Monthly Archives: December 2010

YEAR ZERO AT THE BBC?

By | |
5 Comments

Have you read these words of wisdom on the Eurozone, faithfully reported HERE at the BBC? Studying this profound economic analysis, I must say how I am impressed by this new chap Brown. But where has he BEEN for the past eleven years when his country needed such insight…..

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

THOSE EVIL JOOS…

By | |
2 Comments

Here’s an interesting one for your review.

BBC Radio 4; The Odd half Hour  Series 3. Broadcast 7 December

A comedy show. A sketch in which a reporter interviews the widow of a man killed in an accident. He asks her for the deceased last words. BBC iPlayer at 10mins 20secs: “He said the Jews secretly run the world, he had a lot of funny ideas like that, that’s maybe why they shot him”

Is the BBC above compliance with statute?

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

The Reveal

By | |
10 Comments

It’s time the BBC stopped immortalising the theory that settlement building is the obstacle to peace, or should I say to peace talks.
There’s a lot more to the settlement issue than meets the eye, and we should be given the complete picture. At present, not renewing the moratorium is viewed by most people as merely defiant and provocative on the part of Israel. So it has come to symbolise Israel’s perceived intransigence.

If Israel acquiesced to such demands, say, merely for the sake of occupying the moral high ground in the eyes of the world, the Palestinians would ratchet up the stakes and make more demands. Past experience taught them that.

What the BBC needs to explore are the tremendous obstacles to peace, not merely to peace talks, that are put up by the Palestinians. The insistence on the right of return, which would undermine the fundamental animus of Israel, a ‘right’ that is demanded by Palestinians alone. The hatred for Jews, instilled into the population literally from the cradle to the grave. Then there is the matter of their kamikaze attitude to life and death, which is an insurmountable obstacle.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian Authority dismissed the idea.” says the BBC, towards the end of the article.
I would have thought this deserved a little more prominence, and a little more analysis.
One thing the BBC is aware of. There is a disturbing development which might make the whole peace process irrelevant. South American countries are backing a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians which would lead to a permanent state of conflict in the Middle East.

The BBC must start exploring, impartially, the whole story. Do we have to depend on Wiki to leak certain information? Must we be grateful for the revelations that several Arab leaders desire others to sort out Iran for them? With suspicions about such things confirmed, can people still defend Iran’s right to have nuclear weapons, and talk as though it’s merely Israel’s worry? Can people still talk about fighting Israel’s wars?

Let us have the full picture please BBC, then we can decide for ourselves where we want our loyalties to lie.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

SOFTBALLS FOR SALMOND

By | |
10 Comments

Anyone catch THIS interview with SNP Leader Alex Salmond this morning? Given the SNP’s central role in releasing Libyan bomber Al-Megrahi and given the chaos on Scotland’s roads and streets, one might have expected a rather more challenging interview from Humphyrs but apart from a few token barks at the beginning, I thought he was rather purring as Salmond was allowed to get away with rhetorical murder, in the same sense that Al-Megrahi got away with actual murder. What is it about the English hating petty socialist SNP that so appeals to the BBC……..

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

A CURIOUS BIAS

By | |
3 Comments

BBC Northern Ireland has been running a story today concerning the news that “Former Sinn Fein councillor Mairtin O’Muilleoir is to re-enter politics as a party representative on Belfast City Council” There are a few problems with this. First of all, WHY does the BBC assume that O’Muilleoir will win a seat in a ward that does not currently have a Sinn Fein representative?!! Did they just take a Sinn Fein press release and run it as news without using that vast resource they have at our expense to ascertain the accuracy of what was being claimed? Further, O’Muilleoir is on record stating that he wanted to leave politics in order “to concentrate on being Managing Director” of the Belfast Media Group. The BBC avoids all reference to this and the contradiction it contains. Bias by omission is as egregious a broadcasting sin as any other form of bias and given the fact that the BBC in Northern Ireland dominates local media, shouldn’t someone somewhere be asking why such lazy journalism is permitted here? Hat-tip to Pete Baker @ Slugger O’Toole

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

CAUGHT RED HANDED…AGAIN

By | |
19 Comments

The BBC is impartial, as we know, because it tells us loudly and often, especially when it comes to reporting the weather and climate. I wonder, then, why it expunges from weather stories figures that show record cold in North Yorkshire? And also why it is champing at the bit in reporting record world heat when a few minutes with a calculator will tell you that even despite natural warming cycles, 2010 is actually not over yet and the figures do not show any records have been broken? Could it be that Richard Black and Co desperately want an agreement at Cancun?

Meanwhile, Roger Harrabin gleefully reports our ruling class’s continued obscene efforts to sabotage the UK energy generation capacity so that we are forced into fuel poverty. When are we going to rise up against this useless, lying, shower?

