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.
It’s not clear what pounce is saying, but I doubt he is saying that it is all right to edit footage misleadingly. (But pounce can confirm or deny that himself).
Is Reith’s job under threat? The amount of comments he posts here smacks of desperation.
>whatever he actually said on the tape.
But what he said on the tape was that homosexuals should be killed!
And I notice that the commissioning editor of Dispatches has said that the police have not produced any evidence at all to support their claims of misleading editing. This would be easy enough to do if there were any contradictory footage, seeing as the police have all the many hours of footage that was shot for this show.
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Bethan David scrutinised 56 hours of media footage, only some of which was used in the broadcast.
She said: “The splicing together of extracts from longer speeches appears to have completely distorted what the speakers were saying. ….
Anonymous, it’s all very well Bethan David saying this, but as the Dispatches editor said, where’s the evidence? Where’s the footage of this preacher saying “But killing homos, throwing them off mountains for instance, is not something that we in this branch of Islam accept”.
It would make for a damning show if such footage could be shown back-to-back, and in that case I’d be happy to join the choir in condemning Dispatches. But until such evidence is produced I remain doubtful that it exists. If it did, why would Channel 4 have voluntarily sent all their footage to the police?
Bill | 09.08.07 – 5:31 pm
why would Channel 4 have voluntarily sent all their footage to the police?
They sent the rushes to the Police because initially the Police wanted it to see if there was a case for prosecuting some of the rogue imams for hate-speech.
Once the cops started wading through it, it seems, they then began to consider prosecuting Channel 4 instead!
Bethan David’s statement on behalf of the CPS is remarkable. Normally when they announce they’re dropping a case, they say nothing much.
This time, the matter’s formally reported to Ofcom AND there’s a statement.
Imagine if the CPS person handling the Lord Levy/Ruth Turner investigation had said something like ‘well, we haven’t got enough evidence to go to trial, but it’s clear some dodgy and undeserved peerages got handed out suspiciously close to their recipients making Levy a bung…..’ and you’d be close to what’s happened here.
There are delicate political sensitivities at play here which the CPS are subject to, so it isn’t satisfactory to just say “Well, if the CPS say it was misleadingly edited, then even though they have not produced any evidence to support this, it must be”.
The CPS didn’t say anything like “Levy’s still dodgy” in that case because they know they’d be in trouble if they did (even though from reading Guido it seems that that was in fact what they believed). Saying that Dispatches is dodgy, on the other hand, gets them a pat on the back.
My prediction is that any actual evidence produced will be extremely weak.
Channel’s 4 response is here.
Bill
My prediction is that any actual evidence produced will be extremely weak.
You may well be right. The C4 statement is good. Odd of the police and CPS to go so far if they’ve got nothing though, isn’t it?
Not really odd, no, not when the man responsible for investigation is West Midlands Assistant Chief Constable Anil Patani. Some comments about him here.
Bill | 09.08.07 – 6:24 pm
Anil doesn’t sound like a Muslim name.
Hindu or Sikh isn’t it?
Therefore not predisposed to favour Muslims really…..
The BBC, its hatred of America, Russian brinkmanship and half a story.
Russia sparks Cold War scramble
Russian bombers have flown to the US island of Guam in the Pacific in a surprise manoeuvre reminiscent of the Cold War era. Two Tu-95 turboprops flew this week to Guam, home to a big US military base, Russian Maj Gen Pavel Androsov said.
They “exchanged smiles” with US pilots who scrambled to track them, he added.
The sorties, believed to be the first since the Cold War ended, come as Russia stresses a more assertive foreign policy, correspondents say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6938856.stm
The multibillion pound BBC news agency quotes that the above sortie is believed to be the first since the cold war ended as Russia stresses a more assertive foreign policy.
Which is strange as this transpired a month (18/07/07)ago in the skies of Scotland.
