They fill up quick these days.
ANOTHER OPEN THREAD
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- JohnC Nov 19, 04:30
Start the Week 18th November 2024
And from wiki: ‘He later became policy editor of the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.’ Anyone who tries to… - JohnC Nov 19, 03:43
Start the Week 18th November 2024
I see the BBC plug their own shows for his obituary and don’t mention the classic ‘Brass’ (made by Granada)… - JohnC Nov 19, 02:31
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Just so it’s not lost in time and in the spirit of the gross two-tier double standards which are now… - StewGreen Nov 19, 00:32
Start the Week 18th November 2024
classic old Guardian image [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GcsQuGTWsAAqCzE?format=jpg&name=small[/img] - StewGreen Nov 19, 00:27
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Skeptical Science is a scurrilous propaganda site Ambush named cos it is neither scientific nor sceptical - StewGreen Nov 19, 00:17
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Raving comments for a start it’s a NEW tweet, yet the article is from 2022 #HateyLefties being Hatey as usual… - StewGreen Nov 19, 00:04
Start the Week 18th November 2024
“meeting those wanting to start new lives” FFS is that an impartial way of describing people who ILLEGALLY BREAK IN… - StewGreen Nov 18, 23:58
Start the Week 18th November 2024
I did see a convincing tweet today that said Laurence Fox was wrong to claim Starmer years back acted for… - JohnC Nov 18, 23:53
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Using the statement ‘particularly sensitive social climate’ as a justification for sending him to prison is the stuff of fascist… - StewGreen Nov 18, 23:45
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Switch on bingo #1 Flipped to BBC 1 Eastenders : they were in Queen Vic ..having a drag show #2…
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Syria !
Anyone else noticing the lack of bias in the BBC reporting of the chemical weapons use? It seems that the BBC are as confused by the situation as the rest of us are.
Maybe they’re waiting on Obama to make his mind up, because I’m damn sure they would (and should) have gone for William Hague over his idiocy.
According to UKpollingreport only 9% support military intervention in Syria (and they’re probably Muslims with a connection) 74% oppose sending troops, and 58% oppose sending even small arms to the rebels.
Maybe the BBC has learned its lesson from the BLiar adventures and his corruption investigation.
As an aside if anyone is wondering leftie Dave has stymied the investigation by refusing access to the secret papers essential for the investigators.
I think the BBC just doesn’t know which way the wind is blowing, and it really is noticeably different when they do report in a balanced manner.
The only lesson the BBC learned from Blair’s war adventures was that it was wrong when a Republican President did it, and any PM who goes along with a US cowboy is a lapdog currying favor. They don’t have the same criteria with which to judge the current situation (they love the current US President and dislike the current British Prime Minister), so it’s quite the conundrum. On the one hand, Western intervention in Muslim Lands is bad, m’kay, but on the other hand, human rights, sexy carnage, think of the children. I’m sure many Beeboids don’t know which way to turn. Impartiality is forced upon them. Perhaps some of them are hoping that Assad will stay on and continue to butcher his people, because, let’s face it, there are journalism awards to be had with this sort of thing. And it’s always quality journalism to stand at the scene of a bloodbath and report the carnage in somber tones, with long faces. It feels so good afterwards. I’m sure none of this ever comes up in a professional newsroom, yeah.
Just so long as it doesn’t make the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate-in-Chief look bad.
“It feels so good afterwards”. Nobody likes journalists. But do you really believe they get a kick out of gas attacks? Lets forget the big shot war reporters for a second. Do you think,some junior BBC reporter enjoyed sitting at their desk watching endless videos of children coughing up white foam and dying?
Who said anything about getting a kick out of merely watching the videos, ITG? What a bizarre thing to say. I’m talking about them feeling good about themselves for tugging on the public’s heartstrings and making emotional reports to the world about atrocities (real or imagined) which make us all feel bad.
Consider Jon Donnison tweeting that photograph which he claimed was of a child killed by Israel. He’s no big shot war reporter. Obviously he didn’t get a kick out of looking at that photo of a dead child. It made him feel bad, which is why he brought it to his readers’ attention. It feels good to do this sort of thing, although it must have been a disappointment to him to learn that it was not what he thought it was. You might ask yourself if he then still felt as bad looking at that photo – of an actual dead child killed by weapons of war, remember, albeit not one killed by Israel – as he did the first time.
