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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David – given that the traffic to BBBC is increasing and thus you are getting a lot of newcomers and first-timers, don’t you think there should be a BBBC 101?
Just a quick FAQ kind of thing giving an insight into areas which appear to be biased.
Effectively this would just be a collection of all the labels/keywords for each article:
anti-Israel, pro Hamas, pro-Labour, pro-EU, anti-christian
etc
There are several key fields where the BBC displays most of its bias. A quick few examples for each would be sufficient.
I think it would be useful to have a few lines to explain the subtlety of the bias. It’s one of those ‘did you see the moonwalking bear?’ type subtleties.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2pK0BQ9CUHk
First, you have to know what types of bias you are looking for so you can be more critical in your interpretation of the news.
I’m new here and I find the site interesting but think there should be a ‘first port of call’ link.
Just an idea.
Keep up the good work.
A little light relief:
Every Sunday, I visit Post Secret, where people send in anonymous confessions on postcards. It’s a fascinating site.
This morning, I saw a card which just has to come from a News Beeboid:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/SYU533jS_UI/AAAAAAAAH_g/Jk0ynh3Ngz0/s1600-h/bushremorse.jpg
Post Secret itself is here:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
How about a proper forum instead of this plastic Haloscan rubbish which never seems to work.
If I click on a link someone has posted among the comments, Haloscan throws me to the very bottom of the postings so I have to scroll all the way up again.
And having to scroll past all of the comments I’ve already read to find the ones I haven’t is interminable.
Haloscan does no justice to this site.
CRUSADES:
The BBC – Channel 4 – Al Jazeera:
their political crusade for Islam continues apace.
This is how the political linkages and the Islamic propaganda goes on British public broadcasting:
E.g. Last week, the BBC’s Andrew Marr had on as a guest, the Muslim, and ex-Beeboid, Rageh Omaar, now of the Islamic TV channel Al Jazeera, (which employs many ex-Beeboids), to plug his contribution to a Channel 4 series, ostensibly about ‘Christianity’, which was shown tonight.
Just as on the BBC Marr show, Omaar had a politically free run to criticise the ‘Crusades’ from an Islamic viewpoint. Omaar, as a Muslim regards the ‘Crusades’ as an aggressive act against Islam, not as a defensive act against Islamic imperialism, which is what they were.
Omaar wants to ban the use of the word ‘Crusades’; of course, Omaar is not concerned about how Islamic JIHAD, thoughout over 1300 years of Islamic history has had such a murderous impact on the people of the world; (see Andrew Bostom’s ‘The Legacy of JIHAD’, a book probably not allowed in the BBC library.)
And the dhimmis at the BBC are playing their part in allowing Islamic propaganda to happen, subsidised by the BBC licencepayer.
Three specifics about the BBC’s dhimmitude; there have been NO programmes:
1.) which present a pro-Christian, anti-Islamic view of the Crusades,which tackles the historical issue of Islamic imperialism. (see E. Karsh’s book ‘Islamic Imperialism’);
2.) which criticise the Organisation of the Islamic Conference’s efforts to criminalize Christianity;
‘Dhimmiwatch’:
‘OIC seeks to “criminalize Christianity and push the execution of more Christians”‘
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021812.php
3.) which oppose OIC plans to make criticism of Islam illegal
‘Dhimmiwatch’
“The OIC calls on the media to suppress the truth”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024008.php
BBC: (covering spat between Turkey and Israeli Shimon Peres) can’t resist the gratuitous picture of injured child – courtesy of Pally -Propaganda inc.
“Many of the casualties in Gaza have been children, doctors say” unquote, BBC.
Try this instead: “Dr Mads Gilbert, Norwegian Maoist Marxist nutter obssessed with the Palestinians” says…
Paxo chased by an enraged Pali supporter? surely not!
“NEWSNIGHT hardman Jeremy Paxman was chased onto a tube train by a raging Palestinian supporter.
