This is perhaps a classic example of why the BBC should not be a ‘campaigning’ organisation, one that takes sides or a particular narrow view of any concern….the inevitable unintended results that follow a lot of ‘do-goodery’ are often more harmful than those that would have resulted from taking a wider, more nuanced, perspective and not resulting a one size fits all solution.
In 1984 the BBC broadcast reports from Ethiopia asking what is the attitude of the rest of the world to the situation…in 2009 they still seemed pretty pleased with the results:
‘Twenty-five years ago Michael Buerk’s harrowing and moving reports for BBC News on the famine in Ethiopia sparked an international reaction which led to millions of pounds being raised for aid to be sent to the region.’
Africans however have a different take on things saying that their continent has been stereotyped as lawless and violent…a hopeless basket case.
They say: ‘That’s not me, that’s not my Africa’
They have made a video to highlight their concerns about the image of Africa being portrayed on our screens by the likes of the BBC:
Africa For Norway charity single
The BBC has, without any recognition of its part in this stereotyping reported on the video and the thinking behind it:
Even the Charities have admitted the previous approach was wrong, concentrating too much on the negative in a relentless manner that made people switch off as they believed Africa was a ‘hopeless case’…ironically again reported by the BBC….
Africa image harming aid effort, says charity Oxfam
A negative image of Africa in the UK is harming efforts to raise food aid in the continent, charity Oxfam has said.
It found that three out of four people had become desensitised to images showing hunger, drought and disease.
Respondents to the survey said over-exposure to negative media and advertising portrayals of Africa and developing countries in other parts of the world was “depressing, manipulative and hopeless”.
“If we want people to help fight hunger we have to give them grounds for hope by showing the potential of countries across Africa – it’s a natural instinct to turn away from suffering when you feel you can do nothing to alleviate it.”
And when speaking to the BBC, Dame Stocking said a negative image of Africa was “not the truth” about that continent.
Such events have to be reported and the results of famine dealt with but if a wider view of circumstances was taken perhaps a much more longer lasting and effective solution could be found.
Michael Buerk reported that nature may have started the famine but that it was man, in the shape of armed militias, that was compounding it.
Perhaps a better use of aid money might be to deal with the militias and provide protection for the population allowing them to farm and produce a living, drought permitting….that different view could have been taken if more had been made of the militia’s dangerous heightening of the impact of famine on some of the people of Ethiopia.
How does such focussed reporting impact now?
A good example would be climate change where the BBC has taken sides…promoting one view of the causes, subsequent effects and desired solutions to the exclusion of all others….solutions that may be costing lives.
This means we don’t get the full picture, we are not ‘allowed’ to dissent from the consensus and the result is that government is able to plough ahead introducing disastrous and enormouosly expensive, and it turns out deadly, policies without any effective opposition.
There were excited claims in 2003 that climate change was killing thousands of people and in 2001 the BBC was reporting that the ‘experts’ say:
‘Climate changes could cause thousands of deaths every year – but reduce the number of cold-weather deaths….warmer conditions could cut the number of elderly people who die during the winter months by around 20,000 each year.’
The BBC does report that ‘the UK could see health benefits from climate change‘ but doesn’t expand on that, but does give room for an environmental pressure group to make dire predictions:
‘Frances MacGuire, climate policy officer at the pressure group Friends of the Earth, said: “This report shows thousands of British people will die early from skin cancer, in heatwaves and during extreme weather events caused by man-made climate change.’
How times change as winters get more severe not less and the government green taxes, introduced to tackle the ‘warm winters’, push up fuel bills to unaffordable levels and costs the NHS over £1 billion:
‘Illnesses related to living in a cold home cost the NHS £1.36bn every year, a report by Age UK suggests. Age UK says thousands of older people are dying prematurely due to the health effects of living in the cold.
Each year in England and Wales there are about 27,000 extra deaths each winter, mostly among older people.
Age UK is urging the government and local authorities to help improve energy-saving measures in homes in a bid to reduce winter deaths.
The majority of the elderly who die in winter die from strokes, heart diseases and lung problems, worsened by the cold.’
‘More than 4000 people in the Midlands died last winter because of the cold weather, and more than a million families in the region were living in fuel poverty….That’s according to the charity National Energy Action.
The BBC has persistently taken one group of ‘experts’ side on climate and the results have been catastrophic.
