When the US jobless figures came out last month showing a drop in unemployment, this was the BBC’s headline:
Today’s figures show the unemployment rate has gone back up to 7.9%, so this time the BBC headline concentrates on jobs created instead:
Note the phrase I’ve highlighted above. A few minutes after taking that screengrab I noticed the page had been updated (although the timestamp remained the same):
Someone had decided that even mentioning the rise in the jobless rate on the main page was too negative. To discover that the unemployment rate has gone up one now has to click through to the story. The BBC will do anything it can to make things seem better for Obama.
UPDATE. The Commentator spotted the spin too.
UPDATE 2. I’ve noticed another change. The original opening line for the article was as follows:
The US economy added 171,000 new jobs in October, which was more than had been expected.
By the second draft a word had been added:
The US economy added 171,000 new jobs in October, which was much more than had been expected.
(Via Newssniffer)
Not very subtle. By election day there’s every chance the BBC will be spinning this as the most awesome set of job figures in, like, ever.
I guess the price of ‘victory’ gin will be down again tomorow
Shameless. I spotted this as well. The BBC -Obama’s little helpers
Here’s another great piece of reporting.
In it he says “These are good people, conservative, hardworking, rather baffled by the direction that America and the world have taken”. This is of course code for ‘stupid’.
So, it shows that the time stamp has become invalid in beeboid world.
Exactly. I believe they have denied stealth edits in the past but here they are caught red-handed.
‘the time stamp has become invalid in beeboid world.’
Well, they have also been caught ‘disappearing’ entire articles once the job is done but the archive may not serve.
So facts seem to be pretty invalid on whichever planet they inhabit.
More on Obama and jobs in BBC coverage of the election campaign. Obama borrow’s Dave’s ‘We are all in this together’ slogan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20186545
If I were an American, I would be concerned about the BBC, an alien broadcasting outfit, meddling in US politics.
Why? I’m not in the least concerned. When the Guardian encouraged its readers to write to voters in Ohio advising them to vote for Kerry, it had a massive backlash effect… Bush had a runaway win in Ohio.
Some people don’t seem to realize that most of us Americans are descended from people who left Europe on purpose. 😉
We appear to be having site problems again. Very slow. No idea why.
You could probably make a suitable comment on the bBBC news staff by stringing together most of the Biased-BBC thread titles of the last three days …
Spinning, biased, Rotten and Corrupt, campaign ad for Obama, A Red Rose By Any Other Name.
And we have to pay for them.
The “Obama era?”
Lets hope that Romney remembers and ensures no BBC traitors get over to Cape Cod next summer…and nobody that Mr Preisler and our US Friends here has rumbled as anti-American EVER get an ESTA again.
Will happily swap Tappins back for 20 Beeboids/Channel 4 shits I could think of.
Tappins was a businessman..the Beeboids are potential traitors and may once have known Savile.
No further questions…QED.
And the BBC also dutifully reports that the Government has revised the figures from the last two months upwards. Those of us who live in the real world know this is baloney. Next month, these figures, too will turn out to be bogus, and the BBC will continue to spout White House propaganda until a Republican takes office, either in January or in just over four years.
Meanwhile, here’s Mardell to share one last glimmer of hope with his flock, and here’s a nice BBC article about the growing US consumer confidence. Could it be that they expect a Romney win and so are more optimistic about the economy? The BBC didn’t bother to ask why.
The BBC smells an Obamessiah victory.
I wonder what the BBC might do with this?:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100187434/is-facebook-censoring-obamas-critics-even-uber-liberal-slate-seems-to-think-so/
Did anyone notice who Labour’s, pro-Euro, expense cheat Denis MacShane used to work for in the 70s?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_MacShane#Early_career
Interesting that a former BBC person represented an area during the time an epidemic of racist grooming of white girls occurred.
This is a libel and should be removed asap.
Sorry, Prole, we don’t have editor access to Wikipedia. And expressing an opinion isn’t libel, even in your country.
Hahaha well why not get Denis to do something about it ? well before he goes to prison that is !!
Great catch DB…in the words of modern youth: pwned!
An absolute classic for the textbooks. Well spotted.
Spin as it lives and breathes.
