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.
Obama will be the next US President and he will turn out to one of the best the USA has ever had! He will be right up there with Good ole Ronnie and the like.
The BBC hated and still hates Reagan for destroying the USSR and you can bet that they will be gunning for Obama first chance they get.
Nothing less than a Clinton win will satisfy the Beeboid peoples republic, even though she is as bent as her hubby!
The thought of a black and patriotic and no nonsense US president is filling the Beeboids with fear?
Yes I do realise he is a Democrat BUT when in office he will make Ronnie Reagan look like Jimmy Carter!
Yes I do realise that my prediction will be stomped on and trashed BUT thats why Im called Cassandra.
Steve:
Is that a no then? It’s two for one on cocktails at “Glamourous” in town. x
David Gregory (BBC) | 02.01.08 – 6:19 pm | #
Hi David,
Oh I get it! Right – you’re suggesting that my opposition to the gay agenda is because I’m a latent homosexual!
Are you suggesting, then, that all Muslims are latent homosexuals?
Can I quote you on that?
‘Snow flurries forecast across UK’,the bbc news states.Notice the same old use of the word ‘flurries’,indicating very light snow.After all,we couldn’t possibly have moderate snow showers.Not with global warming and all that!
JR:
Ref Justin Webb’s article which you kindly linked to. Thank you.
“A man who will present the Republican Party – his party – with a dilemma next year. Put simply: Are the Mormons too strange for prime time?
Or, put another way: Is the Republican party too bigoted to select a Mormon as its presidential candidate?
Until recently I would have said it probably was. But what I have learned about Mormons and what seems to be happening in America, leads me to wonder whether their time has come. ”
But nowhere is there anything about the hordes of Democrat Mormons who have been running things for years now… not just Harry Reid! If dear old Justin is going to push his views on the Mormons then he should at least look at the prominent Mormons outwith the Republican Party for the sake of balance if nothing else.
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/lds_Reid.html
A link to a bit about Reid who is NOT popular with his fellow Mormons!
There are 16 currently Mormons in Congress – only 4 are Democrats so how Webb can turn round and say that the Republicans are anti Mormon is beyond me!
PS We had Donny Osmond’s boy up here doing missionary work in Moray for two years recently – didn’t make many converts though!Perhaps he was saving himself for a Republican Party job.8-)
On gay lifestyles and the BBC’s pro-gay stance, the snippet below can be read on the link in Steve Edwards’s 5.06pm post.
‘GHB is a nasty, poisonous drug which is killing gay men on a regular basis’, explains Dr Cummings. ‘We’ve had a number of deaths of our patients resulting from use of the drug, either together with other drugs or alone . Death often occurs during or immediately post-sex and so the victims are found in humiliating circumstances.
Did Radio 1 gay DJ Kevin Greening not die recently and drugs (but not AIDS) were involved? Which drugs – anti-histamines, penicillin, something like that? Perhaps the BBC doesn’t want it reported.
I had believed that many (most?)gays were not only oriented towards attraction to their own gender but also to such hedonistic, risky lifestyles. What is annoying is that the BBC publicises such lifestyles as perfectly normal and as risk-free as being part of a domestic family (family as in the traditional non-BBC sense). The TimeOut report confirms my thinking and the BBC’s own in-house gay scene should too (Nigel Wrench).
Reith, quoting a Justin Webb piece in which he says “its (Mormonisms) adherents are bright and intellectually open, and have a sense of humour, of humanity, that is sadly lacking in other strands of American religious life” might help your current argument but it doesn’t do much to convey that the BBC is impartial towards the religious right in America, does it?
At any rate, it’s hardly consistent with your colleague David Gregory’s “considered response…that whatever a journalists personal beliefs or circumstances one should put them to one side to report in an impartial and fair way”.
Why can’t Simpson, Webb, Bowen and the rest of them grasp the difference between analysis and opinion?
Steve: You are of course quite right in your accusations. Barely a day goes by without the BBC’s “pink mafia” telling me what I can and can’t report on. Indeed I believe their office is on the 7th floor of TVC right next to the one which is full of staff dedicated to monitoring and reacting to B-BBC.
