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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Working for a very large German automotive company, although the company has suffered huge falls in sales of vehicles, it must be mentioned that the UK is the market suffering the worst fall in sales (40%), for the other automotive companies the same is true, in fact Scania Trucks has suffered a drop in sales of 90% in the UK.
It is crystal clear in the automotive market that the combination of a very weak pound, and economic mismanagement by the present UK government has almost wiped out the UK automotive industry, what a pity that the BBC does not take a more robust approach to verifying the Governments statements
Let me just say “Congratulations to Michael Steele” for becoming the first African-American RNC chair. This is a proud moment for every Republican. I wonder how Al Beeb will spin it (“Now Republicans have their own Obama” or something like that, I suppose).
Archduke: Our man has the job!
I note the Messiah appears to have as much trouble with technology as the former occupant.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/01/28/2009-01-28_hey_bam_thats_not_the_door.html
No doubt this picture will appear in the intro for every future episode of ‘Have I Got Snippy Left-wing ‘Jokes’ For You’ and will form the backbone of the BBC’s portrayal of The Chosen One for the next for years?
Or not.
boxerdogsareclever writes: “It is crystal clear in the automotive market that the combination of a very weak pound, and economic mismanagement by the present UK government has almost wiped out the UK automotive industry….”
Not to mention a stream of anti-private transport legislation, almost from the day it was elected – a programme endorsed by the ‘Green’ Marxists at the BBC at almost every turn.
Can someone fix Haloscan, please?????
Nothing in particular but there seems to have been a slight shift in the way the Beeb are commentating on the Gummint. Almost as if, after 3 polls and a 4 year old kid walking in and stating the bleedin’ obvious, that they’re, in their ‘unique’ way, becoming more critical.
Just an impression which kinda started yesterday.
And my permanent disgust at ‘The real hustle’.
Good to have Rab C back though.
NO,
Wish I could. Haloscan is often unreliable.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i1My6TPNaWoH2OBg5nek-mHA7SxAD961MEP80
is this the great saviours template for government spending? –how will the BBC present this?
Can someone fix Haloscan, please?????
I never press preview and never have any problems
I wasn’t going to look, but a sidebar link led me to read Justin Webb’s blind worship of President Obamessiah:
Obama confuses his enemies
Webb is talking about the President getting a little heat over his al Arabiya interview. He used his first official interview as President of the US to take the standard Leftoid line that any kind of dialogue will improve things, even if it’s appeasement. Naturally, Justin Webb is already with the program.
He uses leading conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer as an example of how, even though those complaining understand the situation, they’re still wrong. According to the future Today talking head, President Obamessiah understands it even better.
According to ol’ Justin, he’s not appeasing Iran, he’s beguiling them with…well, Justin doesn’t say. He’s just sure his man has it right. This is pure, blind trust, showing that Webb has lost all objectivity when it comes to “the new man”. If I was in a less generous mood, I’d say he’s also gently suggesting that people like Krauthammer are The Obamessiah’s enemies as much as Iran.
The only one confused by The Obamessiah’s words seems to be Justin Webb. September can’t come soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.
I am wondering how the BBC is going to treat the industrial unrest now starting up.
The proles, that is most of, us seem to be going off message.
A hint of nationalism, anti EU and anti globalism- that will never do. Despite flirting with mild criticism the BBC is an inregral part of the wannabe new world order and in truth depends on our docility, humility and readiness to work for the tax eaters to survive.
Do you think 500,000 pound + salaries would be remotely possible if we, the proles,really started to kick off?
There is an absolute conformity of self interest between the Banksters, politicians, media chiefs, corporate bosses, quangocrats etc etc.
It is based on greed and lust for wealth. Nothing else.
Truly they are the ancien regime returned.
They will take our wealth and put a heavy charge on our labour and our children’s labour. They will steal our lives to feed their own.
Maybe Atlas Shrugged is right. Maybe not.
Perhaps we will wake in time, maybe just in time to be mercilessly crushed.
