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.
Also last night there was a featured report on the Red Cross giving human rights courses to Hamas in Gaza.
The female correspondent (Aliana something? Katty Kay rushes her words sometimes) was on the scene, telling us the human rights training involved first aid, humane treatment of prisoners, not targeting children, etc.
I’ll wait for everyone to stop laughing, and wipe the tears from your eyes.
Get this – Hamas were “surprised” to learn that such an organization as the Red Cross exists (Red Crescent, anyone?). They were equally surprised and delighted to learn that they (Hamas) have “international recognition” as “organized gunmen”. That’s right, the BBC has now stated that Hamas have international legitimacy. Credit is due to the correspondent, though, as she rather bravely and honorably suggests that this could mean that they would then be subject to international law. Katty quickly brushes that aside and moves on.
The Palestinians supposedly had no idea whatsoever that their innocent little rockets might possibly harm Israeli children. Seriously. Katty asked what they would do with this “new knowledge”. We are told that it’s still all the Israeli’s fault. After all, they “deliberately target children every day”, of not with bullets then “with blockades and by withholding medicine”. Yes, moral equivalency, with a little denial thrown in.
After more of this, Katty points out that the Red Cross are giving the Israelis some training as well, but that’s “in an entirely different vein, isn’t it?” I could mention her tone, but that would be too subjective. I think her meaning is pretty clear: the nasty Israelis are the ones really in need of human rights training.
Our correspondent sums it up: Hamas is delighted and fascinated by all this attention, but this won’t make one bit of difference in their behavior because of the nasty Israelis, who are – Katty makes a point in telling us – equally to blame. That’s not a vague impression, she said that straight out.
A love letter to Hamas. You can’t make this stuff up.
(The footage of the training sessions was probably shown in the UK as part of a domestic news broadcast. Maybe pounce caught it?)
Apologies:
Anonymous | 17.11.07 – 8:49 pm was me. I’d still like to locate the mysterious disappearing programme about whether Saudi money is funding terrorism.
Apologies #2
After much searching I found the Jihad and the Petrodollar programme already archived.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/7087430.stm
Strong stuff for the BBC.
Jihad and The Petrodollar
First broadcast November 2007
Saudi Arabia stands accused of supporting an Islamic ideology that encourages intolerance and extremism.
Roger Hardy examines the merits of the case, as the country wrestles with internal terror and the charge that the education system, the religious establishment, and the royal family, handsomely funded by petrodollars, continue to promote a narrow interpretation of Islam that justifies violent jihad.
Programme One: Wahabism
I curious. Are we going to need a new post for Omid Djalili?
God help us!!!!
All day the bloody BBC has been spouting on about Climate Change again.
Look you BBC lot it’s the same bunch of leftie losers at the UN spounting the same pack of lies.
How come the BBC don’t give the same level of coverage to other UN reports? Like Saddams’ WMD, Iran and their Nuclear intentions and so on?
The Science is STILL unproven. Try asking SCIENTISTS not leftie green types or your own idiot unqualified “Environment correspondents”
And why doesn’t the BBC they tell us the truth? That if yo’re rich you can continue to pollute, but if you are one of the poor scum then you will have to get rid of your car, pay for you plastic carrier bag and forget about that cheap holiday in the sun you spend all year saving for (when not paying money to fatso Brown of course). Do I hear the BBC telling us that? No. Why not? Because it would make it very unpopular with the public so the BBC has to simply do the Governments “dirty” work for it by trying ot make people feel guilty.
John Ware of Panorama writes in The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/11/18/do1807.xml
The fearless BBC are doing a report about how that ‘bastion of Islamic freedom’ Iran is trying to build a “solar powered hotel” but is being foiled by the nasty western democracies and their unfair sanctions! The world, according to the BBC is a strange place isnt it? The BBC scratch around for any excuse to attack sanctions on Iran and this is all they can come up with? I know they did a report that told us how like Europe it(Iran) is because they have a “thriving cafe culture”! WTF?
The BBC message is clear, Iran=good and the West=bad?
So in BBC land its perfectly fine for the Iranians to persecute and murder Gays and lesbians and stone women to death and build atomic bombs but look how nasty the West is if they try and impose sanctions!
David Preiser,
I saw that propaganda rubbish on the hammas terrorist being given an “education on human rights”! As they sat there with black masks on I noticed how desperate the BBC have become in their attempts to push Hammas as a legitimate government. I still have not seen anything on the faked up shooting of the Palestinian boy by Palestinian gunmen but blamed on the Israelis and i wonder why?
