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The climate change unilateralism – lauding the man-made climate change views of Richard Black – continued on BBC1 Breakfast News bulletins. He claimed in the report that his work buried once and for all the views of those scientists who disagreed with him. The BBC reporter lapped it all up, expanded his arguments by saying that fewer and fewer ‘scientists’ disagreed over climate change – but didn’t include a single dissenting voice. A clear breach of editorial guidelines, which time and time again urge balanced reporting.
Viewers’ fury at BBC as £300,000 of licence money is lavished on coverage of Campbell’s diaries
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=467582&in_page_id=1770
BBC CLOSED THIS DEBATE.. I WONDER WHY?
What are your feelings since the Glasgow Airport attack?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=6812&&&edition=2&ttl=20070711091359
Total comments:402
Published comments:230
Rejected comments:172
“The effect of the terror attack on Glasgow Airport has been debated in a special BBC Scotland programme.
Community leaders and politicians joined a Scottish audience, including people from the Muslim community, to discuss the implications of the failed attack.”
Today programme headline this morning:
“Two senior aides to the Republican party presidential candidate John McCain have resigned. Their departure are the latest blow for Senator McCain who’s been slipping in the opinion polls in part because of his support for the war in Iraq. He was recently forced to sack dozens of his staff because of a lack of funds.”
Here’s the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of Republicans/Republican leaners, and their latest fundraising exploits:
Rudy Giuliani (pro-war) – 30% (28% a month ago) – 2nd quarter fundraising $18m
Fred Thompson (pro-war) – 20% (19%) – not yet declared
John McCain (pro-war) – 16% (18%) – $11.2m
Mitt Romney (pro-war) – 9% (7%) – $20.5m
The main contenders are all pro-war, and yet it’s only McCain whose poll ratings and funding are being hit. Unlike the others, McCain supported the recent illegal immigrant amnesty bill, and there’s the real reason he’s losing support. A report later in the programme did mention this in passing, but again the emphasis was on McCain’s war stance. A clear anti-war spin was put on the story to fit the Today programme’s agenda.
(And note the valiant effort to accentuate the positives for the most anti-war Repblican candidate Ron Paul (USA TODAY/Gallup Poll – 0%) in the BBC’s online report: “Republican Ron Paul, an anti-war congressman from Texas considered an outside chance for the Republican nomination but with loyal online supporters, announced he had $2.4m on hand, having raised less but also spent far less than Mr McCain.”)
So “The Spectator” is a “political publication”, not a description one could apply to theguardian or Independent, I suppose.
The BBC has told Emily Maitlis, the Newsnight presenter, to quit her role as a contributing editor of The Spectator after just one week in a dispute over impartiality.
BBC bosses ruled that an editorial position at the Conservative-leaning magazine was incompatible with her role as a presenter on news and election programmes.
… In her first contribution for the magazine last week, a diary focusing on her family life …
BBC bosses ruled that an editorial position at the Conservative-leaning magazine was incompatible with her role as a presenter on news and election programmes.
The Times understands that Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, has warned news and current affairs presenters that editorial positions on political publications are not appropriate “outside interests”.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article2056506.ece
I have noticed other BBC journalists writing newspaper columns again, after they were stopped after Hutton, & compensated by the BBC for their loss.
They can even write for Conservative-leaning publications, if they toe the BBC line, e.g.
Is George W. Bush the worst president ever?
by GAVIN ELSER
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=414491&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=
Curiously, not a single mention could I find on the BBC online website about His Imperial Highness Hose Manual Barossa’s declaration that we are now all part of his EU “Empire”.
http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=11237
Whoops – seem to have got the Emperor’s name wrong. I wonder what the Evil Empire’s punishment is for such a heinous crime.
S’alright, even spelling his name right only revealed articles that mention him and the ottoman empire for some reason. Nothing on his declaration about the EU being an empire.
Couple of nice articles on EUReferendum.
Comparing the BBC’s coverage of the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the same BBC’s coverage of the siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad Pakistan.
A Tale of Two Sieges
Anonanon | 11.07.07 – 10:16 am
A clear anti-war spin was put on the story to fit the Today programme’s agenda.
If you check out what the US media are saying, I think you’ll find many are saying the same thing. Your analysis that McCain’s plight has nothing to do with the war and everything to do with immigration is interesting….but….er….unusual.
I suppose there’s not much point invoking august authorities such as the NYT or the WP – you probably think they’re Bolsheviks.
But what about Fox News?
