108 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Guest Who says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20591867#?
    Well, one could have predicted the entire MSM would lose the plot on a ratings basis anyway, but the BBC vox-poppettes have outdone themselves.
    One presumes she was not from the singlemuvva bank they have on file?
    If, as already being posited, where might the UK media delve if twins are on the cards… “Triplets… one of each!”
    Maybe I am not being fair, as the father of twins, but none of this really educated or informed one jot beyond what I suspect any parent is well aware of.
    Dire.

       10 likes

    • Restoring Britain says:

      I saw on BBC Breakfast this morning and found myself just a bit curious as to where they found another example of this condition at such short notice.

      Didn’t take 2 minutes to find that she is a communications consultant who has done work for both the BBC and written for the Guardian.

      Even their random punters off the street are picked from the echo chamber.

         8 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Rule #1 for BBC vox pops: If they aren’t labeled, you know where they’re coming from.

           6 likes

  2. As I See It says:

    ‘BBC snaps up JK’s new book: Casual Vacancy set to become multi-million pound series broadcast in 2014′

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2242545/JK-Rowling-BBC-snaps-new-book-The-Casual-Vacancy-TV-series.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

    The Guardian said it was “unadventurous” with a “righteous social message”

    Daily Mail writer Jan Moir described it as: ‘500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto, masquerading as literature, crammed down your throat.’

    BBC/JK Rowling: A marriage made in heaven

       43 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      Now, observing the highly unusual speed with which this has been nabbed, and being the cynic that I am, I would be easily convinced that she wrote this book ‘to order’.

         27 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      “Expected to be broadcast in 2014″…or as near to an election as they dare.

         33 likes

    • deegee says:

      I wouldn’t have thought of J.K. Rowling and the BBC as the most comfortable of partners. She is the twelfth richest woman in the United Kingdom (won’t quibble about a few positions up or down). Her background is hideously white middle England and her opus Harry Potter is set is what could easily be described as an independent school for elite pupils. and in the end they all get married and live happily ever after. How conventional.

      I don’t know if her attempt to escape her genre is a socialist manifesto so much as it is an attempt to escape Harry Potter and join the grown ups. In this case, at least, the BBC seems to trying to cash in on an existing best seller rather than prop up a buddy.

      Follow the cash.

         6 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        Follow the cash…to the Labour party. her Harry Potter is revered by BBC types not for the content but because she was ‘a single mum struggling to pay the rent’ and other such tales since proven to be not quite the the whole truth.

           18 likes

        • Albaman says:

          I note that the article refers to a contributor’s “speculation” and another who “suspects”. Amusingly it also states: “Slate Magazine noted that Harry’s nemesis, the evil Lord Voldemort, at Harry Potter’s start has just concluded 11 years of terrorizing the wizards’ realm—-the same number of years Margaret Thatcher was in power”.
          Hardly evidence of bias unless you are paranoid.

             5 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            Please, Albaman, if you are going to keep coming to a blog to take issue with it and all who post here, please respect the rules as laid down by Lord Jim, one of which clearly states that if you want to take issue with anything on a blog (or Wkipedia), the best place to do it is actually on the one in question (good luck with that BTW) and not try porting things around to suit and ‘note’ elsewhere.
            That’s just lazy.

               3 likes

            • Albaman says:

              So, using a source to support bias is acceptable. Daring to question the source is not.

                 5 likes

          • Span Ows says:

            Albaman, derrr, it’s a wiki talk page (i.e. more of a forum!), the point is the Margaret Thatcher/John Major/Gordon Brown comments/quotes are all valid (and Googleable. So are her Labour donations.

               9 likes

  3. As I See It says:

    We hear in the news on BBC 5 Live this morning that there has been a barney in Belfast over the flying of the Union Jack.

    Our Dame Nicky Campbell doesn’t want to talk about that. He rapidly moves on and muses ‘Has the Pope started Tweeting yet?’

    The sports reporter at BBC 5 Live tells Nicky and us listeners that His Holiness has indeed opened his Twitter account but has yet to start Tweeting.

    Nicky can’t wait. Well, it will be grist to his comedic mill. Can’t you just imagine the gag potential for our Nicky? He is a funny man. Well he thinks so. He thinks he’s up there with giants like……Markus Brigstock and Jeremy Hardy. Think PC-Jimmy Boyle, that’s our Nicky.

