The BBC have been forced to admit that their usual hugely damaging anti-British rhetoric is wrong.
The BBC ever ready to do down our own troops whilst giving favourable coverage to terrorists has been proven wrong as it tried to rewrite hsitory as Christopher Booker reports in the Telegraph:
‘There are few more futile exercises in this world than trying to get the BBC to admit it has got anything wrong. Normally, after a series of fruitless exchanges with apparatchiks in the BBC Complaints Unit, each more dead-bat than the last, most people give up in despair. Not so Henry Keown-Boyd, who was aggrieved to hear the BBC news reporting last April on how, in the Fifties, Britain had “brutally suppressed” an “uprising against British rule” in Malaya.
Having served in Malaya for 15 months as an officer in the Hussars, Mr Keown-Boyd was keenly aware that, far from this being a typical nationalist uprising, British and local Malay forces had for 12 years fought a textbook jungle campaign to prevent the country being ruthlessly taken over by a small ethnic minority of Chinese communists, who were given full support by both Mao’s and Stalin’s dictatorships. No one was keener to see off this vicious threat than the Malays themselves, who finally ended the rising in 1960, three years after winning peaceful independence from Britain.
So determined was Mr Keown-Boyd to get the BBC to set the record straight that, after nine months of the usual “get lost” replies, he has finally received a three-page letter from Fraser Steel, Head of BBC Complaints, to say that their researches “support the view that this was an inaccurate and materially misleading way of describing the Malay Emergency”. Well done, Mr Steel.
But knowing the BBC staff’s usual Guardianista view of British historical events that happened before most of them were born, I suspect this may not be the last time that better-informed listeners will have cause for amazed alarm at how little they seem to know.’
How many years before the BBC recognises that their pro-Palestinian view of the Middle East is an ‘inaccurate and misleading way of describing the conflict there.’
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4809890/BOY-thought-to-be-one-of-Britains-youngest-suicides-found-dead-after-months-of-jibes-says-family.html..this story is being ignored by the bbc and the rest of the media,imagine the outcry if this child was muslim and the racists were white,where are you now uaf having your poxy anti racism demos for white victims of racism.
Don’t expect the police to sympathise – they bully white children too.
http://britain-today.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/bye-bye-cultural-cohesion.html
http://britain-today.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/norway-killings-provide-excuse-to.html
i wish the media will stop using the term asian where it does not apply,i live in birmingham and its well known that this poor white lad was bullied by racist muslim schoolchildren,as a british sikh,i dont want into lumped into crimes commited by muslims that are then described as been commited by asians,this term asian must be clarified by the media to what particular asian group have commited these crimes.
Hindus and Sikhs victims of grooming too –
http://undhimmi.com/2011/01/11/muslims-also-targeting-hindu-and-sikh-girls-in-sexual-grooming-cases/
You are of course correct Surrinder, there are far more Chinese and Indian people in Asia than Pakistanis, but it is because of their appalling behaviour that the name is now so associated with negative connotations.
I’m afraid though that in the Heirarchy of ‘isms’ Pakistan Muslim men are at the very top, and every one else is lower down. Pity the poor Pakistani Christian as the lefties really don’t have any time for those!
Perhaps the Hindus and Sikh communities,or at least those represent them,should reconsider their, apparent, unquestioning support for the so called rainbow alliance.
Perhaps their long term interests might now be better served by a new political alignment.
That of course is for them to decided
Quite right, Surindar. The term “Asian” includes quite a large number of disparate peoples. I’m white, but it irritates me, so I can quite sympathise with you whom it directly affects. I wonder where this penchant for misleading politically correct labels will lead.
How many years before the BBC recognises that their pro-Palestinian view of the Middle East is an ‘inaccurate and misleading way of describing the conflict there’?
It took the collapse of the Soviet Union and a radical change in the PR China, not to mention Mr Keown-Boyd’s admirable persistence to admit one article about Malaysia was flawed. Using that as precedent I would say the answer to the question is thirty years after the collapse of radical Islam.
… and if Islam succeeds? It took a century for the Reconquista if the BBC survives that long.
More like 8 century’s of unremitting resistance and sacrifice.
From 722 until 1492.
It might have taken 9 months of hard work to get the bBC to agree that they were wrong, but what did all that hard work result in? A mere letter, they didn’t broadcast a retraction or an apology, and without the article in the telegraph it is doubtful that anyone would have even heard of it. A pyrhric victory indeed.
