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- Fedup2 Dec 19, 06:36
Midweek 18th December 2024
Today watch I thought I’d have an early dip into today . It’s funny when you know more background than… - tomo Dec 19, 06:21
Midweek 18th December 2024
Dimwit MP https://x.com/josephpowell/status/1869051927734194241 and… Labour’s new Corruption Minister - JohnC Dec 19, 05:51
Midweek 18th December 2024
Syria not a threat to world, rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa tells BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05p9g2nqmeo Jesus H Christ, this is another absolutely… - atlas_shrugged Dec 19, 05:18
Midweek 18th December 2024
So they found him a razor to chop his beard off then. - Zephir Dec 19, 03:04
Midweek 18th December 2024
The liars caught out over and over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZX3XFzmTww - BRISSLES Dec 19, 00:58
Midweek 18th December 2024
Perhaps they’re looking to give Chopper (Ive done this, Ive done that ..) Hopeless his own show – he infiltrates… - StewGreen Dec 19, 00:25
Midweek 18th December 2024
GBnews new lineup statement doesn’t mention Dolan https://www.gbnews.com/shows/gb-news-makes-2025-programming-announcement - StewGreen Dec 19, 00:24
Midweek 18th December 2024
Foreign funded Client Earth have been using lawfare trickery to usurp democracy on UK enviro policy, for years They are… - wwfc Dec 18, 23:08
Midweek 18th December 2024
I wonder why this is happening more and more now let me think !! His 61-year-old father collapsed and died… - wwfc Dec 18, 22:50
Midweek 18th December 2024
Well looks like this site will not be around much longer happy heart attack and you paid for it yourself…
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I have been following this blog for quite a while now, and have posted the odd comment. But lately, I have been neglecting to comment, mainly because other people have said what I thought far more eloquently than I could have, but also because of frustration.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of following this blog, is my sense of duty in watching or listening to the BBC, when frankly I would rather not. One side effect of monitoring this output is depression. Things that I don’t find depressing, like seeing Labour kicked out in May are reported in the tone of an undertaker, yet things that I find not the least bit interesting or cheerful, like Millibands election are reported with excruciating detail, as if it is a bigger event than a coronation.
As this blog reveals with sickening frequency the BBC is an outright, overt left wing, anti Tory organisation, paid for by a compulsory Tax. Blatant bias oozes out of the pores of just about every presenter, even down to that slime ball Chiles and the Carol Thatcher event on the one show.
The problem is, that no matter how frequently this is reported here NOTHING changes.
The reasons for this have been discussed at length here; With all the frustration of seeing no change we could just turn round and say ‘Oh what’s the use!’ and give up; but that would be what Labour’s little helpers would want, and we can’t have that now, can we.
I share your frustration but I know that the Beeboid Corporation is well bedded in and still popular with the general public. Whether pressure will be brought to bear for it to reform itself from within by the appointment of a less leftist / party political leadership and the adoption of a dedication to true standards of journalistic excellence remains to be seen. If public popularity continues to decline there is a chance of that happening. Otherwise, not much chance of that or pigs flying.
Things do change, Manfred. This blog was directly responsible for a serious redo of the section on 9/11 and Al Qaeda on the CBBC website. See here and here and here (and other posts in the days following Sept. 12, 2007). Doesn’t seem like much on its face, but it was serious business, and raised awareness at the BBC. This can be said about many other things, if one takes the time notice.
Other people notice the work here and have highlighted various issues in places like the Telegraph and Guido. Beeboids take notice. When Stephen Nolan introduced David Vance as the host of this site and mentioned it by name, to me that was a sign that they were at least aware that they were being watched, however ridiculous most of the Beeboids think we are. That’s their opinion, and their problem.
Also, I suspect DB’s and Craig’s posts featuring egregious Twitter bias by certain edgy BBC comedians and correspondents were responsible for a certain post by BBC News boss and possible future DG, Helen Boaden, about BBC employees being more judicious in their use of social media.
I’m a firm believer in ripples in the pond, and if nothing else, this blog does raise awareness and helps strengthen people’s resistance to propaganda. I’m also fairly confident that people here are far more informed about international and US issues than most people, and certainly anyone who relies on the BBC for their information. That makes a difference at election time.
A great selection of the signs of hope this site gives for ending BBC bias. Lets hope these flickering flames will help kindle an inferno in 2011 that will burn it down and restore Britain to the decent democracy it once was, with the BBC restored to the key part it once played in making it so.
I’d add to your selection that prior to DV announcing his appearance on Sunday Morning Live on this site the programme had every intention of reporting Al Qa’eda allegations of torture in Guantanamo as fact.
Great post Manfred. The only thing that will arrest the decline of Britain, that the BBC plays such a pivotal part in, is a political realignment. Personally, one looks towards Melanie Phillips for this. I dont see anyone else bringing it about, but unfortunately can’t see her doing so. I hope I’m proved wrong.
Till then, we can but continue to keep the flame of Britain’s honour and glory burning in our hearts, in the hope political leadership may emerge to ignite it throughout the land once more, like Maggie did.
As it’s an open thread…
Has anyone else thought that navigating this website is like trying to stride in treacle? It’s so damned SLOW, especially when waiting for comments to appear, then actually trying to post one.
