Did anyone else out there happen to tune in to Gabby Logan’s programme on BBC Radio 5 live this morning? The topic of the Chinese Olympics took great prominence as the Olympic Flame travels through London today. We had wise old cove Former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, in the studio to tell us that protests about the Olympics were all very fine but that the Chinese thought in terms of centuries, so they would achieve nothing. Indeed I felt that this was the theme running throughout the programme – protest is futile so better to just lie back and enjoy the BBC coverage of the Games and never mind about the oppression in Tibet. Even as blood runs through the streets of Lhasa, the BBC publicity machine runs through the streets of London, sanitising the behavior of the tyrants in Beijing and with its eye firmly focused on summer ratings. Could it be that with all that investment in its planned coverage of the Beijing Games the BBC is reluctant to grasp the barbarity of the host nation?
SHILLING FOR BEIJING.
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The BBC (and Sky) have been an utter disgrace. This morning, when the silly run started, the BBC gave it full live coverage, but after Konnie Hug was mobbed by protesters, the BBC had some sort of “technical glitch” and for about 1 1/2 hours most of the coverage was done from a distance (from the air)
I assume Sky were taking BBC pictures as well.
The BBC cameras were often turned away from protests and I felt disgusted by the coverage of the BBC, especially when you compare it to the coverage they give of anti war protests or “climate change” events.
It’s quite obvious that the main broadcasters (and I include Sky here) are licking the dirty arse of Gordon Broon.
It will be interesting to see Channel 4 coverage as they are often far more likely to give this sort of thing a fair run.
None of the BBC point out that the Chinese have thier own “Goons” surrounding this silly event.
Can someone please explain WHY Chinese security staff (and exactly WHO are they?) are pushing around our own people? I’m sure many would agree with me saying “fuck off back to China, you’re not wanted here.
Not that the BBC will give that view ANY airtime.
I bet if it were a protest at George Bush the BBC would be salivating at the protests.
It would have been highly symbolic if the flame was put out by the person wth the fire extinguisher, though full marks for the attempt!
I saw the torch and saw the Chinese strong arm heavies/police/army type thugs beating up protesters! What has Great Britain become when we let foreign government heavies roam our streets beating people up? do we not have enough of our own home grown thugs in uniform to do that?
Any comment from the Chinese loving BBC? Any murmur of discontent or indignation or critisism?
The BBC are doing a “world debate” on the internet and how the media is perverting and manipulating the news to fi its own agenda.
Great news you would think? Er but this is the BBC we are talking about here!
The panel was loaded with socialist types and the BBC forgot to include a blogger of course! They didnt want to give a platform to their enemies I suppose?
What of the audience? loaded, like the BBC load all their audiences of course! They looked like media students and democratic party workers and assorted liberal hand wringers and just the kind of nodding heads that the BBC thrives on.
Nothing on the Chinese despotic regime and its brutal crackdown! Natch?
I’ve been disgusted with the BBC today (and Sky). The dirty arse licking of Gordon Brown (did you see that fat coward refuse to hold the flame!, what a twat) by the BBC.
We really are run by scum in Government and the BBC are no better.
Long range camera shots (they stopped the live close ups because you could really hear the anger, the BBC “claimed” that most people were there to applaud the flame, well the close up cameras told another story) so that the BBC could simply zoom out and away was a disgrace.
We will have to look to the Internet to find out the REAL story, not the 3.5 billion a year drug takers.
Martin,
I heard the BBC ‘report’ lying through their teeth again and cropping negative shots where they could and the smearing of the protesters! If those had been Yank heavies pushing around our own people the BBC would be beside themselves with rage and indignation! Because China is socialist its alright and the BBC think those evil and nasty Tibetan criminal warmongers are getting their just desserts?
THE BBC: WE LIE AND WE CHEAT AND HAVE THE MORALS OF A STARVING SEWER RAT AND NOBODY CAN STOP US BECAUSE WE HAVE CONNECTIONS!
