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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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hillhunt | 05.07.07 – 6:02 pm:
Glad you agree that the BBC’s online reports ought to be authored. However I cannot see any logic in your comment:
Can’t say I warm to the hint of McCarthyism which is implied by identifying the good and the bad.
What’s McCarthyist about identifying the authors of reports, some of which may carry traits of bias, inaccuracies, and sloppy research, while others may embody accurate, well-researched, impartial reporting?
Take for example Nick Assinder’s report of my book launch in the Commons in October 1998, alleging that Guardian journalists, Mohamed Fayed and his staff, and both parties’ lawyers, had perverted the official inquiry into the controversy that “helped bring down the last Conservative government.” I quote:
This was a press conference to mark the launch of a new book which claims disgraced ex-Tory MP Neil Hamilton was the victim of a conspiracy by The Guardian newspaper and Harrods’ boss Mohamed al-Fayed. …
The book claims to be “the story of how a group of Britain’s most senior journalists conspired to destroy the lives of one man and his wife and helped bring down a government in the process.” …
There were claims from the platform – which included Mr Hamilton, his friend and Tory MP Gerald Howarth, Mr Hunt, and Baroness Turner – that the newspaper had falsified documents and, along with Mr Fayed, had lied to the Downey Inquiry into the sleaze allegations.
So far so good. Not much to complain about there, except that Assinder neglected to inform his readership that Baroness Turner is actually a Labour peer and a lifelong trade unionist to boot, which is kind of interesting as she was supporting the reviled Tory Hamilton. But the real bias is in the next sentence when Assinder states:
None of it was particularly new and there was a marked lack of enthusiasm amongst the gathered media.
Well, there might well have been a “marked lack of enthusiasm amongst the gathered media,” but allegations of conspiracy, falsifying documents and lying to Sir Gordon Downey’s cash for questions inquiry ought not to have been described as “none of it was particularly new.”
Of course these allegations were very new indeed to 99.999% of the British public. In fact, thanks to the BBC-led suffocating censorship of our investigation, our findings of fact still are new to everyone who hasn’t stumbled across my website, read my book, or read one of my many posts on B-BBC, like this one, referring to it.
So you see, because Nick Assinder’s biased report carried his by-line, I now know not to trust anything else he puts his name to. If the report had been anonymous I would not now be able to be especially wary of his writings.
Nothing McCarthyist about that at all. As I stated, it’s good for instilling accountability among BBC journalists and it would lead to the BBC’s readership becoming better informed.
hillhunt:
I think this is what you’re looking for.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/s…ims/ default.stm
hillhunt | 05.07.07 – 3:57 pm | #
I don’t think that is what Alan was looking for. That page is from 12th August 2005. It is not a page commemorating the second anniversary of the slaughter of innocent people in the name of Islamic Jihad by terrorists. Is there one?
Anonanon writes:
“I appreciate this could be considered a sacrifice too far, and will be happy to acknowledge the idiocy of my suggestion.”
I really couldn’t stomach it, I’m afraid. Few things are more powerfully emetic than the BBC in its best sanctimonious, right-on, campaigning mode. It’s like a revivalist meeting without the laughs.
“I appreciate this could be considered a sacrifice too far, and will be happy to acknowledge the idiocy of my suggestion.”
I would rather watch the Earth Warm
Patrick O’Flynn:
“People on the radical Left have been accusing commentators like me of suffering from “Islamophobia”.
Lefties like Ken Livingstone use the term all the time. It is meant to carry the meaning that anyone worried about the impact of Islamic values upon our society is a senseless bigot and should shut up.
A phobia is a fear of something. According to the dictionary the term does carry overtones of irrationality. But basically it means you are scared of a particular phenomenon.
MORE
“IS IT “ISLAMOPHOBIC” TO CARE ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY?”
http://www.express.co.uk/blogs/post/156/blog/2007/07/05/12449/Is%20it%20%22Islamophobic%22%20to%20care%20about%20your%20country?
