Monthly Archives: April 2012

PANORAMIC BIAS

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Is it possible, do you think, that the BBC could engage in the malicious damage of a rival in the same way that they allege Murdoch was doing? Biased BBC contributor Alan asks..

“Biased BBC has previously posted a look at Panorama’s investigation into ITV’s ‘Ondigita’ demise and whether Murdoch had anything to do with it. ‘Spiked’ magazine has taken a long look at this subject also and come up with yet more evidence that the BBC were at best merely inaccurate, at worst attempting to create a story that would be as damaging as possible to its biggest rival. (In other words doing exactly what they claimed Murdoch was doing…using the BBC’s power and influence to smash a commercial rival)

The article examines whether anything Murdoch did ‘killed off’ Ondigital and whether his company was emgaged in similar activities in Australia.  The answer to both seems to be a definite no….and that’s from people working in the companies Murdoch was supposed to have attacked……

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/12328/

Panorama and the toxic BBC culture

‘The editor of the Weekend Australian says the BBC’s claim that News Corp encouraged piracy against competitors is pure conspiracy theory.

The blighters at NDS had apparently been encouraging piracy against Australian pay-TV operation Austar, with the aim of driving down its value so that its rival, Foxtel, 25 per cent owned by News Corporation, could pick it up for a song.

The man at the helm of Austar at the time of the alleged skullduggery, CEO John Porter, said Chenoweth’s story was ‘so farcical that I really don’t think it is worthy of my time’.

He said he had seen no evidence whatsoever that News Corporation had promoted pay-TV piracy to damage his business. ‘Quite to the contrary’, he told ABC Radio. ‘We’ve worked very closely through the years with both Foxtel and heavily supported by News Corp, and I’m aware that News Corp has worked globally to try to solve the piracy issue.’ ‘

If Panorama’s story is proven pure hogwash, by mistake or design, will the BBC Trust be applying the whitewash or will there be a genuine investigation and suitably robust reaction should the Panorama team be found to have concocted a pack of lies? “

Slap in the Face

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Blogger Restoring Britain commented yesterday on Monday’s Open thread about the BBC’s treatment of yet another story which seizes on the Israeli retaliation while ignoring the build-up that led to it.

Here is our old friend Yolande Knell, who might have picked up some of her material from this AP report, which also contains the usual emotive anti-Israel language. For example :

“Israel has branded the activists “provocateurs” who posed a security threat to the country. Calling itself the Middle East’s only democracy, it says the protesters have their priorities wrong and should instead focus on rampant human rights violations in neighboring Arab countries.”

With the Mavi Marmara incident in mind, these activists are undoubtedly provocateurs, it’s not really necessary to use the sneering: “Israel has branded” they ARE provocateurs. End of, as they say in Eastenders. Same goes for “Calling itself”. It IS the Middle East’s only democracy. Get over it, as they say elsewhere.

“In the video, Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner is seen smashing a Danish activist in the face with his M-16 rifle.”

To me that looks distinctly over the top. “Smashing” indicates something is broken. I think the poor fellow had stitches in his lip. Painful, but not exactly smashing.

However the AP article does go into more detail, so sneering aside, we are told:

 “The officer, through his confidantes, claimed the activist had previously struck him with a stick, breaking two of his fingers, Israeli media reported. One newspaper ran a photo of him with a bandage on his hand.”

Yolande Knell has:

“After an exchange, the video shows Lt Col Eisner suddenly slamming his M-16 rifle into a demonstrator’s face in an apparently unprovoked attack.”

 

In her defence, the video does appear to show an unprovoked attack. Probably because that’s the bit they filmed.

This isn’t the first time the press has seized upon such a thing and presented it as though pro Palestinian activists are angels of mercy, and the IDF are brutes. It isn’t the first time Israeli governments have condemned an errant Israeli before the facts have been fully examined. Remember Mohammad Al Dura.

In conclusion, this isn’t the first time the BBC has shown little or no interest in the background to a provocative pantomime by Israel-bashers and useful idiots, but expressed indignation the moment Israel responds.

This blogger has written a series of detailed articles exploiting this incident. He seems particularly upset that several Israelis have been praising Col Eisner, but check out the tenor of the comments to see what sort of attitude they reveal.

 

If Col Eisner’s bad-tempered face-butt was really representative of IDF behaviour and the shy Dane who was afraid to give his name – (“don’t tell ‘em, Andreas Ias”) – was really an innocent bicycle rider and songsmith, I’ll take it all back and apologise.

LIES, DAMNED LIES AND BBC STATISTICS…

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When dealing with the BBC, it is often not what they tell you, but what they choose NOT to tell you. Just consider this one, flagged up by B-BBC contributor Alan.

“I heard the BBC reporting on the loss of jobs at two dairies this morning…what I didn’t hear was this:

‘One million jobs for young people lost since 2007 as Labour is accused of hiding scale of unemployment on its watch’

The BBC has been attacking the Coalition for youth unemployment being over 1 million…telling us this was now a ‘lost generation’ due to Coalition policies…..

However some time back Guido revealed this ( http://order-order.com/2011/11/23/guido-fact-check-ed-misled/ ):

‘It seems Ed Miliband misled the House when he said that “under 13 years of a Labour Government, youth unemployment never reached 1 million…” The Department of Education statistics for young people not in employment, education, or training show that the number of young people who were unemployed under Labour hovered below a million all through 2008/09. However you can guess what happened in the third quarter of 2009 – the number of young unemployed hit 1,074,000, when the Work and Pensions Secretary was one Yvette Cooper. An apology to the House is the usual form…’

FRACK OFF…

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I see that Biased BBC favourite, Richard Black, has been leading the BBC charge against Fracking. There was an item on Today about it this morning and it seems to me that the BBC seems more like an echo chamber for Friends of the Earth, that radical hard left organisation. Mind you it’s a tough time for Richard. Here he is dealing with the fact that some glaciers are confounding the “global warming meme” and putting on mass.

