Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
Jack Hughes:
Yes I was narked by the extraordinary Climate scepticism: The top 10
Just look at each entry – notice how the “right answer” is always wider and deeper than the “sceptic” statement.
Extraordinary piece of agitprop.
Jack Hughes | 13.11.07 – 9:52 am | #
Yes – but pretty poor agitprop.
I’ve calculated it out – there’s 712cm2 of “sceptic” type area against 1162cm2 of “counter”.
That’s 63% more space to the “counter” arguments.
Josef Goebbels would never have made it so obvious, they’ve forgottem point 13c of his propaganda handbook:-
13.c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness
They need to re-read his propaganda manual:-
http://www.psywarrior.com/Goebbels.html
Here’s an IPCC puff piece:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7082088.stm
Written by Professor Martin Parry [who] is currently co-chair of IPCC Working Group II, and has been a lead author on all its earlier assessments
It even entitled: The IPCC: As good as it gets
And it completely skirts around issues of the impartiality of the IPCC, model deficiencies, and does not actually mention “man’s impact” explicitly (they often like to let the reader infer this when it is usually completely inappropriate to do this, given that NOBODY has made a real-world measurement confirming man’s impact via CO2)
This is also infuriating!
Even the related Internet links are directly to the IPCC, and the Hadley Centre (which is packed to the gills with “believers”)
Wow, spot the hockey stick:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457037/html/default.stm
4 years since it was comprehensively shown to be false, it’s still pops up in various forms (the “spaghetti” graph of the latest IPCC report uses the same basis as the original hockey stick, by the way)
Funny how 08:00 BBC News lead with a report about taxation being the cure for binge drinking (have they seen how much drinks cost in some of these clubs?) whilst relegating the alleged illegal immigration cover up by our Home Secreatary to third spot , and then it is only the (sneer) Conservatives who are the least bit bothered by it.
Luckily Sky News knew which was the important story, and didn’t even mention the Conservatives… go figure.
I see that Al Beeb is providing the British licencepayers with more Islam tonight – ‘Newsnight’ has ‘interview with Aga Khan on his attempts to restore ancient Islamic art’. I wonder if this example of Islamic art will be discussed?:
Nep Nederlander | Homepage | 13.11.07 – 11:48 am
There is an opposing view linked to in that article. I was surprised to be reading such a piece on the BBC.
Is the message beginning to get through that the climate change alarmists are lead more by politics and power then by science? Are the scales beginning to fall from the eyes of the likes of Roger Harribin?(Particularly after reading of his mauling by Al Gore for asking a perfectly reasonable question a while ago.)
Er. Bloody hell:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7081331.stm
At the end of the article Jonathan linked to it says:
“This week, ahead of the launch of the IPCC’s synthesis report for 2007, the BBC News website is looking at various aspects of “climate scepticism” and “catastrophism”. If you have something novel to say on climate change, please let us know – we will be publishing a selection of your comments on Friday.”
So taking the BBC to task on this topic is starting to work — or, at least, it may have emboldened some of the more sceptical people within the BBC (remember the in-fighting over it that broke out into the public a few months ago?)
But will this campaign appear anywhere other than the website?
The BBC manage to write this entire article clearly offended that the Sikh girl has not been able to wear her bangle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7091186.stm
They had no such qualms when reporting the chastity ring girl even though the ring was much smaller, perhaps it was because she was Christian.
Strangely in that school the Sikh pupil could wear her bangle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6900512.stm
Though the comparison was made in the chastity ring article it was not made in the Sikh bangle article.
Even more astonishingly no reference is made to muslim dress in school which is far more intrusive and in the case of the garments that block identification highly questionable, would that be the case with an article the other way around, somehow I doubt it.
Jonathan (Cambridge):
Er. Bloody hell:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/t…ech/ 7081331.stm
Jonathan (Cambridge) | 13.11.07 – 1:27 pm | #
Bloody hell, indeed.
Has anyone got a screen grab, just in case it disappears?
I also thought ‘Capturing Mary’ was pretty poor. It contained all the standard ‘soixante-huit’ cliches beloved of the BBC establishment, ie – everyone before the flower-power generation was a racist Tory, the Establishment was seething with hidden perversions, everyone was hidebound by ridiculous prejudices – so different to the enlightened free spirits that came after them…
I rather enjoyed Capturing Mary, and Joe’s Palace. I rather like Spooks too. And Dr Who. All of which are clearly written by leftists, but I’m not going to rage against the fact that creativity and leftyness have always been cosy bedfellows.
What did make me laugh was the Today programme’s discussion on whether the Art Establishment is too lefty. Well duh. When suggested that artists’ reaction to a Labour government had be to attack from _further_ left (good point) the reaction was “well… there has been Iraq… George Bush (snort of derision from the other interviewee) – special case (chuckling all round)”. This open goal for the interviewer (“Well doesn’t your reaction prove the point?”) was sadly not followed up.