“This is doing a grave disservice to everyone, Muslims most of all. The truth is that our so-called multicultural society is breaking down. There is no popular consensus in favour of British Islam developing along the lines it currently is heading”.
“Evening, infidels! Here is the news from the BBC…”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_page_id=1772&in_article_id=410171&in_author_id=322
David Gregory (BBC)
What set of arguments can explain both rise in temperatures since 1970s and cooling between 1940s and 1970s when there were more (at least in Europe) smoke belching factories?
Campaign for EU Constitution referendum (“treaty”)
I urge everybody to link to this site:
http://www.eutruth.org.uk/
From a comment of a Telegraph reader:
Can the BBC either confirm or deny the following:
(1) exactly how many hundreds of MILLIONS of Euro’s it has recived from Brussells?
(2) Is this why they make no mention of this campaign?
“To get the mood in Gaza, I rang the BBC’s excellent Fayed Abu Shamala, our senior journalist there. No-one worked harder to get Alan Johnston out.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6274980.stm
Jeremy Bowens excelent friend.
“Fayed Abu Shamala made headlines already in 2001 when, speaking at a Hamas gathering May 6, 2001 (attended by the then Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin), he said that ‘journalists and media organizations in Gaza’, including the BBC, ‘are waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people’ (as Douglas Davis reports in the Jerusalem Post, 24May2001). That is why Tom Gross has questioned several times in the past the appropriateness of the BBC employing Fayed Abu Shamala as a senior reporter in Gaza, for example in the article: “The Euro media and the Intifada” (The National Review, 2001), repeated on several websites. The BBC declined to remove Abu Shamala as one of their main Gaza correspondents. The best the BBC could do in response to these remarks at the time was to issue a statement saying, ‘Fayyad’s remarks were made in a private capacity.’ Now the BBC writes to me simply that “Fayed Abu Shammala did not use the words attributed to him”. ”
http://www.take-a-pen.org/english/Articles/Art25092005.htm
I tried Fisking Abu Bowen’s comments but a problem with the comments stymied me. I see that Jon has now saved me the trouble.
I presume “the BBC’s excellent Fayed Abu Shamala” is the Hamas operative that Israel refused to allow over the border?
The MSM showed its true colours in the Israel vs. Hezbolla conflict last year, with partisan stringers being employed. In Gaza the BBC do the same.
This is partly why the MSM is losing public trust, bit by bit.
Apparently Scotland is now in South Asia
“MORE FROM SOUTH ASIA
Asian Scots in heart attack risk ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/default.stm
“About one million secondary school children are taught physics by teachers who do not have a qualification in the subject.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6269748.stm
No doubt they just use the teachers materials issued by the Government ie “An Inconvenient Truth” by His most Gracious Excellency Al Gore.
“Don’t ask questions children just watch and learn”
Dr. Gregory,
Thanks for the contributions here. I can see why you feel the MMGW discussion is starting to go in circles, so perhaps I can ask one question that would take things out of the rut:
I think we all get that your position is that you report on what the current science on a given issue seems to be. In the case of Global Warning, the science talk getting the most attention is about the anthropo-genic bit, so that’s what the BBC would report on.
So, if/when the majority of scientific evidence clearly seems to point in the opposite direction (or, you know, There Is Climate Change, We Need To Recognize It And Deal With It, But It’s Because Of The Sun, We’re Still Coming Out Of An Ice Age, etc.), would there be reports from the BBC on such a thing, especially mentioning that the Man-Made thing turned out to be the bogus hype? A retraction, so to speak? Nothing with partisan, “Told You So” overtones, of course, just straightforward “This is what science is telling us now.” Is that a reasonable idea?
This could obviously apply to lots of other topics in science as well.
As a very regular reader, but infrequent poster, may I say (as someone asked) that I am interested in *all* the subjects that crop up here. Because between 90-100% of posts here are responding to something that has been broadcast (in one medium or another) by the BBC, it is, after all, the BBC itself that sets the agenda of this blog. Thus if one particular subject seems to dominate the blog for a while, that is generally only because the BBC itself has issued something egregiously biased on that subject.
