This is from a speech Patten gave recently….not much needs to be said other than perhaps it is interesting as to just how much reach Patten admits the BBC has compared to Sky…and how influential it is in defining the cultural and social narrative of Britain….something they would never admit to whilst fighting the Murdoch BSkyB bid….and how the scale of the BBC allows it to take risks that commercial companies cannot….of course it is the nature of the funding of the BBC that really allows it to take risks….though you have to ask ‘what risks are they then?‘….they didn’t use the scale of funding to buy surefire sports rights….and repeats of Dad’s Army and Top Gear is hardly cutting edge stuff.

‘We have to aim always for the truth, including the truth however horrible it may be about ourselves. 

The BBC aspires to a series of ideals – universal reach, accuracy in reporting, impartiality, pluralism, the highest standards of quality and distinctiveness – that should never allow for complacency or the development of a “holier than thou” spirit.

I think the public buy into these ideals.  But that means they are rightly hard on the BBC when it fails to live up to them.

Inevitably, the trust on which the BBC’s place in our national life above all depends has been hit by the Savile scandal and its handling.  Despite that, the polls continue to show that the public still trusts the BBC far more than any other news organisation.    That trust translates into audience habits and behaviour so that, for instance, while the BBC accounts for just over a quarter of all the TV news minutes which are broadcast it is responsible for something nearer three quarters of all the TV news that is consumed.  I am a big admirer of Sky’s rolling news programmes (which took for instance an admirably independent line in covering the problems of the Murdoch empire), but when the Trust reviewed the BBC News Channel in 2011 we found that it had a higher reach than Sky News even in homes with a Sky box.

Second, any well-founded criticism of the quality and accuracy of our journalism will always require urgent attention.  On almost every sensitive issue from the Middle East to climate change, from Europe to macro-economic management, we are likely to find ourselves criticised from both sides.  It is not enough for the BBC to argue that if it is being criticised from both sides, it must have got things just about right.  We have to try to ensure that we reflect the complexity of issues, and that intelligent contrary opinions are given proper weight.

We must never be driven simply by ratings.  As I have argued consistently since I became Chairman of the Trust in mid-2011, we have a licence to be different.  The BBC’s scale, security and independence allow us the freedom to experiment, to be creative, to take risks.  To surprise, sometimes to shock and even sometimes, unfortunately, to offend.

That is what it should mean to be a public service broadcaster, and in the BBC’s case to be at the social and cultural heart of our nation’s life, a part of the national conversation.

For the BBC, the challenge has always been to set our own standards and boundaries in the right way so that we can promote our core purpose – the pursuit of truth – in a way that the public trust and respect.  And that includes from time to time pursuing the truth about ourselves even when it is grisly.’

‘….pursuing the truth about ourselves even when it is grisly.’….so publish the Balen Report.

No wonder John Humphrys is so grumpy in the morning…he obviously doesn’t feel able to have any breakfast from the staff canteen when at work:

Standards have sunk to a new low at the BBC as workers in the News Department are knee deep in battling a hygiene crisis.

Health and safety experts have stepped in to check everyone is toeing the line, putting up a sign in the new Broadcasting House offices’ kitchen warning staff not to wash their feet in the sink.

How dare the BBC lecture hospitals etc etc….

Whilst having a look through the BBC tweets I came across this from Lyse Doucet advertising her ‘interview’ with ‘Alice Walker, author of ‘The Colour Purple’,  one of America’s most successful writers and campaigners. She’s also been highly critical of successive US presidents. So, is President Obama doing any better? Newshour’s Lyse Doucet caught up with her in London. Lyse began by asking about the significance of the title of a new film about her life, ‘Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth.’ :

lyse doucet ‏@bbclysedoucet

“the more u honour truth, the more hopeful u can be” Alice Walker on @BBCNewshour @Alicewalkerfilm http://ow.ly/iDaXD

Alice had a lot to say, she is after all a poet and activist.

David (Preiser) you’d better take a seat!

‘The United States is founded on  a lie…it wasn’t a democracy when it was founded because there were no women in government…just wealthy white men…and it is still run by wealthy white men.’

