody in Spain since 2005 in connection with a police investigation of alleged jihadi recruitment.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=
DennisTheMenace, that Telegraph poll is in line with the BBC’s own findings:
Majority ‘want change to TV fee’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3537567.stm
One day…
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Cockney
While Philips wanders into DM rant mode on too many occations-the basic premisis is correct.
BTW-I’ve more in common with Cohen than Phillips-and both are saying the same point.
At least they both see Islamofacism for what it is.More can be said for the IBC
DennisTheMenace:
“All you Beebers, start clearing your desks and getting your CV’s up to date – P45land is a-looming”
Not for all of them. I’ll pay James Naughtie a fiver a week to empty my bin. It’s full.
ADNAN AWAMLAH, 58, JORDANIAN, JORDAN (From BBCArabic.com)
I was a student when the war broke out. We were expecting certain victory over Israel.
However, I woke up out of a series of dreams to a surprising and horrific reality.
These dreams were fuelled by the Arab leaders of the time and by the official media. They included a romantic desire to return Palestinian lands occupied by Israel; and another one of forming an unbeatable joint Arab army.
If there is one main consequence of the war, it could be that I lost confidence in Arab leaders.
I still remember King Hussein of Jordan promising Arab armies would “eat up Israelis with their hands and teeth” – words that later proved no more than rhetoric after Israel destroyed three Arab armies in a few hours.
I also can’t forget my friends and relatives breaking down in tears after the defeat.
With all pre-war talk about certain victory, we just didn’t expect to lose.
Personal accounts of the war of 1967
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/6705491.stm#fathi
but didnt the BBC’s Sayed Bowen just spend a whole week telling us that its was the Israelis that attacked the Arabs? … im confused.
And the Brown Broadcasting Corporation keeps on swooning:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6243558.stm
Iran rapped over child executions
By Pam O’Toole
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6244126.stm
30 years too late the BBC finally begins to shed light on the horrors of the Islamic Republic.
They have had to give this report to Pam O’Toole, probabley because their over paid Tehran correspondant Frances Harrison would not touch it … she spends her time white washing the Islamic Regieme.
Case in point this report of Evin prison which she calls Iran’s “most notorious jail.” (its not) which she makes look like a holiday camp.
Inside Iran’s most notorious jail
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5077180.stm
This is what happens in Iran’s most notorious jails
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=iran+torture&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
Nick Reynolds –
You can’t find him anonymous for the good reason that he doesn’t exist. To quote the original story:
“We deny that our members are employees of Hamas,” Simon Wilson, Jerusalem’s BBC Bureau Chief told the Post.
———————————
The BBC employs someone who doesn’t exist? That’s a neat trick, though it might explain why his mission didn’t succeed.
It isn’t clear whether Mr Wilson is denying that the BBC employs the no-existent man, or denying that he belongs to Hamas.
Or does the BBC just employ someone who, while not technically a member of Hamas, is coincidentally “believed to be a close associate of senior Hamas officials” for some reason – or would be, if he existed?
Nick Reynolds (BBC):
You can’t find him anonymous for the good reason that he doesn’t exist. To quote the original story:
“We deny that our members are employees of Hamas,” Simon Wilson, Jerusalem’s BBC Bureau Chief told the Post.
But the JP also says:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409649992&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post that a week ago, a request came from the BBC asking that a Palestinian employee of the news company who is believed to be a close associate of senior Hamas officials be allowed to enter Gaza.
The employee, who lives in Gaza, had traveled to Egypt with his wife for medical reasons and the BBC told Israeli officials that they believed he could assist in negotiating Johnston’s release.
Do you, or the BBC deny that the request was made?
In a statement, the BBC said, “Like all large international organizations, the BBC regularly seeks the assistance of the Israeli authorities in moving its Palestinian staff in and out of Gaza. The BBC does not employ anyone who is a member of Hamas or any other Palestinian faction.”
I smell smokescreen.
The BBC, good hackers and bad hackers…
The nice hacker
Profile: Gary McKinnon
Gary McKinnon has lost his appeal against extradition to the US on hacking charges. The BBC News website profiles his history and his motives.
To hear the US government tell it, Gary McKinnon is a dangerous man, and should be extradited back to America to stand trial in a Virginia courtroom. One US prosecutor has accused him of committing “the biggest military computer hack of all time”. But Mr McKinnon has said his motives were harmless and innocent – he was, he says, simply looking for information on UFOs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4715612.stm
and the bad hackers
How ‘Hackers Are Us’ worked
Two police officers who moonlighted as private detectives have been convicted of bugging phones and hacking into computers on behalf of wealthy clients. How did their private detective agency work?