Occasionally a particular criticism will be petty – or bordering on it – (and these are, of course, the ones that the BBC supporters always rush to pick up on), but, generally speaking, I am constantly struck by the intelligence, perception and maturity of tone of most of the commenters here.
the latest comedy show is now on
question time
with DAVINA MCCALL
WTF!!!
” Jon | 05.07.07 – 10:26 pm |”
but then the physics teachers arent teaching physics anymore
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/articles/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1977615.ece
michael yon has an update on his previous horrific story on the what they found in an iraqi village when al qaeda fled.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/update-on-bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm
note that his report has never been mentioned by the BBC.
i half wonder if the moonbats in the QT audience saw his article, they’d shut up. because the BBC fails to inform the public on the real nature of islamism, it fails whole heartedly in its charter duty to “educate and inform” – and that is very dangerous, if not criminally negligent.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
“If they do not reject the doctrine of jihad as an option for Muslims, they should be considered part of the problem, not the solution”
This week’s QT is easily the most irritating EVER. I’ve had to turn it off.
Charley writes:
“This week’s QT is easily the most irritating EVER. I’ve had to turn it off.”
It’s a freak show.
David Preiser: Yup. No problem with that. It’s my job.
CHECK OUT BUNGAWALA’S POSTER!
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/cat_reminders.html#007051
WE ARE ALL EH HUM NAHEE
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/07/05/in_england_in_pakistan.php
Ancient Greenland was actually green
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19619301
The oldest ever recovered DNA samples have been collected from under more than a mile of Greenland ice, and their analysis suggests the island was much warmer during the last Ice Age than previously thought.
The DNA is proof that sometime between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, much of Greenland was especially green and covered in a boreal forest that was home to alder, spruce and pine trees, as well as insects such as butterflies and beetles.
meanwhile we’ve got a mini-katrina up north (e.g. hull and doncaster). the bbc seem curiously muted – compared to their vitriol during the hurricane katrina flood.
odd that. i wonder if they’d be the same if it was the Tories in government.
“meanwhile we’ve got a mini-katrina up north (e.g. hull and doncaster). the bbc seem curiously muted – compared to their vitriol during the hurricane katrina flood.”
Don’t worry Prescott is on his way.
“meanwhile we’ve got a mini-katrina up north (e.g. hull and doncaster). the bbc seem curiously muted – compared to their vitriol during the hurricane katrina flood.”
Yep – look how Booosshh was derided by Frei and Co. about Katrina.
Has the bogey eater left Number 10 yet for a tour of the effected areas? Where’s the BBC pressure on him to do so?
the only person who has visited is Prince Charles.
there goes my dreams of a republic.
i cant fault it – in fairness Charles did the right thing.
meanwhile, brownstuff did his usuall macavity the cat act.
there are 30,000 people homeless in hull right now.
wall to wall katrina style coverage? nah, not a bit of it.
Blair’s legacy: a nation engulfed by debt:
Watching consumers en route to a debt crisis has been like observing drivers of cars with faulty brakes, heading confidently towards the edge of a cliff, says Jeff Randall.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/06/dl0601.xml
TERROR MANUALS MAN TO BE SENTENCED
A failed asylum seeker:
“A failed asylum seeker who hoarded manuals on how to carry out car bombings is due to be sentenced.
Omar Altimimi kept masses of terror-related material with a list of “suitable targets” for attacks, including nightclubs and airports.
The 37-year-old, who had links to Arab terrorists, had also collected detailed information on how to set up terror cells in the UK, ways to make explosives and how car bombs can be detonated at the entrances to buildings via remote control.
Described by security sources as a “clean skin”, Altimimi was not known as a terror suspect when he came to England to “blend in” by applying for jobs with the police and as a teacher.
But he had links with Arab terror cells in Europe, kept up multiple identities to cover his tracks and hoarded computer files on his home PC detailing how to plan and carry out jihadi terror.
Father-of-three Altimimi, from Bolton, Lancashire, was found guilty of six counts of possessing material for the purpose of terrorism yesterday, following a four-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.