As for poor Kevin Greening I imagine nobody is reporting much about his cause of death because at the moment, we just don’t know that much.
When it comes to Muslims and homosexuality… well clearly the BBC supports the homosexual “agenda” because it is so “anti” Islam.
Oh wait. Hang on a moment.
Look you carry on with this hobby horse but seeing as it has little of nothing to do with Science/Environment or reporting generally I’ll pass on further comments thanks.
Allan @ Oslo.
The cause of Kevin Greening’s death is not known at this stage.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7166439.stm
He was an excellent broadcaster, imho, and I am very sorry to hear of his premature death.
Dear Mr Gregory,
I thought we’d established the cause of the paradox of the BBC and the liberal establishment in general being both pro-homosexual and pro-Islamic.
You then went on to suggest that my Dhimmi opposition to homosexuality must be rooted in a latent homosexuality. What about those millions of “Britons” that would gladly see homosexuals swinging?
I see your interests include “clubbing in Birmingham” (how dignified). Now that Britons compose a minority now in Birmingham, I can see why you’ve declined to accuse Muslims of being latent homosexuals, unless you want to include “being clubbed in Birmingham” amongst your other recreations. Though, of course, it’s fair to accuse me of that.
How CAN the BBC report on the destructive nature of the homosexual lifestyle when it publicly espouses it? It can’t. It hasn’t. It doesn’t.
How CAN the BBC reflect and report fairly on family law, religion, sexual health, social trends, when it’s so firmly ensconced in the cultural Marxist camp? It can’t. It hasn’t. It doesn’t.
Come see the bias inherent in the system. The BBC continues to demonstrate its uselessness in reporting on the United States. This little vox populi feature on the Iowa Caucus is the BBC’s attempt to give us the voters’ views. They ask six (random, I guess) individuals to tell the BBC their opinions and tell us whom they support.
Now I won’t go so far as to suggest that they cherry-picked the contributors in a way that made more of them Democratic or Republican supporters. I don’t think they made an effort to exclude supporters of the BBC’s worst nightmares on the Republican side, Giuliani and Thompson. That would require time spent reading lots of emails and weeding them out, and that’s too much work. Still, this is a very strange group.
Rather, the BBC bias is revealed in the edited summaries they feature on this page next to their photos. These are not, in fact, actual quotes, but edited summaries of the statements. That means that these aren’t even carefully cherry-picked statements, but at best heavily elided quotes. The words printed here are in fact the trainee sub-editor’s opinion of what’s important. You have to click on the individual link to get to the truth. The funny thing is, at the top of each individual page is a real quote that is both relevant and brief enough to use on the main page. I can only imagine the editorial decision behind inventing something new instead. I won’t buy an excuse involving layout considerations, since I know how that works and the quotes I suggest wouldn’t cause any problems.
Except for the quote from the Romney supporter, the bias could not be more obvious. And even there, the salient part of the quote is cut out, leaving a boring platitude. Curious, but I’ll let it slide.
The two Obama supporters get nearly cliché answers: new enthusiasm for new blood, and his Constitutional law background, and he’s not Hillary. Straight out of the Obama’s talking points, and not even as substantive as what the supporters actually had to say.
Of course, the Huckabee supporter is quoted as saying that the candidate connects with his Christian background. In his statement, the man actually said the reason he went for Huckabee in the first place was because of his support for the Fair Tax. Not to mention nasty old hunting.
Worse still is the “quote” from Zarman Duke. It doesn’t say who he supports, but apparently he should be living in France rather than Iowa. In reality, he is a Ron Paul supporter, and he wants “a job that provides healthcare…,” etc., and not some socialist dream government policy. Curious that this part is left out, never mind that we don’t learn whom he supports without clicking on the link. Instead, we are given a line that completely misrepresents what he said, bordering on libelous.
