Please use this thread for BBC related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
K | 19.07.07 – 3:20 pm,
If you follow the progression of a “Reactively Moderated” HYS, you’ll see that they switch from RM to “Fully Moderated” and back again enough times to make you dizzy.
I imagine this is because they can’t sit in front of the computer checking the comments 24/7 and when they need to take a coffee break or just go home to get some sleep or whatever, they simply switch back to FM which effectively blocks the comments until they can be there to check them again.
Anyway, that’s my take on it.
A party political broadcast for the Taliban party on the BBC
‘I hoped to be a glorious martyr’
A woman who was inside Islamabad’s Red Mosque when it was stormed by Pakistani troops on 10 July has given the BBC one of the first accounts of the final hours of the siege. Unwilling to be named, the survivor said she was not held hostage by militants inside. More than 100 people died in the army operation – she was one of only 30 women to walk out alive after soldiers went in. Following are excerpts from the interview with Rafia Riaz of the BBC’s Urdu service.
Read the rest;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6907141.stm
…some time before 200,000 years ago…
Ritter | 19.07.07 – 12:55 pm
That ain’t English.
BBC Radio Adopts the Arab Narrative of the Six-Day-War
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=12&x_article=1337
6 Month Analysis of the BBC: The Subtle Bias
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/6_Month_Analysis_of_the_BBC_The_Subtle_Bias.asp
As an American, that whole “detector van” thing just freaks me out. I remember being (to borrow a term) gobsmacked the first time I heard about it. My mind immediately jumped to World War II movies I’ve seen where British or American agents are dropped into occupied Europe and the Gestapo uses ominous looking detector vans to try to locate the agents’ radio broadcasts in order to find and capture them. It’s hard to believe that anything even remotely comparable happens in a democratic society composed of free citizens. Especially over something as inane as television. I think it would certainly put a crimp in our First Amendment. I can’t imagine being required to pay money to the government to be entitled to get information about what was going on in the world around me. The right to information is a whole lot more fundamental than a lot of other rights that some people think society should guarantee.
I have deleted an abusive comment from Verity directed at kcom for the alleged unoriginality of his thoughts (I also deleted the follow-up comments). Yes Verity, I know we’ve had a thousand comments along these lines, but I also notice you’ve developed a habit of abusing commentators. Keep doing it and you’ll be banned.
a real SABRE:
You have to remember that Jeremy Bowen hasn’t had his “integrity training” yet.
Hi kcom, the ‘whole detector van’ thing is, apparently, a myth – apparently they don’t use such devices, or if they do, it’s not an every day thing. I have never seen one on the streets, nor do I hear of people complaining of seeing one on the streets.
People who get prosecuted for not having a TV licence have generally ‘confessed’, i.e. have made a statement to the BBC/TVL people admitting their ‘crime’, which is then used to prosecute them.
If you say nothing to them, shut the door, and are not obviously watching a TV (from the door), then it is very difficult for them to proceed, so they’ll likely pick on an easier target elsewhere (like all bullies and burglars!). They could get a search warrant, but it’s a lot of work for them, and they won’t get one unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect you of breaking the law (merely not having a licence is not sufficient grounds).
They also write to people with licences a great deal, to harass them into getting one – it can be quite distressing for people who don’t have TVs to keep getting threatening letters warning of their visits.
Generally, because it’s easier, they target poorer areas, there are more non-payers, they’re closer together, they’re less likely to know their rights – so the queue of TVL prosecutions clogging up the local magistrates court is in large part composed of single-parents, students and so on. Nice work, eh!
But no one, apparently, has ever been proseecuted based on ‘detector van’ evidence – hence its mythical status. I have heard of them parking a TVL marked van in, say, a supermarket car park in a poorer area, and then sniggering to themselves as people rush to get a licence.
For more info on what they can and can’t do, both legally and technically, visit http://www.tvlicensing.biz – there’s a ton of campaign stuff there.
Andrew: one reason I pay is that I’m afraid of ending up on a credit blacklist. I once got in a fight with a mail-order-CD company who threatened me with this, so I’ve always assumed the licensing company could do the same.
Andrew:
“Hi kcom, the ‘whole detector van’ thing is, apparently, a myth – apparently they don’t use such devices, or if they do, it’s not an every day thing. I have never seen one on the streets, nor do I hear of people complaining of seeing one on the streets.”