Defense ministry: RAF jets scrambled over Russia bombers
LONDON — Royal Air Force fighter jets were scrambled after two Russian bombers were intercepted off the coast of Norway, the defense ministry said Wednesday, following reports they were heading for British airspace.Two RAF Tornados from Britain’s rapid reaction force took off from RAF base Leeming in northern England on Tuesday after two Royal Norwegian Air Force F-16s intercepted two Tu95 “Bear” bombers, the ministry said.A defense ministry spokesman, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity, told AFP: “We did scramble the jets but they did not intercept the Russians.”As I understand it, the Norwegians actually intercepted the Russian aircraft off their coast. They didn’t come into British airspace.”
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view_article.php?article_id=77524
The BBC, its hatred of America, Russian brinkmanship and half a story.
Mr Reith writes;
“Anil doesn’t sound like a Muslim name.
Hindu or Sikh isn’t it?
Therefore not predisposed to favour Muslims really…..”
Mr Reith are you saying that people of other faiths (and colour) who work in the British Police force don’t subscribe to the notion of innocent until found guilty but instead look favourably towards their own.
If that is so should the BBC be spending so much time employing the likes of Shami Chakrabarti. Mr Begg and of course Superintendent Ali Desai. I mean taking your words verbatim they only people of their own ilk.
I don’t think Reith was saying that, he was just trying to interpret what I was saying.
And he didn’t know what I was saying because as usual he didn’t follow the link and see that Patani has a history of complaining about racial discrimination.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
10:00pm – 11:00pm
More4
(For the 99% of folk who have not seen the programme, it is set in a TV studio producing a Saturday Night Live type programme.)
It is reviewed in the BBC’s Radio Times by Ruth Margolis, she says of the prog within the prog
For this show to work, we need to buy into the notion that Studio 60’s maverick writers are risking their careers by broadcasting mildly Bush-bashing sketches. Perhaps this resonates in America. Over here, not so much . . .
http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=10&channelId=1959&programmeId=64480311&jspLocation=/jsp/prog_details_popup.jsp
Obviously Ruth doesn’t get to review any of the BBC’s edgy satirical output.
Hyperdrive last night on BBC2 – crap scifi ‘comedy’ from the BBC. At one point whilst supposed to be captured by red robots the hero gibbered something about the good dying young…said a name I forget and and said ‘David Cameron’.
For Gawd’s sake……….. just how childish and pathetic are these so called writers at the Beeb?
Bryan:
Sarah-Jane, unless your comments start making more sense I’m going to start deleting them.
The Moderator | Homepage | 09.08.07 – 12:13 am
What on earth is wrong with Sarah Jane’s comments? Like this one:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments…? a=25882#366549
Besides, she’s CBBC. Good to have another representative of the enemy here.
Bryan | 09.08.07 – 9:50 am | #
Thank you Bryan. Moderator/Andrew I would like to know what is wrong with that comment? jimbob’s representation of the Nick Higham piece is not faithful to what he said on the Ten, and I was correcting him.
If you object to the odd bit of humour/windup along with the debate, say so.
JR & Bill
ACC Anil Patani for West Midlands Police said:
“The priority for West Midlands Police has been to investigate the documentary and it’s making with as much rigour as the extremism the programme sought to portray”.
I am still trying to understand the tactics of the West Midlands Police? What sort of rigour do they propose…throwing C4 editors off of cliffs?
Why are the police involved in this stuff – have they already arrested all the crimos on their patch ? Got everyone driving safely ? Helped all the school children through cycling proficiency >
No ?
“The priority for West Midlands Police has been to investigate the documentary and it’s making with as much rigour as the extremism the programme sought to portray”.
That statement can mean at least 3 things: 1. that the WMP are investigating the programme with the same rigour that the makers of the programme investigated extremism; or 2. that the WMP are investigating the extremism uncovered in the programme with the same rigour as those making the programme investigated the extremism; or 3. that the WMP are investigating the programme with the same rigour as the extremists display in pursuing their (the extremists’) objectives
Whatever ACC Anil Patani meant I think we can be quite certain that we’re not going to see the type of investigation by the WMP of the language used by the extremists which, in the case of the BBC and the BNP, brought Griffin to court. Of course, were such an investigation to occur there is a dangerous possibility that this time the CPS might get some convictions and that would never do.
sarah jane – what i heard was fiona bruce ask Higham ” so who’s right ? was it edited badly or not ?” higham replied ” we don’t know”. hardly backing up a well respected programme like dispatches , a programme i have loved since way back when.
