, might as well have been a Labour Party Press Release – a jolly retelling of Ed Balls’ words, unencumbered by any opposition response (not even from the BBC’s favoured ‘opposition’, the LibDems), with, for good measure, a free kick at David Cameron at the end.
Biased BBC reader Pete points out another BBC Views Online story, NHS staff protest against reforms, apparently so universally uncontroversial that it too requires no balancing comment.
Where do you find all the time in your busy day at the BBC to hunt down all these examples J.R?
Seriously, the more I read your lengthy postings the more convinced I am that someone at the Beeb is paying you to fight the good fight on this message board.
I see that right wing rag, the New Statesman, has been dissing the Beebs favourite workers paradise:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/200711080021
Pity that – I always imagined that’s where they’d all like to end up when the public finally rumble the licence fee scam.
Blithering Bunny | Homepage | 08.11.07 – 5:40 pm
Reith, Grocer magazine is directed at people in the industry, who will take a different view of the matter than BBC listeners, although not necessarily a positive one — and I doubt that whoever wrote that headline in The Grocer thought that “relentless” is a neutral word that had no connotations for the reader –
Wriggling, casuistic evasion.
And Tesco might describe their expansion as “relentless” when they want to create the impression that they’ve been a successful business.
More casuistry.
What you’re essentially saying is that words mean one ‘innocent’ thing when a magazine or an executive say them, but are ‘biased’ or in some way malevolent if the BBC say them.
Utter tosh.
Heron, that Oscar post is another example of crying wolf.
The debate on the Queen’s speech is started off by a couple of backbenchers and Commons tradition requires Cameron to start his speech with joshing compliments to the two backbenchers. Some of it is quite funny – particularly the bit Oscar notes – a lot is less funny.
Obviously, though, the BBC are right to cut it out of a sequence of clips about the substantive issues of the Queen’s Speech. No-one wants to wade through acres of this sort of thing:
The right hon. Gentleman was a popular and successful Minister for Sport, but things did not start quite that well. Few of us will forget—I hope that he will not mind too much if I remind hon. Members—the Radio Five Live quiz with which he launched his career. For greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy. He was asked,
“Can you name the four players in today’s semi-finals of the Stella Artois?”
He replied,
“um…errr…Henman. I can’t, no.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm071106/debtext/71106-0002.htm
I have an idea that JR pursues this trivial wordplay because its perhaps the one(of very few)that he feels able to contest?
May I suggest that whenever JR does not respond to an allegation of bias you can be sure that the post is correct and JR cannot defend it BUT he cannot admit it either can he? JRs big problem is that he can never admit BBC bias because his job prospects would suffer the consequences!
Remember the legal motto, never ever admit guilt or say sorry!
Obviously, though, the BBC are right to cut it out of a sequence of clips about the substantive issues of the Queen’s Speech. No-one wants to wade through acres of this sort of thing
John Reith – this is nonsense and you know it is. Let’s face it Gordon Brown’s speech was so dull the Speaker had to stop members having private conversations while he was delivering it. It didn’t stop the BBC from releasing the speech in full. Vince Cable’s speech was also given in full. If people don’t want the whole speech they have the option of fast forwarding. It’s the BBCs responibility to inform the public without doctoring what takes place. They are no longer honestly informing the public but mediating in a case of direct political intereference, as case after case after case on this site has demonstrated.
BaggieJonathan:
i suppose i had forgotten to say that i think unbiased reporting is impossible, unless you just want a list of events read out! But if they did that then not only would nobody watch it but it would still be accused of liberal bias (look at wikipedia). something the BBC can aim for is to minimize the bias, or ideally to balance both sides with open bias.
I think a big problem the bbc has is that the more informed on a subject somebody is the more biased they are. Take for example my specialties, chemistry and computing. In chemistry you wont find many people that dont believe in global warming, in computing very few people will tell you Microsoft make good software. its not that blogger choose to be biased or scientist want to belive. its that the more interest you take in a subject the more of an opinion you develop. IF you spend all day in politics your going to find it hard to not be biased (infact the more you know the more biased you’ll be). SO by hiring good people their getting biased employees!
p.s i dont think fox make a very good effort of saying their biases, they even banned the Simpson mocking their bias. so their not very open.
p.p.s i know im not the best writer but i believe in substance over style, but if your that keen on style i can defiantly see how this country needed up with Blair for 10 years.
