Douglas Carswell writes of the BBC’s divergent approach in covering public issues such as bullfighting in Catalonia and illegal immigration in Arizona. This is the reason I don’t watch the BBC: you know what the story will be from the barest description of it; I prefer to garner details from sources more varied and less predictable. Douglas attempts neutrality:
I’ve little interest in the politics of either Catalonia or Arizona, and even less in bull fighting. But I do wish our state broadcaster would report objectively, rather than on the basis of whether they happen to approve.
This the BBC cannot and will not do; the partisan interest they have (with its pan-national socialistic imperative) is what drives them to cover these stories and propels them all over the globe. Oh, that and license-payers’ money.
On cow towing to every special interest group known to (person)kind:
Here we go a one sided BBC story – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-10728912 – where-by Al-BEEB not only present a totally one sided chain of events, and quote freely the Muslim Council of Great Britain’s protestations, but then also keep the “sisters of Allah’s” true identities away from the evil kufur, in the name no doubt, of political correctness.
And now for the truth!!!!! – http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23860807-claim-of-islamic-veil-bus-ban-thrown-out.do
The BBC now don’t seem keen to report ANYWHERE.
Just as in Orwell’s 1984 the BBC simply ‘change the facts’ and pretend the crap they wrote the day before no longer exists.
Good man, this Carswell. The BBC’s hatred for anyone opposing illegal immigration must be really, really obvious these days.
Worth lifting in its entirity is Mr Carswell’s subsequent post:
Five Days that Changed Britain
I don’t appear in tonight’s BBC documentary, Five Days that Changed Britain, which examines the twists and turns leading to the formation of the Coalition. When approached by the programme makers, I was initially enthusiastic.
Great, I thought. A chance to explain why I called for a deal with the Lib Dems on Radio 4 the day after the election, when the idea still seemed rather outré. An opportunity to examine how common ground between direct democracy Conservatives and Orange Book Liberals makes the Coalition possible.
Errrr. No.
The BBC researcher, obviously looking for someone to cast as Mr Angry Right Winger, instead wanted me to talk of the Coalition as a betrayal. Suspecting that the programme makers might have “the Tory Right” down as bogeymen that the Coalition’s architects needed to overcome, I declined politely.
Indeed, it took several goes for the BBC researcher to get the idea that I might actually favour many of the policies on which the Coalition is built – such as elected police chiefs, radical localism, a Great Repeal Bill – having been the original author of such policies.
I fear the notion of the Coalition as Whig radicalism re-born, or as Edmund Burke dot com, which really would change Britain, might not have made it into this evening’s script. I shall watch with interest
Posted on 29 July 2010 by Douglas Carswell
http://www.talkcarswell.com/default.aspx
I never understand how the Tories just don’t get this crap from the BBC.
Labour depends on its support on BBC bias. Without the steady brainwashing the British public has been subject to over the last 30 odd years the left would be nowhere. Conservative leaders know that anyone who makes a concerted effort to hold the BBC to account will be met by a no-holds barred attempt to destroy them. They barely raise a whimper about BBC bias because they’re scared.
This is not the first and won’t be the last, but it seems of some concern that national media narratives, and hence subsequent audience opinions, are shaped by the market rate talent pre-briefing of producers and prejudices of a BBC researcher or two.
Before the edit suite kicks in, what gets covered, or not, can go a long way to get that narrative on track.
ps: Had to like this comment in the subject topic, which suggests a certain humourous cynicism for the usual lame justification trotted out by some:
‘On average it’s balanced – in one case they’re pro the measure, in the other they’re against it.’
BBC cannot produce analysis like the following on bullfighting:
“Bullfighting history”
http://www.matadorjaimebravo.com/Bullfighting-Britannica.htm
He is a good man Carswell – one of only a handfull of conservatives in the Liberal Party.
We owe Douglas a lot…Speaker Martin would possibly still be there had Carswell not broken cover from the Tories and said Martin ought to go.