I thought it was a cheap shot for higham to effectively say that we can no more trust c4 than a bunch of mad extremists. if there was a dispute between the BNP and c4 would bbc take the middle ground ? no i don’t think so.
my point was that this story was given an unfuly prominent place in the news at ten. The purpose was to (a) allege that all media outlets twist the truth and (b) it fits in with the patently dhimmi attitude bbc has adopted to islamists for the past x years.
jimbob – he then went on to say that Ofcom will be a far better judge of what is ‘truthful’ editing than the police or CPS and gave the example of the Macintyre case as evidence.
A pretty clear case of the media (at large) defending itself against what seems like unwarranted interference from the West Mids and CPS.
He very definitely did not say what you are saying in your second paragraph.
However, I might have some sympathy for point a), if not the hyperbole of point b).
What sends the BBC into mourning?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/08/bbc-cries-for-dead-terrorists-in.html
If not dead terrorists, maybe it’s the level of US troops in Iraq at the highest ever level.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6936816.stm
Would would have thought ‘lame duck’ Bush could have done it?
Sarah-Jane, it wasn’t that comment but certain others that seemed a bit strange. But if you’re on the level, then comment away (on-topic, that is).
Thank you Moderator. If you mean the comments about pounce I was merely trying to make the point that sometimes it is possible to push an argument too far eg using a BBC story as evidence of the BBC not reporting something, and that this might not help the general purpose of the board.
Although it is a but dumb of me to be that helpful to those who would do me out of a job 🙁
Still I am reasonably confident that I will stand the test of the market, were a subs-only CBeebies to remain ad-free.
sarah jane – my second para is not reported speech from higham. what i am saying is that higham did not make any distinction so far as i could see between the credibility of the hate filled imams and c4. he suggested that we had been here before and mentioned mcintyre and that macintyre won. it was more a plug for mcintyre and the bbc than a defence of c4.
i didn’t feel this to be ringing endorsement of c4 and it was not the 2nd top story of yesterdays news. the real story from the whole affair was why those imams were not prosecuted for hate crimes.
i stand by everything else i said. the bbc in my view are “hideously dhimmi”.
[Bizarre, parallel world comment from Alan deleted.]
Edited By Siteowner
>Is Reith’s job under threat? The amount of comments he posts here smacks of desperation.
So many posts in one day… either he’s desperate, or he’s a team.
Sarah-Jane | 09.08.07 – 9:19 pm,
No probem. And I’m glad you and the Moderator have smoked the peace pipe.
Back to the C4 subject and the statement from CPS lawyer Bethan David:
…appears to have completely distorted…
This statement makes no sense to me. It seems like she wanted to both overstate her case by the use of the word completely and yet leave a loophole by using appears.
And if it only appears that c4 has distorted what the imams were saying, why not go ahead with the prosecution of the imams and let it be decided in open court whether in fact there was any distortion? And wouldn’t this alleged distortion in any event be up to the defence to establish?
Instead we seem to have the spectacle here of the police and the CPS defending the imams and trying to distract attention from that fact by turning on c4.
Why did the police turn down the invitation to appear on wednesday’s Newsnight debate along with the c4 representative and the apologist for the imams?
Hmmmm. This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Either the police and the CPS decided on their own dhimmie initiative not to prosecute the imams for spreading racial and religious hatred or they did so under heavy Muslim pressure.
There ain’t no third option that I can see.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6939657.stm
This is the 3rd story on the Politics page. I know it’s a slow news month and all but would a fairly obscure Tory from the Midlands get similar treatment? Left-wing + Scottish + polltax rebel = BBC favouritism ?
Sarah-Jane’s not the one off Tikkabilla, is she?
Warhol and Banksy speaking truth to power, courtesy of the BBC!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6938396.stm
Or is it just crap, predictable, tired art?
The BBC, its hatred of Israel and the usual story.