       22 likes

  4. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ Radio 5′s small story this morning:

    the welfare of mice.

       10 likes

  5. john in cheshire says:

    If you can bear to listen, then there is a segment in this week’s ‘The Now Show’ supposedly making fun of both UKIP and the Rotherham socialist services scandal. Not only is the sketch (if that is what it is) not funny – but when was the Now Show ever funny? – but the things that these self-styled comedians have to say is thoroughly unpleasant. But of course Messrs Punt and Dennis are of the bbc cohort and so keep being employed regardless of the worthlessness and sheer ugliness of their ‘work’.

       35 likes

    • mat says:

      Agree they like all BBC comeerdy died years ago now C4 run laps round them on TV as for radio that stopped being funny in about 1997 when they all stopped being snotty about those in power but that was just coincidence lol !

         21 likes

      • Selohesra says:

        I still like I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue tough

           2 likes

        • Selohesra says:

          though

             0 likes

        • ROBERT BROWN says:

          Yes, and listened to ‘The Navy Lark’ and Jimmy Clitheroe and ‘Doctor in the House’ on 4 extra, quality, and genuinely funny. Don’t make ’em like that anymore.

             3 likes

        • wallygreeninker says:

          What, with that irrepressible source of mirth, Jeremy Hardy? Dee ended one programme with ‘As the donkey of tranquility makes its way peacefully towards the little town of Bethlehem, only to have its ears blown off by the IDF…’ These ‘alternative’ comics trash everything.

             6 likes

          • Buggy says:

            Did he really ? It’s hardly “As the frisky tomcat of time confronts the scalpel of destiny”, is it ?

            But then he’s hardly Humph, is he ?

               1 likes

  6. George R says:

    “Biggins: ‘BBC wanted to protect obnoxious Savile – not his victims'”
    http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a442425/biggins-bbc-wanted-to-protect-obnoxious-savile-not-his-victims.html

       11 likes

    • Old Goat says:

      Biggins hasn’t been exactly free of the rumour himself, as I recall…

      Odd, isn’t it, that all these people are coming out of the woodwork now, declaiming the shitbag known as Savile, when at the time there was a silence about the undercover suspicions from all these celebs. Those who were obviously as involved as Savile in his doings are now desperately putting as much distance as possible between them and him (unsuccessfully in some cases, it would seem, if recent arrests are anything to go by), whilst others that knew and egged him on (and probably watched) suddenly declare a long lasting hatred for him, and saying that knew all along that he was a bad egg, but dare not speak out.

      Now, they speak with impunity, knowing he can’t finger them (no pun intended). So much for being mates.

         9 likes

      • Louis Robinson says:

        There are many people who “came out of the woodwork” when it mattered – and suffered the consequences. You’ll never know THEIR names.

           2 likes

        • Albaman says:

          For your comment to have any validity you must know who they were and what the consequences were. Why not let the rest of us into your secret.

             3 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            For your comment to have any inclusive justification in the manner attempted, could you first identify who this ‘us’ you presume to speak for might be?
            Bear in mind Jim, Dez, etc may be poised to slap foreheads at your answer.

               4 likes

            • Albaman says:

              To quote a Scottish colloquialism “you don’t half talk a load of mince”. For the benefit of doubt that is a response to Guest Who!!!

                 4 likes

              • Guest Who says:

                ‘a response to Guest Who’
                Gathered that by the reply step (if now spiraling to one character columns).
                “you don’t half talk a load of mince”
                Well, get her.. to use another colloquialism.
                (possibly not the best forum to invoke that word, you may find).
                I’ll have to check Jim’s rulebook, but that does seem perilously close to not being quite ‘form’, but I think it’s allowable on the backfire waiver.
                Any time you’re ready on the answer to who ‘the rest of us’ are.. hen.
                I must advise, my cuppa and scone are good for a wee bittie more yet before I need to get back to the day job.

                   1 likes

                • Jim Dandy says:

                  ‘ a load of mince’ is apt and entirely justified in this instance.

                     4 likes

                  • Guest Who says:

                    ‘‘ a load of mince’ is apt and entirely justified in this instance.’
                    Is that from ‘Jim’s Bookie-Wookie of Rules for Blogs No One Respects’, or the findings of a BBC/Graun/LSE poll?
                    Guessing answers will be in as short supply as any on who ‘the rest of us’ might be (4th time’s the charm) or who commissioned the BBC poll for the BBC by the BBC of the BBC to suit the BBC, with parameters on poll respondents being behind an FoI exclusion lest they turn out to be on par with HackedOff’s awesome foray into turning a punt into spin into BBC ‘fact’.

