Helen Boaden is Director of BBC News and here she is telling us that “impartiality is in BBC genes.” In what universe is this lady living? She singles out the likes of Flanders and Easton, not forgetting Robinson, as models of professional impartiality. Is she mad or is she so removed from real feedback that she lives in her license-tax funded ivory tower? In a sense her bland arrogance confirms our suspicions,
SKINNY GENES?
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Helen ‘sister of failed labour candidate for safe sear’ Boaden?
Would this be the same Nick Robinson who knew that the one eyed idiot was barking mad and had violent tempers yet stayed quiet even when others at the BBC were basically calling the likes of Lance Price liars?
Remember how the BBC tore that poor woman from the bullying charity apart when Browns creepy pals crawled out of the woodwork to defend him?
Why didn’t Robinson come out and say “that is a lie, he is a bully”
Then the very same Robinson admitted on his own blog that the BBC didn’t want to hammer Mandelson over his Russian yacht trip because they wanted to go easy on the Governmetn, yet totally hammered George Osborne.
Would this be the same Nick Robinson who gave Mandelson a free pass when the Lord of ponce was spouting off about Lord Ashcroft? The only reporter to hold this vile prat to account was Tom Bradby on ITV.
I could go on, but th claim the likes of Toenails are impartial is an utter joke.
Perhaps Boaden might like to out the people at the BBC gave Robinson his nickname in the first place?
Mark Easton was one of those who helped Labour tear Mrs Pratt from the bullying charity apart.
How can Gordon Brown’s biographer be an impartial BBC business editor? Robert Peston couldn’t wait to tell everyone that Mr. Brown had convinced a reluctant Lloyd’s to buy the failing HBOS but then pretended that never happened later on after Lloyd’s own balance sheet suffered for it.
Spot on oh and didn’t Sheena Easton have to apologise for spouting Downing street lies obout knife crime? Easton couldn’t wait to give us the ‘fact’s which as we know with Easton were always word for word Downing street press releases.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/12/corrosive_of_public_trust_in_o.html
Easton has always been the worst for simply spouting dowing street press releases as facts, funny that seems to have stopped now. What could have changed I wonder.
Another example of that Martin was how Easton used his blog and the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ site to attack the Tories (and, to a much lesser extent, the Lib Dems) over their use of statistics (and much else besides) in the run-up to the election.
He didn’t attack Labour until Brown got rapped over the knuckles by Sir Michael Scholar of the UK Statistics Authority. And he didn’t even attack them then! He posted a shameless piece of pro-Brown damage-limitation instead, in the course of which –
– he repeatedly downplayed the nature of the Brown’s telling-off
– he reminded his readers that the Conservative had been “ticked off” too by Sir Michael (a stronger way of putting in it)
– he highlighted a grammatical mistake in the criticism of Brown by the “lobby group” Migration Watch
– he highlighted the passage where Sir Michael “give the PM credit in his letter” (and yes that “give” is Easton’s own grammatical mistake!)
– he pointed out that the statistics are very complex (implying that Brown could be forgiven for his error?)
– he ended by saying that Brown was astute and that that he was almost right all along!
It was a classic piece of ‘move along, nothing to see here’.
Compare that to his relentless attacks on Chris Grayling and the Conservatives over their use of “dodgy” statistics. There was article after article after article after article after article after article attacking Tory “numerical nonsense” in the months leading up to the election.
For Helen Boaden to cite him as a shining example of a BBC specialist who reports “without fear or favour” is absolutely absurd.
Yes Sheena is in my view the worst of all the beeboids. His pieces are full of ‘personal’ commentary (something the BBC attack Fox News for) and one sided pro Liebour trash.
I know a few others have also picked up on Sheena’s bias his playing down of violent crime, and his unashamed spinning of Liebour lies as facts.
I can’t remember him spouting one Downing Street statement in his usual fashion since Cameron took over.
Yes, and he keeps coming back to the same old pet themes, particularly drugs liberalisation. His latest post is yet another example of that. (Drugs is the only issue he used to attack Labour over!) The futility of the government’s immigration cap proposal is another popukar theme, closely related to his broader ‘mass immigration is not a major problem’ theme.
Oddly, since the change of government his very regular blog postings on how crime is falling have dried up. Funny that!
