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 also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
General BBC-related comment thread!
Bookmark the permalink.
I see the BBC are spinning for Red Ken again.!!! When his buddy Lee Jasper got the push it was hidden away in the pages of the BBC news website. However, Red Ken’s re-election launch seems to have to be on the front page of the BBC news website.
Any reason why Beeboids? And how come we don’t find boris there as well?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7303105.stm
The link above is to the politics section, but the main link is on the front of the home page.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Of course I’m sure this is NOT bias from the BBC is it?
Well the BBC 6pm news seemes obsessed with the US economy (blame Bush no doubt)
However, what about OUR economy? The BBC haven’t mentioned Muppet or his puppet once all day on 5 lite or News 24.
What abour OUR interest rates then?
Seems to me the BBC are giving McLabour another easy ride.
No doubt the Muppet will come out of hiding on Sunday to give a bum licking interview to Andrew Marr telling us just how great things are under McLabour.
And finally!!!! the BBC actually mention on the news about Obama and his racist preacher.
Well they sort of mention it. A little clip off of Youtube of Fox News (those evil right wing bastards you know)
Er, well BBC it wasn’t just about 9/11. This arsewipe accused the USA of developing HIV to kill off the blacks.
The BBC totally ignored the Swift Boat controvery in the last US election, something that helped do in John Kerry. People in the UK were amazed he lost, yet anyone that used any other news source other than the BBC would have known all about it.
Yet again the BBC telling us half a story.
Martin:
I see the BBC are spinning for Red Ken again.!!!…….
Any reason why Beeboids? And how come we don’t find boris there as well?
Of course I’m sure this is NOT bias from the BBC is it?
Martin | 18.03.08 – 7:00 pm | #
Well Martin I don’t suppose this article has been forgotten yet even if it is 6 years old.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/03/14/do1402.xml
I followed a link from the BBC news front page (international version) to this :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2008/02/080225_iraq_war_shaped_one.shtml
I can’t be bothered to listen to it, but I did smile at this intro :
Four leading voices of the BBC’s coverage in the last five years (Jim Muir; Magdi Abdelhadi; Lyse Doucet and John Simpson) give their varying assessments of how the Iraq invasion and subsequent insurgency developed, charting the missed opportunities and faulty assessments by the Coalition, and the murderous exploitation of Iraq’s post-war frailty by Saddam loyalists and foreign Islamists.
If anyone does manage to summon up enough enthusiasm to listen, I’d love to know in what respect their “varying assessments” vary.
Justin Webb on his blog: “Apologies for coming rather late to the turbulent priest issue”
I hope my response appears in the comments:
Rather late is correct, Justin. I posted a comment to your blog back in January asking why, given your evident fascination with the influence of religion in the Republican Party, you didn’t have a similar interest in the controversial views coming out of Obama’s church. It was one of those rare occasions on the BBC Editors blogs that I got a message confirming my post had been received. Sadly it never appeared, but I hope you read it. Just think, if you had ignored your prejudices (religion only matters where the right-wing is concerned) and challenged your own white liberal guilt, you could have broken this story two months ago.
6 pm R4 news tonight. Ken is up against the accident prone Boris (words to that effect). Then something from Red Ken, nothing from Boris. Followed by an item about the higher ice cover in the arctic this year, but it’s new ice, not old ice so don’t worry it’s only a blip, before long we will see an ice free north pole. How blatant can these people get??!!
they covered the Obama hate preacher on the 6 o clock news on radio 4, without ONCE actually playing the audio of Reverand Wright that’s been all over U.S. talk radio the past week.
their bias is just staggering.
I can never post to Webbs blog. It always times out. Guess the BBC don’t like what I say about them?
Why does the British media keep saying this preacher only made one speech?
Anyone who has watched Fox News will have seen that they have tapes of this stuff.
Oh and Fox actually interviewed this preacher some time back on the Hannity and Colmes show (best political show on TV) and Obama has been on Fox news at least twice in the last week (Chris Wallace and Hannity and Colmes again) talking about this.
So much for the bollocks put around by the BBC liars who claimed Obama was boycotting Fox News.
Martin,
Hannity and Holmes does what the BBC fails to do – it gives both left andf right fair coverage. Aadmirable programme.
Re: DB post at 7.45 pm
Just want to confirm, as of 20:04 on March 18th, your comment made Justin Webb’s blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2008/03/turbulent_priest_issue_1.html
Whether it remains there is another matter entirely!!
David: Yes it does. Fair and balanced. Something the BBC doesn’t understand.