Plus Ca Change ???
Lying to Blue Peter viewers isn’t an entirely new concept for the BBC.
When I was a kid back in the early 1960’s, Blue Peter had a story writing competition. It must have been 1962 or 1963. The winning story was going to be read out on the programme.
When the “winner” was announced, I was aghast that the story was lifted verbatim from an old Radio Fun Annual that had belonged to my big sister.
I wrote to Blue Peter about this cheating. They never replied.
At the time I thought some kid had cheated. As an adult, I can see that the story “won” because none of the real entries were good enough in the producers’ minds.
Another example of the BBC (always) doing what it’s good at” ?
Reading the BBC Editors blog this morning, I was drawn to the Newsnight section, in particular to the blog on Ali Dizael.
This is the Superintendent of the Met who has been accused of among other things perverting the course of justice, misconduct in public office and making false expense claims (all allegations were not proven),watching the newsnight programme about his book ‘not one of us’, the main thrust of the programme was this mans attempts to portray the Met as rascist.
On the internet you can listen to telephone calls from this man to his various lovers (5 so far), in which he treats them all to a continual torrent of verbal abuse and threats, of course Mr Dizaei tells us he is a devout Muslim, and feels that his behaviour towards women is perfectly acceptable.
The man is supposed to be in with a chance of becoming the UK’s first Asian Chief Constable!, can you imagine how female police officers will feel having as their boss such a woman hater?.
Mr Daizei has a Iranian background and in every article he has been interviewed his main theme is how he has been rascism, rascism and more rascism, this man should never be allowed to hold the position he has at the moment let alone be promoted to Chief Constable.
Yet the BBC glosses over all the many complaints levelled against this man by serving police officers and some of his ex lovers, and tries to portray him as some kind of misunderstood victimised hero, I wonder what his long suffering wife must think of all this?.
Our friend Justin Webb is back at it, commenting on prayers for rain in Georgia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2007/11/the_obsessive_and_the_dotty.html
“Nothing much separated that gathering from a get-together of Stone Age men, let’s face it.”
Nice. He is getting eviscerated in the comments though!
Stephanie clague | 18.11.07 – 5:19 am |
Yes, the BBC declared outright that Hamas is an internationally recognized organization of gunmen. If I where to make an official complaint about it, I would. I wouldn’t bother with the main complaints section of the website, as Frei will never hear any of it.
The infamous killing of the Pally youth will be reported by the BBC as an addendum to their release of the Balen Report.
What’s the emoticon for ROTFLMAO?
Radio 4 iPM
Chris Vallance 7 Nov 07, 08:44 PM What’s it like to find yourself the subject of a threatening video on YouTube? to police over a video on YouTube titled, “In Memory of Councillor Alan Craig”.
Well now the BBC can go to Christian Today and read about the arrest of a man who posted the death threats.
http://tinyurl.com/2m7g73
So the BBC is launching an impartiality review conducted by Cardiff University. And who runs its journalism school – BBC trustee Richard Tait? Impartial indeed.
So it is with global warming. The media drops its “bombshells” like well-formed turds on the pavement and then moves on, leaving others to clear up the mess behind them. Decades down the line, when the world doesn’t come to an end, when the fears and the alarms prove groundless, there will be another scare in the making • or several more • and no one will want to know.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/11/end-is-nigh.html
Joseph (Maastricht):
I have not looked at Ali Dizae’s book, but I have repeatedly noticed in BBC interviews that he is incapable of uttering a sentence in English without serious grammatical errors- noticeably missing prepositions. One would guess that he has a ghost writer and a very efficient secretary in the police force. It doesn’t say very much for the Met’s standards that they ignore this. The BBC tolerate this as well- a kind of accepted linguistic handicap that should be ignored. Next interview listen closely and spot the errors!!
The comments from Justin Webb are at best misguided and at worst a disgrace.
I cannot for one moment understand the BBC allowing one of it’s correspondents to express his own bigoted views on Americans and specifically the religiously inclided Americans.
As Mr Webb says himself, one person does not represent a country and Mr Webb represents no-one apart from his own bigoted world-view.
I truly hope that the BBC remove Mr Webb’s blog, he has no right to comment on a country he so obviously hates, I suggest that Mr Webb and Mr Frei that other American hating BBC correspondent are the first of the BBC correspondents to be forced to attend an impartiality course.
I say this to our American friends, if you wish to pray do it, it is your democratic right to do so, what a shame that Mr Webb accepts your hospitality whilst at the same time ridiculing you.