Palestinian killed in Jerusalem
A Palestinian man has been shot and killed in Jerusalem’s Old City after trying to seize a weapon from an Israeli security guard, police say. At least six other people were injured in shooting that followed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6940018.stm
Does the above give the impression that a Non Jew was shot trying to steal a gun from a security guard and so trigger happy were those security guards that they ended up shooting 6 others?
And here is Reuters writes up the above incident;
“JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A man grabbed a gun from an Israeli security guard and shot him in Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday, sparking a gun battle in which the attacker was killed and at least 10 others injured, police and medics said.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1090519484420070810
The BBC then as per usual drolls on about anything but the main subject (In this case how the jews stole Jerusalem.) I do like the BBC quotes the population figures;
“East Jerusalem is home to more than 22,000 Palestinians, Muslim and Christian, and about 180,000 Jews.”
Shouldn’t the correct form be;
“East Jerusalem is home to more than 180,000 Jews and about 22,000 Palestinians, (Muslim and Christian).
Then the BBC reports this;
“The shooting happened close to the offices of an ultra-nationalist Jewish organisation in the Christian quarter of the Old City.”
Which is strange as no other news agency reports that snippet , in fact they all report the same “Jerusalem’s Old City” Is the BBC implying that maybe there is a link between this ultra-nationalist Jewish organisation and the shooting.
So I had a look for this so called ultra-national Jewish organisation and it transpires that the security guard was guarding a school which prepares young men for a life in the army.
Security guard at Ateret Kohanin yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Old City shoots
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435979,00.html
Which is explained on their web site;
http://www.ateret.org.il/new/academy.php?id=101
and a little history about the place;
“Except for the years of Arab occupation from 1936-1967, Torah has been studied in this historic building since 1896. Thousands of tourists have thrilled to the unique story of how this gem of 19th century Jerusalem was saved by an Arab family and eventually restored to the Jewish people.”
http://www.ateret.org.il/new/projects.php?id=206
Mind you right at the end of the article the BBC does report on the story;
“Police say a Palestinian man grabbed a gun from a security guard standing outside the building and shot him in the shoulder. The man fled but was chased by another guard. The two men fired at one another as they ran down a narrow lane and a number of bystanders were lightly injured before the Palestinian was shot dead.”
But only after informing you what a nasty bunch the Jews really are.
The BBC, its hatred of Israel and the usual story.
I forgot to mention above that Ultra-nationalistic Jews (Haredim) do not serve in the armed forces. Ehud Barak gave them that cop out for their support. (Strange as they are supposed to be apolitical) which allowed him to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu when they ran for Prime Minister in 1999. To that end 100 percent of the Haredim do not serve in the IDF.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/888934.html
moonbat, fuckwit, beeboid, etc I don’t mind (and I relish the thought of a good ‘fisking’).
‘dhimmi’ however I take objection to – do you think you could make it stand – or do you agree it is hyperbole?
For it to stand I would want to see evidence of a pact contracted between BBC employees and a Muslim government.
Think you can find it?
Has anyone seen todays (Friday 10th) Radio 4 listings on the BBC website. It seems at 9pm we have ..
>21:00
>Friday Play
>Breaking Point
>
>Philip Palmer’s powerful drama tells
>the story of Jon Starkey as he
>undergoes training to become a
>British Army interrogator. A career
>soldier with a young family, Starkey
>is about to join the front line in
>the so-called war against terror.
Note the so-called war against terror. Shouldn’t that be in quotation marks if it has to be there ? They aren’t even making an effort to avoid the bias now are they !
pounce | 10.08.07 – 1:53 pm
pounce, that’s a fine bit of fisking. As always, the BBC, with dab here and a stroke there, practically edits the truth right out of a story.
Now if these people were journalists rather than propagandists, they would tell us what happened at or near the beginning of the article instead of tucking it away at the end – which many readers don’t even bother to get to.
