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.
Nice to see Radio 5 lite at it again. Over the whole Gordon Brown’s announcement.
The sneering lefties on “Drive” accusing the Tories of making political points over Brown’s troop reduction announcement.
But hang on a minute. Is this NOT the same Gordon Brown who on election said that in future there woul dbe no more spin? Is this NOT the same Gordon Brown who said in future announcements would be made to Parliament first?
Worst of all was fatso Pienaar’s comments about john Major. Apparently he’s still bitter over the Nu Labour spin machine?
Oh really? Pienaar claimed he could hear it in his voice. Well I couldn’t.
The BBC seem to take the view that they can spout any old anti tory bollocks and get away with it.
Nice to see Sky News having a go at Brown though. They were questioning the troop reduction figures as being accurate.
What Gordon Brown not tell the truth? What next? Peter Mandelson being honest with his mortgage application form?
How amazing!, the BBC HYS is down this after a run of comments critical of Brown and his latest sick stunt, of course this essential maintance is something that can only take place during the day and not night when the HYS is closed?.
I also wanted to point out the BBC’s volte face regarding Brown and his visit to Iraq in the face of mounting public anger, this morning the BBC were giving Brown maximum air-time with his visit and cynical announcement of troop cuts, this evening even the BBC have realised that this sort of political spin is going to look bad on Brown and are now trying to distance themselves from there earlier reporting.
The behaviour of Brown and the BBC during the Conservative party conference is nothing short of scandalous, I have no idea how the BBC Trust can justify it’s news divisions reporting over the last 3/4 days, however, I expect that JR will be on to spin the BBC’s version of why it has so cocked up it’s reporting.
The BBC and its attempts to belittle the results of the surge.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7021692.stm
The article starts by suggesting that the figures of the death toll are in dispute;
“In September, 884 civilians were killed by violence, less than half the figure for August, the government said.”
But the trend in the figures is not in dispute;
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeathsByYear.aspx
next:
“The BBC’s Jon Brain in Baghdad says the figures suggest the so-called surge involving 30,000 extra US troops is having some success.”
They still can not accept the fact the surge has a effect. Where other news outlets like “Der Spiegel” could see the change in july the BBC isn’t willing to accept the fact, because it doesn’t fit their narative. The trend is down even with the “best” efforts of the terrorists to influence the senate hearing in September.
next;
“However, our correspondent says, the political situation remains deadlocked and there are fears that when the extra troops are withdrawn the violence will escalate again.”
So again it is all in vain according to the BBC. Just a typical biased BBC article.
The BBC stopped updating the article “monitoring the surge”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2007/iraq_surge/default.stm
So the facts in Iraq are only interesting if they hurt Bush in the senate hearings. These facts aren’t interresting if there are no senate hearing then opinions of correspondents will do nicely.
Martin:
Nice to see Radio 5 lite at it again. Over the whole Gordon Brown’s announcement.
Thought Sir John Major was excellent with Peter Allen who was as always sneering and interrupting to the former Conservative leader. Sir John insisted on having his say and threw the programme slightly off timing.
Yes I thought JM did well on 5 lite and BBC News 24.
I still think he’s one of the best PM’s we’ve had.
Still brings a smile to my face knowing he was probably at it doggy style with Edwina 🙂
John Reith, who made this sarcastic comment on the last open thread
Meanwhile, Bryan thinks he can remember a bloke saying biased things on World Service from Brazil, sometime in the summer of 2005…. No chance of a name or a rough transcript of the words complained of, I suppose?
will no doubt be delighted to learn that I have found the transcript I made at the time of the World Service clip:
Well, the family of Mr. de Menezes are threatening to sue the Metropolitan Police and Brazilian people are angry and disbelieving, partly because British policing had been seen as a model for others to follow.
Steve Kingstone reports from Sao Paulo.
[Music and a snippet of Portuguese.]
The man mistakenly killed on the underground was Brazilian. That’s the headline ringing out around this vast country. In the tiny rural town of Gunzaga, the grandmother of de Menezes called him clever and hardworking.
“I’ll keep him in my heart,” she said.
[Voices murmur, a dog barks.]
In Sao Paulo, I spoke to Maria dos… a cousin of Mr. De Menezes. She said the family had been told by Brazilian officials not to criticize the Metropolitan Police. But she wanted to speak her mind.
[Portuguese, fading out. An interpreter speaks.]