Good stuff from Charles Moore in the Telegraph:
In Britain and, even more, in continental Europe, the people who bring their fellow citizens the news do not really see this. To them, Mr Obama’s combination of historically persecuted ethnicity and posh seminar tone is just perfect. It satisfies their mildly Left-wing consciences and fits in with their cultural assumptions. The chief of these is that the excesses of the West, especially of America, are the biggest problem in the world. Mr Obama comes as near to saying this as anyone trying to win American votes ever could. His “apology tour” to the Middle East early in his presidency remains, for the European elites, the best thing he has ever done. He is the anti-Americans’ American.
Mitt Romney is not. Although he is a moderate Republican, it is fascinating how profoundly he clashes culturally with Obama, and, a fortiori, with the European media and political classes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mitt-romney/9651345/It-is-Mitt-Romneys-gaffes-that-should-win-him-the-election.html
As usual, a lot of what Moore says is interesting. But this bit shows that he either hasn’t been paying attention as much as he claims, or is being willfully obtuse:
You have to listen very carefully to get any idea at all of what the president proposes to do with the four more years to which he feels so strongly entitled.
Even Beeboids such as Mardell understand all too well that the President has been very clear that He’d like to double down on all His policies. Why else would the BBC’s US President editor be worried about Him having to face at least another two years of an intransigent Congress (translation: a Republican-led House and a Democrat-led Senate, as seen by an intellectually dishonest Beeboid)?
BBC foreign correspondent royalty Hugh Sykes:
A Romney win presages shambles, apparently.
And he’s got opinions about Europe too:
Politicians mustn’t “pander” to Europsceptics because 60 million dead so there.
Good thing he has that all-important disclaimer. And the opinions of a five year-old.
‘Good thing he has that all-important disclaimer. ‘
One presumes that, in Beebworld, it also confers immunity from transgressions such as Charter-busting lack of professional integrity, or indeed actual libel vs. those that exist in the minds of fellow kindergardeners.
I understand five lorry loads of Champagne have been delivered to the BBC in their anticipation of an O’Barmy victory. I understand the corks have been left securely fastened in case their propaganda effort does not quite come off. There would, however, appear to be no truth in the rumour that the premises have been cleared of all sharp knives and a large supply of Grief Coucellors put on standby should there be a Romney victory after all the effort put into the BBC’s massive propaganda exercise to try to prevent it.
For some reason you don’t link to the item. Here it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20178000
The unemployment rise features prominently. Romney’s reaction is given more space and prominence than Obama’s. And the sidebar says the figures give both sides something.
So an accurate and balanced article, in line with coverage from sky and itn
Jim, you are COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT!
…have you actually read it?
The choice of headline (unemployment when falling, jobs created if not), the lede, dropping all reference to the jobless rate from the front page – all carefully done for the purpose of spinning one message over another.
What about the stealth edit?
On Today digital editor of Reuters Thomson Chrystia Freeland and former Times and Sunday Times editor Sir Harry Evans battle it out in a liberal wish-fest as to how wonderful Sandy has been for Barry. So “impartial” was Evans that even Humphrys was pushed to ask Evans (at the end of the item natch – we wouldn’t want to listen to Evans in the clear knowledge of his political opinions) who he wanted to win.
This being New York and this being two reps of the US MSM (or the Democrat publicity department) Barry was predictably still THE MAN – even if Freeland was slightly more thoughtful than Evans. Look a Republican in New York – or in the MSM – is equivalent to a pork sausage in Mecca. However, there are endless non-Democrat commentators in the US: why doesn’t the BBC choose just one to give an insight into why it’s still neck-and-neck? (Oh yes – I’m sure the BBC has actually talked to a non-Democrat analyst at some time but, as we near the election, they seem to be very thin on the ground – in my hearing anyway).
BTW Evans gave the MSM bias away by mentioning that a clip of Romney has been playing over and over on the free to air channels: such clip being “disastrous” for Mitt’s presidential hopes. The clip, by the way, shows Mitt claiming that private flood insurance is, in general terms, superior to splurging taxpayers’ money to make the presidential incumbent (of whatever party) in a flood disaster.
Oddly, no one mentioned the Benghazi debacle.
Thought the same thing – cosy chat among people with Today-approved views on US politics. And Harold Evans’ claim to be impartial just after he’d launched into a little anti-Romney rant was treated with a knowing nudge-nudge jokiness by all.
I was amused when Evans, while trying to explain how ridiculous Romney is, said FEMA stands for “Flood Insurance Management Assoc… er Program” He got “Management” right. Doddery slurping doofus.