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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Update on 6:26 pm comment on general thread:
-Good news: BBC News TV channel is now covering the ‘Daily Mail’ story about the Afghan family in London living in £1m council house:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1072729/Its-like-winning-lottery-Jobless-Afghan-mother-seven-gets-170-000-benefits-lives-1million-council-house.html
Perhaps a limitation with both the the Daily Mail’ and the BBC accounts is that neither relate the problem to the issue of mass immigration, including that of Afghans to the UK in the past decade especially.
“Immigration soars to new record”
(‘Daily Express’, 21 May 2008)
[Extract]:
“Afghan immigrants saw the largest increase last year, up 211 per cent on 2006 to 10,555, making them the third most common nationality last year.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/45165/Immigration-soars-to-new-record
This isn’t the BBC, but the CBC headlines. Bear in mind that we in Canada are in the final week of our elections.
CBC Headlines on CBC website:
Section: Canada Votes
-Dion, Layton slam Harper’s ‘opportunities’ advice amid dropping markets
-Liberals inch closer to Tories, poll suggests
-Activist government could cure Canada’s ills: economists’ group
-‘Goose egg’ not essential for ABC success: Williams
-2 Boudrias take on 2 Lemieuxs in eastern Ont. riding
-Harper platform offers $400M for manufacturing loans, no deficits
-Cost of Afghan mission to be released Thursday
-Liberals ‘big tent’ party, Dion tells progressive voters
-1.5 million vote in advance polls
*Dion-Liberal leader
*Layton-NDP (union party) leader
*Harper-Conservative leader
*ABC-anything but conservative
So basically, the majority of stories are those that reflect poorly on the conservatives. This is from a website that gets over a billion dollars in tax payers money.
Nice, objective coverage of the election. No bias or preference from CBC towards the liberals.
Phil | 08.10.08 – 9:07 pm |
Are CBC “journalists” trained by the BBC?
CBeebies is scrupulously fair
in that odd “Onion” kind of way, the Daily Mash seems to have it spot on
“banks to lend you your own money”
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/banks-to-lend-you-your-own-money-200810081308/
cant help wondering – what would happen if the government gave £500 billion back to taxpayers.
that would almost equate to zero taxation for an entire year.
but then the socialists in charge arent interested in that – they’d rather throw OUR money at a political agenda – which is socialisation of the financial system.
archduke,
Now you’re talking! But the thought of giving us back that which they extort from us is enough to make the comrades quake.
Our banking system is in the hands of twenty-year olds who live in the land of Oz ( thirty times the national wage for telling lies all day). Crucify Peston and his childrens children paying back the £17bn his “scoop” /leak cost investors. The Marxist liberals want this to be the rout of Capitalism, whose taxes pay their wages.
Dont believe anything. Hang journalists from every lampost. They are talking us into Armageddon with their ” Will it work? rhetoric.
Interseting debate here on the “impartiallity of the BBC” – straight from 1992.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1992/dec/02/broadcasting-impartiality#S5LV0540P0-05063
“The BBC has pledged to take “due cognisance” of the codes. Also, in its 1992 Guide to the BBC, it declares that the Corporation cannot, “express its own editorial opinion on current affairs or matters of public policy”.” It adds that the BBC, “undertakes to maintain overall impartiality and fairness”.”
It seems the BBC have a long history of breaking its own guidlines.
Isn’t the editors blog on the BBC web site opinions of editors?
One of the guidlines is broken every day by Peter Allen on Radio 5.
“..not use language inadvertently so as to suggest value judgements, commitment or lack of objectivity”
So why does Allen keep refering to “fat cats” in the finacial institutions?
“Fat cat” is a derogatory term is it not? Even if you agree with the sentiment.
“..value judgment: an assessment that reveals more about the values of the person making the assessment than about the reality of what is assessed”
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:value+judgement&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
It does seem that the BBC just don’t read their own guidlines.
CBC isn’t quite as bad as BBC. But it’s not far behind.
It’s unbelievable the anti-conservative stories and people they peddle in the middle of an election. They’re literally campaigning for the left-wing parties.