Shocked commuters watched as the presenter leapt into a carriage, pursued by a protester who was outraged at the BBC’s refusal to broadcast a Gaza appeal…..”
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/150277/Newsnight-hardman-Jeremy-Paxman-chased-onto-a-tube-train-by-a-raging-Palestinian-supporter.html
Ratass sh. – maybe you’d care to email David at biasedbbc at gmail.com ; he’s been asking for suggestions concerning site upgrades and commenting improvements, and if you can offer some advice it’d be much appreciated I’m sure.
David (up top)- it’s a very good idea which we should put together I think.
By the way- yes, Haloscan comments are very erratic when showing numbers of posts. The problem has occurred intermittently for years. Otoh, it’s so simple and generally easily understood- the above-mentioned is practically the only common problem. Plus, its moderating facility is a piece of cake to use and quite informative 😉
I wonder who it is:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1133104/BBC-wasted-legal-fees-protect-rape-personality.html
George R | 01.02.09 – 9:24 pm |
Good post. I did wonder why the hell did ch4 get RO, a muslim to introduce a programme on Christianity? Oh yer..
George R:
CRUSADES:
The BBC – Channel 4 – Al Jazeera:
their political crusade for Islam continues apace.
George, you ought to have seen Rageh Omaar singing the praises (from Tehran) of the Islamic Revolution in that country in 1979 (not sure that the women of Iran would have agreed with him but Hey, Its a mans world!…….right Rageh?).
Also on Andrew Neils thursday night show after the election of Obama we saw Omaar singing his praises because (paraphrase) ‘finally the world has a president who looks like most of the people in the world’……………ie, not white…………..
……the first bit was on Al Jazeera by the way.
Sunday radio play on R4 this afternoon the Crusades – sorry Christian invasion – “seen from the Islamic perspective”. I am sure it will be on listen again
they have no shame.
BTW Omar is on C4, not BBC at the moment
Just to remind myself that the decline in journalism is evident across the entire MSM, I bought a newspaper whose tone and output mirrors that of our favourite publicly funded broadcaster.
The policies of globalisation which got our country into this economic mess is supported by the entire upper stratum of our establishment, including the ‘opinion formers’ of the ‘mainstream’ newspapers and the BBC. To show the scale of the problem which confronts us, one need only read the Business pages of today’s Sunday Times.
On page 4, John Waples, Business Editor writes that “The free movement of labour must be encouraged within the EU and any move towards protectionism must be stamped on (who is stamped on by whom is not stated but mounted police vs unarmed strikers comes to mind). The benefits of preserving a free market in the EU is of far greater long-term benefit (he doesn’t say how long and what these benefits are, if any). What Britain must do is ensure that we train a workforce with the required skills that can be exported to other countries that don’t have them.”
That last paragraph is utter nonsense written by a fool who is unaffected by the consequences of his wishes. Firstly, he doesn’t say which skills Italy or Germany, or Belgium etc are lacking – because he doesn’t know and, in any case, there are unlikely to be any such skills lacking in these advanced countries. Moreover, the skills which the Italian and Portuguese imports are bringing are already here – who exactly are the people going on strike? He (Waples) is advocating that our workers ‘get on their flights’ (I’m paraphrasing Norman Tebbit) to look for work far away from home, families and country. I also doubt that Waples’s job is being contested by any Italian or Portuguese scribblers.
The policies of globalisation which got our country into this economic mess is supported by the entire upper stratum of our establishment, including the ‘opinion formers’ of the ‘mainstream’ newspapers. To show the scale of the problem which confronts our pro-British movement, one need only read the Business pages of today’s Sunday Times.
On page 4, John Waples, Business Editor writes that “The free movement of labour must be encouraged within the EU and any move towards protectionism must be stamped on (who is stamped on by whom is not stated but mounted police vs unarmed strikers comes to mind). The benefits of preserving a free market in the EU is of far greater long-term benefit (he doesn’t say how long and what these benefits are, if any). What Britain must do is ensure that we train a workforce with the required skills that can be exported to other countries that don’t have them.”