Stephanie clague | 08.11.07 – 1:36 pm |
There have been several flood warnings in East Anglia tonight and the Thames Flood Barrier has been raised. Apparently there is going to be a very high tide tonight.
What’s the betting the BBC will blame this on rises in sea level due to MMGW?
Naturally any flooding will be down to 4×4 users and not Gibbo Brown slashing the budget for East Anglia’s flood defences …
Fat Contractor: you are so spot on!
Do you know what’s SO IRONIC about the BBC website ads for international users, (the first banner appeared last night). Guess what the ad was for? The biggest passenger plane of all, the Airbus 380!
Local mayor found using PC for naughty business. He’s a Tory, so his political affiliation is important to the BBC, unlike when a Labour member misbehaves and they simply become ‘councillors’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7085926.stm
juan
Not so sure about the BBC “experts” – for example their “environment analyst” Roger Harrabin has a degree in … English.
I am not sure how much your expertise in chemistry helps with climate questions. I also have a scientific background (physics, maths, engineering). This makes me very sceptical when I see non-scientists making wild claims.
It also means I know that science does not work by committees and consensus or even voting. No. Imagine a vote about how the solar system worked before Galileo – than another vote 100 years later. Same solar system – different result.
Now look at the IPCC “consensus” that temperatures may rise by between 1 and 4 degrees this century. There is quite a big difference between 1 and 4 – just imagine if in my engineering I said that the bridge would be between 100 and 400 metres in length ! Yikes. So it looks like climatology is not actually a very exact science.
Well I have a PhD in chemistry and am not convinced by the data suggesting that global warming is anthropogenic and I am also dismayed by the large amount of apparently fraudulent science that exists in the climate science community.
Like Dr Dent, Dr Ship! has a PhD in science and is very sceptical about AGW as peddled by the BBC. Remember that to your average Beeboid, as well as to your average Guardian-reading academic, AGW is a good chance to berate the USA and Dubya, so is too good to miss. When China becomes the carbon Satan, however, interest in AGW amongst leftoids will wane.
Apropos the flood warnings in East Anglia: David Shukman – the BBC expert on this kind of thing – reports in the BBC 1 10:00 News and guess what? Although Jeremy Wells (?) speaking later from Great Yarmouth referred to the 1953 floods, David Shukman – the great climate expert – says not a word. The conditions in 1953 were exactly the same as tonight – a stiff Northerly wind plus a very high tide: something a knowledgeable commentator should seek to convey to his audience: it’s called “context”. Why would this item of relevant history not be mentioned? You never know, people might be interested to realise that history – even climate history – repeats itself.
[Deleted: irrelevant conspiracy theory about secret weather changing machines being responsible for global warming].
Concerning expertise in climate forecasting: the relevant discipline is statistics based on sound climatalogical data. Well this guy for one has holed Hansen’s US data below the water line. I may be wrong and that the BBC has mentioned Steve McIntyre in one of its attic sites (“impartiality” you know) but God forbid that anything – let alone the discrediting of data crucial to the MMCC case – should disturb the BBC’s transmission belt reporting of the “scientific” consensus.
Not a PhD, but in response to:
“Is it or is it not possible at least that GW is in fact very man made indeed?”
Of course!
However…
I think the problem most of us here have with the BBC is that they continually peddle ONE side of the story and furthermore treat it as hard facts. For instance, I can tell you this is NOT the first year an icebreaker has been through the NW passage to make it navigable (contrary to BBC assertions.)
Well I’ve got a CSE in woodwork but even I know that East Anglia is low lying and requires sea defences to stop it being flooded. I used to play on them when I was a kid on holiday.
I also know that for the last 10 years those sea defences have been allowed to fall into disrepair because of budget cuts. Sooner or later they will be breached, maybe even tonight.
I also know this government will not accept responsibility for this foolish policy and that the BBC will help them cover up their culpability.
You really don’t need a PHD to work that lot out. What is a PHD BTW? 🙂
Heres a good example of how the BBC use headlines to give a spin on a story:
Oil Firm Clash Kills 12 in Yemen
Reading the story it is clear that 12 people (6 civilians and 6 soldiers) have died in a clash between blackmailing/kidnapping tribesmen and Yemeni soldiers. The oil firm was in fact the victim of the assault but the heading makes it sound like those nasty oil men killed 12 people.