When police began watching Active Investigation Services (AIS), they found a complex web of staff, associates and clients involved in the illegal activities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6767019.stm
Strange how the one who commits the most damage is classed as some sort of folk hero even to the extent of linking into a blogsite which protests his innocence. Yet the lesser,but no less criminal act committed by 2 very stupid (and soon to be jailed) has the the BBC shouting out about the perils of trojans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6225868.stm
BBC bias, I’ll bet my root kit on it.
Do you, or the BBC deny that the request was made?
In a statement, the BBC said, “Like all large international organizations, the BBC regularly seeks the assistance of the Israeli authorities in moving its Palestinian staff in and out of Gaza. The BBC does not employ anyone who is a member of Hamas or any other Palestinian faction.”
Good spot Bio … so the BBC did ask the Israeli government for assistance in moving this man. Why cant the BBC name him and be done with it.
Or press JP to name the man.
The man either is or is not a Hamas operative.
Given how specific the JP story is I doubt that it has just been fabricated.
there is an important point to knowing exactly who the man is. If the man is from Hamas’ armed brigade then the BBC may well have contravened UK and EU laws proscribing any financial assisstance to any member of the armed wing of Hamas.
Nick Reynolds
How can the Head of the BBC in Jerusalem be so sure that he does not employ members of Hamas? How could he possibly know for certain?
It seems to me that the Shin Bet is in a much better position to know who is and isn’t a member of Hamas than the Head of the BBC Jerusalem Bureau.
What is interesting is the reflexive contempt which your Jerusalem Bureau Head shows for his host nation’s security forces – contempt which we so often see reflected in the skewed output from the region.
Just a reminder that feeding the trolls leads to them ruining every post with their ego-centric waffle. Ignore the trolls and they’ll go away. If everyone ignored the likes of the dreary hh then he’d sling off to somewhere else where he’d get attention. These are sad, lonely people – the equivalent of those lost souls who sit on buses shouting at the top of their voices. IGNORE THE TROLLS !!!
Exactly, TJ.
I’ve been scrolling merrily past silly Hilly for weeks now.
Troll-scroll, Troll-scroll.
It sounds like the BBC’s Palestinian WAS a member of Hamas but was told to “resign” if he wanted to get the job.
I wonder what the “prize” would be for resigning from Hamas!
Illc*nt
Britain was not under any serious threat of invasion by 1941. We did not invade France in 44 in order to protect ourselves we invaded for two completly different and contradictory reasons.
To open up an additional front in order to take pressure off of the Soviet forces in the East.
Then also to insure that the whole of western Europe did not fall under Soviet controll after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Most of the second world war ( which resulted in by far and away the magority of the damage, cost and deaths) was not waged for national preservation it was waged for very understandable long term national self interests.
One thing it was not waged for was to protect Jews from the death camps. The allies liberation of the Jews of Europe was a wonderfully great, one might even say ‘lucky’ by-product of the war.
It was also a post war propaganda tool for the victors. Which turned out so usefull to the likes of the BBC, they could then make things like the bombing of Dresden look almost like gods justice.
The BBC are very good at this sort of thing as you surly know, they have been at it for longer then anybody else.
It always makes me smile when I hear the press and especially the BBC of all corporate media organisations, commenting in the usual patronising BBC Paxman stile about politicians use of SPIN. Which over the last few days has been countless times.
When the greatest, biggest, best, brightest, most generously financed, powerfull, influential, experienced, loved, respected ,trusted, underworked, hated, overpaid, overnumerous, vindictive, market and democratically unaccountable, politically motivated, out of all sensible self-controll, Imperialist SPINNERS of them ALL, are the BBC themselves.
These corporate megleomaniacs actually spin that they are impartial. When any sensible person knows full well that ‘impartial’ is impossible or either incredibly boring or possitivly undesirable anyway.
The answer is the market and deregulation, just like it generally is the ultimate answer to almost all things where freedom liberty and prosperity are concerned.
End of rant for the day.
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wayne | 27.06.07 – 5:19 pm | #
I would guess that the Hamas exit plan is similar to the Mafia’s – you get to sleep with the fish.
