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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errgh typo – “friday NIGHT text messaging”..
found one
Here an interesting fact: If you add John McCain’s age and Barack Obama’s age together you’ll get the number of times Obama usually says “uh” when answering a question.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/08/bbc.radio
How difficult is it for the BBC to admit it’s left-wing bias?.
What the hell possessed the Select Committee to invite two left wing journalists to defend the Toady show against accusations.
archduke | 10.10.08 – 9:56 pm,
A few weeks ago someone on this site came up with Obama bin Biden I thought that was quite good.
“Licence payers may wonder why an organisation that is actively promoting fear of global warming is also spending licence payers money on legal advice to support an attempt to conceal environmental information about its own activities.”
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=119#more-119
It seems yet again, the BBC is spending our money to hide their hypocracy
Bryan | 10.10.08 – 10:14 pm |
thats gone around the blogsphere… its now a well known phrase at LGF.
got another joke..
why is jimmy carter campaigning for obama?
because carter will then end up being the 2nd worst president in U.S. history.
whats do obama and osama have in common?
they both have friends that bombed the pentagon.
what does obama say when you sneeze in front of him?
“I bless you”
BBC Newsflash: totally unexpected exoneration by BBC of BBC’s Robert Peston on BBC’s ‘Newswatch’, despite soundly based criticisms by BBC viewers and licence-payers (limited access video):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7660000/newsid_7664400/7664458.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1
a bit of friday night non-bbc fun
oasis – shock of the lightning
note the references in the vid to the british army.
those lads are solid, misguided by the new labour bollocks, but ….
I thought BBC ‘Newsnight’ was interesting tonight in its intelligent, open-ended, less-knowing, less-patronising tone than usual.
And I thought it was a bit of a masterstoke to have on NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, author of ‘The Black Swan’, who perhaps embarrassed everyone at first with his very presence, and his initially disorienting responses to e.g. a question on the ‘financial crisis’ by saying something like: ‘I wake up every morning and I say – I know nothing’. And when asked to speculate about policies to deal with the financial crisis, he says something like: ‘the financial crisis has not even started yet’. If you missed it, and have BBC iPlayer: recommended. Or Google him. Woody Allen could play him in a film:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIYz8tfGjY
Jon: Nothing new about this. Remember the BBC is full of very rich left wing liberals WHO like their flights to Goa to indulge in a bit of smack and free love.
They are not the ones expecting to give up the flying, it’s the unwashed scum that pay their TV licence and flg their guts out in a shite job for 50 weeks a year just to enjoy a few days in the sun somewhere.
How dare these unwashed vermin spend money like that the liberals think. If they can afford two weeks off work, they can afford more tax and more licence fee.
A few weeks ago someone on this site came up with Obama bin Biden I thought that was quite good.
Bryan | 10.10.08 – 10:14 pm |
Modesty forbids me to say that it was me. I did howeverf plagiarise it from, I think, a comment on Gudo’s blog.
I’d second George R’s recommendation. Taleb was very thought-provoking.
Of course, the subtext of his positon is that we don’t know a quarter as much as ‘experts’ like to claim and that we cannot rely on mathematical computer models to predict or interpret reality.
Are you listening, Roger Harrabin?
These banks are nothing more than benefit spongers.
Why are so many so-called conservatives in this nation in favour of giving taxpayers money to feckless spongers like Lloyds and HBOS?
There is no economic crisis, this is just arrogant bankers trying to blackmail us into giving them our money.
Socialism for the rich is what this is, a massive theft of taxpayers money which the fat cats will pocket for themselves while we starve.
If Cameron were smart he would side with public opinion and oppose any bailouts. But he is chums with the bankers so he won’t do that.
These “experts” and the CEOs of the banks are SUPPOSED to know how to solve this mess, that is what they are paid to do.
What a bunch of useless, overpaid cretins.
Radio 4 had been having the Palin Troopergate investigation as its second main item for hours on Friday evening,as if the average Brit gives a monkey’s. It was trailing a possible adverse result, bad news for the Repubs – but with no reference to the charge that the whole inquiry is a political circus.
And to give balance – the 10pm news had a puff piece about how well Obama is doing in Carolina.
BBC World Service is now running the actual result of the inquiry as its main item. Or rather – half the result, the bad bit – but no mention of Palin being found to be within her lawful powers in sacking the Commissioner.
Expect the Today prog to lap this up. They can’t even report the full conclusion of the rigged inquiry !
…….