So you offer no alternative, but what…give up?
Good people doing something has a greater appeal in comparison, no matter how minor and uphill.
Enough small cuts and even the mightiest organism can be slowed or stopped.
First, many congratulations to Mr Keown-Boyd. Second, I have yet to hear back from BBC Complaints about their propaganda in the final David Attenborough “Africa” documentaries.
As you know, they were forced to admit they were wrong about their stated view that temperatures had risen by 3.5 degrees in Aftica, but they included in a caveat in this admission which said: “There is widespread acknowledgement within the scientific community that the climate of Africa has been changing as stated in the programme.”
I asked the BBC one simple question, which was to tell me who EXACTLY were the idividuals and organisations they claim make up the “scientific community.”
I have not heard back, and don’t really expect to. They know their scientific community is anything but, so they have been caught out. And when caught out, the first line of defence is to ignore the complainant.
They are totalitarian in their behaviour, which of course bothers them not a jot, just as Stalin, Mao and Hitler considered it uneccesary to actually answer to the people.
It is difficult to describe the loathing and contempt I have for these revolting and dangerous children within the BBC.
“Normally, after a series of fruitless exchanges with apparatchiks in the BBC Complaints Unit, each more dead-bat than the last, most people give up in despair”
—
Some do not.
A few may prevail, but many get ‘expedited’, which is to physical censorship what ‘redacted’ is to the BBC’s excuse for obliterating public sector culpability in the false name of public interest.
The BBC operates on attrition, backed by House Rules and Guidelines the BBC wrote itself and then interprets how it chooses to suit.
When confronted by a persistent concerned viewer, if they find their ‘we’re right because we just are ‘ efforts are enjoying little success, they will issue vast screeds from Directors from their own rule book, in support of no more than ‘belief’. But as Pollard has shown, even their own rules don’t add up & few BBC staff even haves clue on their own guidelines anyway.
And if that doesn’t work they will use the volume of work they have instigated to throw their toys out of the pram and simply take the ball away.
Overseeing this, beyond even the Trust, is OFCOM, headed by an ex-Labour placeman who was short listed as a DG candidate.
They can and will also use intimidation. I recall a post here from a while ago, when BBBC was taken to task for a poster sharing the detail of a complaint on these pages, with ‘…we note that…’ What are they, the STASI? And what is the BBC doing trawling the Internet for critics to silence? I think David V told them to stick it, quite rightly. Back in pre dot org archive, but worth a scope.
It is a war, and some dogs are running, especially as communities come together and realise that they are actually a majority stronger than the aggressive minority set against them.
Some history is worth learning from, and harnessing.
While the BBC seems keener from the efforts of an earlier time, when prevailing over the people was by propaganda backed by censorship.
How the respective models worked out suggest the outcome may yet be encouraging.
Paul, just wanted to say a huge thank you on behalf of many climate sceptics like myself who are routinely offended by the BBC’s blanket endorsement of CAGW across all its output. I appreciate the fact you took the time to complain – sadly ‘Africa’ was just another in an endless line of politically-compromised natural history programmes to have to suffer the fate of being ‘nixed’ by the BBC’s Climate Propaganda Unit. Attenborough has never signed-on to the CAGW manifesto; he was made to, publicly, when it became obvious he either took the shilling and uttered the words or joined David Bellamy out in the wilderness.
On the BBC this morning Vine was giving the High Priestess of militant feminism and PC, Harriet Harman, a very easy ride; I almost choked on my corn flakes when she had the audacity to say ‘The BBC is such an important institution which is supported by everyone in this country…’ Unbelievable Labour/BBC self advertising. Vine also had the hypocrisy to pontificate to the press about transparency regards the Leveson findings when, incredibly, his employer censors its own findings concerning the revolting Savile scandal in an internal inquiry!
Lastly, why is it that when allegations against Catholic priests are made, the BBC attack the whole church but when Islamic terrorists or paedophile gangs unleash their abhorrent evils, no reference is ever made to Islam? Total bias and hypocrisy.
The Polish Pope was to a large part responsible for the downfall of comunism, so the Catholic Church should be attacked. Islam does not believe in democracy, so should be supported. This is today’s BBC
I see Nicky and the rest of the lefties in the BQ’s audience were groveling to Islam, again. So biased it’s untrue!
“‘The BBC is such an important institution which is supported by everyone in this country…’
—
I would be interested in her evidence for such a statement.