That last paragraph is utter nonsense written by a fool who is unaffected by the consequences of his wishes. Firstly, he doesn’t say which skills Italy or Germany, or Belgium etc are lacking – because he doesn’t know and, in any case, there are unlikely to be any such skills lacking in these advanced countries. Moreover, the skills which the Italian and Portuguese imports are bringing are already here – who exactly are the people going on strike? He (Waples) is advocating that our workers ‘get on their flights’ (paraphrasing Norman Tebbit) to look for work far away from home, families and country. I also doubt that Waples’s job is being contested by any Italian or Portuguese scribblers.
On page 5, David Smith (no title) writes of “fears of protectionism”. Nowhere does the thought enter his head that policies of free trade, easy credit, huge debts and de-industrialisation resultant of globalisation are the very policies which got us into the mess we are in now.
On page 8, The Sunday Times has started a ‘green’ section. There is a part titled ‘Captains of Industry go green’, and those quoted are the heads and CEOs of Tesco, BP, Virgin Group, Marks and Spencer, Inter-Continental Hotels Group, J Sainsbury, Eon UK, National Grid, Centrica. Which of these companies are ‘industry’ as in producing goods converted from raw materials? BP possibly. These ‘journalists’ know nothing of any use at all.
Also on page 8 is a schematic showing the relative productions of CO2 per head for the US (22 tonnes), Europe (11 – 14 tonnes) and Africa (1 – 2 tonnes), and the reporter, a Jonathan Leake, states that in order to stop global warming, we have to cut our emissions down to African levels. Has this bone-head ever been to Africa? Is that what he wants our country to become?
This is the first time in months that I have bought a newspaper and I see that standards of thought within these publications are declining very rapidly. I won’t be funding their lies and stupidity any more particularly as I get more accurate news and comment on sites such as this. Fortunately, I don’t have to pay for it.
you wont see this on the beeb
Metropolitan Police humiliated at the hands of Muslim demonstrators in London 1/2
Funny I’ve never seen Rageh Omar explain what Muslim Armies were doing in Poitiers.
Sightseeing?
Muslims were visiting Vienna en masse in 1676 (circa?) but they were displaced by Polish tourists. Maybe Rageh can put something out on that episode?
David,
Excellent suggestion, We are working towards a major update of the site, watch this space!
“you wont see this on the beeb”
That video has literally made me feel sick. David, you have got to publish a book with such occurances and make the BBC’s neglact in reporting them your prominant theme.
I don’t understand why things like that happen there and not here. Because our police are armed, and so is the guy in that car at the stop light?
The BBC has betrayed you, Great Britain. It should face charges of treason.
Allan@Aberdeen: What the bed wetting liberals really means is they want free trade so they can get nannies and maids to work for them at cheap rates.
Plenty of beeboids appear to be rich enough to employ house servants and do. Paxman anyone?
betyangelo | 01.02.09 – 11:47 pm |
The hands of the police are tied here with 11 years of political correctness – the police can charge and arrest as many people as they want on the Countryside Alliance demos – but it is just not PC to arrest ethnic minorities throwing traffic cones and sticks at fellow officers, while shouting abuse.
This after all is the New Labour utopia dreamed up in the early 90s by Messrs Blair and Brown.
This after all is the New Labour utopia dreamed up in the early 90s by Messrs Blair and Brown.
Yep. The British Left have now made manifest their dreams and hopes for Britain.
………….astonishing
Hi Jon:
And I’ll bet there a lot of police officers who go home furious over it. I listened carefully and what I heard was punk’s hatred, and laughter at the retreating and dodging police, brave men with families, men who risk life and limb for the public. It was a disgrace. Worse, they are encouraged by the neglect of the BBC to report what they did.