He was also convicted of two charges of money laundering.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/view/12476/Terror-manuals-man-to-be-sentenced
Al Beeb’s uncritically reports:
“Muslims in anti-terror campaign” (5 July)
http://news.bbc.co.uk
These sort of Muslim documents have been issed before around the world.
Jihadwatch has experience of them in the US. Such documents are full of weasel word like ‘innocent’. Are we ‘infidels’ considered ‘innocent’ by Muslims? Who decides our innocence or guilt: Islamic jihadists.
Jihadwatch critically reports:
“UK Muslims condemn terrorism, sort of”(5 July)
http://www.jihadwatch.org
Gordon Brown is having a love-in with the BBC at the moment going on about how the moderates from all religions should find common ground.
Moderates from all religions…
I can only think of one religion that has so-called “moderates” .
As far as I can see the definition of a moderate is one who agrees with the terrorists but doesn’t actually commit the terrorist acts…
Ah the BBC are finally bothered about the people in Hull, well for 5 seconds
why, because someone black has gone there
“As far as I know Nick Griffin said Islam is a “wicked, viscious” faith and didn’t call for murder of Islamists. Whereas the cartoon protesters waved plackards and shouted slogans calling for beheadings and suicide bombings… Is this correct?”
Indeed. As someone nearly said:
“Behead those who call Islam a Wicked Vicious Faith”.
Ron Liddle has piece in current ‘Spectator’, which has incidental criticisms of BBC:
“The public knows how these attacks happen – unlike the politicians”
http://www.spectator.co.uk
‘Spectator’ also carries an excellent article which goes beyond Al Beeb’s recent odd headline of:’Terror suspects all linked to NHS’; as an antidote, suggest see:
“For the Islamist doctor, terror is healing” (by S.Schwartz and I.Al-Alawi),in same issue of ‘Spectator’.
TERROR MANUALS MAN TO BE SENTENCED
Anonymous | 06.07.07 – 7:26 am
R5 replays the ABC News bulletin during the night.
ABC shows solidarity with the BBC, having a soundbite from Richard Clarke.
paraphrase “This case was all big talk, nothing to worry about.”
We just want to get back into a pre-9/11 world. Attitudes like Clarke’s is widely aired in the ridiculing of various thwarted/failed plots.
Clarke’s testimony to the 9/11 commisssion
Clarke charged that before and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke
Could it be that Clarke & his ilk are now disracted by BDS & their opposition to Iraq to give credence to the level of the Islamic threat?
Better news?
Channel 4 wins radio multiplex bid
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2120231,00.html
“As part of its challenge to the dominance of BBC radio, which has a 55% market share, the group also plans a daily rival to Radio 4’s Today programme………+ Sky News radio”
Dilution of BBC radio dominance (in general and news in particular) can only be a good thing (in terms of scrapping the licence fee). If the middle classes have wider variety of current affairs radio including Ch4 radio News, Sky News, alongside BBC R4 Socialist Worker Today, and awfully unfunny R4 comedy, maybe more and more will question “exactly why am I paying a licence fee to the BBC?”….
isn’t Naughtie past BBC ‘retirement age’?
@David Gregory: In the July issue of Engineering and Technology:
“Two studies at the [University of Manchester] are looking at the phenomena of ‘urban heat islands’ whereby city centres can be up to 12Celsius warmer than country areas”
12Celsius? Not much chance of getting a sensible average temperature reading over the long term with new urban development pushing temperatures up to that degree.
Cold and wet here again. An excellent example of warmer temperatures over the ocean causing increased evaporation thus increased cloud cover. Increased cloud cover over land results in reflection of heat from the top of the clouds and reduced temperatures at ground level during the day (but higher temperatures at night). My garden is loving it right now. Precious little evidence that global warming will do us any real harm though. It is a self-regulating system. If there is a God, his engineering is quality.
This is just as well as this is also reported by the IET:
“Knowledge gap ‘threatens infrastrutcure projects’. ” – apparently we don’t have enough engineers to deal with such things as new power station build to meet green targets. They are all doing media studies these days….