                       1 likes

              • Roland Deschain says:

                I prefer “Awa’ an’ bile yer heid, ya tumshie”.

                   3 likes

  7. Selohesra says:

    BBC (and Sky News) promoting the Hackled Off petition to implement Leveson in full (and presumably without reading) – counter petition now running but may not get as much airtime so we should all promote ourselves

    http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/42582

       25 likes

  8. George R says:

    LIBYA:

    British people still paying for ongoing Islamic jihad.

    INBBC’s Whewell pushes the case of Libyan Muslim refugee to be in England.

    “Libya rebel flees to UK as revolution sours for women”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20584573

    There must be a specific limit to how many refugees from global Islamic jihad Britain has to take, be it from Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, etc, etc.
    This should not be decided by political NGOs such as Amnesty, and their INBBC supporters.

    And as the case for Qatada proves, once asylum seekers are in the UK, it is almost impossible to have them removed.

       18 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      From the look of her I think she was gunning more for ‘I’m a Celebrity…’ than Sunderland, so we’ll see where she pitches up.

         6 likes

    • Kyoto says:

      Surely all these refugees should be formed up into liberal/secularist battalions and sent back in to fight the good cause. After all they must realise that given mass-immigration the same Sharification process is likely to start here quite soon.

      There must easily be over 1 million happy volunteers who just can’t wait to have a crack at the Islamists.

         14 likes

    • As I See It says:

      ‘Sunderland, on England’s north-east coast, is an unlikely refuge for a Libyan activist forced to flee the very revolution she helped bring about.’

      I have to agree. Unfortunately Britain, and in particular the BBC, has played its part in what the BBC fondly describes as the ‘Arab Awakening’

      “There are 33 women in congress, there are now two ministers in the Cabinet,” she says. “In a conservative society like Libya, as far as I’m concerned the overall picture is a miracle.”

      Didn’t Gaddafi have plenty of female bodyguards?

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/gaddafis-amazonian-bodyguards-barracks

      His guard force and female soldiers were very much his eyes and ears – in some ways equally important as the old-world male spy lords who enforced his police state.

      “We were told to report to the family anything strange you see, or hear. Don’t talk to anyone about it,” said Nisrine Abdul Hadi, another guard. Maybe he trusted us more, or maybe he just liked girls.”

      You know what? Perhaps there’s a lesson here. Perhaps we should just leave the Islamic world to itself?

         9 likes

  9. David Lamb says:

    Two snippets from Radio 4 this morning. 1. An interview with an expert on terrorism went on for several minutes where he discussed likely risk areas from terrorist attacks. No mention of Islam. Terrorism just occurs. 2. On the news was a reference to gas powered generators and fracking was mentioned. Is there some rule which says that the word ‘controversial’ always has to precede any reference to ‘fracking’ ?

       29 likes

    • George R says:

      Yes, as in ‘the controversial BBC’ which employed paedophile Savile for 40 years.

         24 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Ah but…he surely paid his taxes to Uncle Jim Callaghan without recourse to being an offshore island entity!
        Just as well-all those little Asian kids in shorts and crop tops…too much for Savile to bear surely!

           15 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      ‘Controversialfrackingtechnique’ is one of those yerknow BBC neologisms. Cf droneswhichkillinnocentpeople and then of course there’s Johnny Palestine’s weapon of choice rocketswhichlandharmlesslyinfields.

      Doubtless Dez/ Scott/ Dole/ Dim Jandy will be on in a minute pointing out that the creatures of the left are against fracking (it being a right-wing drilling technique ‘n’all) therefore ipso facto fracking *is* ‘controversial’.

      I think AGW is a pile of steaming sh!te but you will never hear the word ‘controversial’ appearing in front of ‘global warming’ on the BBC ever.

         22 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      …of course what is really controversial about fracking is not that it may (or may not) cause seismic activity – as does coal-mining – but that the lefties see how it caused a collapse in the US natural gas price from a peak of $10 in 2008 to $2+ today. $10 is roughly where we are in Europe.

      Doesn’t stop the BBC entertaining windmill shills and allowing them to get away unchallenged with,

      ‘…because the price of gas is gonna keep going up’.