Have I missed all the BBC headline reporting on Obama and Ayers ? Has anyone ever heard anything on the BBC suggesting that Obama has a wide spread of dodgy long-term contrasts. Or any suggestion that the real question should be “does Obama have any friends at all who are not extreme-left America-haters ?”
Maastricht, The Netherlands | 10.10.08 – 10:03 pm |
How difficult is it for the BBC to admit it’s left-wing bias?.
What the hell possessed the Select Committee to invite two left wing journalists to defend the Toady show against accusations.
a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/08/bbc.radio”
Ontzagwekkend!
My favorite line:
The Lords committee asked if Peston was setting the reporting agenda for the current economic crisis.
No, we asked it here over a week ago. What a shame they asked the wrong people. But what the hell is Brogan on? There are two separate instances when Peston released insider information, which would be illegal coming from anywhere else.
And I honestly don’t know what to make of the last line:
“Today political reporters don’t get the greatest access: Nick Robinson does, but he doesn’t consider the Today programme his main outlet,” Ashley told the committee.
That’s what his blog’s for, I would guess. But then, what’s wrong with that picture? Haven’t we been talking about how these blogs blur the line between opinion and reporting? Does that statement not give the game away?
*cough* The Charter *cough*.
The BBC are very keen to push the Palin ‘scandal’ BUT one wonders whether they will be so keen to give air time to the ACORN scandal in the USA?
ACORN is a ‘minorities registration drive’ that has been praised by Obama and is now the subject of an FBI investigation into voting fraud registering thousands of fake voters, multiple registrations,registering the dead,etc!
The push to invent fake Obama supporters in swing states and steal the election by commiting electoral fraud will be a big news story everywhere but I have the feeling that the BBC will think it a non story!
The socialists have always believed the ends justify the means, can you imagine what these crooks would do once in the white house?
Could it be that the BBC will ignore this story because it reflects badly on their chosen candidate?
IF the yanks are stupid enough to elect a bunch of crooked freeloading liars then I am afraid to say the USA deserves all its going to get!
Investors Business Daily suggests that one factor affecting the US stock market is that many funds could be running scared of the impact of an Obama Presidency combined with an ultra-liberal majority in both houses in Congress. His taxation policies have direct effects on investment.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=308530365266606
…………
At 3.30am this morning the BBC World Service had a full half-hour celebration of how wonderful Islam is for women – including converts in Britain. “Islamochic” kept cropping up – including in a chat with some stupid girl rappers. Islam was presented as LIBERATING for women !
Who is actually running the production departments at the BBC ? If it is not leftists like Mierion Jones colluding every few months to have another biased story by socialist Greg Palast, or pacifists endessly attacking US and British involvement in Afghanistan, or “reporters” shilling for Hamas and Hezbollah, it is a gang of producers giving endless airtime to the wonders of Islam.
But of course Palin’s Christianity is a subject of endless mockery.
“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”.
Cassandra
ACORN has been found to be submitting fraudulent voter registrations in 6 states in the past 3 days – on topof years of electoral fraud.
But ACORN, like Ayers, is a closed bookto the BBC. It does not exist. Obama was never an ACORN organiser, never trained their leaders, never acted for them as a lawyer, never shoveled money to themfrom the Anneberg /Ayers funds, never had his campaign give them nearly a million dollars this year.
Just like the BBC, Obama never ever knew them !
If anything, the BBC’s coverage of the US election has been the most sustained period of bias by commission and omission I have ever seen from the BBC.
I would have thought the BBC should give headlines not to Palin and Troopergate but to blatant nationwide attempts by Obama and ACORN to steal the election.
We are seeing the same pattern of voter fraud in the UK – but again, damn all attention paid by the BBC to the scale of fraud, the areas it is happening in – and who is doing it.
If it was the right-wing in the US or in Britain pulling these tricks we’d have endless coverage, full-depth investigations, and Kirsty Wark and John Humphreys even more apoplectic than usual.
The BBC’s Palin Derangement Syndrome causes them to lie once again:
Palin abused power, probe finds
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is guilty of abuse of power, according to a probe by the state legislature.
Er, or not.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin violated ethics rules by trying to remove her former brother in law from his job as a state trooper, a highly-anticipated legislative report into the matter has concluded. But she didn’t break any laws in firing her public safety commissioner, who said he had been pressured to fire the trooper, the report found.
David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 11.10.08 – 7:00 am |
It’s interesting, if depressing, how these things get shared, and what one makes of them.
Bear In mind that I tend to just have the main news on in the background, not more focussed stuff like Today.
Listening/watching casually just now it didn’t come across well.