“There was obviously a gross error, a stupid, third-world error and of course now we want to sue the police. We Brazilians aren’t just going to fold our arms and watch.”
That’s fast becoming a national sentiment.
[More Portuguese.]
…Jose, a neighbour, says of course the family should sue. The police messed up.
[The sound of a car alarm.]
Another point that is being made here is that as a Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes should have been more than familiar with armed policing. For six years he lived here in the state of Sao Paulo where, according to Amnesty International, 663 people were shot dead by police last year.
“Here in Brazil it’s common that the police act in a very violent way, especially against poor and black people.”
Maria Louisa…runs the network for justice and human rights in Sao Paulo. She says the British were a reference point for good policing. The UK government even paid for officers to train their Brazilian counterparts.
“For us, the police in England was actually a model. The human rights organizations in Brazil always studied how the police act there which also is very different for instance to the police in the United States.”
“Do you still see the British police as a model?”
[Laughter.]
“Not any more. After this situation.”
There are broader questions being asked about British immigration policy and the war in Iraq – which Brazil opposed. But very simply, this is a nation in grief and disbelief, now waiting for a body to be flown home.
Steve Kingstone in Sao Paulo.
Contd:
John Reith should shelve his tired old tactic of falsely accusing people of dreaming up imaginary bias in order to discredit the BBC. While I acknowledge that I was wrong to claim that Kingstone was trashing the British police “while apparently blissfully unaware that he was doing so from a country in which the police force is far less restrained than in Britain,” the main thrust of the argument I made on the last open thread
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1380284455009841984/#371278
is supported by the transcript above. Note this leading question, John Reith, if you are paying attention: “Do you still see the British police as a model?” Note the fact that laughter follows the question, as if such a proposition is absurd. (How Kingstone must have loved that unexpected little bonus.) And also note the fact that the circumstances of de Menezes’ death give rise to amusement from people who, we have been led to believe, are devastated by the tragedy.
Having reread the transcript, I’m even more disgusted by Kingstone’s antics than I was at the time I first heard his rabble-rousing anti-British bias.
Law and order, crime, immigration and the EU were all to be talked about at yesterday’s Tory conference.
You would have been hard pressed to hear all about it from the BBC’s Six O’clock News last night though. They gave a mere 18 seconds worth of coverage to those subjects in their news reports.
True, the news did cover the Tory replies to Gordon’s crafty visit, but as far as covering the planned issues of the day which mean a lot to the person in the street, Gordon’s visit cleverly allowed the BBC to hush up the Tories proposals.
They must be congratulating themselves over at the Labour Spin machine.
Not bias, just wonderful:
“He is quite literally in a no-win situation – unless he wins”.
Graham Taylor talking about Avram Grant on the Today programme this morning.
Dear Abandoned Ship –
Are you me? I was amused by that one too!
Incidentally, I think that some credit is due (unusually) to John Humphries for his interview of Liam Fox and the Labour spokesman on defence (think it was Des Browne himself) on Gordon Brown’s statement from Iraq. The interview was at roughly 8.30.
For once, Humphries questioned both interviewees with an equal ferocity, and allowed both a fair shot at making their points. It was a balanced interview, so well done. I just wish we could hear more of the same.
Just to add to my comment above – it was not Des Browne, it was Bob Ainsworth.
Shows what an impression he made in the interview…
Rachel, I must be you because I thought the same about the Fox/Ainsworth interview. Incidentally I thought Fox lost his way a little at the end, when he needed to nail Ainsworth, or Brown to be precise.
One thing that struck me listening to The Today Prog this morning – why should it be that David Cameron will ‘try’ to rally his party today if it was Gordon I’m sure he ‘would’ rally his party. In the same vane why is it that every time a Jim Naughtie or Dimblebore talks to a Conservative about the war in Iraq they always prefix the comment with ‘which your party supported’ can’t imagine them saying the same to labour politicians about the ERM. I have never written before but I am getting fed up with BBC bias.
Can Cameron rally the Conservatives? thread on BBC HYS is changed to Can Cameron rally the Tories? on the next page. It occurs to me that the BBC rarely referes to Labour as Socialists. In any event I’m still waiting for my response to be published which was “They Have”.
I’ve just posted a new article – pleaser refresh/reload your browser if you can’t see it yet.
nice little plug…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/brassneck/oct07/bias-bbc-nose-rubbing.htm
Biased BBC is an excellent example of the practical application of blog software to good civic use.
sorry if its old, bit busy no time to check.