So did he resign — naaah, a dinnae think so — would you ? I don’t think the BBC pay THAT well.
.
I try not to shout. The Jerusalem Post uses the phrase “is believed” but does not say by whom. You could equally ask the Jerusalem Post why it has not provided a name.
Nick (BBC),
Do you actually know what happened or are you just working from the article like the rest of us?
According to JP, the BBC only dispute whether the employee is from Hamas. Do you deny that the BBC made such a request for a staff member?
Why does this matter? Surely what you are concerned about is whether he was a member of Hamas or not?
Incidentally I don’t know what happened anymore than any of you. The Jersalem Post has made an allegation. The BBC has denied it. Depends on who you believe really. From what I know of the press, I tend to treat anything I read with a pinch of salt. People on this board seem very trusting of the press in a way I find rather naive. I know of many occasions where the press have said things about the BBC which are simply untrue and easy to show as untrue.
Nick (BBC)
Given you accept that the BBC staffer exists and that the BBC made the request, why are you so adamant that he wasn’t Hamas without the BBC offering any evidence of who he actually was? I think you’re far too naive about the BBC’s role in Middle East reporting given the track record of people like Orla Guerin, Barbara Plett, Jeremy Bowen etc. I tend to go with the weight of evidence which is in JPost’s favour. I’m happy to be disproven but am not happy to trust the BBC when I can’t even name one pro-Israeli journalist of yours as opposed to all those BBC friends of the Palestinians.
Nick (BBC)
And if I may, I’d like to point out a problem that BBC people have when trying to rebut accusations on this site.
I (and others on this site, I’m sure) am open to persuasion about the BBC and its bias. But when people like yourself, John Reith, hillhunt, etc. start with the assumption that the BBC is not biased (pro-left, pro-EU, pro-Islam, anti-Israel, anti-America, anti-Conservative) in contradiction to: comments from BBC staffers themselves like Jeff Randall, Andrew Marr, Jonathan Aitken; BBC meetings to address the problem; and BushHitler posters in your newsroom to name but 3, it really insults our intelligence and wastes our time.
Please start from a position more credible than the Earth is flat.
“Something like 6 out of 10 Spanish troops serving abroad are actually South Americans.” And many of them actually have previous experience serving in the region as part of COLBATT the Colombian Infantry Battalion in the Multi National Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai based at El Gorah. I met some Spanish Foreign Legion chaps on leave once and most of them had the MFO Medal from their tours with COLBATT!
Sad news.
PS Loved the red umbrella with BBC News on it that Ed Balls was given to shield himself from rain at 6pm tonight. I wonder if there are any blue BBC News ones….
😎
“The BBC does not employ anyone who is a member of Hamas or any other Palestinian faction.”
A few blogs are saying “But if he is a stringer then he is employed by the local news agency or on a different contract and attached to the BBC is he not? Thus he works full time for the BBC but they can claim he is not employed by them.” Thoughts? True or not?
The position I start from is that the BBC is required to be impartial. I look at the evidence that I see, including the examples on this board and my own experience in the BBC. From that evidence I conclude that, for example, the BBC is not anti-Israel in its News reporting. And I also conclude that the BBC tries very hard to be impartial. No other media organisation in the world agonises over this so much.
People on this board start from the assumption that the BBC is baised and then automatically believe anything (however inaccurate and daft) that fits with their belief.
And they also misquote and misunderstand.
For example, Andrew Marr did certianly not say that the BBC was anti Israel or anti Conservative. His opinion (and it’s only his opinion) was that the BBC has for example a metropolitan bias, a kind of “soft” cultural bias, which is rather different from being anti Israel in news reporting.
I’m not sure I agree. What about all the BBC’s local radio output, for example.
The Trust’s seminar on impartiality and its report were not about correcting a “problem”. They were about exploring what impartiality means in a changing media environment.
As for Jeff Randall, if he was told by an BBC editor that the BBC was in favour of mutlticulturalism then that Editor was wrong. At the seminar where he alleged this, Helen Boaden, Head of BBC News said very clearly that the BBC must not be in favour of multiculturalism in its News output.
I have no idea if the staffer exists or whether the BBC made the request. The Post has made an allegation. The BBC has denied it. Since the Post made the allegation in the first place then it’s surely up to them to prove it.
Can we see the Balen report, please?
Why does this matter?
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | 27.06.07 – 9:35 pm
Great argument Nick! Keep it up…
The Post has made an allegation. The BBC has denied it. Since the Post made the allegation in the first place then it’s surely up to them to prove it.
