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!
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Jack Hughes,
I heard the same ‘report’ and it sounded very much like an open invitation to attend the rent a mob demo?
The BBC did the same thing with the Heathrow climate protest camp last year.
You can imagine that the protesters have a direct line to the BBC and the BBC will happily oblige the rent a mob scumbags whenever they can!
The BBC just happened to be at the Westminster protest with cameras ready and direct lines to the protesters and guests ready in the studio, and they think we wouldnt know that it was a set up job!!!
The BBC have become truly dangerous to Great Britain now and the only option possible is to close it down, sack all the staff and sell off the bits and pieces.
Cassata:
The BBC have become truly dangerous to Great Britain now and the only option possible is to close it down, sack all the staff and sell off the bits and pieces.
Dunno. If it’s that dangerous, wouldn’t you be knowingly selling dangerous goods to unwary buyers?
Hugh:
Do Journalists Generally Swing to the Left?
How scary. It is, of course, a survey of American journos.
I must have missed the bit where they examined the political leanings of the people who have the real power of editorial control – the owners.
I wonder if a survey of, say, Rupert Murdoch, Viscount Rothermere, the Barclay Brothers and Richard Desmond, who between them rule a very high percentage of UK circulation, would reveal any interesting political trends?
Hillhunt: “How scary. It is, of course, a survey of American journos.”
Hence: “interesting if not directly relevant research”
Did you miss that bit? And imagine the bit where I said it was scary? Is this the part where I should make a gag about Specsavers?
“I must have missed the bit where they examined the political leanings of the people who have the real power of editorial control – the owners.”
I don’t know – obviously you’re a bit tired, but maybe they just didn’t do it. Are the big US papers generally accepted to be broadly right-wing then?
“I wonder if a survey of, say, Rupert Murdoch, Viscount Rothermere, the Barclay Brothers and Richard Desmond, who between them rule a very high percentage of UK circulation, would reveal any interesting political trends?”
Yes, it might be interesting. Why do Murdoch’s papers support Labour, for instance; how come the Mail has been falling in and out of love with Gordon since he took power; do Desmond’s political beliefs explain why the Express is so bad; how come, given the dominance in circulation right wing rags enjoy, the only political editor I can name off the top of my head and instantly picture is Michael White; and so on. I think there is indeed scope for an interesting survey. Of course, it would be even more interesting to broaden it out to include the likes of Lyons as well.
Hugh:
You know why the Murdoch press lines up with Labour – a supreme business pragmatism, aka amorality. The same pragmatism that had him ditching Patten’s Hong Kong book lest it offend the distinctly Communist Government of China. But New Labour is a long way from left-wing; and the broad thrust of Murdoch-world is distinctly conservative, as is the Mail’s agenda, whichever party leader it feels will serve its interests best. The Express papers are rubbish and have been for so long it’s hard to remember when they mattered. But their agenda does not play well in Islington.
There are a tiny handful of political editors, but many more commentators who perform a similar function. I’m surprised Trevor Kavanagh didn’t come to mind. Or Simon Heffer. Or Michael Gove. Or mad Mel. Or poor Barbara Amiel for that matter…
A report in The Times about Channel4’s plans to clamp itself further on the taxpayer’s teat (it already gets free broadcast spectrum) includes this depressing statement:-
The notion that Channel 4 requires help in the future seems to be shared across political parties and policymakers, so — absurd as it may seem — the debate is how the help will be delivered.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article3627650.ece
The BBC has called in the police after files holding details of staff going to the Beijing Olympics went missing.
The folders with addresses, passport numbers, pictures, and hotel details of more than 430 staff vanished from Television Centre in west London.
The BBC fears the files have been stolen, possibly for identity theft or an attempt to embarrass the BBC over the number of staff going to the Games.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7316690.stm
Hillhunt: You really are an idiot. You say McLiebour is not left wing, yet this bunch of corrupt Socialists believe in
1. High taxes
2. State control over peoples lives
3. Mass immigration
4. Political correctness
5. Masses of legislation
6. Soft on crime
7. State benefits for idle bastards
8. The removing of personal freedoms
9. ID cards
10. Shit state schools (called officially “Bog Standard”) whilst they send their own kids to private schools.
I could go on. None of the above are right wing policies. They are LEFT WING
McLiebour is full of left wing Socialists that have never done a proper job in their lives.
