My story about Sally Osman contained a major error. I linked her to the wrong Make Believe organisation – for which I apologise unreservedly. I accept that such sloppiness unfortunately plays into the hands of those who defend the BBC. However, she does now work for Sony Europe, an organisation which is clearly busting a gut to flaunt its green credentials. My general point is that it seems no coincidence that at a time when the corporation is churning out endless green propaganda, a variety of former senior BBC executives are linked to companies which are also mired in green crusading. That may simply be a sign of the times – after all, support of greenie madness often brings huge financial benefits, not to mention kudos with the political parties who also support it – but I also believe its one indicator among many of the extent to which the BBC has betrayed its core charter by espousing such partisanship. I fully accept that Ms Osman may not personally support the green creed, but there is absolutely no doubt that her employer does – with a vengeance. WWF, as Donna Laframbois has established, seems to be working systematically to undermine democracy.
I must apologise also that I inadvertently deleted the previous post. I am not totally familiar with the new WordPress format and hit the wrong button. Ouch! So I doubly eat humble pie.
Robin,
Just by posting this you have elevated yourself above the level of the BBC.
As we all know the BBC are always reluctant to admit wrong doing in any form and will happily spend hundreds of thousands on legal fees to hid things they don’t want there employers the fee payer to know (Balen Report), But when you drop a clanger you hold your hands up and that makes you the bigger man.
Seconded.
I never mention the Balen report because we don’t know what’s in it (!!): the BBC – almost daily – demonstrate their anti Israel bias so no need to go on about the report: I think they WANT it built up so they can finally release it to great fanfare…and it’s a dud…pissing on all the anti BBC fireworks.
I rather assume that when the Balen report is released it will have been rewritten.
Span,
In my opinion they wouldn’t have spent an estimated £200,000.00p on keeping it confidential if there was nothing to hide, and that to me gives my opinion some credence.
As for your idea they may just be biding there time before releasing it in a way to silence their critics. I can’t see that happening, it would open them up to accusations of wasting fee payers money on unnecessary court cases and that would be a bigger scandal than not releasing it is.
I see your point but they spend more on flowers and champagne so it’s hardly a scandal that will tip any balance for monetary reasons.
IIRC, David Gregory said that a main objection to releasing the report was that it would reveal lots of emails from Beeboids which would be an invasion of privacy. He phrased it better than that, but that was the gist of it. I always thought that a simple redacting of names would solve that problem.
Then again, the BBC does have that “for journalistic purposes” escape from FOI requests, so maybe they take the same line here.
A very easy mistake to make Robin. It doesn’t detract from your broader argument.
A rare example of good grace and common sense, for which I am happy to add a ‘like’. It’s the argument rather than the person, see.
All this seemingly going down when I was over at another thread (a few minutes is a long time in online debate) I hereby apologise in turn for incorrectly assessing the possible reaction to what happened, if being pretty bang on with what did actually transpire.
Just imagine if you and Scott had kept your powder dry a wee while longer… and the demands for apology (nobly offered without hesitation in complete contrast to the BBC on anything) could have carried more heft if not totally undermined by a bunch of caveats that were, evidently, unnecessary.
Just think of how you, Scott, Dez, Dr. G et all could help improve this site, and the BBC’s output, if a calm factual correction was offered, (in my memory always taken up and acted upon quickly with a mea culpa) and that alone.
Sadly, as I juggle several spinning complaints plates, now up to ECU and Trust, the BBC is institutionally incapable of dealing with anyone in such a similar civilised and sensible manner.
Sometimes it is hard to maintain a cool head. My posts tend to be contrary to the views widely held on b-BBC. And this means you take a lot of ad hom incoming. So I’ve been accused of being a troll, a BBC employee and even worse of being Dez.
This is David Vance’s site. So I post as long as he’s content for me to do so. If he tells.me to nick off, then nick off I will. In the meantime, I hope I help the site tighten its game by exposing some of the sloppier assertions. Robin is an honourable chap, with views honourably held. It was an honest mistake and that is that.
“In the meantime, I hope I help the site tighten its game by exposing some of the sloppier assertions.”
…and good for you for doing so, Jim.
But you’re still a bastard: no one maligns Phil Collins and Neil Peart and gets away with it.
Oh, all right. I’ll forgive you.
Noble sentiments Jim but are you some type of intellectual arbitrator or prompt now Jim lurking in the far fetches of cyberspace? This country needs bloody action not ’60s/70s folk-loving pseudo-intellectuals with a penchant for correcting emotive claptrap!
“concern troll” is the term. derailing threads since 1998.
You carry on being you and dont take any notice of the flak you get, you have points to add and opinions to offer and if that pisses on the consensus picnic then so be it eh?
Its not easy flying in the face of the majority view, the only real test worth the name is whether what you say is right or wrong. And you are never wrong if you speak from the heart even if you are actually wrong!
‘Sometimes it is hard to maintain a cool head.
Blimey, stick a [sigh] at the end of that and you’ll have your doctorate in misunderstood victimology.