And don’t tell me some junior BBC reporter wouldn’t leap at the chance to do the same as any big shot war reporter. It’s not about looking at the videos and feeling good: it’s about felling good about making other people watch them.
I do also get the impression that even the BBC realises that there’s a lot more to these alleged chemical attacks than meets the eye. All news outlets seem to be using the word ‘alleged’ quite heavily. In fact most of it looks so unrealistic or it is so ambiguous as to who carried out the attack, I’m almost wondering whether it’s a false false-flag attack – i.e some other agency has set up an attack which looks to be Assad, but on closer inspection looks to be the rebels. Who would do such a thing? Those darn Russkies? It’s so ham-fisted it really does look like the rebels though.
‘All news outlets seem to be using the word ‘alleged’ quite heavily’
Not sure that’s true. The i flat out said it was Assad wot dun it yesterday as the staff boarded an Antonov ready for their own personal Market Garden.
If others are being more cautious, then bravo them.
If we’re into devious plays that would make George Smiely’s head spin so be it, but what’s coming out of the Keery/Hague/Hollande orifices while Dave pokes Barack doesn’t fill one with much confidence in the calibre of intel and statesmanship around the place thus far.
And, be they complicit or simply self-interested, it may be that the Russians are worth paying a wee bit more attention to on this than any gender-issues they may have around sports events.
Last I saw they are not averse to running honking great armoured hovercraft up beaches without too much compunction.
True, but then I don’t read the ‘i’!
This is quite amusing. I felt a bit mentally ill after visiting the site but there be some truth to this:
http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/89679-flashback-us-backed-plan-to-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-on-syria-and-blame-it-on-assads-regime
I think it’s got to the stage where if they say it often enough, it becomes true. A bit like global warming.
Yesterday morning Hague was interviewed on Today and was allowed to say he thought Assad did it without once being asked why Assad would do it, knowing the likely consequences. Whatever the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if Assad knew nothing about it. Perhaps a renegade faction of officers looking to topple Assad and perfectly willing to kill hundreds if it advances their objectives? There seems to be an astounding lack of curiousity amongst the media generally, not just the BBC and a determination to stick our noses regardless.
However if comments I’ve seen at various outlets are anything to go by, the British public are not convinced.
One producer said that, prior to the meeting at No 10, the BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, had told Downing Street communications chiefs: “It’s not our job to broadcast televised press releases!”
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/downing-street-hogs-the-remote-control-the-pms-use-of-tame-media-is-annoying-the-big-guns-at-sky-itn-and-the-bbc-8783680.html
You could have fooled me, dick ‘ed.
“Labour says…”
Not anymore, anyway. I guess defenders of the indefensible will have to remain quiet about how Robinson the Conservative is proof that the BBC isn’t biased to the Left. Remember when Robinson (and Peston) used to do No. 10 press releases, but got double-crossed when Gordon Brown reneged on that VAT rise? Ah, good times, good times…..
I am enjoying, though, the venom apparently being heaped on the traitor Craig Oliver. Awwww.
Great comment there from “s_n_c”:
Nick Robinson: “It’s not our job to broadcast televised press releases!”
ha ha ha – like all political correspondents he needs them to be dressed up as confidential briefings and leaks – or best, a ‘scoop’… then he broadcasts them almost verbatim. Need to keep up the pretence of journalism…
The entire news political agenda is spin, and pretending otherwise is self-delusion. If you want proof just look at how little attention is paid to funding, lobbying, conflict of interests and corruption in government on everyday policy. These are hermetically sealed off as stories suggesting that they’re the anomaly not the everyday business of politics.
And the BBC is very happy to roll out ‘think tank’ experts that are industry lobbyists without disclosing their funding.
Either somebody is reading this blog, or it’s not quite the extreme, obscure minority opinion defenders of the indefensible claim it is.
Given the paper’s slant and readership, the ‘big beasts’ of the media news world don’t seem to be getting the most sympathetic of hearings from the Indy-crowd.
One might almost say their whinges were being greeted in a hostile manner.
Not pro-government; simply media distain. And these guys so deserve it.
Nick ‘sources say’ Robinson? A bad joke. Alan Boulton is a balloon of blubber further inflated by his sense of self importance.
And what are they and these ‘senior producers’ going to do if they don’t get what they demand? Pull a Greenwald and make England pay? Make things up?