I used to love watching and reading the BBC. The more I see them from this angle the more I just hate them!
Given the Haloscan problems and want for a forum (well Ratass wants one!) I’ve gone and started:
http://biasedbbc.yuku.com
note: the “-” isn’t allowed on their system so “biased-bbc” wasn’t available.
I’ll be happy to let the current Biased BBC mods takeover the message board if they want. I’d also be willing to administer the forum and give the likes of Ed, David and Natalie mod powers.
A quickie faq as to why I think this is a good idea.
Why a Biased BBC forum?
The general comment threads cause regular problems. Many commentators feel they slip down the web page too quickly and then start posting in the comment sections of newer but unrelated posts. Also, there seems to be a growing trend of people waiting for a new general comment thread to get the “first post”, often this provides well researched examples of bias but it’s also used by trolls to get more exposure.
Keeping Haloscan for specific Biased BBC posts and offering a link near the top of the blog for a general comment forum would hopefully alleviate the problems.
Why Yuku?
Advantages: afaik its the world’s largest provider of freely hosted message boards (i.e. they’re a blogspot-like equivalent). So no worries about bandwidth, the tech or having to pay for the service. Since there are 2 million + users already there is a fair chance some Biased BBC commentators will already have an account and not have to sign up again.
There are disadvantages: after a month there will be ads, unlike blogspot, and it has been a target for hackers in the past. Plenty more info on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezboard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuku
I’ve e-mailed David this message.
Allan@Aberdeen | 01.02.09 – 11:14 pm | #
Welcome to the growing ranks of the conspiracy theorists.
You observations are of course perfectly correct in all respects.
Globalization is a CORPORATE conspiracy, flowing down from the very top of the very top of society.
This bunch of establishment manipulators and multi-national criminals is behind virtually everything that happens and does not happen in this entire world of theirs.
If is only now, of for the last 11 years, that these peoples almost complete power over our media and political process has become SELF APPARENT.
In places such as Germany and France, what we call here conspiracy theory is now, and has long since been seen as a CONSPIRACY FACT.
WHY you may ask?
This is because nationalists in Europe understand the people behind this global plan for humanity as coming primary from THE BRITISH and AMERICAN banking establishment. Therefore coming to terms with hating and distrusting their own political processes comes as second nature to them. ( funny enough they are wrong to believe this. The papal powers and European banks and corporations have at least as much to do with this globalist conspiracy as The British and Americans do.)
However in the UK we The ordinary people still trust our broadcast media and our MP’s in general to be working in our best interests. The British and American people are still largely under the massively mistaken impression that their government is simply incompetent rather then criminally motivated and essentially entirely corrupted by the BIG MONEY.
This is why very few of you people can bring yourselves to take my comments seriously. It is far better for your sanity to simply disregard my pearls of utter WISDOM and REAL knowledge as the works of a deluded and paranoid individual.
The truth is that the very last thing anyone that actually has known me all of my life would call myself is paranoid or even slightly mad. I am simply a student of REAL history, not the largely utter crap you lot obviously read at school. I am in fact almost boringly sane, and highly well adjusted to any given circumstances.
Please understand however I care not what your good self or anyone but MY personal GOD think of me. I do what I do for reasons you most likely could never understand, even if I knew how to explain them to you properly.
Keep up the good work, you are certainly starting to finally see the light. As are very many other people right this moment.
Hi moonbat – I’m trying to get there but my dish seems jammed. The mountains are too high this night!
You have seriously lost the plot now Atlas. Your last posting was borderline messianic.
The TOADY show this AM had JH interviewing the master poisoner Mandelson and he destroyed him in short order!
British jobs for British workers? well no and yes, er yeah but no but yeah but yeah….get on your bike Tebbit styly er yeah but no but….
it seems the master poisoner didnt know which way to jump so he jumped everywhere!