I have lived in Liverpool, York, Bradford and Leeds and I have seen detector vans roaming the streets of all four cities. They do exist and they do frighten the proles.
Do they work technologically/scientifically – no.
Do they frighten people – yes
Bit like a bbc documentary on MMGW
Andrew 20.07.07 – 12:49 pm
Andrew, you are being irresponsible.
the whole detector van thing is, apparently, a myth
Untrue. They really do exist.
I have never seen one on the streets, nor do I hear of people complaining of seeing one on the streets.
Since 2003 they have had removable livery. They no longer have huge rotating antennae on their roofs. The vehicles themselves are of a common manufacture and you wouldn’t be able to tell a detector van from any other ordinary ‘white van’ parked in your street.
no one, apparently, has ever been prosecuted based on ‘detector van’ evidence – hence its mythical status.
The detector van operators are not required to give evidence in court because it is not necessary to for the prosecution to prove you were watching TV • only that you were in possession of receiving equipment without a licence.
Detector van evidence is used in the stage before • i.e. in support of an application for a search warrant.
A licence-fee evader will probably never know that his house has been targeted by a detector van until • some days later • someone knocks on his door and shows him a search warrant.
Only a small percentage of households now do not have a licence. All electrical goods retailers are obliged to pass on the addresses of their customers to the licensing authority if they sell them a TV.
You could get round this by paying cash and giving a false address, or by buying your TV off the back of a lorry. But, in any case, you’d be on the list for an initial visit.
You could tell the initial visitor to sod off.
Then you’d be short-listed for a detection visit.
Then a search warrant would follow……….arrest…….fine…..etc.
Some other helpful hints:
Apart from vans, there are also hand-held detection devices.
Detecting equipment doesn’t measure cathode-ray emissions • so buying an LCD screen doesn’t help.
Today’s detection procedures can and do detect PC’s adapted for TV reception
This headline I found on Ceefax yesterday, on the news overview page 101:
“Doctor convicted of bomb ‘plot'”
‘Plot’? Well if it wasn’t a ‘plot’ then what was it?
Meanwhile Sky were reporting “Mohammed Asha charged with conspiracy to cause explosions”. That’s how you report the plain facts, Auntie.
Hello JR. They are a myth to the extent that they are used to enforce the tellytax – at least if the folk at http://www.tvlicensing.biz are right. Their campaign slogan is “Don’t get one, don’t get done!”. They don’t seem frightened of the detection van bogeyman.
My point is that most of the BBC/TVL approach is based on intimidation – lots of threatening letters, maybe a knock at the door, and a prosecution for those feckless enough to co-operate and give a statement to the BBC’s enforcers.
As I mentioned with my supermarket car park example, and as jones commented, the purpose of detection vans, such as they are, is to frighten the ignorant into buying a TV licence.
The chances of being hunted down in the manner that you suggest are, I venture, not high at all. The chances of being intimidated and prosecuted if you are a single-parent on a run-down estate who is gulled into self-incrimination though are quite high.
You also said that “it is not necessary to for the prosecution to prove you were watching TV • only that you were in possession of receiving equipment without a licence”
That is indeed the offence, but it is still perfectly legal to own and use a TV, so long as it is not used for watching broadcast television, though the TVL enforcers conveniently ignore this in the propaganda that you quote.
One other observation about the collection of names and addresses for enforcement, I bought a DVD player in Asda recently. All of their DVD players had BBC/TVL labels on them requiring Asda to collect the details of people who bought them. I explained to the lady at the counter that it was not necessary to have a TV licence to purchase a DVD player, that I didn’t intend to use it with a TV (it was for a projector) and that even if I did, it was still not necessary to have a TV licence to watch DVDs on a TV. In the end, I asked to speak with the Manager – he came over, listened to my point, and then let me proceed without giving any details. But it is wrong that the BBC and TVL should try to collect data relating to equipment such as DVD players – they are not TV receiving equipment!
I do have a licence by the way – I’m just not keen on being required by the state or the state’s broadcaster or its enforcers to hand over my details when there is no legal requirement to do so.
I always thought that a TV license allowed you to own equipment capable of receiving broadcasts.
Whether you watch the BBC or not has nothing to do with it.
