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.
Anonymous | 14.01.08 – 7:30 am |
Isn’t it sad that JR “works” on these talkbacks only during regular work hours and gets payed for it… BY YOU!
Not really, keeps him off the streets …
Eric | 13.01.08 – 11:14 am
the *only* media outlet trying to drag the Tories into the Hain sleaze row is BBC News; not a single other online paper or news source seems to be carrying the George Osborne story..
What absolute rubbish. This is typical of the new wave of bias allegations appearing on this site: i.e. a blatant, downright lie.
The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Mail and Mirror are all running this story • as are dozens of others.
Labour turned the tables on the Tories over political donations after it emerged that the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, had not declared payments of almost £500,000 from wealthy Tory donors.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3336094.ece
The Conservatives were also facing serious questions last night as Labour raised doubts about donations of almost £500,000 received by George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, and not declared in the Register of Members’ Interests. David Cameron seems certain to face questions on the issue at a press conference today.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3182383.ece
Tories panic over funding blunders
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/01/14/tories-panic-over-funding-blunders-89520-20285086/
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne admits getting £500,000 in secret donations • but Cameron stands by him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=507891&in_page_id=1770
Tories’ ‘hypocrisy’ over donations
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3mkU4WbnZ9HFGBRX1TRuOF5LD6Q
It emerged yesterday that nearly £500,000 used to fund the private staff of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, had not been logged on the Commons Register of Members’ Interests.
Thousands of pounds of support to other senior Tories may also have been omitted from the Register.
Labour seized on the revelation to accuse the Conservatives of hypocrisy over their attacks on Peter Hain
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2008/01/14/nhain514.xml
Al Beeb is reporting that bio fuels are no longer the answer to saving mother earth
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7186380.stm
usual anti american stuff
“The (U.S.)Bill also foresees a huge expansion in fuel from woody plants but the technology for this is not yet proven. ”
come on Mr Harrabin, the technology hasnt been disporoved either so it could save gia. I know its horrible for u investing 20 years of your life into something u know must be a con, but thats no excuse for sloppy work
Flawed Logic | 13.01.08 – 5:12 pm
John Reith needs to provide exactly how he managed to come up with the figures he spouts.
……if John Reith cannot/will not answer the question …..{blah, blah, blah….}……..
……if he cannot prove his claims then keep pushing him…
What are you wittering on about man?
There was a link establishing their provenance in my original post.
“”Libya key transit for UK-bound migrants” (Note the word ‘migrant’ is used to avoid the accurate word: IMMIGRANT.):-”
Both of which are used to avoid the word colonialists.
Peter | 13.01.08 – 4:47 pm
Or “Caliphate.”
….eventually John Reith will either go away or start telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Peter Du Reitz | 13.01.08 – 4:57 pm | #
Flawed Logic | 13.01.08 – 5:12 pm
Reith wouldn’t recognise the truth if he accidentally tripped over it.
John Reith | 14.01.08 – 10:09 am
….oops, apologies eric, I just noticed the time/date when you posted.
Still, you were wrong anyway. The Telegraph were already covering this then.
….in the same way as the BBC uses the Financial Times to attract finance professionals.
Joel | Homepage | 13.01.08 – 5:49 pm
Like the economics editor who doesn’t know how the Dow Jones functions?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/11/market_sentiment_1.html
A nice bit of dissimulation on the Today programme this morning. In the introduction to a piece about the Hain and Osborne matters (conflated together – natch) the Beebette (at 19:49 in the 0800-0839 slot on Listen Again) said :
“Nick, in both cases there was a failure to make the correct submission to the Register of Members Interests….”
But Mr Osborne expressly denies this. So, in the absence of a ruling from the relevant quango, there is no basis whatever for stating this as a fact.
Anonymous 10:56, Of course there is a basis for stating this as fact; Gordon needs mud to be thrown and the BBC are happy to do this for him.
