Tuning in to Today on Radio 4 always requires a strong stomach although I normally steel myself and do it to keep an eye on what the BBC gets up to but even I was left queasy at an item ran around 6.50am on the poetry of Osama Bin Laden. Some left wing US academic was invited on to read out an example of the ramblings of the Al Queda leader to which James Naughtie intoned “powerful stuff”. Yeah. This was a mutual love-in about the alleged poetical skills of the world’s most evil terrorist. However don’t despair because just before 7am the BBC ran a trailer for a programme it is running next week entitled “Is Al Queda winning”?
I know we go on about it day in day out here but really when you stop and just reflect, the problem with this State Broadcaster is enormous. It’s not just the left wing bias it exudes at every opportunity but it is more to do with the systemic undermining of just about every value we hold dear via the BBC 24/7 news cycle. Just imagine you are the family of a British soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan and you hit the dial only to have the BBC churn out programmes extolling the merits of Bin Laden and the success of Al Queda. What does this do for your moral? The drip drip drip of poison from the BBC is killing our country. Clearly the removal of the license tax is vital since that will at least take away the financial backing required for 24/7 broadcasting toxicity but in the meantime we do provide an important function here trying to document and then hold the rotten BBC to account. During WW2, do you think they would have ran an item on the literary skills of Hitler. After all, he loved animals, was vegetarian and despised Christianity so he really was their kind of guy back then…but they held back. Now, they just can’t resist hailing our enemies. Scum.
I know we go on about it day in day out here but really when you stop and just reflect, the problem with this State Broadcaster is enormous. It’s not just the left wing bias it exudes at every opportunity but it is more to do with the systemic undermining of just about every value we hold dear via the BBC 24/7 news cycle.
That nails it.
the washington post and janes, among other serious commentators, have all asked and sought to address the legitimate question of whether al qaeda is winning the war on terror.
whitewineliberal | 24.09.08 – 8:13 am |
You are quite right it is a legitamate question. But when one tries to answer it don’t you think a discussion between the usual suspects is out of order? A bought and paid for academic and a couple of tame muslims, or whoever they have on today, doesn’t cut the mustard bias-wise.
Oh for the days when they would at least get a Tory on to answer back. Of course they would harry them and do their best to disrupt their reasoning, but at least some idea that not everyone thinks the same way was given.
That’s all I really want from the BBC. Give me two sides of an argument and I’ll make my own mind up thank you very much.
Fat chance tho’.
Well they have gone very quiet about Iraq since the “surge” seems to be working.
WEll, considering the USA has NOT been attacked on its own soil in seven years I’d say that is a sign they are failing.
They’ve been targeting weak European Countries instead because they know that in the UK for example not only are they allowed to go about their bombings, The Labour Government even gives them free houses and people carriers.
It’s spelt ‘morale’.
Thanks Anonymous – I’ll have words with my sub-editor. Good to tackle the substance, eh?
Great post, David Vance. The BBC is managed and staffed by a bunch of subversives out to destroy Britain as we know it.
Of course there is a case for covering the background story of Bin Laden, on ‘know your enemy’ grounds’ if nothing else. It just sounds weird coming from a broadcaster that justifies failure to refuses to report inconvenient facts by reference to the fear of provoking The Right Wing Extremism – hence exploding ‘plumbers’ and the like.
Hey, there’s not much you can say for Nick Griffin, but he’s definitely never killed 3000 people, yet the BBC won’t have him on, let alone ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ about his lovely watercolours.
In between the Bin Laden deranged doggerel and the trailer there was a piece about how effective IEDs are against NATO troops in Afghanistan. If I was Terry Taliban sitting in the third cave on the left, Waziristan, I’d have been bucked up no end.
Why do I have to pay this Islamo-Haw-Haw rubbish, or go to jail?
Informed debate on the conduct of any war is a good thing.
As already pointed out though, the BBC don’t seem capable of organising an informed debate.
It is quite easy to sit and condemn those that one disagrees with and pronounce them evil etc.In the beebs case I feel that no condemnation is bad enough…these people are knowingly helping the enemy and the consequences…deaths amongst our forces are well known to them.The taking away of their license would be just a small start to the punishment these hateful traitors deserve.
David:
Perhaps I can dispel the clouds of pessimism today. (I’ll try anyhow).
