Monthly Archives: March 2009

General BBC-related comment thread!

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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.

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DISINTERESTED?

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Isn’t it curious just how disinterested BBC journalists can be on certain issues? Take this; “NI’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a former IRA member, said nobody should say or do anything which would see Northern Ireland return to its troubles. “I supported the IRA during the conflict, I myself was a member of the IRA but that war is over,” said the Sinn Fein MP.”


Well we all know that McGuinness was an IRA terrorist since has has boasted of this pedigreee but why is it that BBC journalists do not pursue the question as to what crimes he committed when in this criminal organisation? For instance, how many murders did he sanction? Did he carry any out himself or did he just instruct others? Was he involved in authorising the Claudy massacre in which 9 innocents were blown to pieces, for instance? What knowledge does he have of the crimes carried out by fellow IRA terrorists? What rank did he hold in this criminal conspiracy? Apparently NONE of this interests the fearless seekers of truth in BBC journalism so keen are they to follow the government line sanitising the past! The bias here lies in what is left unsaid, in what is not pursued. It is one of my contentions that the BBC is a rancid mouthpiece for government propaganda – so long as the government is of the left. The total BBC disinterest in the fact that the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland is a notorious terrorist makes my point. Why it’s almost as if the BBC has sympathies with Mr McGuiness.

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Fed Up

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People often say “I happen to believe..” Well, beliefs don’t just HAPPEN, something influences them. If ever a subject you know about hits the news, while allowing for the fact that news reporting is necessarily selective, you realise that what governs the particular selection is not impartiality, not clarity or simplification, it’s the agenda. It doesn’t HAPPEN to be the agenda, it’s welded to it.

Binyam Mohamed. Does the existence of two telegrams-full of questions amount to proof that MI5 colluded in torture? We are being told that MI5 ‘insists’ that it didn’t collude. This reminds me of the way they report that Israel ‘claims’ things, it has a similar implied cynicism.

Are we being ‘fed’ an agenda, to be scornful of MI5, while also being ‘fed’ that we should, for now at least, accept Binyam Mohamed’s innocence. His story is not called a ‘claim’ or an ‘insistence’, because we are being told to feel that there is an injustice. A human rights atrocity, so we must forget about all the rest.

Does the fact that MI5 supplied questions amount to collusion in the torture? Surely MI5 are entitled to be curious about Binyam, seeing as he’s a British resident and all.
However, I only know about the whole thing through the ‘agenda’ and I realise that this means I know next to nothing. Maybe he is innocent, maybe MI5 did collude. But I don’t want to be ‘fed’ that by the BBC. I don’t HAPPEN to trust what I am being fed, and I’ve had enough. Please may I leave the table.


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The awkward report

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[Update: I see David has posted on this below. I think I will leave this post here for now, as it brings a different angle]

I suppose they’re out of practice, but the BBC has made a hash of reporting the terrorist attack on British soldiers in Northern Ireland. As Pounce and others have pointed out, and as I noticed too, the headline has shifted from “Two die in ‘barbaric’ Army attack” to “Two die in ‘barbaric’ Northern Ireland attack”. Like others, the first title had me confused as to who attacked whom. The current one completely lacks specificity, and the surrounding text fails to mention the nationality of the “military personnel”.

Even more interesting for me is the disappearance from the front page and from the links to the topic of this highly relevant contributionfrom Deputy First Minister McGuinness, who claimed late last week that “army special forces are a ‘major threat'”. It certainly seems that someone was listening very closely to the DFM’s words. Initially this must have seemed relevant to the BBC, as they published it alongside the main story of the attack. Now they seem to think it irrelevant. Or is it something else?

By the way, discussion of this topic will probably arouse strong feeling. I hope people remember we can see the BBC as meddlesome, ignorant, cringing and politically motivated without adopting too rigid a view of the issues behind the news.

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JUST A FEW MURDERS, NOTHING TO SEE, MOVE ALONG.

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Right then, I break my weekend silence (working on the book) to comment on the BBC coverage of the brutal murder of two British soldiers in the nearby town of Antrim. Four other soldiers have been injured, one critically. Now then, apart from the obvious revulsion any civilised person will feel at this attack by “dissident” Irish Republican terrorists, there are a number of points I wish to raise.

1. The BBC ordinarily rushes to get the reaction of Irish Republicans as we witnessed earlier this week when it came to Special Forces being sent to Northern Ireland. But they seem strangely subdued to do so this morning. No comments thus far from Martin McGuinness, the IRA commander who is now Deputy First Minister. Perhaps the BBC will ask him why he does not express his sympathies to the British Army and his respect for the great work they do? Then again, perhaps not.