Dave S,
Yes, let’s watch this, v interesting development.
I know I’m comparing apples with oranges but perhaps the real problem with Gaza is not disproportionality but bad sportsmanship? Israelis as a general rule do not play cricket. (Yes, I know there is an Israeli cricket league but the British as a general rule don’t play baseball, either). If Israelis didn’t take themselves so seriously and viewed war as a sport instead of a life and death struggle?????
Consider this story:
He won 100-0. Should he have been fired? The Covenant School, Dallas girls basketball team ‘destroyed’ the Dallas Academy team which hasn’t won in four seasons.
Were they wrong to have done so? Who should take the blame for this unChrist-like and dishonourable approach?
Is this British Jobs for British workers issue really about the numbers of – apparently – non British people who arrived during the golden years and are living in this country? I wonder if the BBC will soon detect odious ‘far right’ activism at work
DaveS makes a really interesting point. So much of what is being protested about sounds like a press release from the Party That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
The BBC is going to have some very fancy footwork to do over the next couple of months (at least).
I am a little bit ashamed of what I am about to say, but, well, back in college…. Well… I watched a little bit of BBC.
I was young, I was naive. I didn’t think I was hurting anyone. All the other guys were doing it, and we were totally drunk at the time as well. None of us thought we were doing anything wrong.
They were bragging about Kat and Alfie, and at first I thought that they were lame; but then I heard about Shane Richie and the dirty brunette, I saw some FHM pics and before I knew it, we were playing drinking games… I guess I just lost perspective.
I spoke to some people and theyeventually put me me onto councelling, and SKY TV. I am happy to say that that phase of my life is behind me now, and thankfully before any serious damage was done.
When I think about, well…. the hurt that could have been done… well… I am certainly not proud.
Anyway, I spend three nights a week knocking on doors, just trying to make sure that other people don’t have to go through what I did.
When I see someone in HMV or Zavvi buying BBC DVDs, I grab them and try to educate them about what they are doing. They usually think I am weird at first, some times they spit on me….but they soon come round:0)
At Davos the MSM elite were naval gazing about how they could have been so wrong for so long. Always chasing the story and never doing research, analysis, in depth investigation or hell, any work.
Like the bankers, regulators and politicians – ‘lessons have been learned’ so that’s alright then eh?
This is unbelievable.
“One difficulty with Radio 4’s Today programme is how it presents, in the mildest terms, the most outrageous news that causes me almost to crash my car when I hear it. One such near-miss took place on Thursday. In a discussion about the profound failure of the Government’s £5 billion adult literacy drive, an unfortunate young man who was struggling in the world of work because of his inability to read properly was interviewed about the lack of help he had received. The crash almost came when it was mentioned, in passing, that he had seven GCSEs.
Now I do not wish to be problematical, but could somebody tell me this: how in God’s name does someone get seven GCSEs if he can’t read? ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/4402664/This-is-why-Britain-is-a-failing-nation.html
In New Labours Britain anything is possible.
I love watching the BBC squirm when they are trying to downplay the criminality and corruption in the party of vermin.
They can hardly ignore the labour peers and cash for questions scandal, but here they are trying for all they are worth to deflect or sow seeds of doubt.
The Times has released video footage of Truscott trying to line his pockets with corrupt bungs.
All the papers are covering it. The BBC has no choice. But wait what’s this line in their coverage.
‘The footage of the interview with Lord Truscott, selected excerpts of which are published below, was heavily edited by the newspaper. You can watch the footage by visiting the newspaper’s website.’
Has this been independently verified. I mean nobody in their right minds takes anything the BBC says at face value any more.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7861674.stm
One difficulty with Radio 4’s Today programme is how it presents, in the mildest terms, the most outrageous news that causes me almost to crash my car when I hear it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/4402664/This-is-why-Britain-is-a-failing-nation.html
The BBC’s Bridgett Kendall on this morning’s Today: “We’ve had eight years of a very right wing American administration…”
Tim Blair writes:
“Imagine pitching a movie like Gran Torino to one of Australia’s sheltered film-funding workshops…”
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/get_off_my_lawn/
What he says goes for the BBC, too. (Or any lottery-funded film project in the UK.)