Maybe – just maybe – the peril ahead lies not for our country and the west but the BBC. People are not stupid. They know wrestling is faked. They know that Daffy Duck is a cartoon. They know that their reality is not reflected in the diet of gloom and despair broadcast by the BBC. They know!
The battle of the ideas has been won. Only ladies of a certain age and men in woolly jumpers would really lay down their lives for the state broadcaster – and that only from a sense of loyalty born out of nostalgia. (The Archers, The Shipping Forecast, Woman’s Hour)
Its time for the practicalities needed to put a new order in place. And I don’t mean pirate radio. Mainstream politicians need to be convinced that the corporation as a whole is too…not too big or too wasteful…but that the NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT IS TOO POWERFUL. A PROPAGANDA ARM WITHIN A BROADCASTING ENTITY. I don’t men it’s all a conspiracy, not at all, but it’s a fact that the people who run and work in it are a self-selecting group of lefties. Management 101. It’s what happens in organisations that are old. They shrivel and die – except this one won’t because of automatic funding.
Politicians are scared by the BBC, worried by it, afraid that the big dog will turn on them, afraid they’ll be sidelined in the national debate. If they can be convinced that the BBC is stifling real debated by stacking the deck, and that THEY are being hurt by this, I’m sure enough will come on board to make a difference.
The real barrier to free and honest broadcasting in the UK is what Peter Hitchens described in his article in the Mail ON Sunday:
“The rule nowadays is that you cannot become the government unless you bow to the views of the ‘Centre-Left’ media elite, especially the broadcast media elite. That elite speaks for the 1968 generation which fanned out in the Seventies into the civil service, education, entertainment, the law, the arts, rock music and • above all • the media.”
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
But all is not lost. The evidence is stacked against the elite media and especially the ‘neutral’ BBC. They can only huddle in their bubble for so long. Something will give – and it already has without being noticed by the bloated fat cats at the Beeb. It’s called the internet.
Convergence (the marriage of internet and TV) is here. It’s a year if not months away. In ten years the BBC will be like Public Television is here in the USA, a quaint place to watch “Antiques Roadshow” and re-runs of “Are You Being Served?”
OK. So now I’d like you to repeat that all to me so you can convince me…God I’m depressed.
I wouldn’t mind the BBC featuring the literary or artistic output of Adolf Hitler, as long as they compared and contrasted it with the superior efforts of Winston Churchill. OK, he was no Picasso, but Churchill was not merely a fine writer of biography and history, he was also a reasonably accomplished amateur painter – far more technically accomplished than Hitler’s rather twee postcard scenes.
Not that you’d get that perspective from the BBC, I dare say. I have it on good authority that he’s not a popular figure among the semi-educated urban yoofs who stuff its corridors.
If a BBC ‘reporter’ in Pakistan/Afghanistan came across information which pinpointed the whereabouts of Bin Laden, which of the following courses of action would said ‘reporter’ take:
1.) inform US/UK forces;
2.) warn Al-Qaeda;
3.)ask to hear some of Bin Laden’s poetry?
The BBC during WW2 actually “worked” for the country, helping to broadcast the right information.
Now, whether you agree with propaganda or not, at least the BBC were actually working for the ‘good’ of the British Isles.
The BBC of old was staffed mainly by decent people with an ability to analyse impartially and at least report the news as it was.
I guess you have to be 30 or over to even remotely remember that.
This makes me sick to my stomach. There is no defense. End the license fee, now. It is one of the most fundamental issues facing the UK. The British have a right not to be treated as serfs and the dismantling of its tax funded propaganda machine should be a priority toward that end.
In its propagandist ‘vox pop’, the BBC’s ‘voice of Islam in Pakistan and Afghanistan’ manages to survey the opinions of just five people, who all are middle-class Pakistanis, none of whom (like the BBC?) blames Islamic Jihadists for the Islamabad bombing:
“We are all in pain and agony”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7628857.stm
I feel a BBC/S.Chakrabarti moment coming on:
“Misunderstander of Islam asks judge if he is misunderstander of Christianity”.
[Extract, from ‘Jihadwatch’]:
” ‘We are well-known as extremists and fanatics, and there are also Christians and Jews that are very extremist.’