(er….??????)

‘Obama doesn’t listen to the masses only to the men with money…he only listen to the Bankers…not the Poets.’

‘He must listen to the women, children..and the Poets.’

If only she took her own advice.

One of Lyse Doucets few questions….‘How can we solve the world’s problems?’

Answer….’We must have women as the leadership….women of colour.  White women have been in cahoots with men for too long…they have lost the ability to know how to live….witch burnings  have frightened European women so severely that they lost the ability to stand alone and fight for what is just.’

Must be right because Doucet said thankyou very much, what a lovely interview.  Doucet or Doormat?

How does the BBC accept such absolute racist, sexist, stupid nonsense from someone just because they are ‘of colour’?   Why are musicians, poets and writers given such license by the BBC to comment on world affairs when they are no more equipped than you or me…and you can guarantee if you or me said such things we would soon face a ‘twitter storm’ from the very same people who are probably right now listening in rapturous wonder to Walker’s words?

Having said all that..if they’d listened to Kipling…..

Not a word of apology from Donnison and Co for demonising Israelis by falsely accusing them of killing their colleague’s baby son when disproved by UN human right’s report.

Donnison is keen to bring us these two looks at possible failures of Israeli military:

Jon Donnison ?@JonDonnison
#Haaretz: Study casts doubt of success rate of #Israel’s Iron Dome Missile shield. Intercepts “perhaps as low as 5%” http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/how-many-rockets-has-iron-dome-really-intercepted.premium-1.508277 …

Jon Donnison ?@JonDonnison
Jereuslem Post: Israelis plant trees to protect against #Gaza rockets. Some Kibbutz residents skeptical. http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=305935 … #Israel

And Lyse Doucet thinks it important to mention another UN human right’s report:

lyse doucet ‏@bbclysedoucet

UN’s #Syria Human Rights report released today – grim account war crimes. We take another look at #Haswiya http://ow.ly/iIM04

Some claims of BBC bias are based on fact, others are based on pure fantasy as this ‘report’, ‘Racism and Zionism Rule the BBC’s Failing News Agenda’ from 21st Century Wire illustrates….unknown who backs 21Wire but if it isn’t Iran I’d be surprised…Patrick Henningsen, founder of 21Wire, being a stout defender of Press TV and of Assad’s Iran friendly Syria………

Protest demands BBC lift reporting blackout on Palestinian hunger strikers

Monday 18th February 2013 was a day to demonstrate against the BBC’s blackout of news coverage of the plight of Palestinian hunger strikers.

All very worthy….However a quick look at BBC coverage shows that the BBC have been far from lax in their desire to report the hunger strikes from the beginning…….so not really biased in favour of the Israelis…who’dathunk?:

• 7 March 2013
  • Shot Palestinian Mohammed Asfour dies in hospital

    

    Middle East / 7 March 2013Bank village of Aboud on 22 February. He had been protesting against the continued detention of four hunger strikers after the death of a detainee.

• 27 February 2013
  • Gaza rocket lands near Ashkelon in southern Israel

    

    Middle East / 27 February 2013Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters in the West Bank. Violence erupted over the detention of hunger strikers and the death of a Palestinian…

• 25 February 2013
  • Palestinian detainee Arafat Jaradat’s funeral held

    

    Middle East / 25 February 2013… the Israeli army and Palestinian protesters angry at the continued detention of four Palestinian hunger strikers in Israel jails. There’s a fear…

• 24 February 2013
  • Palestinian prisoners stage fast over inmate death

    

    Middle East / 24 February 2013… between the Israeli army and Palestinian youths over the continued detention of four hunger strikers. The clashes. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners…

• 22 February 2013
  • Clashes over hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners

    

    Middle East / 22 February 2013It follows a week of violence amid calls for four Palestinian hunger strikers to be released. Reuters news agency cited witnesses as saying dozens…

• 21 February 2013
  • Many injured in West Bank protests over hunger strikes

    

    Middle East / 21 February 2013Israel argues the men are a security threat. One of the hunger strikers, Samer Issawi, has been on an. More than 60 people have been injured in…