The award-winning journalist has decided to walk after she was axed from Breakfast and “removed” from Andrew Marr’s Sunday AM in March.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=485348&in_page_id=1770
While I’m on a roll, compare this :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/02/eagore102.xml
With this :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7025119.stm
Whats missinmg from the BBC version ? Balance of course. No mention of the quotes from Phil Day (Mr Dimmock’s solicitor). Instead, half of the space available is given over to a quote from the government, ignoring the fact that the science is b*****x and restating their case. Nice. The BBC – Newspeak experts.
Damn David G you beat me to it. I spotted the BBC story as well. In fact having read the story in other media I turned to the BBC story fully expecting that I would be posting here (before I’d even read it).
Guess who they’ve got on the Daily Politics to demolish DCs speech as he makes it – no other than Ed Balls – bully boy for Gordon. He’s already got in a few pre-emptive punches. This really is not on. (who did they get in when Gordo made his speech?) We all know the BBC have been dancing to nulab spin for the whole Tory conference – escalating the ‘make or break’ narrative over Cameron’s speech. Looks to me like they’re now lined up to ‘break’ it on air. So predictable
IDS getting really very cross with Balls on The Daily Politics, and I don’t blame him. Jenny isn’t normally too bad with the whole bias thing, but for some reason she keeps phrasing the Labour points as questions. That way they actually get their views aired twice; once when put in a nice and simple question, and then again as a reply.
Oscar | 03.10.07 – 1:43 pm
Oh come off it. IDS pummelled him rotten.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned somewhere else, but ussneverdock blogspot has pointed out a very interesting fact.
The BBC has been publishing a weekly on-line graph updating the deaths in Iraq. SInce Sep 14 they have stopped updating.
COuld it be because the death numbers have dramatically dropped since ‘the surge’?
Why has the BBC decided that fewer deaths is not worthy of being recorded and reported?
I noticed that too Edna, and am working on a suitable post. Thanks for the tip.
When Thatcher was in power Auntie Beeb was accused of routine bias towards the Conservatives, now the reverse is true. Surely that makes it the organisation of the establishment?
Preferably all inaccurate comments should never remain unchallenged – I thought Tim Bell’s opinion that the LibDems were on 13% in the polls and are threatened with oblivion was an example of pure partisan bias that was allowed to stand as fact when it blatantly contradicts even the most recent right-wing reports.
Well we know that deaths in Iraq are down. But the BBC have never been an organisation to let facts get in the way of their pea brained Socialist ideas.
Oh come off it. IDS pummelled him rotten.
John Reith | 03.10.07 – 2:02 pm | #
True – but I posted before they nearly came to blows. And anyway Cameron then beat Brown rotten. Nothing Ed could do but gawp.
Just watched Cammergoon on BBC News 24 and I think I may start calling him Cameron from now on – quite (well, almost) impressive.
Not that the BBCs quotes on the side bar matched what Cameron was saying. One said the new EU charter was a ‘breach of trust’ when Cameron actually said Brown’s failure to supply a referendum on it was. Another one was along the lines of ‘if the people are treated like fools then they will not vote’ when in fact he had accused Brown of treating the electorate like fools.
Both quotes were subtly changed to exclude Brown from the critisism and change the emphasis of the quote.
Do they really think the viewers are fools that we can hear one version and believe another?
DavidG, it’s fascinating how the BBC have managed to spin this as a victory.
In fact, by agreeing to changes in the accompanying guidance notes, the Department for Children, Schools and Families has acknowledged that tha most inconvenient truth about ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is that it isn’t ture • not all of it, at least.
I await with interest the judge’s ruling as to why the fact that it contains ‘partisan political views’ doesn’t render it illegal to be shown in schools.
It’s also ridiculous to give almost half the story to a government flunkey who wasn’t in court rather than quote from Stewart Dimmock or his mawyers, who were.
At 12:29 am I presented John Reith with evidence he had requested of gross BBC bias re the de Menedez killing.
So what does Reith do? He pops in briefly to challenge Oscar while ignoring my post. This is typical of Reith. Not courteous enough to acknowledge the efforts of his opponent, and not big enough to admit that he has lost the debate, he simply turns his nose up, puts his fingers in his ears and pretends nothing has happened. This is how the BBC itself functions. So it ain’t at all surprising that Reith is such a loyal and defensive BBC staff member.