But such is the focus on this one foreign pol, and such is the BBC determination to dig up as much dirt, as often as it can, I paid a bit more attention.
The facts are, I presume, the facts (heck, I don’t even trust Aunty on that aspect any more). And abuse of power doesn’t sound too spiffy.
No excuse I know (especially without knowing the true extent of the ‘abuse’), but having read elsewhere here, one has to wonder in political terms (these guys all ‘use’ their position in ‘odd’ ways) how this stacks up against the action of some others in the frame.
So I have to rely on edited clips and a BBC VO narrative for context, including a Democrat making a fairly predictable point, and ‘even one of her own’, a ‘Republican voter’ (selected how?) expressing his ‘outrage’.
Is this such a ‘gotcha’ done deal running elsewhere here (I know what the papers are saying, predictably, across the Guardian – Times divide (with the chatterati all having to decided she is the anti-Christ), but not commercial broadcast as much) and, more importantly, in the US.
To any in BBC I simply reiterate that I am merely seeking to understand, and it has to be telling that I have zero faith in the agenda and intent behind the coverage of Mrs. Palin by them. To the extent that, in true Brit style, and over plenty of pragmatic concerns, I often end up erring on her ‘side’ simply by the level of and bile behind these constant attacks on her (even if this is on key aspects of conduct) by a bunch of folk I have decided have decided ‘they’ know who and what is best for me to know and hence think about.
News 24 have just had one of their autocue readers ask what is the point of shares,
He workes for a company that gets its money from a legally enforced telivision tax and will have a pension that does not depend on the economy. So for him probably none.
JohnA
Are you refering to postal voting set up to give Muslim men a way of making sure that their wifes and children vote for labour?
Ron Todd | 11.10.08 – 7:39 am | #
Is this the same programme that quotes the Daily Mail as saying Mr. Brown has had a great week and all his fairy dust is blessed because ‘he is human after all’?
This, based on a touching portrayal of his coming home late at night (in the ad world I pulled overnighters most weeks, so this ‘they stayed up a bit’ stuff really doesn’t make me think they are really straining) to help his kids fix their toys.
Credit to the guest for pointing out that using the kids was a debating point used by Mr. Brown in true ‘don’t do as I do’ style, and only recently.
The whole media, but especially the BBC seem to operate on a daily roller-coaster hooking into isolated moments and forgetting the bigger (how many trillion?) longer (11 years?) picture that has to be laid pretty much at the door at one person, no matter how ‘human’ (like I care).
ps: Just watched ‘Newswatch’ on Robert Peston.
‘The so-called blogosphere’, followed by an editor who opened by saying he… ‘wouldn’t admit…’. And even went on to say ‘…but even if we did…’
‘Nuff said.
Though I was glad to see that it is admitted (proudly claimed) that every BBC Blog goes through the same editorial rigour (including at least one person checking) and should be viewed with the same heft as any other piece of output.
Not sure I have seen much evidence of that on the professional quality side mind (some massive spelling howlers and horribly mangled ‘explanations’). And I am sure I’ve heard Aunty try and claim blogs are ‘different’ when caught with her knickers round her objective ankles time and again. Total hypocrisy if not mendacity. No change there, then.
At least at the end we have ‘revolutionary stuff, with a BBC senior executive admitting they are not perfect’. I think Ray Snoddy best start looking for a new gig.
But… the figures are bigger. Dumbing down may be contrary to the Charter, but it’s good for salary negotiations… at least while bonusses are still OK in the BBC if not the City.
Yes, the pro-Obama BBC predictably puts anti-Palin news as its top news web story today.
The BBC has nothing on this anti-Obama news:
“New Obama ‘Muslim Outreach Advisor’ met with Islamic organizations associated with Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023052.php
Two anti-Obama items here, which would be censored at the BBC:
1.)”Nation of Islam leader calls Obama ‘the Messiah'” (video):
http://donalblaney.blogspot.com/2008/10/nation-of-islam-leader-calls-obama.html
2.)”Is Obama cheating his way to victory?”
http://donalblaney.blogspot.com/2008/10/is-obama-cheating-his-way-to-victory.html
Just caught the last ten minutes of the Today programme, or was that “Comment is Free”? Wish I hadn’t.