The BBC and hyping up a story.
‘Threat to kill’ missing UK girl
Kidnappers who seized a three-year-old UK girl in Nigeria have threatened to kill her unless her father agrees to take her place, her mother says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6275890.stm
Is the BBC trying to invent a new Madeleine McCann?
Don’t get me wrong I am at no time trying to belittle the horrible situation of any snatched child. But the BBC which spent more time on Johnson than it did on Madeleine. Is posting the headlines that a UK girl has been snatched from the Oil delta of Nigeria correct?
The father is an ex-pat who has lived in Nigeria for the past 10 years.
The mother is Nigerian.
The child is 3 years of age and goes to a Nigerian school.
Is it morally correct to try and play for the hearts and minds of the UK audience that this child is a UK citizen. When the Muslims kidnappers. (Strange how the BBC keeps that snippet out of the story) have more to gain by reaching a much larger audience than that of the Nigerian homeland.
The BBC, reporting from Cuba and half a story.
Fewer political prisoners in Cuba
An independent Cuban human rights group says there are fewer political prisoners in the country since Raul Castro took over as interim leader. The group says up to 70 political prisoners have been freed in the past year, continuing a trend.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6275922.stm
A major news agency promotes a story about how Cuba is becoming a freer place in which to voice your opinion about the people in power. Yet for some strange reason doesn’t mention just how many people the Cubans have locked up. A group of people which the Cuban government doesn’t give the International committee of the Red Cross access to yet the BBC reports leads with how Cuba is releasing its political prisoners.Here is the same story as written by the Australian newspaper.;
‘No human rights under Raul Castro’
July 06, 2007
ALMOST a year after Raul Castro took over as communist Cuba’s interim leader, blanket human rights violations remain the rule, dissidents have said.The Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said reported that “the systematic and institutionalized violation of each and every civil, political, economic and even cultural right remains” since Raul Castro came to power.Raul Castro, 76, was handed the reins of power last July when his brother and president, Fidel Castro, now 80, underwent intestinal surgery, Though the number of political prisoners decreased to 246 from 283 in the first half of the year, committee chief Elizardo Sanchez said the drop was all but irrelevant given what he called the “alarming” percentage of the Cuban population of 11 million that it represents.
…………..
Mr Sanchez slammed what he called Cuba’s overcrowded prison system “made up of some 200 prisons and labor camps … completely free from the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and other organizations.” Cuba does not allow international monitors in its correctional facilities.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22027542-1702,00.html
The BBC, reporting from Cuba and half a story.
It seems to me that until a terrorist gets to kill and maim members of the Government and or the BBC, these fools will continue to Dance with the Devil at other peoples expense.
field.size | 05.07.07 – 3:44 pm
Unfortunately, not even that will get the terror-friendly BBC to change. Remember what happened to Frank Gardner?
GUILTY, THE FANATIC WHO CALLED FOR BRITISH 9/11
“A Muslim extremist who called for British soldiers to be brought home in body bags was found guilty of inciting murder yesterday.
Mizanur Rahman, 24, demanded that the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan should “run with blood”, and urged 9/11 style attacks on Europe.
He was one of several demonstrators who carried placards calling for non-Muslims to be “annihilated” and “beheaded” at a 300-strong protest in central London.”
PHOTO OF HIM
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/12527/Guilty,+the+fanatic+who+called+for+British+9/11
Alternative intelligent commentary. Not found on the BBC.
Islam’s Global War against Christianity,
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/islams_global_war_against_chri.html
“From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust. This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren’t wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs.”
Ryan: “apparently we don’t have enough engineers to deal with such things as new power station build to meet green targets. They are all doing media studies these days….”
Deeply depressing isn’t it? I’ve done two major series this year, pretty much pure public understanding of science stuff. Making science sexy, looking at what we can do to get more kids interested in doing it. One series about Chemistry, the other (Geek Week, a great name I nicked off Newsnight, and this group of cool scientists in America) looking at all the great science kids and amateurs can and are doing all the time.
Science has never been more important, trouble is it does require a bit of brain power.