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | 27.06.07 – 10:39 pm
The BBC has not denied it requested permission for it’s local staffer to enter Gaza, in fact the BBC has said the following:
“Like all large international organizations, the BBC regularly seeks the assistance of the Israeli authorities in moving its Palestinian staff in and out of Gaza….”
The BBC has also stated:
“… The BBC does not employ anyone who is a member of Hamas or any other Palestinian faction.”
The JP report also states the following, which the BBC has neither confirmed or denied, in fact it has said nothing about it or the rest of the JP report:
The Palestinian entered Gaza, and after a few days informed his BBC employers that Johnston was not being held by Hamas and therefore the group had little influence over his captors, believed to be from the Army of Islam and members of the Durmush clan from the Rafah area in the southern Gaza Strip.
So, to sum up, the BBC has only denied that it employs members of Hamas or any other Palestinian faction. All the rest of the JP’s allegations would appear to be undisputed by the BBC.
Good Evening Nick.
You and your bosses haven’t a clue who is working for who out in Gaza.
Rather strange all these because it was around this time last year I put DIRECTLY a question regarding vetting of “talking heads” and independent verification of eyewitnesses -as well as the vetting of ‘independent’ employees and got told in a very nice e-mail to Foxtrot Oscar because it was an internal matter.
The news stories were these:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5066496.stm
Gaza journalist Sami Yousef was at the beach in the north of the territory on Friday, when a series of artillery shells hit the sands, killing seven people and injuring dozens.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5268870.stm
“The BBC’s John Leyne, who visited the scene of the attack, said the Israelis seemed to have run into much fiercer resistance than they anticipated before they were extracted by helicopter.”
So any Tom, Dick and Harry can be a credible eyewitness with Al Beeb.
Since then we’ve had the Frightened 15,A Johnston, a number of terrorist threats with more leaks than Noah’s Ark…..hardly reassuring is it Nick?
Perhaps you have a word with your mates Mark Urban and David Shukman why foreign intelligence services and transnational groups target OUR media and how the media can be blackmailed and manipulated. Reading Atkins narration on ‘group think’ culture in your offices, has dangerous blinkered world view has crept into our beloved Beeb with fatal results.
Even mediaphile Philip Seib sees the dangerous of instant news and for get the facts wrong* in the race to beat Sky,CNN,ITV,C4 et al
Sadly I think Nick you haven’t a clue who your “intrepid” reporters are in Gaza and who they really work for.
Perhaps the realization that some brown skinned people are equally as fascist and bigoted as there white counterparts may soon very become clear in the Centre. The sooner Al Beeb releases Balen (official or otherwise) the quicker and less painless the cull of ‘famous’ reporters because of PC groupthink the better.
Remember “Birtism” Nick-Mr Brown might want to see the BBC ‘tamed’ especially in the role you’ve been playing in bring down TB-And he would want that behaviour from you would he……
Could be a catchy vote winner in two years time-replace TV Tax with a subscription service 🙂
*Beyond the Front Lines, Philip Seib, Palgrave 2004.
To the BBC drone(s) :
I don’t have to pay £130+ per year to read the Jerusalem Post if all I want to read is the South Manchester Reporter (it’s free btw). If all I want to watch is the Discovery Origami Channel (subscription) I have to pay the BBC TV tax. If I become dissatified with the Origami Channel,
I can cancel my subscription and I will no longer have to tolerate its output. If I am dissatisfied with the BBC – tough shit.
What Helen Broaden claims and what the BBC does are not the same thing.
If the Shin Bet (they seem to know what they are doing) tell the JP that a person the BBC have employed is a member of Hamas I am inclined to believe them. (I suppose I am one of the ‘oddballs’ that doesn’t instinctively trust the BBC.)
Where, on the BBC News web pages and TV news is the report of the story of the alleged BBC/Hamas employee and the BBC’s denial. Surely the story is newsworthy in itself.
NeoManc:
Where, on the BBC News web pages and TV news is the report of the story of the alleged BBC/Hamas employee and the BBC’s denial. Surely the story is newsworthy in itself.
Bit of a “when did you stop beating your wife” demand, that….
Why would any organisation have to carry a story about itself that it categorically denies to be true?
Hillhunt
Go to bed – you’re pissed.
Neomancunian
You’re wasting your time hillhunt (ex BBC) never replies to the compulsion part about the licence fee.