• 18 February 2013
  • Protest in West Bank for Palestinian hunger strikers

    

    Middle East / 18 February 2013Protests have been held in the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails. The Middle East Quartet (UN, US, EU…

• 22 November 2012
  • Anti-Israel group makes protest at Scottish Parliament

    

    Edinburgh, Fife & East Scotland / 22 November 2012Members of a group called We Are All Hana Shalabi, named after a Palestinian hunger striker, scaled the roof of the building’s entrance. They…

• 11 May 2012
  • Palestinian rally for hunger strikers

    

    11 May 2012In Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in a sign of solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike…

• 8 May 2012
  • Palestinian hunger striker admitted to Israeli hospital

    

    Middle East / 8 May 2012… about the hunger strikers and urged the Israeli government “make available all necessary medical assistance and to allow family visits”. Palestinian…

• 7 May 2012
  • Israel Supreme Court rejects hunger strikers’ appeal

    

    Middle East / 7 May 2012Mr Diab is reported to have collapsed and was rushed to hospital. Mass hunger strike More than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners have joined the two…

• 3 May 2012
  • Israel’s Supreme Court hears hunger strikers’ appeal

    

    Middle East / 3 May 2012… outside the jails where they are being held. There are clearly concerns that should the health of the hunger strikers dramatically worsen the…

• 2 May 2012
  • Israeli treatment of hunger strikers ‘appals’ UN expert

    

    Middle East / 2 May 2012… in Israeli prisons”, as Palestinian inmates continue a mass hunger strike. Special Rapporteur Richard Falk said Israel had to treat hunger strikers…

• 25 April 2012
  • Palestinian prisoners in Israel continue hunger strike

    

    Middle East / 25 April 2012The Israel Prison Service has said that more than 1,300 Palestinian prisoners remain on hunger strike, more than a week after they began their…

• 2 April 2012
  • Palestinian hunger striker Hana Shalabi exiled to Gaza

    

    Middle East / 2 April 2012A Palestinian woman prisoner who had been on hunger strike for more than 40 days has been released by the Israeli authorities and exiled to Gaza.

• 16 August 2004
  • Israel turns up heat on prisoners

    Middle East / 16 August 2004… prisoners Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, himself a virtual prisoner of Israel at his West Bank headquarters, hailed the hunger strikers as…

The BBC has decided its image needs a bit of a burnish…so it decided to look through the archives, find times when it was mired in controversy and catching some flak.

It then does what the BBC does best….rewrite history….funnily enough with the BBC always coming out on top having been ‘proved’ right all along in the end.

Eight programmes of ‘Battle For The Airwaves’ presented by Nick Robinson…..The series examines the struggles between broadcasters and politicians…..the 1936 general strike, Churchill in the 1930’s, Suez, Labour in the 1970’s, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Iraq war and present day relations with politicians.

As Nick Robinson says:

‘Good old BBC Radio 4 have made every episode of my recent series Battle for the Airwaves available on iPlayer for the next year.’

Funny what they make available for the longest time on iPlayer.

I listened to ‘Churchill’ and the ‘Iraq War’ programmes….couldn’t listen to any more.

None of it was really the BBC’s fault…it was all really government pressure that kept Churchill and his anti-appeasement views off the BBC…and as for the Iraq War…well the BBC were ‘caught between a (bullying) government determined to prove that war was both necessary and just and its opponents who insisted it was premature, immoral and based on a lie…..and Greg Dyke only wanted to prove his independence against a bullying government.’ .

Apparently the ‘Public’ all knew ‘Hutton’ was a whitewash and loved the BBC ever more because of it.

Robinson signs off with the claim that the ‘Battle For The Airwaves’ over the Iraq War was the only one that cost a man’s life…that of David Kelly.

I might suggest otherwise….the BBC’s whole coverage of the Afghan and Iraq wars has cost the lives of many people…both allied forces and civilians.  The keeping of Churchill off the airwaves contributed to the appeasing of Hitler and the token opposition to his actions.  The BBC’s coverage of the Falklands just gives further encouragement to Argentina.  Its coverage of Northern Ireland gave the ‘oxygen of publicity’ to terrorists…as its constant excuses for Islamic terrorism does today.  Its position on Suez led to historic consequences as Britian was forced to withdraw with its tail between its legs by the Yanks.