Er…yes. Sometimes the comments won’t open or take ages to open.
PS: Ahem… v-Bulletin software, anyone?
Yours,
Broken Record
A lot depends on your web browser, with Chrome I find it reasonably fast most of the time, although occasionally you have to his the reload button.
All I do know is since you had to log in it’s stopped the mong like morons from the BBC posting their drugged up leftie crap here (Gus Haynes, Hillhunt etc.)
Good point. I’ve got IE7 with Vista. When you update and upgrade, it can cause other problems and sometimes it is just easier to reverse it. I think I did that with Chrome.
I think any problems with comments loading are down to the Russians who run JS-kit, not this blog itself.
Russians David? Eh? Which kind of Russians – Putin/Mafia ones, Oligarch-funded ones, or “good” ones? (if there are any)
I’m referring to these Russians (the engineers, not the execs, as I forgot that the Frenchmen at Echo acquired or merged with JS-Kit). I can’t say if they’re good or bad, but I do know that they aren’t very competent or helpful regarding tech support.
When they acquired Haloscan, not only did their own software lack certain capabilities of Haloscan that many people liked, but took absolutely forever to port over older comments, and then only after serious prodding.
Crikey, THOSE kind of Russians. I had no idea. Which one is Vice-president in charge of Identity Theft and Reselling Credit Card Details? Very scary.
Oh, those Russians…
As Bobby Farrell might have said – RIP.
Actually I have hope that one day the throat of the BBC will be slit and it allowed to bleed to death like the scummy organisation it is.
I take heart that despite the continual pounding of the BBC and its leftist scumbag mates the global warming scam is falling apart, bloggers and other individuals who get very little airtime (even from the small amount of climate sceptical media out there) are having an effect.
We’ve seen human excrement like Harrabin and co have to start to acknowledge the oppositon to the lies about global warming and that despite the full force of the BBC, Sky and Channel 4 news the general public are not buying it.
We can’t give up pounding the scum at the BBC for their leftist views and biggoted reporting, their refusal to report stories involving Islamic troublemakers and their one sided reporting of the economy.
Just keep pounding away, we are having an effect, small yes, but noticable.
And a happy New Year to all.
It’s also worth pointing out the bias to friends and family.
“I’d never noticed that but now you mention it….”
I was wondering what people made of the Top Gear episode that was shown the other day? Someone complained that Clarkson & Co made fun of the burka, ‘causing offence’ and mentioned that OTOH nobody minded the babe in the manger being the stig, not baby Jesus.
When they got to Israel I noticed the camera angle that lingered on the ‘apartheid wall’, which they cunningly juxtaposed with a Peace on Earth slogan. What wit, what sophisticated irony, what misdirected projection and misguided implication; that Israel is the warmonger, and not the suicide bombers and terrorists that the wall is there to deter.
The whole Top Gear this was just nonsense, the Daily Star ran a made up story about ‘Muslim outrage’ which in fact was our mate Choudry the lunatic. The Daily Mail then picked up on it and managed to find a couple of ‘outraged’ people on Twitter regarding the baby Jesus/Stig.Like that was hard to do.
Actually if you watched the show it had a go at every Country it went through pretty much, I didn’t think it was particulary anti anything.
The Daily Mail like to have a go at Clarkson and co but forgot that they had the assistance of the Syrian Automobile Club and would have had a Syrian Government minder in tow somewhere, so the whole Burkha thing would have been cleared with them first.
Anyway he’s not the Messiah, he’s just a tame racing driver.
Except in the view of the Top Gear buffoons, The Stig is Judas. So it’s a double insult to put him in the manger. I laughed out loud anyway, though.
I read a piece in the Daily Mail about this, which however didn’t make much sense, to me anyway. There was some garbled attempt to explain the purpose of the “joke” – something to do with going from the desert to the road and using the black garb as disguise. I have no idea why they would need such a disguise on the road but in any case there was a video clip showing Clarkson driving along the road wearing the garb but with most of the rest of his clothing visible and he certainly was making no effort to disguise himself. I concluded that most likely it was just another example of a peculiar sort of childish silliness that overtakes Clarkson whenever he goes to another country. (No offence to children intended. Indeed, thinking about it, no child would act so daft.)
Some beeboid mong on Radio 5 just claimed that melting arctice ice was causing our cold winter and that it was all down to global warming.
Piss off beeboid mong.
Autumnwatch seasonal offering last evening gave us the definitive proof of AGW, by, wait for it, analysing the notebook jottings of a woman who for 30 years has recorded when the tree buds open. Did they show any temperature data?…..no way, rather try to muddy the waters and smugly go on with their deception.
Autumnwatch seasonal offering last evening gave us the definitive proof of AGW, by, wait for it, analysing the notebook jottings of a woman who for 30 years has recorded when the tree buds open. Did they show any temperature data?…..no way, rather try to muddy the waters and smugly go on with their deception.
Avoided it like the plague, even though Oddie’s lived up to his name and shuffled off to a padded cell somewhere.
Just who is Kate Humble doing the deed with, that we should be subjected to her on a more-or-less constant basis.
