: 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
General BBC-related comment thread
Bookmark the permalink.
John Reith | 07.02.08 – 1:39 pm
I gave some credit to John Reith for a modicum of intelligence. It seems that I was wrong.
Take a look at the time stamp of Fran’s comment and the time stamp of the BBC story.
Even a cretin could see what Reith doesn’t – that there’s been an edit and not a stealth one either.
So the prize for “shameless and blatant mendacity” goes to John Reith!
Dear Mr Reith (aka Valiant-for-Truth) –
As always, you dissemble mightily, and, as always, the BBC is not merely economic, but positively frugal, with the facts.
Why was the Gaza raid “deadly”, but Hamas’s rockets unqualified (did they all land harmlessly in a flowerbed?)
Why are there reports only of Hamas + Palestinian injured?
To rephrase my question, was no-one AT ALL injured or killed by ANY of Hamas’s previous rockets?
Why is there not even a HINT that Hamas’s rocket attacks are ongoing, not just an occasional event.
Here again (from the same report):
“Hamas says it has fired 40 rockets and 60 mortars at southern Israel since the new upsurge in fighting began with a deadly Israeli airstrike on Tuesday afternoon which killed seven Hamas security force members.”
Why was the Israeli reponse “deadly”, but Hamas’s rockets (apparently) no more than fireworks? And why is there no hint that the Israeli airstrike on Tuesday afternoon might, just, have been provoked?
14:18 GMT
Quick put “Nigel Wrench” into Google News…
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&q=nigel+wrench&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn
…and check out the “Presenter is acquitted of assault” BBC News link!!!
Needless to say, the trial continues!
ps. I’ve got a screen grab.
Have a look at this story about the ‘inevitability’ of Sharia law in the UK and then weep.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7232661.stm
Quite apart from Rowan Williams’ shocking dhimmism (Looks like I now need to consider converting to Catholicism) I was particularly interested by the final few paragraphs:
‘Last month, one of Dr William’s colleagues, the Bishop of Rochester, said that non-Muslims may find it hard to live or work in some areas of the UK.
The Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali said there was “hostility” in some areas and described the government’s multicultural policies as divisive.
He said there had been a worldwide resurgence of Islamic extremism, leading to young people growing up alienated from the country they lived in.
He has since received death threats and has been placed under police protection.’
Who knew Nazir-Ali had recieved death threats? Not something I heard reported on the BBC.
Rockall,
Not that the BBC deserves it, but to be fair to them the death threats were in fact reported on R4 news.
On the other hand death threats from the self-avowed Religion of Peace have created a paradox worthy of Bertrand Russell (cf the class of all classes paradox). Either that, or the threateners have a previously unsuspected finely honed sense of irony.
“Even a cretin could see what Reith doesn’t – that there’s been an edit and not a stealth one either.”
There has indeed been a pretty substantial edit:
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/95067/diff/0/1
The substance of Fran’s accusation – that the BBC was clearly suppressing vital facts that could support the Israeli position are laughably off beam.
The truth is the shorter article was a placeholder, as the BBC and other media do on stories of all flavours each day.
Once again, a member of B-BBC’s famed commentariat jumping in at the deep end and getting it flat out wrong because they’re the clearsighted ones and the BBC is ideologically blinded. Right?
p and a tale of one chip:
“Even a cretin could see what Reith doesn’t – that there’s been an edit and not a stealth one either.”
—————
Well, I don’t anything about previous versions or stealth edits. I was looking at the current web-page, and the coverage looks pretty slanted to me (see my comments above).
Anonymous:
14:18 GMT
Great spot! Wonder if anyone’s told the jury? Is the BBC in contempt here? Anyone told the judge?
I don’t normally comment on the Isreal/Palestine issue but the ascerbic comment from PAATOOC deserves a comment.
Ok, it’s a placeholder, just what exempts such placeholders from the charter obligation on objectivity, particularly when related to a highly sensitive issue for whih the BBC has already been heavily criticised in the Balen Report?
Looking at the later edit the story is still heavily slanted. It reads to the casual observer as an unprovoked military attack on innocent Palestinians, even killing a teacher. The first hint that there might have been provocation is a reference to the Dimona attack, now it reads like revenge. It is only when you get to the bottom of the article do you see the rocket attacks with only a quote from Hamas and bugger all to put the attack into context.
Again anyone reading BBC articles will know that these are the handmade rockets that do not do more than produce pinpricks in Isreal.
Finally I simply do not belive that the capabilities of the worlds best broadcasting organisation cannot sort out their IT system to display the actual time of a webpage edit. The only reason it isn’t done is so that people like Mr Reith can deny that any such thing was ever said.