The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee acknowledged that his backing for the Iraq war has hurt his candidacy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286714,00.html
AP too has a quote from the horse’s mouth:
“I’ve got to do what’s right,” McCain told the AP. “In South Carolina, the war doesn’t hurt me as much as in other parts of the country. It has hurt my candidacy.”
So, not BBC bias or ‘spin’ then.
You are right that immigration has lost him support among some conservatives. That’s probably why the BBC report said:
in part
McCain’s poll slippage on the war issue – which, as we’ve seen he admits himself – is certainly no agenda-driven BBC invention. It’s been there for ages.
Look at CBS’s polling back in early April.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/11/opinion/polls/main2670978.shtml
You are right that immigration has lost him support among some conservatives.
Well, at this stage of the Presidential race they’re the important ones, just as now it is liberals who will decide who gets to run on the Democrat ticket in ’08.
McCain might concede the war has damaged him, but when all his GOP rivals support it as well, it’s just an excuse.
You’d think the BBC would be able to see through that what with their scepticism and all, but when something meets their agenda it’s just parroted as fact.
It’s his stance on immigration that has seen his campaign implode.
AP too has a quote from the horse’s mouth:
The FoxNews report is an AP sourced report.
I wish the BBC would credit outside agencies in such a manner.
I’ve just had a refreshing hour or so listening to a US National Public Radio live feed from Minneapolis. Now I know most of my US friends think that NPR has a leftish slant, and NPR from Minnesota particularly. And up to a point this is recognisable but even so the coverage seemed so much more balanced and professional than the Beeb’s – particularly of US forces operations in Iraq and the views and experience of US soldiers. None of the unthinking “anti” assumptions that reveal the underlying thoughts (or lack of thoughts!) of the people who write the Beeb’s news stories.
What is weird is that NPR plays BBC World Service overnight – one wonders that THEY don’t notice the diference!
Remember all the brooh-ha the Arabs kicked up over the excavations near The Temple Mount and the BBC’s role in exaggerating the importance of the place to Muslims while diminishing its importance to Jews?
Not a word from the BBC about this:
Waqf Temple Mount excavation raises archaeologists’ protests
A better photo of the damage here
According to the BBC Hamas have brought law and order to Gaza. Here’s an example of it in action:
Collaborator caught upon returning to Gaza dies
I expect the BBC will report this any time now… won’t they?
wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_mccain
“Both McCain supporters and political observers pointed to McCain’s support for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, very unpopular among the Republican base electorate, as a primary cause of his fundraising problems.”
and after listening to Hugh Hewitt’s talk radio show over the past few weeks, i can confirm that – its immigration, not the war, thats dissolved base support for McCain.
does *anyone* at the BBC listen to american talk radio?
The FoxNews report is an AP sourced report.
I wish the BBC would credit outside agencies in such a manner.
Anonymous | 11.07.07 – 12:50 pm
Hear, Hear!
The mighty BBC news gathering machine appears to go through agency copy, adding an adjective or two, before publishing it without credit.
Further to above
The quality of commercial broadcasters’ news, current affairs and comedy output is declining, strengthening the case for renewing the BBC’s public funding in five years, its director-general argued on Tuesday.
He identified a “crisis” in news-gathering as the world’s broadcasters and newspapers cut foreign staff and investigative journalism budgets. “Take away the BBC and you will take away much of the coverage • it’s as simple as that.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5d69943c-2f1a-11dc-b9b7-0000779fd2ac.html
via Marc at
http://www.ussneverdock.blogspot.com/
The BBC perhaps exaggerates the input of its foreign staff by its failure to credit agency copy.
I remember a report from Somalia (or similar). The BBC had added “dusty” before the word “town” in what was otherwise a near verbatim reprint on the agency report. I felt that was deceitful, providing colour to give the impression of the poor BBC hack sweating in brightest Africa.
This morning the today program had a section on female genital mutilation.
It was factually accurate but misleading when talking about Islam and what it says about the subject.
The reporter said that the Koran says nothing on the subject (true), but did not say that there are hadith (upon which a good chunk of religious law is based) DOES actually mention it.
This being the reason why some religious figures are in favour of it/ have an opinoion on it.
The hadith itself says something like “yeah sure go ahead cut it off but leave a bit left if you do” – if memory serves.
John Reith (BBC):
I suppose there’s not much point invoking august authorities such as the NYT or the WP – you probably think they’re Bolsheviks.
What are you on? Surely, you can’t be the only person in the blogosphere to be unaware of the term MSM and its connotations of liberal bias?