Problem is, when you’ve blown all your bargaining chips away, no hand played is going to win.
The thought of all these self-important, irrelevant creeps crying into each other’s G&T’s in the HoC bars quite tops of the day for me.
Not too keen on Cameron avoiding being held to account, but in hiring an-ex-Beeboid he may have found the perfect experience to manage just that. And the likes of Robinson sound pretty silly sulking about having their own methods played back.
Wait until it’s a pre-speech briefing from a ‘Government Spokesperson’ saying he will say they ‘got it about right’, but any supporting evidence for this is exempted under FoI.
St. Edward, he ain’t:
Report: Snowden stayed at Russian consulate while in Hong Kong
Kind of undermines the heroic desire for liberty and truth. BBC: Donald Trump….Justin Timberlake….ZZZzzzzzzzz
An interesting article on the BBC online magazine, exploring democracy (the first article looks at democracy and islam):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23810527
This actually looks like it could end up being an informative and generally neutral (ideologically) series. The author is a professor of philosophy who defines himself as a conservative, which is perhaps why his article is better than the typical beeboid fare.
I’ll wait to see how the rest of his series of articles pans out, but am cautiously optimistic that it will be decent.
If the BBC routinely put out this type of output, there’d be much less need for sites like biased BBC.
Can’t edit my comments, but the above comment is wrong in that the article I linked to is the 2nd in Roger Scruton’s series.
…..and Scruton’s series of Points of View has been excellent.
Oh, dear, Jeremy Bowen won’t like this line:
In the Middle East today, we find parties standing for election, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which regards an electoral victory as the opportunity to crush dissent and impose a way of life that for many citizens is simply unacceptable. In such circumstances democracy is a threat to human rights and not a way of protecting them.
Will Bowen (and INBBC’s Cairo Bureau, plus INBBC Arabic TV service) have heard of Prof Scruton?
And even if they have heard of him, won’t they stick with the Muslim Brotherhood as a suitable political ‘left’ undemocratic ally?
Will Beeboid ears be burning if they read the following short chapter by Roger Scruton on ‘OIKOPHOBIA’ here, from his book ‘England and the Need for Nations’ (Civitas, 2006)?
Click to access cs49-8.pdf
Other excerpts from Scruton’s book (above)-
1.) ‘Foreward’-
Click to access cs49a.pdf
2.) Ch 1. ‘Introduction’-
Click to access cs49-1.pdf
Amazon- Kindle-
‘look inside’.
I’m kind of thinking that Bowen and the Beeboids don’t mind what Scruton’s saying too much at all (except the part about how Morsi was horribly wrong: I’m sure Bowen would hate that, as he told El Baradei that Morsi should have been allowed to carry on regardless). Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems like he’s saying that the Egyptians (for example) really want Sharia and the ability to vote for it over and over, and not much else, and that we in the West shouldn’t have tried to impose anything on them (as in Iraq and Afghanistan).
Of course, Scruton doesn’t get into the fact that a country needs to have some kind of established rule of law and not so much of an instinct for ultra-violence at the drop of a hat before any kind of stable system can ensue. But it sure seems like what he’s saying could be taken as fodder for Bowen and his kind, even if that’s not what he really means.
Scruton’s current Points of View short chats DO put emphasis on rule of law, free judiciary and media etc as a pre-requisite of real democracy. Worth listening to, very crisp.
I’ll have to check it out. It’s nice to know the BBC at least allows this voice on air from time to time.
Radio 4 is now running a programme on Martin Luther King by Gary Younge – ex-guardian, now living in Chicago. I have heard nothing new or original.
Some questions :
1 How does the Guardian (and the Indy) flock of writers keep such a close line into the BBC – getting paid lots of money for interviews and programmes. Far more, I would guess, than all the right-wing UK press put together.
2 With all those BBC staff in the US – why use someone like Younge ? Why couldn’t Mardell do it,, given the importance accorded to MLK by the BBC, using some researchers and juniors to tee it up ?
Why are so many licence-fees being syphoned off to support writers and commentators outside the BBC who prop up the BBC’s own groupthink ?
Why Gary Younge and not Mardell or someone else? Because Younge is the SOB who wrote that “Zimmerman is a racist who killed a black boy in cold blood because he wanted to kill a black person” article for the Guardian. You know as soon as they saw that, they knew Younge was just the man for the job.
