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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Correction to above: K.Malik is not a Muslim. Confusion over Maliks. Apologies.
George R | 09.02.09 – 10:09 am
Confusion over Maliks.
I missed the programme this morning, but I bet the Malik you mistook for a Muslim is the one that was involved with the Revolutionary Communist Party and used to write for Living Marxism.
It would be too much to imagine that the BBC might have found a Malik who was neither a Muslim nor a Marxist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Malik
A superb ventriloquist you WON’T see on the BBC:
It`s peculiar isn`t it? Usually it`s the bbc sitting in the terrorists lap with a hand up their arse having the strings pulled.
I concur with sawtooth.we still have the mystery plays in my city,unfortunately not the trades or guilds anymore
Having followed this blog for some time it is obvious to me that there is a core of contributors who provide examples of BBC bias and I get the impression that this is what readers want.
I loathe the BBC and rarely watch any of their programme’s, certainly not the news or anything associated with politics. Their blatant bias stinks and is a disgrace.
However, what effect does Biased-bbc have. I have not read of a single complaint by any tory politician or objective journalist. I wonder if we can rely on Cameron killing off the BBC or even cutting their license fee. Surely this would be a huge vote getter so why is he silent on the issue. What is required is a huge well promoted public campaign to demand changes in the way the BBC is run. I think that is where Biased-BBC should be directing its energies. anybody can complain but doing something about it is another matter.
Seeing as the tories now believe they wouldn`t stand a chance in an election without the backing of the bbc,
how about a mission statement or manifesto?
Less BBC would mean less bias.
Shut down news24 and pass the baton to itn,then the news might make money instead of costing money.
Close down bbc3 because its shite.
Close down bbc4 and put its best programming on a revamped bbc2 and rollback the it`s systematic dumbing down.
Make room for this by insisting that no programme should be repeated more once(2pints anyone?).
Cancel deadenders,who have been proudly teaching the nations youth to behave like utter twats since 1985.
Licence fee freeze for five years in deference to the rest of us who are going to struggle like hell.
Well spleen vented,thats my two penn`orth
Tom | 09.02.09 – 9:00 am
Melanie’s whole point is about inflaming anti-Jew sentiment. It’s the Passions which have been the historical problem (especially St. John), not the Nativity or Creation ones. And these were done throughout Europe, not just England. So even though she’s using the traditional English term for the entire genre, her metaphor is lost when she calls them “Mystery” plays.
Phillips doesn’t even use the term “Passion”, and can’t be bothered to manage a sentence about which bit is the problem. She just makes it sound like all the ‘mystery plays’ were making Jews into Christ killers. The Passions were the ones which were used to increase anti-Jew sentiment, and the ones which still cause the occasional controversy today. A few words on the how and why would have driven the point home much better.
It just ruins the whole metaphor for me.
‘Evening Standard’:
Flanders in for Webb US job?:
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/2009/02/flanders-set-to-follow-webb-with-us-posting-.html
I can’t find this anywhere on the BBC.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5693687.ece
Delete the words Israelis and Jews and insert Arabs and Muslims…
‘And now on the BBC news for the 25th consecutive day the main news story is…’
red pepper writes: “However, what effect does Biased-bbc have”
It’s hard to say, but you could ask the same question of any group or organisation that seeks to influence policy.
My own estimation is that the number of people openly critical of the BBC’s habitual bias is on the increase. It will take time before sufficient momentum is gained and this disquiet is matched by action – but it will happen.
As for how, no political party dares attack the BBC while it hopes to win a forthcoming election. the Corporation has been allowed to become too powerful to take that risk.
The only time it could be done with any degree of safety would be quickly following a resounding election victory.
However, in my opinion, Cameron is both far too pusillanimous and far too much of a meejah creature to do it.
As a result, we may be some time away from the sort of radical overhaul needed to overthrow the Guardianistas but the pressure is, undoubtedly, mounting and, sooner or later, the edifice will crumble.
BBC: Flanders – Webb – Stourton re-shuffle; BBC musical chairs, with an extra chair.
probably old, but a great comment from norman tebbit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4560371/BBC-faces-fresh-criticism-over-offensive-remarks-about-Baroness-Thatcher.html
Lord Tebbit told The Daily Telegraph: “It is another depressing episode. Lady Thatcher has been treated like this by the BBC for the past 30 years. It’s no good asking them for an apology. It’s like trying to stop a dog from barking.