      Start plugging $2 gas into the forecasts and see how even more ridiculous the costs of ‘renewables’ look.

         13 likes

      • It's all too much says:

        Exactly uncle.

        The fact that fracking offers a practical, effective, cheap process for extracting natural gas is totally irrelevant as far as the BBC is concerned.

        The watermelons’ real agenda is about reversing growth and industrialisation, you see they don’t like it very much as ‘we’ (unlike them of course) are stupid, selfish and greedy and the planet is doomed (again). They see ‘cheap’ energy as intrinsically evil as a matter of faith.

        Naturally the congenitally adolescent BBC is completely in the thrall of the green hypocrites and in lockstep with them as far as public policy is concerned – naturally they tell us that pointless energy negative windmills built with a 15% premium on each and every kwhr are a much better solution to our energy requirements than abundant cheap natural gas.

        28gate showed how the BBC is an echo chamber for extremist environmentalists who are now lobbying for insanely high and exponentially increasing energy prices. The watermelons are not in the least bit interested in efficient or even ‘green’ use of energy – they simply want to force you to use less. Yes you will have to heat your house less, live in the dismal blue medieval gloom of ‘efficient’ 4 watt bulbs, travel less, eat less, and do what you are told.

        Otherwise the giant mutant star goat of AGW will get you.

        http://www.american-buddha.com/hitch.vignette1mutantstargoat.htm

           12 likes

        • Dave s says:

          Think of all the lovely state and quango jobs for the otherwise unemployable graduates in nothing much at all. These useless jobs just so they, the unemployables , can tell the working members of society how to live and how to behave . And of course most importantly how to think.

             10 likes

  10. chrisH says:

    Loved the BBCs news item at 8a.m that said that the NHS…”and other health providers”, were to be put in the dock by the Patients Association(an independent charity apparently…so does the State pay for it?)…for “not being caring or compassionate enough”.
    Wonder if we`ll be getting told the respective rates of scandalous incidents for
    a) the NHS and
    b) BUPA type provision.
    Nah, thought not…spread the blame, but keep the love!
    As with Savile and tax-dodging….so with the NHS…is that a childrens home matron from the 70s able to tell us about tipping orphans out of their sick bays at Eton then?
    Our BBC…our NHS…and our problems as long as we have to pay up for tired monopolies with no choice.
    By the way, I am grateful to the NHS-but the BBC has this ability to make me hate it!

       21 likes

  11. Jeff Waters says:

    Why is the BBC wasting our money on JK Rowling’s socialist misery porn? – http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100192659/why-is-the-bbc-wasting-our-money-on-jk-rowlings-socialist-misery-porn/

       20 likes

    • deegee says:

      Good investment?

         2 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘Why is the BBC wasting our money on JK Rowling’
      “Down a bit… to the left… left a bit more… more left. Ahhhhh, I think you reached it for me there”.

      Wild guess, but she may well be popping in for the odd ‘chat’ across the sofa estates of the BBC as the production evolves?

         9 likes

      • Earls Court says:

        Very good marketing is the reason Harry Potter is so successful.

           2 likes

        • Span Ows says:

          Yes but to be honest had there not been the hysterical girlie shrieks when her book was published it wouldn’t have caused a ripple. If her book was how Hitler was really left-wing or how the Conservatives are the greatest political party in world history do you really think they would have (a) trumpeted the release and (b) snapped up TV rights?

             3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Unfortunately, it will not be a waste of money. The BBC will make loads of cash on distribution rights and video sales (DVD/BC or download) in the US and elsewhere. It’s a no-brainer from a business standpoint. If it turns out terrible and doesn’t sell, then the next effort can be more judged on politics than on lust for cash.

         1 likes

  12. Guest Who says:

    What is it about the word ‘equality’ and those attracted under its banner not being, as such, too keen on seeing anything going anywhere than exclusively into their pockets?
    http://order-order.com/2012/12/04/tory-ladies-expenses-blue-on-blue-jackie-doyle-price-shuns-expenses-piggy-helen-grant/
    http://order-order.com/2012/11/20/helens-unfair-grant/
    It does seem a cross party thing, and these pages already have pondered this one..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20571996
    One presumes we will all need to await Friday to find out what else there is that the BBC has already ‘seen’.
    At which point their famous ‘analysis’ will kick in.
    Unless things are not to taste, in which case it will really kick in.

       5 likes

  13. As I See It says:

    Let’s not have it said that Beeboids are anti-business.

