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.
Cockney – read the Orange Book have you?
Oh, and JR-
Was the 1916 ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with the knowledge, approval/acquiescence of the Arabs, as you quoted?
Should that be binding on their political heirs and successors?
Anonymous –
Well as more than 1/3 of recyclable products collected by local councils and supermarkets are shipped 8,000 miles aay to China for processing (a process which is literally killing thousands in China through due to toxins released) the issue should be debated a lot more than it is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,12188,1308278,00.html
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91179-1246242,00.html
“Thatcher and Howard were the dominant conservative conviction politicians of their time…. They rebuilt their conservative parties, winning election after election after election…..”
No, thought not.
You thought wrong.
What,no capital C Wraith old chap.
But stop this Beeboid casuistry,you are perfectly aware that the word conservative is beebese for right wing extremist.It is no use picking sentences up with the word conservative it is as evidence that the context might have some vague complementary context.It might be added that it took you long enough to find it.
Wraith,you really are going to have to take an awareness course on the BBCs Institutional Bias.
..and do try harder,this is the License Fee Victim’s money you are wasting here.
JR — it seems that your own reading of history makes you not see the BBC’s bias. You really seem to believe that “Jews are behind all the wars” — go join your buddy Mel Gibson and
the likes of Charles Lindbergh.
Actually the assertion that the Jews pushed for ww1, made me laugh a bit — I always though people like you like to blame the Serbs for that one… After all it was Gavrilo Princip that assassinated the arch-duke.
Anyways, more to the point, I don’t see people discussing British Empire’s past treaties and empty promises with various First Nations in Canada (at the beginning of the century), and their impact on the population that is totally lost for generations (suicide rates, substance abuse, poverty). Yet BBC is obsessed with Israel.
To David Preiser, Bryan, et.al – Israel doesn’t need a historical justification for its existence.
Present is a sum of history, some events maybe weighted more, some less.
I would say that the events of ww2 are much more important than some conflicting declarations by the officials of the declining British empire at the beginning of the last century.
Isreal’s existance is justified because it is there, and it is populated by real people (which BBC would want you to forget — hence the obfuscation of various Israel’s successes).
You guys are not really buying into the propaganda spewed by the BBC, Guardian, Al-Jazeere and the rest?
If Israel’s legality is questioned, then so should the legality of most, if not all, modern nation states come under question — don’t you think?
For example, is Lebanon a legal entity?
Not according to Syria. Is Belorussia a real country — not according to Russia, etc. — you get the drift.
The BBC’s bias under discussion here is not in the history, it is in the fact that BBC takes instinctive stance against Israel.
You have to look at it in the wider context of their bias and their world view. Their anti-Israel stance is only unique because it considers an entire nation. The rest of their bias usually targets only various subgroups — i.e. Tory party supporters, US Republicans etc.
Almost every fault line created in the wake of passing empires is bound to cause problems.
Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires created fault lines in the Balkans.
Lebanon was created by the French as basically a Christian state, yet today, Christians face a bleak future there. (due to demographic boom, oil money funded Islamist pressure, etc.)
A scientist would look at history as an evolutionary process, only humanities majors would look for irrelevant question of legitimacy?
Morality and modern laws are just an evolutionary product of the development (rise and fall) of societies and groups.
Dear John Reith,
“when are you guys going to find an example of BBC bias that stands up to scrutiny”
Thats a little arrogant isnt it John? I mean over the year the BBC viewers who post here have put forward thousands of examples and even if one in a hundred has any merit then that in itself is proof isnt it? Or are you calling every poster a liar?
You yourself have admitted to several examples of BBC bias and stayed silent on many more examples which many would take as either an admission of bias or an inability to put forward a reasonable explanation.
There are times when you come across as elitist and pompous in your posts, and yet there are times when you have made very good and informative explanations and its almost as if you are several people who post under the same name!
I much prefer the informative and witty JR to the petty and arrogant ones!
Happy New Year to one and all!
Cassandra,
You are right — John Reith was the founder of the BBC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith%2C_1st_Baron_Reith)
Behind the pseudonym John Reith are indeed several people valiantly defending BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias.