News 24 last night, what that tall prat with the glasses, kept on using the words “failed to declare” in relation to Osborne. How is it failure to declare when you ask the people you need to declare it to if you should declare it, and they say no? “Failure” implies it was something he was supposed to do – truth be told, it was a grey area and he took the advice he was given. It’s such a non-story, and while the BBC aren’t the only ones spinning it, they are the only ones who seem ready to equate it to Hain’s actions.
David | 14.01.08 – 11:35 am
it was a grey area and he took the advice he was given
Yeeees….but. He didn’t seek the advice until he’d had the money for eleven months already.
Or put another way – he didn’t seek advice until the Labour donorgate scandal was up and running.
The Hain Osborne affair is no different to the BBC reporting on Israel & Palastinians. Only Israel attacks make headlines, Pal rocket attacks are included as an after thought in the Israel attack story.
Lemar | 14.01.08 – 11:57 am | #
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/brassneck/jan08/peterhainistoast.htm
Grudging
That’s the word to describe Motaquin’s introduction on the Today programme this morning to the the item reporting that Iraq deaths are down 75% on earlier months.
Amazing isn’t it? A 10 % increase in deaths and QED the Americans have failed, the situation “is spiralling out of contol” or at least “edging closer to civil war”. Yet a 75% reduction in deaths and all we get is grudge. Grudge on Beeboids is all I can say.
This morning’s Today treatment of Hain/Osborne reminds me of the “moral equivalence” approach taken by your average Beeboid i.e. law abiding members of a Baptist Church in midwest America are morally equivalent to Islamists who behead infidels to order.
Cockney:
JRSIHG
In a democracy people need to express a preference for something to be replaced. The fact that nobody has yet come up with a specific funding system (or abolition) that market research shows to be preferable is unfortunately the best argument for the continuation of the status quo.
Cockney | 14.01.08 – 9:23 am | #
Rubbish
Capital punishment was abolished without any agonising over a replacement.
If a majority don’t want it – get rid of it!
Why do you find that so difficult to understand?
It is perhaps because you’re a recipient of the licence payer’s largesse yourself?
John Reith:
Eric | 13.01.08 – 11:14 am
the *only* media outlet trying to drag the Tories into the Hain sleaze row is BBC News; not a single other online paper or news source seems to be carrying the George Osborne story..
What absolute rubbish. This is typical of the new wave of bias allegations appearing on this site: i.e. a blatant, downright lie.
The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Mail and Mirror are all running this story • as are dozens of others.
That’s a fascinating reply JR.
In other words you’re just like all the other grubby hacks – desperate to grab a living by latching onto every passing bit of scandal to build a story.
Except of course you’re not.
You’re a legally constituted organ of the state, funded by confiscation on pain of imprisonment and obliged by charter to deal only in impartial truth.
You know as well as I do that the principal charge against Hain is that he concealed the existence and origin of political contributions – in direct breach of the criminal law.
The fact that there was already a dialogue between the Tories and the registrar about whether properly declared donations to the party should be declared a second time in the member’s register is an administrative point with no legal or ethical implications which was pushed out by Labour spinners to try and take the heat off Hain.
Sure a lot of hacks ran it – that’s what they do for a living.
But the fact that the BBC persisted in conflating the two stories time and time again is a perfect example of exactly the sort of bias this site was set up to expose.
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 14.01.08 – 12:30 pm | #
So the Telegraph is biased against the Conservatives? and The Times and the Mail..
“If a majority don’t want it – get rid of it!
Why do you find that so difficult to understand?
It is perhaps because you’re a recipient of the licence payer’s largesse yourself?”
No – I work for about as private sector an organisation as its possible to get, which is possibly why my arguments have some sense to them.
I find it difficult to understand because its b*llocks. By that reckoning we shouldn’t have a government at the moment (because a majority voted against Labour), Thatcher should never have been in power etc etc etc. If the majority don’t want the BBC to be abolished then by your reckoning you automatically dismiss that idea? If there is no majority consensus on the answer to a problem then presumably by your version of democracy one spontaneously combusts in a cloud of logical dysfunction?
