Monthly Archives: October 2009

DUMB AND DUMBER

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I caught only the last ten minutes of Today this morning. The main item was that Bob Dylan has released an album of Christmas songs. This was the cue for an inconsequential ageist chat about his career and whether he’s lost it. Yawn. What is happening to Today? This is the self-declared flagship of the BBC’s £800m-a-year news operation, but increasingly it fills its airtime with trivia about non news. I did analysis recently that shows that such Dylan-like content has risen from 2% of Today’s feature time five years ago to more than 14% now. No doubt the BBC news bigwigs believe that this is what people want, that the audience is interested in arty-farty stuff that fits in with their worldvew, and that wall-to-wall news is a bad thing. People such as Dylan are just as important in this picture because their lefty hogwash views are about changing the world. But meanwhile, coverage of the real issues that matter, such as the slow motion coup d’etat by the EU, are virtually ignored.

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GOLD PLATED SECTOR NEEDS MORE GILT!

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Had to laugh at the easy ride (Scroll down) afforded Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union when he was droning on about the vital need for further substantial wage increases. The BBC seems keen to promote the idea that the State sector has had a tough old ride in recent years and needs all the extra cash it can possibly get – now there’s a surprise!

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ENDANGERING PUBLIC INTEREST?

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So what did you think about the BBC being accused of threatening public safety by its decision to invite the British National Party leader Nick Griffin on to its Question Time programme.

In a letter to Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, Hammersmith and Fulham Council called on the corporation to move the programme from Television Centre, in White City, West London, over fears that thousands of protesters will picket the building. In a letter, the council demanded that the BBC foot the bill for extra security if it refuses to relocate. Baroness Warsi, the Tory spokeswoman for community cohesion and social action, is to join the panel on October 22,The Times understands. She is set to appear alongside Bonnie Greer, the black writer and broadcaster, Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, and Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman.

Either way, we will have the liveblog here Thursday week. You are all cordially invited!

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"You can’t be racist towards white people"

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Here’s BBC favourite Jo Brand during an interview with stand-in host Phil Williams on Radio Five Live’s Simon Mayo Show yesterday:

Jo Brand: My personal opinion is that you can’t be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them but being prejudiced isn’t an illegal act whereas being racist can be.

Phil Williams: Don’t you think racism is just being derogatory about a race, regardless of the colour?

Jo Brand: No I don’t. I think the definition of racism also encompasses political power. So you can’t be racist towards a race that’s politically more powerful than a minority. That to me is the correct definition of racism. I think you can be prejudiced towards a group of people who are more powerful than you, but I don’t think you can be racist towards them.

Have at it.

(The guest immediately before Labour Party luvvie stalwart Jo Brand was Labour Party luvvie stalwart Patrick Stewart. Both just happened to have signed a letter condemning the Tories for their links to the Polish Law and Justice Party. Coincidence?)

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Twins

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On the back of a series about the difficulties some children must overcome to receive any education, Katya Adler’s report on the lengths to which Gazan children must go for ‘learning’ was one of the most egregious examples of biased reporting ever.

Repeated all day on BBC news 24, the project involves twinning British schools with schools situated in areas of conflict. As a project, it’s an updated version of the penpals everyone became immediately bored with after one compulsory exchange of stilted letters. With the interweb they don’t have the burden of writing anything, but can see each other’s cringemaking awkwardness in technicolour.

In passing Katya casually mentioned Palestinian gunmen and militants with a blasé: “Gaza is run by men who think Israel shouldn’t exist.” What she was referring to in that strangely infantilised language was Hamas’s genocidal aspirations towards Israel and their refusal ever to recognise it or renounce violence, enshrined in its charter and not up for modification.

When the BBC was created it begat twins too. Conjoined obligations. Its first duty was to report events fully and impartially; its twin was to be mindful that whatever was said, or unsaid, would influence public opinion.
The BBC’s obligation to inform is inseparable from its ability to inflame, then reflect opinion in a kind of never-ending circular continuum.

As well as creating and feeding an insatiable appetite for prurience, the BBC has awakened/created an addictive hunger for hearing bad things about Israel. This project fits the bill perfectly.

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Evening Standard on the BBC, pt 2

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“At heart, the BBC is a nine-to-five, public sector type of place, run by people who have never really worked anywhere else.”…

Those at the top spend their whole time talking to each other, so they are genuinely surprised by outside criticism…

Like most highly bureaucratic organisations which feel under threat, the BBC’s core instinct is to expand as a matter of self-preservation.
It cannot see a piece of new or old media territory without seeking to dominate it.

From part two of Stephen Robinson’s look at the BBC in the Evening Standard. (Part one linked here.)

Robinson makes one claim which may raise some eyebrows:

…few could now argue that politicians of the Left are given an easier ride in interviews than those of the Right: Andrew Marr’s recent grillings of Gordon Brown and David Cameron were equally tough.

Analysis of both interviews by Beeb Bias Craig suggests that Marr actually interrupted Cameron twice as often he did Brown (more than two interruptions per minute versus one per minute).

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GAZA SCHOOLDAYS

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Interesting item from Katya Alder in Gaza here. The UN in Gaza is very worried that thousands of schoolchildren are living in homes and studying in schools in varying states of disrepair. Naturally Israel is to blame for this and Katja was able to provide those lovable inhabitants of Hamastan with plenty of opportunities to damn Israel. With this Israeli-induced cash crisis causing so much misery, I was a bit surprised that the intrepid Katja did not enquire what the locals thought of the decision from Hamas to impose Islamic dress code for girls in these deprived schools, presumably that’s one imposition that nobody minds?

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BLESSED ARE THE APPEASERS

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Had the misfortune to listen to Thought for the Day this morning. The Right Reverend James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool. gave a little three minute sermon on the wisdom of those who accept that it is right and proper to accept terrorists in government here in Northern Ireland. I do not deny the BBC the right to provide a bully pulpit for clerics who urge appeasement but in the interest of balance they should also allow those morally opposed to gangsters and killers in power to have their say too. Naturally, this does not happen.

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