Today, they had Don Newman (left wing reporter) interviewing for like 15 minutes this guy who set up a site called environmonics.com I think.
Anyways, this site is designed to get people to vote against conservatives by supporting the party in their riding most likely to beat the Tories. Fine then, but why is it on CBC? Are they advertising the website?
Then they went on talking about all these other people that don’t like the Conservatives.
Then again, the CBC might have a vested interest in campaigning against the Tories. Several prominent Tory MPs have said they wanted to see the CBC shut down. If they got a majority some upset useless media types would probably end up welfare.
Hey, who set up this blogsite? Can you set up a similar site called
biased-cbc.blopspot.ca???????
I don’t mean to interupt, but you have got to see this skit befor it is deleted into cyberspace forever. NBC is balcking it out..
betyangelo 12:00
I saw it earlier. Great skit. Next they will black out biased BBC.
But, more important matters , let’s talk about your great skirt, the one you are worried that Italian men won’t like. Believe me they will pinch your bottom before they pinch Nancy Pelosi’s !
I heard the Japanese men, offered to spend the night on a desert island with any woman in the world, overwhelmingly chose Janet Reno.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Reno
There is no accounting for masculine tastes.
betyangelo 12:17
Actually, I am quite an old-fashioned guy. Who is ” Janet Reno ” ?
On the other hand, maybe I shall just stick to pruning my roses .
betyangelo 12:17
Ok, I just clicked on to your Janet Reno link. Wow ! She is hot !
We could prune roses together. And even go to Italy on holiday, where she would be safe.
There is too much anti-Italian racism on this thread.
I warn you, if you don’t take the Italians seriously, we will destroy you with pasta.
Ah, por favor, I got the wrong thread, sorry. It is like invading the wrong country.
Also , sorry to Ethiopia and Abysinnia.
But, don’t worry, our Italian banks are ok. As to you poor people , who cares ?
Ya Grant, Janet’s a cutie, a ringer for sure. Though I doubt you would be safe in Italy from her, once she was properly pinched.
Kevin Connolly seems to have joined the Webb-Frei axis. A nice “balanced” report on the last Presidential debate left him with what must be the Biased BBC “Brown Nose Award” of the week:
“In fact, I thought Barack Obama did rather better, measured in manner and clear-minded in content…Mr Obama offered a performance reminiscent of a great boxer who knows he is ahead on points and only has to keep dancing backwards around the ring avoiding trouble to win. He didn’t land many scoring punches, but then he didn’t have to.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7658253.stm
John 12:56
I don’t know Kevin Connolly, but is he Irish ?
Grant:
For your info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7183169.stm
John 1:10
Thanks . How did I guess ? A BBC Irishman who supports the Democrats and “thick Mick” Joe Biden. What a surprise !
BBC splashed out £81,000 of licence fee cash on lavish Wimbledon hospitality event
By Paul Revoir
The BBC spent thousands of pounds in licence fee payers’ cash entertaining an astonishing 170 guests at Wimbledon, it has been revealed. The corporation lavished £81,000 on a three-day hospitality event at this year’s championships, equal to almost £500 a head. This included Centre Court tickets for the epic men’s final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer for 14 guests of the BBC Trust.
The gathering was hosted by Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons and trustee Diane Coyle, the wife of BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones. They were treated to what was acclaimed as the ‘best-ever Wimbledon final’.
The broadcaster’s Wimbledon entertaining budget included a £53,528 bill for ‘marquee and associated costs’ and another £18,281 for hospitality. In addition, £9,645 was spent on items such as match tickets, car parking, programmes and invitations.
The hosting was done by both the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, as well as the main management at the broadcaster.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘The BBC keep telling us that their budget is stretched thinly and the licence fee needs to rise if they are to keep delivering a quality service, but they are behaving like they have money to burn.
‘It is absolutely outrageous that the BBC is using the hard-earned money of ordinary families to treat broadcasting bigwigs to expensive meals and tickets to the Wimbledon final. This is yet more evidence that the BBC cannot be trusted with such generous access to licence fee payers’ money.’