HYS has, perhaps without surprise, gone down for the time being. You’ll notice however, that the main HYS page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/default.stm
Has scrolling captions at the top from the main debates on the page. And what does the one about Cameron’s speach say:
“Very difficult to get excited about David Cameron and his team”.
Which really, really wasn’t the mood expressed before the topic went down. I’d venture a guess that 7 out of 10 comments were overwhelmingly positive. The highest recommended certainly were…
Bryan: But how is your transcript an example of bias? You said originally the reporter made no mention of the slightly trigger happy attitude od Brazilian Police. Well you were wrong. You admitted as such.
So what then is biased about the story? What would you like added to that script? Seriously.
I know Brazilians, I know stringers in the BBC’s office. The country was outraged by what happened. This is a report that reflected that.
What would you have added?
Rob I agree. In fact if the Judge isn’t clinical with his ruling he opens it up for Mr Dimmock to take it further.
Wonder how that will be spun ‘nasty pleb refuses to bow down for his own good’ ?
Bryan | 03.10.07 – 4:35 pm
Keep your hair on Bryan. It may have escaped you in sunny Tel Aviv, but over here we’ve been glued to our televisions watching first the warm-up and then David Cameron’s big speech.
In any case, I thought you’d prefer to be spared my gloating. As Mr G says (and as you, yourself have been forced to admit) the transcript proves that the case you were originally advancing was entirely false.
And I don’t think you’ll find many takers for your somewhat desperately revised complaint: that to cast doubts upon the competence of the Metropolitan Police is to be ‘anti-British’. In fact, we Brits • of all shades of political opinion • criticise our police all the time. Of course we appreciate the heroism of individual officers. But we tend to think the service as a whole has gone to the dogs.The cops are riddled with political correctness, we complain….they’re bureaucratic and totally inept when you call them to a burglary or if your car is broken into. David Cameron even brought it up in his speech • promising far-reaching reform.
I remember on the day of the de Menezez shooting, my cab driver (who’d already established strong anti-EU credentials and a marked distaste for immigrants) leaned round when news of the shooting came over the radio and said ‘what’s the betting Old Bill just shot an innocent man?’
Since then the Police have been roundly criticised by an independent inquiry; the office of the commissioner is being prosecuted – the case due in court around now – and the Met have apologised to the family. In fact, you must be about the only person who still insists the shooting of Jean Charles was just fine and dandy.
So, for the umpteenth time you have been shown to have raised a false allegation against the BBC. Any fair reader of Kingstone’s report would conclude that it did the job of reporting current Brazilian reaction to the affair perfectly well. It also managed to smuggle in the thought about how the family’s reaction might also be coloured by the consideration of a compensation claim. Smart that.
I’m also privately rather pleased that my instinct that • with just a little prompting • you would quickly ‘find’ the transcript of a report you were affecting merely to have accidentally heard in the wee small hours was borne out.
Ok here’s a classic example of the subtle bias of the Brown Broadcasting Corporation.
After Gordon’s conference ramble the Beeb published several comments in reaction to the dull oratory. As you would expect Labour MPs and trades union sycophants were all published. Not a single Conservative politician was quoted, despite many making public comments.
Fast forward to today’s Tory conference climax and post Cameron speech reaction. Guess what? 2 Labour MP quotes, one from the laughably dull Ed Balls.
Fair??
Sorry about all the typos in my previous post • I was really cross and fingers couldn’t keep up with brain, lol.
IMHO, Mr Dimmock has done us • or more accurately, our children • a massive service in fighting this case. Even if he hasn’t won, he has still thrown a welcome spotlight on the whole situation.
It’s interesting how quickly the BBC have shunted this story off to the sidelines, too.
The position was even worse about the reaction to the Cameron speech than Anthony Calvert (two posts higher) makes out. After the Brown speech, no fewer than nine Labour toadies were lined up to sing his praises, with Greenpeace and CND mildly in dissent.
With David Cameron, there were just three Conservative pieces of favourable comment, followed by four against – one from Ed Balls, one from David Milliband, one from Greenpeace and one from a pollster whose biography reveals he has spent the past ten years working in and around Downing Street and is writing a book about Blair.
This was a rare example of ‘like for like’ and should have been entirely even-handed. That it wasn’t speaks volumes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7026556.stm
Why is it when I follow the “Watch Andrew Neil interviews” option on the right-hand side, it automatically takes me to the Labour conference coverage. Three conferences, but Beeboids decide where I should start.