Item 1. A new Atlas made by lefty geography academics to keep Beeboids informed of the REAL world, quote “here on the poverty map look how big Africa is and how small the United States is” etcetc
Item 2. The lunatic author of “Affluenza” is let loose to condemn capitalism, the USA, Jeff Randall and to opine that we would all be happier if we destroyed North America and lived in mud huts etcetc
This was just drivel, drivel, drivel, under the pretence of an informed and intelligenbt radio. It’s no wonder that I gave up being a regular listener of Today a long time ago.
the very fact that this Palin non-story is the headline news on the BBC just demonstrates how in the tank for Obama the BBC are. It’s a complete non story. And as Peter has said further up in the thread, I’m inclined to disbelieve virtually anything the BBC ‘spins’ these days, and side with Sarah Palin as the BBC are part of the witch hunt against her.
My hatred of the BBC is over flowing at the moment. Maybe its time for a V for Vendetta moment with respect to the ‘Ministry of Truth’?
None of the reports I’ve heard on the BBC this morning has offered any background into State Trooper Wootten’s behaviour – the violent threats, the use of a taser on his 11 year old stepson, driving his patrol car under the influence of alcohol – as that might create the unwelcome impression that Palin might have had good reason to act as she did.
And still nothing about ACORN. This follows a pattern where news embarrassing to the Democrats is concerned. Rev Wright, Rezko, John Edwards’ sex scandal, Bill Ayers – the BBC tried desperately to ignore them all for as long as possible in the hope that they would go away. This reluctance to report negative news about one party contrasts sharply with the excited eagerness of BBC journalists to throw mud at the other, and especially over Sarah Palin. Lies and baseless rumours have been linked to on BBC blogs and news reports often sound like a check-list of Obama’s campaign talking points for the day. How anyone at the BBC can claim with a straight face to be unbiased is beyond me.
today was excellent this morning, as it always is on a saturday. the breadth and depth of analysis must make it one of the greatest news programme on any broadcast media. the palin investigation was explained in good detail and in a balanced way. this was an official investigation, launched before the vp nomination. if it is not news, I really do not know what is. it in no way dominated coverage btw. that honour quite rightly went to the financial crisis, where again the coverage was the best i’ve heard all week. coverage of haider’s death v good and balanced too. oliver james a low point I agree! they had matthew d’ancona in the same slot last week though.
Does it never occur to WWL that the very fact a self-proclaimed ‘liberal’ thinks Toady is so fine is proof that it is, in fact, utterly biased?
If it weren’t, he wouldn’t enjoy it so much.
ooh, you got me there. dang. my moniker is an
insult to liberals. don’t think i’ve proclaimed my position anywhere have I?
The Week in Westmister just finished on R4.
Apperantly Gordon Brown has ‘authority’ and Mandelson has ‘great judgment’ might be genuine opinions but not ones I have heard much except on the BBC. They claims to give a balanced view over several programmes. Will we get a half hour on how wonderful David Cameron and Jeffrey Archer are. Or do they consider the ‘Nu Labour is wonderful’ view point to be scripture and need no balancing opinions from the baby eating evil troll scum that do not want the state to control all aspects of their existance?
I’d say you pretty much had it right with the second option, Mr Todd.
While mad Gordon and his henchmen run about like lunatics trying to convince people that they are ‘fixing’ the financial problems, it’s good to see that the BBC website remains firmly fixed on ensuring that climate change moonshine continues to be peddled. This morning, it’s the turn of our new ‘energy and climate change’ minister Ed Miliband to be lauded for suggesting that, despite the likelihood of recession, the power industry should still be forced to cut ‘carbon’ emissions by 20% by 2020 – a move that, if enforced, would mean that we would have power cuts as frequently as they currently occur in Kenya.
There’s no analysis of this nutcase stance, only a quote from a greenie who begrudgingly welcomes the move.
‘Brown demands petrol price cuts’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7662918.stm
A fair and balance article would point out that some 67% of petrol prices are tax. Brown can yell all he wants, but why doesn’t he try taking a smaller slice of the pie himself. For a litre costing £1.10, the government takes 73p in tax, and the retailer takes about 8p. But hey, since when has scrutiny of anything Labour do been part of BBC’s role?
Contrast & Compare:
Israeli city hit by fresh clashes
Israeli police have clashed with Jewish protesters in the northern city of Acre on the third day of violence involving Jews and Israeli-Arabs.
Police fired water cannon at a crowd of at least 200 people to prevent them from entering an Arab neighbourhood.
or
Police: Acre disturbances sparked deliberately by Arab driver
In the meantime, police said, false rumors that Arabs were seriously harmed or killed by Jews reached the Old City, and caused a far more serious and organized incident in Acre.