Oh, and the counter to art being lefty was that the art market was thoroughly capitalist, so that’s all right then.
A
I’d rather have lefty creativity than none at all, but as usual, I think one has to apply the ‘balance’ test to BBC output.
In the case of ‘Capturing Mary’, can you recall BBC play that overtly suggests the cultural revolution of the 1960s was not a good thing, and that society before, say, the Wilson government was better than after it?
There may be such a play, but I can’t think of one. The nearest I can imagine is the BBC sitcom ‘Hippies’ which poked gentle fun at 1960s foibles , but that was a comedy rather than a ‘serious’ drama.
Regarding the dreary Capturing Mary, I don’t think this has anything at al to do with politics (drama in the US is also pretty lefty and always has been, but at least it works as drama!).
Did Poliakoff’s latest effort make you laugh? Did it make you cry? Did it make want to make love to the leading lady, or man? Did it fill you with rage, or amusement? Did it make you think or chalenge your thoughts in any meaningful way? Did it surprise you??
No to al of those questions.
Take any episode of The Sopranos and ask yourself, did it come within a million miles of that? The answer is NO. Pompous, self-regarding, BBC crap, from start to finish.
I repeat, the BBC’s influence on drama and culture generally is very, very negative. Why should a few London-based Beeboids dictate what we should and shouldn’t watch and value?
“can you recall BBC play that overtly suggests the cultural revolution of the 1960s was not a good thing,”
Of course, you could read – completely against the intention of Loach and the BBC – “Cathy Come Home” (1966) as an exposure of the uselessness of the state when it attempts – and predictably fails – to provide (or insist on the private sector providing through, for instance, rent control) “social” or “affordable” housing. In such an interpretation Loach’s masterpiece is a profoundly anti-statist document. Had it been seen as such, the BBC would not have touched it with a bargepole.
Click Jonathan’s link, it’s still there.
Don’t think it’s changed.
“…carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity”
“alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring.”
Thought-crime!!!!!
DR R says ‘Why should a few London-based Beeboids dictate what we should and shouldn’t watch and value?’
They don’t. We just have to pay for their products because the government forces us to.
Hardly anyone watches stuff like Capturing Mary. It was made mainly to be reviewed by other BBC staff on other BBC programmes that hardly anyone watches.
I am a regular listener to Radio 3’s Word & Music, 1 hr 40 mins of poetry and classical music on a Sunday night. The programmes are based on a theme, recent themes have included…
4 Nov Ecstasy
28 Oct 40 Years of Poetry
21 Oct A Beat in Time
14 Oct To Byzantium
7 Oct The Truth about Love
30 Sep Melancholy
Last Sunday (11th of November and hint hint Remembrance Sunday) the theme was Freedom (aka Slavery) as part of Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival aka Radio 3’s ‘Isn’t It Wonderful Being A Liberal’ Festival.
A decent enough programme, albeit I am a tad slavery’d out this year, but is there anything wrong with having a theme more relevant to the day even if it upsets BBC sensibilities?
And as a PS can people just ignore Reith, there seems to be more posts about his stupidity than about BBC’s bias. All a bit dull.
“Smith denies ‘blunder’ on checks”
I would have thought that this would be the headline item on BBC 10 o’clock news.
Not all they lead with a headline about
immigrants, asylum seekers being abused.
Some bias me thinks!!
I was to positive about the BBC reporting over Iraq. Look at the frontpage;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
We see article about the cost of the war using some dubious methods. But look at links below the article one is;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6977728.stm
It is a two month old article which was already incorrect when it was written two months ago. It is higly misleading when the BBC itself is now describing the situation as;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7090535.stm
or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7089168.stm
I wonder how the BBC recruited its Question Time audience of 11/11/2001? As far as I could tell, they’d gone to the Finsbury Park Mosque.
Fury over treatment of migrants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7093726.stm
Fury? Over the number of them here and the inability to deport a reasonable number? Fury about the porous borders?
Nope – fury (sans scare quotes) about liberal leftie issues – we even get a dig at those private firms (oh woe – the private sector is involved).
But the terminology is significant – migrants and immigrants, not bogus asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
Let’s look on the bright side – at least those who’ve been deported won’t end up getting shot in Stockwell tube station.
Great exchange between James Murdoch and Ashley Highfield, the digital head at BBC, here:
[audio src="http://www.paidcontent.org/audio/murdochashley.mp3" /]
Highfield, responding to Murdoch, claims: “I’m sure it was only a slip of the tongue, but the BBC is not State-controlled; it is editorially fiercely independent, which is possibly the reason people in the UK value it.”