And that ‘sometimes’ is also gilding the lily somewhat. Sadly you cannot edit the body of work you have produced here quite as easily as the BBC does its output.
‘you take a lot of ad hom incoming. So I’ve been accused of being a troll, a BBC employee and even worse of being Dez.’
I must relook up the presumed pejoratives of an ad hom, but if being accused of BBC employ falls under that, my eyes are opened. I note that you do not associate with Scott. Probably wise as he is undercutting your more sophisticated people’s champion efforts like a Ken Livingstone campaign manager intoning ‘tears, Ken… it’s a sure-fire vote winner!’
I hope I help the site tighten its game by exposing some of the sloppier assertions.
With a polite, factual correction, you can. With a snarky ‘I don’t think so’, especially when associated with a weasel ‘at least by what I know but haven’t checked yet’ not so much. Or when topped with a bail to the bunker or ‘well it’s not my area’ when shown to be in error too. I’ll grant that, unlike the BBC and some of your knee jerk colleagues, you tend to concede a mea culpa, so kudos for that. However, as one not as prone to the Blog Debate Stockholm Syndrome as others, one swallow does not see future howlers cut any slack, especially with sloppy assertions abounding elsewhere (in particular from a £4Bpa, vastly funded and staffed most trusted media monopoly responsible for shaping narratives, which is why I stand firm in the face of the vast attrition levelled at me via a BBC paid complaints system that does test a cool head with its lies and evasions and bovine inability to accept it can do anything bar ‘get it about right’) so expect me to chip in with some thoughts of my own until David asks me to leave too.
Maybe you are sincere in your desire to see truth and balance prevail in all broadcast, but it seems pretty one-sided to me. So you have set yourself the task of setting right the perceived wrongs in output of a small, independent, free blog, yet seem comfortable with the errors and excesses of a vast, paid media monopoly.
I find that oddly selective, if not unheard of where the BBC and its output is concerned.
I take my national broadcaster’s output and intentions deadly seriously, which is why I come to this site, to learn and share and discuss.
You seem to have a narrower focus. Professional levels of keeping it on the straight and narrow are laudable, but you clearly enjoy your role here, and especially when accorded value I fear I cannot share.
I think it’s just a game to you, and the mask slips when a ball gets hit back hard and wraps you on the knuckles.
Which is when the ‘cool’ demeanour slips. Seen it before… will be interested in seeing if it can be resisted in future. Because when it does Jim, I can look back in archive too.
I very much enjoy your man-marking Guest Who and am grateful for the time you spend responding to my posts. One day, shirtless, like Moore and Pele, we’ll shake hands with a smile and warmth born of our mutual respect. or perhaps you’ll break my legs Nobby Stiles style.
‘I very much enjoy your man-marking’
You are most welcome. The enjoyment part is a bit of a worry on the sado-masochistic front, but whatever boat-floating suits.
I do confess to being alert to any default decrial that seems unidirectional, and like my efforts with BBC complaints, feel leaving that which should not stand alone allows inaccuracy to fester and prevail. Whilst, with luck, persistence in challenge can pay off.
I can see you enjoy the attention, if rather missing the irony of me responding meaning you have posted a fair number to respond to… so again there appears a unique difference in how roles are perceived, perhaps a factor of the vantage point.
I simply note the blog name and ponder where the OCD really lies, with one who posts in support, or default rejection to nearly every thread and person on it.
Not being a footyballista I am afraid I am not up for a counter-analogy from the beautiful game, though of an age when Booby & Nobby’s names do resonate.
Have to say I am lover more than a fighter, albeit a lover of the written word, hence enjoying working out the mental muscles sparring on a blog, while speech at least remains free, and especially on a more clement one than a Graun CiF or some of the few BBC ones now remaining.
Speaking of which, isn’t great that we can exchange freely, in this manner here, without so much as an O/T threat from a huffy jobsworth or, more darkly, the imposition of an expedited comments banning?
But then, that is the BBC for you.
Yes, it’s the desire to avoid letting inaccuracy (and dogmatic assertion) to fester bit that motivates me. Plus the bbc is a national institution and it’s our patriotic duty to ensure it lives up to the standards we demand of it. if it sinks we’ll be left with shit like CNN and Fox to inform us.
‘if it sinks’
Looking at the complaints and rate ‘facilitated’ by the ECU and Trust, one rather fears the BBC is already a boat sailed, holed and lying already next to the Titanic in structural integrity terms, if not newsworthiness.
Making being required to still pay for the its information and education crew to have first crack at the lifeboats with their fellow 1st class travellers in a White City/Salford version of Berkinhead Drill even less palatable. I have not, yet, been sent a bill with menaces like the others you mention, so they remain optional choices that can survive, thrive or expire on their merits, or lack of.
“Just think how you, Scott, Dez, Dr. G et al could help improve this site”
Yes, it’s always a small set of people who dissent from the usual Biased BBC set of beliefs and prejudices that have to change our ways, isn’t it?
Don’t bother getting David Vance to apologise for demanding I publish my postal address.
Don’t bother getting hippieppoter to apologise for calling me anti-Semitic without foundation.