Earlier this year, it emerged that the BBC spent £68,000 on corporate hospitality during its three-day coverage of the Glastonbury music festival. It was also recently criticised for spending more than £3million on business and first class flights last year.
In a statement, the BBC said: ‘Wimbledon is a major event in the international sporting calendar and one at which the BBC as host broadcaster is especially associated. We are careful about ensuring these events provide value for money and in recent years we have decreased the amount of corporate hospitality significantly.’ A Trust spokesman said: ‘The BBC Trust holds a variety of events each year to meet a wide range of people, from members of the general public to representatives from the broadcasting industry and other organisations.
Isn’t life grand?
Isn’t life grand?
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 09.10.08 – 6:27 am | #
Actually, it would appear to eight-one grand.
Advantage those within, apparently. For some reason I cannot at the moment discern.
I have tended to avoid the debates on levels of balance when ‘reporting’ on the US election.
However, this article… piece… opinion… does rather suggest more than objectivity at play:
It’s All Relateable
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/petermarshall/2008/10/its_all_relateable.html
I have my own views of using selective proxy quotes to serve personal agendas as a protection against being held personally accountable in any media, but now we are getting celeb enhanced versions as, presumably, ‘the public is interested’ in what these towering minds have to say.
However (and I say this as one who, like here, can think of not one of the major protagonists I would vote for) such as this really does not seem appropriate on a webpage that bears the name of my nationality:
‘…unless you and your number two can come up with something better’
That smacks of a personal opinion to me, and not one I feel like being associated with whether I agree with it or not. Or paying for.
The BBC is not a soapbox.
I have to give a special mention to Boris Johnston for providing one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve heard on Today in a long time. He had the measure of John Humphrys and got his retaliation in first.
BJ: No, you go on. Let’s have a mutual non-interruption pact.
JH: I wasn’t interrupting.
BJ: You cleared your throat in an interruptive manner.
Genius.
LITTLEJOHN gets beyond the earlier reports in ‘Daily Mail’, and on BBC News TV:
“As £170,000 a year is spent on an Afghan single mother…A story that sums up the howling insanity of modern Britain”
[Extract, from Littlejohn]:
“After the Afghan aircraft hijackers landed at Stansted in 2000, I wrote that in five years’ time, they’d still be here.
Who could have guessed then that eight years on there would be an estimated 75,000 Afghans in Britain.
“That’s just those we know about. It is not recorded how many of them are working, paying taxes and contributing to the economy and how many, like the Saiedi clan, are living off the State.
Around the time of the hijack, I even invented a spoof game show called ASYLUM!, which is still doing the rounds on the internet.
The premise was that all you needed to do was turn up in Britain, utter the magic word ‘asylum’ and you would be shown directly to a council house and showered with benefits.
It was supposed to be a joke, not a template for government.
But that is pretty much what Labour’s open- door, no-questions-asked immigration policy has amounted to.”
(Littlejohn.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1074429/As-170-000-year-spent-Afghan-single-mother–A-story-sums-howling-insanity-modern-Britain.html
More for BBC to investigate on Labour’s ‘asylum’/immigration policy:
“Terrorist who survived SAS storming of Iranian Embassy to be free in days…for a life on benefits”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1074589/Terrorist-survived-SAS-storming-Iranian-Embassy-free-days–life-benefits.html
Just watching the BBC Breakfast News about some noble race or other across the Antarctic. I am sure TV show and book to follow…. on BBC Worldwide.
Now, I am all for all these ‘higher, faster, stronger’ celebrations of the human spirit, but do wonder how the irony alert gets disconnected because some staffers are on to plug the thing.
Were we not being lambasted for how all we are up to is messing up the wildlife in colder climes? And how do all these guys and their teams get there… kayak?
I am still trying to get my head round yesterday’s well-publicised ‘eco’-race (one of many to come, apparently. Maybe F1 will get in on the act) where hundreds of folk drive around the country to show how little petrol they used. I was the clear winner by not going out at all in my car, and if I did only for something I really needed it for.