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Shares of RDF Media, a British independent television-program maker, have lost about a quarter of their value in the last week in reaction to a video clip it produced that falsely implied the Queen had stormed out of a photography session.
RDF pays a high price for sending to the BBC a promo that was intended for internal chuckling (all public life is just grist for “Have I got News for You” style mockery).
RDF didn’t realise that the BBC were either so naive or so tunnel visioned as to show the misleading clips to a wider audience.
The majority of women banged up are women off council estates who couldn’t pay their TV licence fees.
I have a desirory opinion of “single mums” and think they are feckless leeches, but to break up a family, such as it is, and send the mother to prison and the children into care because she hasn’t been able to stretch her money to pay the Danegeld is nauseating, even for me.
>The majority of women banged up are women off council estates who couldn’t pay their TV licence fees.
Any evidence for this?
Further to my (D)HYS experiment.
As BaggieJonathan I have had 1 post published out of 7.
Under other pseudonyms I have had 5 published out of 9, even though I used very similar language and arguments.
Yes the sample is small, but I think it lends increasing evidence to my assertion that I am being ‘moderated’ due to my contributions here.
BBC bias in action…
I always find it amusing to find the BBC reviving the old “detector” meme. You would think an organisation that lies about its technology would be the subject of a “Watchdog” show but that never seems to happen does it.
Without getting to technical these things worked by detecting either the local oscillator or the emissions linked to the old cathode ray tubes. In the bygone days of the 1950’s and 60’s this worked (in a fashion). But these days there are no CRT’s and houses are full of electronic gadgets pumping out electronic mush all over the place. To make things worse local oscillator frequencies vary widely as it is easier to custom manufacture filters. Sure you can hunt for noise from say an LCD but you might be detecting a PC LCD’s or even a LCD in an upmarket fridge rather than a TV. As for PC’s the IC’s in a little USB TV receiver may not even have a local oscillator and frequently turn the radio waves into digital data directly all one tiny tiny chip that is wrapped in a metal shield. If you try to emissions from a high speed USB link then you are as likely to detect one of those little USB backup drives that transfer their digital data in the same way.
None of this is secret by the way the UK electronics industry is packed with skilled ex-BBC engineers who were made redundant when the luvies tried to cut costs to save their own skins and believe me these guys hold grudges. I should know I have worked with several.
I dunno if anybody else has seen this, but melanie philipps has a post on how antisemitism is being allowed on Al Beeb’s forums, but any critisism of certain antisemetic posts are quickly getting censored
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=524
Talking about the BBC licence fee and the BBC only targeting those they know will pay up reminds me of when I was based in Omagh NI. The infantry regiments I was attached to (1LI and 1 WFR) insisted on every single living in soldier. (Everybody in the block) to have affixed to the side of their Television set a current TV licence. No problems with that. However most single soldiers have their own telly and a lot of them have to bunk up to 4 in a room. 4 blokes , 4 tellies.It makes you wonder if the BBC are raking it in. Now I know the TV licensing people used to ask permission for their folks to visit the camps and try catch anybody out for not having a licence.
(Which entailed getting done twice. Once by the civvies and another by the army)
However trying to have 1 licence to a room wasn’t allowed hence the TV licence taped to the side of the telly so as to facilitate a quick inspection. No wonder the lads used to grumble about having never seen a TV detector van on the Falls road.
Britain feels quite authoritarian to those of us born on the other side of the Atlantic. Residents forced by threat of imprisonment to pay a tax directly to the state braodcaster, whether you view their content or not. Imagine having to pay for the Guardian every month in order to read the Financial Times! A Monarch who is still head of government, and the Church of England. CofE bishops holding half the seats in the House of Lords (the nation’s highest legislative chamber) by decree – all unelected. The present Labour government holds a majority in parliament, though 65% of those who voted in the last election, didn’t vote for Labour. Half the CCTV cameras in the world are in the UK – I’m on camera an average of 300 times a day in London – yet the crime rate keeps going up, so what exactly are they using all this technology for?