Finally a message to the BBC and especially John Reith, your clear anti-American agenda is becoming a huge turn-off, I pay 120 euros a year to subscribe to BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4, however, I am becoming more and more disgruntled with your obvious bias and feel that you have lost your position as the premier news broadcaster, and would instead put you a notch below Fox news or Sky, both of which are flawed, but at least both make no pretence of their political slant.
A Lurker | 18.11.07 – 11:28 am |
and what could be more stone-age than stoning female (only?) adulters buried up to the neck in sand and stone?
nick reynolds, david gregory, JR, do you think we will ever read or hear anything remotely as contemptuous or sneering from frei or anyone at the bbc concerning countries or governments that practise such stoning penalties?
if not, why not?
the above reference should have been to webb, not frei (this time!)
apologies
and would instead put you a notch below Fox news or Sky, both of which are flawed, but at least both make no pretence of their political slant.
Sky doesn’t have a “political slant”. In terms of impartial reporting they are superior to al-Beeb even if they do have Julie “Exterminated” Etchingham.
I just saw a splendid example of Beeboid groupthink on BBC News 24 called something like Teen24. It was some kind of newsy/currentaffairsy thing for teens, presented by people in their late teens (ie mid twenties.) They were doing a slot on immigration, introduced with something like “according to some polls 70% think there is too much immigration, let’s go to Glasgow and see what teens there think.” Off to a Glasgow studio we go, with a highly photogenic Beebette of Indian extraction, who proceeds to interview a gaggle of about eight, terrifyingly white and middle class, Glasgie teenagers. All of whom are quite happy about immigration, and who think it’s a very good thing. One or two of them refer to “other people” who have a problem with immigration, before proceeding to explain why they’re wrong. At the end, the photogenic Indian young lady wraps up with “So there’s nobody here [ie in the studio] who has a problem with immigration, but there are obviously people out there [ie not in the studio] who still do.”
Spot on, hun. How did that happen do you think ? (You could have worked out that the studio group of Glagow teenagers was not terribly representative even without hearing their views on immigration, seeing as they were all slim, fairly good looking, articulate, comprehensible and sober.)
A classic from the “Does he take sugar” school of BBC journalism – to investigate why a lot of people think X, instead of finding some people who think X and interviewing them, find a group of people who think not-X and invite them to speculate about why people who think X, think X. X representing any opinion that is not considered polite at the BBC.
I assume that the BBC news team in the US wishes to convince us that this is your typical US voter.
H/T Theo Spark
About Justin Webb: I must confess I was genuinely surprised to see that he is a grey-haired, middle-aged man. His commentary is so juvenile, I had assumed for a very long time that he was in his late 20s-very early 30s.
What’s funny about the whole “praying for rain” thing is that Georgia actually got rain this weekend.
Maybe we should all get together and have a public prayer on the steps of the Georgia legislature for the al-Beeb license fee to go away? Just a thought.
Of course you would never see them treating Native American spiritual beliefs this way, to say nothing of any similar comments about their beloved RoP.
Well now the BBC can go to Christian Today and read about the arrest of a man who posted the death threats.
I didn’t see anything about this on the al-Beeb website. One would think that a videotaped death threat against a public official would at least merit a few obfuscatory paragraphs about an obstreperous “Asian.”
Webb takes the usual comfortable route of ridiculing only US Christians.
Even big girl’s blouse Grayson Perry is braver, commenting at the BBC tailed symposium “Is All Modern Art Left Wing?” –
Grayson Perry, the Turner Prize-winning artist who is perhaps better known to the general public for his extravagant cross-dressing, has admitted that he censors himself when it comes to matters relating to Islam.
Speaking at a meeting organised by the Art Fund, Perry said that it was simple fear which stopped him from addressing Islam in his work. ‘I don’t want my throat cut’, he said.
http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/167
Just some feedback I got after filling in Auntie Beeb’s online complaints process. Lame and disappointing it is too. Surely they can squeeze something into their 24/7 news broadcasts, especially of something which is of global significance.
“Thank you for your e-mail.
I understand that you are not happy that there was no information provided on BBC News regarding the improved situations in Iraq.
The choice of which news stories to report in our programmes is often very difficult. Editorial staff always have more news reports than can be fitted into the time available. Their choice has to be selective and no matter how carefully such decisions are made, they are always aware that some people may disagree with them. Unlike newspapers, news programmes do not have the luxury of the inside pages or specialist sections that enable newspapers to carry a wide range of reports.