He purports to support choice, freedom and socialistic concern for the worst off in society, but as the licence fee goes against all these he’s got no answer so he always ignores it.
Nick Reynolds:
Looking at your last 3 posts it seems to me your protestations have a plaintive air about them, and show a tendency to take refuge in obtuseness.
We are clearly not just interested in whether a random individual is a Hamas-member. I would like to know the following from the BBC:
1) Who is the man referred to? Is his identity a secret for any respectable reason?
2) What is his relationship with Hamas?
3) Was he allowed into Gaza at the BBC’s request and on it’s behalf?
4) What exactly is the nature of the BBC’s relationship with him, and has he been employed or in some sense hired by them?
As to the level of trust to be placed in the JP or ‘the press’ generally, of course we don’t entirely trust any journalist to get it right, but the JP article does not seem any different in terms of attribution, quotation, wording, right of reply etc. from the BBC’s own reporting of official sources, and is certainly no more tendencious than some of it. Passive phrases like ‘is believed’ are not exactly unknown in BBC reporting, along with the vastly more manipulative ‘seems set to’, ‘is widely regarded’ and ‘in what will be seen as’ – it is pure hypocrisy for a Beeboid of all people to criticise anyone on that count, and the context makes it quite clear that this is ‘believed’ by Israeli security officials, who presumably know something about Hamas. You appear not to notice that, rather than making allegations itself, the JP is explicitly reporting the views and assertions of others. Are you claiming the paper has deliberately misquoted Shin Bet and MOD officials throughout the piece? What possible reason have we to think so?
You seem in fact to be inviting us to dismiss the whole report as pure fabrication, or a random set of words unconnected with any actual events. Nothing happened, nobody exists or did anything, nothing to see here folks. It’s almost as if you were expecting any normal person to dismiss the words of a Jew out of hand, as mere airy nothings. But there obviously are matters of fact at issue: Either someone went to Gaza to negotiate on behalf of the Beeb or he didn’t; he was either a member or close associate of a terrorist group or he wasn’t; the BBC employed or subcontracted him or it didn’t.
And of course if all those things were the case, then it would suggest the BBC was at the very least too chummy with terrorists and genocidal fundamentalists to be anything but a liability. Do you not understand why that matters, and why people would want to know?
You seem hurt and puzzled by the idea that anyone would take the slightest notice of non-BBC journalism, let alone take someone else’s word over that of the mighty Corporation. Actually this is not a matter of anybody’s word, but of wanting to be given the facts, not just terse denials that tell us nothing. But as a matter of fact, if it came down to the BBC’s word against someone else, many of us here might well believe someone else. Perhaps that is because we are very, very familiar with the BBC and its ways. I have been a daily BBC consumer since infancy, well over 40 years. In my teens I thought it was an indispensable service and an enviable national asset, but not any more. Since then I have seen the BBC change beyond recognition, not least in its portrayal of ME history and its attitude towards America and Israel. It has gone from an ability to recognise the many obvious virtues of these productive, open, democratic nations (as against tyrants, thugs and terrorists) to a mentality of bigotry, spite and calumny for its own sake. At the same time the Beeb’s approach to tyrants, thugs, blackmailers and vicious extremists has degenerated into one of euphemism and sycophancy, if not collaboration. So yes, after decades of intense BBC exposure I would indeed respect the word of an Israeli newspaper I have no reason to distrust over that of even the grandest BBC correspondent. Every single time.
[apologies for length]
Good Morning
Katy gets the hat tip of the day in my book.
She is not wrong when she describes the HBC as having “a mentality of bigotry, spite and calumny for its own sake”. In fact I’ll go further and saying that it’s dumb down editorializing has actually harmed the UK relationship with other countries, as well as race relations in this country.
Funny that Americans are going to Europe rather than the UK this year for there hols.I guess it makes a nice change from shit weather,a bad exchange rate and the daily droning anti-Americanism lead by Al Beeb……
Nick Reynolds,
I am a bit puzzled as to why the BBC would deny that it employs terrorists. The fact that it has thrown its full weight behind Hamas ever since the election has become quite obvious since the fratricide in Gaza and the BBC is now scarcely hiding its support and promotion of the terror group. Here’s the latest example:
Until about half an hour ago, Hamas’ criticism of Blair as envoy was blaring out at as the main story on the News Front Page of the BBC website. Now it’s been replaced by Gordon Brown and relegated to the Middle East Section. (I suppose an editor realised it was just a bit over the top.) Follow the link and you’ll find this:
HAMAS CRITICIZES BLAIR ENVOY MOVE
The Palestinian Hamas movement has criticised the appointment of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as an international Middle East peace envoy.