The idea of NYT as some neutral news source is funnier than any of your R4 output. More JR, less Marcus Brigstocke.
What is weird is that NPR plays BBC World Service overnight – one wonders that THEY don’t notice the diference!
MattLondon | 11.07.07 – 1:23 pm | #
… we do indeed notice the difference. And while we in the US have (so far) been spared some of the Beeb’s worst excesses, it is nevertheless quite obvious to many here that the BBC brand stands for biased, agenda-driven news coverage with a decidedly anti-American slant.
Incidentally, I am a registered Democrat living on the East Coast and a regular listener to National Public Radio – very much a part of the BBC’s target demographic, in other words.
The BBC News front page is currently asking:
“What would top your political agenda?
Education
Environment
Health
Housing ”
No mention of Terrorism, Europe, Immigration etc…
Is this another example of “cultural liberal bias”?
John Reith | 11.07.07 – 12:12 pm |
You forgot to include the preceding paragraph from that Fox News article, JR:
In an interview with The Associated Press, the Arizona senator also defended his support for a bipartisan immigration bill, a stance that has undercut his bid in early voting South Carolina.
In other words – top billing goes to the immigration bill. Top (headline) billing on the Today programme went to the war. The story is about McCain shedding staff due to lack of money. Guiliani and Romney – both pro-war – have outperformed McCain in the fundraising stakes. Unlike McCain, they opposed the amnesty.
Re the CBS April poll – if you go to the detailed poll findings rather than just the CBS appraisal you’ll find this (my emphasis):
Yet Republicans • whose Presidential nomination McCain is seeking • do agree with him on the war: six in ten Republicans say the war is going at least somewhat well and seven in ten say the U.S. is likely to succeed in Iraq.
McCain’s fundraising base has never been Daily Kos lefties or Huffington Post celebrity liberals. He needs Republican money, and he’s failing to get it. A recent article in the Examiner headlined “Anemic fundraising forces McCain to fire staffers” doesn’t mention the war once, but it does say this:
McCain advisers acknowledged the Arizona senator was hurt in recent weeks by the protracted Senate debate over an immigration bill that would have granted legal status to illegal immigrants. McCain supported the legislation, even though most conservatives derided it as amnesty.
There was an almost palpable sense of relief in the McCain camp that the legislation would no longer be debated following its defeat last week. But there was also a deep disappointment about the candidate’s bleak financial picture.
http://www.examiner.com/a-810293~Anemic_fundraising_forces_McCain_to_fire_staffers.html
The Today programme’s decision to emphasise McCain’s pro-war stance was wrong – but not surprising.
BBC Scotland
Reporting Scotland,5 minutes ago reporter Morag Kinniburgh talking about a new film informed us it was about; “Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped and later executed.”
No Morag, Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered.
BBC and its institutionalised bias at it’s best. Peter Allen on Drive Radio 5 today discussing why the pound is so strong against the dollar. The pundit explained the reasons and the consequences one being a reduction in American visitors to this country. To which Allen replied alomg the lines of that’s great isn’t it – to loud guffaws from the studio. Biased BBC. Disgraceful.
Do these stories seem strange to you?
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/6280162.stm
Try to find ANY description of the guy who was killed or the five who were arrested.
Now read this story:
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6285176.stm
Notice any differences? Any doubt here who the bad guys are with such a “cowardly” attack?
BBC R5 @ 5ish today. Peter Allen plays 2 interviews with members of the public, asking what they think of
browns house building plan. One is v positive, one is fairly positive.
BBC HYS differs wildly. No bias there then.
The BBC, its love for a certain faith and half a story;
Councillor weds Bin Laden’s son
A 51-year-old parish councillor from Cheshire has married a son of the world’s most notorious terrorist. Jane Felix-Browne, from Moulton, near Northwich, married Omar Osama Bin Laden, 27, after romance blossomed during a holiday in Egypt. The grandmother, who declined to take her husband’s surname, says she does not care about his family background, stating she married for love.
……………
Omar, who is Bin Laden’s fourth eldest son, is currently working as a scrap metal dealer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, while his new bride applies for a visa so he can visit Britain.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6292072.stm
All love and roses however the BBC leave out quite a few pertinent snippets of information which give a different story from the one they publish.
1) While she refused to take her husbands name (Which in the BBC version paints some sort of strength of character) she has taken on the name ‘Zaina Mohamad ‘ nothing wrong with that which the BBC should have published.
