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.
Every little helps : beeboids deploy their pro nulab airhead dolly bird to simper at evil defra vegetablist, hillarity benn and feed him planted questions on Farming Today..
The BBC appear to allow, without comment or challenge, a defence of ignorance over illegal party donations.They merely repeat Alexander’s mantra
The MSP has rejected any suggestion of “intentional wrongdoing” and said she was confident of being cleared.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7126034.stm
The BBC funding adverts don’t seem to have the same approach, with the sofa relishing the upcoming prosecution of its owner, who will definitely not be cleared even though he committed no “intentional wrongdoing” when he stuffed the TV Licence fee reminders under the sofa cushion.
John Reith spins in his grave 03.12.07 – 11:29 pm | #
isn’t most of the Beeb’s output produced by outside contractors nowadays?
I once asked you how much, but never got a reply.
Sorry, must have missed it.
The answer is no. In TV it goes like this: 50% guaranteed in-house; 25% guaranteed indy; 25% open to competitive bids between in-house and indies.
The Beeb has done a stirling job of creating disharmony between East/West and Muslims/Non Muslims. They are deliberately stirring things, throwing the terms “insulting Islam” and “blashpemy” with gay abandon.
Every responsible news outlet, even the left-leaning Guardian, have reported this incident for what it exactly was: a teacher victimized for naming a toy Mohammed.
There’s an interesting finding of BBC bias reported in Computer Shopper today:
BBC exaggerated Wi-Fi dangers
http://www.computershopper.co.uk/news/143355
Hm, how do you make a link like this clickable?
[Answer: Job done MattLondon. Here’s what to do next time:
<a href=”http://target-url-here/”>Link Description Here</a>
Sometimes haloscan does it automatically, sometimes not! Andrew.]
Ali P, email biasedbbc@gmail.com if you have questions about blog admin.
Christianophobia warning from MP
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7125521.stm
Bit o/t but good move – throw another ‘phobia’ at the PC liberals to worry about offending…..
“No nativity play this year? Chhristianophobia!!”
The BBC and it’s hatred of America.
The BBC poses a question on HYS which implies that it is US policy that is wrong and should change. Why isn’t there also a question asking if Irans policy toward the US, or the West in general for that matter, should change?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=3888&edition=1&ttl=20071204122525
Today’s climate change alarmism quiz at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7126069.stm
Q1: How does the widening of the tropics, which are the lushest, wettest part of the planet produce “…obvious implications for agriculture and water resources, and could present serious hardships in marginal areas.”?
Q2: Why would “Agriculture fed by rainfall could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020” if the major subtropical deserts (principally the Sahara) are contracting?
Q3: Why are climate modellers consistantly unable to predict supposedly averse changes or is it time to retire the following alarmist cliché:
“The scientists behind the new study note that the tropical zone appears to be expanding much faster than predicted by computer models.”
Q4: Why does the IPCC simultaneously predict fewer hurricanes but more extremely powerful hurricanes when during the 20th Century, the number of such powerful hurricanes declined?
Q5 What has caused more accumulation of greenhouse gasses than all aviation combined since 1903?
Answer: (never mentioned on the BBC as it doesn’t fit the agenda)
The destruction of rainforests across the globe, much accelerated by the production of the “wonderful” bio fuels, much championed by the BBC and their green friends (none of whom see through the consequences of their meddling). And never mind the wildlife that is destroyed by the clearing of rain forest the size of Wales every year.
But never fear, as that nice Joanna Lumley told us this morning the best thing about receiving Christmas Cards is that you can recycle them! D’Oh
On the Wifi article. It was probably the BIGGEST pile of steaming crap the BBC has output in years.
This is what you get when a bunch of leftie leaning arts graduates try to tackle a science subject.
How can ANYONE have any trust in any article on Science when the BBC doesn’t employ (well OK that have Susan Watts on Newsnight) enough people with Science or engineering backgrounds?
Comment from HYS on Mohammed The Teddy Bear
Added: Monday, 3 December, 2007, 21:42 GMT 21:42 UK
What’s happened to the bear in all of this?
Yann, Edinburgh
Recommended by 14 people
Sign in to recommend comments
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=3883&edition=1&ttl=20071204134627
Nought out of ten for the News at Ten
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/386231/nought-out-of-ten-for-the-news-at-ten.thtml
beeboids getting bucket loads of flack on all the boards for continuing to refer to Donationgate in todays’ news bulletins as “infringing the rules”.