The BBC’s idea of fair and balanced would be Polly Toynbee and Yasmin Alabi-Brown or Lord Wedgewood Benn (the man who calls himslef a war hero ho ho ho ) and George Galloway.
Ever wondered why on every BBC phone in about Nu Labour or how well the Government is doing or on BBC Questiomtime there is always a big pro Labour crowd from Liverpool?
Well this will answer your question.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=536556&in_page_id=1770
From the Irish news about the BBC journalists who were arrested and how it happened previously when journalists found themselves IN the news rather than making it. Sorry no link, subs required.
———————————–
Media makes the news with paramilitaries By Seamus McKinney
18/03/08
THE arrest of four BBC journalists in Co Donegal is not the first time the media has found itself making the news in its dealings with paramilitaries.
North and south of the border, authorities have always had a mind to clamp down on what they see as paramilitary propaganda. Government efforts reached their height in 1977 in the Republic and 1988 in the north.
The Dublin government had used Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act to censor paramilitary output since being introduced by Fianna Fail’s Gerry Collins in 1971, but Labour minister Conor Cruise O’Brien strengthened the legislation in 1977, consigning Sinn Fein and others to the broadcasting wilderness.
In the north, Conservative minister Douglas Hurd also introduced a broadcasting ban in October 1988.
The move was vehemently opposed by BBC journalists, who held regular protests to highlight the censorship.
In the following years, the viewing public were regularly treated to actors’ voices dubbed over silent images of Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other leading republicans.
Throughout the Troubles many reporters were questioned by the RUC and gardai after stories appeared quoting spokesmen for the IRA, INLA, UVF or UDA.
Journalists also found themselves at the centre of major news stories rather than just reporting them.
In 1983 the late Donal McDermott’s picture went around the globe when the Provisional IRA handed over Paddy Gilmour, the father of republican ‘supergrass’ Raymond, to him almost a year after he was abducted.
More recently, former Sunday Times Northern Ireland editor Liam Clarke was arrested following the publication of alleged transcripts of telephone conversations between Martin McGuinness and senior London government figures.
But it was broadcasters who were particularly targeted by British governments, particularly Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration.
One of the most famous cases was in 1979 and involved Jeremy Paxman, now presenter of the BBC’s Newsnight programme.
Working for Panorama, Paxman and colleagues travelled to Dublin to interview Sinn Fein about
the possible extradition from New York of an IRA supporter.
However, the team received a call inviting them to Carrickmore in Co Tyrone where they witnessed a Provisional IRA roadblock, staged after the British army claimed it controlled the area.
News of the stunt • involving a number of hooded and armed IRA men • emerged through the Hibernia magazine and according to one report, Margaret Thatcher went “scatty” and ordered home secretary William Whitelaw to sort out the BBC.
Following an internal BBC inquiry, one senior editorial manager was officially reprimanded while another was moved from Panorama to other duties.
As a junior journalist, Paxman escaped attention.
The Carrickmore footage was never screened.
And while Mrs Thatcher had a particular dislike for coverage of paramilitary stunts, the British Labour Party was also willing to threaten action.
In 1976, then secretary of state Roy Mason accused the Beeb of “encouraging terrorism” by broadcasting an interview with a republican who said he wanted to see British soldiers sent home in coffins.
————————————–
So it was nothing new that the spotlight team were arrested.
Martin | 18.03.08 – 9:11 pm | #
David Vance | Homepage | 18.03.08 – 9:02 pm | #
At the end of the day, it not even that the BBC inadequately covers all political spectra, I wouldn’t mind so much if it’s output was not so stale, cliched and dull.
The BBC are stuck in a civil servant-type mentality permeating all levels. There is little entrepreneurial spirit.
They parade the same windbags spouting the same opinions on climate change, Israel, multi-culturalism, etc.
The organization desperately needs an overhaul to keep it fresh and enterprising, but this is unlikely for an entity that subscribes to socialist principles…
More BBC bias. On Radio 5 that moron Richard Bacon is having a debate about the state of the economy. The only politician he has on is a Labour member of the treasury. Not Tory or Lib Dem in sight.
This has been going on all day. Can anyone remember a Tory being interviewed about the state of our economy on the BBC?
At teatime, on BBC Radio 5, two Beeboids were extolling one of the greatest speeches ever made in the history of the world – by their beloved Mr. Obama. Oh, they gasped, the ‘POETRY’ of that man’s speech. Can he do anything as wonderful when he’s president, they mused. The context of the worrying and alarming Rev. Wright was brushed aside.
The gullibility, the sycophancy, the propaganda of the BBC in all this.