John, you say of the Osborne story
‘The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Mail and Mirror are all running this story • as are dozens of others’.
How very true. So why do we need to pay the makers of Eastenders and Flog It to give their version too?
Ben:
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 14.01.08 – 12:30 pm | #
So the Telegraph is biased against the Conservatives? and The Times and the Mail..
Ben | 14.01.08 – 12:36 pm | #
You’re a bit slow on the uptake Ben.
Within the constraints of libel, newspapers can print what they like – we don’t have to buy them.
These days circulation wars have a much more powerful infuence than party leanings – newspapers print any story they can get their hands on to help sell the paper.
The BBC has a unique obligation to provide us with the impartial truth, because we have a legal obligation to give them our money – it’s in their charter.
‘The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Mail and Mirror…’
You just do not get it do you.
It doesn’t matter what these media do or others like ITV, Sky or Channel 4.
None of these I am forced to buy under threat of fine, criminal record and/or imprisonment.
Only one media I am forced to pay for is the BBC, so the rules are different.
Get rid of the license fee and you can have the same standards as ITV or chanel 5, until then you MUST obey the charter and that includes no bias.
I notice Harrabin is talking bollocks (again)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7186380.stm
I love this quote from the BBC idiot.
“..In the US the government has just passed a new energy bill mandating a major increase in fuel from corn, which is deemed by some analysts to be useless in combating rising carbon dioxide emissions…”
Harrabin also describes himslef as an “analyst”. So a man with a degree in English and no science or engineering backgroud is now an expert in bio fuel production?
Here is another view
https://selectra.co.uk/energy/guides/market/greenfield-ethanol-inc
Ethanol has other advantages over ptrol in tems of reduced pollution. The problem with prats like Harrabin is they are like a cheap stuck record parroting “CO2, CO2…”
When John Reith started quoting the number of Palestinians killed as against Israeli citizens he was diverting attention from the gist of the Honest Reporting analysis, which is the total bias in the BBC’s attitude to the reporting.
The Headlines is the most crucial part of this, as John Reith pointed out there is little space on the front page, but John Reith also knows that most people skim the news and headlines have a sub-conscious affect on people, so the headlines geared to not showing the Palestinians as aggressors in any way are a deliberate and compeletly biased attack on Israel.
Often the bias can be seen in what is not reported, imagine if the BBC were detailing as part of their reports how many missiles were fired into Israel over an extended period of time, of course I don’t think that the BBC should detail every single one as a separate report, but I would expect the number to be recorded and recognition that it is Palestinian missiles that are causing the IDF to fire back. Not that the missile fired itself!!!
Trying to divert attention will not work, the BBC is well and truely in the spot light over the excellent analysis of Honest Reporting.
Thanks AJukDD: You are so correct, it is the headline that is so important. What I dislike so strongly is the obvious way BBC does this. It is blatant anti tory, and anti Israel. They believe they are untouchable so do it with contempt.
AJukDD | Homepage | 14.01.08 – 1:16 pm
The Headlines is the most crucial part of this…
Well I am very pleased to hear it.
That means that your (and DisHR’s) beef with the BBC is chiefly about some headlines on a website rather than with the hours of radio and TV airtime which accounts for the vast majority of the BBC’s journalism. Good.
of course I don’t think that the BBC should detail every single one as a separate report, but I would expect the number to be recorded…
Fair point. The running tally in any one year might indeed be helpful.
Ben: So the Telegraph is biased against the Conservatives? and The Times and the Mail..
Actually, in the case of the Times, yes. It’s New Labour supporting.
Still, I take the point that the BBC can hardly be expected to ignore a story everyone else is running with.
AJukDD
“Often the bias can be seen in what is not reported”
“… I would expect the number to be recorded and recognition that it is Palestinian missiles that are causing the IDF to fire back. Not that the missile fired itself!!!”