    Well, at least not when they are on the board.

    ‘Sports broadcaster Gabby Logan joined the ranks of female directors at British companies today with a boardroom role at FTSE 250 Index company Perform.’

    http://www.edp24.co.uk/business/sports_broadcaster_gabby_logan_lands_boardroom_role_at_ftse_250_firm_perform_1_1728786

    ‘Chairman Paul Walker, chairman of Perform, said Logan’s “in-depth understanding and insight into the worlds of sport and broadcasting will complement the board’s existing expertise and experience”.’

    Far be it from us licence payers to suggest this could be a case of not so much what you know as who you know.

    http://www.scotsman.com/business/media-and-leisure/gabby-logan-on-board-at-media-group-perform-1-2672873

    ‘While the company did not say how much Logan will receive in fees for the role, other non-executives on Perform’s board received a minimum of £39,000 last year.’

    Kerching!

    ‘Perform (LSE: PER) climbed 1p to 386p in early trade this morning after announcing the appointment of Gabby Logan to its board of directors.’

    http://www.fool.co.uk/news/investing/company-comment/2012/12/03/tv-presenter-gabby-logan-becomes-company-director.aspx

    My compliments go to this comment:

    ‘awful name (perform)…sounds like a tampon’

       5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘awful name (perform)’
      Seems it’s one of those Goebbelsian efforts where if it is chanted enough at the morning calisthenics the market rates hope everyone will make the required association (see: Labour; BBC Trust).

         4 likes

    • Jeff Waters says:

      I’ve never understood why the BBC used have Gabby Logan present football programs. She’s never played football professionally or managed a football team, so what special insight does she bring to the table? What does she know that your average fan doesn’t? Not much, I’d say (although she is pleasing on the eye)…

      Jeff

         2 likes

      • AngusPangus says:

        To be fair, her dad is Terry Yorath, so football’s in the family.

        Though what with the BBC being so keen on equality of opportunity, social mobility and all, she no doubt got to where she is entirely on merit and not because she’s attractive and has a famous dad……..

           3 likes

    • Ian Hills says:

      Lucrative programme contracts will soon be winging their way to this “sports media” firm.

         1 likes

  14. As I See It says:

    Oh the irony, the irony!

    ‘UK’s oldest comic The Dandy faces closure’

    ‘Home of Desperate Dan has suffered circulation decline from 2m in its heyday to below 8,000’

    As quoted from the Guardian

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/13/oldest-comic-the-dandy-faces-closure

    Over to you BBC satirists…what, not interested?

       3 likes

  15. ltwf1964 says:

    found this utter bilge by following a link to jew hater john Pilger’s site.The leftard mentality is indeed dranged

    http://johnpilger.com/articles/as-gaza-is-savaged-again-understanding-the-bbc-s-historical-role-is-vital