Anyway, it’s not just the Beeb that do the AGW tango with regard to plant behaviour. It’s only a couple of years since the Telegraph published a piece about snowdrops flowering in the Autumn and drew the apparently obvious conclusion that AGW was responsible.
Oh dear: it was a species of Autumn Snowdrop.
Look, AGW is responsible for everything, even Chris Huhne…
“Some beeboid mong on Radio 5 just claimed that melting arctice ice was causing our cold winter and that it was all down to global warming.
Piss off beeboid mong”
So by that glorious logic we’re currently chillier than the (melting) Arctic, are we?
Colour me sceptical………
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they – they of little understanding and few principles, they of ideological thinking, they with common purpose at heart…
BBC:“Flu deaths continue to increase
Figures show 39 people in the UK have now died with flu-like illnesses this winter” (snip)
Yes giant expensive CP-trained brains at the BBC have learned to count. At one point there were 38, and when this increases by one (people are always dying ) this number increments to 39, so the number of deaths “continues to increase”
They learned this trick with the reporting of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan. One day it was 400, the next day it increased when another brave lad died, giving the BBC Islamic Appeasement Battalion license to wail “Numbers of our soldiers killed continues to increase! ” hint : Stop the War”
Somewhere in the Flu body copy will appear the “Cuts” meme, accompanied by the “Broken Promises” meme, and a quote from the General Secretary of the National Union of Shroud-wavers and Begging-bowl Operatives. Finishing with a weak and unconvincing rebuttal from an unnamed “Government Spokesman”
Its the BBC, propaganda passed off as news reporting.
I look forward to the BBC giving Assange the same treatment if found guilty of rape as they did to Israeli Katsav.
I didn’t see a long line of leftie wankers wanting to come out and defend Katsav, I wonder why?
The BBC simply ‘suggest’ it’s due to corrupt Israeli politics.
Hmm, double standards by the BBC?
To the Beeb/Graun sistahood, maybe it’s a case of ‘all men are rapists, but some can be indulged a bit more… if they compensate in other departments*’?
*Like the size, ahem, of their ideology, presuming it to be ‘correct’.
Earlier this week, I posted about Mark Mardell’s declaration that the President wanted us to view the last two years as a Golden Age of Government, when they accomplished much due to the wonders of bi-partisanship. I said that was a joke.
I was right, because now that Congress is in recess, the hyper-partisan Obamessiah has bypassed standard procedure and done a bunch of appointments during the recess, for positions which normally require Congressional approval. It’s especially bad because He appointed two people to important posts who couldn’t get Congressional approval otherwise. So He just did whatever He wanted instead, and screw the voters.
I’m sure Mardell will continue to blame any lack of bi-partisanship on nasty old Republicans.
DP
Obviously US voters – like those voting in Ireland on the first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty – do not know what they’re doing. Since He knows best he’s doing what’s best for everyone. I’m sure if it weren’t for that pesky Constitution thing He would have had the US voting and re-voting until Nancy Pelosi could resume her speakership of the House.
According to the BBC report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12091074 “the recess appointment system has been regularly used by both Democratic and Republican presidents” so nothing to get concerned about. It seems though that the BBC sees no contradiction between “business as usual” by His administration and the change change change message the BBC was hysterically relaying when He was running for pres.
Didn’t President Bush II use this device to appoint John Bolton as US Ambassador to the UN?
The BBC (News at 10:30 on BBC1) couldn’t wait to tell us that the man arrested on suspicion of murder in Bristol had been a member of staff at a “top fee-paying” school (complete with school photo of school staff) and that he was a member of the Prayer Book Society. In other words he is middle class, worked in private education and is a Christian: the perfect villain since he ticks all the BBC hate boxes.
Odd the amount of detail given of a suspect because although we were told later (in BBC London news) that the perps and victims in the Peckham killings are black (well even the BBC couldn’t keep it under wraps because the police involved are attached to Operation Trident) there was no mention of religion (if any) or what school the perps went to. The killings occurred on the – usual – “quiet estate” with “many families”. Sounds almost civilised doesn’t it although, strangely, unlike with the Bristol arrest. no-one wanted to appear on camera.
What? Somehow the BBC forgot to mention his blue hair rinse and that he was widely regarded as homosexual? How on earth did they fail to mention that?
Oh, and did the fact he’s a key activist for the Lib-Dems get a mention?
* Close down INBBC World Service in 2012.
To re-cap, we can expect an even greater Islamophilic content of INBBC in 2012 when it takes over responsibility for the massively extensive, and massively expensive World Service output, currently paid for by British taxpayers.
From 2012, we licencepayers will pay for all World Service output, which is largely designed to serves the interest of of non-British people, outside Britain. For example, there is the Arabic TV channel, based in the East wing of Broadcasting House, London, the sole role of which is to provide Arabic people of the Middle East with material and (Islamic) opinion, paid for by British licencepayers! The same goes for Persian TV service, etc, etc.
Take as one particular example, the obfuscating, and invariably Islamophilic coverage of NIGERIA. INBBC’s mantra on the political conflict inside Nigeria, is usually to ignore the history of Islamic jihad conquest in Nigeria (largely from the north), and not recognise the ongoing Islamic jihad against Christians which continues there to this day.