Consistency, Aunty, consistency. Next you’ll be vying for a slot on Virgin Galactic… oh.
Join Captn. Fishtock’s ‘Polar Bears need more settees to rest on icebergs’ now!
Please tell me my ears deceived me…
Just listening to a fluff piece about a movie, ‘City of Ember’, with Hollywood type and cute Northern Irish moppet being interviewed by a mustache wearing a BBC interviewer.
Seems this epic was filmed in the Emerald Isle.
Thing is, I am sure I heard the mustache ask the kid if her compatriots were, essentially, competent enough to do such a complex job as make a movie.
If I am right, I see much fun ensuing from the inevitable Department of High Horses over the sea!
Just popped over to my Mum’s and, in attempt to wean her off News 24 we tried SKY.
I actually stayed to watch a moving main piece about a Chinese dissident who has been banged up.
Thing is, he’s up for a Nobel Prize. Until this point I was unaware of this, or indeed his plight.
Now, before the morning cadres get fisking and linking to Cbeebies to show it’s there, I simply express the hope that this story gets the level of support across all media that it deserves.
The courage of this chap, and perhaps even more so his wife, seemed/s incredible.
Buy maybe a celeb with a book out is more what the public wants….?
Recent US election polls:
Hotline Obama +1
Zogby Obama +2
Battleground Obama +4
Rassmussen Obama +6
Gallup Obama +11
Guess which one they reported on Newsnight.
Of all the polls, it is only Zogby who does any actual checking and only accepts polls from American citizens.
Also, caught the start of the 10pm news last night when they started a peice about the debate (for later in the show).
Funnily enough the to bits from the debate Al Beeb showed as a warm up to the main event was McCain calling Obama “that one” and then cut to Obama mocking McCain for singing “bomb bomb” them.
Seeing as the tone had been set for a glorious Obama victory I didnt even bother watching the main story!
Mailman
Peter | Homepage | 09.10.08 – 9:34 am
Credit where credit’s due: beeboid James Reynolds has been reporting this guy for months now and has run frequent reports featuring the wife.
He did another one last week about the possible Nobel.
BBC and (US state department?) both cheerleading communism in Kyrgystan
PaulS | 09.10.08 – 11:24 am | #
Fair enough. Like I said; me and my Mum must have missed it on the BBC for some reason on BBC Brekky and News 24.
Tried ‘Hu Jia’, ‘Nobel Prize’ and ‘James Reynolds’ on the BBC site (OK, it sucks) and got this:
China makes Nobel prize warning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7657299.stm
and this..
Today – Today – Today: Saturday 4 October 2008
Correpsondent James Reynolds reports from Beijing. 0746 Thought for the day with the Catherine Pepinster, editor of the Tablet.
news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7652000/7652212.stm
So you are quite right; it’s there.
However, I still feel that while a website page and report on ‘Today’ is a great start, I’d like my Mum to be aware of such things in the broader scheme of things too.
That way when she thinks all is ‘luvly’ in the world, from PM Brown to human rights abuses in that nice place the Olympics was held, I can point at a few other aspects to chat around.
This was interesting too, I felt:
Warning to Nobel prize protesters
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-banking-bailout-955422.html
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660287.stm
Can you imagine the Tories getting a soft ride like this if they were in power right now?
John Bosworth:
So Kevin Connolly’s last sentence that the Obamamessiah didn’t land many punches, tells the story, i.e. that his performance was nothing to write home about, despite the overblown prose of the previous sentences.
Kevin Connolly has shown his colours before and is firmly in the grip of the BBC’s messiah promotion.
The Simon Mayo show is in Indianapolis today. I’ve emailed to ask if they’ll be discussing the ACORN-led voter registration fraud in that city (and elsewhere). The BBC has spent a lot of licence payers’ money sending him there and he has a major story right under his nose; it will be a disgrace if he fails to address it.
THE M WORD
“Doctors” are the new “plumbers”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7660750.stm
That Peter Marshall article is a disgrace on many levels. He makes a point of stating that Sarah Palin considerably exaggerated his “tenuous” links to Ayers from the Weather Underground.