2) The BBC article kind of leaves out he is already married and has a daughter. I wonder if that visa she is applying for covers them also. Seeing as bigamy is illegal in the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=467599&in_page_id=1770
The BBC, its love for a certain faith and half a story;
The BBC, its love for misguided criminals and how it defends them.
Patient wait for life behind bars
The 21 July bomb plotters looked patient rather than nervous as they waited to be sentenced. Take away the court setting and they could have been four men waiting at a bus stop, rather than would-be mass murderers who were about to be locked away for many years. The trial was a lengthy one at six months. The mitigation was brief.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6291954.stm
The BBC writes up on 4 wannabe terrorists who failed in their attempt to murder as many people as possible. So how does the BBC consign these most despicable. (Lets be honest here only luck saved hundreds of people that day) to history with its final chapter on them;
Muktar Ibrahim
“Plot leader Muktar Ibrahim’s barrister said that, as the middle of seven children, his client was concerned about the effect his sentence might have on his three brothers and three sisters.”
How caring for him, maybe he should have thought of how his brothers and sisters would have fared as the siblings of a murderous terrorist if his little plan had worked?
Yassin Omar
“And he handed the judge a letter from Omar’s former foster father, Steven Lamb, describing how he still cared about Omar.”
And I wonder if Mr Lamb would still have cared if Yassin had murdered people that day?
Hussain Osman
Hussain Osman’s lawyer said his client was a “follower not an organiser” and had only joined the plot at a late stage.
But still he plotted to murder as many as possible BBC?
Ramzi Mohammed
Ramzi Mohammed was also a “late recruit”, his lawyer pleaded.
not so late as to turn his backpack towards a woman and a baby on the tube BBC
Yet again the BBC tries to paint terrorists as people with human faces, faces which no doubt the BBC will try to present as a miscarriage of justice after a few more years of trying to brainwash the British public that these idiots are in fact “Misguided criminals”
The BBC, its love for misguided criminals and how it defends them.
and right now , on bbc 2 , we have a party political broadcast on behalf of the labour party.
that’d be the alistair cambell diaries so.
Re:The BBC, its love for misguided criminals and how it defends them.
There’s also this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6654467.stm
Wherein the BBC has no problem using the ‘M’ word.
max | 11.07.07 – 8:27 pm
Heh.
I had been concerned about the effect of slasher moderating comments as I rely on this site to tell me what the BBC does not.
I don’t know how many comments are being removed but I do think it is working rather well at the moment.
Shock Horror –
I heard P J O’Rourke talking about his new book on Adam Smith this afternoon – (R4) Amazingly there were no off the shelf marxists to attack him (and Smith) How could this have made it through the commissioning process?
Hi Deborah,
Please bear with us while things settle down – the comments facility will be back to normal in due course (i.e. how it was prior to a few months ago).
Andrew.
meggoman: Any idea what time this was said, I would love to link to it from my blog? It would go nicely with Ms Garvey’s champagne oops – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2007/05/jane-garvey-transcript.html
Anonanon | 11.07.07 – 6:54 pm
You make a persuasive case for McCain’s support for the immigration bill being the reason he has found it hard to raise funds from the Republican base.
What a shame it is a total irrelevance to the point at issue.
What we were disputing was this sentence in the Today programme’s report:
Their departure are the latest blow for Senator McCain who’s been slipping in the opinion polls in part because of his support for the war in Iraq.
As perhaps you will now see, the war was cited not as a reason for poor performance in fundraising, but for poor performance in the polls.
Which is quite a different thing.
He needs the wingnuts for the money.
But he’ll need a few moonbats to win.
Tough call. Bye. See you at the other place maybe.
I found this on my webtravels:
Al-Beeb’s friends at Hamas
Tom Gross takes the covers off al-Beeb’s relations with Hamas. I question why the British taxpayer should be paying for its broadcasters to consort with terrorists and how anyone can seriously argue that al-Beeb’s coverage is not biased by this type of relationship:
A senior BBC executive has confirmed that the BBC held private meetings with Hamas • whose gunmen usually wear ski masks to hide their identity • in the days leading up to the release of reporter Alan Johnston.
more see here: http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2007/07/al-beebs-friends-at-hamas.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/515/story/146404.html
but the polls you refer to JR are polls of Republican voters.
“New polls this week showed his support plummeting in two key early-voting states. He is tied for fifth place in Iowa, with 6 percent. He fell to fourth place in South Carolina, with 7 percent. Mason-Dixon Polling & Research conducted both polls of likely Republican voters, which had error margins of plus or minus 5 percentage points.”
Earnest discussion for over 20 minutes on Newsnight concerning the housing crisis and G.Brown’s plan to solve it.