And I like the introductory paragraph. Don’t BBC hacks know the difference between trying to seize a weapon and successfully seizing it before shooting the dispossessed owner? I guess not. At least not when they are trying so hard to portray the Jews as evil occupiers in an article that should be a factual account of an unprovoked attack on an unsuspecting guard. And if whichever hack wrote this story and/or whichever editor embellished it thinks that what they just produced there is journalism, as an amateur I’d like to give them a tip or two: if they wanted to give some background to the incident, why not check out similar unprovoked attacks by Arabs on Jews over the years in the streets of Jerusalem – often with knives and often resulting in fatalities. They might even then begin to detect a pattern here and report on that. But hell, we can’t have that. It would mean actually informing the public rather than propagandising.
The propaganda in this article is particularly blatant. Usually the BBC is a bit more subtle. Maybe they’re giving a new editor a free hand here.
Sarah-Jane is of course correct, maybe the appropriate term is a ‘dhimmi wannabe’, in scare quotes naturally.
Sarah-Jane | 10.08.07 – 3:35 pm,
If your post was addressed to me I was labelling the police and the CPO as dhimmis, not the BBC. However, I own up to frequently pinning that label on the BBC as well. Pacts I don’t know about but there’s a huge body of evidence of the BBC’s dhimmi status, much of it documented right here on this blog. However, I have noted exceptions over the years of real, probing attacks on Islam, when it thoroughly deserves it, by some BBC journalists
It’s damn hard work continually hammering away at the BBC on this issue and others with almost no effect on the mammoth organisation. And I’ve therefore been toying recently with creating an “unbiased” or “undhimmified” BBC file with rare examples of the BBC shelving its bias and standing up to radical Islam with the aim of presenting it to BBC people in the hope that they will see, by contrast, how biased and dhimmified the BBC as a whole has become.
Problem is, links would have to be provided and the people named. They are in a very small minority at the BBC. Such action could lose them their jobs. And what the hell will that have achieved.
It would be very interesting to be able to report what people actually think of it (Islam), rather then what they feel they must report because of the forces of political correctness.
You would then realise that labelling the staff as “dhimmis” was quite a long way from the truth, and counter-productive in terms of your objectives (I know there are many sets of objectives here, not all complimentary). The energy then put into that, might be usefully put elsewhere, however I wish I could advise where ‘where’ was. Somewhere full of ‘they’ no doubt.
Bryan – it was jimbob’s post I was referring to, but my reply above is equally pertinent.
Your post timed 5.35 makes interesting reading.
Note the so-called war against terror. Shouldn’t that be in quotation marks if it has to be there ? They aren’t even making an effort to avoid the bias now are they !
1327 | 10.08.07 – 4:25 pm
Good spotting. The so-called British Broadcasting Corporation is actually the Islamic Broadcasting Corporation.
I would reply Bryan but I have just been summoned to an urgent editorial meeting as Higgledy House is running into a scheduling conflict with the new CBBC mid-afternoon Adhan.
Justin is not happy.
Your post timed 5.35 makes interesting reading.
Sarah-Jane | 10.08.07 – 5:43 pm,
Well, thanks for that. Regarding your It would be very interesting to be able to report what people actually think of it (Islam), rather then what they feel they must report because of the forces of political correctness, I have to admit I’ve never really thought about that but now that I do, I’m wondering why I never did.
Well, I guess good journalists have to put aside their personal feelings on any issue to do their job but if they feel obliged to go along with political correctness because that’s the culture within the BBC, then they are part of the problem.
I suspect that PC regarding Islam (or anything else) has an iron grip at editorial level. And I imagine that the reporters quickly get to know what they can and can’t write. However, much of the output has the flavour of actively promoting radical Islam rather than simply going along with a PC trend. The converse is also true: look at the scorn that many BBC writers openly have for their pet hates such as America, Israel and Christianity, all regarded by Islamists as enemies of Islam.
One such article was ably fisked by pounce at 1:53 pm.
The BBC does not “have to go along with the forces of political correctness”. The BBC is itself one of the forces of political correctness.
As for the appeasement of Islamic militants, that is partly because they are regarded by politically-correct types as approved victims, and partly because the BBC is frightened of them.