Getting spoken for by entities who claim to speak for me without asking is getting tiresome.
Ms. Harman can at least point at the proxy of ballot support.
The BBC of course has not, is not and doing all in its power never to be held to external account.
The Pollard Report has shown how well being allowed to do this has worked out.
Perhaps that’s Harman’s trouble – being given “very easy rides”. Something much more vigorous could be just what the doctor ordered.
As evil as all those paedos are there is a qualitative difference between the Catholic church and the muslim paedo gangs.
One is a world wide organisation that not only covered up alot of the crimes but failed to deal with many of the errant priests in its midst. Many are still in their jobs, at different churches to be sure, others are receiving ‘help’. The Catholic Church should be ‘attacked’ for the way it behaved.
The other is a set of unrelated gangs who all share the same religeon. There is no ‘church’ in Islam to hush it all up. And lets face it, if there was it wouldn’t need to as the Police and media did it for them.
The point being that the BBC attack the organisation of the Catholic Church not the Catholic religeon. It behaves, disengenously, towards Islam in the same way and, because there is no organisation to go for, stays quiet. Ironically it is Islam and Islamic culture that drives much of the abuse by relegating women and non-muslim women in particular in the ‘do what you like with them’ bracket. The BBC knows this but because of its inbuilt political correctness will never condemn anyone for that.
This is nothing new as they’ve done the same to the Mau Mau who massacred blacks in Kenya but we were horrid to, or the mutineers in India who bravely hacked to death unarmed women and children.
This is an important story that will go unnoticed unless you read this site or the DT.
And of course the damage is done, hundreds and thousands of viewers will have ‘bought into’ the original story from the ‘world’s most trusted broadcaster’. Will those people now know that this story was wrong and they had been misled? Will there be a prominent ‘on-air’ statement and apology, in the way (as the BBC support) one is required of the print media, post Leveson? Will they now make a programme to put right a wrong? Don’t waste your breath waiting, the answer is, ‘NO!’ It’s one thing fighting for an apology – a retraction is something else.
Lying half awake yesterday, I heard someone describe the BBC as the most powerful cultural force in the world. The problem is, is that activists within the Corporation are stealing our culture.
And one shudders to think that the disgraced Rippon, former Editor of ‘Newsnight’, perhaps one of the most biased and left wing bits of BBC output (other left leaning programmes are available!), has been entrusted with archiving BBC content. What will that archive look like when he and the BBC have finished? One suspects that it might have a very pink tinge to it.
The statement about complainants giving up is correct. I complained to them officially on a matter and they then contacted me with what they said was a restatement of my complaint, but which was totally in error and not the nature of my complaint at all. After much back and forth frustrating correspondence, I gave up. Sorry.
‘they then contacted me with what they said was a restatement of my complaint, but which was totally in error and not the nature of my complaint at all.
Well, maybe a good man who tried is better than nothing.
They applied ‘What you are saying is (when it isn’t).. SOP and it worked.
I am sorry too.
It can take a lot, and a lot out of you.
But when, despite it all, you prevail, it can be worth it.
And enough try, and find it worth it, those small cracks can combine and bring down the mightiest firewall.
Trust me.
You never know when an Omega13 may be ready to activate:)
Quite. Initially I thought they had just made an error but eventually they wore me down and I did wonder then if they were being deliberately obtuse. I’ll do much better next time.
‘eventually they wore me down’
And where attrition (which they can afford, using your money) fails, they can simply turn to cheating.
How many times have these pages had people share that what they complained about didn’t get answered and what was nothing to do with their complaint did, followed by a closing.
Or countless blockings (DB) or expeditings (LunchtimeLoather) based on no more substance than… they just can?
And the individual must find it pretty daunting when the elected powers of the land (IDS) get told to take a hike or entire government departments or heads of government find themselves surely close to being redacted from the Christmas Card List.
I read recently that HM Treasury had complained (and been told the BBC got it about right) about misreported economic data, but in the same piece that they had had to get in touch over 20 times.
Now, given the BBC expedites not on merit of complaint but simply by numbers of times they are caught out, one wonders if there may be the interesting scenario of the most trusted national broadcaster banning the UK Treasury from trying to keep their reporting accurate?
Sounds sort of like a response I got to a complaint where they passed along a blatant lie from the Beeboid about whom I was complaining, then added on defensive points which were irrelevant to my complaint (regarding Jude Machin’s Twitter bias, in case anyone’s interested). I fired back and told them it was lie, and offered to provide more evidence. Turns out I didn’t need to because they knew all along it was a lie. So the Beeboid made a correction but then the BBC told me another lie. They had obviously gotten the point, though, so I left it there.