Equally egregious is the “quote” for the other person whose preferred candidate is left unsaid. We do know that Dorothia Rohner has a son in the military, so she is obviously concerned about who will be the next leader of the country. She must want some right-wing warmonger, neocon, hawk candidate, right? Oops, she’s in for Obama as well. Mustn’t even give a hint of a connection between Obama and anything nasty like the military. But why mention that at all when she had other interesting points that could have been “summarized”? I suspect it’s because that would then make the panel 50% Obama love, and that would be too obvious.
The BBC editor in charge of this should have just used the same actual quotes they put at the top of each individual page. The choice to create some sort of summary here was misguided, leaving the whole thing open to the interpretation of the junior who wrote them. Now, I realize that even if they used the real quotes, as I have suggested, the BBC would still be open to charges of selectively picking quotes, possibly even out of context (or cut out the important part, like in the Romney supporter’s quote). While that is always going to be the case, surely it would be better to at least use the actual words rather than just make stuff up based on one person’s opinion of what’s being said.
Just as bad is the questionable editorial effort behind creating this panel. Where did the BBC get these people? Did they select the only six people in Iowa who have posted a comment in an HYS? Did they send out an invitation to everyone in Iowa who has ever used the site, and stopped after the first six responses? Is this a rigged panel in the manner of certain phone-in contests and these are acquaintances of BBC employees?
Why was there no effort to balance this out with other major candidates? They got too many Obama supporters so had to hide one of them behind the link, and decided to misrepresent someone else rather than mention Ron Paul up front. The resulting “quotes” featured on the main page show at least as much of the opinion of the BBC editor as that of the correspondents.
Obama NEVER had to make a decision to vote against the war in Iraq. Just like OUR spineless politicians once within the political machine going against the party is far more difficult.
Martin,
True, as he wasn’t even in the Senate until 2005, long after the real voting was over. He did vote against a Bush spending measure in May 2007, because there was no surrender…er…withdrawal deadline.
But the mother of that soldier is supporting Obama because he has since come out against this war in Iraq, so as a concerned mother she wants a President who will keep her son out of harms way. We’re supposed to pretend that the only dangerous place a President could ever send a soldier to would be a Republican/Conservative target. That’s why the BBC chose her as the third Obama supporter, because she represents their anti-this-war hopes about him. That made it too many Obama fans to be honest about up front, and it’s just not cool to have his name and dirty military things in the same sentence, so her Obama support was hidden behind the link.
I wonder when the BBC will get around to reporting that there were more violent deaths in their beloved Venezuela in 2007 than in Iraq.
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/01/holy-chavistas-venezuela-violent-deaths.html
And the new year is barely two days old, yet twice the amount of people have been killed in Chez Cher Chavez than in the “lost cause” of Iraq. Now, why is one body count more important than the other? They certainly didn’t play up violence in Venezuela last year, but violence to be blamed on Bush gets top billing. Is there any journalistic reason Chavez is getting such a huge pass?
Allan@Oslo | 02.01.08 – 7:52 pm |
A perfectly coherant and erudite point. So why don’t the Pink Mafia care? Why do they invent brain diseases such as “Homophobia” (As David Gregory did earlier)? Because they can’t say you’re wrong.
Oh well, make love, not war.
More gibberish from Matt Frei on the US elections. He is based in Washington, DC, so he recently made a short drive to Culpeper, Virginia to do a story on how the economic situation is affecting the election.
Matt begins by featuring the sheriff of Culpeper, who is leaving town after eight years in office. We learn that during this period, the city is the 18th-fastest growing in the country, and the cost of living is rising. Any thoughts that this mind sound like, you know, growth, are immediately dispelled when Matt tells us that the sheriff is leaving because the sub-prime bubble has burst and the economy is struggling. We’re supposed to connect that to election concerns on our own, as Matt has moved on to other locals.
So either the sheriff is just a mercenary who takes advantage of the good times and splits when the going gets rough, or Matt Frei is an embarrassment who can’t help but get in a dig at the US even if it contradicts what he just said. The rest of the report may be equally idiotic, but obviously I’m not watching anymore.
John Reith
Can you run that past us one more time so that we can all take a swift reality check?