So the Beeboids do criticize Labour – from the Left.
I still say Nick Robinson is more biased in favor of protecting his charges – all politicians, regardless of party – than he is in favor of one party or another in his reporting and blogging. In nearly every appearance on air I saw or heard during the expenses scandal, he defended all the MPs by emphasizing that the poor politicians felt bad and were all depressed about how much the public loathed them.
But he clearly stopped being gentle with Gordon Brown after he and Darling double-crossed Robinson and Peston about a VAT rise in the Pre-Budget Report a while back. Robinson made his unhappiness very clear after that, even expressing his disgust in one blog post about his colleagues acting as if Mr. Brown saved the world after a certain economics summit.
But Robinson admitted in that first video Guido did a couple years ago that he withheld information to protect his insider access.
Easton also did a video report before the last election framing the Cross of St. George as a racist symbol.
Easton devoted many articles to contradicting Labour’s drug stats and seriously undermined Jaqui Smith
You can’t call him pro-labour simply by taking the examples that suit your conclusions
Bob, you beat me to it!
You’re right (mostly). Easton’s many, many posts on drugs policy are exactly the sort of things Martin means about ‘personal commentaries’, even over-riding his pro-Labour bias.
Month in month out, he posts articles arguing that the scientific evidence calling for a more liberal drug policy should be listened to rather than ‘public opinion’, or as the title of his latest post puts it Should drugs policy be based on facts or opinion? His closing statement sums his position up:
However, this is clearly not where the coalition is heading. When it comes to the question of evidence-based drugs policy and public opinion, it would appear that the new British government has carried on precisely where the old one left off.
He should simply report rather than push his own agenda.
Craig, it was deemed fit to know how many freemasons were in the professions to assess whether they exercised bias and favouritism in their favour against the public interest and that of their professions. Similarly, we need to know how many homosexuals are employed by the BBC. I’m not going to produce a list here of who I believe to be and who are homosexuals, because half of the list will just be my perception, but if it is true, as I believe, that the BBC is heavily under-represented by heterosexuals this points to rampant discrimination and a culture of bias in favour of a Labour Party that homosexual activists support.
You hit the nail on the head there. I am disgusted with the amount of homosexual promotion that is taking place in the BBC. Hot on the heels of the Gay mafia are the atheist lobby and in my view, none of this is good.
And considering Peston’s information could only have come from Downing Street, why were Brown and Peston not arrested ?!?
Helen Boaden knows, as you and I and Mark Thompson know (he has obliquely addressed it on occasions, e.g. on the subject of Muslims being a minority and meriting special treatment for that reason, and more recently, when he referred to leftish bias, though conveniently removing it to the past (since, of course “the past is another country; they do things differently there”)) that the BBC has agendas and biases galore.
It is disingenuous and intellectually shallow for her to address it in such a glib PR manner, rather than in a measured and serious way, given the heaps of hard evidence that has been gathered and presented on this site alone. I am not even referring to the many individual opinions and convictions of bias that are expressed on here, either, but to the objective concrete evidence collected, analysed and presented by e.g. Craig.
I think the bbc attracts genetic defectives.
Come now John, they’re just ‘special’ at the BBC.
As Ralph Wiggum might say, ‘I’m.. unique…ly funded’.
It certainly seems to open many avenues up not usually associated with professional, objective reporting entities.
As I suggested on an earlier thread – the more comments on that ridiculous Boaden post the better, some of us have posted already.
I have seldom seen such unctious rubbish as Boaden posted.
John, I’ve just shoved another one on there now, having a different go at Mark Easton than the one I posted above.
As you say, it’s an article so ill-thought-through and so complacent that fisking it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
They’ve hidden one for moderation. The others make great reading!
Craig – can I just say that your posts on the BBC site are really good. Just factual statistics. Keep up the good work.
Thanks JHT.
All that hard slog putting together forensic analysis of BBC bias is really paying dividends now in having it ready to hand to surgically rebut patent nonsense from the likes of Helen Boaden that ‘impartiality is in our genes’.
You had trouble accessing the BBC site during the election, as with others I understand? Hope you get good protection for your internet connection. The stories that surfaced not that long ago about various critics experiencing the same problems certainly sound like it could make a good story if a tech detective gets on it.