Yes. Just watch the totally different spin ITV news put on the story. They were showing their own camera crews being pushed and kicked by OUR police, a far different story from the crap pumped out by the BBC. The ground level shots done by ITV (that the BBC stopped showing) gives a totally different impression. The Police are far more heavy handed. Well done to ITV. Shame on the BBC.
Oh and well done Sugar Babes. At least SOMEONE has had the balls to say NO to this farce.
The BBC has history about this kind of thing – and its not a proud history, eg from 2001;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=MKEGPSXXW2Q03QFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2001/01/11/nhol11.xml
THE BBC has allowed the Government to exercise editorial control over a series of broadcasts to mark Britain’s first Holocaust Memorial Day later this month.
====================
Prior to NuLab I had never known the BBC to hand editorial control to the government. The only vaguely similar situation I can think of was the silly rule in the 90s TV was banned from broadcasting IRA voices, leading to the ludicrous ‘dubbed’ interviews with Gerry Adams etc. And they all featured a prominent warning about the govt rules.
Perhaps an FoI request would be in order.
bodo: Fact is with the internet we can spot the BBC lies. They still think that people believe the crap they pump out. Only fools (and McLiebour supporters) do.
Its the social engineering and the gleeful sucking up that I find nauseating. Its “Dame Kelly Holmes this……” and “Dame Kelly Holmes That……” and “Dame Kelly Holmes the other……..”.
Kelly Holmes was in the Army and won some olympic medals and shes great. We know, Ok?
Oh and well done Sugar Babes. At least SOMEONE has had the balls to say NO to this farce.
Martin | 06.04.08 – 5:40 pm
Not balls, just a load of bollocks, Martin.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7332942.stm
Girl band The Sugababes withdrew from the finale at the last minute, saying singer Amelle Berrabah had been diagnosed with laryngitis. They had earlier carried the torch on an open top bus down Oxford Street.
Konnie Huq didn’t happen to, uh, get any of her clothes torn in the stampede did she?
Just askin’.
Is this the same Huq who attended a Labour function even though she was told it was against BBC rules?.
Cancel your subs to the BBC for the duration of the games. That’s what I’m doing. I’d cancel my subs to the BBC altogether if it was legal in the UK to watch TV without paying the government for the TV drivel it funds.
So these are to whom the BBC refer to as “a contingent of pro-China supporters”? They’re all in uniform, with the official Olympic logo clearly visible, and are not the ones being hassled by the police. Someone might have been more curious about this kind of thing going on on UK soil.
Unfortunately, even the US media has fallen for the canard that it’s just down to free-thinking Chinese citizens who just happen to own matching Olympic track suits, and innocently turned out to support their country.
Biodegradable’s Ghost: So they realised that what they were doing was wrong. Good for them.
To promote this scum activity was wrong.
This exercise was just propaganda for China and the fat Scottish fools that run us went along with it, with the BBC doing an excellent job cleaning Gordon Broon’s piles.
Joe: Yes. She works for the BBC so as with most of them they attend fund raisers for McLiebour on a regular basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/politics/82546.stm
Stop the Beeboids
The government gets the final say so on senior BBC appointments. The government wants the 2012 olympics. There are a lot of people working for the BBC and the government who know which side their bread is buttered. Very cosy. And very cosily the licence fee is raised very cosily every year.
So they realised that what they were doing was wrong. Good for them.
When/where did they say that?
Their statement says they won’t be performing because of laryngitis.
Is that Sugababes code for “we don’t support China and we’re sorry we didn’t realise that when we accompanied the torch on the bus a few hours ago”?
Please stick to the verifiable facts. I’m being to feel like Hillhunt and I don’t like it.
Martin,
http://www.teletext.co.uk/news/national/8c7925d20c6f401126f6599c9473901d/Stars+defend+Olympic+run.aspx
England cricketer Kevin Pietersen described taking part as an “honour” while pop band the Sugababes said the relay was “a great event”.
So great an event they didn’t want to perform at the end?