‘valiantly defending BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias’!!!!
Priceless!!
“Behind the pseudonym John Reith are indeed several people valiantly defending BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias.”
Wot??!! You mean there is a whole group of you defending the indefensible against the very people who pay your extorted wages? You lot DO actually do some work during the duty shift do you, or are you the BBC MinTruth Team whose sole reason d’etre is to attack (often with arrogance and personal attacks) the taxpayers who comment here?
Like Cassandra said, we prefer the nice Reithy who debates the issues (even though he/she misses out an awful lot of examples we ask about…) as opposed to the nasty sod. Sack him/her will you? Send him/her off to Channel Five with Spangles! Two birds one stone equals peaceful New Year!
Behind the pseudonym John Reith are indeed several people
Not really a surprise and indeed a suggstion that I have made on more than one occasion. However, if there really are several people posting under a single name, what are we to make of the numerous comments that appear to relate to the “individual” known by the pseudonym, or all you all perfect clones of each other.
“John Reith was the founder of the BBC” and hated Churchill refusing to let him have equal air time on the BBC thus setting in stone the BBC Bias that we all know and love….. isn’t he the twit who liked Hitler as well? Oh dear….what an unfortunate example to use as your username JR. A fascist anti semitic biased champagne socialist upper class muppet! Phew!
Indeed John Reith’s daughter paints a
very disturbing picture of her father:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith%2C_1st_Baron_Reith#My_Father_.E2.80.94_Reith_of_the_BBC
JR
This article by Messrs Harrabin and Black not only does not seek to defend the “BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias.” it is written as a justification for admitted BBC bias (despite legal requirements to be impartial).
Alan
As you rightly state Jews are not behind every war. In fact they are not behind any wars. However who or what is? is the question.
My contention is that a belief that Jews or Muslims are, is a deliberately thick socialist*/communist*/fascist* smoke screen to hind totally who really is.
* your choose which it makes very little difference in the end.
I wont say who I believe they are. because it might get me shot or at least censored off this site again. So please try to work it out for yourself.
A clue is to firstly work out who the BBC never blames for all the problems in the world EVER. Then work out what sort of people control the BBC. Another clue is to also understand its not Muslims or Jews or any other ordinary people of any religion anywhere on the entire planet. Who are always the victims and never the victors even when they are lead to believe they are, by clever propaganda of one sort or another.
I try not to be too harsh on employees of the BBC even though I often don’t succeed.
Because this time of year especially, we should not forget the spirit of forgiveness.
“For they know not what they do.”
This fact is obvious to me, as is the fact that JR and his researchers are so seriously brainwashed from almost birth they don’t have the slightest clue what the bugger is going on all around them. They truly do believe the highly lethal divisive nonsense they propagate on an hourly basis.
As much as I do every bit of the well thought out logical common sense I write.
In response to the correspondent above:
The Scottish business reporter on Five Live is Pauline McColl. I am amazed she is still in the job given her evident distaste for her subject.
Back at the end of last century, Ms McColl was asked live on air during the Simon Mayo show to nominate her ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ of the 20th century.
Famously – or infamously – she named Margaret Thatcher and Eamonn de Valera. I don’t think you need to be Albert Einstein to work out which one was the villain.
I expect you won’t be able to find this on Listen Again. 🙂
I am still in shock that BBC defenders would pick a name of John Reith to hide behind — how appropriate:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-2372519,00.html
The full article:
Lord Reith revered Hitler, says daughter
LORD REITH, founder of the BBC and a member of Churchill’s wartime cabinet, was a Nazi sympathiser who abhorred Jews, according to a candid biography by his daughter.
Marista Leishman claims her father respected Hitler and Mussolini and adopted some of the principles espoused by the German chancellor in the running of the BBC.
She claims that her father was open in his admiration of the fascist leaders and continued to praise Hitler and his regime, even after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
Reith, the son of a Free Church of Scotland minister, was a strict Presbyterian who carried his religious views into his work at the BBC. When asked whether he was going to give the people what they wanted, Reith replied: “No. Something better than that.”