David S.,
Now that you’ve seen the UK state close up, reread the Declaration of Independence in an entirely new light…
Yesterday I came across the following interview with John Travolta in The Big Issue (July 16-22 , 2007, No.753) that mentions that other recent BBC scandal where the same philosophy of fraud and deception (that has been exposed about the Queen) was similarly employed in one of their so-called flag ship documentary programmes, “Panorama”
“…what I wanted was for the BBC to be aware of the fact that it was a journalist causing the controversy in the crowd” He is talking about an anti-Scientology protestor at the Wild Hogs premiere in London. “I couldn’t believe it. Its like there’s one thing to be a journalist genuinely curious about a question, but for one to be posing, actor-style, as an activist against your religion was bizarre to me. I’ve tried to get to the bottom of this. So it was like, ‘Do you know, BBC, you have an in-house journalist that’s pretending to be this activist?” And how does he know? “We have film of it. Evidence! It’s wild.”
Yet another nail in the coffin as far as the BBCs journalistic integrity is concerned. Can it get any lower? Right now the BBC resembles a drunk using two hands to steady himself in front of lamppost. Don’t let him continue to abuse us. Why are we still compelled to pay for this outfit of crooks and fraudsters, being paid highly exorbitant wages? Did anybody hear the BBC economics editor, Gavin somebody, last week on the Today programme? Asked what was the average weekly amount spent at supermarkets by families in the UK “Oh, let me see, oh, I’d say 80-95 quid”, “No Gavin, £45.” The co-host, son of the bishop, starts to laugh and wryly comments on “its not often we hear the BBC economics editor £50 out” ha, ha, ha, ha. Please- let the BBC put together a dodgy outfit and continue with it’s Group 4 ethics, and detector van squads (that are lower than some of those private tyre clampers in the food chain, you know the ones that clamp ambulances), together with its array of Child exploitation programmes, and left-wing humour, but don’t expect the public to pay for it anymore.
Verity | 20.07.07 – 3:19 pm
…to break up a family, such as it is, and send the mother to prison and the children into care because she hasn’t been able to stretch her money to pay the Danegeld is nauseating…
The most common prison sentence is one week. In 62 per cent of cases where the defaulter is a woman, it is less than one week.
Prison is, in any case, reserved for those who wilfully and persistently refuse to pay a fine by instalments.
The majority of defaulters live on State benefits • so the whole prison thing could easily be avoided if the government introduced attachment of benefit orders that deducted the instalments at source.
33 per cent of women defaulters are under 25 years, 73 per cent are under 35 years.
In many cases the unlicensed TV equipment is itself worth as much as the fine.
Scot:
I dunno if anybody else has seen this, but melanie philipps has a post on how antisemitism is being allowed on Al Beeb’s forums, but any critisism of certain antisemetic posts are quickly getting censored
http://www.melaniephillips.com/a…cles-new/? p=524
Scot | 20.07.07 – 4:31 pm | #
——————–
It’s been an orgy of censorship there today, with several threads and many posts talking about it deleted. They seem to have lightened up a bit this afternoon – perhaps after it was pointed out to them that many would be watching.
John, the BBC have denied that the person in the crowd in the interview that you mentioned was one of their people.
I know it might seem a tough call, but given a choice between believing the
Cult, sorry, so-called Church, of Scientology and the BBC, even the BBC wins by a mile for me.Anyone who even for a moment thinks otherwise needs to get over to http://www.xenu.net (or many other web sites) and take a long hard look at the beliefs and methods of the Scientology scammers and their carefully cultivated Hollywood figureheads.
Two incidences on the BBC today that have enraged me:
One
Prolonged pro islamist rave this morningon Today (or should it be called ‘Toady)’ from a teenage girl inmate of the red mosque. She came from a ‘conservative family’. She provided a frank first hand report as a bona fide islamist fanatic – she openly stated that she was being trained as a suicide terrorist, and was sorry that there wasn’t enough explosives to allow her to blow herself and some govt troops to valhalla
“I was crying because Korans were burning in there…”
The Beeb seemed incapable of adding any comment to this. I didn’t know what to think other than it was being presented with what appeared to be approval…..
2 Jack straw on PM
a good 5 mins of umrelenting Labour propaganda from Straw (Unchallenged) his gripe was that as there was a lot of news today there wasn’t enough attacking of the “Tories” going on. The Beeb gave in a national network platform for his party political broadcast.
When are we going to see an end of the BBC?
Good comment on the “Floods” DHYS (not mine):
Added: Friday, 20 July, 2007, 11:00 GMT 12:00 UK
I’m surprised the BBC have resisted the temptation to run with the headline “Global Warming Causes Severe Flash Floods in Filey – 17 People Wet”.