Can the BBC be partly to blame for the ‘vulnerable’ dying in their homes as they turn off the ever more expensive heating?
A good question. Had the climate change sceptics been allowed a voice, had the BBC not decided that the science was settled, had the solutions not then been directed at what might not be the real problem….. perhaps government green policy may have been more targeted at the real problems and outcomes …and direct resources to dealing with those rather than waste enormous sums by ’tilting at wind turbines’ enriching already rich land owners and energy companies at the expense of the poorest who now choose…as the BBC tells us when it suits them (ie when attacking government cuts in welfare)…whether to use their meagre resources on ‘heating or eating’.
Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph gives an excellent perspective on climate and the cold and the fatal results of a misguided interpretation of science and the resulting policies.
On You and Yours today one of the items was about Cambridge University wanting to build a new rowing centre on a site that some people didn’t want them to. So an environmentalist was found to say that it might cause the otters to go away and the birds might be upset. This followed a report on the welfare reforms that might do this and might do that….all negative. BBC if you are reading… the format is getting boring. Some self-interested group who are against whatever change is proposed gets the BBC in. All the information that the BBC gives is provided by the people who are against the change. The BBC has their story and the anti-people have their free publicity. Never mind how much truth there is or how much the change is for the public good. Climate change is the biggest example of the BBC being used to create free publicity (and the bigger the scare story the better) and as Alan points out this policy of the BBC’s has cost many lives.
I agree, but they are selective about the ‘anti’ groups which get to speak.
I mean you’ve only go to look at Scotland, an African feeding station waiting for the steam chicken to arrive, masquerading as a country.
Sixty years of living on handouts and where’s it got them.
Glasgow, aka Limassol-on-the-Clyde, the heart-attack/ early death/ gang-violence/ heroin/ drink abuse/ benefits/ Temazepam and murder capital of Europe.
Africa- take note.
Is this what you want?
Really?
What utter rubbish not even worthy of a considered response.
Good job your at hand with a knee-jerk one then
A knee jerk response would have included more than a couple of profanities.
Idiotic postings such as this from “uncle bup” and the number of likes they garner do nothing to help those who argue that this is a site promoting genuine and reasoned debate about BBC bias.
Good job you didn’t respond then ain’t it albertmunt ! oh wait ??
What is it with the “albertmunt”. Is it a “rightist” thing to change the names of posters with whom you disagree?
“Albaman”….tsk…..bit sexist, innit?
I think, in the current climate of BBC/Left wing sponsored political correctness, we should refer to you as “Alba-Person”
‘Is it a “rightist” thing to change the names of posters with whom you disagree?’
A gem from the ultimate embodiment of a waste of time in blog dialogue.
Don’t know about any ‘ist/ism/zi/inger generalities you seem so prone to concocting, but your memory seems as short as your appreciation that others beyond the BBC research team can check the archives of the default contrarian shift’s contributions here, too.
Go on, try. Share your insight, Albaman. Don’t be such a tease and flounce off. Bup can take it.
Every point rings true to anyone with their eyes and ears open, though not to anyone with a fortress around their head to keep out unapproved thoughts.
Not flouncing off anywhere but bearing in mind the content of his post I am not prepared to waste any time in educating him.
I actually felt the same when I watched Wales England in the rugby a couple of weeks ago.
The pride and passion of the Welsh support (albeit all a bit gargle-fuelled) cheering on professionals at the top of their game.
But come Monday morning three quarters of them woke up (all that pride and passion a distant memory) and either stayed in bed because they’re quote unquote jobseekers, or went off to useless public sector jobs.
If only all that passion and pride could be properly harnessed, my what a nation they would have. Sadly the public teat, rather than nourishing just sucks the life out of any lips that get attached to it.
‘Shall I create an upmarket wallpaper company like Osborne & Little that supplies a need and employs 250 people? Nah, I’ll go on social, easier inni’.
The West Albanians can’t even manage the pride and the passion bit.
🙁
Here in Wales, we havent quite gotten to the Bottle of Buckie and a fryed mars bar yet!
Bydd yn ofalus wncwl!
Fried ! Damn damn !
Do’n i ddim yn ei syllafi fe’n iawn.