So are you saying that John Reith, to the best of your knowledge is and has always been just yourself and no one but yourself?
Because I find this almost impossible to believe.
How much time do you spend on this site, so that you can be so sure. 24 hours a day, or what?
This must be a full time job for you. How much does it pay? So I can work out how much of my licence fee is going directly just to you. So I can then make a formal complaint.
As far as I know, but sometimes I am not so sure, this site was not set up mainly as a forum for BBC excuses.
Have your bosses not worked out yet that most if not all of your excuses make thinking people, even more suspicious of the BBC then they would have been otherwise?
You have several times indicated that quite how ‘careful’ the BBC is to say and do the ‘right’ things. To me this is just another way of admitting that the BBC is simply establishment controlled propaganda, nothing more and nothing less.
But what you have never persuaded any contributor especially myself is that the BBC TELLS THE TRUTH, even as most working at the BBC sees it. Which surly is the whole point. If the BBC does not tell the truth it is worthless at least or highly dangerous, in your face propaganda, at worst.
If choosing to buy South-African produce during the eighties was bad. Then what is being forced to pay for the BBC, which does not tell the truth about our current FASCIST governments policies plans and intentions, then?
I call it a rather strange, but not in anyway illogical or impossible combination, of Imperialism, Fascism and Communism. What do you call it?
Because it certainly is not conservatism or libertarianism or indeed classical liberalism in any way shape or form whatsoever.
This in spite of the fact that you still maintain you are, or used to be, a conservative and a CONSERVATIVE VOTER.
If the people of Britain want a New World Order which they might if the establishment ever bothered to be honest about it. Then thats just fine by me.
But the establishment headed up by the BBC thinks it knows full well that the British people do not want a New World Order. Mainly because they are still just smart enough to work out for themselves a New World Order is a potential nightmare for them and their families. But only if they were told the FULL TRUTH EVER or even that such a plan even exists.
These are the people that pay your wages, and this country is still supposed to be a democracy. A democracy that can only work properly in the interests of its people, if they are told all of the relevant FACTS.
One more question
How do you sleep at night, knowing that your existence is all about lying and disinformation every hour of your entire working day?
Atlas shrugged: said “John Reith…How do you sleep at night, knowing that your existence is all about lying and disinformation every hour of your entire working day?”
beeboids sleep nice n comfy in a bed stuffed full of telly tax money
Radio 2 news item this morning about the writers’ blockade in the US. It was reported that David Letterman had come to an agreement with the writers, but Jay Leno had not, and therefore it ‘remained to be seen whether he was funny without his writers’. Sorry, but that’s comment, not news.
Rather odd feature on the new Tom Hanks film ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ on BBC 10 O’clock news. Does the Beeb normally feature the latest Hollywood blockbuster as main news? Usually only if it is something very unusual or breaking some kind of record. Mr Hanks himself said he wasn’t sure how well the film would do at the box office. Could the BBC’s interest stem from the fact that the film is about America’s arming of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion?
On a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised to see a strong attack on Al Gore and his ‘Convenient Untruth’ film on BBC3’s ‘Most Annoying People of 2007’ last night. They also laid into the smoking ban.
It’s all too much | 02.01.08 – 6:50 pm |
the BME element is currently 7.9% of the total UK population….
You’re on the right track. Now adjust for the working age population (the BME population is that bit younger, not so plentiful among retirees but higher as a proportion of younger people of working age); then factor in the effect of the BBC’s being based almost entirely in major urban centres • such that its ‘locally recruited’ (as opposed to ‘nationally recruited’) staff will be more likely to be BME …..and you get to roughly where the BBC is now (10.8 %) and can see where it’s headed (12.5%). Useful pointer: the %age of undergrad students from a BME background is 12%.
I agree with the Matt Frei criticism. The Sheriff said, “This town is growing very quickly and prices are going up so I’m leaving.” To me that says that the economy is doing well and his public sector pay is not keeping up with the general rise in prices associated with economic growth. To Matt Frei it meant that the sub-prime crunch was taking its toll and driving people out of town…Strange because the Sheriff hadn’ mentioned housing once and in fact had stated that the economy where he lived was booming.