“Global Warming” is to the BBC what Paedophiles are to the Sun & News Of The World.
It’s all too much | 20.07.07 – 6:37 pm
She provided a frank first hand report as a bona fide islamist fanatic – she openly stated that she was being trained as a suicide terrorist, and was sorry that there wasn’t enough explosives to allow her to blow herself and some govt troops to valhalla
A clear and thorough picture of this woman – and by extension other Red Mosque types – provided to listeners -without euphemism or weasel words. Excellent.
The Beeb seemed incapable of adding any comment to this.
That’s what’s called unbiased, impartial reporting.
Adding ‘comment’ could come close to ‘editorializing’.
Thought you guys were against that.
I didn’t know what to think other than it was being presented with what appeared to be approval…..
Have you tried consulting a perceptions doctor?
John Reith, most people now see the BBC for what it is and the tide is turning. Fine. Threaten us with mobile or handheld detectors. Nitpick if you will but the BBC is withering on the vine.
John Reith
perhaps you have difficulty identifying irony? The BBC makes a habit of editorialising on many, many occasions but apparently not on this one. fair enough but can we have this wonderful new policy applied across the board please
BBC RUN BY THOSE WHO LOATHE BRITAIN
Frederick Forsyth : “But the high point for me was a pamphlet by Sir Antony Jay called Confessions Of A Reformed BBC Producer, published by the Centre for Policy Studies. It was brief but brilliant. Antony Jay was founder of the current affairs TV show Tonight in 1957, staying with the BBC until 1964. Going freelance he co-wrote the now classic series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.
In his monograph he describes the trendy, witless, Left-wing, anti-Crown, anti-armed forces, anti-just-about-everything-British community of young BBC recruits to the NCA division back then. I had no idea the termites had entered the woodwork that early.
Forty years later, as he explains, their conquest of the NCA sector of the BBC has become total and even more fanatical. He makes it perfectly clear that for this far-Left, Guardian-worshipping mindset, there is no place for hard-nosed impartial news. The “agenda” comes first, middle and last. And the agenda is fundamentally describable in two words: loathe Britain”.
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/14141
“I was crying because Korans were burning in there…”
How come the BBC reporter never asked what she thought about the hundreds of Korans burnt after Al Q attacks on mosques in Iraq………..?
Obvious question I would have thought.. Oh Wait.
It’s all too much | 20.07.07 – 6:37 pm
The dust from the Red mosque siege had hardly settled when the BBC, through Barbara ‘I cried for Arafat’ Plett, was reporting on anxious relatives seeking information on their ‘loved ones’ inside. No matter how energetically John Reith tries to steer us away from our ‘perceptions’ of BBC bias here with his claim that the BBC was ‘impartial’ in this particular portrayal of a would-be-terrorist, the fact remains that the BBC habitually gives Islamic terror free rein and generous air time in which to vent its psychoses.
The World Sevice reporter covering the release of the first of 250 mostly Fatah Palestinian terr.. er, sorry… prisoners sounded a little flat and unimpressed as he rambled on with his analysis of the event. Presenter Dee Sebastian thought she’d inject a bit of spirit into the great occasion: “But there is joy there today, isn’t there?” she enthused.
That reminded me of the enthusiasm of a World Service reporter covering the early release in Indonesia of a terrorist responsible for the Bali bombing. It was as if she was happily joining in the spirit of the occasion.
Then, of course, we have the BBC’s steady sanitising and legitimising of Hamas over the years, not to mention its sickening cuddling-up to Hamas during the Johnston affair.
And so on, endlessly, from Chechnya to the Philippines and Egypt to Nigeria. As unpalatable as it may be for Reith and others to acknowledge, the BBC does not see the constituent parts of this vile worldwide network as terrorists but as freedom fighters bravely battling for a noble cause. The BBC is intent on elevating them to Mandela status and diminishing their victims in the public perception.
BBC editors and presenters and reporters are masters of the art of manipulating public perception while insisting that they are objective innocents, simply doing their job. But occasionally they slip up and reveal their true colours. The public, however, is slowly starting to wake up to what the BBC is about, the best efforts of Reith and others notwithstanding.