Absolutely correct. There’s more to being truthful than merely stating isolated facts. As licence fee payers we are entitled to a much bigger picture than what we are getting.
John Reith: “Your…beef with the BBC is chiefly about some headlines on a website rather than with the hours of radio and TV airtime which accounts for the vast majority of the BBC’s journalism. Good.”
Your website has something like 17 million users doesn’t it? It’s fairly important you get it right. If it can’t be done to the standards the BBC’s meant to stand for, you shouldn’t really be doing it.
You just do not get it do you.
It doesn’t matter what these media do or others like ITV, Sky or Channel 4.
None of these I am forced to buy under threat of fine, criminal record and/or imprisonment.
Anonymous | 14.01.08 – 1:13 pm | #
No I think you’re the one missing the point. The BBC’s coverage is being labelled as biased against the Conservatives, yet similar reporting is shown by publications who are well known to be conservative or certainly not pro new labour. Don’t you see how absurd it is to use this as an example, then say “yes, but we don’t pay for…”. That’s irrelvent.
“Actually, in the case of the Times, yes. It’s New Labour supporting.”
Hugh | 14.01.08 – 1:40 pm | #
We’ll see for how long!
Hugh | 14.01.08 – 2:06 pm
It’s fairly important you get it right.
I think the BBC is getting it right.
No-one is going to satisfy the agenda-driven ideologues all the time, but the fact they have nothing to say about the BBC’s broadcasting and have now shut-up about the content of the web articles to fix upon the little headlines, speaks volumes.
They are clutching at straws.
Take this story, for instance:
Gaza rockets kill two in Israel
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3845731.stm
This would fail the DisHR test: it doesn’t have the word ‘Palestinian’ in the headline.
Not even the fact that the opening para reads:
Palestinian rockets have slammed into an Israeli town killing two people – one of them a three-year old child
would cut any ice with the SisHR brigade.
‘Sooooo biased’, they’d wail, ‘see how Al-Beeb try to minimize the Palestinian culpability bu using the word ‘killing’ rather than ‘slaughtered’.
And more in the same vein.
Joel: “Last year, the BBC used over 250 different publications and online sites to advertise its vacancies. The Guardian is just one of these, and is generally used where we need to attract media professionals…”
Joel, I don’t think the posters here are complaining about the bias in the IT department or accounts. If the BBC’s media professionals (ie everyone in front of a camera, behind a microphone or writing the script) generally come through adverts in the Guardian, the possibility of bias is a real one.
Was I dreaming or was there a good news story from Iraq on the Today programme this morning? I may also have been imagining that I could hear Naughtie cringe when he said “blah blah blah reporting there and now it’s time … “
John, so the BBC is getting some news right? So what? So are dozens of other news providers. Why do we have to pay the makers of Eastenders and Flog It to give us the same news available elsewhere, often with a handsome dose of ‘analysis’ that is of the same quality as the aforementioned TV programmes?
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 14.01.08 – 12:30 pm
… the principal charge against Hain is that he concealed the existence and origin of political contributions…
Yes, the reasons for having the law on declarations and a register of Members’ Interests is the same: we want to know who exactly is giving dosh to our politicians; and how much. Then we can keep checking whose interests they’re serving • those of the nation or those of the distributors of largesse.
Certainly Hain’s behaviour in having donations channelled through a dormant think-tank seems jolly suspicious. Just what one might do if one were seeking to keep the names of donors secret.
But, say some Labour people, Osborne has been doing the same thing. Instead of using a dodgy think-tank as a front, they claim, he’s been using the Conservative Party. The result is the same: the public are kept in the dark about the identities of the people giving politicians money.
Mmmm.