‘Jihadwatch’ had this on 28 Dec:
Nigeria: Jihad group claims responsibility for attacks on churches, death toll at 86
Reluctantly, INBBC had the following limited, political filtered report (via ‘BBC Hausa’* Islam) – 2 days later, 30 December:
“Nigerian Islamist attacks kill police and civilians”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12095328
*’BBC Hausa’ is an broadcasting arm of World Service which serves the interests of Hausa Muslim peoples of north Nigeria, all paid for by British taxpayers, and soon by British licencepayers.
A campaign for ‘Biased-BBC’ blog for 2011 could be:
* CLOSE DOWN INBBC WORLD SERVICE IN 2012.
Officially, it’s 2014 when British licencepayers take over the financial responsibility for paying for the BBC-NUJ ‘World Service’ (£272m a year) empire.
The ‘World Service’ should be closed down; with planning for that, starting now.
What good is the world service – its not as if we have an empire or anything. All we need is a Brussels Service – Maybe they could name it Radio Brussels and model it on the old Radio Moscow.
Every morning and evening it could play this.
The PM programme yesterday went beyond the bounds of previous BBC anti coalition bias into outright abuse. The selected meme is that the coalition is “unravelling” and “will collapse” according to some ex-aussie MP no one has heard of. 20 mins of this with the added spice of the BBC interjecting with…”so the role od the Lib Dems is to keep the bastards honest” (direct quote)
Do fellow commenters remember the venom with which the BBC investigated and attacked the disfunctional Brown/Blair administration? Sure there was a number of soft newsnight stories, but there was a general BBC News policy of tumbleweed…..
Nick Robinson admitted that he withheld information about it.
That shows up the Beeboid Corporation and how it sees fit to be abusive about Conservative politicians.
I wonder if loads of people complained to Ofcom about that. Hordes of people usually do when a “wrong” word is uttered even if it is not an inherently abusive word or a word used in an abusive way.
Second though for today…
BBC on its favourite communitarian hobby horse again, mandatory organ ‘donation’. They love it, and use every oprtunity to force the policy up the agenda. Much bush house celebration of a mandatory question on driving licences – well wait for it to appear on all government docments! I remember the horror with which the BBC recoiled from their peoples law initiative when the vast majority of listners decided that they wanted a ‘shoot to kill’ policy to defend their houses rather than the BBC approved inertia sales ‘opt out’ scheme to permit extraction of internal organs. Oddly the concept of asking people what sort of laws they wanted disappeared very quickly when Beeboids heard what the public really want!
Meeeh, slightly off-topic but…
I remember a story going round years ago about a medical student whose party-piece was borrowing a corpse’s ‘dinkle’ and stitching it to his Y-fronts. As the party got into full swing he would undo his flies, whip the ‘dinkle’ out, and cut it off with a pair of scissors.
I have not much objection to my irises, my healthy heart, jogger’s lungs, and kidney and liver being used. But I don’t want any bits of me to be the cabaret at an undergrads party.
Should be box on the form to untick to get that message across IMO.
New Year’s Resolutions
(-an alternative to INBBC Islamophilia).
Pakistan again.
A reluctant, leisurely INBBC finally gets around to mild reporting of fanatical Islamic intolerance.
Compare and contrast:
1.) ‘Jihadwatch’ has had all the following reports for over the past week on the fanatical Islamic protests against criticism of Islam(scroll down):
http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/br0nc0s/managed-mt/mt-search.cgi?search=pakistan+blasphemy&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20
2.) INBBC only gets around to this today:
“Pakistan on strike against bill to amend blasphemy law”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12097687
Apart from anything else, this intoleraance of so many Pakistan Muslims should be reason enough to stop their emigration from there to Britain. Stop the Islamisation of Britain.
Remember earlier this week when the BBC was telling you about how the blizzard in New York was so bad that Mayor Bloomberg was being criticized for his poor handling of the situation, and how it hit the outer boroughs (read: poorer than Manhattan) hardest?
The Narrative was that rich old Bloomberg took care of the other nasty rich people in Manhattan and left the rest of the city out in the cold (so to speak).
Except, surprise! Apparently a bunch of sanitation union workers decided to sabotage the clean-up effort as a protest against budget cuts.
Sanitation workers targeted specific neighborhoods
The selfish Sanitation bosses who sabotaged the blizzard cleanup to fire a salvo at City Hall targeted politically connected and well-heeled neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn to get their twisted message across loud and clear, The Post has learned.
Their motives emerged yesterday as the city’s Department of Investigation admitted it began a probe earlier this week after hearing rumblings of a coordinated job action.
Sources told The Post several neighborhoods were on the workers’ hit list — including Borough Park and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn and Middle Village in Queens — because residents there have more money and their politicians carry big sticks.
The Governor has called for an investigation on the slowdown.
Anyone think the BBC will bother telling you that darling union members deliberately abandoned the city in need for ideological reasons? No, they’re going to censor any information unless it becomes too big to hide.
Guido Fawkes’ blog:
If You Want “Media Plurality” Break Up the BBC
Comment 2: It’s more akin to a tax on letterboxes to fund Junk-Mail
For INBBC, the main problem for New Year is ‘cuts’, not Islamic jihad.