He went on to serve with distinction during the second world war as Britain’s minister of information, then transport, then minister of works, before joining the Royal Navy and playing a key role in organising the D-Day liberation of France. He was elevated to the peerage as the 1st Baron of Stonehaven.
In My Father — Reith of the BBC, Leishman reveals that her late father took to “celebrating Hitler and his policies” while director-general in the 1930s. “Over lunch in the Carlton in 1935 he told Marconi (the radio inventor), how much he had always admired Mussolini for having ‘achieved high democratic purpose by means which, though not democratic, were the only possible ones’,” she writes.
“He was dissatisfied with the BBC and, remarking how much he admired Hitler for his magnificent efficiency, he mused that his real calling was for dictatorship”.
As the first director-general he was responsible for banning the playing of jazz music, which he regarded as “vulgar”, following the lead of the Nazi regime.
He wrote in his diary: “Germany has banned hot jazz and I’m sorry that we (Britain) should be behind in dealing with this filthy product of modernity.”
As early as March 9, 1933, shortly after Hitler seized control of the Reichstag, he recorded his admiration for Nazism. “I am certain that the Nazis will clean things up and put Germany on the way to being a real power in Europe again . . . They are being ruthless and most determined.”
Although Reith worked against Hitler’s regime, passing information to the Foreign Office that he believed might be useful against the Third Reich, he persisted in his admiration for the German chancellor. In March 1939, when Prague was occupied, he wrote: “Hitler continues his magnificent efficiency.”
My Father — Reith of the BBC, by Marista Leishman will be published by St Andrew Press on September 29, at £19.99
Dear John Reith,
“valiantly defending the BBC against unfounded accusations” ???
So there are several people employed jsut to defend the BBC? How much does that cost the BBC tax slaves then? Each ‘defender of truth’ on about 50 grand a year plus perks?
Nice work if you can get it Eh? I suppose that if a person or organisation doesnt have to earn their money they seem to throw it around with little care?
BTW does ‘unfounded accusations’ include that secret report about bias that the BBC have spent hundreds of thousands trying to hide from us proles?
BTW On balance and after taking in the evidence you provided I was probably mistaken in my belief that to call John Howard a conservative was an example of bias so I withdraw the accusation.
Arthur Dent:
However, if there really are several people posting under a single name, what are we to make of the numerous comments that appear to relate to the “individual” known by the pseudonym, or all you all perfect clones of each other.
——————————————-
Stap me, it’s the Borg Broadcasting Corporation!! Groupthink taken to its logical conclusion, it seems…
The problem of BBC bias lies not only in what is reported, but what is not reported.
Someone has to mkae the decision of what is important for the public to know. Whoever that person is, his/her bias is obvious to those who are interested.
For instance, there is a lovely article about how foreign aid gets into Gaza, but nothing at all that I can find, about the 6.5 tonnes (6.5 TONNES!!)of potassium nitrate (used in explosives) which were seized by the IDF in bags marked as sugar from the EU.destined for Gaza.
Is this not of any interest? Apparently not.
But surely the British public are entitled to know that much of the aid given by the EU ends up in the wrong place, with the wrong people, and in the wrong bags.
JR et al presumably, agrees with the BBC and says ‘no’.
Atlas shrugged: Troofer be gone! I denounce you!
blankfrank,
Borg Broadcasting Corporation. Ha, that might actually have something to do with those nanoprobes distributed with Guardian and Independent 🙂
So JR
“1. No WWII
2. No Holocaust
3. Little impact on Britain or its Empire
4. Soviet Communism might have been quickly squashed
5. The brunt would be felt chiefly by the French and Belgians.
sounds almost attractive ”
Yes, Just the whole of Western Europe from the Ukraine( remember Brest-Litovsk JR?) under the heel of Jerry Jackboot.
Bit of a waste of time standing up to Boney then?
Sorry, should have said “from the Ukraine to Antwerp”
Alan:
blankfrank,
Borg Broadcasting Corporation. Ha, that might actually have something to do with those nanoprobes distributed with Guardian and Independent.