Did anyone watch the Newsnight “special” on UK attitudes toward immigration? I read that it was horribly biased with seven pro-mass-immigration commentors against one anti-mass-immigration commentor. Comments?
You really don’t need a PHD to work that lot out. What is a PHD BTW?
The Fat Contractor | 09.11.07 – 12:05 am
PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper
http://thumbsnap.com/v/oDBdO5dO.gif
(from http://www.phdcomics.com/)
Who can blame journos with English PhD taking Science reporting jobs? 🙂
bodo | 08.11.07 – 10:03 pm |
Apart from failing to mention his party affiliation.
An investigation is under way but no arrests have been made so far.
Arrest for watching a bit of porn at work? Serious! One might think he had failed to pay his telly tax.
BBC Breakfast carries National Audit Office panning of the Pathfinder homes demolition scheme – waste of £2bn -without once mentioning its chief architect, John Prescott, or that it was billed as a NuLab’s big idea for creating better homes.
China already is the biggest carbon polluter. It’s even been reported in the Guardian, so I don’t know if the knee-jerkist, America-haters are in denial or what, but they’re still hitching a ride on the AGW bandwagon. It’ll be interesting to see how they react to it, what with China being a communist country (which is actually great and is far superior to our own system and has got some unfair bad press off people who don’t really understand it and could teach us a lot like how to make people just disappear in the night and kill millions of people for having a difference of opinion) after all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews
Ugh, I linked to a Guardian article. I feel dirty. I have to go and scrub myself with pumice.
Anyway, in regards to AGW, I’m a sceptic. My thoughts are best illustrated by someone far cleverer than me, Dr. Michael D. Griffin, Administrator of NASA had to say about it:
“I have no doubt that global — that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change.
First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”
BBC headline for Malik, the first British born female Muslim terrorist convicted in the UK.
“The enigma that is the ‘Lyrical Terrorist’ ”
It’s all a mystery to the BBC.
Compare the BBC report here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7085889.stm
to the Telegraph here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/08/npoet108.xml
Note what the BBC fail to report.
BBC report:
“…in the section for her favourite TV shows, she entered “watching videos by Muslim brothers in Iraq, yep, the beheading ones.”
From the Telegraph we get the full quote and see what the BBC censored out.
“watching video messages by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri [his deputy] and other videos which show massacres of the kaffirs.”
The BBC would have you belive she was upset about the war in Iraq, but as you can see, she enjoyed watching the “massacres of the kaffirs”. That would be you and I.
Read the Telegraph report for a lot more of what the BBC left out.
The online story about the NAO’s condemnation of the Pathfinder housing scheme continues the whitewash. No mention of NuLab or its wonderful ex-deputy leader. It chooses one rather anodyne phrase as a headline, that the scheme is ‘radical but high risk’, rather than any of a dozen other phrases from the report which condemn it as a serious waste of money that is causing immense stress to those whose homes the scheme is demolishing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7086267.stm
I saw Newsnight,Susan.You did not expect a balanced panel,did you?.What bugged me the most was the constant referral to “immigration in to Britain”,when we know full well 98% of the immigrants come to England.
Of course, Newsnight and Radio 5 in their immigration presentation had the usual multiculturalist presumption against the existing, majority national British culture.The BBC presumes that British people should somehow appreciate the wonders of ‘diversity’, and should accept that all cultures have equal respect, regardless of the evidence of British people’s experience.
John Reith | 08.11.07 – 3:57 pm
All Gareth’s post does is show words can have more than one meaning. Big deal. I think we have common ground that the context here would make most of Gareth’s choices unsuitable. He’s been a bit selective too. I can redress the balance with some definitions he left out:
Consumers, Tesco’s competitors, suppliers whose prices have been forced down, residents who do not want a/more Tescos in their area and the Competition Commission (formerly Monopolies and Mergers Commission) might disagree with you on the context if the word ‘relentless’ as used to describe Tesco.
If you care to look at my sources (askoxford, dictionary.cambridge.org and google dictionary) you will see I had nothing to leave out. Each definition is as provided by those dictionaries.
Telegraph and blatent anti-americanism
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=NKKARZQETXDRFQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/11/09/do0901.xml
hang on…
Ben, nice one. It’s plastic turkey disease spreading to the right and left.
Didn’t Jeff Randall used to work for someone else…?