Only somebody that vicious and on-message can do what the BBC needs done here.
Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood.
The following ‘Fox News’ report is not a line which INBBC will want to pursue re-Muslim Brotherhood (MB):-
“Muslim Brotherhood’s bid to scapegoat Christians failing, say Egyptians”
(2 min video report).
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/25/muslim-brotherhood-bid-to-scapegoat-christians-failing-say-egyptians/?
The contrast between ‘Fox News’ and INBBC on this issue is enormous:
whereas INBBC habitually gives uncritical time to MB Muslim spokespersons, ‘Fox News,’ in contrast, gives airtime to Christian victims of MB.
Will BBC-NUJ provide better broadcasting treatment for Americans, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, than for Muslim Brotherhood?
Pamela Geller’s ‘Atlas Shrugs’ site-
“BRITISH BAN: THE HOME SECRETARY RESPONDS”
[Opening excerpt]:-
“The Home Secretary has responded to our request to commence proceedings for a judicial review. I am posting all 38 pages, it is appalling.
“It most awfully demonstrates the fraudulent, arbitrary and capricious nature of government use of power.”
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/08/british-ban-the-home-secretary-responds.html
Self-serving attrition via legalese, semantics & double standards, culminating in a ‘we can do whatever we feel like’.
Is BBC complaints moonlighting?
Skimming through, one is again struck by the claimed concern at actual offence… actually offence possibly to be inspired by presence, in comparison to examples of actual offence tolerated or ignored when committed.
Danegeld whilst being raped and pillaged seems a perverse investment.
And much appears based on what HMG have been told, or warned about, albeit by a narrow group of advisers. Or those who already can create no-go areas in the UK with impunity.
This would be the same government apparently prepared to commit to war based on ‘what some blokes’ have said, and at risk of retribution by another unsavoury character as a consequence.
http://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/i-newspaper/front-pages-today.cfm?frontpage=31033
(Hard to see, but that second red-pointed callout suggests confirmation of Assad complicity in the chemical attack, which I was unaware was yet available – seems some media have access to intel others do not. Certainly raised some eyebrows in the post-pub group I was with last night).
Lucky HMG seem comfortable with a proven reputation for hypocrisy too.
bbc … what THIS bbc? remember nihal pleading for, someone? … anyone? 😀 to ring in to be given lots of airtime to rubbish mr spencer
http://youtu.be/wnO-EGYFfFs
rushing to hell in a handcart …..
bbc reports this morning
“The US and its allies are considering military strikes on Syria though Russia (Syria’s ally) has warned against this” – considering? hmmm
just replace Obama administration with George W? and the attitude of the msm?
In Syria: UN inspectors are mandated only to determine if chemical weapons were used, not who used them? – the decisive point.
It appears that the desired conclusion has already been reached,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579034633663263254.html
Obama (no change there) again sides with Islamist supremacist interests
Just watched Horizon on Hackers, and it was excellent. Now watching Horizon on Dinosaurs. Unbelievably within 5 minutes the woman featured in the programme makes a feminist statement which is unchallenged about how women ask different questions than men, for example about how dinosaurs functioned and their biology. How does she get away saying that a quarter century after Bakker and the Dinosaur Heresies?
Just imagine if a male scientist had made a similar comment about how men ask different (and better) questions than women. I think it would have been edited out.
I saw the beginning of BBC2 Horizon – Dinosaurs : the Hunt for Life. Watching Dr Mary Schweitzer riding the range in her ten-gallon-hat and shooting from the hip at ‘men’ – I thought for a moment I was seeing a spoof on BBC science. On reflection – this is exactly how you get your BBC gig these days. Yeehaa…. reach for your PC box ticker, cow-gal!
The hacking Horizon was pretty good. The Stuxnet explanation was very clear. It lost direction a bit though and seemed to try and cram in lots of diverse elements of security and ended up beimg a bit confusing. Had a few technical holes too – i.e making out that all public/private key cryptography is RSA, whereas that’s just one method.
As for bias – well it did suggest the US & Israel were probably responsible for Stuxnet. I suspect that may well be the case though!
It is the case. The President gave permission – probably in violation of the law, again – for His staff to tell a NY Times reporter that we were.