Some may recall that ex-BBC man Martin Belam joined a debate here about the BBC and anti-Semitism. I was impressed by his honesty in at least acknowledging the probability that the BBC has a real problem in this regard. This is something John Reith will never do.
Here’s the post:
Martin,
Way off topic, but I recall a debate we had on the Biased BBC site a while back on the apparent reluctance of the BBC to delete an anti-Semitic comment from The Editors blog despite many comlaints, from yourself included. I remember that you posted an article about it on your blog at the time.
In the light of that article, in which you described how you were confident that the BBC would delete the comment after the complaints and were amazed when it didn’t, I thought you might be interested in the fact that the BBC has now dropped the pretence of fair play and is refusing to delete an anti-Semitic comment from one of its message boards, while deleting complaints about the comment from the thread:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=524
The BBC is going from bad to worse.
And this is his site address:
http://www.currybet.net/
John Reith,
If the detector vans work so well why are the TV Licensing scums keep sending me threatening letters even though I do not own a TV?
They should just get their van outside my property and then send me a letter of apology for the continuous harrassment.
Frankly, their tactic is akin to the one employed by low grade mafiosi.
Frankly, their tactic is akin to the one employed by low grade mafiosi.
Glauca | 20.07.07 – 10:02 pm
And so is the tactic of threatening people with prison if they don’t pay for the BBC’s crappy output – which is deteriorating as we debate it.
Here’s an extraordinary TV interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali by a Toronto presenter who is intent on spouting every left wing, anti-American cliche in the book:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
(Scroll down a few threads.)
She appears to be quite charmed by him but her words belie her coy attitude, especially this final bit:
I don’t find myself in the same luxury as you. You grew up in freedom and you can spit on freedom because you don’t know what it is not to have freedom. I haven’t. I know that there are many things wrong with America and … with Americans but I still believe that it is the best country in the world.
Bryan wrote;
“BBC editors and presenters and reporters are masters of the art of manipulating public perception while insisting that they are objective innocents, simply doing their job. But occasionally they slip up and reveal their true colours.”
Thank you for your post Bryan. The BBC liberal mindset equates Terrorists as our equals if not our betters. They are you see fighting for a cause. The cause of removing the shackle of western oppression. Be it direct (Iraq/Afghanistan) or indirect, (Pakistan/Saudi Arabia/Algeria etc…)
I read that Pakistani martyr article with disbelief. Mr John Reith declared it was a fine example of ‘unbiased, impartial reporting.’ And yes at first it does come across as that. But look closer. What has the BBC accomplished in allowing that polarised woman to vent her spleen? They allow her to play the victim card. The whole post is nothing but a red flag in front of a bull article. Christ you only have to watch the video by Mohammad Sidique Khan in which he accuses the west of committing atrocities as the main reason for his little murderous endeavour to see what I mean.
Lets ask the question was it really a news article that warranted 2 articles which hogged the top spot for a while.
No
It was a secondary or tertiary article which one usually finds in the middle supplement of the guardian or even the BBC web magazine but the top news item for BBC news for almost a day. Nah. That article will probably result in more deaths than the radical students at the red mosque could ever achieve. Why, because the radical idiots who only require the slightest provocation in which to ‘Murder, death, kill’ will not allow the news of so called innocent women being prevented from preventing Korans to burn to go unnoticed. So while the so called liberal elite shout out “The BBC doing what it does best” over that rally for the troops article. What they don’t tell you is the rally is actually for Radical Islamic terrorism which will unfortunately result in in more deaths.
But then the BBC can always blame it on Bush/Blair and the Jews.
The Beeb is looking more and more like British Leyland before that company’s unlamented demise.We could equate the news and current affairs to the Austin Allegro.Seems about right to me.All vast and overblown state funded institutions eventually implode.It is the way of the world.
The pernicious and unnacceptable difference with the Beeb is that it extorts money from us in a manner more suited to Soviet Russia than a free society.
It may look to be on the run but like all oppressive powers can do an awful lot of damage on the way out.It needs watching even more now.
damn fine article here by Tom Gross that goes over a heck of a lot of BBC bias examples..
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/gross200406181018.asp
worth bookmarking and saving to your hard drive for future reference.
Thank you for that Holiday in Hamastan – it’s a great article. It was mentioned in passing on Biased BBC back when it was published – see here.