I would like to assure you that we have registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.
Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us.
Regards
Marie Therese Gibson
BBC Information”
which was in response to:
“I wish to complain about what I perceive as the BBCs one-sided coverage of the events in Iraq and the US-led surge in particular. There is a much improved situation in Iraq, but the UK viewer/listener is unlikely to know of this due to virtually non-existent TV/Radio coverage.
For some time, US army officers have been reporting that their increased security drive around Baghdad has yielded positive outcomes, leading to disruption of many militant cells and a very large reduction in the number of roadside bombings and shooting attacks:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article2796318.ece
In my opinion, successes are just as newsworthy as failures. It is evident that the BBC chooses to omit news it does not like.
The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities. To my mind nothing substantial has changed much since then. That the BBC investigated itself is laudable only if it acts on its conclusions.
The BBC is, by law required to be objective in its reporting. The people of Britain are required by law to fund the BBC through a licensing fee on all television owners.
I would like to see both halves of the equation being upheld.”
The message that HappyUK got was unbelievably condescending. This is a classic:
I understand that you are not happy that there was no information provided on BBC News regarding the improved situations in Iraq.
The choice of which news stories to report in our programmes is often very difficult. Editorial staff always have more news reports than can be fitted into the time available.
They make it sound like the Iraq issue is comparable to someone kicking over a little old lady’s garbage can, instead of a major issue that they’ve been covering in minute detail since 2003. . .”Oh, poor me, so much news, so little time to cover it all. Sorry I didn’t have the room to cover your neighbor’s garbage can incident.”
Ubelievable!
I truly hope that the BBC remove Mr Webb’s blog
Joseph (Maastricht) | 18.11.07 – 2:06 pm
Dunno if that would help that much. Webb has been appointed BBC North American editor, can you believe it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/11/north_america_editor.html
I sent them the following comment, and after a delay of a few days, in which comments posted after mine appeared on the blog, it finally came up:
So you’re telling us that Justin Webb will be “shaping the style and tone of [your] editorial agenda in America.”
I guess we can expect more of the same then – supercilious, superior and subtly mocking reporting on America, implacably rooted in the BBC’s left wing perspective and snobbishly dismissive of George Bush.
It’s incredible that the BBC can’t find a better journalist than the self-absorbed, prejudiced and narrow-minded Webb to fill such an important position.
David Gregory is quite a brave soul to come on here and try to answer for a whole corporation full of bias!
I was just thinking, next time someone tells me that the average temperature of the world is going to increase by up to 4 degrees, within the next 100 years. Could you demonstrate this by showing the weather forecast for the UK for that day? There you will see that this is within the difference in temperature we are already feeling. Tonight for instance, the temp in London was 4 Degrees C while in Plymouth it was 7 degrees.
Its so much more truthful that only pointing out the extra hot days and comparing them to a cold day in Africa?
I hope this helps you get closer to the non bias of your charter!
HappyUK
Every single word in that complaint reply you got except “that there was no information provided on BBC News regarding the improved situations in Iraq” is a cut/paste from a form reply. This is the contempt the BBC has for it’s viewers. No attempt to actually engage and answer the specific complaints made. I have long given up on the dire complaints procedure at the BBC, I just got fed up with time after time getting a cut/paste reply.
David Preiser wrote;
“The footage of the training sessions was probably shown in the UK as part of a domestic news broadcast. Maybe pounce caught it?”
No, missed it completely. However the BBC have made that clip available on net.
The funny thing is when I have been taught ‘Law of armed conflict’ we spend time in the classroom been taught what you can do and can’t do, watch a number of videos. (Each usually 20 mins long) of war scenarios (Thanks SSVC) discuss with the tutor after each video and then finally have a test (which has to be passed) on the subject.
Oh and what do they teach you little things like you can’t mistreat the enemy or non combatants. You can’t used doctored weaponry. Booby traps, you can’t use torture. You have to disobey illegal commands etc..
Here is the MOD Aide Memoire on the subject
Click to access jsp381.pdf
What I saw the hooded men undertaking on that BBC clip looked like a very basic First aid lesson. A totally different subject altogether.
Who is paying the people who conduct the review of BBC news’s impartiality?
I see the BBC TOADY show has given Peter Hain an ‘easy ride interview’ about incapacity benefit? Peter Hain was able to lay the blame on the “Tories” AND the interviewer let it go unchallenged! She could have at least asked Hain what NuLabour have been doing for TEN YEARS?
The BBC, pushing NuLabour propaganda regardless of the facts!