On BBC News 24 just now. Nick Owen doing the talkover for the latest BBC article on the evil of the plastic bag (whilst Sky News are investigating the abuses in Zimbabwe with the excellent Emma Hurd, nice to see the BBC has the “real” stories).
Yes it’s us “Westerners” according to Nick Owen that are responsible for the plastic bags floating around the pacific ocean.
Very odd that as I though the greenies were complaining that we buried them in the ground over here?
The reality is most of the crap in the Pacific is from China, India, Pakistan and other pacific rim Countries.
Unless the BBC mean those “evil bastard Americans” again?
Martin:
You’re so right.
Murdoch must be a socialist, too. Oh, and the Daily Mail.
Interesting comment from Melanie Phillips on the bias of the BBC’s new Arabic service:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/577881/the-bbcs-arabic-service.thtml
Key point; not only is the BBC always supposed to be impartial, but this section is actually funded by the foreign office and yet is helping fan muslim sense of greivance against the west. Un-bel-iev-able.
hillhunt
are you going with the 437 bbc staff on their jolly to china?
do you think those numbers justified?
remember for the most part they are taking actual chinese coverage not making their own
are we about to witness another automatic attempt to defend the indefensible?
437 staff, that’s equivalent to 1.5 Boeing 747-400s or 2 Boeing 767-300s and a grand total of 750,000 kg of additional CO2 as a direct BBC contribution to climate change.
It would be interesting to know the equivalent numbers for Sky and ITV.
Do as I say not as I do that’s the Beeboid motto.
Another bit of drive-by misrepresentation, if not outright lying, by the BBC regarding the evil United States.
Donors accused of failing Afghans
I only found this article after catching Katty Kay of BBC World News lose badly in her attack on a bigwig from the US government (I didn’t catch his name as she mumbled it and didn’t even enunciate the last part of his name at the end of the segment, her voice filled with disappointment (my inference, of course, but she definitely garbled his name).
This article takes the same line as Katty, that the US (no other donors are mentioned by name in the article, only on the list at the bottom) but let’s be honest, this is really about the US) has failed to provide half the aid money promised to Afghanistan. Not only that but – and this is the unconscionable bit – some 40% of that money ends up in the bank accounts of companies in the countries of origin.
The government guy smacked down these accusations by saying that this is a false representation of how the system works. Of course all that money hasn’t been officially “spent” yet because the bill doesn’t come due until a given project is finished. Ergo, X amount of aid money cannot be called “paid”, but that doesn’t mean nothing is being done, which is the implication of the article, Katty’s accusations, and the Oxfam report. Katty never asked anything about what had been accomplished so far. No, it was only indignation that United Statesians might actually get paid for some of it.
So it is a gross misrepresentation, if not an outright lie, to say that the US has failed to provide half the promised aid. There are obviously many projects currently underway, and the money to pay for them out of the promised aid has already been allocated. The bills will be paid when the current projects are completed, and the full amount of aid money will be “spent”. It’s just not possible to “spend” all that money within the time period on which this whole accusation is based.
“Two-thirds of aid bypasses the Afgan government”, eh? Have we not learned our lesson about pouring money blindly down a corrupt rabbit hole? No, of course not, as the BBC tells us that an unamed USaid official said “only 6% of the overall budget was spent through the Afghan government “to ensure US taxpayers’ money could be accounted for” – implying a lack of trust in the government system.”
Handing over money to a fledgling Afghan government that has no means to distribute it or do much of anything is almost as stupid as handing over billions of dollars in aid money to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. But not according to the BBC, apparently.
