I was wondering if you have a special moment that embodies BBC bias? I have three that I wanted to share. The first was the absolutely depraved Question Time programme that followed the 9/11 slaughter. I’ll never forget the baying of that anti-American rabble in the audience even as the dead lay burning in the mangled debris of the twin towers. As most of us remained stunned as to what had happened the BBC’s biased audience showed its true colours. Then I recall the BBC’s coverage of the 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Agreement here in Northern Ireland and the broad smiles and backslapping from the news reporters when it became clear that the establishment side had won the day. All notion of impartiality was discarded on that infamous day. Finally, I recall Barbara Plett’s words as she recalled her impressions of Yasser Arafat”When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry.” Quite – weeping over the imminent demise of an aids-raddled mass murderer, the BBC incarnate. So, what were your defining moments?
WORST BBC MOMENT?
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Balen Report.
AnyonebutBrown: Yes, the way the BBC slavishly reported Comical Ali’s reports from Iraq as having equal value to the reports from the US and UK Governments is rather pathetic.
When Comical Ali was talking about American soldiers as being “slaughtered in large numbers” American tanks were playing “last one to the Saddam statue is a fag” through the streets of Baghdad was the BBC at one of its lowest points ever.
The Royal Navy turning off BBC News 24 because of its anti British bias was also another one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/apr/08/Iraqandthemedia.bbc
AnyonebutBrown | 02.06.08 – 3:49 pm |
Gulf War 2. I slavishly watched the BBC news and current affairs reporting and was left with a “uh oh this isn’t going well” feeling…I was worried that the Americas might resort to nukes because of the “stalwart” Iraqi resistance…and that it really would explode into a regional conflict
(Yes was was much younger and very naive)
…imagine my surprise when I then watched reports from Saddam’s bedroom and American tanks racing around Baghdad (how did they get there?).
It wasn’t just your own youth and naiveté. You were also misled by all those frothing-at-the-mouth anti-this-war talking heads on nearly every BBC news programme who were screaming about nasty warmongers, “Shock and Awe”, and prematurely wringing their hands over what they assured us all would be a new combination of Dresden and Hiroshima. They were all absolutely certain that the war to remove Sadaam from power (a different war from the one we are fighting now, by the way) would be a disaster from the start, that Sadaam’s “Elite Guard” would stop all those low-class, hick United Statesian soldiers.
And let’s not forget that the US was also supposed slaughter at least half a million civilians during the assault. The Leftoids have been trying to wish that number into existence by any means possible ever since.
Instead of reality, the BBC chose to take the side of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf, soon to be known in the US as “Baghdad Bob”.
So, no link to a video of the post 9/11 Question Time? I’ve searched my socks off to no avail.
Election night 1997, when they were openly laughing and celebrating as the Conservative seats fell. I recall lots of “isn’t this fantastic”, and the gloating was not concealed at all. Plenty of champers that night – I bet i paid for it too.
When the coalition took Umm Qasr the southern port, on the first day of the war. All the talk was about aid getting through, the BBC managed to find a dishevelled local, obviously prompted to say “Where’s the aid”.
That moron Humphreys, over the years I listened to the bile of that idiot (dangerous idiot) far too much for good health, and so I stopped. He did provide me with one service though; he and others of his ilk woke me up and disabused me of my unconscious ideas of the BBC being the same organisation that was on our side during WWII.
“the Argentines had the fusing wrong”
In a sane country this would have resulted in execution for treason in wartime.
Yes, John “Unlimited Immigration is a Good Thing” Humphrys. What an assshole.
NO: And don’t forget the BBC announced the attack on Goose Green BEFORE the attack started.
http://www.operationcorporate.com/p1_battles_goose_green.php
The general way that the news is manipulated. Take this story from today about a poor, traumatised, charity worker.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7431483.stm
Everyday, over and over.