Its what they do!
Part of the reply received:
“I would like to assure you that we have registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.”
Can anyone tell me if this “audience log” is publically available via FOI? I really would like to dig a little deeper as I don’t appreciate being fobbed off with bland cut ‘n paste replies…
Re complaints, this bit is certainly copy and paste:
I would like to assure you that we have registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.
I got the same thing as part of a response to a complaint. Here’s a short history of my latest futile attempt to wake the BBC up:
30/10: Sent comment to the BBC Complaints website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
regarding the rejection by HYS of two reasonable, but anti-Iran comments I made. (Rejection, of course, is active intervention by the moderators rather than simply letting comments sit in the queue and then closing the debate without publishing them. You have to register with HYS to get your own page – which shows how your comments have been handled.)
As usual, I did not get a reference number or anything else to facilitate any follow up on the complaint.
05/11: Nearly fell off my chair. Got a response (I seldom do) from the BBC in the form of one Amy Bennet from BBC Information, including this bit:
While I appreciate the trouble you have taken in contacting us, the role of this department is to respond to comment, query or criticism concerning programmes on any of the BBC’s national, regional and local television or radio services. However, if you disagree with a moderation decision about your own post please email Centralcommunitiesteam@bbc.co.uk including a complete copy of the moderation email that you were sent when your post was removed. The Central Communities Team will then review the posting – if an incorrect decision has been made the post will be reinstated and you will be notified.
06/11: Sent a long and detailed reply to BBC Information, part of it pointing out that I had never received any communication from HYS over any comment of mine that had been removed (or rejected before appearing on the site) and was therefore curious as to why HYS was not fulfilling this apparent obligation.
06/11: Got the standard response that I can’t reply to the e-mail (would have been nice if BBC Information had told me that up front) and directing me back to the Complaints website whence I’d started this wild goose chase.
06/11: e-mailed the Central Communities Team, pointing out that I’d been directed ther way by BBC Information, wondering why I’d never received any communication from a HYS moderator on my rejected or removed comments, and pasting in a copy of my original complaint to the website, naively expecting a response “within ten days.”
19/11: Still waiting.
BBC to probe its ‘bias to the Left’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=494843&in_page_id=1770
A survey by the media regulator Ofcom revealed that almost half of viewers – 46 per cent – consider BBC1’s news coverage to be biased.
Bryan,
Seeing as this complaint is going round in circles I was wondering if there are any other avenues available to seek redress – OFCOM maybe? I’m all for active complaining that ends up with some kind of result as opposed to passive whingeing…
Stephanie clague:
I see the BBC TOADY show has given Peter Hain an ‘easy ride interview’ about incapacity benefit? Peter Hain was able to lay the blame on the “Tories” AND the interviewer let it go unchallenged!
I heard this too – he should not have been allowed to make this statement unchallenged. It came across (to me anyway) that there was a basic understanding between Hain and the interviewer that the “Blame the Tories” line was an agreed fact and that Hain was to be allowed to spin out a “how do we clear up their mess” message.
Anyone catch the ME Hamas – I mean BBC – correspondent Jeremy Bowen this morning? Not a bad r4port by his abysmal standards, actually, but sadly and typically let down by his vapid and instructive pay-off line. This basically said (I am paraphrasing) that a peace deal is essential for Israel because otherwise it will face the tide of Islamists from outside the region.
Hmmm. Has anyone told Al Bowen that Hamas are already threatening women newsreaders with decapitation, forcing Christians to leave, introducing Shariah, killing homosexuals and religious dissenters (ie women who choose not to wear the prescribed clothing), persecuting Shia, and of course threatening to destroy Israel at the first available opportunity. The Bowen logic (sic) is that these creeps are somehow different from the Saudi, Iraqi or Iranian creeps.
Pathetic.
Well that’s certainly true.
Many BBC interviews with Labour MPs are more ‘tell me what wonders you have achieved oh great one’ than actuall political interviews.
On Global warming, Labour MPs were treated to the royal treatment on the BBC.
Not one reporter said
‘Erm.. Mr MP, how come MPs fly around the world first class, clocking up millions of milles on the tax payer’s back while raising green taxes’
Now that I would like to have seeen
Just received a corker of a response from the BBC in response to a complaint I made about Nick Robinson playing the race card in his report on David Cameron’s immigration speech (an issue fully aired on this site). It’s quite a long response, but this bit was priceless.