Odd how few, so far there are, relatively speaking, especially from the ‘But it’s a much loved institution, by the only person who matters, me, and I expect you to pay for my pleasure’ brigade.
That may change when some arrive at ‘work’ Monday, and the memo arrives and/or twitter sistas start flouncing.
Well, it clearly isn’t in the genes of the current crop of townie muppets who are involved in the Farming Today programme, because their attitude towards the government decision to licence control of badgers in TB hot spots , has been comical.
if its a farming programme, is it reasonable to expect it to reflect the views of the farming and rural communities ? Otherwise why not call it something else, Beeboids Today for example , ‘a programme where trendy young metrosexuals impose their views on dumb licence fee payers’.
Countryfile, countrytracks and all those otehr programmes are typical of how the lefty meterosexual townies patronise and misrepresent the countryside. It should be called out-of-town, The show where townies tell the dumb country folk how to behave in the countryside.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
We are impartial, impartiality is in our DNA, impartiality is at the heart of our organisation, etc, etc, etc…
The BBC cannot back down, they have to keep repeating the lie otherwise their whole existence could be at stake if we had politicians with some balls to say enough is enough.
Good posts Craig, I see your last one “has been referred for further consideration” I wonder why that could be? Sure wouldn’t be because you use foul language, rude or extremist, unless hitting them where it hurts by careful examination of their biases can be seen as extremist and therefore needing moderation. Maybe the BBC are trying to ‘manage’ people’s opinions yet again?
Given that she has made a point of their ‘openness’ to critique, the ability to moderate with their usual aplomb is evidently still too hard hard to resist, ironically.
She really is sticking feet in her mouth as quickly as she is shooting them. Craig’s factual posts require humble mea culpa answers, not the blog hounds being unleashed. Tempted to try that recent Oz election one where they had the flame-haired heroine vs. the mad monk by way of comparison (actually had a grudging admission a few days ago that this was beyond the pale, though I didn’t notice much change if they had had a retroactive tidy once the dust had settled).
It will be funny if they panic at where this is going, as they have before, and pull the plug. A ‘closed for comments’ will be ace, as it really will backfire, but even a ‘watertight oversight’ a la Mr. Black will also serve. In this case, I think folk will wait, and remember.
Reading the comments so far, even those of a more forgiving disposition seem very unimpressed with her ‘It must be correct, we’re the BBC’ presumption, especially the crass manner of her ‘and if you aren’t on board with us, then you don’t deserve a say’ intro para complement.
If this is the best a multi hundred thou a year exec can manage, especially when run by a few score acolytes (one presumes) before publishing her hissy fit, lord help ’em.
It made Marie Antoinette’s (Ok, mis-pinned on her) ‘quote’ seem like a reasonable take-out order at Greggs.
Thanks Marky,
I can’t think what’s scaring them about it. Here it is in full:
“When stories are complex, highly charged and politicised, audiences rely on our specialists to give them context, assess evidence and test opinions without fear or favour,” you say? And cite Mark Easton as an example of such a specialist?
Mark Easton spent the months leading up to the election regularly attacking the Tories on his blog and on ‘Reality Check’ – though the Lib Dems did get a few critical posts too. Labour emerged almost entirely unscathed (even being defended over its misuse of statistics).
On 20th April he starred alongside Andrew Neil on a ‘Daily Politics’ election special – a debate on crime, featuring Alan Johnson for Labour, Chris Grayling for the Conservatives and Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats.
This gave Mr Easton a golden opportunity to prove that he really does take the concept of impartiality seriously. All he needed to do to prove that was to probe all three party spokesmen with a roughly equivalent intensity, “without fear or favour”. Hardly difficult, you would think. Is that what he did?
No, he didn’t. He went relentlessly on the attack against Chris Grayling.
Andrew Neil also put a lot of questions to Chris Grayling, and asked the same number to Chris Huhne and only slightly more to Alan Johnson. Mr Neil’s interruptions followed a similar pattern.
In contrast, here are the number of questions/points Mark Easton put to the three politicians:
Alan Johnson – 2
Chris Grayling – 17
Chris Huhne – 4
Here are the number of interruptions Mark Easton made against each politician:
Alan Johnson – 1
Chris Grayling – 8
Chris Huhne – 3
The tone of the questioning of Mr Grayling was also sharply critical.