“They don’t fly planes into buildings or cut off heads, but never mind — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has clearly learned how to play the moral equivalence games that will tug on Leftist heartstrings.”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022826.php
Martin, how dare you discuss whether Al-Queada is winning or not.
What does this do for our moral? The drip drip drip of poison from you is killing our country.
“The BBC during WW2 actually “worked” for the country, helping to broadcast the right information.”
“right information” in this sense sounds terribly Orwellian.
Are you suggesting that the BBC’s coverage is simply the wrong sort of bias?
Is “Anonymous” having a Lyse Doucet moment? Should the BBC in the 1940s have paid more attention to Adolf Hitler’s human side?
anon..British Broadcasting….see the key word?…they work for us (in theory) not the enemy you effin idiot.
“The BBC of old was staffed mainly by decent people with an ability to analyse impartially and at least report the news as it was…I guess you have to be 30 or over to even remotely remember that.”
Hi nelson:
Do not dispare; due to the baby boom, there are more of us than there are of 30 yo’s.
My husband and I recently purchased the ancient documentary ww2 “Victory at Sea” dvd’s, and have watched them several times. We’re struck by the level of patriotism. It wasn’t just that they were decent, but that they could express that patriotism without being deemed “BIASED.”
In much of America and Britain, i.e., those of us who die or give loved ones up to die for our country, we call the propaganda naming patriotism as bias, bullsh!t.
Nowadays being unbiased means pretending to have no opinion whatever while giving the impression you think the “other side” – the side opposing your own country – just may have a point. In this way you are “fair”.
Patriotism as seen on those dvd’s is in today’s world archaic, unevolved, macho, ignorant…I could go on and on. If the men and woman on the dvd’s could speak out knowing what we know today (and they do when they can) they would call our world shameless, a disgrace, spoilt, without honor or heritage…I’ve heard them, I’ve heard what the “decent” of those days have to say.
I dont’ know if you’ve seen the fox news video of the Dad who let his kid wear the tee shirt to school that said, “Obama best friend of terrorists” or not, but it’s damn sobering – the father quips back at the double standard. His tee shirt is horrible, but he is an example of a person who is fed up and simply speaking up, without rancor or apology. At the risk of being “archaic, ignorant, biased, etc..”
It all goes against the grain of the brain washing.
Gut felt opinion:BAD.
Wishy washy touchy feely castrated group think on valium: GOOD.
P.S.
If I lived in England now, I’d be in jail. I would not pay for that programming. I don’t have a teevee here, as I do not wish to be “programmed”.
God Save the Motherland – just tell me no one has put curry or anything foriegn in the sausage rolls 🙁
The last post, t’was I. Sorry if you mistook Anonymous for having changed programming.
Betyangelo…you had me confused for a moment there..I thought anon had seen the light.
“They work for us”? But the BBC is meant to be a news service, not a propaganda mouthpiece describing only glorious successes.
There’s a big difference between reporting both sides and working for the enemy.
My original point still stands: replacing one bias with another is not an improvement.
John Snow at 10 pm tonight after showing part of a Taliban propaganda video “which was supplied to us”, is seen practically begging Hamid Karzai to admit they (the Taliban and Al Quaeda)are winning.
Karzai said, “causing problems, yes, winning no.” at which point I’m sure I heard Snow mumbling “feck, feck, feck”
Notice how the Taliban had their faces covered, so they don’t have their benefits stopped on their return home to the UK
“There’s a big difference between reporting both sides and working for the enemy. My original point still stands: replacing one bias with another is not an improvement.”
Anonymous, explain exactly what the difference is between reporting both sides and working for the enemy. If one is on a “side”, that is bias, no? How can anyone be unbiased? Best to admit bias right off, don’t you think, instead of the fake stance of being neutral. It is not possible to be neutral, is what I mean.
Even if you can’t see it, what you are up against here is that there are those of us still in favor of holding a personal opinion without first checking with the Group. The “Group” presumably being the entity able to come up with a standard opinion inoffensive to any opposing side – God forbid we oppose any side!! But just in case, there is always the Group…
There used to be a time when men reasoned, thinking larger thoughts and setting aside differences to grasp a whole within a respective vision of that whole: take my nations founding father’s, for instance – incidently British.