Don’t bother chastising people like ltwf1964 for throwing four-letter insults at me when I’ve contributed fairly and equitably to topics.
If you want to start demanding people change their ways, start putting Biased BBC’s own house in order first. Otherwise, you just look like a set of sad hypocrites.
Hey, Scott, about starting with retracting your own comment on the original post claiming to discredit all of Robin’s contributions here by saying that it was just another of his failed attempts, seeing as how you’ve never ever posted a concerned comment on any of his previous posts. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’ve secretly been reading them and collecting your own evidence of how every single one of his previous efforts was error-laden or otherwise no good. So could you please share with us your evidence that all of Robin’s previous posts are discredited? Or are you taking the position that a single error invalidates 30 or so other posts?
I’m sure you wouldn’t hold the BBC to the same standard.
As others have more than adequately put you back in your place, I won’t bother much more than to add this..
‘you just look like a set of sad hypocrites.’
The minute you can get your head around a collection of individuals on a free blog is not the same as the institutional collective dogma of the BBC and its default glee clubbers, what you may offer on occasion could have value. Otherwise I can only presume you are some online debating masochism deal, which is both sad and unappealing.
Jim Dandy must wince when you chip in ‘to help’.
Respect, Robin. This is what integrity looks like.
The initial post is still in the Trash if you want to resurrect it.
Should not that be “BBC – testicles” ?
(or, maybe, lack of…)
Only one aspect of the other post as wrong…my comments for example are totally valid without the Make Believe make believe. 😉
Just a point – if the BBC removed a post which highliighted that of one its reporters just hadn’t done their research before making a major factual inaccuracy, and claimed that the deletion was an accident, nobody at Biased BBC would believe them for a second. You’d think instead that it was the result of a shame-faced individual desperately trying to remove all eveidence of their own ineptitude online.
If, as Robin Horbury claims, this was down to genuine human error, then maybe this will spur some of Biased BBC’s more hardened conspiracy theorists to believe the BBC should they use a similar excuse…
Oh dear, Scottie old boy, you’ve just proved how you are not Jim Dandy. At least J.D. shows good grace and dignity in his postings on this thread. You’ve just proved beyond all doubt you are just a Beeboid troll who’s just interested in belittling those who complain about your beloved BBC.
At least the mistake was admitted as soon as Robin discovered it. The thing is the BBC NEVER admits making errors. The only way we know they’ve discovered errors is by their stealth edits.
You don’t even have the grace to accept the apology. You just use it to attack this site and its contributors.
Your posts on this site actually vindicate the complaints about the BBC’s methods and its supporters.
My congratulations, too, go to Robin Horbury for his retraction.
It’s hard to disagree with Andy S’s point, however. Retractions and apologies when the BBC gets it wrong are like hen’s teeth.
Scott’s remarks, meanwhile, are mean-spirited to say the very least.
Scott, you’ve never admitted to a single error here, or apologized or retracted any of your insults. You might want to hold yourself to the same lofty standards to which you purport to hold us.
“Just a point – if the BBC removed a post which highliighted that of one its reporters just hadn’t done their research before making a major factual inaccuracy, and claimed that the deletion was an accident, nobody at Biased BBC would believe them for a second.”
You know, Scott, I probably would believe them.
Maybe I am naive or downright stupid – or both – but at its heart, I believe the BBC is generally well-intentioned, if a little didactic.
Clearly, one would expect a well-funded, professional media organisation to be less prone to cock-ups than one man and his blog but that doesn’t mean the BBC doesn’t screw up. They’re only human, after all.
But the BBC does make a rod for its back (stealth-edits, rewrites, FOI exemptions, etc.) and, this being teh internets, any perceived shiftiness will inevitably fuel conspiracy theories.
BBC releases misleading or downright wrong video and buries it with no apology or retraction (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17688938).
0:22 start: Soldier in an obvious sandbag position on a roof called a sniper
0:33 start: APC or infantry fighting vehicle almost certainly BMP series called a tank
When I sent in the factual complaint they failed to reply and changed the video on the article I linked to without any explanation.
Original article it was on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17683705
Notice: “Col Kassem Saadeddine, of the main armed rebel group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said that if the regime “does not stop shelling and not withdraw tanks, we will intensify our military operations and launch attacks”. Now, check the ticker at 1:32 on the original video “Rebels say they will shoot if attacked”. It’s a bit of a stretch. A more accurate one would be ‘Rebels threaten to launch attacks if regime does not withdraw’.
First, we ALL make mistakes and Robin simply flags up his integrity.
Scott – If you seek to libel me with accusation of racism/bigotry, you will not do so without consequences. Your cowardly unwillingness to provide your address is all the proof I need of your lack of integrity.
Jim
I am more than happy with your comments here and thank you for taking the time. I welcome all points of view here, and the fact Scott can still leave his rubbish here is proof of that.
It’s only libel if it isn’t true. I find it hard to believe you can argue that you’re not a racist and a bigot.
Well done on the apology. As the post now stands, someone who worked for the BBC now works for someone else. Good one!
BG
Your utter ignorance about me has already been shown on another thread. Goodbye.
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