Well, we know from other accounts on the web, including ones linked on this blog by D Preiser from Americs, that the links were not tenuous at all. Hence, we know that Marshall hasn’t done a thorough and accurate reporting job and his statement doesn’t stand up either as a flat allegation against Palin or as a presentation of the actual relationship of the Obamamessiah and Ayers.
Also this reporter of 30 years visiting and reporting on America should have figured out by now how to spell the American word “relatable”.
BBC report:
“Doctors ‘sought wholesale murders'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7660750.stm
Perhaps the BBC should add this to a revised report:
“UK: Jurors for London, Glasgow car bomb case screened for ‘prejudice’, employment in military or security services”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023035.php
[Extract from ‘Jihadwatch’]:
“The jurors were told the defendants were following ‘a fundamental form of Islam.’ All their attempts at political correctness aside, will heads roll and accusations of Islamophobia fly over that choice of words?”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023035.php
Has anyone seen the picture of the Dear Leader aka Comrade Gordon on the Telegraph website? If not it’s worth a peek because it’s so fitting. Lovely: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2008/10/09/do0901b.jpg
John Bosworth | 09.10.08 – 1:45 pm | #
True, but they still can’t hide the fact that one of the defendants is called Mohammed. 😉
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7660750.stm
But the real scandal…the NHS employs doctors who are so stupid that they can’t get explosive devices to function as planned.
Compare and contrast:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7660846.stm
“The UK’s goods trade gap with the rest of the world narrowed slightly in August to £8.20bn from £8.24bn in July, the latest official data has shown.
“Analysts said they had expected a bigger fall and that global economic uncertainty had limited the positive impact of the weaker pound on exports.”
With:
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gZ_8qH9TMhGYNDKkqMjzbudd98Lg
“The UK’s trade gap in goods remained at a record level in August, as exports failed to receive a boost from the cheaper pound, another gloomy economic update revealed.
“The difference between the UK’s exports and imports was £8.2 billion in August, the Office for National Statistics said. It was worse than the £7.6 billion expected by analysts, and the largest deficit in the series, which dates back to 1697.”
Yes: the BBC really is putting a positive spin on the biggest trade deficit since the end of the 17th century!
This story, that Cheeta brought to my attention, is a fucking disgrace:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/76c60287.stm
Not only is it a blatant puff piece, designed to make Brown look cool – note that there weren’t any comments about Cameron’s surprisingly funny jokes in his conference speech – it’s also dangerous. We have the Prime Minister joking that banks are collapsing. I bet that’ll do wonders for the markets. It makes ‘je ne regrette rien’ seem minor by comparison.
Myopic BBC reporters on ‘financial crisis’ fail to see the continuing presence of the EU elephant in the room.
‘EU Referendum blogspot’ says:
[Extract]:
“It confirmed beyond any doubt that the UK’s bank rescue plan was not a unilateral action but • as we had suspected • part of a carefully structured and co-ordinated plan devised at Ecofin, building on the foundations laid at the ‘summit’ in Paris on Saturday.
“Thus, when Darling and the Gordon Brown stood up in parliament yesterday, the one during a ministerial statement and the other during PMQs, they may have taken on the familiar mantle of Her Majesty’s ministers. In fact, they were speaking as representatives of a bigger entity, the government of Europe (or, more specifically, the government of the European Union).”
‘The politics of denial’
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/10/politics-of-denial.html
The BBC are reporting that the Mcmental bailout has been a success! Er, the FTSE dropped a hundred odd points, so thats the BBC version of success?
The BBC have pulled out all the stops to promote Mcmental as a saviour when in fact it is McMental who is in large part to blame!
The McMentalist attended a racist conference yesterday and made a terrible joke in bad taste about another bank going under and all the racists laughed as did McMental, only whats so funny about ordinary people losing their life savings?
If a Tory had joked about people losing money then the BBC outrage dept would be on it like flies on a turd!
So the BBC sees the funny side to a PM giggling about peoples fear and misery while crawling to a bunch of racists?