———————————————-
LMAO! C’mon now, don’t you want nanoprobes to be part of a diverse and vibrant multicultural British society?
So JR, (BBC employee(s)) believes that:-
1. The Zionist Jews manipulated the entry of America into WWI because they were bribed into it by the Balfour declaration.And that was its purpose.
2. WWI victory by the allies may not have been a good thing.
3. Zionists like Herzl will promise things but not keep their promises.
You see, JR , that’s the problem!
And the biggest problem of all is that you can’t see it.
blankfrank,
“C’mon now, don’t you want nanoprobes to be part of a diverse and vibrant multicultural British society?”
As long as it is the right kind of diversity and multiculturalism as sanctioned by the BBC.
As long as Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism are denigrated freely, while Islam is the only official Religion of Peace.
As long as Western democracies (including India and on a good day China) are culpable, by default, for all the ills in the world, while others (mostly Islamic countries) are treated like little children, whose actions should never have consequences.
Of course treating a (very large) group of adults like little children with no responsibilities, is just a flip side of the classical snobbish racism towards the third world.
Behind the pseudonym John Reith are indeed several people valiantly defending BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias.
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 5:20 pm
Hold the phone.
I am I having a Bobby Ewing shower scene moment?
As a long time lurker I distinctly recall that JR has on several occasions said he is not a split personality.
He is just one chap or chappese using a little of his own time here and there not to rebuff claims of BBC bias.
John you haven’t been telling us porkies have you?
Or am I dreaming?
Webmasters?
Have I been taken in?
Check on that JR’s IP address please.
Is that post from the original and “best”.
Alan | 31.12.07 – 4:59 pm |
My comments about the historical background of the modern State of Israel were not attempts at justifying its existence. I had hoped to provide the context in which the facts on the ground developed, so that the individual details themselves would gain their proper meaning.
If I state my own opinion of what Israel was meant to represent, that’s just my opinion. I can’t justify anything more than that.
So, it turns out that John Reith really is the Jew hating PoS that I often thought he was… or somebody has hijacked his nick. Whatever.
My best wishes for a healthy, happy and preposterous New Year to all my old pals here (in no particular order); dave t, pounce, Cockney, Bryan, deegee, David Preiser, et.al.
Andrew please note, you can hide me but you can’t run for toffee.
This thread is tooooo long…
“Behind the pseudonym John Reith are indeed several people valiantly defending BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias.
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 5:20 pm | # ”
Seems plausible,read the Guardian,go for an interview,fall asleep next to one of the pods – a Beeboid is born.
Perhaps Lard Wraith isn’t doing for the money,but for the hive.
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 1:21 pm |
Interesting and thoughtful response. Thank you.
Just as briefly as possible, then:
“It seems to me that you are implying that the Balfour Declaration was issued freely, even enthusiastically, and basically was a recognition of the merits of the Zionist case.”
Well, the last part, sort of, but not exactly. But I see where you get that conclusion. It wasn’t so much a recognition of the merits, but of an understanding of and sympathy towards the Zionist hopes. In my vain attempt to keep my little lecture under an hour, I didn’t go into the fact that David Lloyd George had done legal work on behalf of Zionists before he even really got going on his political career, and other details of various people’s association with Zionists. I assumed you either knew as much, or would look it up yourself.
That particular point was that the British big-wigs under discussion were quite familiar with the Zionist hopes, and would have understood their geographical and political specifics.
For the same failed hope of brevity, I left out the whole bit about the British attempting to get the Arabs in favor of a Zionist state for the sole purpose of being a buffer against the Turks. There were even some small successes along the way for obvious reasons, but that didn’t last long, of course, for equally obvious reasons. So that is a major non-Jew-loving reason (to coin a phrase) for the British to be in favor of a Zionist state. And a fairly sound one, geopolitical-wise. Again, I figured you would figure that our for yourself, which you probably have.
As for the rest of your comment, of course I can’t disagree with your findings. There was so much more to go into with all the various factions and factors of the time. I would have had to do a whole mini series hosted by Simon Schama to cover all of it. Good points about Kerensky and Malcolm.