Not heard one mention of the elephant in the room.If up to half a million immigrants are arriving each year, building an extra 250,000 homes by 2020 is going to make ****all difference to this problem.
archduke | 11.07.07 – 10:56 pm
But not all Republicans are against the ‘earned citizenship’ proposals are they?
Bush supported immigration reform for goodness sake.
And some Republicans have lost faith in the Iraq strategy as we’ve seen in recent days.
The guys doing McCain in over the immigration issue are movement conservatives –
The whole McCain pitch was to reach out leftwards beyond that base, beyond the registered Republican base too and pick up ‘independent’ or floating voters.
That once looked plausible. The war seems to have made it a much harder thing to do.
The fact that they achieved this [the release of Johnston] has sparked a debate about whether Hamas should be rewarded politically. Neither I nor the BBC will be entering that debate.
That’s Simon Wilson on The Editors blog:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/07/the_joy_of_alan.html
I wonder what he calls this then:
Should the world now talk to Hamas?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=6781&&&&&edition=2&ttl=20070711231414
(Funny, that particular forum was whisked quite abruptly off the HYS main page. Now it’s hard to find.)
The BBC not only entered the debate, it actively fostered and encouraged it. However, this is nothing new. The BBC has been legitimising and sanitising the Hamas terror group for years. It has made it abundantly clear which side it is on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
John Reith,
McCain is toast because he’s too old, and has alienated too many people. Moreover, he was trashed several years back when he was contending for the nomination against Bush for the 2000 election. He was winning over the reporters with nearly unparalleled access and chumminess, and then turned it off as he fell farther behind. Then the stories started to fly about his “anger”, and whispers of how he looks more frail in person than on TV. We’re getting a lot of that this time round as well. At stage whisper volume was talk of how the 2000 election would be his last chance as we would be too old in 2008.
McCain has put his foot in it on several counts, Iraq notwithstanding. His viability is routinely questioned in articles all over the place, and the press smelled blood in the water a few weeks ago when he began to downsize his staff, and they are now just feeding on the little bits that are left of him.
It is only natural that the usual suspects (The NY Times, etc.) would claim McCain’s failure as their victory for their own agenda. Everything that happened in the past is not relevant to them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6291100.stm
Sex clothes anger Kenyan Muslims
Wednesday, 11 July 2007, 16:04 GMT 17:04 UTC
——–
“It was popular in the 1990s until a religious vigilante organisation illegally rounded up the prostitutes hiding under buibuis and flogged them publicly.”
Does anyone at the BBC know the claimed religion of this organization?
John Reith said “He needs the wingnuts for the money.
But he’ll need a few moonbats to win.”
And so will those other GOP contenders who lead McCain in the polls…and who all support the war.
Today’s analysis: a crock!
Amazing piece today on the PRI/BBC World Service news show “The World”. As you might expect from the involvement of the two organizations which put the show together, there is rarely if ever a good word for the Iraq effort, but today’s show suggested that planning should start for the Iraq withdrawal aftermath so that it would turn out well, the way the Vietnam aftermath turned out well. It was truly a flabbergasting moment while I listened to a piece reported from a universe where boat people, the Cambodian genocide and a body-blow to US strategic interests never happened. Here’s my transcription of the opening :
“Supporters and critics of the US mission in Iraq don’t agree on much.
But most do agree that a troop withdrawal will be ugly:
There’s the danger of an all out civil-war;
Iraq’s neighbors might intervene and a regional war could ensue.
Dire predictions also accompanied the debate
over getting out of Vietnam, but the worst was avoided.
Some think that was due to intelligent planning in Washington.”
The audio is at http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/11368
Here’s a gem; read it and play a classic game of ‘Let’s not be nasty to a certain religion’.
Enjoy the revelation that the recent bombs were ‘abortive’. And apparently, all religions have suffered as a result.
Failed bomb attacks ‘hurt Islam’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6294148.stm
Let’s draw the general McCain discussion to a close now (unless you have something really relevant to the Beeb’s coverage about him to add).
It is only natural that the usual suspects (The NY Times, etc.) would claim McCain’s failure as their victory for their own agenda.
David Preiser | 12.07.07 – 5:20 am
John Reith said “He needs the wingnuts for the money.
But he’ll need a few moonbats to win.”
And so will those other GOP contenders who lead McCain in the polls…and who all support the war.
Today’s analysis: a crock!
Anonymous | 12.07.07 – 6:40 am
What they said.
Oops, sorry Slash.