Andy | 02.01.08 – 6:13 pm | #
“Nice try Ben, but throwing semi-obscure web pages around just won’t do.”
All of those were published between the 21st of December and 1st of January. Are you saying they’ve hidden them all?
“The point I was making, which you attempt to dodge, is that the BBC will not acknowledge that it is the US-led surge that has led to the reduction in deaths/casualties. This fact is not broadcast on BBC news programmes.”
I think it was only two weeks ago that a rather in-depth report by Mark Urban was widely trailed on BBC News and then featured on Newsnight. As I remember he did highlight this, including the change in tactics through having soldiers based inside towns. I think this was praised by Tim who has experience there (if he doesn’t mind me pointing it out).
If you’re going to criticise their surge coverage, I think you’d be better accusing them of being slow on the uptake
As I Please:
I saw some of this programme and Gordon Brown was placed at only 39th most annoying person of the year, behind Jason Donovan amongst others. I did admire the way the BBC allowed criticism of the “great clunking fist” before using part of the Gordon Brown slot to insult Lady Thatcher.
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2008/01/bbc-allow-some-criticism-of-gordon.html
Nice piece of BBC bias on good old 5 lite with that idiot Richard Bacon.
In an interview with an American reporter over the US election Bacon clamied that “Fox News” was biased towards the Republicans. His evidence? Well none really, except for the Weather forecasts. Yes the Weather forecasts!!!!!!
Bacon claimed that in the USA good weather meant a higher turn out for the Democrats and bad weather a better turn out for the Republicans (no evidence for this was provided of course). Bacon, then clamined that whislt watching the US TV at the last election Fox News was the only Network forecasting bad weather. I kid you not folks.
Of course his own statement must imply that the other networks are biased towards the Democtats does it not?
This kind of crap pumped out by the BBC has got to stop. Bacon gave an opinion without evidence which has no basis in truth
Ben
“All of those were published between the 21st of December and 1st of January. Are you saying they’ve hidden them all? ”
What I meant is that the BBC in being deliberately deceitful, omitting crucial facts, and their inability to handle criticism make themselves obscure.
“If you’re going to criticise their surge coverage, I think you’d be better accusing them of being slow on the uptake”
You are certainly correct them on them being slow. Making pig’s ear of it would be more accurate. Why so slow in reporting this anyway, surely not for lack of resources?
“I think it was only two weeks ago that a rather in-depth report by Mark Urban was widely trailed on BBC News and then featured on Newsnight. As I remember he did highlight this, including the change in tactics through having soldiers based inside towns. I think this was praised by Tim who has experience there (if he doesn’t mind me pointing it out).”
“I think…”, “As I remember…”, “I think…”
You don’t sound very sure. The reduction in deaths/casualties has been going on for some time, and we’ve heard barely a whisper from the Beeb, Mark Urban grudgingly talking of a “fragile” success. The cocksure defeatism of those carping BBC critics (Simpson et al) now seems a bit misplaced.
“What I meant is that the BBC in being deliberately deceitful, omitting crucial facts, and their inability to handle criticism make themselves obscure.”
No, you were saying they don’t link the drop in violence with the surge, those articles show otherwise.
“You are certainly correct them on them being slow. Making pig’s ear of it would be more accurate. Why so slow in reporting this anyway, surely not for lack of resources?”
Not really evidence of bias, only recently have most news orgs really started to believe the figures were worth reporting as a trend. Even the army are playing it down. It’s now 10 months since it began and probably a more reasonable time to assess its impact.
“You don’t sound very sure. ”
Ok, I’m sure, happy?
“Mark Urban grudgingly talking of a “fragile” success.”
Ah, that’s it, if they report something that contradicts your accusations of bias, it’s back to saying its “grudging”. Right up there with the so-called sneering that only certain B-BBC’ers and cats can hear.