So no, Lord Balfour’s support wasn’t pure as the driven snow, and didn’t happen in a happy Zionist vacuum. But he and the rest of the British movers and shakers were, let’s say, sympathetic to a Zionist blueprint. That’s what I was trying to get across, more than the larger geopolitical non-Zionist reasons (which could equally apply to today’s US support for Israel, if you ever took the time to educate your colleagues). Lloyd George et al. knew and worked with Zionists, and were familiar with their terms. And not just because Rothschild bombarded them with letters like Star Trek fans after the network threatened to cancel the show after the first season.
So I think we are both in agreement on the hows and whys, more or less.
The only thing I can add is that I think it’s too bad they didn’t install an international protectorate in Jerusalem right from the start.
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 2:56 pm |
Or find any pejorative sense in:
“Thatcher and Howard were the dominant conservative conviction politicians of their time…. They rebuilt their conservative parties, winning election after election after election…..”
No, thought not.
Come on now, you know perfectly well that in BBC Newspeak, “conservative” is a pejorative.
David Preiser,
“My comments about the historical background of the modern State of Israel were not attempts at justifying its existence. I had hoped to provide the context in which the facts on the ground developed, so that the individual details themselves would gain their proper meaning.”
I know, but BBC line of defense is that your’s is just an Israeli/Zionist narrative, not the truth.
Of course they completely accept the Arab narrative, but that is beside the point.
What I am trying to say is that their bias is in the NOW. Jeremy Bowen is rewriting history, but still most of the time the bias is just in a flood of anti-Israel articles dealing with the present events.
Take for example one of the lines in their defense of radical Islam, brought up in this thread even: Christians are capable of atrocities as well.
What does it have to do with the NOW when it is the Islam (or the radical minority we are told) that has the numbers, (oil) money, and is going through a particularly medieval phase.
They are on a crusade to expose “Israel’s ugliness” (by showing and exaggerating the bad, and keeping the good from ever getting out).
This is how they think they are fighting the only injustice in the world they can do something about. So for instance all the pilgrim’s stories – they feel that they are trying to help them, poor sods stranded in limbo in Egypt.
They also believe (maybe with FO approval) that they are endearing 1.5 billion Muslims, by doing so.
They don’t realize that most Arab regimes have been down this road – spewing anti-Israel and anti-West propaganda to appease their own crowds, while instead growing Jihadists in their own midst.
Now let us consider, not the strategy, but the tactics BBC employs:
After all the mishaps with Orla Guerin et. al, BBC’s has gotten to be rather smart in order to superficially refute accusations of bias. This is how it works IMO:
1. Selection of the stories to cover
2. Selections of the people and opinions to emphasize in an article, even though nominally they are “bringing both sides”, usually the spin (against Israel) is provided by simple tools such as layout, a single sentence about Qassams is somewhere at the bottom of the article, maybe as an afterthought by the editor so they can claim presenting both sides of the story.
So to summarize, most of the time BBC bias is achieved with:
“story selection“, picked with selection bias
“spin” (usually anti-Israel, given if possible, by an Israeli which gives it credibility – as if there were not enough loony Israelis (like Haaretz Editor In Chief who told Rice that he wants Israel to be raped)
“vague reactions” (provided so that there can be claim of impartiality, while in fact it is usually something like Mark Regev saying, when Israel is accused of rampant racism “We are against racism”, instead of refutation of the terminally flawed “study” about the racism)
Please,
To show bias, point to:
– falsehoods – i.e. lies or half-truths
– spin (how article is spun, how the title is misleading, etc.)
– statistics – for example, list all articles from Haaretz (with an already heavy left spin). Then point out which ones were carried by the BBC.
For example 6.5 tonnes of potassium-nitrate found hidden in aid-packages for Gaza doesn’t deserve a mention by the BBC, while the Hajj pilgrim story has 5 incarnations already.
It is obvious from the example with the potassium-nitrate, why is Israel insisting to check the returning pilgrims. However the readers of BBC, were never told about seized potassium-nitrate.