Its coverage of Europe has given cover to politicians who want to move ever closer to European integration even as Europe ‘burns’ around us.

Its coverage of immigration has allowed politicians to do as they like destroying a society and a culture without account…..600,000 native Brits forced out of London alone.

Its coverage of the economy has allowed Labour to keep its head afloat with the ability to deny all responsibility for the economic disaster it engineered.

And of course its recent coverage of the Middle East has meant that Jews around the world face rising anti-Semitism and conflicts are prolonged without resolution as Israel is constantly held back from finishing the job by a barrage of negative media reports influencing politicians….Blair of course being forced out of government by his support for Israel in Lebanon.

Here’s an idea for another programme…’What would Britain be like if the BBC didn’t exist?’

In the case of Omar al-Mishrawi, as with the death of Muhammed al-Durrah, the BBC leapt to conclusions about who caused the death of a Palestinian child…blaming it on Israel without  proof.

The BBC knows full well the dramatic power of such images and the effect of such lucid and emotive language in its reports upon perceptions of Israeli actions that people will have when  Israel is painted in such a bad light…and yet they recklessly, deliberately, pack their reports with prejudicial images and words that are almost designed to incite anger against Israelis and foment further violence.

We don’t really need to know the contents of the Balen Report…we can see for ourselves that BBC reporting from the Middle East is so blatantly partisan, so dangerously anti-Israeli that it can only have the effect of encouraging ani-Semitism around the world.

The fact that the truth eventually comes out many months later is of no consequence…the damage has already been done.  The BBC knows this but carries on regardless filling the airwaves with its partisan reports.

Here is the truth of what caused Omar al-Mishrawi’s death Via Elders of Zion:

UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza

Jerusalem had been blamed for death of BBC correspondent’s son during mini-war, but otherwise critical report finds shrapnel from Hamas misfire responsible

The UN report suggests the three members of the Mishrawi family were killed by a rocket fired by Palestinians and not by an Israeli airstrike.

“On 14 November, a woman[actually the aunt of the child], her 11-month-old infant, and an 18-year-old adult in al-Zaytoun were killed by what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel,” the report states.

The three people killed were Jihad al-Mishrawi’s son Omar, his sister-in-law, Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, and his brother Ahmad.

Here’s a flavour of the BBC’s coverage:

The BBC’s Jon Donnison reported of Omar that “He only knew how to smile,”  but he was now only “A hideous tiny corpse. Omar’s smiling face virtually burnt off, that fine hair appearing to be melted on to his scalp.”

“Most likely is that Omar died in one of the more than 20 bombings across Gaza that the Israeli military says made up its initial wave of attacks. Omar was not a terrorist.”

@BBCPaulAdams
Paul Adams Spare a thought for Omar, 11-month son of our BBC Arabic Service colleague in Gaza, killed in today’s Israeli air strike.

“BBC journalists tweeted that those killed in an Israeli airstrike included the sister-in-law and 11-month-old son of a BBC Arabic Service journalist, and that the journalist’s brother was seriously wounded,” Human Rights Watch stated in a November 15 press release.

From The Washington Post :
‘An Israeli round hit Misharawi’s four-room home in Gaza Wednesday, killing his son, according to BBC Middle East bureau chief Paul Danahar, who arrived in Gaza earlier Thursday. Misharawi’s sister-in-law was also killed, and his brother wounded. Misharawi told Danahar that, when the round landed, there was no fighting in his residential neighborhood.

“We’re all one team in Gaza,” Danahar told me, saying that Misharawi is a BBC video and photo editor. After spending a “few hours” with his grieving colleague, he wrote on Twitter, ”Questioned asked here is: if Israel can kill a man riding on a moving motorbike (as they did last month) how did Jihad’s son get killed.”’