I’m sceptical. While I can see why Peter Hain might want to make sure no-one found out he was bankrolled by Willie Nagel and ….especially, Isaac Kaye,… I can see no good reason why Osborne would be embarrassed if it became widely known that Serena Rothschild and Hugh Sloane were funding his office. (Heavens, they’re not just the sort of people George could safely take money off; they’re the sort of people he might even have to dinner.)
That said, all this ‘we took advice’ stuff is just a load of smoke. They only checked with the registrar when the David Abrahams case led to a memo going round the shadow cabinet to check there were no skeletons in the cupboard. For ten months the sums had just remained ‘undeclared’ for no particular reason. There was no good reason NOT to declare where the contributions came from • and no good reason NOT to declare them twice, if need be. That really would be ‘transparency’. If anyone really gave a damn about the spirit of the law, as opposed to the mere letter, then that’s what they’d have done.
John, we don’t need your employers news or your defences of it. As you pointed out, other providers have got all the stories covered. Do the decent thing – resign. Nobody needs what you do.
John Reith, people skim headlines, you know that, you also know that people get an impression from that skim, without even realising it, your headline writers realise that, this is my take on one of the most critical parts of that report.
Honest Reporting have offered their report and that speaks for itself, I don’t speak for them.
If your people could start putting the Palestinians as firing the rockets, or Hamas or one of the many groups carrying out such acts it would be better pure and simple.
It is a clear bias and if you are really keen to clean up your act then do something about it. I am sure that the anit-Israel brigade will work on something else, but Honest Reporting have pointed it out and it would be the height of arrogance and stupidity to ignore it.
Pete | 14.01.08 – 2:54 pm
The problem with your constantly reiterated line of argument is that people quite demonstrably do want the BBC.
People may have to pay the licence-fee; but no-one forces them to watch BBC News. Yet more than 80 % of the population turn to the BBC for their news.
They could go elsewhere; but they don’t.
The problem with hanging around this blog is that you end up thinking there are lots of people who actively dislike the BBC.
Actually, there are hardly any of you.
John Reith, you might be right, but I don’t think that 80 % of the population turning to the BBC for their news does actually prove your point. If you gave more than £3 billion to the Independent even it could probably manage to rustle up a decent market share as a media outlet.
John Reith: What a smug little leftie you are.
If you and your leftie prats at the BBC are SO SURE that people love the BBC then have the balls to get rid of the licence fee and see who signs up to the BBC.
There’s one here who wouldn’t.
Hugh | 14.01.08 – 3:24 pm
If you gave more than £3 billion to the Independent even it could probably manage to rustle up a decent market share as a media outlet.
What makes you think that?
Sky has revenues well in excess of 3 billion, but it produces an inferior TV product and doesn’t do radio or the internet at all.
And more to the point….hardly anyone watches it. A very large proportion of those foolish enough to blow £400 per annum on a Sky platform appear to spend much of their viewing time watching the BBC.
It’s a heck of an expensive way to watch your favourite BBC shows….. but loads of people are doing it.
Which is another reason I think your licence-fee whinge falls on deaf ears…..
JR,
If 80% of people like the BBC, than there is nothing to worry about. Right?
So why, then, are you using your so-called “working hours” on this site?
You are abusing you employers (us, the British public), by wasting your days here.
I for once do not want to pay you to lurk on unimportant talkbacks.
How come you are almost always posting here during work hours!?
Even if your posts here are correct, no one is paying BBC to have a PR campaign!
I have a small business, and I will fire anyone who spends the hours you spend on the internet.
Yes, but Sky and every other outlet have the inconvenience of trying to secure a return for shareholders. Given the freedom to run a £3 billion loss every year of its existence, I’m reasonably confident it could match you. And it does do internet news. Furthermore, I don’t believe I did whinge about the license fee. I’m more concerned with how it’s used.
J.R.
Institutional bias his hard to admit. Institutional racism by the police was revealed by the Stephen Lawrence affair, but it took many years before it was recognised as fact and attempts were made to rectify it.