Last week I complained about the fact that Question Time had two Labour people on the panel. I didn’t raise the bias in the questioning or the obviously slanted audience. I just said it was wrong for there to be two Labour people on the same panel. I just got this response:
“I understand that you were annoyed that the above programme featured two panellists who you believe are labour supporters.
Editors are charged to ensure that over a reasonable period they reflect the range of significant views, opinions and trends in their subject area. The BBC does not seek to denigrate any view, nor to promote any view. It seeks rather to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of the audience.”
See, it was my fault after all. It wasn’t that both people were Labour supporters, it was that I believed them to be, when they were nothing of the sort. How could they have both been Labour supporters when the BBC doesn’t seek to promote any viewpoint?
I’m actually furious about this fobbing off. Does anyone know the best way to re-complain; to follow up the issue? The e-mail address the message came from isn’t one I can return things to, and I know if I submit the same complaint form again it won’t be connected with my original one.
Hain, Hain, where art thou?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/default.stm
Not there anyway. What a surprise. Oh well, we’ll just have to make do with a proper news source:
http://www.order-order.com/2007/12/hain-cheated-labour-party-as-well.html
Come on Beeboids, the teddy bear has run its course. What about some real news now? A headline on allegations about Hain would be a starter. Or is it only Tory sleaze that gets your pulse racing?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/573803.stm
“The calm after the teddy storm”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7126529.stm
Beeboids go to extraordinary lengths to convince us that Sudanese Muslims are really, really, really wonderful people after all! Just read the superlatives that al-Beeb applies to the Sudanese:
“I’ve had an amazing couple of months. Out here, in a country where tourism is non-apparent, people are very kind and hospitable.
“I arrived here not knowing anyone but it was impossible to walk down the street without someone offering to buy me lunch or look after me.”
He said that he believed that out of a country of five million people, just a tiny minority of 400 protested and called for Mrs Gibbons to face tougher punishment.
“No-one else is really thinking like this minority,” he said.
He believes the majority are “unbelievably horrified” by what happened and hope that they can now move on.
Yes, it’s just a tiny minority who think like this — in a nation where religious fanatics were at civil war for 23 years, resulting in the deaths of several million people!
400 protesters? He’s clearly been listening to that idiot Mynott. The pictures I saw clearly showed several thousand protesters, not a few hundred.
Just feel the love:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7126883.stm
Nice photo too – Saint Wendy. Lots of guff about “fighting to clear her name”. Nothing about lying about the donation, or the document which sought to mislead the Electoral Commission. This ‘article’ might as well have been written by her staff and published verbatim by the BBC.
Nice bit of burial here on Radio Humber:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7126137.stm
“Ex-police authority boss arrested.”
For gross indecency. And, oh, by the way, he’s a Labour councillor on Hull City Council. And a candidate to take over from “Two Jags” as Labour MP.
Move along there….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7125521.stm
What’s interesting is that if you replaced Christian with Muslim you’d have a story (complete with “quote”) that would NEVER be published by our beloved “impartial” BBC.
I haven’t found a national BBC report on this story from Dewsbury, Yorkshire. (Dewsbury ,Yorkshire, now made infamous because the Islamic jihad massacres on London on 7/7):
“Hospital turns Muslim patients’ beds to face Mecca.”
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Hospital-turns-Muslim-patients39-beds.3553137.jp
Andy Marr’s moonlighting is not going so well…
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?news=people&issueID=449&itemID=8727
Lord Ahmed on BBC24 around 16:15
Asked about the Teddy Bear ‘outrage’ he went to great lengths to state (paraphrasing)
The ruler of Sudan met with me and pointed out that Miss Gibbons had been tried and sentenced by Sudanese courts whereas we have things like Guantanamo Bay and people in prison not on trial – and we really do have to look at this
For John Reith:
Considering that Lord Ahmed is a Labour peer as they have been more than keen to show us recently, can we expect to see a story about Labour being split over policy on terrorism?
Yes, now Ahmed’s Islamic priority and propaganda take hold, and the BBC (and others) are on hand to give him an uncritical platform. Clearly he prefers the Sharia law injustice of the Islamic Republic of Sudan to western justice, as practiced in the USA; and astute about the ‘moral equivalence’ conditioning of Beeboids, he gets away with it.
Allowing Nazir Ahmed to make unchallenged his comments about the wonders of the Sudanese justice system was outrageous from the BBC. Of course, Ahmed has never thought to mention that in Sudan huge swathes of people are detained without charge, subject to torture, summary justice and undergo unfair sham trials.
http://www.sudan.net/news/press/postedr/292.shtml
SHAME on the BBC for allowing this man to promote Sudanese propaganda unchallenged.