DERBYSHIRE

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Biased BBC contributor Alan takes issue with Victoria Derbyshire here.

“Victoria Derbyshire confirmed every prejudice I ever held against her today as she presented a phone in on unemployment. Derbyshire lives in the BBC bubble completely out of touch with reality continually expressing either amazement or outrage at everyday realities that most people recognise as ‘normal’.

She of course is flown to work by her employers, and no doubt gets a couple of hundred thousand pounds for her trouble…when she turns up for work that is….and all paid for by the enforced generosity of the viewing public.

When told by an employer that people that applied for jobs either didn’t turn up for the interview or when they did they didn’t really want the job she firstly blamed him for not selecting the right people or wording his adverts wrongly….and these were jobs for a van driver and leaflet posters…but then went on to rant about him not paying them enough (although she didn’t actually know how much he pays).

Derbyshire in full flow (about 1 hour 17 mins into show)…’Well if you paid them a decent wedge they would do it (leafletting)…it’s got to be the most boring job in the world, it’s got to be difficult when it’s pouring down or when it’s freezing…but if you get a good hourly rate surely people would carry on after day one!?’

The employer said they wouldn’t.

Derbyshire then decides perhaps it would be good to do some journalism and to ask him what that hourly rate was…he said £7-8 /hour….working about 5 hours a day.

Derbyshire nearly faints at the thought declaiming in shocked tones….’£40 for 5 hours work?….would you do it?’

What planet is Derbyshire on?…this woman prides herself on being the nation’s conscience, it’s social and moral arbiter…a woman who presents these programmes day in day out looking into the heart of social issues of ‘deprived Britain’.

And yet she has no idea of what a normal working man might earn.

Leafletting/driving…..manual, unskilled labour…but paying up to £8/hour.

Let’s have a comparison taken from official figures……what might some other workers….many of them skilled, earn (all based on 8 hour day)?

L/Cpl Army…..Initial rate £7.50/hr
Emergency Care assistant in ambulance service…..£6.50/hr
Ambulance technician….£7.50/hr
2nd Lt in Army on lowest level….£7.50/hr
Fireman before fully trained to \’competent\’ level….£7.50/hr
(http://www.ome.uk.com/AFPRB_Reports.aspx)

My postman earns £7/hr….and out in the\’pouring rain and freezing weather’.

These are nearly all jobs that require a good level of training and yet they pay no more than the leafletting job that Derbyshire expresses her shock about.  How on earth can this person really put herself forward as a serious journalist if all she really relies on is her own personal prejudices and half baked beliefs to inform her inane witterings.

And it might be noted with great rolling of eyes that it was her ‘investigation’ into the recent riots that was used as part of the evidence into the causes of them….no wonder the conclusions that were reached were so far from the truth. Is it any wonder that the BBC sets itself against every policy that the government has when it has such unrealistic ideas about the real world and the lives people really live.

These presenters cushioned from the harsh realities of life, living it up on license payer’s money…the dustman’s, postman’s, nurse’s and leafletter’s on £7.50/hr…..have a naive and simplistic view of life little realising that real people have to work hard for what little they earn and that the relevant word is ‘earn’ not sitting there waiting for handouts or wandering into a nice warm studio to do a couple of hours chatting and then fly down to your well appointed London home.

Nice work if you can get it.

Oh and to Dan Cruikshank (who I like a lot), fish and chips may be nourishing, tasty and cheap but I don\t think they ‘more importantly represent the fusion of cultures….a fusion of the Jewish emigre culture of East London and the working class Communities of the North.’

FALSE HISTORIES

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A B-BBC reader informs me that whilst doing a bit of research on the internet he found a fascinating photographic comparison of how the City of David, just outside the southern walls of Jerusalem looked in 1915 and how it looks today as the Arab village of Silwan:

As is clearly evident from the 1915 photograph, no “ancient” Palestinian village existed on the this site, which was virtually empty, as was much of the land of Israel, prior to the return of the Jewish people to re-settle & develop their ancient homeland in modern times.

Now see this BBC story (from 2010) about this very same location, which faithfully follows the false Palestinian narrative, stating, “About 40,000 Palestinians live in Silwan. Some families have been here for generations.”  The BBC’s wording gives the false impression that the Arab residents of Silwan had lived there for “generations” and are thus the rightful owners of the land.  Plus ca change?

POWER TO THE PEOPLE..

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Been a busy morning for a little socialist evangelising on the Today programme. Earlier we had a charming item on the minimum wage postulating the theory that it has reduced in real terms over the past number of years because it has not always kept up with inflation. The focus of the interview was that the rate needs to increase and it was asserted that the advent of the minimum wage has had no impact on employment levels or other wage dynamics. There are plenty of economists who would dispute that this leftist political lever is not without negative consequences but they are conspicuous by their absence on Today. The listener is left with the impression that the minimum wage is unquestionably a good thing, it’s just we need to force employers to pay even more.

Then, we had an item on 70’s singer, Patti Smith. Never cared for her music myself, apart from her cover of Springsteen’s “Because the Night”. Anyway she was allowed to waffle on about the music industry but I smiled when she talked of the sheer horror of “working in a non-unionised factory” before she got her recording contract. How dreadful.  If only the Unions could control everything what a benevolent world we would live in.

The messages are always subtle.