He has an interesting point on just HOW these titbits make the national news..who says and why the pecking order?…any chance of some REAL media studies being done in schools rather than why Russell Brand is such a misunderstood and underpaid voice of yoof
True but, unfortunately, Carswell failed to shout loudly enough when the present speaker came up for re-election by the then newly elected Commons. Accordingly Bercow’s election was nodded through. Arguably, Bercow is no better than Martin: in it for what he can get out of it with a wife willing to do anything (and I mean anything) to get a Labour seat. All Mrs Martin wanted was to be treated like royalty rather than the troughing scum she actually was. Martin was greedy, incompetent, biased and over-indulgent towards his wife: is Bercow any different?
The most astonishing thing about all this (for me, at any rate) is that I seem to have a similar position to the BBC on what i regard as a barbaric sport! If we ignore Motherhood and apple-pie, this must be a first! With respect to their asymmetric analysis, of course, that is classic Beeboid ‘nEUtrality.
The BBC is nEUtral!
Love it, should be on a T-shirt
If Carswell can see through the BBC fraud, why can’t Cameron and other Tories ?
A good question: I believe that Cameron, rather than treating the BBC as an enemy to be destroyed, is trying appeasement. Accordingly, in reality, the licence fee (in both principle and size) is safe and the spurious “independence” of the BBC is safe (in that the BBC Trust – still headed by a Labour apparatchik with no known accomplishments to his name – will remain but, possibly, under yet another name).
Appeasement, as we know, won’t work and you can already sense the increasing confidence of the BBC in its pro-Labour/anti-Conservative editorialising of every piece of news. As I have instanced before, on the local London News after BBC’s flagship News at Ten on BBC1, I have never seen an item where Boris is viewed positively. News concerning Boris is without exception treated either with the “some would say this policy is damaging to ordinary people” theme or, what might be seen as beneficial by a disinterested observer, is viewed by his political opponents – and relayed faithfully by the BBC – as Boris eating babies yet again: the item being topped and/or tailed by “if you don’t believe us, here’s a Labour member of the London Assembly to confirm it”.
Again, on Today this morning, an interview with Ian Duncan Smith was preceded by a short burst of bile from some rent-a-gob and IDS’s interview was set up as a reaction to the “facts” thus asserted before IDS had a chance to outline his policies.
The BBC seem to be even more out of control since the election. It must show that the Beeboids are confident the coalition will do nothing.
Because Cameron isn’t a Tory.
There’s that, of course, but you would think that the BBC would cut him some slack accordingly.
They can, its just that Cameron is a fraud as well – they have too much in common.
For BBC:
“Decent British revulsion towards bullfighting, in the land of the lunchtime abortion” (by Gerald Warner)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100049114/decent-british-revulsion-towards-bullfighting-in-the-land-of-the-lunchtime-abortion/
If Douglas Carswell has noticed the BBC’s bias, and the people who made all those comments on his blog have noticed it, and we’ve been noticing it for ages ….well, he’s an M.P. why doesn’t he do something?
I suppose it was principled to decline being a useful idiot in a BBC programme but he talks as though he’s resigned to being helpless in the face of the BBC’s bias. He’s an elected M.P. isn’t he? If all he can do is blog about it, he’s as useless as I am!
(Good that he did though.) Couldn’t the government make a start by forcing the BBC to recruit from a broader base than just the Guardian?
Well, Sue, to be fair, what can he do if most of the Cabinet and his wet fellow Tories either don’t see the problem or don’t care ?
So far as I am aware , there only seems to be a small number of MPs who share his view. The mystery is why ?
Yes I know, but you’d think the few that do see the problem could get together and start the ball rolling. I mean considering all those
BBC-aware comments from potential voters and all. It’s not about sinking the ship, it’s about altering its course.
Hmm, you’re making criticisms about him that you take such exception to when they’re made about yourself.
The Hon Douglas Carswell MP is one of the most outspoken MP’s there is about BBC bias. Instead of moaning about him he should be given the respect and support he deserves. Maybe then he’d be encouraged with the small coterie of principled Tory MPs that there are to take matters further.