Now, they pretend to have no opinion when indeed an ear placed to the ground of the substance of any BBC ABC FOX (also) NBC CNN “speak” the thunder of many hooves are heard, and they definately have an opinion.
An opinion never called bias, yet bias it is.
A true reasoning person, right or left, should be able to listen to either side and hear bias: this is called being truthful. I hear right opinions and rightfully call them bias – because they are. I do not, as the BBC NBC CNN etc do, spout my side and call it unbiased – this is called LYING.
The worst sin of all is lying to the self, and this the news networks do without shame, in public, disgracefully.
So, has anyone added curry to the sausage rolls, or not?
I agree that a wholly objective viewpoint is simply impossible. Bias is inevitable.
I would describe “working” for the enemy as spreading propaganda. Spreading deliberate lies, for example.
Showing what is happening on their side of the fence is not “working” for them, it is reporting on them.
The idea, however, that you simply shouldn’t report what is happening on the other side is nonsense.
Bias is impossible to avoid. And for that reason, the news should report – or at least, attempt to – from as many angles as possible, rather than just having one “true” narrative.
Sausage rolls are still delicious and curry free, you’ll be pleased to note.
Anonymous | 24.09.08 – 11:50 pm | #
It’s so much more subtle than that. Propaganda could also be deemed to be using or refraining from using certain vocabulary in order to make the enemy sound more legitimate or less heinous – for example, referring to terrorists as simply “militants”, a word which the BBC would use to describe both harmless leftists who stand on street corners selling “Socialist Worker”, to Palestinian terrorists who deliberately murder innocent civilians.
It’s about having an explicit agenda which says “don’t make the enemy look too bad”.
I don’t buy all of this moral relativism bullshit – as humans in the civilized West we have a shared set of rational human values which are assumed and which are ingrained in our culture – like for instance, it’s wrong to deliberately target innocent civilians for no other reason than pure ideological hatred. Or to celebrate death over life.
Your argument that the news should strive to report from as many angles as possible would at least have a grain of relevance if that’s what the BBC did. They don’t. They look at the world through one prism and one prism only – that of the left.
If we are wrong, if the BBC reports and comments from all angles, then show me examples of their “pro-Iraq-war” angle. Show me examples of them looking at global warming from the side of the skeptics. Of them looking at the current economic crisis through the eyes of a laissez-faire free-marketeer.
If we are wrong and the BBC shows as much right wing bias as left, then show me the blogs which catalog hundreds of examples of this bias every week.
You know as well as I do that with the BBC it’s so much more than simply “reporting what’s on the other side of the fence”. It’s promoting and condoning – mostly subtly but often blatantly – what’s on the other side of that fence.
It may be impossible to report the news without at least some form of bias, but as a tax-funded broadcaster which everyone in the UK is obliged to pay for whether they like it or not, the BBC should damn well make sure that an equal amount of that bias swings the other way.
This however, would involve recruiting from outside of the cosy leftist-liberal circles they almost exclusively recruit from. It would mean them having to tolerate pro-family, pro-life, pro-West, pro-capitalism, pro-America heathens within their hallowed walls. It would mean having to share corridors with people who don’t think G.W. Bush is the devil incarnate. It would mean having to grit their teeth and hire kids TV presenters who are neither drug addicts nor gay. I can’t see it.
Just look at the BBC’s online blogs. Virtually every single one of them, ridiculously biased to the left. There is little diversity of ideological leaning. If they had the common decency to accept that their output should be balanced, there would at least be a couple of right-leaning blogs on there, right?
Jeezuz, even their economics editor is a Marxist. That says it all.
That last comment was from me. For some reason my name wasn’t waiting for me in the form and I didn’t realize.
I’m not defending the BBC. You’re right that, with its intake of metropolitan elites – most of whom went to the same very good universities and got arts degrees – the BBC is always going to have what Marr called a cultural liberal bias.
It’s not a perfect institution. It’s too driven by the need for ratings, which is why it produces popular tosh – rality shows, etc. – which isn’t its raison d’etre. That’s for ITV.
I’m not a moral relativist either. I have my morals – similar to yours, I’m sure – because I believe they are the most suitable. I’d never condone suicied bombing, female circumcision etc. They’re wrong, no matter what culture you’re in.