For an alternative view:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/564951/trashing-grandma-yet.thtml
Martin:
The BBC’s idea of fair and balanced would be Polly Toynbee and Yasmin Alabi-Brown or Lord Wedgewood Benn (the man who calls himslef a war hero ho ho ho ) and George Galloway.
Martin | 18.03.08 – 9:11 pm | #
In passing, I have little time for Benn: I’ve worked close to him and know him. For all his faults and looniness, however, I’ve NEVER heard him decribe himself as a war hero and would be amazed if he had. And he is not and never was “Lord Wedgewood Benn”. He was briefly Viscount Stansgate before he won the right to renounce his peerage.
Just now on News at 10 – apparently Boris is ‘plotting’ to remove Ken Livingstone from office. And Ken himself launched a ‘sober’ campaign today. So Boris is a sinister plotter and Ken is sober… wow.
If anyone does manage to summon up enough enthusiasm to listen, I’d love to know in what respect their “varying assessments” vary.
Lee Moore | 18.03.08 – 7:48 pm
Punctuation?
Sorry if this has already been mentioned.
Tuesday 18 March BBC website:-
1)Rabbi stabbed in East Jerusalem, Israeli police say.(??Was he or wasn’t he? Can’t be a difficult question to establish)
2) Last paragraph “Palestinians want the occupied portion (of Jerusalem)which includes the old walled city and its holy sites,as the capital of a state which they want to establish in THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK AND THE GAZA STRIP (my capitals)
Who writes this garbage? Must be one of their unbiased Gaza correspondents!!
Sorry. Meant to say that the last sentence implies that the West Bank AND the Gaza strip are occupied. It’s extremely ambiguous, and poor journalism.
The great visionary and author Arthur C Clarke died today. Can the BBC explain why they seem to be the ONLY ones I’ve found so ar online who twitter on about UNPROVEN and UNFOUND accusations of child abuse…? Now if he were a Labour supporter I expect they would have gone overboard in their grief AND not mentioned drug abuse, rape charges, drink problems, tax evasion etc etc if their hero had been accused of same!,
twits.
MattLondon: That old twat Benn NEVER shuts up about how he fought the “Fascists”. If you’ve ever heard the arse on Question Time he’s always going on about being in the RAF in WW2.
Fact is he didn’t do anything. His brother did and I respect that. But Benn is just a man sad old man who should have been locked away in a mad house years ago and been fed on baby food.
MattLondon | 18.03.08 – 11:31 pm |
I saw a Question Time once where Benn was on the panel. On a video link was John Bolton.
Benn subjected Bolton to a far-left rant, during the course of which he implied that he had been flying aircraft over Nazi Germany in WW11.
The reality is that Benn spent most, if not all of WW11 jaunting around the skies of Rhodesia and South Africa just in case any Messerschmitt made it that far.
I’ve not been able to find out if he used any family connections to ensure such a cushy billet, but it would not surprise me.
Incidentally, after Benn’s wild-eyed rant, which left-wing BBC Dimblebore allowed to continue uninterrupted, John Bolton responded by saying something like, “It’s not worth responding to that”.
Martin | 19.03.08 – 12:17 am |
Snap!!!
The BBC are going into masturbation over drive about the economy. Yet still not a single comment about the failure of McBean or his stuffed dummy.
McBean takes the plaudits for pissing away billions over the last 10 years, yet now the fat one eyed deformed jawed jock has almost bankrupted the Country the left are frightened to say anything against him.
Funny that they are quick to remind us of the evil days of the “Torees” and their 15% interest rates.
Disitnerested Bystander: Yes, I’ve seen Benn continually go on about his service for Queen and Country as well. Have you heard him come out with the story about being in Egypt?
How that aresehole can say that when great men like Douglas Bader, Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire did a billion times more amazes me.
Funny that Benn seemed happy to serve in the RAF which was part of the British Empire that was keeping the natives down via air power and had done so for many years.
Has anyone heard anything in the British press about this:
Muslims in UK complain about Poles
Will the BBC now apologize for “Here Come the Poles”? If they do, we’ll know why.
I had to laugh today. BBC News 24 had a report about the new Airbus A380 landing at Heathrow. Naturally they had a lettuce eating Greenie there to complain.
How perhaps I missed something, but I thought the Greens were mostly upset about people taking short haul flights when they could either walk or cycle?
But this Greenie complained that the fact the Airbus A380 (a long haul plane) was more efficient didn’t matter. Flying is bad.
But how many people take really long haul flights? Not that many of us I suspect.