Believe what you want. I think they realsied that they were part of something rather unpleasent.
I was ashamed of my Country today, I haven’t felt like that since the Cnuts at Westminster voted to go to war in Iraq and since YOU lot voted McLiebour back into power in 2005.
That whole event today was STAGED for China.
We were the whore for China the pimp. And the media cheered it on.
Well I watched the live Olympic torch running event on BBC1 at 5:40pm and I was going to say that it was biased in the exact opposite way! I can’t remember the BBC giving 1 hr of BBC1 coverage of a torch being run around streets for the Athens Olympics. The BBC knew that there was going to be protests and that’s why they have given it so much coverage. They even gave a platform for one of the tree hugging free Tibet protesters to rant off at Jake Humhries. The other male presenter was saying to Sue Barker what a successful protest this has been and that the protesters had a strong track record of protesting and how embarrassing it must be for China. Now compare this to the amount of coverage given to EU Treaty protests or the amount of coverage given to the Lords Report on immigration. Newsnight didn’t do anything on the Lords report, they said they didn’t have enough time, but if it’s a protest done by a bunch of tree huggers, then the BBC will always find plenty of time to give it coverage. Even give it 1hr of BBC1 schedule over to what was just a local news story for London.
Here’s a thought: if we didn’t have rolling 24 news channels, would there have been such protest? It seemed the BBc seemed to need the protesters to fill a quiet news day, and the the protesters need the news channels for their message. Is it called simbiosis?
Mind you, it’s a good thing for us B-BBC readers that it didn’t get to Dublin, and get covered in the Northern Ireland News page, eh! DV meltdown alert!
I couldn’t careless about Tibet or the tea cossie wearing tits who were protesting…or the olympics come to think about it.
James Reynold’s report from China on how the protests in London weren’t shown on Chinese state TV was very sinister. He told jokes about how Chinese state TV reported on the latest tractor production instead. He said the Chinese state broadcaster doesn’t want to report on stories that would upset the ‘cohesion’ in China or words to that effect. He then interviewed people on the street who didn’t know about the protests in London, concluding we in Britain are so lucky to have the BBC telling us everything that happens in the world.
Is this the same BBC that glossed over the Muslim youth riots in Denmark, Geert Wilders and Fitna? The same BBC that tried to gloss over the Lords report on immigration, that came up with a load of excuses as to why they didn’t cover the story on Newsnight? Where are the BBC reporters going round the streets of London asking people what they thought about the rioting in Denmark or about Fitna?
Most people on the streets of London won’t know and anyone that uses the BBC TV as their only source of news certainly won’t know and will be in the dark. Instead, those who use BBC tv as their only source of news will be watching that report thinking how lucky they are to have the BBC telling them everything, when in reality, the BBC is doing its best to keep them in the dark about certain things, just like how Chinese state tv tries to keep its viewers in the dark about certain things.
The BBC is sending 437 staff to the olympics. Why? Hardly anyone would notice if they sent nobody. Let’s face it, the BBC covers the olympics because no other UK TV company wants to.
The olympics are like the EU and the UN to the BBC. They know they are a good thing for everyone despite any evidence to back up this belief.
Benny: Not even the BBC could ignore the protest.
What the BBC did do however is minimise the protest by not going to close in shots ( the action by the pigs looked far worse close up than appeared on TV)
Remember this is the BBC that is sending nearly 450 staff on a long holiday AND has had its webist unblocked by China.
Anonymous | 06.04.08 – 11:08 pm
Benny: Not even the BBC could ignore the protest.
If it had been a protest about the EU, you can bet the BBC wouldn’t have devoted 2x 30 minute programmes to it on BBC1. The BBC might come up with the excuse that these programmes were about showing the Olympic flame, but did they do 2x 30min programmes on BBC1 for Olympic flames in the past? A flame on it’s own isn’t worth that much coverage. But when the BBC decided to put these programmes in its schedule a few weeks ago, they knew it wouldn’t just be about the flame.