‘So the Beeboid made a correction but then the BBC told me another lie. They had obviously gotten the point, though, so I left it there.’
Sleeping dogs left to lie, then.
Given the topic, apt.
Paul Weston, why don’t you just ask them why they’ve havent replied yet?
Seems the sensible thing to do before coming to this conclusion:
‘They are totalitarian in their behaviour, which of course bothers them not a jot, just as Stalin, Mao and Hitler considered it uneccesary to actually answer to the people.’
“Why don’t you just ask them why they’ve havent replied yet?”
Last year I emailed the BBC and asked when they were going to reply to any of the four outstanding complaints that I had made going back over 12+ months.
Guess what happened?
David P has a point. You know that sometimes they know they are bang to rights but also know it is so bad that they cannot afford to admit it. Dunno if that’s a good or bad thing…
‘You know that sometimes they know they are bang to rights but also know it is so bad that they cannot afford to admit it. Dunno if that’s a good or bad thing…’
If the result is nothing but a ‘moving on’, then as far as the BBC is concerned… perfect.
When I last complained to the BBC, I was fobbed off three times, so I gave up . . . . paying the licence fee!
If they’re going to use Nick Lowles (from the hilariously
named ‘Hope Not Hate’ organisation), a serial liar, Communist, and member of the ‘Red Action’ group when they planted the Harrods bomb on behalf of the IRA, and introduce him as an ‘anti-extremist campaigner’ before allowing him to talk utter crap for several minutes, totally unchallenged, then they can’t expect to take money from someone who believes in freedom democracy and personal responsibility.
BBC and the Freedom of Information act
I complained about what I perceived as bias in a Countryfile programme in July 2012 and experienced several phases of being fobbed off over. Ultimately in December, and not surprisingly, I was told that the BBC did not accept that they had shown bias and moreover they had received complaints that were the opposite of mine.
I suppose the BBC thought that was the end of the matter. However I asked the BBC under the FOI act for details of the other complaints that differed from mine. The BBC answer (December 2012) was that, and I quote, information held by the BBC “is only covered by the act if it is held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”.
I am currently (February 24th) awaiting advice from the Information Commissioners’ Office as to whether the BBC is entitled under the FOI act to withhold information of the kind I asked for. Incidentally the Dept. for Culture, Media and Sport had been asked the same question and it took them 6 weeks to pass the buck to the ICO.
It’s almost reminiscent of the bureaucrats in Kafka’s ‘Castle.’
Yes, Kafka’s The Trial came to mind when I saw the redactions earlier this week.
Maybe in another act of unwitting irony they’ll put a statue of him up next to Orwell?
So far nobody has been able to to get round the FOI exclusion that matters are only covered by the act if “held for purposes other than those of journalism”.
The only weak spot is the BBC’s contracts and payments for non-programme making activity or just possibly payments to external contractors involved peripherally in programmes.
‘I was told that the BBC did not accept that they had shown bias and moreover they had received complaints that were the opposite of mine.’
Which is, of course, irrelevant, beyond being impossible to prove, even by them, given their quaint self-imposed rules. And hence also pointless.
The ICO route is interesting, but as with OFCOM one might wonder who packs out their staff ranks.
The BBC’s version of this story has more than a whiff of ‘Horrible Histories’ to it – which is most likely where they got it from.
An interesting thread. I have always assumed the BBC does not accept any right to complain. It might say it does but in essence it does not.
In the now developing cultural war for our civilisation the BBC is on the liberal side.
We really have to understand this and have no illusions any more.
thank you for the replys to my post,i just hope that the bbc and the other media outlets take notice of the comments in this blog.
Surinder – your frustrations & concerns are shared. My Singaporean-born wife gets as annoyed as I do when the BBC presumes to speak for us with ‘we’ claims when it suits to lump folk in shared views, but more more so when they swing round and then seek to get much more all, and inaccurately inclusive when they seek to spread some issues around a broader demographic than they actually apply to.
ps: For any interested in the topic:
‘By the time it was over Malaya had obtained its independence – but on British, not on Chinese or Communist terms. ‘
Can’t imagine why the BBC would try and sly bit of ‘inaccurate and materially misleading’ revisionism and only grudgingly tidy up when nailed after the dust has settled.