2. The entire ethos of the grotesque “peace process” which the BBC retails is that is essential to accommodate terrorists if we are to have peace. So, who will be first to suggest that the murderers of these soldiers be allowed to enter government, or at least talk with government?

3. As I argue in my book, you CANNOT get rid of terrorism by appeasing it. For years I have found myself isolated here in Northern Ireland by the BBC because I see no reason to change my mind on this matter. Yet this morning, as the next of kin deal with the horrific loss of their sons, I cannot help but feel that it is not just Irish republican terrorists who should be reviled but also the media establishment including the rotten BBC which on the one hand treats republican terrorists such as Martin McGuinness with grovelling respect whilst paying faux outrage at the Irish republican murders in Antrim.

On the Andrew Marr show, Clive Anderson was on to wax how terrible this event is but perhaps it is just a localised one-off? Phew, that will come as relief to the families of the bereaved.

Supercilious BBC bastards. Anyway, it’s only dead British soldiers so no need for clinical journalism asking questions such as where these murderers came from, who shelters and succours them, where did they get the weapons to carry out this slaughter at Masserene? Now, back to Binyam Mohamad – shall we give him a knighthood?

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General BBC-related comment thread!

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159 Comments

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.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

EXTREMISTS?

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The BBC ran their main item today on the situation in Pakistan/Afghanistan. David Miliband was on to waffle about how developments here are putting British lives at risk, but he omitted to share with us that some British muslims are travelling to that region to ensure British lives are put at risk! Miliband seems to think this is an economic and welfare issue – what a dhimmi!

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GOOD TERRORIST, BAD TERRORIST.

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Caught an interview with Sir Hugh Orde, the politician masquerading as the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The issue discussed was the raised threat from republican terrorists (or “dissidents” as the official euphemism would have it) and the news that British Army special forces have been sent to Northern Ireland to raise intelligence on this terror group. The BBC chose to frame the interview by pointing out that Sinn Fein and the SDLP are very unhappy about this and then Orde was asked to explain himself. Bias Number One; The BBC saw no need to ask what unioniss think about this, presumably they are not worth hearing from. Is it possible some may actually welcome anti-terrorist moves?? Bias Number Two; The BBC now likes to pretend that Sinn Fein and the IRA are somehow strangers in the night and treats the bleating of this collective of terrorists and their depraved advocates as the new moral majority. Why does the BBC not explain that the Sinn Fein leadership contains terrorists before it goes on to lovingly provide them with a platform? Is there such a thing as a good terrorist in BBC world-view? One of my big concerns about the BBC is that fact that it will not accept that there is such a thing as a terrorist, (Except for the IDF and US armed forces) and so all discussions on terrorism are wrapped up in incoherent moral equivalence.

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The Global Sexism Scam

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Aunty Big brother is concerned that you should be concerned about global sexual equality in this time of World Economic Crisis which the dear leader Brown is not responsible for and grappling with . The fact that the concept would barely be understood by half the world is unimportant (they haven’t even noticed the WEC poor dears!). You and your emotional condition are the targets. Let’s only talk “global female unemployment”. Yes, that would be meaningful. To make the report especially meaningful, let’s leave this little detail to the end:


“The ILO is predicting a global rise in unemployment this year of up to 51 million people – 22 million, it believes, will be women.”

You may think this undercuts the report- oh no, you’d be wrong. It’s all about “raising awareness”, after all.

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THE FIRST MARTYR OF BIASED BBC!

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It’s quite interesting. Up until the point where I assumed most of the posting here on Biased BBC , I had a regular spot on the local BBC main politics programme here called “Hearts and Minds”. I had three minutes to provide my views on the political week – and as you might imagine, I tended to present a rather different view to the usual in-crowd right-on hacks that are used. Being right of liberal, resolutely anti-terrorist, pro-USA, anti-EU, pro capitalism and anti-Statism, I was the proverbial square peg in a round BBC hole. But the invites started to dry up as this blog has gained momentum and it looks to me that I have been dropped from programme. Cue cheer-leading from all my detractors here in Northern Ireland! I have become a B-BBC martyr and it’s all thanks to you!!! Here’s the way I look on it. I am fortunate enough not to require one penny from the BBC, unlike certain other “commentators” who seem to pop up on a continual basis. I also am determined that I will write the Biased BBC book oft talked about here and publish it this year. So in order for me to do this, I need to blog less so I can write more. So if you notice a drop off in my posts that’s the reason. I might take weekends off to write so there may be less posts from me at that time. Someone needs to nail the BBC and it may as well be us – so with your encouragement and help I will do it. Look on this as a statement of intent.

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