.. well some fascinating coverage of examining bone structures for organics. But we’re also subjected to an anti-capitalist message claiming that the commercialisation of dinosaur collecting is the biggest problem faced by scientists in getting suitable bone fossils, and about the ‘looting’ of fossils by private individuals compared to collecting by scientists. I’m not convinced. We’re not talking about looting as in the wreck of the Titanic, or the Pyramids, where you have a unique site of cultural significance, but about large areas where fossils can be collected, in addition to the large collections already held by institutions. The original explosion in dinosaur collecting was in large part commercially driven, and if the free market was so bad then why didn’t the old Soviet Union or Communist China make a bigger contribution to dinosaur studies than the capitalist West? The programme takes for granted that the state and public sector scientists are the ones to be trusted with the ‘proper’ excavation of dinosaur fossils, and that free enterprise can only be a bad thing. It’s an unconscious bias, as the BBC considers itself in the same light and takes for granted that because it is not privately owned it is better.
I think this one is going to run for days and days. Not even the greatest Pakistani bowlers could manage spin like this. Apparently it was all the fault of the British (paragraph 28)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/23811826
Finally the BBC is talking about this. It’s only been common knowledge for years and years. They’ve done one story in the past about the dancing boys (pretending that they were hard to find), but that’s about it. The question is, why isn’t the BBC making a much bigger deal about this? Why isn’t this plastered all over the BBC Urdu page? They’ve got something about that Kenyan woman having two men, and about that new drive-in brothel in Switzerland, but nothing about the homosexual culture in Pakistan. Curious, as one would have thought this was of more interest to them than to anyone else (besides activists and sex tourists, I guess).
Yes, I know at least some Mohammedans in Pakistan might be able to hear this on the World Service, but that’s not good enough.
http://www.trendingcentral.com/gay-couple-to-sue-church-over-gay-marriage-opt-out/
‘The homosexual couple promoted by the British government to help sell the state’s new gay marriage legislation to the public have now claimed that the policy does not go far enough, and are considering suing the Church in yet another push to redefine the institution of marriage.’
‘Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, says he and his civil partner Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings. He told the Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because, “I am still not getting what I want”.’
Now remind me, was it Scot or was it Dez who assured us here that this would not happen?
As night follows day, as soon as the favoured causes get what they asked for they start demanding more. With the BBC at the forefront giving them the oxygen of publicity.
BBC Home Page offers me this as one of top stories of they day…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23808038
One presumes the ‘disgusting’ part is the porn, as the rest rather fails to qualify as described.
Seems a pretty silly, provocative thing to do, but as we are in false flag mode, the headline and priority given this story hardly seem warranted.
Especially as some of the reporting ranges from frankly bizarre, raising more than a few questions.
Why just two DVD discs being ‘investigated’? How many were there? In fact it reads like a very big mountain is being made out of a very dubiously sourced molehill.
What does ‘”It’s been heavily edited and put together” even mean? And I now see where Ms. Nye gets her headline from.
As to ‘”If nothing happens then it will be seen as a two-tier system.”, that may not have been the smartest discrepancy to raise.
Story by Catrin Nye of The BBC Asian Network, so the story isn’t maybe biased ?
Never quite understood why the BBC feels it necessary to to spend licence payers money on an ‘Asian Network’ is the WASP Network available on DAB? … thought not.
The Asian Network peaked at just 450k listeners last year, a quick flick through the upper end of the Sky EPG will reveal that this audience is more than adequately catered for, big savings to be made here….
“outreach” worker watched it?
disgusting … islamophobic? the bbc eh!
for when that other word they ve now made worthless “offensive” isn t enough.
did you see that picture of, “offended” Abdul Maalik 😀 priceless.
Ah yes, the porn was so offensive I had to watch it all the way through.
A further thought on the Asian Network, it seems that the Japanese aren’t very well catered for in the schedules, if at all.
Yet when a crime is committed by someone from the sub continent, the BBC is more than happy to include them in the term ‘Police are looking for someone of Asian appearance, knowing full well where the perpetrator is from.
More than a few conundrums here.
For example the DVD we are told contained ‘a mixture of insults to the Prophet Muhammad, a pornographic film and news footage about extremism. ‘
And furthermore…
“The concern from some worshippers is that if a Muslim were to produce DVDs which contain similar hate, they would be prosecuted.’
I’m scatching my head. Assuming a Muslim would not insult their prophet does he mean that the porn or the news footage [BBC Newsnight] ought to be prosecutable?
Very little of that report makes much sense.