There is no excuse for BBC journalists to be uninformed: any reputable news outlet has information on Lord Ahmed’s views. It is only the BBC that has failed to question critically i) his support for punishing those who criticise Islam, like Salman Rushdie, ii) his close links with government figures in Sudan (which apart from having an appalling human rights record is engaging in genocide in Darfur), iii) his support for anti-semites ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article378140.ece ) and iv) his apologies for suicide bombers ( http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8508 ).
He is one of the most appalling of all Blair’s appointments to the House of Lords – I cannot imagine a Conservative Peer with similar reactionary views, plus links to dubious regimes, getting the same treatment from the BBC.
Yet more toilet dung from the BBC.
6PM news (where stupidity seems the norm for some reason)
Firstly the useless BBC reporter claimed [in relation to Teddygate) that she had insulted Islam. No she didn’t. She allowed a teddy bear to be named after a child.
Then, the pillock claimed that she had “insulted the Prophet”. So who’s that then? THE PROPHET? There are lots of them. To me Brian Clough was the greatest Prophet of all time. A real God.
Then we had the interview with Lord whats his name (he who hung up on Niki Campbell) who said that the protesters in Sudan wanted Ms Gibbons shot. Oh really, Well the BBC said it was all smiles and good natured fun. So who’s telling the truth?
Then the BBC hack stated that the Sudanese had rejected any harsher punishment? No they didn’t. The President made our CRAP Government crawl like dogs to humiliate us (which Nu Labour did) and once the fun was over he let her go.
If Ms Gibbosns went back to the Sudan, they’d still want to cut her head off.
Yet more crap useless reporting by the BBC.
In regards to that Labour pillock of a Peer. The reason the scum are locked up in Cuba is that they want to go around hacking peoples heads off or blowing up tube trains.
Ms Gibbons “crime” was to let small children name a teddy bear. Oh dear, we’re all doomed.
Martin:
I really do think we are all doomed. I’m not right-wing, and have traditionally leaned more liberal than conservative, but watching this farcical reporting by the BBC I’m shocked by how much nonsense they allow to be paraded unchallenged. I did smile when Ahmed said that the protestors wanted Ms Gibbons shot – Adam Mynott you should be fired. But by any other religion’s standards, Ahmed is hardliner, and holds some deeply unpleasant and partisan views.
Why on earth are they discussing the British justice system, which works admirably well, or even the American one, when this whole case revolves around the appalling Sudanese government, their contempt for justice in many parts of their country, and the repulsive nature of much Shar’ia law? This is relativism gone mad.
David
“…Editors are charged to ensure that over a reasonable period they reflect the range of significant views, opinions and trends in their subject area. The BBC does not seek to denigrate any view, nor to promote any view. It seeks rather to identify all significant views, and to test them rigorously and fairly on behalf of the audience.”
This reminds me of a time I complained to 5Live – about a Sunday morning programme with Fi Glover, Charlie Whelan and Andrew Pierce. At the time William Hague was the Conservative leader (who Pierce, as the token right-winger hated).
The programme was one long Tory bashing fest. Even so-called ‘neutral ‘ guests weren’t. For example they had a designer (Simply Red?) who trashed Hague’s style and was very much encouraged to do so.
I complained of bias. Got a reply which more or less said that well, they had a Tory (it was Patton or some other wet), a Labour and Lib Dem so therefore it was ‘balanced’.
It wasn’t of course.
Cassis, I’m going to be sending a reply back. They haven’t actually answered my question; they’ve almost denied bias without me really accusing them of it. I just wanted a valid reason why they had two Labour supporters. They did. I want to know why. Not unreasonable, but apparently it’s all in my mind.
But you have to forgive the 6 O’clock news, ‘cos they had a lovely fluffy baby tiger on at the end. Aaah. The Jackanoryization continues.
What no story on Pravda running the line that it was only the rules that were broken in Donorgate?
There is a difference between breaking ‘rules’ and criminal acts.
One doesn’t normally go to prison or have to pay a hefty fine for breaking the rules in, football for instance.
Has the BBC got it wrong again?
“…They were abducted from the area of Baghdad supposed to be the most heavily defended – the city’s Green Zone, which houses the US embassy and government ministries…”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7127050.stm
I thought the Ministry of Finance was OUTSIDE the Green Zone? I Googled it and reports say it’s outside not in.