They were hoping for live protest footage on BBC1 teatime to embarass China. Would the BBC want to embarass the EU in a similar way?
The BBC was calling the Chinese tracksuits torch attendents or some such similar pathetic term.
There were Chinese police almost without doubt. I was involved with the 2004 Torch Relay overseas and know that the Organising Committee had security with the torch.
If you looked closely you would have seen one of the Chinese detail thrusting cable ties into his waistpack as he run out off the pitch at Wembley. Why did he need them? Was he planning do some electrical work while in London?
The BBC website is running advertising now just like BBC world which is running adverts for whiskey and lots of adverts for Chinese tourism! Grrrreat!
The BBC website is also very busy trying to spin for China, is that going to be a nu oylimpic event? I can imagine the BBC getting a gold medal for that event! and the BBC is doing its level best to minimise and hide British Govrnment involvement too! The BBC are a multi billion pound nu propaganda and nu labour re election mouthpiece now are they?
I wonder if the BBC are employing Chinese state media censors in its TV control room?
I FEEL A FOI REQUEST COMING ON ABOUT WHETHER THE CHINESE STATE RUN MEDIA IS IN CONTROL OR ARE ADVISING THE BBC?
Oh the shame of it!
Chinese thugs roaming about our capital beating people up and being helped and proected by our own uniformed thugs and Chinese state propagandists employed to censor our own national broadcaster? Oh the absolute cringe making and soul destroying shame of it!
THE BBC: DICTATORSHIPS ARE BAD UNLESS THEY ARE SOCIALIST ONES IN WHICH CASE THEY ARE A WONDERFUL BEACON OF SOCIALIST HEAVENLY UTOPIA AND WE AT THE BBC WILL SUPPORT THEM TO THE DEATH!
NuLabour now have the whole political and financial backing of the BBC and they have that FAKE charity, the Smith institute too!
More apparently dodgy goings on with the Have Your Say system:
http://littlebulldogs.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-of-have-their-say.html
Benny | 06.04.08 – 10:39 pm
Is this the same BBC that …. tried to gloss over the Lords report on immigration
are you kidding????
It was the lead item on the Today programme on the day it came out and ran in the news bulletins all day.
I can’t think of any other report from the Lords that’s had such wall to wall coverage.
As of 7 April 2008, 15:26 hours, the BBC web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7327079.stm says: “When the Olympic torch is paraded through London on Sunday, all eyes will be on stars like Dame Kelly Holmes and cricketer Kevin Pietersen.” Really?
This is another clasic cover up done by the BBC.
About three years ago, the BBC had a report on the deaths of Iraqis in the year 2005.
They read out the figures and about five minutes later they ‘apologised’ saying that their figures were ‘incorrect’ and that nobody need pay attention to them.
What utter rubbish!
The Olympic flame run in Paris has been called off because of the protests:
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/23978408/
You can always rely on the French to come up with a proper demonstration. They must have found the sight of Chinese goons just too annoying.
Wonder whether this “evenement” will feature on a retrospective in 40 years time? If there’s still a BBC then of course.
Enviro-loon brags about getting BBC to de-balance a news article:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/4/7/harrabin-gotcha.html
How long before Zanu Labour cottons on to the idea of employing Chinese security to protect itself from the grateful public.
The BBC is not biased, I’m sorry but the view that you clearly have, whereby we should not support the olympics is just a VIEW, just as there is another VIEW that says we should support them. I’ve not heard the BBC say one way or another what they think should happen -this is quite correct. Furthermore, giving undue coverage to the protests would oveshadow the event itself. The BBC correspondant even said that the event had been ‘overshadowed’ by protest. I really don’t think they’re biased. Maybe if they weren’t on such a shoe-string budget, their coverage would be even better.
Anon: I assume the last line was a joke…
Anonymous:
The BBC is not biased, I’m sorry but the view that you clearly have, whereby we should not support the olympics is just a VIEW, just as there is another VIEW that says we should support them.