1.) Telegraph’:
“David Cameron: Britain on New Year terror alert”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8232733/David-Cameron-Britain-on-New-Year-terror-alert.html
2.) INBBC:
“David Cameron says spending cuts tough but necessary”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12097226
and the Telegraph story is the LEAD story, spelling out deep concern about home-grown terrorist threats from home-grown nasties – asking how it possible for young minds to become so poisoned and stressing that it is the responsibility of the Muslim community to deal with the Islamists in their midst.
The Telegraph describes this as a “stark” message – I would say particularly stark as a New Year message. Trust the BBC to water it down – their in-house Muslim editors or fellow-travellers always quick to alter a story, to soften it.
Happy New Year to everyone.
Best wishes for a healthy, safe, and prosperous 2011.
INBBC’s political priorities on Middle East online today:
1.) top priority to Ahmadinejad for donating car to charity;
2.) a secondary report about more Christians being killed, in Baghdad, but no mention, by J. Muir, in headline, or elsewhere, that the usual perpetrators are Islamic jihadists:
“Two killed in Iraq attacks on Christian homes”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12096078
Alternative reports:
‘Jihadwatch’:
(a)
Baghdad bomb attacks on Christians: “I think there is complicity by security forces helping insurgents to implement their attacks”
(b)
“If Muslims were being gunned down and bombed in western mosques by Christian fanatics, there would rightly be a tremendous outcry”
Three things caught my eye from today’s news:
Not directly connected to the BBC, but the kind of thing for which the BBC paves the way, Peter Oborne has written a staggeringly ignorant anti Israel
rant in the Telegraph of all places. Thank goodness there are some reasonable comments to counteract the nasty aftertaste.
I see Mark Steel has created a humorous parody of Reasons to be Cheerful, revealing some of the personal philosophies which make him so dear to the BBC.
And, sadly, Lauren Booth has gone bust.
Happy New Year to all readers and contributors to B-BBC.
i am having difficulty posting – says I am exceeding 5000 car limit – anyone else with problems?
Happy New Year to you all.
I’ve just heard the tail end of a report on 5Live which went:-
“.. After the attack hundreds of local Christians are said to have attacked Police and some Muslims”.
‘Are said’? Is this the level of reporting at the BBC now? Who said? What basis is there that what ‘they’ have ‘said’ is worth reporting?
I’ve done a search and I’m guessing the report has to do with yet more attacks on Christians in Iraq last night. I’m making the assumption that the BBC framed the report in the disgraceful way they have done to make it look like Christians are the lawless antagonists and Muslim the victims.
Hopefully, I’ll catch the full report later.
OK, just caught the full report in @ 10:00am UK time. An explosion outside a Coptic Church in Egypt that murdered 22 Christians leaving a New Year’s service. This time instead of the words ‘it is said’ they used the term ‘reportedly’. Anything to minimise who are the victims of such an atrocity and deflect attention away from who are the perpetrators.
What utterly disgraceful standards to detract attention from the depth of this atrocity suffered by Egyptian Christians to cast the blame on the victims. Evil truly stalks the news corridors of the BBC. Cleanse the vermin.
‘Are said’? Is this the level of reporting at the BBC now?
LoL.
I think i will start teasing Michael ’57 varieties of sources’ Crick with his best mate R. Sed in future.
Watertight oversight in action in 2011.
Unique.
Sorry, make that A.R Sed.
I was hoping for a temporary ceasefire with the BBC but I see they lost no time in wading in with this story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12101748
In its usual fashion we alternate between vague and specific as it suits. It describes the sectarian tensions before going on to say it’s not clear who carried out the attack. Maybe they should ask the Coptics who seemed to have a pretty clear idea as to who was behind it given their reaction.
More importantly maybe they should re-read the AP press release that this story has been taken from which gives quite a bit of background on Al Qaeda’s stated campaign to hit Coptic churches.
Then we have the vague / specific technique. Over the homogenous 21 killed and 43 injured the report very specifically picks out 8 muslims injured in the attack. There are many different ways to write this and remain balanced and the beeb manages to pick this method with the accompanying effect it has.
Let’s do a bit of textual analysis of the BBC online report, shall we?:-
>>A car bomb explosion outside a church in the north Egyptian city of Alexandria has killed at least 21 people and injured 43, officials say.
The blast hit worshippers as they left a new year’s service at the al-Qidiseen church shortly after midnight.
Sectarian tensions have recently been on the rise in Egypt.
After the explosion, angry Coptic Christians clashed with police and local Muslims, reportedly throwing stones and targeting a nearby mosque.<<
‘Sectarian tensions have recently been on the rise in Egypt.’
Oh, so this is a two way street, is it? It’s not that the peaceful and persecuted Christian community is being targetted by Muslim terrorists and legal authorities in Egypt? Thank you for enlightening us BBC.
‘After the explosion, angry Coptic Christians clashed with police and local Muslims, reportedly throwing stones and targeting a nearby mosque.’
Look how lawless and bigoted these Christians are. Muslims were just as much victims as they are. I dont want to say it, but they’ve got it coming, haven’t they? They should count themselves lucky the same doesn’t happen to them here.