Murdoch: “I made no comment about your editorial independence. I only noted that the BBC is a State agency with police powers to levy tax, so I think that’s not right actually, and I think you know it.”
Fury! What fury? This BBC report mentions nobody who claims to be furious. Could it be that the BBC is furious?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7093726.stm
Looks like they’ve done away with the “fury.”
Did you notice what the BBC left out of their report on Brown’s aticle in the Sun? Very revealing.
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2007/11/uk-bbc-continues-support-for-terrorism.html
Looks like they’ve done away with the “fury.”
Susan | 14.11.07 – 4:40 am | #
Yep, the timestamp has been amended to 04:24 GMT. Obviously a grown up saw that that “fury” was inappropriate and removed it.
Here’s where the fury went, as Newsniffer show.
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/78359/diff/1/2
Al Beeb’s Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme this morning had that not so well known expert economist, Edward Stoughton listening to a Muslim banker propagandising about the wonders of something called ‘Sharia-compliant banking’.
Of course, Mr. Stoughton is oblivious to the work of e.g., Professor Timur Kuran on this, who argues that:
” the doctrine of Islamic economics is simplistic, incoherent and largely irrelevant to present economic challenges…You might wonder, if this is so, why Islamic economics has enjoyed any appeal at all. The real purpose of Islamic economics has not been economic improvement but cultivation of a distinct Islamic identity to resist cultural globalization. It has served the cause of global Islamism, known as ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, by fueling the illusion that Muslim societies have lived, or can live, by distinct economic rules.”
See Professor Kuran’s analysis at:
http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/13215.html
These days it seems the BBC is quite open about its innate anti-Americanism:
SPOOKS star Peter Firth says his spy drama role as MI5 boss Harry Pearce is anything but nine to five …
There’s something for everyone in Spooks,” he laughs. Though not, it would seem, for TV bosses in the US.
He says: “The series did very well there for the first four years and now they’ve stopped showing it because we’ve taken too much of an anti-American stand in the stories.
“Americans don’t like that. They’ll take it from themselves. In West Wing they criticise their foreign policy. But I don’t think they’ll take it from foreigners. Certainly not from the British.
“And if they were to see this series, they’d be absolutely horrified, because it does have quite a strident opinion about American foreign policy.”
Harry Spooks America
Thanks, Peter. It’s always nice to hear the BBC’s own staff admit to the corporation’s disgusting institutional biases.
In what sense is Peter Firth a BBC employee?
In the sense that he is employed by a production company to help make for the BBC a BBC-branded show. But he isn’t “staff”, as Anonymous puts it. (But then, very few people are on Reith’s way of looking at it — anyone who expresses an opinion is just a freelancer who “appears” on the BBC).
@Pete:
Hardly anyone watches stuff like Capturing Mary. It was made mainly to be reviewed by other BBC staff on other BBC programmes that hardly anyone watches.
Last time I checked there weren’t 3 million BBC staff…
And a Spooks update. This week the Americans are the good guys (peacefully sabotaging the Iranian nuclear programme) and the Iranians are the baddies (they’re going NUCLEAR! They tried to kill our hero!)
A bout of insomnia this morning led to my hearing part of some BBC World Service programs at about 4:30am.
The first was a schools program in which the merits of building a wind farm on Skye were discussed. Presented as if very impartial (‘We won’t tell you what to think…what do you think?..’), but as the only negative raised was their intrusive appearance (nothing about noise, killing of birds/bats, whether they actually serve any purpose – even in their own terms – given that they need fossil-fuel backup &c &c)while their value was simply assumed (shades of the IPPR report about how to present AGW propaganda)what the children on the receiving end of the program were supposed to think was very clear.
This was then followed by a news program which included an item about the re-election of Anders Rasmussen in Denmark. The presenter mentioned his ‘xenophobic’immigration policy. No question, no possibility there might be other (and possibly good) reasons for limiting immigration – this is the BBC, if you don’t admit anyone and everyone who comes it’s xenophobia.
Fortunately I fell asleep again about then.
Chemise
I think we have to follow the money here. The World Service is funded by the FCO so any opinions voiced or implied are those of the UK government as filtered through a BBC lens. It is the government – with our taxes – which is inflicting uneconomic wind “energy” facilities on Skye: it is our government (despite what its representatives might tell the public in Britain directly) which considers limits on immigration as “xenophobic”. In these instances I imagine the BBC does not disagree with the opinions expressed. However, given the reality of World Service funding it would be difficult for the BBC not to be a government mouthpiece although an honest broadcasting organisation would inform – and keep informing – its listeners accordingly.
John Reith:
In what sense is Peter Firth a BBC employee?
John Reith | 14.11.07 – 9:38 am | #
Whoever you really are and whatever your credentials, JR, they clearly don’t include much exposure to the real world of business.