Worse, “forty per cent of aid goes back to donor countries in consultant fees and expatriate pay.” The essence of the US gov’t guy’s response to Katty was that one of the best uses of aid money is to get highly qualified people in there to fix things up, people who know what they’re doing. Funneling cash to neophyte Afghan politicians and tribal leaders doesn’t accomplish anything. Experts and companies that have the capability to accomplish major undertakings don’t grow on trees, and one has to pay them. Those things don’t exist in Afghanistan – let’s be very clear about that – so of course some of that money is going to end up elsewhere.
Secondly, the guy also said that if good aid is given, and a successful development project is accomplished and real help is given to Afghans, and the result is that %40 of the money ends up back in US company bank accounts, the bottom line is that good aid was accomplished. He makes no apologies for that, and I say neither should anyone else. To distract from the task at hand – providing aid and relief, and creating the necessary infrastructure to develop Afghanistan – and focus on where the money ends up afterwards is seriously misguided. If nothing is being done and money is being paid out but disappears (like in Palestine, or when we give money to many local Iraqi leaders in lieu of professionals) then the job being done is what is important. Otherwise it’s just a complaint that the nasty US is somehow making money on all this, and gives away the game. In that case, it becomes an anti-Capitalist issue rather than genuine concern for Afghan citizens.
But the BBC doesn’t want you to know that. What’s that you say? The BBC is just impassionately reporting the Acbar/Oxfam report? Oxfam are beyond reproach, you say, and the US is nasty because they have obviously failed the Afghani people?
Well, all you are allowed to know is that the unnamed USaid official blamed security for the problem. I guess they won’t bother updating this article, or produce a new report incorporating the statements of the guy Katty went after the other night. That would give the British Public some real information on which to base their opinions. Can’t have that, can we? The BBC expects it can get away with these outright misrepresentations, even when their accusations are smacked down by someone telling the truth on one of their own World News programmes. I wonder if Katty’s interview with this guy was even shown in the UK? Otherwise all you get are falsehoods about how the money is being spent, or not spent.
Here’s a very interesting interview with Richard Landes of “Pallywood” fame in which he answers some of the issues dealt with here recently, such as faking reports, blood-libels, and appeasement among other things. Very meaty and well worth reading the whole thing.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206446110850&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
“I consider myself on the Left,” says Landes, during an hour-long interview earlier this month in Jerusalem. “I’ve always been a liberal. I’ve always been in favor of progressive projects.”
But, according to Landes, in the current global climate, a dangerous meeting of forces is taking place that must be fought: the blood-libels of pre-modernism and the post-modernist constructs of reality that allow for them. “It’s like a wedding of pre-modern sadists to post-modern masochists,” insists Landes. “It’s a match made in hell.”
Discussing breakthroughs in mass communications – comparing the advent of the printing press to that of cyberspace – Landes believes that there is an opportunity to combat misinformation on a large scale through the Internet. Indeed, Landes himself maintains two Web sites, Second Draft and Augean Stables.
…
I made a documentary film called Pallywood, and tried to shop it around. I figured [the network] ABC would be interested in it as rivals of CBS whom we criticized [for bad coverage]. I was wrong. The guy at ABC said, “I don’t know how much appetite there is for something like this.”
Then I ran it by somebody else, who said, “We couldn’t broadcast this unless it were balanced.”
When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, “We’d have to have something showing how the Israelis also fake it.”
So, I gave up. Remembering the outcome of the Dan Rather affair [involving a 60 Minutes II report – broadcast on September 8, 2004 – on George W. Bush’s National Guard service, which was exposed by bloggers to have been bogus. The incident ended in Rather’s resignation from CBS.], I decided to post Pallywood on the Web.
That was in the fall of 2005. By the summer of 2006, it had already been seen by a good 50,000-100,000 people.
…
Now, the Gaza beach incident… is not Pallywood in the sense that these people are not faking injury. They’re really dead. But the overwhelming evidence is that they were killed by a Palestinian land mine. It was a terrible human tragedy. But the Palestinians just blamed Israel, and the press ate it up. And herein lies another real tragedy: The eagerness with which the media seize upon anything negative about Israel, and the reluctance with which they reveal anything negative about the Palestinians, have radically skewed the world’s view of what’s going on here.