Honest Reporting gave many illustrations of slanted BBC reporting, in the kind of detail that you usually enjoy refuting, thereby avoiding answering innumerable accusations of the BBC’s intrinsic bias against Israel.
Now you provide your own example of a headline that is soft on the Palestinians, saying the content of the article made up for the headline. But you sneer at the significance of this. If you don’t understand the significance of headlines, chronological order of presentation, use of language and subliminal messages, you shouldn’t be in your job.
There is a reason why so many people like the BBC. The kind of inertia that stops people switching utilities or banks even when they know they’re not getting the best deal. Some are still under the illusion that the BBC deserves it’s reputation for reliability. How long can something keep going on a past reputation?
I would like you to explain what you think is motivating people who argue for fairer reporting of Israel’s case.
And what motivates your insistence that we are wrong.
If the BBC is so wonderful, and consumers buy Sky in order to watch the BBC, it should be no problem for it to scrap its outmoded system of licence fee collection, switch to subscriptions and trounce the competition!
John Reith is an expert at spin, adept at creating straw men and using diversionary tactics to move the original complaint into a much safer area where the original complaint can be safely obfuscated. Some of the new posters here fall for it all the time. Here’s a word of advice from an old lurker and poster.
If you have a good point about BBC bias, and despite the attempts of Mr Reith there are many of them, raise the issue succinctly and then stick to the point until you get an actual answer from John Reith. If you don’t, then you can pretty much assume you were right. Mr Reith will argue only when he feels he can win, if he thinks you are right he ignores you or dissappears for a few days and then starts at a different point.
Despite provocation, do not offer to fight a different battle that simply plays into the Reith tactics.
Take the issue of ‘headlines’ the original and substantive issue is that the BBC deliberately biases its headlines. Reith superbly swung this story around to a imply that the only part of the BBCs enormous output that was biased were a few headlines. Drivel as usual. There is bias a plenty across the whole of the BBC output both broadcast as well as webcast. Headlines were merely a useful example.
A second recent strawman: Reith points to the fact that many people prefer BBC News to Sky. I do not doubt him, his statistics are usually correct. However the appropriate response in terms of BBC Bias is ‘So what?’ I am annoyed with the BBC for its constant output of propaganda (getting to be more and more like Lord Haw Haw all the time)which is deceiving the population, by constant repitition of underlying thematic narratives. The fact that a large part of the population watches the BBC is irrelevant, 70% of those who read newspapers read the Sun.
The fact that a lot of people listen to the BBC doesn’t mean that it isn’t Biased, it makes it even more important that it shouldn’t be.
JR
“Which is another reason I think your licence-fee whinge falls on deaf ears…..”
Not doing a good job of ignoring us are you? Or this is your job?
The ever-unpleasant Reith comes up with another gem:
“Which is another reason I think your licence-fee whinge falls on deaf ears…..”
Yes, Reith, of course your ears don’t hear, nor anyone else at the beeb. The licence fee is a tax, and it pays the wages of arrogant people like yourself. Just so you can all pretend that you are safe in your luxurious leftie-kissing jobs.
It isn’t a whinge. Whinging is what the beeb does when faced with real news that doesn’t match its agenda, or when it has to give an objective view. The beeb distorts and twists and panders to our venal and incompetent government, who a lot of us despise but sadly can’t do anything about until Brown has exhausted his “vision” and allows the public to vote him and his cronies out of office.
In the meantime the beeb desperately papers over the cracks in our socialist utopia society as it squanders wealth, neglects opportunity and suppresses freedoms. All the while it’s nice to know smugs like you sit back and take the money. Tax money, get it? Undeserved and unearned.
Lucky old you, not having to find a real job in the news or entertainment industry.
JR,
BBC revenue is larger, BBC sells its products just like any other company, 3 billion is on top of that. It provides it a competitive edge no one else in the industry has.
I’m sure, being a true Leftie, you think European and US agricultural subsidies are evil when they are undercutting poor African nations’ produce prices!