“If we have a Conservative government then we can do something about it. The BBC is another part of the destruction of Great Britain.
“The truth is that the BBC doesn’t know that it is biased. It thinks that Guardian reading champagne socialists are the norm.”
There is not much enthusiasm for the Jacqui Smith story on the BBC website. There is no doubt that it will be a different approach when the next conservative MP makes the slightest mistake.
More evidence of the BBC’s on-going, preferential, protected political treatment of Islam, compared to its treatment of other religions in its TV productions:
The BBC has put out several series on the religious, cultural and historical aspects of Islam in recent years. These series have been exclusively fronted by Muslims, such as Rageh Omaar, of the Islamic Al Jazeera TV channel.
Currently, the BBC is putting out a TV series on ‘Christianity’ (Sunday nights); but unlike the ‘Islam’ series,which had no non-Muslim presenter, the ‘Christianity’ series has had one of the programmes fronted by Rageh Omaar in which he presented a Muslim view of the Crusades, with NO reference to e.g. this:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzhhODM1MDhkYWMxNTRiYmRjMzg2NmY2YjM3ZTRiZDQ=
Next week’s programme in the ‘Christianity’ series is trailered by the BBC as concentrating on ‘Colonialism’ and ‘Slavery’.
Of course, in NONE of the BBC’s many TV series on Islam were there discussions of:
a.)
‘Islamic Imperialism’
b.)
‘Islamic Slavery’
For reference on a.)
E. Karsh ‘Islamic Imperialism’ (Yale, 2007);
A. Bostom (ed) ‘The Legacy of Jihad’ (Prometheus Books, 2005);
‘Dhimmiwatch’:
“1,400 years of Islamic Aggression”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/003471.php
b.)Islamic Slavery:
“Islam, Slavery and Rape”
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/islam-slavery-and-rape/
The conservatives should realise that the BBC is not their friend and trying to make friends with the BBC has never worked( maybe they have finally realised this) they have fought previous elections with the BBC working hard for labour. If they ever win another election they will be fools not to cut the BBC down to size.
On Today, Barbara Plett supposed to be setting the scene for Richard Holbrooke’s first visit to Pakistan as the new US Ambassador to Afghanistan. Plett went native some time ago, and so, rather than discussing the issue of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan – you know, the whole reason for the visit – she started talking about Kashmir, which is much more important to Pakistani emotions than the tribal areas on the border. Sarah Montague has to remind her that’s outside of Holbrooke’s remit, so she stammers and babbles about how “it was thought” that he was going to deal with the wider issues of the region. Eventually Plett is prodded back to the real issue – the border area – but talks purely from a Pakistani perspective, and not about the situation objectively at all.
Ah, that old familiar BBC tactic! Print the rebuttal, then hope the story will die.
Finally, 36 hours or so after the Mail exposed Jackboot Jacqui as yet another sleazy ZaNuLabour hypocrite, filling her boots at the public’s expense, the BBC has grudgingly caved-in and now carries the following headline on its website: “Smith ‘has questions to answer’ ”
She certainly has, BBC. So why has it taken you so long to admit it?
George R: Oh and don’t forget that their drug taking Prophet was also a child rapist. Not something they like to remind us of.
JohnA:
David Preiser
Sure, you can find faults with Melanie Philips.
But she is one of the few journalists in the UK who TRIES to point up the stark truth about the threats we face.
…
Philips can be shrill at times…
JohnA | 09.02.09 – 2:06 am |
——————————
I agree. She is a bit of a thunderer and reminds me of an old fiery pulpit thumper.
Can’t say I always agree with her and she has wound me up on occasion, but she is interesting all the same and usually worth a read.
Talking of BBC downplaying stories that depart uncomfortably from their agenda, why nothing on this:
“Taleban release video of beheaded Polish prisoner”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5691583.ece
Would that be because it’s off message regarding Lyse ‘lies’ Doucett’s plea to present the “humanity of the Taleban”?
Tom:
David Preiser (USA) | 08.02.09 – 10:59 pm
While Passion Plays deal with the Passion, mystery plays deal with all sorts of Bible stories – including quite a lot of Old Testament ones. Given the settlement of the promised land by the Jews is an OT story, MP is surely right to use mystery plays?