If that’s the case – if the media are biased in that way – then why would the Palestinians need to stage anything?
Because it gives the press the tools with which to tell the Palestinians’ story. Their story in the intifada was, “We poor Palestinians were all of a sudden aggressed against by the Israelis who started shooting at us madly.”
And in the West, people are indignant over the disproportion in the casualties. I mean, you’ve got editorials saying that the Palestinians have lost six times as many people as the Israelis. So what are they saying? That the Israelis have to lose as many as the Palestinians in order for the world to think it’s balanced?
You’ve got Palestinians who want to get out a story about Israeli aggression. You have media that want to tell that story. And you have Pallywood that makes it possible for the media to tell the story of the Palestinian David against the Israeli Goliath.
…
We’re in a situation now in Europe where the elites – the media and academia – are still completely committed to this paradigm of “anti-Zionism is good and Islamophobia is bad.” These are interesting moments in history, when an elite becomes so out of touch with the populace.
…
In the West, you have a phenomenon where people are so attached to the politically correct paradigm: “If we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us.” This means that if only Israel would make concessions, then we could get things on the right track. And the way to do this is through negotiations. Then you get all sorts of saying like, “War never solved anything.”
The Romans had a great expression: “Si vis pacem para bellum” – if you want peace, prepare for war. Now, I consider myself on the Left. I’ve always been a liberal. I’ve always been in favor of progressive projects. But the problem for the Left is because we like to be nice, we can’t imagine preparing for war. We don’t want to imagine preparing for war. And we can’t believe that others may have a different view of things. It’s what can be called “cognitive egocentrism” – projecting onto others what you believe.
But guess what? Democracy was not established peacefully. The fear of picking up weapons is that once you do, you won’t know when to stop. But the whole point about democracy is knowing when to stop. And the whole problem with pre-modern cultures is they do not know when to stop. This is why we have to beat them.
Do read it all!
Hillhunt: What on earth are you prattling on about?
You keep going on about Murdoch and The Daily Mail. We are here talking about the BBC for which we are forced to pay for.
Why is it that when confronted with facts, you turn to pointless attacks on totally non relevant organisations?
Does anyone make you pay to keep the Daily Mail or Sky running?
I bet if you were, you’d be up their with your camp leftie mates complaining.
Arthur Dent: I think for the last World Cup the figures for ITV and Sky were published and the numbers of staff were far far lower that which the BBC sent to Germany.
If you take the recent green meeting in Bali, the BBC sent its at least 10 journalists (+ camera crews, sound people and producers)
Sky sent 1 reporter and what appeared to be a broadband internet camera.
I still don’t know why BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC radio 4, BBC News 24, Radio 5, the BBC internet, BBC world service all have to send their own reporters.
Can’t 1 reporter simply file reports for the network as a whole? Sky manage to use their reporters for themselves and Fox News (+ others that we may not get to see)
Why can’t the BBC do that?
Dutch MP posts Islam film on web
The BBC are such cowards they won’t post a link to the film!
Here it is:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ee4_1206625795
English version here:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d9_1206624103
I am confused why the BBC artile about the Fitna film has a subheadline with ‘Spiteful’ ?
Just watched the film. Fail to see why it should be hyped up by the BBC as controversial. Mind you only the BBC in it’s ridculous inimitabe way could pose this question.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=4532&edition=2&ttl=20080327210857
It is a brilliant film. Funny that the BBC wouldn’t link to it.
What really concerned me was just how much of the footage came from the UK.
And you really do have to ask why an organisation like the BBC that has so many homosexuals working within it is so supportive of a religion that wants to dangle them all from a crane jib?
“so many homosexuals working within it is so supportive of a religion that wants to dangle them all from a crane jib?”
Truly, the homosexual mafia is a force to be reckoned with. You can’t the Pink Brigade d00d, count me out of it.