From BBCWatch:

On the Wednesday before last, soon after Gaza’s latest war erupted with Israel’s killing of Hamas’ military commander Ahmed al Jabari, Jihad burst out of the edit suite, screaming. He sprinted down the stairs, his face ripped with anguish. He’d just had a call from a friend to tell him the Israeli military had bombed his house and that his eleven month-old baby boy Omar was dead.

I guess nothing much has changed in the way the BBC reports events from there.

The photograph comes from a small blog (The author says…..‘If you do read this (and to date) it has been viewed 41 times – though whether by 41 people I don’t know…)….but its sentiment expressed in the title could very well be the BBC’s attitude towards Eurosceptics.

Six days ago that blog reported this:

Monday, March 4, 2013

Forget UKIP, many economists in Germany now want an alternative to the euro freaks, too

‘A drum roll please for ‘Alternative für Deutschland’, a soon-to-be-established party in Germany whose would-be founders and supporters are terminally f***** **f with the whole euro crisis, Merkel’s measures to solve it and cross-party support in the Bundestag for those measures.’

A new Euro sceptic party, Alternative For Germany, has been formed…..it formally announces its creation tomorrow.

Coverage has been widespread across Europe, even the Indian press reported the story.

Not the BBC website.

The BBC seems to have studiously ignored this new party despite it being described a ‘nasty shock for Merkel’.

Here’s Der Spiegel:

Germany’s New Anti-Euro Party
03/08/2013 | By Charles Hawley
Anti-euro political parties in Europe in recent years have so far tended to be either well to the right of center or, as evidenced by the recent vote in Italy, anything but staid. But in Germany, change may be afoot. A new party is forming this spring, intent on abandoning European efforts to prop up the common currency. And its founders are a collection of some of the country’s top economists and academics.

Or the Telegraph

Or the Irish Times

Or the Indian press

Any reason why the BBC says so little about Euro sceptics…even a party formed from  some of Germany’s ‘top economists and academics’?

No doubt it will merit a quick appraisal tomorrow and then disappear from the web pages as rapidly as the BBC’s coverage of the German green energy policy disasters do.

The world’s biggest news organisation…beaten by a blog that has had 41, now at least 42 including me, viewers.  I wonder how much he pays himself?

The BBC, the Greens and the Veggies join forces to damn meat eaters.

Their latest was a bit of nonsense about bacon sandwiches needing to have ‘gun licenses’ or some such daftness.

All intended to bend our ear and save the planet from the evils of live stock farming.

I wonder how they will react to the below:

We all know that livestock destroys the planet and turns lush, green landscapes into desert.

That may not be true.

WUWT has a write up on a TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory in Los Angeles this past week.

In Africa they burn 1 billion hectares of grassland a year to ‘manage’ it….the BBC do not dwell on such facts….it is you, the greedy Westerner, on the way to Tescos in your car, who has killed many Ethiopians by your pollution…..(If you think that is a joke…not…the BBC really made that claim)

Burning 1 hectare releases the pollution that 6000 cars do.

Burmning 1 billion hectares must therefore pollute the earth as much as the equivalent car use of 6 trillion cars.

The solution, the ‘only’ solution, to ever increasingly desertification…is completely counterintuitive and goes against the ‘consensus’….

…the mass herding of livestock…..to replictae the enormous natural herds of animals that used to roam the lands…such as buffalo in the USA.

What is an added bonus is that such a policy, if successful, would take the atmospheric CO2 level back to that of the pre-industrial age….if half the presently desertified land was reclaimed.

Here is the video….Dr Allan Savory clearly accepts CO2 as a main driver of climate change……but that is almost irrelevant…

This really goes against the grain of BBC narrative….livestock farming is bad…that the third world is the ‘innocent’ victim of industrial nation’s pollution and that the ‘only’ solution is to close down Western, and seemingly only Western, industry.

The third world has massively increased its population…it burns enormous amounts of wood/fuel in its cooking and in highly inefficent industrial processes, and deforests enormous areas…and turns productive land to desert….and releases huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere…via rice growing….methane which is far more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

It’s not all one way the blame game…unless you work for the BBC and have an agenda.