    In Peter Watkins’ remarkable BBC film, The War Game, which foresaw the aftermath of an attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb, the narrator says: “On almost the entire subject of thermo-clear weapons, there is now practically total silence in the press, official publications and on TV. Is there hope to be found in this silence?”
    The truth of this statement was equal to its irony. On 24 November, 1965, the BBC banned The War Game as “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting”. This was false. The real reason was spelt out by the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Lord Normanbrook, in a secret letter to the Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Burke Trend.
    “[The War Game] is not designed as propaganda,” he wrote, “it is intended as a purely factual statement and is based on careful research into official material… But the showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent.” Following a screening attended by senior Whitehall officials, the film was banned because it told an intolerable truth. Sixteen years later, the then BBC director-general, Sir Ian Trethowan, renewed the ban, saying that he feared for the film’s effect on people of “limited mental intelligence”. Watkins’ brilliant work was eventually shown in 1985 to a late-night minority audience. It was introduced by Ludovic Kennedy who repeated the official lie.
    What happened to The War Game is the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain’s ruling elite. With its outstanding production values, often fine popular drama, natural history and sporting coverage, the BBC enjoys wide appeal and, according to its managers and beneficiaries, “trust”. This “trust” may well apply to Springwatch and Sir David Attenborough, but there is no demonstrable basis for it in much of the news and so-called current affairs that claim to make sense of the world, especially the machinations of rampant power. There are honourable individual exceptions, but watch how these are tamed the longer they remain in the institution: a “defenestration”, as one senior BBC journalist describes it.
    This is notably true in the Middle East where the Israeli state has successfully intimidated the BBC into presenting the theft of Palestinian land and the caging, torturing and killing of its people as an intractable “conflict” between equals. Standing in the rubble from an Israeli attack, one BBC journalist went further and referred to “Gaza’s strong culture of martyrdom”. So great is this distortion that young viewers of BBC News have told Glasgow University researchers they are left with the impression that Palestinians are the illegal colonisers of their own country. The current BBC “coverage” of Gaza’s genocidal misery reinforces this.
    The BBC’s “Reithian values” of impartiality and independence are almost scriptural in their mythology. Soon after the corporation was founded in the 1920s by Lord John Reith, Britain was consumed by the General Strike. “Reith emerged as a kind of hero,” wrote the historian Patrick Renshaw, “who had acted responsibly and yet preserved the precious independence of the BBC. But though this myth persisted it has little basis in reality… the price of that independence was in fact doing what the government wanted done. [Prime Minister Stanley] Baldwin… saw that if they preserved the BBC’s independence, it would be much easier for them to get their way on important questions and use it to broadcast Government propaganda.”
    Unknown to the public, Reith had been the prime minister’s speech writer. Ambitious to become Viceroy of India, he ensured the BBC became an evangelist of imperial power, with “impartiality” duly suspended whenever that power was threatened. This “principle” has applied to the BBC’s coverage of every colonial war of the modern era: from the covered-up genocide in Indonesia and suppression of eyewitness film of the American bombing of North Vietnam to support for the illegal Blair/Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the now familiar echo of Israeli propaganda whenever that lawless state abuses its captive, Palestine. This reached a nadir in 2009 when, terrified of Israeli reaction, the BBC refused to broadcast a combined charities appeal for the people of Gaza, half of whom are children, most of them malnourished and traumatised by Israeli attacks. The United Nations Rapporteur, Richard Falk, has likened Israel’s blockade of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto under siege by the Nazis. Yet, to the BBC, Gaza – like the 2010 humanitarian relief flotilla murderously attacked by Israeli commandos – largely presents a public relations problem for Israel and its US sponsor.
    Mark Regev, Israel’s chief propagandist, seemingly has a place reserved for him near the top of BBC news bulletins. In 2010, when I pointed this out to Fran Unsworth, now elevated to director of news, she strongly objected to the description of Regev as a propagandist, adding, “It’s not our job to go out and appoint the Palestinean spokesperson”.
    With similar logic, Unsworth’s predecessor, Helen Boaden, described the BBC’s reporting of the criminal carnage in Iraq as based on the “fact that Bush has tried to export democracy and human rights to Iraq”. To prove her point, Boaden supplied six A4 pages of verifiable lies from Bush and Tony Blair. That ventriloquism is not journalism seemed not to occur to either woman.
    What has changed at the BBC is the arrival of the cult of the corporate manager. George Entwistle, the briefly-appointed director general who said he knew nothing about Newsnight’s false accusations of child abuse against a Tory grandee, is to receive £450,000 of public money for agreeing to resign before he was sacked: the corporate way. This and the preceding Jimmy Savile scandal might have been scripted for the Daily Mail and the Murdoch press whose self-serving hatred of the BBC has long provided the corporation with its “embattled” façade as the guardian of “public service broadcasting”. Understanding the BBC as a pre-eminent state propagandist and censor by omission – more often than not in tune with its right-wing enemies – is on no public agenda and it ought to be.

       2 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      A bloke who references Richard Falk, a man who thinks Bush did 9/11, has nothing to tell anyone about journalism. Unsworth and Boaden may rest easy.

         3 likes

  16. Guest Who says:

    As the issue of lies, damn lies and BBC polls rages amongst the statisteratti, I am just returned from a 1/2 hr jaunt in the car (off soon again, as I am sure many on piece-work terms will devastated to learn).
    Hence I was subjected to R4, with a variety of mellow Hibernian tones ‘sharing’ the news…or analysing it.
    We were treated to Jezza Bowen even , who seems to be phoning it in even when there in person.
    A sigh, a pause, and after telling us no one really knows what is going on, he tells us his version of what he doesn’t know anything about anyway.
    Sadly, he seemed to skip the studio just before the host could perhaps get his pearls of wisdom on the latest beard-on-beard effort, namely the shelling of a Syrian school by ‘someone’, which may have resulted in a few more children images for Jon & Dick & Wyre & Orla & Carol & Ted and Alice to pass off as IDF atrocities.
    It is on the BBC website, just quite small, maybe due to the wrong kind of casualties on the line…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20596612
    How many schools hit by Israel again guys?
    Think of the children….!