Just to assist David and Antony’s points, here are the respective links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7011113.stm – Brown
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7026556.stm – Cameron
Absolutely shocking.
Very odd report on Israel and higher education on PM. First they said a student from Bradford was studying there. Then, in an interview with the student, HE says he’s Palestinian! I didn’t know Bradford was in Palestine.
David Gregory (BBC) | 03.10.07 – 4:38 pm,
Yes, I was wrong about Kingstone not mentioning killings by the Brazilian police, but look at the subtext – i.e. he is trying to get us to swallow the idea that de Menedez should have regarded the British police in the same light as the Brazilian police. Negatively, that is, according to Kingstone. Note also that throughout the piece, faith in the British police is mentioned in the past tense and, as I indicated at 12:32 am, Kingstone is not simply reporting Brazilian attitudes here, he is engineering the report with leading questions, along with his choice of people for interviews. Are we now really supposed to believe that one tragic incident involving a few police officers under great pressure has made the whole of Brazil lose faith completely in the British police? Please!
What would I have added to the report? I’m amazed that you are asking such a question. To begin with, how about an interview with a retired Brazilian police officer with some knowledge of counter-terrorism and/or knowledge of the British police? How about an interview with any authoritative figure who could offer a reasonable alternative to the one-sided, emotional outpourings that Kingstone force-fed us?
You might like to get hold of the original clip. The transcript doesn’t do it justice. Listen to it to get a better idea of Kingstone in rabble-rousing mode. No doubt John Reith, keen as he is to get his hands on the clip, and with his connections at the BBC, will be able to help. You might even be able to get hold of it yourself.
It is not the role of journalists to provide soap boxes for people’s emotional outbursts, as justified as those outbursts might be. A journalist should provide at least some critical perspective. Kingstone, on the other hand, set out to trash the British police, and trash them he certainly did. It was a subversive little exercise, unworthy of journalism, and it is yet another example of the sharp decline of the BBC.
@Anthony Calvert, DavidK:
It’s laughable. Compare and contrast –
Reaction: Gordon Brown’s speech
Union leaders, ministers and delegates give their reaction to Gordon Brown’s first speech to Labour’s annual conference as prime minister
5 Labour MPs, 6 Union Leaders, Greenpace and CND. No opposition
Cameron speech: Reaction
Politicians give their verdict on David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool.
3 Conservative MPs, 3 Labour MPs, Greenpeace, Green Party, Mori, 2 Cons. Bloggers, 1 Lib Dem Blogger.
The BBC is not fit for purpose.
Following my earlier post, reaction to the Cameron speech has been expanded to include a brief reaction from Ian Dale. But more negative reactions have been added, and have made the balance sheet against Cameron fundamentally worse.
This is distinctly fishy.
RE: BBC doco trying to convince British citizens to allow Shariah for Muslims in the UK.
I realize this has been discussed on the previous Open Thread, but I just now saw it, and the whole topic has been on my mind recently. Especially since there is currenlty a resolution going through the US House of Representatives declaring their solidarity and support for the Muslim community in the US and “throughout the world”.
The very opening lines of the hostess demonstrate the complete and total bias of this presentation. The logic behind the entire premise is false.
Our telegenic, bare-faced hostess sets us up to be sympathetic towards her and her fellow Muslims with the simplest of concerns. She tells us that if she wants to get married or divorced according to the laws of her own religion, that would not be recognized by British law. We are supposed to think that sounds entirely reasonable.
Nobody wants you to stop and think, “Well, neither Jews nor Catholics have their marriage laws hand in glove with British law either. If a Catholic woman gets divorced in accordance with British law, the state will recognize it but the Church will not. If a Jewish woman gets divorced in accordance with British law, the state will recognize it, but her religion will not. If a Jewish woman gets married in accordance with British law, with al the proper legal documents and everything, but does not go through the rituals and paperwork required by Jewish law, the state recognizes this but her religion will not.
Yet Islam will get special treatment that no other religion apparently deserves. This is presented as a uniquely Muslim problem, which it is not. The rest of the documentary is built around this false premise.
If this was mentioned anywhere in this BBC presentation, I missed it while choking, sputtering, or banging my head against the wall.