I disagree with you, however, in your belief that the BBC is actively “promoting and condoning” the actions of extremely violent, murderous people. A common criticism of the BBC by this site seems to be that the BBC doesn’t strike a moral, righteous tone, as seen on Fox News etc.
While fact and opinion are often far closer than many think – with the latter influencing the use of the former – it should still be the aim of all news providers to struggle on separating the two – a job I think the BBC does well.
P.s. Nice reply, Jason. Very thoughtful and well argued.
As for the anti-Iraq war BBC:
Professor Justin Lewis, the deputy head of Cardiff University’s school of journalism, on the findings of an examination of the coverage of Iraq by the four main UK news broadcasters, the BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky:
“Indeed, far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to the government in its war coverage. Either way, it is clear that the accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis.”
I’m sure this piece must have come up on this site before, but nevertheless..
By not passing judgment or taking a moral stance (at least in tone) in the face of atrocities which no decent human being could possibly condone, the BBC is, I hold, promoting, condoning and lending moral and psychological support to the enemy.
Imagine how an Islamic terrorist group feels when the broadcasting institution which is commonly held to be the most respected in the West – the BBC – refuses to take a moral stance against them. You would not think that this gives them great comfort, great satisfaction?
The same can be said about the Western left in general. Their moral relativism and “refusal to condemn,” far from being a sign of virtue, sends a very clear psychological message to those Islamists who see the West as a succulent piece of meat to be devoured and digested: “We will not stop you. Take us, we’re yours. We can’t even agree on whether or not you’re evil.”
The criticism of the BBC you mention in which they are accused of being pro-government, comes from the far left. The only people to accuse the BBC of being “too right wing” are those who are so far left that anyone who appears to lean even slightly away from their far-leftism is perceived as being right-wing. I see the same thing in America, with far-lefties accusing CNN of being biased toward the right.
Besides, it’s one thing to believe that the BBC is too kind toward this Labour government (I don’t think many people here would disagree) – quite another to believe that they’ve been “pro-Iraq-war”. Like most of the liberal media, they’ve wallowed in their negative reporting of the war and deliberately downplayed the positives. Websites exist for documenting and reporting the good news from Iraq that escapes the liberal media’s agenda-driven radar.
Also, I think most would agree that the Iraq war as been couched by the BBC as the property of G.W. Bush and America, and not of the Labour government. So it’s negative war bias is less a dig at the British government than the US government.
I maintain that since the BBC does not make any effort to evaluate and quantify its output for bias and hence make sure that that bias is equally weighted from both sides, then it is not doing a good job.
If it were a bunch of sixth form kids running a news office out of a classroom after school, then yes I’d be impressed. I’m thinking Julia Sawalha in “Press Gang“.
As it happens they’re a huge national institute, publicly funded with hundreds of millions of pounds, with access to perhaps the best resources of any news outlet in the world, and with a reputation built over decades upon which to stand (which they are currently doing a “great job” of dismantling – and enjoying every disgraceful minute of it).
Again good points, Jason. But I still disagree with your point that the BBC should take a morally righteous stand. There is little to be gained, for example, in describing an attack as:
“A disgraceful, inhumane attack in which 35 innocent souls were brutally murdered by this depraved suicide bomber.”
The reader can tell that it is horrific and to be abhorred without a BBC correspondent reminding them.
It is not up to the BBC to take a moral stance. It is up to the public. It is up to the government. It is up to other media outlets – not the BBC.
BBC News shouldn’t be a mouthpiece of reactionary patriotism. It should endeavor to tell the news as accurately as possible, and not merely spout defiant platitudes, again and again.
The criticism I mentioned of the BBC’s Iraq war coverage comes not from the far left but from the most respected Journalism department* in the country. They know a thing or two, so to dismiss so bluntly their survey isn’t entirely fair.
You’re right, the BBC does have a deserved reputation from its fine heritage. I don’t want it to to lose it. I fear it might, but not through its supposed defeatism.
*Probably joint with City University in London
Being objective enough to call a terrorist a terrorist instead of just a “militant” is not “reactionary patriotism”.
Your mock headline is unfair, because that is not what I am thinking of or expecting from the BBC at all.
I do not even think that using language which makes clear that you are on the side of humanity is “taking a moral stance” as such. When it comes to life -vs- death, it’s beyond morals. It’s simply a case of being human or non-human.