Responding to the rumors, hundreds of Arabs set out from the Old City toward the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, walking down a main road, smashing store windows and cars along the way. Reports said the mob shouted “Kill the Jews,” “Allahu Akbar,” and “If you come out of your homes, you will die.”
At the same time, a few hundred Jews had congregated in the streets of the Ben-Gurion neighborhood. Fearing a deadly clash, police acted quickly, mobilizing “a very large force” to prevent the two groups from confronting one another, Shaked said.
Also note:
Mr Jamal is reported to have said he was simply driving to a property he owned in the eastern part of the city.
or
Speaking to Channel 2 News, Jamal denied he had intended to provoke local residents, saying he had driven with his 18-year-old son and the son’s 20-year-old friend carefully and quietly from the Old City to the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, three kilometers away, to pick up his daughter from her fiancée’s home.
But police dismissed Jamal’s claims.
This is the list of stories from the BBC “Politics” web page (Sat morning11/10/08). Notice anything missing?
Lib Dems demand cut in income tax
Mandelson to take seat in Lords
German bows out as Lib Dem leader
Livingstone backs mayor Met role
Brown wants ‘global’ bank support
Brown demands petrol price cut
Where is the Loyal opposition?
Unbiased and balanced my arse
BBC report:
“Capello in dark over Kazakhstan”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/7657323.stm
‘Telegraph’ report:
“Borat runs his eye over the England team”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/england/3174790/Borat-runs-his-eye-over-the-England-team-ahead-of-Kazakhstan-World-Cup-qualifier-Football.html
Biodegradable | 11.10.08 – 1:06 pm
I think it’s a bit unfair to do a ‘compare and contrast’ between these 2 particular stories.
The BBC one is a follow up report on the third day of clashes, while the JPost one is about the first 2 days.
The BBC did do a full account of the first 2 days here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7664670.stm
It’s not that different from the JPost really.
Certainly no outrageous bias that I can see.
Amazing as that may be! 🙂
Certainly no outrageous bias that I can see.
Perhaps a visit to your optician is called for.
“When people are unemployed, they don’t care if they go to bed at 3am. If they have to get up for work they don’t get involved with such things.”
Others, including Mr Zakour, blame in part the fact that more religious and nationalist Jews have moved to the city in recent years.
And meanwhile, according to the Mossawa Center which represents Israeli-Arabs, the Arab community has been discriminated against in terms of access to housing, education and public services.
Poor unemployed Arab victims versus fanatical religious Jews.
No bias there eh?
The BBC always justifies Arab violence against Israelis by reminding us how oppressed the Arabs are and how fanatical the Jews are.
By the way, what do you think of the picture caption here?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7641889.stm
Peter | Homepage | 11.10.08 – 8:06 am
That’s a laugh! They claim “editorial rigour” “and “checking” of blog “quality”.
Hah! i’d like to know who then “checks” The Justin Webb “blog” for quality.
The scribblings on there are not even proper communication.
“See this, this and this and then this this and this, and after that, this this and this to find out what the this this and this and the this this and this are all about”, doesn’t count.
(I am not even mentioning the mangling of English.)
archduke | 10.10.08 – 10:24 pm
whats do obama and osama have in common?
they both have friends that bombed the pentagon.
Think I’ll borrow that one, if you don’t mind.
Modesty forbids me to say that it was me. I did howeverf plagiarise it from, I think, a comment on Gudo’s blog.
TPO | 11.10.08 – 12:03 am
Ah!
If anything, the BBC’s coverage of the US election has been the most sustained period of bias by commission and omission I have ever seen from the BBC.
JohnA | 11.10.08 – 6:22 am
I second that. The primaries began in January with the World Service concentrating exclusively on the Obama-Clinton clash and completely ignoring the Republicans, though their primaries were taking place on the same day.
Coincidentally, President George W. Bush was making a historic visit to Israel. The World Service completely ignored him as well, in effect snubbing him – extraordinary behaviour for a news service.
Since then they have done nothing to change my original impression that they were acting as cheerleaders for the Democrats. It’s a bloody disgrace.
By the way, what do you think of the picture caption here?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middl…ast/ 7641889.stm
Biodegradable | 11.10.08 – 1:56 pm
Both the picture and the caption are basically sneering at religious Jews, though I assume Franks is Jewish.
He couldn’t have taken a decent picture of the wall with the notes?
And what about this:
About a dozen men were scrabbling hard at an old, cracked wall. From time to time, they would stab a wooden pick inside the the jammed crevices, as if they were microscopic dental hygienists trying to scrape clean a vast, uneven mouth.