Mark Easton reporting “without fear or favour”? Really?
***
Now what will Beeboid HQ decide to do?
Craig, you’re a Contributor here now, if they ban your comment, perhaps it would merit a Contribution under the title ‘censored’. I’d certainly be up for emailing it out on my General Election list. You’ve got them by the gonads mate!
(Heck, either way I’ll email it out! – if the bebiasseé do publish your comment under this pressure still very worth a mention that it had been suppressed. No fair-minded person would see any reason for the BBC doing so except your criticisms exposed the vile hypocrisy of Helen Boaden in claiming the BBC is impartial)
Thanks HP. NotaSheep has sneaked my comment (in full) past the censors now & it’s sitting there on comment 43 – for the time being!
I have queried the disappearance of your post and posted one of my own…
‘A few weeks back I complained to the BBC about some clear bias. I have yet to receive a reply to my complaint, maybe you would like to explain how if ‘Impartiality is in (y)our genes’ and ‘When stories are complex, highly charged and politicised, audiences rely on our specialists to give them context, assess evidence and test opinions without fear or favour’, you managed to display this horrendous example of bias?
‘Your Middle East news features a piece about an Israeli rabbi who had called for a ‘plague’ on Mahmoud Abbas, and other reprehensible comments. Despicable I agree but maybe you could point me to the BBC web site news articles that reported the genocidal statements of senior Hamas and Fatah politicians and/or religious leaders. For example did the BBC web news report Hamas cleric Ziyad Abu al-Haj’s Friday sermon of 3 April 2009 in which he said “The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.”?
Maybe you could also show me where BBC web news reported the words of Dr. Ahmed Yousuf Abu Halabiah, a member of the Palestinian Sharia (Islamic religious law) Rulings Council, and Rector of Advanced Studies at the Islamic University on 13 October 2000 when he said “The Jews are the Jews. There never was among them a supporter of peace. They are all liars… They are terrorists. Therefore it is necessary to slaughter them and murder them, according to the words of Allah… It is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land. Make war on them any place that you find yourself. Any place that you meet them – kill them. Kill the Jews and those among the Americans who are like them… The Jews only understand might. Have no mercy on the Jews, murder them everywhere.”
If you did not report such Palestinian calls, why not? Why are the words of one Israeli cleric, however vile, newsworthy whereas those of Palestinian clerics and politicians are not?’
We will see how long 43 & 44 last.
Thanks NotaSheep. How very odd! The ‘bad cop’ moderator who was in charge when comment 39 came through must have popped out to the toilet for a snort of something when comment 43 came through!!
Nice posts. It is a real hoot when a piece by Boaden claiming no bias at the BBC then has moderators removing forensic evidence of bias.
(I got a post in fairly early on the Boaden blog – No 12. Thankfully it has not been removed.) I have not posted at the BBC for a long long time – my experience was that the moderators were more biased than the BBC itself !)
Just posted this (#44 – if published!):
Thirty years ago, at the precocious age of 15, I was a Tribunite (left wing) member of the Labour Party. The only real bias I could see then at the BBC was towards the left. It is now endemic. It went into overdrive round about the time Tony Blair became Labour leader, although the Frankenstein monster he helped create turned against him when he showed his heart was in the right place when he helped Bush free Iraq.
The BBC once did the nation tremendous proud for its impartiality, civility and quality. Now it’s partisanship and bumptiousness has made it and Britain an international laughing stock.
I’ve lived in Spain for the last 8 years. I’ve heard skits on Spanish national radio parodying the rude interruptions and overbearing personas of BBC interviewers. Even the socialist ‘El País’ accepts as fact that during the Iraq War the BBC were campaigning against it.
Such rampant bias does not come about by accident. The BBC is now riven with subversives who have contempt for the British people and contempt for democracy. It needs to be culled. Clearly, the first head that needs to roll to restore impartiality is that of Helen Boaden.
I have read Craig’s suppressed post above. I guess he’s hitting too many bulls eyes.
¡Uuf! Make that #47!
It must have hit a bull’s eye as well. It’s been referred for further consideration. I can see nothing in your post which would warrant that under the rules.
Let’s also not forget that the BBC hired two Jews for their Jerusalem office in response (although they tried to deny it) to criticisms that the BBC was too anti-Israel. Of course their coverage only got worse, but magically seems to have improved somewhat since they left, after Tim Franks made that cringe-making apologia.