Andy | 03.01.08 – 2:26 pm
Ben | 03.01.08 – 2:59 pm
Actually the BBC was by no means slow on the uptake regarding the surge. From mid-June through September the BBC World Service did a weekly monitoring of how well the surge was working.
Then in September General Petraeus’ report to Congress was extensively covered.
Mark Urban’s December report was not his first • it was a follow up to one he did in May.
In the meantime, many daily and weekly programmes did reports on the surge and its effects.
It’s just that Andy & Co never see or hear most of the output, but nevertheless feel free to claim it was never there.
John / Ben,
Sure I’ve heard bits and pieces by the BBC on the surge but there is always a vital word missing – success!
JR,
From the BBC output you would never guess that the surge was a stunning success, considering the sheer size of the problem. Iraq is a the country of 437,072 km², with 26 million people.
And ruthless al-qaeda murderers are going after the easy pray (Iraqi civilians).
The murderers whom BBC insists on euphemistically calling “insurgents”.
If you had ever served in a military or have read enough military history, you must know that the surge is by all measures a stunning success.
Downplaying its success on purpose, like John Simpson does, underscores
BBC growing ineptitude and lack of expertise in all fields but pseudo-scientific liberal arts and humanities.
BBC is by far the most understaffed by experts major news corporation.
How many BBC analysts have military experience? How many foreign corespondents have diplomatic background? How many journalists write on medical issues without being MD?
Do you ever watch other news outlets?
Let’s just take CNN for example:
Sanjay Gupta – MD
Lou Dobbs — a very successful businessman.
Wesley Clark, NATO supreme commander.
…
BBC News and World Service pretentiousness without any true expertise is pathetic.
While other BBC shows might have very talented people, the current World Service and bbcnews crew is beyond repair.
Very few in those parts of the BBC would ever make it in the real world.
Indeed, BBC’s “expertise” level on almost any issue is the equivalent of the Sun, just with an ideological bias.
“Actually the BBC was by no means slow on the uptake regarding the surge. From mid-June through September the BBC World Service did a weekly monitoring of how well the surge was working.”
You would be surprised how many License Tax Victims never listen to the World Service,oddly they all watch television.
Tangential to BBC bias • a bit at the end.
I was saddened to learn today (on Devil’s Kitchen) that George MacDonald Frasier has died. I have always said that his Flashman novels were the best series of history lessons about the later half of the 19th century that you are likely to read.
His Flashman and semi autobiographical McAuslan books are great reads and snorting out loud on the tube funny.
As a man of his generation with views that are unlikely to find favour with the BBC I took a look to see if the website had anything.
The England paqe had this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7170000/newsid_7170000/7170067.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&ms3=22&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=2
The odd thing is this statement in the BBC obituary
“A man of panache, passionately opposed to metrification but nonetheless made an OBE in 1999”
Can a Beeoid (or anyone) please explain why being a man of panache or favouring Imperial measurements means you are unlikely to receive an OBE?
“A man of panache, passionately opposed to metrification but nonetheless made an OBE in 1999”
A dig at a Europhobic author by the BBC perhaps?
Stop Press! Venezuela, home of the BBC’s favourite dictator after Castro now more deadly with more murders daily than Iraq! Will be reported on the BBC any day now…..
honest…………
keep viewing folks…………
any day now………….
Lurkingblackhat | 03.01.08 – 4:10 pm |
Can a Beeoid (or anyone) please explain why being a man of panache or favouring Imperial measurements means you are unlikely to receive an OBE?
Because in 1999 these things were handed out by nuLab chiefly to those inside Blair’s big tent who confirmed to ‘modern’ things like metrication and to nuLab house style – i.e. sans panache.
In those dark days, favouring Imperial measurements could mean you were had up before the beak.
Do you really need these things spelled out?
Actually, I am going to expand a bit on my previous comment, and not just toss unsubstantiated accusations on lack of expertise in BBC news services.
I believe that a significant part of BBC’s bias is not a product of ideology alone, but of ignorance.
Ignorance on how the real world operates. BBC corespondent’s world is a like a greenhouse, a continuance
of humanities college days. Very few in the BBC news have scientific background, let alone in military, business or finance.