Is this just some thicko Beeboid wanting to have a go at the US military? Was it not Iraqi checkpoints that the kidnappers passed through?
If I buy a teddy bear for £10 call it Mohammed and sell it for £20 have I made a prophet?
Martin:
Well spotted. I can no longer see the reference to the Green Zone in this link – looks as if they may have taken it down.
Yes, they’ve updated the story. Took them long enough to notice. Perhaps they read this blog and let us find their stupid errors?
Perhaps they read this blog and let us find their stupid errors?
Let’s hope so! Wasn’t there a report in the BBC’s in-house magazine recently in which journalists were encouraged to read this blog?
BBC 10PM News. Another “classic”. In the report about the hostages in Iraq, the BBC reporter emphasised that the rifles pointed at the man in the video were “M16’s standard American issue”
And the point of that was? Are the BBC suggesting that they are arming the terrorists? Or perhaps it’s US soldiers that are doing it? Does anyone care what make of rifles they are?
I can’t remember the BBC ever mentioning in other videos that the rifles were AK-47’s supplied by the Communists in Russia nad China.
Funnily enough in the same report the US General interviwed claimed the terririst group in question was armed and funded by Iran. Was this a way of the BBC sort of saying, “so where did the M16’s come from then?” or “you’re a liar”
M16’s are available arcoss the world In fact I think the USA supplied them to Iran when the US sold them equipment back in the 1970’s, or the rifles could have simply been taken from dead US soldiers. Not that the BBC would explain that.
Matthew: Well if we’re going to act as editors for the BBC I’d like paying please!!!!
David | 04.12.07 – 2:23 pm,
Infuriating, isn’t it? I complained recently and got led on a time-consuming maze through BBC red tape, without anyone dealing with the substance of the complaint, until I ended up back where I’d started. The unaccountable BBC shows absolute contempt for the public with its joke of a complaints process.
Well, at least you got an initial response. I seldom do. They usually simply ignore my complaints.
As shareholders in the BBC shouldn’t we have the ability to call for shareholder meetings where we can take the BBC to task?
Ok hang on I forgot. The BBC is full of Socialists who don’t believe in democracy or accountability.
korova,
I thought we were talking about the BBC. The BBC makes a big deal about its “complaints process.”
Would be nice if it worked.
In my experience it works better than Sky. Every time I have complained I have received a proper response. Every time I complain to Sky, I get a ‘Thanks for your email…’ template that is sent out automatically. I have never once had a proper reply. Comapred to the competition, the BBC does an excellent job of dealing with complaints.
BBC NEWS | Education | School work priority for children
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7121442.stm
“The survey of 507 boys and 493 girls, across all social classes, in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, revealed that half think they are British and half are patriotic saying they are English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish.”
Soooooo BBC …are you therefore saying that being or wanting to be British is unpatriotic? Hmm?
Korova
You are having a laugh aren’t you?
I complained to the BBC about genuine, unarguable bias (the Today presenter agreed with the Labour guest that the Conservatives were selfish unlike Labour, but said that the LibDems were not either). I got no reply at all. I now realise that this breaks their charter, so is illegal.
Re the Nimrod crash. What gets me more than anything about the whole sorry affair (which also includes the fact that the guilty penny pinching bastards in MoD got off yet again…) is that NO-ONE in the BBC or any of their so called Defence Correspondents have asked the big question.
WHY are we using Nimrods for tasks which could have been (and are) filled by small light aircraft or RPVs in Afghanistan and Iraq? Their role is anti submarine maritime warfare not being underutilised as video capture platforms etc! So much for the BBC’s vaunted investigative powers and superior knowledge…..
korova,
That’s your experience. Around 90% of the time I don’t even get an automated response from the BBC. Go to the BBC “Complaints” website – the thing with the funny green colour. It looks like it hasn’t been updated in ten years:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
Send them a complaint and you don’t even get a reference number back, leave alone an automated response. If they want to, they can simply trash complaints – and this seems to be how they handle mine most of the time, since they don’t come back to me and I have no evidence that I have sent the complaint.
I’m not exaggerating. Even the BBC’s self-appointed panel of a few years back investigating the question of BBC bias re the Israeli-Palestinian conflict concluded that the complaints system was inadequate.
Maybe they like your political bent and that’s why you get a decent response. They sure as hell don’t like mine.
Korova (a student anarchist) is just trying to troll you again. Basically it’s saying “Yeah the BBC is that bad, but get a load of SKY NEWS!! It’s even worse!?!”