Then we have that Obamessiah activist and another far-Left advocate the BBC recently hired to cover the US for their revamped website, not to mention their ringleader, JournoList groupie Katie Connolly.
And we had Justin Webb complaining about an inherent anti-US bias at the BBC while admitting that he’s been part of that. He and Katty Kay have both used their positions at the BBC to advocate for personal causes.
Maybe she meant imparciality is in our jeans…in the washing basket in the corner under our dirty laundry.
The only thing in BBC jeans is another person, not necessarily of a different sex…
I’ve slapped my own wrist, if that observation contravenes the new “be nice” meme…
Not “be nice” just civil!!
Helen Boaden’s assertion that the BBC is committed to impartiality can be taken as seriously as Adolf Hitler’s assurances that he had no intention to invade Poland.
It really isn’t that difficult for democratic Parliamentarians to produce a watertight report documenting rampant BBC bias and legislate for a wholesale purge at the BBC to restore impartiality. Helen Boaden’s head being first for the chop – la Señora Gramsci I.
If Boaden is so sure the BBC isn’t biased release the bloody Balen report.
Oh the beautiful irony!!
BBC 6PM news. The BBC showed a clip of Nick Clegg being asked a question by a woman at their conference. She wanted to know why it was that THEY were getting blamed for the cuts but the Tories for the good stuff.
I felt almost sorry for her. I bet she sits in front of the TV watches the BBC and believes every word that is spouted by the morons at the BBC.
The BBC have continually attacked the Lib Dems for going into the coalition, John Pinhead on Radio 5 even admitted “It’s our job to drive a wedge between the two parties”
of course it’s easier to try to de-stabilise the Lib Dems.
But the beauty of the whole thing was the one sided reporting of Clegg’s Q&A.
ITV’s reporting on right now is far more balanced.
How encouraging to see this individual post here. It can only mean that this blog is having success.
Perhaps the object is to demoralise the BBC. Constant criticism does have that effect and we know they read this site.
On Helen all one can say is that every word she utters is designed to protect her lavish lifestyle and her future security. Thus every word can safely be disregarded.
Clearly we have different perceptions on what works positively for this site!
I’ve just got some plugs for this site past the moderators.
May I ask the moderator(s), why some comments are being witheld for further consideration, when these comments have also been posted on the ‘biased BBC’ site for all to see.
On ‘biased BBC’ they also post negative comments made about the site.
If they can do it, why can’t the BBC?
I have just posted again – I see that hippiepooter’s post has been referred for more consideration by the moderators.
That is – blocked.
I really do think that an email to my B-BBC General Election list is on the way … Let’s give it till tomorrow to see whether the BBC decide against supressing Criag’s and my comment further. ..
If you have the means to draw attention to Boaden’s piece and espially to the comments – go for it !
The MPs need to realise that us peasants are revolting.
Except those troll posts by “A Friend” have been deleted.
Helen Boaden must use Émile Coués’ method of optimistic autosuggestion. “We are NOT biased its in our genes, We are NOT biased its in our genes…” ad infinitum
Boaden’s comment would have had a modicum of truth provided it was made AT LEAST 35-odd years ago.
To paraphrase Mae West, they used to be snow white, but then they drifted.
One thing that nobody has mentioned yet: a simple way for Helen to PROVE once and for all BBC impartiality would be to make a list of all the New Labour MPs, advisers, donors, party members, employees or ex employees over the last 20 years that have also been BBC employees.
Then she could do the same with the Conservative Party…
On second thoughts, to avoid embarrassment, maybe she shouldn’t.
If she doesn’t get round to it, I’m sure she’d greatly appreciate it if you compiled it!
This is a good start=
http://gaiusmarcellus.blogspot.com/2010/03/unacceptable-links-between-labour-and.html
Well done Matthew, that’s one and a few years ago I used another called BBC Pioneers, very good although a bit dated when you look at the style now. I uswed teh info a few times on the old BBC radio 5 boards to shut doubters up. There was an exodus of BBC political bods which greatly explained the continuous and very effective stream of sleaze stories in the mid 90s, the drip, drip, drip was intentional and after wards Blairs 1st term was similar which was why Campbell was perceived as so strong – he already had all the info from avid BBC apparachiks who became his team. Bush, Rimmer sixsmith et al.