As far as I know, here’s how it works…
The BBC (using our money, incidentally) contracts Kudos to make the series.
The BBC own the intellectual property in the series, which they exploit commercially by publicising it, selling it overseas etc. etc.
When anyone associated with the series, therefore, discusses its business propects with the media, as Firth did, they are clearly bound by the contract between the BBC and Kudos because what they say can impact the commercial value of the product.
If Firth said the series was absolute crap, I’m sure the BBC would take action against Kudos for allowing him to damage the product.
When he discusses the series he is effectively speaking on behalf of his employer and of the owner of the intellectual property – the BBC.
Is that too difficult?
John Reith:
“In what sense is Peter Firth a BBC employee?”
Goid Reith you really are an enigma. There you are in an earlier thread proclaiming that it’s all in our imaginations that Spooks is a yank bashing show. Someone posts an interview with the star of the show admitting it, the Americans won’t buy it because of it and the best you can come up with is:-
“In what sense is Peter Firth a BBC employee?”
Keep moving those goal posts John. You’ve nearly run out of pitch.
And a Spooks update. This week the Americans are the good guys (peacefully sabotaging the Iranian nuclear programme) and the Iranians are the baddies (they’re going NUCLEAR! They tried to kill our hero!)
David Gregory (BBC) | 14.11.07 – 9:49 am | #
That’s a bit of a stretch..Having watched all the episodes this season, to say it wasn’t blantantly anti-american is absurd.
Even last nights episode.. they are described as arrogant and cowboys, and it seems the only role of MI5 is to stop “US Aggresion”. Oh and by the way, Americas “arrogant” plan distracted the other handover giving Iran nuclear technology.
Did you actually watch the episode. Oh Yeah, the US also framed our “best” agent for murder, yeah not anti-american at all.
In the new era of austerity and cuts, the BBC is now spending our money like this:
” Anne Robinson has been given an incredible £10 million ‘golden handcuffs’ deal by the BBC to continue presenting ‘The Weakest Link'” (14 Nov. ‘Daily Mail’.):-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=493475&in_page_id=1773
And their source for that George?
Muslims ‘demonised’ by UK media, screams the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7093390.stm
Hat-tip is due to Harry’s Place for supplying the full story
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/11/13/livingstone_islamophobia_report_finally_published.php
The BBC • never knowingly oversold
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7094428.stm
Apparently Cameron should just shut up and take Brown’s/Smith’s word for it that they are acting in the best interests of the country, and not obsessed with spin. Naturally the article doesn’t mention Brown’s generally inept performance, though it does at least say he didn’t answer questions.
Ian
Yes indeed I did! The Americans did indeed frame our hero for murder… but the Iranians tried to kill him.
Meanwhile America was trying to bring peace to the Middle East by sabotaging the Iranian nuclear triggers.
Thinking about it, it’s almost as if Spooks is enjoyably complex with twisty turny plots! The sudden “reveal” rather loses it’s impact if we always know who the good guys are.
David, are you seriously suggesting that there is no anti-American bias in the BBC? I simply don’t believe you believe that and maybe, if I’m right, you should give this unquestioning support a little thought? All that’s needed for evil to flourish…. you probably know the rest of the quote.
Dr R | 14.11.07 – 4:14 pm
David, are you seriously suggesting that there is no anti-American bias in the BBC? I simply don’t believe you believe that …..
You and I have doubtless both seen dozens – if not hundreds – of dramas in which high-ranking CIA or NSA types are cast the wicked villains.
Many of these have been Hollywood movies or US TV series.
Would you consider them ‘anti-American’?
Dr R… “is for good men to do nothing”
I can’t believe I stood by as Spooks attempted to make interesting drama where the world is complex and some Americans are good and some are bad. Same for the Israelis, Iraqis, French and the Brits.
Is it not like that? What a fool I’ve been
Turn Over Your Papers on Radio 4 just told me that Multiple Choice questions were invented during WW1 so the American Army could be sure it was recruting stupid people. What happened on Sunday again?
Umbongo | 14.11.07 – 11:30 am |
I understand your comments & accept that BBC World Service is not funded from the TV Licence (not directly anyway; other earlier BBBC postings have discussed this). So it may be that we should not concern ourselves with BBC WS bias on this site. But I find it difficult to make this distinction. It is after all called the BBC World Service, not the UK Government World Service, and it definitely trades on the BBC’s claimed impartiality & competence (are we not always hearing trailers to the effect that ‘The BBC is trusted for news throughout the world’ or some such?).
Anyway, enough said – I guess there’s sufficient bias in the BBC’s home output to keep the site busy.
David
Yet for you the ~BBC seems only and always to be right? Oh, I get it.
🙂