My god, he’s obviously successfully indoctrinating their other staff too
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/11/05/bcngisele105.xml
Juan,
I made no comment about your ‘style’ or Blair being in office for 10 years.
I confined myself to BBC bias.
The problem with your argument is that you say (paraphrasing) : they are all bias, including the BBC.
However the BBC is different from all of the other media that you mention because it has legal charter obligations, it is seen as the state broadcaster by the UK and the world and because we are all compulsarily made to pay for the BBC by a ‘poll tax’ without choice unlike all of the other media.
A poll tax that if unpaid does not lead to loss of service but instead leads to huge fines, a criminal record and possible jail, more women get a criminal record for non payment of the licence fee than all other reasons combined!
So the BBC is in a unique position and must be treated as such, even the arch beeboids would agree with that.
They would probably argue for the continuation of the BBC under similar conditions to present but safeguarded by the charter (indeed beeboids are in many ways the most offended by the abuses perpetrated at the BBC – care to agree with me messers Gregory et al?).
I would argue that more radical change is needed.
No more licence fee.
The BBC should go out into the market alongside other broadcasters (perhaps with some public service elements subsidised like the local buses are now) and take funding from advertising and/or voluntary subscription.
John Reith: “What you’re essentially saying is that words mean one ‘innocent’ thing when a magazine or an executive say them, but are ‘biased’ or in some way malevolent if the BBC say them.”
They’re not “innocent” in the first case, they have connotations even then. They have connotations in the second case, but different ones (hardly “malevolent” ones, though).
Connotations differ depending on context, speaker’s intentions, the audience, etc. If you don’t believe that, I suggest that either you’re (i) very ignorant, and should consult a textbook on linguistics or philosophy of language (look up “speech acts” and “implicature”, for example), or (ii) lying.
I could understand it if you admitted the general facts about connotation, while just denying that the BBC intentionally used the word “relentless” in this particular instance to create a bad impression, but that you deny wholesale standard facts about language leaves you with little credibility.
I’m sorry, I don’t see how reporting that a supermodel doesn’t want to be paid in US$ because of its weakness counts as anti American. (There was also some doubt whether the story was true, but we’ll let that pass).
The fact is that the US$ is becoming significantly weaker and it would make financial sense for her to be paid in another currency – all other things being equal.
And I think you’ll find that Jeff Randall was always a bit of a maverick in BBC circles.
Come on, guys, get a grip. There’s no doubt that you are uncovering examples of BBC bias, but reflex condemnation like this only makes it easier for your blog to be dismissed by BBC apologists as a home for nutjobs.
Ben and Riddler, there are many countries the whole of the British media loves to embarrass in a frivolous manner, particularly the US, France, Germany, Israel and Australia. The BBC is a part of this, but it’s mainly America that it likes to go for. You would never see this sort of flippant approach to money issues taken with the Palestinians, for example.
Oh come off it Ronald, not everyone reads the FT
I think the state of the US economy is hugely important to us all and the potential demise of the greenback has to be covered. This example illustrates its wide reaching consequences in a way that really brings it home (no sub-prime pun intended)
Apparently Al Qaeda’s not having it all its own way in Baghdad:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSYAT740426
Obviously of no interest to the Beeboids, even though it’s from Reuters.
RR, there was a positive report on the improving situation in Iraq on the Ten O’Clock News and again on News 24 last night. I’ll try to Youtube it later – just for its scarcity value.
Caveats, caveats…
The BBC may well be reporting on the latest success stories coming out of Iraq, but they always, always, imply that things are really not that better.
For instance, JIm Muir reports from Baghdad today on the release of Iranians caught by the Americans in Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7086402.stm
The BBC’s Jim Muir in Baghdad says the releases, although they leave a further 11 Iranians still in detention, might be seen as heralding something of a thaw between the US and Iran – at least in Iraq.
US military commanders have hinted they are beginning to sense a greater effort by Iran to stop weapons and explosives crossing the border, our correspondent says.
And what did the Americans actually say?
US officials are hesitant to label it a definitive trend or source it to actions by Iran (reports Bill Ardolino).
“Just how much has Iran had a hand in the drop? Our position is, we’re not sure yet. We’re seeing some decreases that could indicate positive movement, but the jury is still out,” said Air Force Colonel Donald Bacon, Chief of Strategy and Plans, Strategic Communications at Multinational Force Iraq.