The selection bias is, in this case, meant to show that Israelis are giving Palestinian Hajj Pilgrims (of the only BBC sanctified and acceptable religion) hard time for no reason.
Sorry for the consecutive posts, but I’ll just add to the John Simpson pile-on.
He is a fine example of not seeing the forest for the trees, and a serious lack of comprehension of his topics. He gets a couple of basic facts right, but has no clue how it all fits together, indeed clings to preconceived notions in the fact of contradictory evidence.
Another example of the “spin”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7165652.stm
vs. the Haaretz article:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940067.html
Now, whether B’Tselem has BBC on speed-dial or BBC just carried the article after they saw it on Haaretz, I don’t know.
But, noone can accuse Haaretz of being pro-Israeli occupation, since they find it part of their duty to criticize it (and justly so).
But they are pretty radical themselves, their editor in chief David Landay, recently asked US Secretary of State Rice to “rape Israel” into concessions. He also wrote and internal memo urging reporters not to issue retractions on articles with errors.
In their editorial policy they are pretty much like Guardian.
Yet, still, their article places emphasis that the number of casualties has dropped and that the ratio of civilians vs. militants killed by IDF is now bellow 1:20.
They also mention the Palestinin on Palestinian violence which took a large portion of the casualties.
BBC emphasis is clear on the further crimes of Israel.
APOLOGY
=======
I apologise for claiming that Kevin Greening died of HIV/AIDS. It seems that the cause of death is unknown. There are many reasons for much lower life expectancy amongst homosexual men, and HIV/AIDS is only one. I apologise.
In comparison to Pakistan and the Middle East there are much fewer articles on India (1.2 billion nation), yet here is a bizarre article, pointed to me by a Hindu friend of mine.
The article finds way again to BBC’s top read stories:
“Condoms ‘too big’ for Indian men”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia
/6161691.stm
Is my friend’s simple explanation that BBC was really taken over by Pakistanis true?
Sorry, the above link is broken:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm
Alan | 31.12.07 – 8:28 pm |
“Condoms ‘too big’ for Indian men”
Is my friend’s simple explanation that BBC was really taken over by Pakistanis true?
I await the cries of outrage and subsequent riots in Luton and Lees.
The BBC, Its role as the media wing of Hamas and half a story.
Protest by stranded Gaza pilgrims
More than 1,000 Palestinian pilgrims stranded in Egypt have held protests after they were blocked from travelling through a border crossing to Gaza. The pilgrims broke windows and started fires to protest against the decision to move them to a temporary camp.
………………
Israel has insisted that the pilgrims must return to the Gaza Strip through a crossing that it controls. It says it wants to ensure that no weapons or money are being channelled to militant groups.
………….
Analysts say the dispute is embarrassing for Egypt, which does not want to be seen increasing the misery of Gaza residents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7166042.stm
The BBC rewrites a story so as to demonise Israel (As usual) Eygpt and to make Hamas look the victim (Again)
Here are a few snippets the BBC doesn’t tell you.
“Al-Jazeera television aired interviews with the pilgrims before they left Jordan in which they showed a paper Egypt allegedly asked them to sign saying they would to return to Gaza through Aouja.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7186373,00.html
Hundreds of Palestinian pilgrims have rioted in temporary camps set up to house them until a dispute over their return to the Gaza Strip has been resolved.
“Egypt cannot let them through after intelligence reports that they are carrying huge amounts of money and that some of them have been military trained outside the country,”
Mubarak said on Sunday that his government was doing everything it could to resolve the crisis, indicating the problem with using Rafah was that European monitors were no longer at the crossing. EU monitors were deployed on the Palestinian side of the crossing until Hamas took full control of the territory and the checkpoint in the summer.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8EDE4CF3-F8C8-40E5-8604-8896CA84B83D.htm
Strange how the aljazeera news coverage points to a campaign of eroding the diplomatic channels between Israel and Egypt which if broken would lead to another war. Yet the BBC is more than happy to lie for Radical Islamic terrorists in which to stick the knife in the only democratic country in the region by omitting salient parts of the story which if they revealed would tarnish the victim image that Hamas has spent so long in cultivating..