Tom | 09.02.09 – 9:00 am |
————————————
Yes, Melanie was right in what she wrote. Mystery plays embraced all aspects of the religious belief.
As far as I can see, she isn’t generally ignorant, lazy or sloppy like the BBC, for instance!
BBC report:
“Pound’s slide hits Foreign Office”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7876614.stm
No doubt the BBC’s World Service (UK taxpayer funded), which is so inter-locked with the BBC (UK licence-payer funded), will be asking for more money for its overseas broadcasts.
These BBC World Service broadcasts include those by the BBC Arabic TV channel, (based in Broadcasting House, London)which no doubt give the Arabic section of the world the sorts of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas views, similar to those of the Islamic TV channel Al Jazeera.
Enough! No more subsidies by British citizens to the BBC’s global political propaganda.
George R:
… Currently, the BBC is putting out a TV series on ‘Christianity’ (Sunday nights); but unlike the ‘Islam’ series,which had no non-Muslim presenter, the ‘Christianity’ series has had one of the programmes fronted by Rageh Omaar in which he presented a Muslim view of the Crusades …
———————————
George, I think that is the current Channel 4 series on Sunday evenings, is it not?
Eddie Mair on PM just asked Northern Ireland minister re:Climate Change whether he had a science background. The implication being that because he didn’t he wasn’t qualified to make statements on climate change.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Another news item that will struggle to find it’s way onto the BBC.
Foster mother struck off for letting Muslim girl convert to Christianity
‘Evening Standard’:
Flanders in for Webb US job?:
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/2009/02/flanders-set-to-follow-webb-with-us-posting-.html
George R | 09.02.09 – 2:18 pm |
From that article:
After Oxford, Flanders went to Harvard and, when she had graduated from there, she was employed as a speech writer and a senior adviser at the US Treasury in Washington during the Clinton administration. Flanders later worked as a reporter with the New York Times, eventually transferring to the United Nations in New York, where in 2002 she was the principal editor of the UN’s 2002 Human Development Report.
All that’s missing from her CV is a stint working on a community project in Chicago. Apart from that she’s perfect for North America editor as far as the BBC is concerned.
(I see Obama bumped his head getting into Marine One today. This follows the embarrassing moment when he mistook a window for a door at the White House a couple of weeks ago. In the 70s Chevy Chase launched his career with jokes about Gerald Ford being a bumbling idiot who constantly bumped his head. What a shame no young comedian will be able to do the same thing today because, as we all know, there’s just nothing about President Obama that’s remotely funny.)
More crap on Climate change from the BBC. So the forest fires in Australia are down to climate change claimed the BBC on the 6PM news.
1. They provided no facts to back this up, just some lefty hippy to spout crap.
2. Most of the fires spread and the deaths caused because, the forests don’t have proper fire breaks, many of the fires were started on purpose (quite what that has to do with climate change amazes me) and finally trees are allowed to grow far too close to houses and towns & roads.
the BBC claimed that cooling of the seas caused the problem? So global cooling is causing climate change?
And of course Australia has never had forest fires before has it?
Just how much of this crap do we have to put up with?
Millie Tant.
Yes. Correction. I heard Rageh Omaar on Andrew Marr’s BBC programme, plugging the Channel 4 episode on the Crusades.
Is my memory faulty, or didn’t we go into Afghanistan because they were hiding Osama Bin Laden + his merry 9/11 men, not because we necessarily wanted to remove the Taleban and save the Afghan people?
A BBC poll indicates the Afghans no longer welcome us, inferring that our main reason for invading was to keep the locals happy.
A subtle difference in historic detail
martin….
‘Just how much of this crap do we have to put up with?’
And of course no mention of ‘global warming’during the recent arctic conditions all over Europe and North America.
Nice to see Channel 4 putting some of the blame for the fires in Australia on Rudd.
Oh and if John Howard had said live on air “it’s mass murder” I bet the BBC would have been up in arms about people getting a ‘fair trial’
I guess a Socialist can say what he likes?
Stephanie Flanders has worked for the UN, the New York Times and a previous US president.
So has someone else.
John Bolton For BBC North America Editor!
Has the BBC gotten around to informing the public about this yet?
CBO Predicts Recession Will end in 2009 Without Stimulus
Apparently the Congressional Budget Office even says that what some of us are calling the “Spendulous Package” will actually hurt the economy. Some of us have been saying for months that this kind of profligacy and pork is what prolonged the Great Depression. Robert Peston even fretted about that months ago on his blog.