Though no US officials would speculate about possible motivations or definitive trends regarding Iran’s incitement of violence in Iraq, any slackening supply of explosives and militants on Iraq’s eastern border raises the possibility of diplomatic exchanges between America and Iran, especially given the impending release of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qods Force agents by the US military.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/11/why_the_violence_has.php
BBC correspondents – never let the facts get in the way of a (not-so-good) story.
The BBC is so embarrassed by Fake Peter that they now lead the rush to publish stories about the programme in order to try their hand at damage limitation.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7086781.stm
The trouble is that unlike the other BBCgate stories that have come out recently with Fake Peter its time after time after time…
But he explained it was “standard practice” for producers to form relationships with local schools and drama groups to help pad out audiences and to help prevent other children featured on the programme from being too shy to contribute.
“It’s something which we’ll keep on doing because we need articulate, confident children who will contribute something to our shows,” Mr Deverell said
Are these guys for real? Basically he’s saying we’ll have to continue to use ‘fake children’ because it makes better TV ?
“the potential demise of the greenback has to be covered”
The potential demise? Now who’s being a loony?
Of course the deteriorating value of the dollar has to be covered, but how you do it is another matter. And such a frivolous approach would not be taken with other countries.
I know this specific case is not a big deal, but it is a small illustration of the differing approaches taken by the British media — and the BBC in particular — to different countries.
For exmaple, the BBC has no qualms about continually presenting America, in a mocking way, as a land of crazies, whereas it would never do that with an African country, even when it has a higher proportion of people with crazy beliefs.
Susan –
The Newsnight/R5 linkup ‘debate’ on Immigration was mostly as loaded as expected. Questions & issues were invited on the BBC’s site, and I’d say it was 4 to 1 for some serious action to reduce the present chaos, thoughtful posts too – not all visceral desperation (the mods said “Keep it coming!”). The broadcast did little to reflect such articulate, plentiful scepticism about the transformation project. Andrew Green was the only voice out of 7 taking anything like a long-term view of the issues/effects.
The R5 callers who got through with ‘anti’ POVs for the most part didn’t articulate them too well – was this the idea?
Relentless JR.
The beeb is acknowledged, as being if not anti-big business at least sceptical and somewhat disapproving of global concerns,excepting of course the un and the ipcc,oh and themselves,this has been as much as admitted by critics and even employees and ex-employees of your esteemed organisation.
It`s negative because the bbc said it of big business.
There are none so blind as..
Ok, ‘demise’, I know how much semantics are valued round here
Can you explain how this would be illustrated in a more interesting and understandable manner?
All I can say is the news would be far duller if it was always presented as if we’ve got a degree in economics. The fact that one of the most popular stories on the BBC news site has been a series of articles documenting the plight of a man forced to marry a goat renders your accusation rather redundant.
Why the hell should I be forced to pay for the BBC to report on someone being forced to marry a goat? All very amusing yes, but there’s no shortage of amusing stories in the free press. If we must have a forced-funded network, it should report serious news stories in a serious way.
Well the BBC is also here to entertain. I don’t watch BBC3 but it’s there for a particularly underserved audience
Ultimately it comes don’t to the fact you obviously don’t like the license fee and would prefer to watch what you want and not subsidise others. Fair enough, but not exactly adding anything are you?
Ben (from the BBC, for the benefit of those for whom that wasn’t already evident), how about ‘decline’ or ‘fall’ – neither of which implies a permanent end, unlike ‘demise’, which, according to the SOED, sense 2, means:
A death which occasions such transference; gen. death; downfall, disappearance, final fate.
– which is, I’d wager, why it was selected in this case – unless of course it’s just the sort of linguistic ignorance so often seen and heard in Beeboid output.
Looking at the history of the pound, there was a time when four dollars to the pound was the going rate – hence the crown and half crown (25p and 12.5p in new money) being colloquially referred to as a dollar and half-dollar, respectively – would it therefore be fair, or even correct, to say that the pound has suffered a demise?
Ben: “I don’t watch BBC3 but it’s there for a particularly underserved audience”
BBC3 is there to help the BBC argue that it caters for everyone, therefore should be compulsorily funded by everyone. That’s it.
Unsurprisingly, the demographic groups that BBC3 is supposedly produced for already have lots of other entertainment options (not necessarily BBC, or even TV, for that matter), as evidenced by their remarkable lack of interest in BBC3’s race to the bottom rubbish.