A core task for the BBC is to help all audiences make sense of the world by making complex ideas understandable and specialist correspondents such as Nick Robinson, the BBC’s Political Editor, have a key role to play in this process. In the multimedia world where audiences can access information from literally thousands of sources, the BBC’s specialists can help to provide proper depth and context to a subject. As a specialist, Nick’s passion, perception and political knowledge are matched by his communication skills and deep commitment to fairness and impartiality and we are confident that he adheres to the BBC’s high standards.
The BBC seems to believe if you shout loudly enough that you are not only fair and impartial but absolutely brilliant as well it will magically be true. Talk about the triumph of spin over substance.
HappyUK | 19.11.07 – 9:38 am,
Agreed. This seems to be how it works:
You complain and, as standard procedure, the complaint is initially either ignored or rejected. You appeal to the BBC Trust (it used to be the governors) and your complaint is looked at, some feeble excuses are dredged up for not upholding it, and it is again rejected.
The BBC Trust claim to be introducing a great new finely-tuned model of a complaints-handling system. We’ll see. They are asking for feedback here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open_consultations/comp_framework_page1.html
I’m not British, which I imagine is partly why my complaints get ignored 95% of the time and fobbed off the other 5%. I told the BBC that if they don’t intend to deal with complaints from abroad they should make that policy clear and not waste people’s time by claiming to have some wonderful, open complaints procedure:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_process.shtml
No doubt the BBC has to take licence payers more seriously. From following the debate on this site for quite some time, it seems to me that an option that might bear some fruit at least is to phone them and get specific with them:
ring BBC Information on 08700 100 222
Good luck.
Currently on the news website is a report on the Queen’s diamond wedding service in Westminster Abbey with a box linking to the ‘Have Your Say’ page on the subject and which one is quoted? Well one that says “Congratulations to them both. However I can’t remember voting for them.” of course! Aunty BBC mustn’t let republicanism be forgotten must it?
The story:
“Chavez outburst is ringtone hit”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7101386.stm
is currently one of the most e-mailed and read stories. The BBC have turned this headline on its head by implying it is Chavez’s comments that are popular. The factual:
“King’s outburst is ringtone hit”
uses the same amount of characters and is accurate, why isn’t it being used?
The BBC’s fetish for Chavez and misleading headlines was pointed out by David when this story originally broke:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/904419771334702890/#374592
I think “Chavez outburst is ringtone hit” is a bit of an own goal. The word “outburst” has a connotation of “losing it” and “Chavez outburst” implies that Chavez lost it. In fact Chavez loses it all the time, but the BBC refers to these as “colourful quotations” – follow the link in moonbat nibbler’s post. So though I’m sure by “Chavez outburst” they meant “King’s outburst about Chavez” by way of highlighting the King’s losing it, they’ve finished up hurting their own man.
Classic BBC approach to the “which of you two ladies wants to be the father?” issue on World at One just now.
1. Interview (allow to speak unhindered) an articulate lesbian lawyer who is also a father, or is that mother?
2. Interview (allow to speak unhindered) Evan Harris who in reasoned tones nicely backs up the previous speaker.
3. Interview (subject to hard questioning) Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, who dares to suggest that children need a real father.
The BBC: presenting the world how they think it should be.
Love this from Wiki, perfect for all Beeboids:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words
Bryan
“No doubt the BBC has to take licence payers more seriously. From following the debate on this site for quite some time, it seems to me that an option that might bear some fruit at least is to phone them and get specific with them:
ring BBC Information on 08700 100 222
Good luck.”
Im going to try BBC Trust as my next course of action. If they expect me, a licence fee payer, to ring a premium rate number to make complaints, then they ain’t got their oars in the water.
This number is the Beebs Northern Ireland switchboard. Here is a useful website http://www.saynoto0870.com listing alternative geographical numbers, the BBC one included: 028 9033 8000.
Bryan | 19.11.07 – 11:22 am |
I’m not British, which I imagine is partly why my complaints get ignored …
You were not under the assumption that the first ‘B’ in BBC was ‘British’ were you? Don’t tell me you thought they were supposed to represent the British People? Bless. 😉
We’re the last poor sods to get any representation from Brown’s Broadcasting Corporation.
Channel 4 has been vindicated by the media watchdog Ofcom after police complained about an investigative programme that exposed extremism in British mosques.
West Midland’s police had faced criticism for targeting the producers of the show rather than the controversial preachers depicted in it.
Ofcom added fuel to that debate by praising Undercover Mosque as a “legitimate investigation, uncovering matters of important public interest.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JYDQ25SROGQVNQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/11/19/nofcom219.xml