More double standards by the Greens.
And from America…tent cities! Well, tent city…well, 300 people living rough in California. The BBC interview, which is making the rounds in the blogsphere, indicates that the recent housing market collapse in the US has forced people in California to live in tents, a la’ “Hooverville”.
Problem is, while the video clearly indicates people are being forced from their homes and into tents, the BBC article that accompanies the story contradicts that premise – of course you’d have to read to the end to find it:
“There are thousands like him across California – people whose inability to finance their mortgages has cost them their homes; many thousands more across the US.”
“But in Tent City, at least, he is in a minority – few are here as a direct result of the housing crash.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7297093.stm
There was a newsnight report on the conservatives the other night, it happened to be filmed on a farm and the bbc didnt miss this opportunity. The film started looking down at a pig behind a fence, snorting away, and Michael Cricks voiceover said “The Conservatives…”
Just a coincidence i am sure.
also, that idiot Robert Peston has done a trailer for BBC news explaining how he predicted the downfall of Northern Rock and broke the story.
The fact is that lying piece of trash didnt have a fkn clue anything was up with the economy, viewers didnt hear a peep.
To back this up he has described current economic problems as “a hangover”
whereas real experts like Barry Eichengreen, have said they cant get to sleep at night they are so worried.
In the comprehensive spending review announced to parliament, the chancellor said he would increase funding for the World Service, which comes out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget, by £70m over the next three years.
The new deal will see the total World Service budget rise from £246m this financial year to £271m in 2010-2011.
New government funding will allow the BBC to launch its first new news channels for a decade.
It provides funding for the BBC to extend its planned 12-hour Arabic news channel, to be launched later this year, to 24 hours a day from next year.
The extra cash should also mean the BBC can boost the number of journalists the channel will have across the world.
It will also allow the World Service to fund the creation of a separate BBC news and information television channel in Farsi, for Iran, which will be launched next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/09/radio.bbc
Nice. Here we have the BBC, with the blessing of the Labour government and funding from the British taxpayer, embedding itself ever deeper with the terrorists in this war on terror.
I should add that the Guardian article I linked to above is from 2007.
Isnt it funny how The BBC always manage to ‘forget’ the word ‘Labour’ when cases of vote rigging and ballot stuffing and dirty electoral tricks are brought to light? However, when its a Conservative polititian in the frame then the BBC always seems to remember the persons political affiliation! Strange that eh? I wonder what the reason(excuse) for that may be?
The fact that labour polititians are much more likely to commit electoral fraud than all the other parties put together! Yet still the BBC get away with this blatant bias and nobody is calling the BBC propagandists to account. The BBC trust has been infiltrated by NuLabour placemen, so they are no help, the Tories sit there petrified, like rabbits caught in a cars headlights, so they are no use either.
The arrogant BBC have been able to geet away with it for years and it seems the only people who are logging and recording BBC bias is biased BBC!
This site is not so much a blog as an historical record waiting for the day when justice catches up with the BBC.
The TOADY SHOW is still pushing the Ed Balls fake report on the schools “cash for places” story, even though its now been proved that the evidence was made up! The TOADY SHOW jokers thought it would be a good idea to ask the opinion of one Sadique Khan, NuLabour drone and yes man. The question is, just why did TOADY think that defending a faked up report by a NuLabour minister might be a good idea?
How many faked up reports and NuLabour propaganda has the TOADY SHOW pushed? I have to hope that someday justice will be served.
A very interesting report on the TOADY SHOW about massive government waste but carefully repackaged to portray the NuLabour regime in a positive light. According to TOADY the Conservatives report was an attempt to make “political capital” out of the issue, Hmmmm? and the canservative proposals ammount to “cutting services” while the NuLabour “initiatives” are efficiency saivings,Hmmm?
But tucked away was the amazing admission that government finances are “in a real mess”! Is this the NuLabour press offices(TOADY) first attempt to ‘mannage’ and ‘control’ the fortcoming news that the NuLabour regime can no longer keep up its lavish public spending? Are cuts on the way? Its a very sneaky and dishonest way to bring up massive cuts in public spending isnt it?
The TOADY SHOW wants you to believe that proposed cuts by a future Tory regime will mean cutting essential sevices BUT a current Labour regime in power trying to do it is only efficiency savings!
Does TOADY have a direct phone line to the NuLabour party office?
Please forgive spelling erros in my last post!
Love the blog. I hope when the time comes for justice it will form a very useful body of evidence against this ‘criminal’ organization.