The BBC, Its role as the media wing of Hamas and half a story.
The late Kevin Greening
Steve Edwards: I am touched by your concern over the sad death of Kevin Greening. I’d never read between the lines when it comes to any B-BBC poster, but is there something you want to tell the group?
In the meantime, Happy New Year to all and as a good friend once told me “If Michaelangelo had been straight, he would have wallpapered the Sistine Chapel.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY
🙂 😉 🙁 😆 :o( 8) ❓ :+: :-:
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 5:20 pm
Behind the pseudonym John Reith are indeed several people valiantly defending BBC against the unfounded accusations of bias.
Surely that’s a very conservative explanation. I was opting for Multiple Personality Disorder. Perhaps you couuld identify yourself by numbers? John Reith #1, John Reith #2, etc.
I wasn’t aware of John Howard identifying himself as conservative. Perhaps because his predecessors in the Liberal Party didn’t describe themselves thus. Still it would have been a little fairer if you had provided the whole quote:
John Howard was the first elected Australian prime minister to identify himself as a conservative; he claimed to be a liberal in economic policy and a conservative in social policy.
HAPPY JEW YEAR FROM WEAPON OF ASS DESTRUCTION!!
Happy New Year!
Cassandra | 29.12.07 – 11:02 am
Bryan | 29.12.07 – 5:55 pm
deegee | 30.12.07 – 6:35 am
You say that the BBC demonstrates ‘bias’ by calling John Howard a conservative; or….in deegee’s case, it could be ‘at best sloppy….’
Interesting.
Given what follows, I think it’s clear we needn’t take any other of your accusations of ‘bias’ or, indeed, ‘sloppiness’ too seriously in the future.
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 11:57 am
When are you guys going to find an example of ‘BBC bias’ that actually stands up to scrutiny?
John Reith | 31.12.07 – 2:56 pm
Over the years Reith has ignored thousands of indefensible examples on this site of implacable BBC bias. Then he jumps triumphantly on two or three that he can defend and claims complete victory over people here. He’ll have to do a bit better than that.
But regarding his apparent admission that he is more than one person, I think he was referring to the original Reith being a sort of umbrella father-figure for the whole organisation. In that light, BBC people defending the BBC could be regarded as a number of lesser Reiths.
He has in the past insisted that he himself is one person and there is no team posting here under the pseudonym.
Happy New Year to All, and best wishes.
The BBC, Its role as the media wing of Hamas and half a story.
pounce | 31.12.07 – 9:19 pm
Precisely. The BBC’s coveage of the pilgrims story has been really extaordinary. Like this crap:
In early December, Israel allowed some 2,200 Palestinian pilgrims to leave Gaza through the Rafah border-post.
The truth is that Israel was angry with Egypt for allowing them through a border post that Israel does not control. But the BBC keeps on blindly pushing this lie, even contradicting itself in the same article:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments…0206318/ #378655
I suppose what’s happening here is that Hamas is dictating the BBC’s coverage, through Hamas-controlled stringers. So what’s a lie or two among terrorists? Furious with Egypt, Hamas is probably pushing the lie that Israel let them through Rafah to spread the idea that the Egyptians are even worse than the Israelis. And what could be more insulting than that among Muslims?
I tuned in to the BBC at around 12:45 GMT today to hear a recording of Alan Johnston in his dreary monotone droning on about his kidnapping. I was about to switch off when the monotone gave way to a studio debate on the fact that the BBC hasn’t had much of a presence in Gaza since Johnston, and that reporting is left up to Palestinian stringers. One of the latter said there were taboo subjects, stuff he couldn’t report on, like honour killings.
Evidently the truth about ‘pilgrims’ is something they can’t report either, with Hamas pulling the strings.
There is actually no point in accessing the BBC for news on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, other than exposing the bias. Rather go here for the pilgrims story:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1198517254001&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Or here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071231/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_gaza_pilgrims
(With thanks to the ghost of Biodegradable.)