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

BBC Censorship: WikiHacks Edition

By | | ,
39 Comments

Last week, as the BBC ramped up its mission to downplay the potential consequences of the stolen documents published by hacker and alleged rapist Julian Assange, JournoList groupie and partisan Katie Connolly produced the following article:

Has release of Wikileaks documents cost lives?

Following the open angry statements by various US officials is a series of foot-shuffling and “can’t say, guv”s. In short, the message here is there’s no way to be sure or prove that there is blood on this innocent lamb’s hands.

Except here’s what Connolly and the BBC don’t want you to know: Assange has form.

Back in 2007, WikiHacks released documents about corruption in Kenya.

The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. “1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak,” says Assange. It’s a chilling statistic, but then he states: “On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased.”

A responsible, honest news organization would mention this little fact in an article asking in its headline if WikiHacks cost lives. Yet the BBC chose to censor this information. In fact, unless it was covered in some broadcast or other now lost to the ether (and/or BBC archives inaccessible to the public without an FOI request), they only mentioned what WikiHacks did in Kenya once, and – what a shock – chose to play down any consequences.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

HOPELESSLY BIASED

By | | ,
2 Comments

How can you tell that the BBC is hopelessly biased? Sometimes, it is revealed only after the most minute scrutiny. Take this File on 4 investigation of the gross misappropriation of EU funds. The gist is that at least 1.2bn euros have gone down the chute on crooked accountancy and lunatic “development” projects; and a jaw-dropping tens of millions have gone straight into the hands of the local Mafia dons in a neatly carved-up wind-farm scam on Sicily that has operated since 1996 but is thriving still. The EU is acting virtually as their own special projects piggy bank. In a sense, I am amazed that anyone from the BBC has investigated this at all because they have hitherto shown virtually zero interest in the fact that EU accounts have not been properly signed off for donkey’s years.

But once you start looking at the transcript, it’s not so straightforward. Step forward Lib Dem MEP Bill Newton, who says:

The only way finally to stop it is to give Brussels the power from the member states to actually intervene and have teeth and be able to bite and to punish.
The will isn’t there because the member states don’t want to share sovereignty and Britain is one of the leading players in resisting sovereignty transfer in this area.

So let’s get this straight. The BBC investigates a massive EU fraud in which taxpayers’money is going into the hands of major criminals and the man chosen to commentate about the solution is a fanatical federalist (who used to be a Tory but crossed the floor because he was so pro-EU, h/t the specialone, below). That’s a bit like appointing a fox to head chicken-run security.

It’s true that there is also a significant contribution for Mats Persson, the head of Open Europe, a think tank which wants some EU powers re-patriated to the UK. But even then – as a very moderate euro-sceptic – he is not asked about solutions, only about the nature and scale of the problem. And that’s where the BBC bias really shows. Even though in poll after poll, the majority of the UK want serious hacking of the EU monster, the corporation and its hacks never give this perspective a proper voice, even when it’s an open goal. A programme that could easily have been a decent investigation of major fraud ends up as yet another platform for those who want a superstate.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

The Good, the Bad, and the BBC

By | |
21 Comments

If anyone accuses me of ferreting out the bad in something good, here’s an example for them, on a plate.
The something good is very good and very unusual. It’s a programme on the BBC world service in a series called Heart and Soul. I linked to it in a previous post, but I fear it was buried amongst too many words.

Several others have praised this programme, as did I. Everyone thought it was a programme about antisemitism, the current manifestation rather than the Nazi variety. Some thought it contained one or two questionable remarks, one of which has been discussed at length elsewhere, concerning the statement: “Some Jews mistake criticism of Israel for antisemitism,” but on the whole everyone was full of praise and thought it was a breakthrough.

What’s more, Wendy Robbins consulted two of the most eloquent and authoritative people for contributions. So, part one of the two-part series was everything one could have wished for, if one were in the habit of wishing that the BBC was not campaigning furiously against everything one knows and loves.

Mary Jackson says: “It makes the point that today’s anti-Semites are not jackbooted Nazis but Muslims. Of course it then feels obliged to qualify this with “a minority of…”, which is true but not the whole truth. And it makes no reference to the role of the execrable Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin in fuelling Jew-hatred with their lies about Israel.”

Now, here’s where the bad comes in. The BBC is confused. It doesn’t hate all Jews; it is very fond of holocaust victims. So in order to rationalise this disturbing programme and the BBC’s role in the current manifestation of antisemitism, they have magicked the programme into their mould. A piece on the website describing the programme reveals how. In the BBC’s eyes, it is not about antisemitism at all. It’s about holocaust denial, which is something they can honestly say they do not go along with.
Don’t mention the Muslims. Wendy Robbins did that once but I think she got away with it.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.