Once again, a member of B-BBC’s famed commentariat jumping in at the deep end and getting it flat out wrong because they’re the clearsighted ones and the BBC is ideologically blinded. Right?
p and a tale of one chip | 07.02.08 – 2:49 pm
Oh dear – another famed Beeboid apologist. Checkout the News Sniffer version 0. Remember also that when Yahoo posted their story (linked above) it already had a much fuller account of what had taken place compared to that laughable piece by the hugely funded, “we’ve-got-correspondents-everywhere” BBC. By the way, shouldn’t that Israeli attack be a “rare” one, or it that word left for Paleosimian atrocities against the Joooozzz?
Presumably Nigel Wrench’s admission in court that he took cocaine with his alleged victim means his BBC career is over and he’ll be forced out of the trough of licence payers’ money regardless of the jury’s verdict?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7232612.stm
I resent paying for any of these wankers let along the law-breakers.
Not bad for the BBC.
Do you think there is a chance that it mnay be improving?
Dr R | 07.02.08 – 11:32 am
Yes, but it’s generally one step forward and ten steps back.
If we can see light at the end of the BBC tunnel, we’re probably looking the wrong way.
John Reith | 07.02.08 – 1:39 pm,
Care to correct your blunder and apologise for getting things so badly wrong?
Or like all good propagandists are you simply going to let it stand in the hope that people will stop reading after your comment and therefore not notice that it has been thoroughly discredited?
Bryan | 07.02.08 – 10:20 pm
Bryan – I think al Beeb’s “John Reith” syndicate have left the retard on Biased-BBC duty. We may have to wait until a member with a higher IQ clocks on. Until then…tumbleweed.
Anonymous | 07.02.08 – 10:38 pm,
I don’t hold the view that there is a John Reith collective posting here. I think there is only one of him, though he probably has help here and there with research.
Come to think of it, one Reith is enough.
John Reith,
I’ll try one last time. Do you have a response to my post on the “Ed Thomas” thread (below the “Great Child Poverty Scam” piece) from 05.02.08 – 3:56 am?
It cites an example of a BBC headline that appears to contradict your defense of the BBC’s rationale for not employing headlines like “Palestinian militants bomb pizza parlour” while at the same time employing headlines like “Israel kills four in Gaza”.
Simon | 07.02.08 – 9:14 pm |
John Reith
You called me a liar. Where I come from that’s a big deal. Now you know that you were wrong.
An swift apology would be appreciated.
Fran | 08.02.08 – 8:15 am
I believe that the only time Reith ever apologised in our debates on this conflict was when I pointed out that he had typed jew instead of Jew. He will not accept my apology for misjudging him and David Gregory over their reaction to a comment by Jonathan Boyd Hunt, even though I’ve reminded him a few times that I expect such acceptance. And he will not apologise for calling some of us “apologists for murder.”
Perhaps Reith has converted to Islam and considers infidels beneath him. I noticed there were no posts from him here during the entire period of the Hajj. Well, I suppose he could have been sunning himself on a beach somewhere. Or working on a BBC documentary entitled Hamas: resistance or terror. (Maybe I shouldn’t give him any ideas.)
So don’t hold your breath for an apology from Reith.
Back to the article under discussion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7232108.stm
Hamas, does not recognise Israel and opposes the peace process.
Unnecessary comma aside, this is typical BBC minimising of the savagry of its terrorist friends. Surely the far more pertinent bit of information is that Hamas’ charter calls for Israel’s destruction and eclipses mere non-recognition? We debated this with Reith on this site years ago. We see the same pattern in the BBC’s Kassam rockets rarely cause injuries, which creates the erroneous impression that they never cause deaths.
Interesting caption to the photo of Palestinians bearing the body of one of the dead:
Israel has stepped up military action against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Funny, I thought Israel was deliberately avoiding attacks on the leaders. I suppose this is just BBC-speak. Anything to avoid naming those attacked as terrorists.
Reith has been flinging the word lying around a lot lately. Maybe he should have a look at the BBC’s lying by omission and distortion of facts.
I think I speak for quite a few people here when I point out that we do not expect the BBC to favour Israel in this conflict, but to be enven-handed. And even-handedness does not mean putting Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah terrorists on the same moral level as the IDF in its attempts to quell terror. It should be obvious to even the most thick-skinned of the anti-Israel crew at the BBC that terrorists do not play by the same rules of engagement as the IDF.
Perhaps Reith has converted to Islam and considers infidels beneath him. I noticed there were no posts from him here during the entire period of the Hajj.
Perhaps when he returns from Friday prayers we’ll hear something from him?
Perhaps when he returns from Friday prayers we’ll hear something from him?
Anonymous | 08.02.08 – 11:20 am
Problem is, I suspect he goes straight from Friday prayers at the BBC prayer room to the BBC bar for happy hour.
David Preiser (USA) | 06.02.08 – 7:56 pm |
i suspect the point is she probably has been through bbc “training”, hence the mindset that provides fertile ground for this type of “error”