If the BBC were doing a “great job” by your definition then they would not be, for instance, taking such an obviously biased stance against Israel in favor of the Palestinians.
And even in terms of reporting cold newsworthy facts, they reveal their biased agenda. Recently one of the most cherished British icons in history, Paul McCartney, was threatened with death by Islamists if he played his gig in Israel. This was reported by virtually every major media outlet except the Beeb, who made no mention of it at all.
They sure as hell reported the almost-comedic threat of 3 drug-addled American meth head clowns to kill Barak Obama recently, though.
If the job of the BBC is to report the news as factually and accurately as possible, given that they don’t do this, how can you possibly think they’re doing a “great job”?
Please, don’t try and suggest to me that a “well respected journalism department” at a university cannot be comprised of leftists. Have you been in a university any time over the last 40 years? Remember that antisemitic report by “well respected academics” from Harvard on the US Israel lobby that has been thoroughly trashed since?
Also, like I said, even if their report were “fair” (I don’t know if it was or not), they were it seems attacking the BBC for being too sympathetic to the Labour government with respect to the war. What are their views on the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq war in general, in particular in relation to the US and President Bush? Did they conclude that they’ve been too soft on Bush as well? I doubt it.
The BBC has not yet lost its reputation, but that is only because it is still running on the fumes of the reputation it once deserved. Those who are paying attention and who don’t think that a liberal-left stance represents “the center”, can see that their reputation has been in tatters for years.
Its reputation in Europe will hold as long as it keeps taking digs at such things as the America and capitalism. Its reputation worldwide will hold as long as it keeps fanning the flames of anti-Western and anti-American sentiment. Yet none of these people are forced to pay a cent towards its upkeep.
But when is a “terrorist” a terrorist, and when is a “militant” a militant? Hamas, for example, can easily be described as militant if you use the definition google gave me (“a fighting, warring, or aggressive person or party”). Yet they’re still a terrorist organisation, in that they employ methods of terrorism to further their aims.
The “side of humanity” is not clear in every conflict. (N.B. please note I am not in any way supportive of Hamas’ terrorism or aims to destroy Isreal). If, then, the BBC starts siding with some and against others it loses credibility (which, many argue, it has done already).
For the record the BBC did report the McCartney threats (google paul mccartney israel bbc).
As for the Cardiff University report – if they’re to maintain their reputation, they have to release accurate research. They train journalists, and the successful ones get to work for major UK news outlets and newspapers. A quick summary of left and right papers and their respective circulation size shows where the job prospects lie (The Sun, Mail, Telegraph, Express: comb. 6.5m and from the left Guardian, Indie, Mirror around: 2.5m all together). Right wing media has the more jobs on offer, therefore it would be suicidal for Cardiff to just churn out “leftist” propaganda.
Anyway, pleasure talking to you. You made some very interesting, thought provoking points. I’m off to bed.
xx
anon..your endless excuses for the beeb and the media in generals non bias is a perfect example of comforting the enemy…in the case of terrorists there are no two sides to a story…they are just barbaric murderers…no more no less.
My complaint to Today:
Dear sir,
I wish to complain about the ‘Osama Bin Laden poetry’ segment on the Today programme on the morning of 24th September 2008.
I felt utterly sick to my stomach that my licence fee was funding a discussion about one of history’s most evil human beings, without any reference to his ‘shortcomings’.
Instead I had to listen to James Naughtie and John Coffee (?), a political academic wax lyrical about Bin Laden’s writings. The words ‘admire’ and ‘powerful’ were used.
If this were not enough, Mr Naughtie finished the piece by suggesting Bin Laden was historically in demand for his ‘star turns’ as a speaker at weddings.
Ok. Fine, maybe he did write nice poetry. But where was the relation of a 9/11 victim to give his/her opinion of Bin Laden to ‘balance’ the discussion about the wretch? That is the problem though is it not – the BBC don’t seem to do ‘balanced’.
I look forward to a response.
Fuckers.
Anonymous | 25.09.08 – 3:49 am |
Professor Justin Lewis, the deputy head of Cardiff University’s school of journalism, on the findings of an examination of the coverage of Iraq by the four main UK news broadcasters, the BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky:
“Indeed, far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to the government in its war coverage. Either way, it is clear that the accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis.”