FWIW I am posting at the Boaden blog as “dumbciscokid” – in my 50’s I re-treaded myself to be a Cisco engineer. No matter what I do, I cannot change my monica at the BBC website.
I have just posted anothe couple of comments. Banging my head against a brick wall, no doubt – but it is nice when I stop.
I was just going to ask who “dumbciscokid” was, I’m a director who doesn’t want to be named.
John, you should be able to change your “Display Name” there by clicking on your own name, then on “settings” at the top right of the screen. It worked for me – it now shows that rather than my user name.
Monday morning’s Times, Telegraph and Metro have front-page stories about 9000 public sector workers earning more than the Prime Minister. 9000.
Effing unbe-bloody-believable, except in a country gone mad.
If that isn’t a big story, I don’t know what is.
Will the Today programme lead on it – as a measure of the rot in our society ? Will those press stories be the first mention on “what the papers are saying” – there is no other front-page story that gets such commonality of headlines today.
Will pigs fly ?
There are now 85 press stories about this, says Google.
The irony is that the figures are evidently derived from a Panorama survey. So maybe Today will cover it – even though their presenters along with many other BBC staff also earn more than the Prime Minister. Will Today give it top billing ? If not – why not ? And will the presenters mention that they themselves are in the fat-cat bracket ?
A few recent media storiews about our dear BBC :
BBC poll suggest maximum wage should be about £120K, provides list of typical earnings – but somehow fails to mention BBC executives’ earnings :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11350383
New version of BBC iPlayer is a cock-up (I agree) – what did the cock-up cost us ? :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/17/bbc-iplayer-user-revolt
Former Chairman of BBC Governors says the BBC Trust idea was a cock-up :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/19/bbc-trust-sir-christopher-bland
People jailed for BBC Comic Relief fraud :
http://www.haringeyindependent.co.uk/news/topstories/8400728.Three_sentenced_for_Lottery_and_Comic_Relief_charity_scam/
BBC censors a valid comment about injured ex-servicemen by its own One Show presenter :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/14/bbc-jason-manford-help-for-heroes
Sky covers the Pope’s visit properly, BBC shows some other rubbish :
http://www.newsonnews.net/skynews/4591-sky-news-papal-coverage-outshines-bbc-breakfast-on-sunday.html
………………….
But hey – here’s the good news ! BBC about to run a series about a group of lesbians. “The BBC were very receptive to the idea. We did not meet any resistance – indeed quite the opposite” :
http://primetime.unrealitytv.co.uk/lip-service-lesbian-drama-coming-to-bbc-three/
It would take a farce like Drop the Dead Donkey to make this stuff up.
What was the link that the BBC took down about “remarks being thrown at Christians by Islamists”?
The BBC is impartial!
It gives equal weight and time to socialist/leftist/progressive centrist/Marxist/liberal politics and that in the corporate mind of the BBC makes up 99.9% of the political sphere.
I’ve been out of commission this weekend and am just catching up. What a fantastic beating you’ve given the bBC.
Can’t wait to see what happens when the moderators at the bBC clock in this morning.
R5’s Shelagh Fogarty at the Lib Dem conference sees a similarity between the Tories & the Taleban. At 7:40, interviewing a Lib Dem MP who states that NATO’s mission in Helmand,Afghanistan is to ensure that it does not fall under the control of people with very nasty policies. Quick as a flash, to her own great amusement, Fogarty interrupts to state that it sounds much like the Lib Dems’s role in the UK government.
LOL! Just posted comment no. 75, pointing out that the BBC did not cover the “Benedict watch your back” and, “Burn, burn, burn in hell” demo as the Pope passed in his popemobile and gave the link, so they “referred” it.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/29746
Awesome. Maybe you should have poste thst under the alias “Imam Rauf”.
And this is an amusing one:
74. At 08:21am on 20 Sep 2010, ady wrote:
–On ‘biased BBC’ they also post negative comments made about the site blah blah–
It’s all spittle flecked US Republicans and Zionist nutters in that place.
I was wondering why the posts had suddenly gone so weird in this thread…but I wonder no longer.