Just caught the 11:00am 5Live news report on this. Radically different. It led with that the Pope has called for world leaders to defend Christians. It only mentioned what the Egyptian Christians had suffered in the outrage. Sounds like the Catholic Church has been on to the BBC about its utterly obscene and complicit reporting on this atrocity.
Is it yet a source of debate on the BBC at how strange it is His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury remains so silent about the atrocities Christians suffer in the world but has a comparative large amount to say about ‘Islamophobia’ in our country and nothing about the anti-Christian implementation of ‘equality’ legislation? Couldn’t be that the BBC is happy he keeps his mouth shut, is it? As an Anglican, I simply say, God bless the Pope.
¡Uuf! ..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12101748
That web report (10.17 update) is a disgrace.
It then goes on to ‘balance out’ the grievances:
In recent months Copts have complained of discrimination, while some Muslims accuse churches of holding converts to Islam against their will, our correspondent reports.
Then we get this amazingly understated section:
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has also been conducting a campaign against Christians, following the reported conversion to Islam by two Egyptian Christian women in order to divorce their husbands. The group said the women were being held against their will by the Coptic Church.
How mild that makes those ‘campaigners’ sound, and it seems they might even have a valid justification! The number of Christians murdered in concerted terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq is in the hundreds. Why doesn’t the writer of this article mention that? Where’s the sort of body count the BBC uses where reporting the Israel-Gaza conflict?
I agree wholeheartedly with the posts. The BBC report is shocking in its attempt to go along with the idea that Islamism in Egypt is ‘foreign’ (the Mubarak line for obvious reasons). The attempt to hide the extremismism at the heart of Muslim irredentism…a worldwide phenomenon and to underplay the suffering of Christian communities is morally reprehensible.
A piece written by Yolanda Knell attempts to provide background but remains within the ‘don’t locate the problem as Muslim it might offend the rightly-guided religion of peace’ narrative contains the following shameful comment, quite appalling in its apparent banality:
“Since the rise of Islamism in the 1970s, divisions have widened between Egypt’s Sunni Muslim majority and the Coptic Christian minority, who have become more religious.”
The Christian community is under enormous pressure and daily attacks in towns and villages up and down the Nile Valley as Islamism….a religio-nationalist ideology seeks to impose its will on all who ‘offend’ against its deity and its definition of social order.
A story from my Egyptian days. In Luxor for a fortnight….fascinating archaeology, of course. On Sunday three of us went to the Coptic Church for the service. After the service two men apprioached us within the Church and invited us to join them for refreshments. We stayed about half an hour. On wishing to leave they asked us to wait until a van could be brought to the yard at the back. They explained we could leave safely but others would be ‘punished’ for conspiring with foreign Christians. They would take us to the Karnak site car park and a taxi would collect us to take us to the hotel. No charge,no money. Please.
We ducked down in the van and were driven to Karnak. All went as outlined.
The fear the Christians experience from their Muslim neighbours is very real.
This was in 1994.
INBBC’s ‘reporting’ on Egypt is Islamophilic, and anti-Christian.
This sort of biased INBBC reporting on Egypt has been going on for years.
INBBC refuses to accept that the Islamic jihadists and their supporters in Egypt are systematically persecuting and murdering Christian Copts.
INBBC reporting on Egypt is discredited.
INBBC’s anti-Christan reporting in Egypt is nearly as bad as INBBC’s systematic anti-Jewish reporting in Israel.
‘Jihadwatch’, has excellent reports on the plight of the Christian Copts at the hands of the Islamic jihadists and their supporters, which INBBC should study:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/br0nc0s/managed-mt/mt-search.cgi?search=copts&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20
Suggest this link for the February 2010 Nag Hammadi murders of Christians:
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/16/egypt%E2%80%99s-christians-in-peril/
George, the BBC couldn’t give a flying tinker’s cuss about the reality of Christian persecution in Egypt, all that matters to then is their agenda.
This article will be beyond INBBC’s political comprehension:
“The War Against The Copts Did Not Begin Yesterday”http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/31620
Going back a year, Boxing Day’s Broadcasting House (Radio 4, 9am), hosted by Paddy O’Connell (Ha Ha Ha), offered up more of the usual biased fare.
Here’s a selection of lowlights:
1. The English Chamber choir sings a carol with satirical lyrics about the snow. You won’t be surprised to hear that the satirist (a member of the ‘BH‘ team?) didn’t include any jokes about global warming or the accuracy/honesty of the MET Office!
2. The Benn-Healey Tapes: Part 1 (Part 2 will be next week). Paddy O’Connell chats at length with Uncles Tony and Dennis of the Labour Party (this week’s extract lasted ten minutes). “They give the coalition one year” said Paddy in his introduction. (They DIDN’T talk about that this week. That must be coming up next week).
3. ‘BH’ quiz – ballroom dancing music and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ judges saying things like “You got tangled up”. Could they be mocking Vince Cable again, as they did throughout the previous week over tuition fees?