I’m sure this piece must have come up on this site before, but nevertheless..
Surely you can’t expect anyone outside of Broadcasting House to take this seriously. First off, it was done shortly after “Bush declared victory in Iraq”, according to this Prof. Lewis. Pres. Bush never declared victory, as anyone honest knows well. So, this whole things begins with a falsehood (not to mention the other falsehood that “a number” of journalists were “killed by US forces”. No bias there, then. Lies, maybe, but no bias, surely.
Oh, and it was done in 2003, with Lewis given a forum in – where else – The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/nov/06/broadcasting.politicsandthemedia“>Fact in the line of fire
You wouldn’t have been trying to slightly misrepresent this at all, would you? I mean, you could have mentioned this study was five years old.
And let’s not forget that Cardiff Uni is one of the BBC feeder schools. A quick run through the meeja studies course is a fast track to a job at the BBC. Lewis probably taught a few BBC presenters himself. Auntie has her tentacles deep in there, with the BBC Voices lecture series, a joint study with the university to study reader content, etc.
Bryan – “The BBC is managed and staffed by a bunch of subversives out to destroy Britain as we know it”
They are already demoting our values and “as we know it” is now at least 12 years old.
The bbc and nulabor are the major reason why England is losing so many valueable people to Europe et al.
The bbc loves this for their multi-cultural gender bending 1984 look-alike scenario.
Anonymous | 25.09.08 – 9:01 am | #
First, the side of humanity is ALWAYS clear when we’re talking about Islamofascist terrorism. Please, let’s not go down this road. I thought you didn’t believe in all this moral relativist bullshit either.
Secondly, it does not matter that “most jobs are in the right wing media”. I don’t have time to debate the issue of whether the media is mostly right-wing with you, but even if it were – that does not mean that a university journalism department is going to be right wing. Look at the Beeb – it has some of the largest “circulation figures” in Britain, and it’s overwhelmingly left wing.
Thirdly, I Googled what you told me and found no link to any BBC article mentioning Muslim threats against McCartney. In fact the refusal of the BBC to mention it was even commented on on a couple of Jewish sites I saw.
“Look at the Beeb – it has some of the largest “circulation figures” in Britain.”
And more jobs than all the rest put together.
No doubt the BBC will want to propagandise Abu Hamza’s ‘poetry’ too:
“Hate cleric Abu Hamza in YouTube poem from prison”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3073084/Hate-cleric-Abu-Hamza-in-YouTube-poem-from-prison.html
Yes, I can see it now, the ‘Today’ dhimmis discussing Hamza’s writings, with linking references to imprisoned heroes of yesteryear, such as Gramsci and Mandela.
Why doesn’t ‘Today’ replace ‘Thought for the Day’ with ‘Islamic Jihad Poem for the Day’?
Hey Jason, As for the McCartney litmus test, 3/4 were BBC about the concert and the threats and one was from the Jerusalem Post. I was using google.co.uk if that helps.
I’m not advocating moral relativism. You’re simply using semantics. Some terrorist organisations could be called “militants”, or, indeed “Islamofascist terrorists”.
It’s the old freedom fighters/terrorist cliche. However, it’s far more subtle than that.
A fair point, just because many of the media companies the department want to attract are right wing doesn’t mean that the department itself will be right wing. Nor, however, does it mean that it will be left wing.
Universities have moved on since the 70s. They’ve even been known to employ…Tories *faints*. The cliche that universities are all left wing shoudl be dead.
Believe me, very few students give a crap about politics, and even less are actively involved with one side or the other.
anon…far more subtle?…cutting somebodys head off strikes me as a tad extreme..or perhaps too subtle for me to notice the finer nuances of both sides of that argument
So, would someone fighting for a “just” cause using violent methods still be a terrorist? Or would they be a militant? Or would they be a freedom fighter?
Depends, doesn’t it.
But what on?
It depends on not strapping on bomb vests,using people with mental deficiencies as suicide bombers and beheading people on video whilst praying to a seventh century superstition…pretty easy really.
Anonymous wrote: The cliche that universities are all left wing shoudl be dead.
I can’t let that pass.
The sole occupation of Humanities departments is essentially to develop the current leftist ‘narrative’. They were and are the ultimate source of all the poisonous leftist nonsense that pervades the BBC zeitgeist.