🙂
No I like you really Martin.
But really, the cognitive dissonance with liberalism v Islam is really a wonder. Truly, a wonder. There is no precedent for it in history. Only in extreme religious movements (like Jim Jones) can we see such imbecility.
What strikes me about “Fitna” is that with the exception of the stastics on the number of Muslims in Holland and Europe all the words are quotes from the Koran or spoken by actual Muslims.
So who’s being offensive?
In an unequaled display of Chutzpah Muslim group seeks fine for Dutch lawmaker, ban on anti-Quran film
A Dutch judge is due on Friday to hear the petition of a Muslim group seeking an independent review of an anti-Quran film by lawmaker Geert Wilders to see whether it violates hate speech laws.
The petition, seen by The Associated Press Thursday at the Hague District Court, says the Dutch Islamic Federation “believes the situation of Muslims in the Netherlands today is comparable with that of our Jewish fellow-citizens in the 1930s.”
The federation asked for a fine of $79,000 per day if Wilders airs the film, and a $7,900 fine for each future instance of an “injuring remark.”
Although the exact contents of the 15-minute film are unknown, Wilders has said it will underscore his opinion that the Quran is a “fascist” book and Islam is incompatible with democracy.
Officials fear it could spark violent protests in Muslim countries, similar to those two years ago after the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.
Watching the BBC Panorama tonight on the grooming of young white girls, the BBC claimed that this “crime” had gone largely unreported.
Hmm. I suggest the BBC try using “Google”. There are plenty of reports on the arrests and prosecutions of men for these crimes.
Could it not be that in the past the BBC simply didn’t want to report or highlight such stories?
After all Channel 4 were going to run a program about it were they not?
And why didn’t the BBC interview Ann Cryer MP who has been campaigning on this for some time? Perhaps because of this comment?
“I think there is a problem with the view Asian men generally have about white women. Their view about white women is generally fairly low. They do not seem to understand that there are white girls as moral and as good as Asian girls.”
Her comments above ring so true after hearing the scum talking about the girls to the Police when sitting in their cars.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2237940.ece
The BBC, Fitna the movie and half the story.
Other than the comments already aired. I must admit the BBC do a great job on describing the movie.
“And pictures appearing to show Muslim demonstrators holding up placards saying “God bless Hitler” and “Freedom go to hell” also feature”
I wonder where the director found those pictures in which to slate our very sensitive friends as worshippers of ‘Murder, Death, Kill’ Personally I think he found them at the latest N.U.T. AGM.
Going to love reading the letters in the Morning.
The BBC, Fitna the movie and half the story.
Yes, I noticed that “… pictures appearing to show Muslim demonstrators…
It’s a variation on “Israel says” or “Israel claims”.
They do bloody well show Muslim demonstrators holding up placards saying “God bless Hitler” and “Freedom go to hell”!!!
Yes and most of those protesters were filmed here in the UK!!!
A very telling post at LGF about the ex-beeboid dominated Al-JE:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=29408_Dave_Marash_Quits_Al_Jazeera&only
“Situation of muslims comparable to Jews in the 1930s”?
Ah yes, that would be the Jews who marched with placards saying “God Bless Hitler” or “Behead those who insult Judaism”. The Jews who suicide-bombed all those German underground stations and hacked the heads off infidels, garrotting a liberal film maker in broad daylight in the name of the Pentateuch? Those Jews?
The BBC’s Arabic Service
“Trevor Asserson is a British lawyer (who now lives in Israel) who for years has campaigned against the BBC’s bias against Israel. He has now produced an even more serious charge against the BBC — that during the 2006 Lebanon war, the BBC’s Arabic service provided a platform for the campaign by Hezbollah and Iran to delegitimise and demonise both the USA and Israel in the eyes of the Arabic speaking world”.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/577881/the-bbcs-arabic-service.thtml
“Given the current state of world affairs • and with the BBC just having launched an Arabic TV service to rival al Jazeera — surely these revelations should now be raised in the House of Commons as a matter of urgency?”