But, seeing as how one big Narrative is that the economic crisis in Britain is 100% the fault of the US, and how Mr. Brown has led the way with the spending schemes, the BBC can’t really make too big a deal out of this now, can they? I mean, if the US is taking Mr. Brown’s lead, and the Spendulous Package will actually do harm and not good, what does that say about the man claiming credit for the cunning plan?
George R wrote –
“BBC: Starts the Week, with more Islamization of Britain.
BBC Radio 4 ‘Start the Week’ with A.Marr (on now)is doing a 20 years since… the Islamic death threats to Salman Rushdie over the publication of his book ‘ The Satanic Verses’.
And who does the BBC get as THE two front-line speakers on ‘freedom of speech’ but TWO MUSLIMS, T.Modood and K.Malik! (Check out their views on Israel, Mr. Marr.)
Apparently, the dhimmi BBC accepts that the issues of ‘The Satanic Verses’ should be left to Muslims predominantly to decide on, for British society! The majority of indigenous British people are, with the enforced BBC dhimmitude, to take a secondary role to Islam in deciding what sort of society Britain should be.”
George – I was listening to this whilst wielding my bog-brush at work. As you suggest, the first part of the show cast us non-elite natives as spectators and/or cannon-fodder in an ongoing battle between factions within alien groups, intermittently refereed by high-minded idiots who think they can invite self-aggrandising outsiders to their tea-party without too much risk to themselves if the former become interested in taking over the place.
I could hardly scrape the poo such was the coldness of the blood in my veins. 20 years since the fatwa, nearly 20 since the crumbling of the SovBloc – do I feel safer than back then? More free?
R
“The poll, by ICM for The Sunday Telegraph, showed the Conservatives with 40 per cent support, Labour on 28 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats on 22 per cent”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1132668/Conservatives-continue-zip-ahead-voters-lose-faith-Labour-poll-reveals.html
Seems the proles are not heeding the BBC message.
martin | 09.02.09 – 6:18 pm |
I wondered how long it would take the BBC to blame the bush fires on global warming!
But well done to Sammy Wilson on PM today for his tough put down of the “Climate Change Denier” charge. I was surprised that Eddie Mair let him go on uninterrupted for so long. But when he was asked what scientific qualifications he held I was hoping he would respond by asking what qualifications Roger Harrabin has.
I do still read the BBC for news but like most people I suspect I supplement it with other sources such as the BNP, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, amongst others.
I doesn’t mean I take the others at face value, it just means I don’t take the BBC at face value. I recognise that each has their agenda to promote, a cultural and ideological perspective driving the choice of news items they report and the way they report them.
The main difference of course is that the BBC is effectively a tax funded news outlet.
I am, however, increasingly of the opinion that public debate and the general awareness of the British people would be much improved were the BBC to be abolished, or at least reformed in such a way that it stuck to non-controversial matters. At the moment the BBC is clearly setting the agenda, and that is unjust.
frankos
I too picked up on this, thinking to myself yet once again why are the BBC conducting opinion polls at “public” expense to get the answers they want and to make the news.
Surprise, surprise the results were portrayed very negatively. The World at One presenter got quite huffy when whoever it was she was interviewing turned the tables on her quite easily by interpreting the “statistics” in quite the opposite way to that presented in the preceding “report”.
What good is BBBC someone asked? I find it a very useful source of points to make to colleagues at work regarding the bias of the BBC in many areas.
There certainly does appear to be a steady increase in “traffic” on the site which does not appear to be just the regulars wearing their typing finger(s) down to the bone.
Roland Deschain: I’ve put a formal complaint into the tosspots at the BBC about the 6Pm broadcast.
There is no evidence that climate change had ANYTHING to do with the fires. Many of them started on purpose and what appears to be a lack of forest management, no fire breaks and allowing so many trees so close to houses and main roads.
That has sod all to do with climate change. Oh and forest fires are a natural way that nature kills off old growth and lets the new start.
The climate change assertion was quite frankly sick. There is absolutely no evidence that these alleged changes to our weather systems caused this terrible tragedy in Australia.
It treated both the country and its victims with disrespect.