————————————
Anon, you are right the majority of people who post on this site do hold the view that the BBC is biased, hence the name of the blog……if you want to find a blog that thinks the BBC is impartial may I direct you to the Guardian!, or failing that you could try the other arm of the BBC….Labour.
QuestionThat,
Great link and it was easy to pick up on the not so veiled threats and blackmail from Abbess! In effect she ended up saying amend the article OR ill get my rent a mob gang to smear you and ill get my higher connections to complain to your bosses. Each post by the poisonous cow contained lots of propaganda and nil science, lots of ‘dont give the deniers a platform’ and lots of insults and smears of the ‘tiny minority’ of truth deniers!
This Abbess twat would be at home living the 1984 nightmare for real?
Quite how normal and rational people can interact and debate with neo nazi/marxist type witch hunters like her is beyond me!
Joe (The Netherlands):
The BBC is funded by a violently enforced mafia tax called “TV licence”. Capita enforce it (on behalf of the NuLiarbor regime/The BBC), and use ex-offenders under the “The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974”.
The BBC is to blame, in this instance, because their own guidelines state that they should present an impartial/unbiased view.
They have – yet again – broken their charter.
Please stop posting crap. Other news agencies have reported the truth about yesterday’s events in London and today’s events in France.
The BBC (yet again) has not.
We are all mistaken nothing untoward happened during the procession through London. The Chinese Ambassador to the Court of St James, Fu Ying, said “It’s really a great pleasure to see Londoners smiling and waving.”
Here is the source – http://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/journey/london/news/n214295096.shtml – The Beijing 2008 Olympic site.
Furthermore, giving undue coverage to the protests would oveshadow the event itself. The BBC correspondant even said that the event had been ‘overshadowed’ by protest. I really don’t think they’re biased. Maybe if they weren’t on such a shoe-string budget, their coverage would be even better.
Where to start and end answering this utter crap, but just the above shows that you are deluded, out of touch, and definitely a cretin.
The Olympics have not started and are after all in China, so a protest in LONDON should take precedence, especially seeing as there has been a murderous and illegal crackdown on DEMOCRACY supporters in Tibet.
A shoe string budget…. they are taking hudreds of people to Beijing with MY MONEY and are not on any kind of shoe string.
Personally I won’t watch as my protest, just as I intend to fiddle as much tax as possible to avoid paying for 2012.
If you want the BBC and love it so much, then protest to have it privatised and subscription funded, then see how much support you get. Personally I’ll support the protestors.
As a side issue, there was virtually no coverage on BBC news of the blue suited chinese security, especially not in Downing Street, while the papers ran the pictures, The BBC cropped and avoided any mention or graphic representation and are daily becoming more discredited.
I can’t wait for cretins like you to lose your state biased broadcaster, and that day is fast approaching.
BBC – Shilling for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7335410.stm
Benny you make a good point.
IMO
The BBC knew there was going to be big problems, as clearly did sky, in advance.
The question is why?
Why is there protests in Tibet being shown on the BBC using film given to them by Chinese government forces, NOW?
( As these Tibetan problems ARE NOT in anyway NEW. Also remember the BBC ignores many problems around the world where the lives of many thousands of innocent people die every year, sometimes every month.)
Why would the Chinese government wish to promote protests around the world against themselves?
( That of course they know full well their own public will not ever see.)
Why where the games given to China in the first place?
( When surly it must have been obvious there was going to shit hitting the fan, and China has a human right record second only to Stalins Soviet Union. Along side a record of polluting their own vast ENVIRONMENT second to absolutely nowhere.)
Why and How were these protests so clearly well planned and covered?
( When The British people can not even organize a decent protest against the EU constitution and even if they did the BBC would and does do their utmost to ignore it. As we are all, I am sure know.)
Why did Gordon Brown not cancel what has been a political disaster for his party, a horrendous embarrassment for himself, and a humiliation for this country, and the people that live in it?
( When surly the police would have advised him too, just like the French police very obviously did their own leader.)