I suspect that PC regarding Islam (or anything else) has an iron grip at editorial level. Bryan | 10.08.07 – 6:55 pm | #
Hmm. I’m not so sure about that, although I am not sufficiently experienced in journalistic working practice to really make informed comment. Reith is better placed to do that. Based on discussions I have had with senior Progamme Editors I think the grip on output may not be nearly so firm as you imagine. On ‘talent’ it can be very loose indeed eg 45 minute claim. There is also a long senior management/editorial arm that can interfere from great height and help loosen it. That is why I spoke of ‘they’. Even Dyke acknowledged it.
I am reasonably confident in stating that the staff are fed up to the back teeth with ‘PC’ and the various other ‘programme prevention’ mechanisms. The staff like Gene Hunt in Life on Mars and Clarkson.
One such article was ably fisked by pounce at 1:53 pm.
Bryan | 10.08.07 – 6:55 pm | #
What this one?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6940018.stm
Yes, that very one. Thing is, the first paragraph (I know there’s a technical term for it but it escapes me) has been completely rewritten. The original had the man trying to get the gun and then being shot dead while fleeing, others being wounded in the process. It gave the initial impression of a wild and criminally negligent shooting spree by the guard who chased him. And we all know how important first impressions are.
So the article is better now, but still full of propagandist crap, completely irrelevant to the incident being reported on, but brought in apparently to justify the original attack on the guard. (Occupation, blah, blah, blah.)
The BBC does a lot of this kind of stealth editing. How many people will have read the first draft and gained a completely wrong impression of what happened there? Is this the BBC’s design? Or can we put it down to incompetence? Funny how these “errors” never favour the Israeli side.
Bryan, surely the change is a good thing? And perhaps it came as a result of the issue being highlighted by pounce?
I did see the original version and well, it needed the changes that have been made. I cannot comment on how it came to be that way.
A few other things to throw into the mix:
Take a look at Medialens or similar and you will see that a lot of people put a lot of time into getting things changed because they believe the errors never favour the Palestinian side.
I enjoy debating these issues with you, but I find your unwillingness to discuss this other side of the coin rather frustrating at times. These people are as intelligent and articulate as you, and yet given the same source material, come up with a different set of issues.
Don’t forget there has been a big reaction to the Governor’s report that found ‘bias’ in favour of Israel (or rather Palestinian deaths get far less coverage than Israeli deaths blah blah blah).
I am reasonably certain you will dismiss those last two points out of hand, but I guess that is your prerogative.
Sarah-Jane | 10.08.07 – 9:13 pm,
Hell, on the occasions that the person at the other end of that long senior management/editorial arm that can interfere from great height is Mark Byford, the iron PC grip is only going to be strengthened. The man is the essence of PC.
I don’t know if you ever look at The Editors blog. It gives an interesting insight into the thinking of people in quite senior editorial positions (though not of the lofty height of Byford.) It’s also completely pickled in PC.
Maybe what needs to happen is that the long senior management/editorial arm should have different people attached to the higher end of it. Like people who understand the gross unfairness in imposing narrow BBC groupthink on a captive, paying audience, when it’s quite likely that the majority of the audience does not share that groupthink. Add to that a powerful capacity to kick butt, and the BBC might gradually find a way out of the mire.
The BBC had a wonderful opportunity to prove that it takes its obligations to the public seriously with the phone in competitions fraud. But what did the long arm (which in this case extended right to the top) choose to do? Instead of flinging the people responsible out onto the street, it suspended them on full pay.
Now if the BBC can’t clean up its act regarding issues as cut and dried as deception and fraud, how on earth is it ever going to deal with the far more subtle, difficult and damaging issues of its bias and its paralysing PC?
Judging by this week’s audience at Any Questions one would think that 95% of the population of Totnes is left wing. But Totnes has a Conservative MP. It’s the same every week – the programme has become an amphitheatre for braying lefties to give the thumbs down to anybody with right wing views. At the last general election Michael Howard’s ‘nasty’ Conservatives received more votes than any other political party in England, and yet Any Questions never has an audience which reflects that weight of political opinion. Why?