Does anyone remember the great VAT-on-domestic-fuel uproar in 1996? Tories were in power and the Labour party were having a ball. Those nasty Tories were going to kill pensioners with their nasty tax. The BBC “forgot” to report that this tax was being foisted upon us by the EU.
Years later and the oily Humphries is interviewing Brown the Clown on R4 “…we will reduce the tax to 5%, which is the minimum we’re ALLOWED to levy…” Needless to say, Humphries lets it go.
Amazing headline here, before it got revised:
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/127685/diff/2/3
Those pesky cartoon-drawing Danes are up to their old tricks again.
Luckily, the headline gets changed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7430721.stm
Chuffer: Yes those pesky Danes going around and invading all those Muslim lands.
Of course Joel, Hillcunt and the rest will no doubt say the Danes deserved this.
What gets me is that Joel and Hillcunt are bound to have lots of gay friends. What do they think would happen to them in a Muslim world.
No, field-size, “that moron Humphrys” endows him with a quality of innocence he doesn’t merit. Neither does Ed Stourton. Nor Sarah Montague. Nor did Brian Redhead before them. Slightly muted these days, but through their aggression towards Israelis and obsequiousness towards Arab interviewees over more than a decade, the Today programme has twisted facts and manipulated public opinion. It’s an Augean stable of bad research, biased presentation and malign influence. Will Evan Davis succumb, or will he change its direction?
MD | 02.06.08 – 11:43 pm
Agreed, please insert “mendacious twat” to replace Moron.
I remember when the Euro was launched. Day 1 was reported like the coming of the economic messiah. no attempt at producing a balanced report – just an over the top triumphalist ‘why aren’t we in it / surrender the pound’ shite from beeboid staffers.
At some point during the Iraq war some murdering scum tried to eliminate the Yazidi people in Northern Iraq. They are considered devil worshippers by some Muslims apparently, as they worship one God but not in the genealogy of the biblical God. They drove trucks full of explosives into their towns and killed about 800 of them. Here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Yazidi_communities_bombings
The BBC described the murderers as insurgents. Since then I have never, and will never again, use the BBC website, their news or their radio programmes.
I dare say that believing in the biblical God will get you killed by Muslims. The god they worship is somewhat different (Koranic god would be a better description).
Though I would agree on the whole insurgent thing – why can’t they just be honest?
In 1994, after ANC gunmen shot dead 19 Zulu protesters outside Shell House, Joburg, the BBC anchor called it “the so-called Shell House massacre”.
Needless to say, the BBC didn’t cover Mandela’s later admission that the gunmen opened fire on his personal orders or cover any of the other ANC war crimes as documented by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
The wonderful, forgiving statesman certainly showed his narrow tribal affiliation during the Inkatha-ANC bloodshed. And the “liberal” press worldwide became ANC propagandists to the extent that after 1994 millions of people around the world thought that all was sweetness and light in post-apartheid South Africa.
I visited Australia in 1997 and spoke to locals there about the problems in SA, specifically the horrendous crime statistics.
“But I thought everything was OK there now,” one of them said.
And it was a senior journalist from the Independent or the Financial Times who visited South Africa a few years back and waxed all enthusuastic on a visit to Soweto about the fact that you could phone anywhere in the world and talk as long as you like for ten rand (about one pound at the time).
What the idiot didn’t realise was that he had stumbled onto the widespread illegal call racket run by people who divert the phone lines of genuine subscribers, who then get landed with huge accounts, not some wonderful socialist government policy of cheap calls for all from the state telecommunications company. In fact, overseas calls from South Africa are ridiculously expensive, partly, I asssume to try to make up for fraud that costs billions per year.
I sent the guy an e-mail. Never got a reply, of course.
The BBC constantly show South Africa and the ANC in a golden light, while not asking why our Nu Labor politically placed Representative does nothing about Zimbabwe, or discussing in a mature manner with ANC or Cosatu on this and other serious South African problems.
When the implosion begins next year they will go very silent.