The master poisoner will not be a happy bunny now, when brown waffled out his BNP slogan he didnt really mean it that way according to mandelson he meant British Jobs for everyone who lands in Britain Aaaaah yes I understand it now, any johnny foreigner is classed as British as soon as they put their feet on British soil.
Dog whistle politics by Brown? perish the thought, after all the workers can fly off to Spain or France and walk into jobs, of course they would have to learn a foreign language but hey that would only take a year and the French and Germans would welcome the limey job stealers wouldnt they? Yeah come on in take our jobs, come on in folks!
GET ON YER BIKES AND PISS OFF SAYS MANDELSNAKE YOU AINT WANTED OR NEEDED IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
problem; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97hyDRjdXCE&eurl=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1133120/Police-ran-away-jeering-Gaza-demonstrators.html
solution; watercannons + bullets (or just bullets if you run out of water)
If the BBC are independent of the UK government why do they use the utterly incompetent Met Office?
Met Office Report Card.
US news organisations use separate, commercial, specialist providers such as Accuweather. So, why not the BBC?
Hey, Ratass Shagged, get ya’ self over to the forum you wanted 😉 .
Atlas shrugged, did you ever post over at the uk.politics usenet forums? A couple of posters had a similar style to your exhaustive treatises.
Anyone remember that idiot Harrabin doing his report from Moscow before Christmas going on about no snow and how the Polar Bears there are suffering?
Where is he today? If we’ve got global warming why so much snow and why so cold?
Cassandra | 02.02.09 – 8:42 am | #
Pity the Master Obfuscator was given such an easy ride on BBC Breakfast this morning though…
martin | 02.02.09 – 9:34 am | #
As you well know, if the Beeb haven’t told you already, all this snow is caused by global warming.
Thank God – the BBC (well “Today”) has proved that the EU has no connection with the labour unrest in the UK. Despite Humphrys’ half-hearted efforts to embarrass Mandy (presumably Humphrys has not yet realised that Mandy is incapable of being embarrassed) by quoting “British jobs for British workers” and the earlier statements of Alan Johnson, the mantra “it’s nothing to do with the EU” continues.
Ken Clarke (a certifiable eurolunatic) lost the Conservatives 500,000 potential votes as he exculpates the EU – and the way the EU actually works – in respect of the wildcat strikes. Later in the programme the fanatically pro-EU European correspondent of the Economist (based in Brussels) says that the EU’s 4 freedoms – including freedom of labour movement – are endangered and BTW look how well Spain is doing (well, not so wonderful now) given that we have poured our treasure into its economy. (Sure, if I won the lottery I could spend my winnings big-time – until the money ran out.) Gisela Stuart tells us that the EU is misunderstood: apparently it’s actually very very wonderful with no downside.
So, setting aside Humphrys’ unusually good-humoured questioning of Mandy – which Mandy duly brushed off with accomplished ease – not one sceptical voice. Not one person willing to imply, for instance, that maybe in practice (forget about law, that only applies to us) there would be no possibility of a British oil company building a refinery in France using a wholly imported Greek workforce.
The (single?) 3 second clip of Nigel Farage on BBC News 24 over the weekend saying that EU chickens are coming home to roost is, of course, the “impartiality” fig-leaf – going hand-in-hand with the mock impartiality of refusing to broadcast the Gaza appeal while giving it more publicity per broadcasting second than the Obama coronation and ascent to White House heaven from Capitol Hill. OK, slight exaggeration there – nothing has been given more publicity than the Obamafest – but you get my meaning.
Umbongo | 02.02.09 – 9:55 am
Cassandra seems to think Humph gave him a kicking. I fear I didn’t hear it, so can’t comment.
Does no-one support free markets anymore? I wouldn’t want to live in a country that forebade Total contracting with whom the hell it wants.
I’m pleased to see that Teddy Bear’s Forum for BBC Bias is still going strong.