The implementatin of Shariah in any other country is totally irrelevant. This little bit of turd-polishing is also very disingenuous when it implies that the main concern of Muslims living in the UK is only about a few little things like marriage and wills.
If someone else has already commented on this, I missed it for the same reasons, and the Moderator may delete this post
I’m sick and tired of the BBC and it’s pro Islam stance. There’s another programme on tonight about Muslims.
How come the BBC never seem to bother with other groups such as Hindus or Sikhs?
They have to take the crap for “looking like Muslims” yet I can’t remember a single Hindu trying to blow up a tube train in London.
Muslims are their own worst enemy. The BBC is their best friend.
The obvious next anti-discrimination claim will be to legalise polygamy. And why not?
The 6 o’clock news continued the BBC policy of doing everything they can to undermine Cameron’s speech. After billing it as the speech of his life and make or break for not just him but the whole conservative party, they gave about a 3 minute report – using the most damaging clips they could – carefully edited to take it out of context. Then they moved onto something about ballot boxes being ready on time and a vox pop about holding an election. No other comment at all – analysis – discussion. Both ITV and C4 were much much beter. C4 gave the kind of edited highlights that actually gave some sense of the whole speech – unlike the BBCs hatchet job. Compared with the incredible cosmetic makeover they gave to Brown’s terrible effort, Cameron was treated with contempt. And this after a nearly total blackout of important speeches by IDS, Hague and David Davis yesterday. Our state broadcaster is now dutifully serving the government with suspicious compliance. If this is allowed to go on – the BBC will be right about one thing – the future of the opposition parties really will be at stake – they really could be on the verge of destroying our democracy.
I am fed up with this BBC anti-Conservative/pro-Labour bias, surely there is something that we can do. How about a poster advertising campaign showing examples of the bias with links to a web site that could show the BBC clips. If the BBC won’t be even handed, let us publicise their bias.
John Reith, talking of “desperate” you are getting to sound more and more shrill in your attempts to defend your declining BBC:
As Mr G says (and as you, yourself have been forced to admit) the transcript proves that the case you were originally advancing was entirely false.
No need to exaggerate to the extent that your arguments become ridiculous. See my 6:12 pm post. Also note that I admit my mistakes, unlike you and your BBC. I could simply have omitted the bit about the Brazilian police from the transcript and nobody would have been any the wiser. But I don’t stealth edit and I don’t work for the BBC. I prefer to play it straight.
The cops are riddled with political correctness.
Yes, I have noticed that, even from far away in sunny Tel Aviv. But did it ever cross your mind that a good deal of the vitriol coming their way over de Menedez, much of it directed and fostered by hacks such as Kingstone, was because the killing was way outside of a politically correct framework? One sure way to get BBC hacks jumping up and down at their keyboards is to gun down an illegal immigrant from somewhere other than the first world and with skin a shade darker than white. Imagine if de Menedez had been Israeli. The BBC would have coughed politely and turned the other way.
In fact, you must be about the only person who still insists the shooting of Jean Charles was just fine and dandy.
Now you are just being childish. I am appalled by the killing. I am also appalled by the apparent lack of understanding from the BBC of the extreme pressure the police were under at the time. Well, I suppose it would rather bow to terror out of political correctness than develop some understanding of what it takes to combat it and appreciation for those who fulfil that role. We have some experience in fighting terror over here in sunny Tel Aviv.
So, for the umpteenth time you have been shown to have raised a false allegation against the BBC.
If this is the umpteenth time, provide examples of some others. You are simply mouthing off.
I’m also privately rather pleased that my instinct that – with just a little prompting – you would quickly ‘find’ the transcript of a report you were affecting merely to have accidentally heard in the wee small hours was borne out.
You need training in logical thinking. Why would I be affecting anything? Perhaps that’s the way you behave, Mr. Reith. I don’t. My post on the last open thread on the matter was a response to an earlier comment, which first raised it. When you challenged me to find a name or a rough transcript I was surprised to find both, not recalling that my original post at the time, which I’d filed, had been in the form of a transcript I had made from that simple old technology of recording from the radio via cassette tape. Don’t be so paranoid, Mr. Reith. There’s nothing underhand in what I did here. Again, I don’t work for the BBC.
The BBC is not fit for purpose.
dmatr | 03.10.07 – 6:24 pm | #
True. dmatr’s remarks deserve promoting to the main blog. It is scandalous bias. Complaint made (FWIW) to al-Beeb.