       3 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Now, when you want ‘reporting’, by the BBC ‘news’… this is how it’s done ‘properly’..
      http://bbcwatch.org/2012/12/04/bbc-repeats-use-of-loaded-punctuation-in-reporting-terror-attacks-on-israelis/

         2 likes

      • Teddy Bear says:

        I remarked on this story yesterday in passing about how the BBC showed this story on their Mid-East webpage, along with a few others:

        From today’s offerings the headline showing on the BBC’s Mid-East page we see:
        Palestinian killed in West Bank
        For most people not that concerned or interested in the goings on in the region, it is enough to further the notion that ‘evil Israel has just killed another one of the poor Palestinians.

        You’d have to open the article to read another headline, giving a bit more context –
        Palestinian ‘with axe’ killed by Israeli forces in West Bank

        An axe-wielding Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, Israeli officials say.

        Not just that he was ‘with axe’, as though it’s a crime to carry an axe, but one has to read further into the article to see that he was wielding it while approaching security personnel.

        However it transpires that while the BBC maintains in the article that ‘details are unclear’ as to what exactly happened, other media outlets have established that the Palestinian first rammed the security jeep with his own vehicle, injuring the occupants, then attacked 2 of them with the axe before being shot by the third.

        Needless to say, the BBC have not updated their article to reflect the terrorist nature of this Palestinian attack.

        I wonder what excuse the BBC would give for still maintaining that ‘details are unclear’ as to what happened, when other media outlets are able to report clearly that the man rammed the security jeep first with his own vehicle, before attacking them with an axe.

        No doubt they would give some kind of mealy mouthed excuse that they believe makes them appear really concerned not to report anything that they couldn’t verify themselves. The only thing is that this in itself would show a clear bias, as they have no problem reporting unverified statistics, deaths, injuries, from Palestinian sources, when they are later found to be bogus.

           6 likes

  17. Guest Who says:

    On that same R4 ME slot there was a phone interview with a chap based in Syria from the Red Crescent.
    I rather warmed to him as he was pretty chipper.
    However the interviewer obviously was still in a mindset left over from asking single muvvas where they were the last times they got knocked up just like wot Kate has been.
    So we were treated to pearls such as ‘when did you last have fun?’, which being there are shells landing was on a Mrs. Lincoln pay review request, taste-wise.
    Actually the guy tried to answer, but I wonder if his mentioning hitting the bars was the reason for a swift ‘moving on’ as a result of a shriek from behind the studio glass?

       2 likes

  18. Guest Who says:

    And finally from the R4 outing, on the subject of the Clotheshorse of Cambridge and Royal Mare’s every gyn’yd ‘wild guess but worth trying anyway for a rating’… they moved on the the DPM’s obviously crushing crucial legislative score in getting the next in line on the throne even if a gay Muslim Orca.
    I just wonder if, in passing, any at the BBC felt a slight shiver down their spines when referring to this being a victory over an outdated institution for this modern day and age.
    Being this was intoned from the studios of a 20’s radio throwback that has no possible reason to exist in its current form in a world-connected internet age of free access to any broadcast signal.
    Bar…uniquely.. in the UK still.

       0 likes

  19. noggin says:

    bbc world news america –
    Hearing to probe US Muslim influences

    “The controversial issue of how vulnerable the American Muslim community is to radical influences like al Qaeda will be the topic of testimony at the homeland security committee”
    usual bbc fare – ie absolutely atrocious bias, shocking
    example
    the need to dispel ahem “myths” about this religion? …
    ….. just what could they be? …
    we ve had to live in the shadow of 9/11?
    ….. why could that be?
    this could ramp up erm …. “islamophobia” ????
    ….. turning into a “witchunt”?
    well according to the al bbc fear-mongers anyway?

    no link but follow the header.
    oh on islamophobia? or should that be?
    ha ha ha islamophobia

       8 likes

  20. RCE says:

    Check out this story:

    http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20583970

    Not what one would expect from a Dutch ‘group of teenage football players’.

    Could there be something that the BBC is not telling us?

    ………. *tumbleweed*…………..

       1 likes

  21. Jim Dandy says:

    Anyone noticed how grudging the BBC’s coverage of the royal pregnancy has been?