Re my post on Martin Belam above
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/9171584816960173249/#365580
his latest post on the Telegraph’s discussion thread on the BBC links to biased BBC:
http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2007/07/telegraph_bbc_execs_promo.php
I was mistaken in describing him as ex-BBC. He is apparently currently working part time for the BBC.
pounce | 20.07.07 – 11:02 pm,
Yes, exactly. Much of the BBC’s bias is in the exposure. The BBC saw fit to give this would-be-“martyr” endless space and air time to pump out her jihadist propaganda unchallenged. Apart from the website and “Today” she was also on the World Service. And she is still prominently linked to on the main page of the South Asia section of the website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/default.stm
Now I wonder, for example, why the BBC didn’t give similar exposure to innocent civilian residents of the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona after it was bombarded by 1000 Katyusha rockets courtesy of Hezbollah last year.
I guess the BBC’s little heart just wasn’t in it.
On this morning’s Breakfast “writer and broadcaster” Simon Fanshawe used his post-7am newspaper review to make overtly pro-Labour, anti-SNP and anti-Tory comments. When Iain Dale does the papers for the BBC his Tory party affiliation is mentioned without fail, but Fanshawe’s Labour activism is ignored. In fact, when it comes to declaring his interests Fanshawe seems to have been granted immunity by his long-time employer. Recently he presented an episode of the BBC’s Building Britain in which he praised a controversial new skyscraper development in Brighton; the fact that his PR firm represents the developers was not brought to the attention of viewers.
(During the paper review Fanshawe also took a gratuitous swipe at the Devon and Cornwall Police – it sounded like he might have an agenda there too, but the jellybrained Breakfast presenters thought nothing of it.)
if anyone sees Gordon Brown , there’s a few angry M5 motorists who’d like to see him.
(one cant help comparing the flood coverage with the hysteria over Katrina… notice the difference? )
Sorry if this has already been posted but look who’s heading the BBC’s “independent” inquiry.
“Will Wyatt, the former BBC Broadcast chief executive, will conduct the independent inquiry into the fiasco. The BBC announced the establishment of an Editorial Standards Board to oversee its response to the phone-in scandal.”
Leave it to the BBC to fake an independent inquiry into BBC fake programming.
You can’t make this stuff up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/21/nbbc121.xml
“Now I wonder, for example, why the BBC didn’t give similar exposure to innocent civilian residents of the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona after it was bombarded by 1000 Katyusha rockets courtesy of Hezbollah last year.
I guess the BBC’s little heart just wasn’t in it.
Bryan | 21.07.07 – 9:40 am | #”
There was the coverage of innocent Israeli victims. If there was more coverage of innocent Lebanese victims of Israeli bombs, rockets, artillery or whatever that may just have been because they massively outnumbered the Israeli victims.
As far as the interview with the woman from the mosque was concerned I thought it was pretty good journalism: it made it clear exactly what the people in the mosque were about and it was in no way propaganda for their cause. For once I’m inclined to go along with JR (was it) or whoever it was who asked what the BBC was expected to do: denounce her when she had denounced herself?
She could have been given the Humphrys treatment but it wouldn’t have added anything – it seldom does – except possibly generating sympathy for the interviewee.
Matt
“Britain feels quite authoritarian to those of us born on the other side of the Atlantic… Residents forced by threat of imprisonment to pay a tax directly to the state broadcaster, whether you view their content or not. Imagine having to pay for the Guardian every month in order to read the Financial Times! A Monarch who is still head of government, and the Church of England. CofE bishops holding half the seats in the House of Lords (the nation’s highest legislative chamber) by decree – all unelected [snip]
David S | 20.07.07 – 4:57 pm | # ”
The moderators have allowed this post to stand so I feel constrained to point out the factual errors in it.
Church of England bishops hold only a tiny fraction of the seats in the house of lords, less than 50%, less than 5%.
The Lords is not the highest legislature in the land, the house of Commons is, in fact the Lords can delay legislation but cannot veto any legislation against the will of the commons. You are confusing the house of Lords with the US Senate.
[snip]
Of course the points about the state broadcaster and compulsory tax are quite correct.
Moderator: I have edited some of this comment, not because it said anything terrible, but because it was getting OT. But thanks, BJ, for attempting to point out some of the errors in what our American friend said, although I wasn’t clear what you meant by “less than 50%, less than 5%”.
Edited By Siteowner