It’s vile stuff, jeering and disrespectful.
I’ve had a look at quite a bit of Franks’ “reporting.” I beleve he is trying to ingratiate himself with the anti-Israel crowd who report on the Middle East section, chief among them “editor” Jeremy Bowen.
Franks is a pathetic, biased fool. Fits in well at the BBC.
BBC’s Harrabin and his continual ONE-SIDED pro-EU, pro-Labour propaganda:
“Call to maintain climate targets”
(‘Call’ by whom, Harrabin?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7662753.stm
Harrabin avoids a discussion of the consequences of the state imposed rules on people he advocates:
“Britons to face carbon spot checks”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/carbon_spotchecks/
The relentless search to put a climate change moonshine spin on everything permeates everything the BBC does and illustrates how deep the bias has infected the journalistic culture.
Take the scientific quest for hydrogen-based energy, for example. I’m sure it’s an important new avenue of work, to complement the brilliant achievements in fossil fuel- related technology that mean that we have power at the flick of a switch.
For the BBC, though, the main point is uncontested: that hydrogen will help combat ‘climate change’.
You couldn’t make it up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7663301.stm
Tom | 11.10.08 – 1:21 pm | #
“Certainly no outrageous bias that I can see. Amazing as that may be! ”
Tom, just how outrageous does bias have to be?
Are you saying that a slight bias is acceptable? Or that you can’t see ANY bias? Are you saying that it is amazing that there is no outrageous bias (Because there’s usually a small amount?)
I am confused.
By the way, can’t you really see that one article is more sympathetic to Arabs than the other? You may be working from the assumption that the Arabs occupy the moral high ground (and Israel occupies Arab ground 😉 ) which is the common consensus at the Beeb and that explains why their article makes the Arabs look good.
JPost, being Israeli, does not do this. If you factor in “they would say that wouldn’t they” (for both sides,) you automatically concede there is an element bias about. It’s unavoidable as soon as someone opens their trap.
Only some of us are aware that there is more to the situation than meets the eye of the superficially informed pro-Palestinian BBC journos. Wittingly or unwittingly, their reports contain, sometimes slight, sometimes outrageous bias which is fed to a receptive pro Arab audience back home, as well as their worldwide audience through BBC World Service.
So some of us would rather believe the Israeli narrative, (propaganda to some of you) than the BBC propaganda, which, in a ‘We are all Hezbolla now’ kinda way, has become the norm.
Before someone pipes up with “You want a biased BBC, biased in accordance with YOUR bias” I would answer “No, I’d settle for balanced and well-informed, thanks.”
I’m happy to report that I got a very thoughtful response from Meirion Jones about my complaint about Palast’s Newsnight “investigative report”:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/9167292892722738193/#424209
Like most people have when using Google, Jones confused me with my investment banker/Republican donor namesake. Even so, he made an effort to answer my questions.
He asked that the content of his explanation remain confidential, since it went outside of the standard boilerplate “we have taken your thoughts into consideration”, or whatever, so I’m going to respect that. He took the time to consider my points, along with some ACORN evidence I provided.
All I can say is that he and Palast had a different idea of what the report was trying to show – intimidation versus fraudulent registration. There was no real answer for not divulging Palast’s partisan project with Kennedy, unfortunately.
Jones was very considerate – even when I mentioned B-BBC – but we have a different opinion on the consequences of ACORN’s activities. That’s why the report came out the way it did.
That about sums it up.
I realize now I forgot to tell him that the NewsnightInvestigations@bbc.co.uk email doesn’t work, and I only got through by typing in his name.
“Global surveys suggest that despite a steady increase in the standard of living people have not become any happier over the past 25 years and that people in the UK were happier in the supposedly dark days of the 1980s. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7657465.stm
These Lib Dems just don’t get it – they want the state to make people happy. They don’t ask what was it in the 1980s that made people happier than now – it wasn’t money, it wasn’t the unions, it wasn’t endless directives forcing the people of Britain to conform to a socialist ideal – NO it was smaller government and less interference in peoples lives.
How can you ever make people happier by legislating “happiness” policies? As a famous statesman once said.
“Government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem.”
Shamed into action:
BBC cuts champagne and first class air bill because of soaring energy costs
The £50,000 annual budget for champagne, which is couriered to the homes of award-winning staff and presenters, has already been axed on the personal orders of Mark Thompson, the director-general. They will receive instead a well done card from the director-general.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3172240/BBC-cuts-champagne-and-first-class-air-bill-because-of-soaring-energy-costs.html