I never press preview and never have any problems
I don’t use preview either. Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Last night all the threads were blank.
I noticed something a little weird when reading this story today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7862287.stm “Brown’s jobs quote bites him back”
The realated internet links including The Morning Star, the self-described “socialist daily” (see: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk).
Amusing as the BBC article itself makes no mention of Morning Star, so I am not sure how it could be related.
And a quick peak at the legtimately audited papers (Morning Star isn’t audited) from ABC (http://www.abc.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=nav/abc&noc=y) show it’s not among the Top 14 most popular UK dailies but it does make it into the 11 newspapers (strange number 11 isn’t it) “realated links”.
In case you’re wondering here’s the top 14 dailies in the UK by circulation:
THE SUN 2899310
DAILY MAIL 2139178
DAILY MIRROR 1696151
DAILY TELEGRAPH 824244
DAILY EXPRESS 728296
DAILY STAR 725671
TIMES 600962
FT 592306
DAILY RECORD 435319
GUARDIAN 349235
EVENING STANDARD 343010
INDEPENDENT 287173
DAILY SPORT 200242
THE SCOTSMAN 47898
Oh, and the Morning Star? No figures. But they say, according to a Guardian report here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/aug/03/olympicsandthemedia.pressandpublishing), they have circulation of 25,000. No independent audit though.
I don’t think the socialist daily is relevant to the BBC story or that relevant British people given it’s paltry circulation.
David Preiser (USA) | 30.01.09 – 11:31 pm
Webb describes what Obama’s doing as “sophistry”; hardly a term of praise. And Webb says it would be hard to argue with Krauthammer, who is critical of Obama. I think your reading of Webb’s short blog piece is perverse.
Dave S:
“I am wondering how the BBC is going to treat the industrial unrest now starting up.”
As a news story, without agenda, and very thoroughly if this morning’s Today programme is anything to go by.
TPO | 31.01.09 – 2:30 am
I’m sure the BBC is right. A useful warning for the discerning viewer i think.
(To be said in a Geordie accent) “Day 11 in the BBC’s Adoration of the Obama White House…”
Rajini Vaidyanathan: President Obama has announced the creation of a “Middle Class Task Force” to raise living standards for, as the name suggests, middle-class US families.
It will be led by Vice-President Joe Biden, who himself rose to the top from working class roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7861299.stm
Hmmm…
Joe Biden’s Mythical Blue-Collar Roots
The facts are there for anyone who wants to look at them. When Joe Biden Sr. died in 2002, his obituary in the News-Journal of Wilmington reported that when he married in 1941, “he was working as a sales representative for Amoco Oil Co. in Harrisburg.”
It went on, “Biden also was an executive in a Boston-based company that supplied waterproof sealant for U.S. merchant marine ships built during World War II. After the war, he co-owned an airport and crop-dusting service on Long Island.” Upon moving his family to Delaware, the News-Journal said, Biden “worked in the state first as a sales manager for auto dealerships and later in real-estate condominium sales.”
Executive, co-owner and manager? Those titles identify the jobholder as solidly middle class, if not better. They fall in the category of white-collar occupations, not blue-collar…
So where did he get his working-class reputation?… mostly it reflects journalists’ weakness for simple, vivid narratives… someone growing up the son of a sales manager is a bit lacking in color and drama.
GCooper10:06
Yes, imagine if George Bush had tried to walk through a window instead of a door !
Webb describes what Obama’s doing as “sophistry”; hardly a term of praise.
mikewineliberal | 31.01.09 – 10:19 am
I don’t want to get into a to-do about semantics but I think you’re taking the word out of its context: “The new man is capable of sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies.”
The title is “Obama confuses his enemies”. Webb is impressed with what he sees as Obama’s cleverness. To me this reads like another “I think you’ll find Obama is correct” commentary from Webb.