I know the current owner of the Fish & Chip Shop which “invented” the deep fried Mars Bar. They sell around 150 of these per week – almost exclusively to tourists the vast proportion of whom are English.
tell us the one about the glasgow ‘greengrocer’ whose one concession to ‘green’ was a can of marrowfat peas.
I always thought the green stuff was what mandlebum thought was guacamole, but was actually mushy peas!
True story – the manufacturers of temazepam eventually stopped selling it in liquid form because the west albanians/ sweaties injected it into their veins.
Instead of liquid they sold it as a gel. The WA’s ‘got round’ this problem by melting it then injecting it. Unfortunately the resultant liquid once in the veins cooled down and reverted back to gel – with predictable (to everyone else at any rate) effects on the blood circulatory system.
Darwinism – pure and simple.
Give the lie to this one, al-bammer.
Urban myth?
Eh. Eh.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
… s’one of these abiding rules by which I live my life
If You Can’t Torture A Trot – Twat A Nat.
`harrowing` – very decca acneface
There are a handful of people at the BBC who are dimly aware that there are some ungrateful Africans who feel they and the white Western media have done a disservice to Africa. Somebody at the World Service asked Binyavanga Wainaina to write a “Viewpoint” piece explaining it (he’s smart and courteous enough not to bite his host’s hand, of course) and appear on air to talk about it.
Viewpoint: Binyavanga on why Africa’s international image is unfair
Lets look at Africa as this was the original topic. Born and bred in what is now Zimbabwe, my father and many thousands of British WW2 vets settled there after the war. A country climatically divided in 2 parts.
A northern region with fair rainfall and fairly good soil. The southern part semi arid desert. The only really habitable zone being the central high veld because malaria and tsetse fly made life very difficult off the escarpment.
In 1891 the white colonists funded privately by the BSA Company founded and financed by Cecil John Rhodes settled a war torn country where the Mashona tribesmen were regularly slaughtered by their Southern counterparts, the Matabele (a renegade Zulu Impi).
Both major tribes were migrant herders. They had never seen the wheel and had no knowledge of agrarian farming. This applies to most sub-Saharan African tribes.
The white Europeans built farms out of virgin bush. They developed industries. They built roads, railroads, water storage dams, schools and hospitals. Most big farms had their own schools for their workers paid for by the farmer. Many big farms had their own clinics, again funded and staffed by their owners.
They exploited the huge coal reserves to supply electricity. Built Kariba the biggest man made lake in Africa at the time which supplied two countries with hydo electricity. They built another big lake in the south to provide irrigation to a newly laid out farming area producing fruit and sugar.
They eradicated tsetse fly, making the lowlands suitable for cattle farming. Huge ranches produced, free range premium beef. This was highly prized meat sold all over the World. During the sanctions years even flown out to “friendly” North African states for shipment to Europe.
They controlled malaria and made many areas safe again for human habitation.
In 1958 it was decided that Africans were better suited to run Africa than white Europeans and one by one by one the countries were handed over to indigenous majority rule.
Rhodesia and South Africa defied the West. Despite economic sanctions Rhodesia was pretty much self sufficient apart from crude oil. What they could no longer import they started making themselves.
Move forward to 2013. The population has tripled from 4m in 1980 to 12m in 2012. All commercial grain farms have gone. 4000 commercial farms existed in 1980, there are less than 100 now. The country is totally dependent on food aid largely in the form of donation from the USA.
The power stations built on the coal fields in the West barely produce any electricity. Kariba sometimes works. They owe South Africa US$20bn for electricity supplied. The national herd is now largely gone due to nationalisation of the farms and anthrax.
With effect from 2012 all businesses were nationalised with ownership passing to Zimbabwe nationals.
Currently it is estimated that between 3 – 5m live in South Africa as refugees. Unemployment runs at over 50%. They no longer have their own currency but operate in US$ and RSA Rand. The Rhodesian Dollar was the strongest currency in Africa in 1980 trading at 1.2 against the RSA Rand the next strongest.
Mugabe is rated as the 3rd richest man in Africa. There has never been a fair election there ever including the first one supervised by the British. The country owes billions in loans to Britain, the IMF and South Africa.
This is story of one country. There are countless others with exactly the same history. The fact is Negroid Africans lack the sociological and political ability to run a modern country. They know how to breed, kill and pillage though. They have run out of victims in Africa and transferred to Europe.