I switched off any BBC news ages ago to save my sanity. However, things still leak through. Radio 2 this morning on Sarah Kennedy was highlighting a story about rigged postal votes – the culprit was lo and behold a Conservative – with an Asian name!! To me this says more about Asians than Conservatives, but of course that is not what the BBC is trying to do.
Keep up the good work.
There was a fascinating debate on Hardtalk between Sarah Montague and Eli Moyal, Mayor of Sderot. Here the abrupt, angry Moyal was presenting hard, honest truths while Montague was evidently finding it quite difficult to remain unflustered and even-tempered. On the question of the “blockade” Moyal said that he could see “hundreds of trucks going into Gaza on a daily basis,” which made Montague lapse into petulance with her, “So the whole world is wrong then?” Moyal invited her to come to Gaza to see for herself.
Early on in the interview, Montague asks, “Why does anyone stay in Sderot,” as if it is as simple as moving from an unpleasant part of London to a more acceptable area – revealing, perhaps unconsciously, a willingness to see Israelis collapse and give up in the face of terror, just so that the poor, oppressed Palestinians can give expression to their natural, and completely understandable inclination to fire rockets into Israel.
Montague asks whether it’s not the case that even people in Tel Aviv don’t know what life is like in Gaza. “I blame you,” says Moyal, “because you never tell our story.” Well, not never: the BBC has been dragged kicking and screaming at times to report on Sderot from the Israeli perspective when it absolutely has to. One can well understand why Moyal has that perception.
Now it’s difficult to know whether Montague really does see Hamas through something akin to the dope-tinted spectacles of the 60s counter-culture and therefore regards them as principled revolutionaries who only need to be talked to for all problems to dissolve into harmonious bliss.
But that did seem to be her attitude, rather than the line she was taking for the purpose of the interview.
Well worth a watch, if only to see a fine example of the BBC totally divorced from reality regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/progr…alk/ 7294162.stm
Needs Real Player.
Moyal invited her to come to Gaza to see for herself.
Oops, that should be Sderot of course.
And here’s an unbroken link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/7294162.stm
This will clinch it for Beeboids, re-London election, it’s irrepressibly attractive to them:-
the Livingstone-Qaradawi-Chavez-Socialist Alliance-Greens-Dyke-front
“Greens and Livingstone join forces against Johnson”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/18/london08.politicalnews?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Forget all this stuff:
Martin Bright:”I now believe Ken is a disgrace to his office”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23433325-details/I+now+believe+Ken+is+a+disgrace+to+his+office/article.do
Bryan,
Thanks for posting the link. I’ve watched 10 minutes and I cannot stomach any more.
Simpson once again decides his views are simply too important to let trifling issues such as an obligation to report impartiality get in the way:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7303985.stm
Hugh:
OMG: “volunteers” is the new “terrorists“.
Yes, didn’t spot that. I was still turning over the first bit:
“Only one of its original aims, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, has been achieved.
Of the other aims, one was unobtainable because Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction to be destroyed, and the other – bringing democracy to the Middle East – has been indefinitely postponed.
Nothing new in any of this, of course. Anti-war commentators have repeated it all again and again, while pro-war commentators mostly avoid mentioning any of it.”
But what we really want to know is whether going to war in Iraq was right or not. If only he’d tell us! Unfortunately, we’ll never know what Simpson really thinks because of those BBC rules that stop him taking side. Damn that charter!
And what about the surge – is that working?
“Now, the American forces are engaged in fighting a rearguard action, winning time during which the long-term decisions can be taken about withdrawal or some form of continuing presence here.
Some people – for instance Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for the White House – will no doubt call this rearguard action a success. He may even be tempted to call it a victory.
Yet at present it is hard to think of it as particularly successful.”
Again, it seems, the arguments are just too finely balanced. I’m as confused as ever.
Overall, though, was it worth it? And can America win? Or was this whole war simply a bad idea?
“People the world over have been repelled by things that have been done here: things that are now associated with place-names like Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and Falluja.
Above all, we have seen how hard it is for the Americans to deal with a few thousand lightly armed volunteers.
Germany’s 19th-Century Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, said that great powers had to be very careful when they put their military strength to the test. Unless they are overwhelmingly successful, he meant, the perception will be that they have been defeated.
In spite of the new successes on the ground here, that is the long-term danger America faces.”
Who knows, eh?
Mustn’t be silly, though. It’s all about balance over time, isn’t it? I’m looking forward to Douglas Murray’s piece tomorrow.
This is another stupid anti-American article from december 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6202139.stm
But what is more interesting is how defeatist it looks now!