4. BBC reporter Gabriel Gatehouse, leaving his Baghdad post, on the sounds that woke him up. Gunfire, bombs, American black hawks “pointing their barrels over the side”, US drones “operated by some computer geek sitting behind a screen somewhere in Arizona and North Dakota”, a cockerel that could be suffering from “post traumatic stress disorder.” There’s something though that wakes him up in the night that he loves hearing – the early morning muezzins and their calls to prayer: “I’ve always liked this sound. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about it.” (Would any beeboid dare say he disliked it?) A chum tells him a story from the happy days of the 70’s, when Saddam was cementing his power through torture and mass murder, about the rivalry between a Sunni and a Shi’ite muezzin, trying to outdo each other with their calls. During the day, though, they were “great friends”. Gabriel sighs that the rivalry is a lot less friendly now. Electricity going off, more bombs, but – to end with – a glimmer of hope. There’s been more silence in the last year or two. (Why? The success of the Bush surge? The growth of democracy? Gabriel’s not saying. Probably Obama, in some way.) “This surely is the sound of progress.”
5. The comical choir returns. Paddy O’Connell introduces them thus: “But we did book the choir, the English Chamber Choir, to look back at some political questions for us…” Jokes about useless Ed Miliband, memories of Labour’s defeat and the fall of Brown? No: “to look back at some political questions for us…the cuts, the coalition and more.” Ah yes, first and foremost, “the cuts”!!
To the tune of ‘Deck the Halls’, complete with fa-la-las, whoever wrote the lyrics wrote this:
Christmas used to be exciting
But the cuts are really biting.
In the worst case, just supposing,
Libraries are set for closing.
Now we have a coalition
Students pay more for tuition
Mortgaging a generation
It’s the fate of education.
Ministers have been recorded
Discretion should have been afforded
As they pull their Christmas crackers
They’ll be singing ‘Please don’t sack us!’
If someone on the Broadcasting House team wrote that, Helen Boaden and Mark Thompson should serve their head up on a platter.
6. Interview with three listeners – a car worker, a businesswoman and an unemployed emigree. Introduced by Paddy: “The year that’s ending is opening up a generation gap. From tuition fees and onto the rising threshold for a mortgage, the Age of Austerity stands accused of age discrimination.” Bizarrely, that charge was left hanging in the air as the issue wasn’t discussed at all during the following three-way interview!
7. The paper review with
– Dame Ann Leslie (RIGHT), Daily Mail
– Julia Langdon (LEFT), former political editor of the Mirror, left Labour because ‘New Labour’ was too right-wing for her.
– Tom Shakespeare (LEFT), disability rights campaigner, all-purpose ‘activist’, WHO
Dame Ann begins by discussing the scrapping of the Book Trust. She briefly defends the scrapping before moving onto e-books…or at least trying to, as Paddy swifly interrupts her (after 30 seconds) to say “Let’s break that down first of all. We’ll talk about e-books but what you said about erm the Book Trust, Tom Shakespeare, do you see eye to eye?” Tom didn’t. (As Paddy would have suspected, if not known). This was the only time a guest was seriously stopped in their tracks by the presenter. Ms Langdon, backing the Archbishop for attacking the coalition over ‘hitting the poor’, certainly wasn’t interrupted by Paddy. Nor was anyone interrupted during the long section attacking Vince Cable and the ‘Telegraph’ for exposing Vince Cable.
8. The English Chamber choir returns on the subject of ‘Strictly‘. Whoever wrote the lyrics wrote this:
Craving popularity
Overcoming dignity
Cable’s realised his dream
Dancing on the ‘Strictly’ team
9. “The quiz answer: Vince Cable put his spats in it” (Would they have mocked him if he’d have been chucked out of the government or, even better (for them), walked out on it? Surely not.)
Broadcasting House is a bottomless pit of BBC bias, week in and week out.
At a time when the BBC, as the broadcasting arm of the TUC-Labour Party, is belabouring (excuse the pun!) us with the evils of cuts to “vital” public services necessary to our health and well-being it is interesting that there has been so little discussion on the failure of a publicly-owned monopoly to provide the most basic necessity for human existence.
Northern Ireland Water was set up by the Labour Government in 2004 after a campaign (I wonder if Sinn Fein were involved?) against the payment of water charges. In this article a representative of the State Broadcaster exonerates the public monopoly (what a surprise!):
“BBC NI Environment correspondent Mike McKimm said no-one presently employed by Northern Ireland Water could probably be blamed for what had happened.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12094518
Mr Mckimm blames it on the fact that the water pipes were not laid deep enough in the ground, an understandable failing perhaps given the enormous cost iin both money and disruption of digging up streets and roads when it is necessary to repair them.
Further down a representative of the Institute of Civil Engineers expounds on the benefits of water charging:
“What water charging does is it gives them a definite income on a regular basis, but also people start to behave differently with water – we start to understand what a precious commodity it is,” the institute’s Wendy Blundell said.
She said “many millions” were required for NI’s water infrastructure.
“The stop-start approach of funding infrastructure does not work and that’s the method we’ve been using here in Northern Ireland,” she added.
“If you look across to England that has not been the approach – they have, over the last 20 years, had that sustained investment in their water infrastructure in particular.”