    No me neither.

    I’ve looked hard for signs of churlish spartism, but instead have witnessed a gushing geyser of pro-royal sentimentalism.

    Now I’m all for Brenda and her brood. So not an issue for me that the national broadcaster should celebrate such jolly news.

    But how does Biased BBC assimilate this into its uncompromising view of Auntie?

       2 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:

      “But apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the show?”

      or

      “But apart from that Mrs Kennedy, how was the drive?”

      Let them who have ears to hear, and eyes to see…

         3 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:

      forgotten the bit of “creative editing” with the clip of the queen supposedly throwing a tantrum and storming out of a room,have we Jim?

      not much “gushing pro royal sentimentalism” on that occasion

         5 likes

    • RCE says:

      If I understand Jim’s post correctly, he seems to be asserting that favourable coverage of the royal pregnancy is evidence that the BBC isn’t biased.

      Not much you can say to that.

         4 likes

    • Reed says:

      I guess Kate will have plenty of use for the ‘Royal Sick Bag’ that the BBC were so keen to show us during their Jubilee coverage, such was their respect for the institution of the Monarchy and the occasion being celebrated.

         2 likes

  22. George R says:

    Fatal road crash on M1.

    Compare and contrast:

    1.) BBC News; 2.) Sky News:-

    1.)

    “M1 crash: Man arrested and bailed after two killed”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-20591761

    2.)
    “BMW Crash: Man Bailed Over Motorway Deaths”

    http://news.sky.com/story/1020554/bmw-crash-man-bailed-over-motorway-deaths

       3 likes

  23. Pounce says:

    Test

       0 likes

  24. Pounce says:

    I see the bBC are crowing about how their favourite followers of Allah “Iran” have downed a nasty UAV.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20591336

    Have a look, can you discern just how big that long range UAV is. Not good for the US military in losing yet another top secret UAV to Iran.

       1 likes

  25. Pounce says:

    Lastly the bBC fails to mention not only how the US have lost a few scan eagles into the sea, but how there is a civil version (Seascan) which is used by fishermen in which to locate fish. Here is a U-Tube clip of a small fishing boat launching and recovering one such UAV.

    The thing is the bBC’s rear admiral says only large naval ships use them.
    Really?

       1 likes

    • Pounce says:

      Also the Scan eagle was derived from the sea eagle in 2004. But the bBC, they just utter:
      “Allah ackba”
      In which to promote their friendly terrorist ideology

      The bBC, the traitors in our midst

         2 likes

  26. JaneTracy says:

    I see that Stephanie Flanders has written the Labour response to the autumn statement already on the BBC website! However Steph in her usual forgetful (what day is it?) floundering way has forgotten that she wrote this only on October 19th.

    “The September borrowing figures will be especially welcome to the chancellor. Thanks to some encouraging growth in revenues, these show the lowest September deficit since 2008. ”

    So according to Steph its going well so he is wrong and appalling… Oh and there is no inflation and Greece will never default.

       2 likes

  27. Pounce says:

    The bBC, the right for Turkey to defend itself from Syrian rockets and Missiles and how Israel doesn’t have that right.
    How do Patriot missiles work?
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20591590

    Watch how the bBC promotes the right for Turkey to defend itself from its much smaller neighbour, a neighbour I should add which has only launched a few mortars into Turkey. Watch how the bBC bimbo promotes how the US patriot missile system (Aren’t the US meant to be evil) is the most sophisticated anti-missile system in the world.
    Oh please be still my beating heart, bitch features doesn’t know about the Israeli Arrow 2 system. Hang on that’s jewish, so of course according to the bBC code of conduct, the Arrow 2 doesn’t count. But hang on a lot of the technology in the arrow 2 was used by the Yanks in their latest block Patriot. So why didn’t the bBC mention that. You’d think the divestment crowd at the bBC would be more than happy to protest about how American missiles with Jewish tech is being used to defend an Islamic country.

    The bBC, where being a defence expert means you own a CND badge

       6 likes

    • Pounce says:

      Gosh and here is another classic from the ace bBC reporter at the hague:

      Surprise quote in ABC #zwartepiet feature: ‘Not a single member of the Netherlands’ new Cabinet is of non-Dutch ancestry’ #Dutch— anna holligan (@annaholligan) December 4, 2012

      Sums up the bBC to a tee.

         5 likes