The Islamist militants, now in control of Gaza, said Mr Blair had not been honest or helpful while prime minister.
But the move has been welcomed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
After first trumpeting Hamas’ position and then packing Israel and the PA into one sentence, the BBC devotes a few paragraphs to Blair’s mandate as envoy and then again reverts to the Hamas position, quoting Ghazi Hamad at length.
The reaction of Israel, Abbas and the White House together is then packed into less space than that devoted to Hamas.
So I reiterate: why would the BBC deny it employs terrorists? It seems damn happy to push the terrorist viewpoint at every opportunity. As your very own Paul Adams did just the other day:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6230756.stm
I was astonished by the blatant backing of Hamas and tried to fisk it here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1942040803175186263/?a=29299#361962
Mr. Reynolds, instead of defending the BBC over its indefensible conduct, and distracting attention from it by trying to undermine the credibility of people on this blog, I suggest you start to seriously investigate the rot within the corporation and work on strategies to clean it up – because it is soon going to be irreversible. The BBC is being steadily undermined by those with a specific, terror-friendly agenda. I don’t believe that you cannot see it and that you are not concerned about it.
‘From what I know of the press, I tend to treat anything I read with a pinch of salt. People on this board seem very trusting of the press in a way I find rather naive.’
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | 27.06.07 – 9:38 pm |
Each to his own Nick.
Having experience of how the BBC reported certain events and the utterances of BBC staff to me I tend to treat most of the BBC output, filtered through the prism of PC, with a pinch of salt until I’ve verified it from elsewhere. I have seen instances, first hand, where the BBC manipulated situations to get a particular line. One BBC staffer even admitted that to me and he went on to become head of BBC news gathering.
We both know that there are stories which the BBC will not touch with a bargepole because they are terrified of upsetting one group or another, and just watch how they tiptoe around China.
Supporters of the BBC seem very trusting of the BBC in a way I find rather naive.
What I object to most strongly is that I am compelled by law to fund something that I do not trust and rarely watch or listen to.
By the way Nick I have no axe to grind with you, just yor employers.
TPO – if you have any concrete examples of where a BBC reporter has deliberately falsified a report I would like to know about them. Email me if you don’t want to post them on this board.
TPO – here is a link to a search for China in the BBC wesbite. Human rights abuses are covered extensively. Is this what you mean by being soft on China?
Sorry – forgot to post the link:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=d&q=China+human+rights+abuses&go=Search
PS Loved the red umbrella with BBC News on it that Ed Balls was given to shield himself from rain at 6pm tonight. I wonder if there are any blue BBC News ones….
😎
dave t
I’ve got one. It’s a bit flimsy in really high wind though.
“…here is a link to a search for China in the BBC wesbite. Human rights abuses are covered extensively.”
Thanks, Nick, for that great opportunity to remind ourselves what the BBC website looked like in the last millenium.
.
Perhaps you would prefer this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/asia_pacific/2004/china/default.stm
Nick (BBC):
Well the first two links I checked related to stories from a year ago “Trials show danger of dissent”. “China tightens death penalty law”. I haven’t bothered with the rest.
It really befuddles me that one of the worlds most important nations gets frankly f-all coverage and some poxy little no-account state in the middle-east gets analysed and reported on every 5 firkin minutes and the BBC still leaves important stuff out.
An alien watching the BBC would come to the conclusion that Jerusalem and London were the only to inhabitable places on Earth.
Sorry “the only TWO inhabitable places on Earth.
TPO – if you have any concrete examples of where a BBC reporter has deliberately falsified a report I would like to know about them. Email me if you don’t want to post them on this board.
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | 28.06.07 – 9:57 am |
Nick
Being an old dad with a two & half year old daughter other duties call. However will be glad to give you examples later – possibly this afternoon.
The guy who went on to become head of news gathering I have already mentioned a few months back. I met him in North Borneo where he was working for the BBC in the mid seventies. We had a number of conversations and his views were an eye opener.
JR and I have exchanged posts on the individual. I left enough clues for people here to identify him, which they did in about 5 minutes.
Here’s one for you – He staggered out of the Iranian embassy in 1980.