Could it be that some people with a record of deliberately causing CHAOS in the world, in a conspiracy with the Chinese government are actually trying to create a deliberate FALSE conflict or friction between the peoples of the west and the State of China?
Many of you may have noticed I think in conspiracies.
This is not because I am paranoid, it is because, I am a lay historian. To me it is a case of historical fact, that it is by the use of, (not always bloody, but always very clever and highly covert, extremely high level,) conspiracies, we are mind controlled, effectively manipulated, and therefore ruled.
If we, as in the western powers, are not involved in some kind of false military or trading stand-off with China sometime within the next few years, then please disregard my last comments. You can even call me a certifiable paranoid idiot, if it turns you on.
However, if we do end up in BBC and world establishment inspired false conflict with the Chinese State government reasonably soon, for some other reasons or another, PLEASE MARK MY WORDS.
They have done these types of things many times in the past, there is no logical reason to believe, they have any intention of not doing them again now, or in the future.
I, like everyone on the site think the BBC is biased but in this case I think that the Bias was the other way around.
We are only getting the Western perspective of the Chinese problem and in that case, we really can’t be objective.
I personally believe that the Chinese are being targeted by all the media with stories of bad things happening to monks because they know that firstly it is difficult to confirm because no one in the west can be sure that they can trust Chinese news report any more than the BBC. Secondly, We have very little idea about places like Tibet except what the protesters are telling us – is it really as bad as they say – Are the stories that it was worse before China threw the Dalai Lama out, true?
I know this flies in the face of ‘common opinion’ about China but there is a case here of the BBC and other media trying to create a big bad evil Since the USSR disappeared , it looks like China has that role.
You need to visit sites like anti-cnn.com to see what the average Chinese person is thinking – or maybe they are ALL Chinese secret police just like this site is full of BNP party workers??!!
Time to be properly objective before stating a view – after all, that is what you are demanding of the BBC!
FOul
You are not a million miles away from where I am coming from.
I contend that the BBC does what it does for a very big reason. It is because along with the rest of the worlds media it is doing what it is TOLD TO DO.
I also contend that this is a conspiracy between ‘us’ and the Chinese government. These people have nuclear bombs for gods sake, and an Army the size of all the western worlds ones put together, and some.
This makes a real conflict with the Chinese a complete non starter. But a FALSE stage managed one gives our industrial military complexes and more importantly the powers that control and finance them an excuse to cost us Trillions, post cold war.
We will be made to blame the Chinese for destroying our environment most likely, and a few thing more. During or after we have half bankrupted our selves NOT saving the planet from the great non existent Chinese inspired mythological CO2 Dragon.
The people of the world will then turn its BBC mind controlled attention to China. Who have been encouraged no end by international corporations to cause as much real localized death creating pollution as they can possibly achieve. Even though the Chinese are well smart enough not to be causing hardly any at all. If the government of China gave a sod about their own people. Which in common with all authoritarian all powerful despotic states, do not give even a dry sod about.
They do this, deliberately to kill off as many poor ‘surplus to the Communist states requirements’ rural Chinese, as they can easily bury before the bodies start cluttering up the roads.
If you don’t believe a word of it. At least mark my words, and keep your eyes, ears, and minds open.
I am not sure they can pull this one off. But I am sure it is the plan and they are going to have a mighty fine go at doing so. Too much money and therefore power, depends on it.
I shall not be posting again until Hillhunt is reinstated.
To ban someone because they disagree with you is wrong David. You have more in common with China than you realise:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/03/denied_access.html
Joel,
I can assure you that you will not be missed and you and your pathetic propagandist mindset can toddle off to one of the mind numbingly boring and ego massaging leftist blogs you seem much better suited for!
David did not ban HH because he simply disagreed with him! HH was given loads of warnings about his behaviour but he just did not listen and HH got what was coming to him!
Now do us a favour and confine yourself to blogs like the mind destroying Labour home and others like it! I am sure you will be much happier!
See Ya!