But there has been very little defence of the BBC there. Often on posts like that the lefties would jump in. Perhaps they are leaving the BBC, disenchanted with its rare examples of impartiality, as in the Panorama coverage of the flotilla incident.
Or perhaps its simply the case that after more thatn three weeks with no new post on the The Editors site, they are not aware of it.
Amusing to note that as the morning shift clocks on at ‘work’, they start flaming any ‘incorrect’ thoughts.
I do note that the mods did catch up with this, though one suspects under duress. It must have appeared to be copied and pasted to highlight/critique thread sharers such as TrueToo, but scooting straight to a House Rule banning suggests an internal conflict at best.
So not sure the first defensive salvo from the groupies did much more than backfire on them and those who let it through in the first place… in rather spectacular fashion.
Whilst I feel in the Wild West of the blogosphere any attempt at moderation is doomed to failure, being a choice between censorship (for a pre-mod system) and herding cats (in a user voluntary site tone, post-modded one), it does rather highlight what can happen, even with Aunty’s iron rod, to taint reasoned argument when the excesses get applied.
Noting that, so far, no factual abuses cited have been acknowledged, much less answered. Well, save with the name-calling and hissy-fitting.
That may have worked before; even with the majority of the Graun audience, who do appreciate a well thought argument, I am not sure it’s going to any more.
Dunno, these moderators are not too bright. Having banned ady’s no. 74, they leave my no. 76, in which I quote his 74 in full. Perhaps they are just overworked, poor dears.
Anyway, I’m beginning to think there isn’t much point in the exercise. I have no doubt Boaden, having posted her fatuous blog in response to the article in the Mail, has washed her hands of it and is now basking in re-affirmed BBC impartiality. The last thing she would do is read the responses.
True, too 😉
A couple of days ago I heard someone on the BBC saying that the TV license was more popular now than ever. The BBC tells you that it is the best broadcaster in the world and that we all love the BBC and of course that it is unbiased. There is no alternative view, Its all one sided propaganda – you tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
As well as the self perpetiuating propaganda there is the BBC dirty tricks department – the BBC often claims that it is accused of bias from all sides. The critics from the left are maufuctured or imagined to throw their genuine ones off balance.
I don’t think that’s correct. When the BBC would not show the DEC appeal for Gaza, it was inundated by comments from lefties, many of them enraged and insisting that they would never again watch the BBC since it had, “Sold out to the Israelis.” Mark Thompson’s blog on the subject attracted well over 2000 comments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/01/bbc_and_the_gaza_appeal.html
There’s a whole bunch of brain-damaged lefties out there who truly believe that the BBC has abandoned its fellow-comrades of the left.
At the same time as the BBC did not show the DEC appeal directly they gave massive indirect assistance, linking to sites showing the video; allowing interviewees to quote the appeal’s phone number on air; programming ‘Have-Your-Says’ and other discussions on whether the BBC had made the right decision and keeping the story (now the story of the BBC decision not to show rather than the Appeal itself) online for weeks.
The BBC had no problem writing about the appeal directly Gaza appeal raised ₤3m in week I could not find official figures but it appears that the appeal raised no more than 1/10 of the DEC appeal for Haiti and 1/4 of that raised at last count for Pakistan. The DEC site fails to provide figures so I am extrapolating.
It is not possible to know if the relatively low amount was due to the British publics lack of sympathy for Gaza and Hamas or the failure of the BBC and Sky to run the ad.
Of course, the fact that these lefties are so extreme makes nonsense of the argument that the BBC is somehow in the middle because it gets flak from both right and left, so your point stands.
To these extreme lefties, the BBC is simply not left enough.
Couldn’t agree more with this:
105. At 1:07pm on 21 Sep 2010, Roland D wrote:
# 39. At 2:38pm on 19 Sep 2010, CraigMorecambe wrote:
This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain
Good grief. How long does it take to “consider” one post? Perhaps until you “consider” no-one will go back and read what you don’t want them to know?
They eventually unreferred my no. 75, with its link to the ugly Muslim demonstration against the Pope. I’ve never seen them take a decision on posts in limbo in a reasonable time. And often they make no decision at all. BBC blogs are littered with these referred comments. A few months ago, on the BBC Internet blog this was brought to the attention of the guy responsible for moderation who undertook to do something about it. Right!