IIRC Teddy Bear had a falling out with a rather headstrong former member of the B-BBC team and set up his own forum in protest.
Perhaps he’d be amenable to some form of collaboration forumwise.
MWL
I agree, we can’t start protectionism as it will bite us in the arse.
The point is that Brown came out with an idiotic statement “British Workers for British jobs” and this passed the media by with no real realistic debate.
I am not a big fan of the EU, but I do think we need consistency in our employment strategy.
I support a free market: an internal free market where our companies and workers are protected from unfair competeion by tariffs which raise the cost of cheap imports to that of UK-produced. The taxes have to come from somewhere to maintain our services so let the importers pay them.
BTW whiney Mikey, you write almost as though you were subject to foreign competition: I’ll bet that you’re not!
If you have some spare time the Herzliya Conference is being live-cast here.
Mozilla browsers probaly will not accept it so try I.E. if you have problems.
Simultaneous translation to English.
Just about everybody of significance in politics or academics in Israel appears. Well worth tuning in.
We are very vunerable to tariffs overseas as it is. If we start levying draconian import taxes we will lose any exports we do have.
We as taxpayers will be the end loser as theses taxes will be passed on.
The only solution is international agreements on import taxation.
Protectionism will cost the taxpayer.
Listening to eurotrash ken Clarke aleays makes my skin crawl and on TOADY his performance was the usual crap, a blind spot the size of Brussels means he grabs the wrong end of the argument every time, the dickhead finds it impossible to grasp simple facts about the EU and how its crazy and warped policies have destroyed the UK PLC in large measure, billions thrown at a corrupt bag of snakes and allowing them to rule over us like some kind of colonial robber barons and yet Clarke thinks the EU has been good for us!
I would love to bury Clarke under a mountain of the dead fish that the EU fisheries directives make us throw away, I would love to take Clarke to our once thriving seaports and show him the EU induced wastelands his beloved EU has created.
Cameron was a fool to bring traitor Clarke back, like the scorpian in the old indian tale he WILL sting Cameron the first chance he gets(its in his nature)!
MWL,
There is a big difference between free trade and importing cheap labour into the UK while our own men/women lay idle, yes invite foreign workers where there is a clear skills gap that cannot be filled by native workers but to import foreign workers ahead of our own is plain nutty and a betrayal by those who govern us.
The sad fact is that we have such a comfy welfare state that not working is not only an option but for some a lifestyle.
Foreign workers have come over here and embarrased us with their can do attitude and self motivation (I am in the building trade)
When a british employer can find the motivated British worker he/she should employ them, but in a lot of cases there has been no choice for the last decade other than to use outsiders.
Now the chips are down it’s all changed
fewqwer | 02.02.09 – 10:28 am |
I’m glad to see that Teddy Bear’s forum is using my ‘bias, it’s easy as bbc’ logo from the bbc resistance forum.
I feel validated!
The BBC are deliberatly talking about the snow all day in a bid to bury the recession! Proof that they are biased!
I bet Gordon Brown personally made it snow, just to keep the recession off the news!
Bias I tell you!!
Interesting that the workers I heard interviewed today up in Lincolnshire were saying they wanted the Italians to go home, not work with them. Oh dear, looks like McFatty one eye’s spin isn’t working.
Anyone else see this as McFatty one eye’s petrol strike moment?
mwl
I suppose it’s such a change for Humphreys to be mildly critical and, even imply, ever so softly that the way the EU works might, just might have some purchase here that Cassandra confused this with a good kicking. Frankly, Humphreys didn’t lay a glove on him.
As to free trade – all in favour. But you are confusing free trade with the “free trade” rules as applied in the EU. As I said in my first comment there is no way a non-French company employing (more or less) exclusively non-French workers on a substantial project in France would be allowed.
As you well know, if the Beeb haven’t told you already, all this snow is caused by global warming
Crikey, more moonbattery by Statistics 101 failures.