Disgusting.
though it was not on BBC, a news reader assured us that one of the reasons the fires were so intense in Australia, was because the trees were growing so fast due to the extra CO2 caused by global warming that they burnt more fiercely!
Reimer | 09.02.09 – 8:09 pm
That was a very strange discussion on start the week. It was argued from the premise that there’s no good or bad, no right or wrong, only different. That is, on cultural issues, societal issues, and moral issues. Freedom to mock, rant, to cartoon and to satirise, all well and good. A taboo on all judgment.
Until you come to some things. There are some things that have to bear the weight of all the judgmentalism that has no other home. Paedophilia, Israel, George Bush, possibly Christianity, marriage and frizzy hair.
“Ed Balls: minister fears rise of fascism amid economic gloom”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4571944/Ed-Balls-minister-fears-rise-of-fascism-amid-economic-gloom.html
I’ve got news for Ed we are already in a fascist state – what we want is to see a rise in democracy.
I never thought I’d admit it, but Balls is right for once in his miserable life.
What he misses, however, is the role the BBC and the rest of the bien pensant meejah are playing in making this more, rather than less, likely.
The greater the fuss made by the BBC about ‘Gollygate’, ‘mistreated’ Islamic pyschopaths, bogus assylum seekers and all the rest of the panoply of Left-liberal client-groups, the more likely is the average bod in the street to say “Sod the lot of ’em” and vote for the BNP or some potentially faster-metastasising authoritarian party that could, quite easily, mushroom overnight in these conditons.
Interesting piece in The House magazine which claims to be the ‘Essential monthly policy forum for parliamentarians’.
It’s this piece:
Reclaiming the counter culture
Wrongfooted by the thriving right-of-centre blogosphere, Labour has given its blessing to a new ‘grassroots’ web forum masterminded by ex-spin doctor Derek Draper. But it will have a battle on its hands to establish itself as a hotbed of vigorous debate
Partway dow the article I came across this:
“What people like about our [right of centre] blogs is the alternative view to the view of the Labour Establishment, which has so many other ways of pushing out its tired old soundbites. The so-called ‘Conservative’ blogs are not official party sites and often do not follow the official line, which adds to the interest for the wider public, who are less tribal in their political views than most MPs.
“Labour does not need so many blogs because it has the BBC asking questions in a Labour way and following the government’s agenda for much of their news output. If we had a pro-freedom, pro-free enterprise, pro-UK democracy state broadcaster, we would not need so many freedom blogs.”
http://www.housemag.co.uk/index.php?id=340&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=9034&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=92&type=editorial
To paraphrase it, Draper’s blog is a pile of steaming shite.
TPO
Those remarks about the BBC dancing to Labour’s tune were by John redwood, I believe. One of the few Tories who sees the BBC for what it truly has become.
Gerald Brown | 09.02.09 – 10:20 pm |
What good is BBBC someone asked? I find it a very useful source of points to make to colleagues at work regarding the bias of the BBC in many areas.
Ripples in the pond, then. And a good source of information. Everyone here seems to make up their own minds, and lots of real info is presented here on a variety of issues. There are people here from so many different walks of life.
Say what you want about most people being on a certain side of certain fences but, unlike so many partisan sites, nobody here grew up with the mindset and the focus of the blog. In this case, being disgusted with the bias at the BBC is learned behavior.
It would be interesting to do a one-time poll to see how people found the site in the first place.
David Preiser writes: “Say what you want about most people being on a certain side of certain fences but, unlike so many partisan sites, nobody here grew up with the mindset and the focus of the blog. In this case, being disgusted with the bias at the BBC is learned behavior.
It would be interesting to do a one-time poll to see how people found the site in the first place.”
I grew up listening to the BBC – Radio 4, for the most part, with the Home Service, before that.
For the majority of my life I admired, respected and appreciated its reasonableness, its attempt to strike a balance, its… Britishness, if you will.
I was, perhaps more importantly, educated by it – at least as much I was by conventional methods.
My respect for the BBC was lost during the 1980s, when the 1960s generation of faux Marxists and weekend radicals began to flex its muscles and the old guard was starting to be pensioned-off.
All that is wrong with the BBC is all that is wrong with British education – the consequence of a new, ‘liberal’ authoritarian establishment having successfully mounted a palace revolution.
As for this place, I found my way here from a Libertarian blog which has seen better days. I shan’t name it.