In England over the last 20 years water has also been supplied by private companies operating at a profit. Maybe profitability is not such a bad thing after all. At least we in England did not celebrate Christmas and New Year with the help of a jerry-can but don’t tell the BBC that. Contrast its treatment of BAA’s failure to keep the airports open before Christmas – I can’t recall any BBC reporter stating that
“no-one presently employed by BAA could probably be blamed for what had happened”
– to Northern Ireland Water’s rather more crucial failure to keep the Province supplied with running water, which it blames on not burying the pipes deep enough in the ground.
A deliberate bias in the treatment of two similar stories? – surely not.
A Happy New Year to everyone.
I just had a look at the Radio 2 and then the Radio 4 schedules for today.
Noticed on R2 a programme of reggae music presented by Levi Roots who appeared on Dragons’ Den with a hot pepper sauce.
Fair enough, (though typical of the Beeboid habit of cross-promoting favourites), but then I turned to Radio 4 Schedule only to find a programme about reggae music called The British Reggae Revolution with a highly emotive and political introductory piece: “…first generation, British-born blacks who eloquently voiced the fear and anguish of growing up in a predominantly white society. … Their efforts to become successful mirrored thousands of young black kids across the UK who were coping with a right-wing backlash to the influx of Caribbean immigrants. The National Front were stirring up racial hatred and the government’s SUS law resulted in hundreds of black people stopped and searched on the mere suspicion of committing a crime. It wasn’t long before there was rioting in the streets. The British reggae bands provided the soundtrack to that struggle. …”
I can see why a programme about reggae music would be on Radio 2 which is a music station but as far as I know, Radio 4 doesn’t normally do music, either discussing or playing it, does it?
As a forum for left-wing propaganda it would be irresistable to them.
Off topic, as I am not complaining about bias:
Radio 3 is devoting twelve days from today to playing all of Mozart’s music. That’s fabulous. I love it!
Not at all off-topic. The BBC deserves credit where its due!
A new year but the same old problems of bias on Gavin Esler’s Dateline London. Besides Gavin, we had Polly Toynbee of the Guardian (Left), Marc Roche of the French equivalent of the Guardian, Le Monde (Left), swivel-eyed Palestinian extremist Abdel Bari Atwan (Left) and the usual liberal American Stryker McGuire of Newsweek (Left).
First up for discussion was the Euro. A Europhile consensus quickly emerged – and Gavin Esler chose not to counter it. Roche began, saying “I can only be optimistic about the Euro, for Europe. It’s still a superpower and the speculators will lose, I hope, a lot of money.” Atwan was less optimistic, but added “I wish it survives. It’s nice for countries to support each other, solidarity among them. I love that. I’m really a Euro supporter. It should survive.” McGuire (keeping out of the Europhile gush surrounding him) said all currencies are in trouble. Polly said the Euro is “bound to survive. I think out of this crisis will come, as Marc says, the realisation that there is no alternative…and out of this will come more strength in the end. They will have to face up to the reality, which is it requires greater unity of politics and of fiscal policies and of social policies.” No eurosceptic voices were heard.
A broader look at the world followed. Atwan got to do another of his attack pieces on Israel. Roche backed him up. No pro-Israeli voices were heard.
Next up it was British domestic politics. Gavin’s question: “Will the coalition government survive? Will the austerity budget cuts work? Will Labour revive? Polly, what do you think?”
You can guess how the discussion panned out. Polly launched a sustained attack on the cuts and the coalition, egged on by Esler. McGuire (again keeping out) said 2011 would have been bad whichever party was in party. Atwan said “I agree with Polly” and Polly nodded in agreement as he continued the attack and wished for “a new election” soon. Roche attacked bankers. No-one sympathetic to the coalition was heard.
The “tax cuts for the wealthy” in the U.S. were jointly attacked by McGuire and Polly Toynbee. Polly’s attack was greeted by another “I agree” from McGuire.
So another year, but the same old thing on Dateline. The Left talking to itself, agreeing with itself. All very cosy. All very biased.
Caroline Glick in today’s Jerusalem Post:-
“On May 8, 2001, a group of Palestinians from a village adjacent to the Israeli community of Tekoa in Gush Etzion got their hands on two Jewish children, Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran, from Tekoa. The two boys were bludgeoned to death with stones. The details of the butchery are unspeakable.
The question is, what can make human beings butcher children? How can a person hurt a child the way that their killers hurt them? The answer is Palestinian television.”
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=201626
Somehow, these issues seem to elude the BBC’s Middle East Department.
This item on how licencepayers/taxpayers pick up the private education bills/property bills for Beeboid overseas staff (many of who feign ‘leftist’ politics) will not appear on Beeboids’ ‘Education’ online page:-
‘Mail’:
“BBC pays £470,000 in school fees for children of staff working abroad”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343238/BBC-pays-470-000-school-fees-children-staff-working-abroad.html#ixzz19pht1KTj
‘Telegraph’:
“BBC spends £500,000 on schooling for children of staff overseas”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8234711/BBC-spends-500000-on-schooling-for-children-of-staff-overseas.html
Close down the BBC’s World Service; end the BBC-NUJ overseas empire; sell off the BBC.
I think the BBC has a very good case for this. However, I can’t see a very good case for the tab they picked at the end of the Telegraph piece.
Great story, the BBC are always attacking Private Education. Now we find out that they are using License Fee Payers money to send their children to Elite schools. Do as I say, not as I do.