Daniel 12:42
There is nothing to be ashamed of. Most of us have got drunk when we were younger and ended up watching the BBC.
It’s just a phase you go through as part of growing up and then you move on.
Don’t let it get to you, it almost certainly did you no lasting harm and you have clearly learnt from your experience.
TPO 2:30
Well said ! I have posted on another thread that the Beeboids are such serial liars that nothing, absolutely nothing , they say can be trusted.
Mikewine 10:19
Just like the BBC edited Obama’s inauguration speech you mean ?
DB | 31.01.09 – 10:28 am
“Lower middle-class” would sound a bit Snobbish Brit in a US context, wouldn’t it?
TPO quotes: “‘The footage of the interview with Lord Truscott, selected excerpts of which are published below, was heavily edited by the newspaper”
This would be completely unlike the deliberate falsification of the Obamessiah’s inaugural address, by Newsnight, would it?
DB 10:51
Yes, Webb admires Obama’s dishonesty because it fits perfectly with the BBC mentality.
“I am wondering how the BBC is going to treat the industrial unrest now starting up.”
As a news story, without agenda
(… a ‘thoughtful’ comment from MWL).
Dear boy, facts don’t play a part in your universe, do they?
NO 11:56
And facts don’t play a part in the BBC’s universe either !
“Muslim population ‘rising 10 times faster than rest of society'”
Says the Times in a headline.
And the BBC’s version…?
An eloquent silence flows from Broadcasting House
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.01.09 – 11:56 am
Based on listening to their coverage; and my assessment based on what I heard. Did you listen to Today today?
GCooper 12:15
That is a strange silence from the BBC. I would expect them to report a rising Muslim population in the UK as GOOD news !
“The new man is capable of sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies.”
And MWL is trying to emulate him, rather pathetically as it happens. ‘Sophistry’ here is clearly high praise, but poor MWL is taking it out of context and pretending that it is used in a negative sense.
Yes, either poor MWL missed those reading comprehension classes, or he thinks that lies don’t get found out.
“The new man is capable of sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies.”
Which does Webb think is Obama’s enemy, Ahmedinejad ….or Krauthammer?
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.01.09 – 1:01 pm
Hey, careful big man: I’m one of your few friends on here.
More delusions.
“Lower middle-class” would sound a bit Snobbish Brit in a US context, wouldn’t it?
Debrett | 31.01.09 – 11:15 am
I find anything lower than earl a little common myself, but for BBC purposes “middle-class” or “white-collar” should suffice where Mr Biden is concerned.
On an unrelated matter – why is the BBC not giving the weather-related deaths in America the same prominence as it is those in Australia? Could it be because the deaths in America are due to the cold, and cold doesn’t fit the narrative? Or maybe none of the BBC’s pool of Obama reporters can be spared for such trivialities.
Hey, they are only Yanks. Only one step above Joos.
‘EU referendum’ site has reference to this ‘Wall St. Journal’ article, which provides a critique of common political attitudes (not least, it could be added, at the BBC):
‘Emotion as the new reason’
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/01/emotion-as-new-reason.html
‘Sunday Telegraph’
Christopher Booker:
“BBC abandons ‘impartiality’ on warming”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4413474/BBC-abandons-impartiality-on-warming.html
this would be a good one for Booktalk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Slobbering-Love-Affair-Pathetic-Mainstream/dp/1596980907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233434105&sr=8-1
adam | 31.01.09 – 8:44 pm
That book cover reminds me of the somewhat more amateurish effort I knocked up for Gavin Hewitt’s Obama blog during the presidential election campaign. It didn’t get past the BBC moderators, unfortunately.
Much as might have been predicted, the toothless ZaNuLabour lackeys at the BBC Trust have tried to duck out of passing an opinion on Newnight’s fabricated inaugural address by the Obamessiah.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/
This one needs to be kept alive – it is quite rare to catch the BBC so blatantly falsifying the news.