To make a successful drama or a popular science show, you must know what to do. BBC is good in both these fields.
But when it comes to news, they are simply under-qualified.
Their HR policy seems not to be “let’s find the candidate with the best expertise in the particular field”, but lets find
someone who is similar to us.
For any normal knowledge based company, this leads to a disaster and bankruptcy. But not for a government subsidized corporation, of course.
In their world, only touchy-feely stuff is real. The latest radical Leftist fashion is the norm, but none
of the real issues facing people and decision makers exist.
Virtually every BBC journalist reads Guardian, but how many read Jane’s. How many even know
what it is? What are the weapons deployed in Iraq? What is General Petraus’ counter insurgency theory.
Why is he succeeding? Do you even know?
Virtually every BBC journalist reads US based HRW and Amnesty International reports, but none of them reads
New England Journal of Medicine or even Popular Mechanics for god’s sake.
Both Jane’s and New England Journal of Medicine are read by respective decision makers.
BBC’s favorite modus operandi is to mix news with editorials in the same article
(which reminds me of my youth in communist Yugoslavia, where you were always told together
with the news, how you should interpret them)
So if BBC is always editorializing, pretending to analyse decision makers.
How do they do it, when they don’t have a clue about real sources of information decision makers use?
I don’t want to imply that CNN is in anyway perfect, but a typical war reporting on CNN would in addition to impact on civilian population also include strengths, weaponry, training and moral of the troops.
A typical war report from the BBC would only focus on the impact on civilian population. This is not only a product of bias, but of simple lack of background in any of those fields.
I have 2 glaring examples of this and will provide them if anyone is interested, but I have to dig them up, as they were from some time ago.
Again BBC has a lot of expertise in their entertainment division, but not in the news service. I think this is so because historically this is the only group that doesn’t have to answer to outside world demands (for good professional entertainment if nothing else).
Tom | 03.01.08 – 10:44 am |
So I didn’t imagine it. Thank you. Frei just made up his own story and told it to us.
As usual.
Alan | 03.01.08 – 5:23 pm
Alan you are simply wrong in every particular in your characterization of BBC News and its journalists. I have worked with many BBC journalists who have military, diplomatic, scientific and business experience. The accumulated specialist expertise of BBC News is unrivalled by any news provider in the world.
But there’s little point you saying ‘the BBC is useless’ and me saying the opposite. What matters in the end is what audiences think and how they behave.
BBC News is incredibly successful. Last year audiences for all the main domestic BBC News bulletins grew. Where people have a choice, they opt for the BBC. The 10 O’clock is the most watched news on TV. The 6 O’Clock is the most watched early evening news bulletin. The One O’Clock is Britain’s most popular lunchtime news. BBC Breakfast has a much bigger audience than GMTV. BBC News 24 is more popular than Sky news. The BBC News website is the UK’s most popular online news source.
Internationally, the BBC World Service now has 163 million radio listeners (a record); BBC World has an audience of 65 million; the international-facing online news service attracts 33 million unique users per month.
The phenomenal (and growing) success of BBC News both at home and abroad is no accident.
Maybe you should just take a long, cool look at your own posts recently and ask yourself whether it might not just be the case that the BBC knows rather more about how to run a global news operation than you do.
John Reith: “The accumulated specialist expertise of BBC News is unrivalled by any news provider in the world.”
How do you know? Have you worked for rivals, or with any of them? Is there an internationally-recognised gauge which charts the levels of knowledge?
“specialists” at the BBC? What like the ones with a degree in Englsih that are their “climate change ” experts?
I wonder how many people would fly in an aeroplane designed or maintained by people with degrees in the arts?
Ben
Only recently(the last two weeks)the BBC has been saying the results of the surge where real. Before that time it was at first making things only worse, than it became a appearance of security.
John Simpson uses the old terminoligy of the BBC.
“I didn’t expect that the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, for all his sharp intelligence, would make the so-called surge of American troops in Iraq look quite so successful.”
Please explain how the surge wil make the eventual civil war only fiercier. The country was already swamped with weapons. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the group which is being hammered. It was this group which wanted to start a civil war. Now sunni are turning against this group and showing the shia that they also hate al-Qaeda. But in the mind of John Simpson this wil only make the eventual civil war fiercer. His remark don’t make sense.
If anyone else would have said this it would have branded racist. Why would it be impossible for arabs to have a reconciliation?
This is the same John Simpsom who predicted 70 m sea level rise.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/563127.stm
The IPCC predicts max. 70 centimeters
Al gore predicts 7 meters
John simpson predicts 70 meters
JR,
Really —
1. Give me name of an Ex-British Army General or Navy Admiral
2. Give me a name of a successful businessman/woman (whose company generated millions)
3. Give me a name of a simple MD that works for the BBC news service
Most major US news organizations employ at least one of the above as analysts or full time employees.
JR, it seems to me you are a victim of BBC’s own internal propaganda.
Unless all Pakistanis are watching BBC News, I don’t know where did you get 163 millions of viewers/listener.
Or maybe you are multiplying by 2 the number of people you impose your Jizya on.
Just the places I used to live in:
On the liberal Canadian east coast very few are watching BBC.
In the liberal Boston, no one I know watches BBC. And a lot of Americans are openly hostile to your party line.
In Eastern Europe (Yugoslavia, Hungary) very few people watch BBC these days, even though they used to listen to BBC World Service under communism.
Nowdays your communist line just reminds them of the past.
Hey JR, maybe the numbers are right – your pandering to the Islamic world is maybe paying dividends.
But then don’t pretend to be unbiased.
And don’t pretend to be a *British* Broadcasting Corporation.
From Mike’s link to John Simpson’s ‘report'(??):
“Now global warming is threatening the Maldives’ very existence. None of the islands is more than 1.5 metres above sea-level, and if nothing is done they will be drowned within decades. ”
I have it confirmed on good authority that the maldive Islands are still there. It can even be shown that the sea level around the Maldives isn’t rising and that the greenies are trying to cheat.
Click to access 33-37_725.pdf
None of this will be reported by the BBC, and especially not by John Simpson who takes ignorance to a new level.
“Internationally, the BBC World Service now has 163 million radio listeners (a record); BBC World has an audience of 65 million; the international-facing online news service attracts 33 million unique users per month.”
Good,now get them to pay for it.
JR,
Answer me honestly – did you ever see anyone reading Jane’s in your office?
John Simpson’s Wikipedia entry:
“Simpson has freely admitted to experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs offered to him by natives and locals while working in various jungles of the world… one hallucination involved a six-foot goldfish putting his flipper round his shoulders while wearing dark glasses and a straw hat.”
One reason perhaps why so few of Simpson’s dire pronouncements have failed to materialize.
Because in 1999 these things were handed out by nuLab chiefly to those inside Blair’s big tent who confirmed to ‘modern’ things like metrication and to nuLab house style – i.e. sans panache.
In those dark days, favouring Imperial measurements could mean you were had up before the beak.
Do you really need these things spelled out?
John Reith | 03.01.08 – 4:44 pm | #
Thanks JR for the info.
Sorry but I’m afraid I did need it spelling out.
I didn’t realise that the Labour Government had corrupted the honours system so badly by 1999 that only its “yes” men could be expected to get even lowly baubles like an OBE.
I’m sure the BBC covered this sort of corruption fully at the time. I must have missed it
Or perhaps is it another case of the BBC not covering it “because there are too many …. to report”
BTW,
By “give me a name”, I meant give me a name of and ex-… that works for the BBC news service.
Please note
“Because there are too many …. to report” is copyrighted to John Reith 2006
Trademark applied for
“Answer me honestly – did you ever see anyone reading Jane’s in your office?”
Yes,but only the fashion pages.
dave t:
Stop Press! Venezuela, home of the BBC’s favourite dictator after Castro now more deadly with more murders daily than Iraq! Will be reported on the BBC any day now…..
Silly boy, You know this cannot be reported
sing along now
“Because there are too many …. to report”