There are facts that don’t add up, questions not asked much less answered, and a bunch of stuff left hanging that clearly was felt left better to credulous imagination than sensible clarification.
Making one wonder what saw it elevated to the home page.
Or does such a location automatically count as a logged ‘attack’ to enable Tell Mama to be wheeled in the studio again?
“Some of the DVDs were addressed to His Wonderous Cleric of Islam, making it appear to contain something positive”
Am I missing something here? Would that not make it obvious it was taking the piss rather than being positive?
You’d think.
It all smacks of a massive wind-up.
By whom on whom and why lord knows, but the starry-eyed nature of Ms. Nye’s efforts, and her willingness to see serious affront if offered it, is plain daft.
Who ever let her loose, on this ‘story’, in such a way, with such profile at such a stage, really has some explaining to do.
Luckily they can hide behind FOI exclusions.
Also, with my amateur slooth hat on, if the featured picture is one (of the two (?) in this dastardly campaign – ‘It is not clear how many Muslim organisations or mosques it has been sent to, but BBC Asian Network found it was received by the Qalb Centre in Walthamstow and an organisation called the Muslim Media Forum which is also based in London. So how did they know it had been sent anywhere else to warrant the headline and lead para?), anyone who sees THE FINALE – XXXX GIRLS and decides to give it a go on a ‘something positive’ basis (‘Workers there initially thought it may be an Eid card’) may be better advised to wise up if they are prone to fits of the vapours.
This is the “backlash” against Mohammedans the BBC has been warning about and working to prevent? Not exactly rivers of blood, is it? I’d have loved to see the reaction on the Beeboids’ faces when they learned a Newsnight segment was being used to harass Mohammedans. That must sting.
Interesting to hear a radio presenter describe Chris Packham as ‘well respected’ (Tony Livesey BBC 5 Live post 9am)
I regard Packham as little more than an annoying kids TV presenter and a bit of an idiot. But that’s just my opinion.
The point is that were Packham not one-of-their-own and an anti-badger cull campaigner the BBC would have given his opinions a rather different health warning.
Bias.
No doubt the BBC will also be wheeling out that other world renowned ‘badger expert’ (guitarist) Brian May to give his expert view …..
Chris Packham and Lizo Mzimba, bBC broom cupboard boys.
Brian May? Nahh, he’s washing his hair tonight.
This may be my only chance before I am silenced. I have been listening to a programme made in the 1950s about indoctrination of BBC staff even then. It depicts a BBC in 1985, where staff are shown pictures of people on TV whom they are programmed to hate and are heard chanting ’I hate…. Later it is revealed how the BBC is to programme the peoples of the UK not to think for themselves anymore. The programme will be repeated ( if the subservient who got this past the Big Brother Corporation Censor have not been rounded up and the programme mysteriously pulled from the schedule.
Remember 7pm tonight Tuesday 27th on BBC R4 Extra .
Many a true word spoken in jest. ’Hello how did you get in? No, I love Big Brother Corporation. It wasn’t me, but I’m not ratting on anybody…it was her.
What drives a young man to violent crime?
You won’t be surprised to know that the article contains a lot of victim-centric socio-claptrap, but makes no mention of the big grey pachyderm.
‘In 2008, he was part of a gang which, armed with samurai swords, robbed a shop in south London.’
I blame The Water Margin.
“BBC to move Swahili radio and online production to East Africa”
(Note: this BBC World Service is currently funded by British taxpayers, but within a year or so, the finance is to be shifted onto British licence-payers.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/swahili-east-africa.html?
BBC-NUJ and its selective support for ‘Freedom’:
-for E. Snowden, B. (C?) Manning, J. Assange, B. Mohamed, S. Aamer, Muslim Brotherhood – YES;
-for P.Geller and R.Spencer – NO.
The lads from the Met join in the Carnival, looking rather overweight, but fostering community relations as required. I believe there were over 200 arrests, mainly for drugs and drink, but less than last year. So all is well. On with the dance http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23845383
Meanwhile, during the Liverpool International Music Festival, despite the attendance of 150,000 Scousers in four days, the police could find only nine to arrest.
What is so different about Notting Hill? Answers on a postcard, to your nearest taxpayer-funded effnick diversity enrichment officer.
I was asked to complete a survey after my latest visit to the bBBC ‘news’ website. They were more interested to know my age, colour, ethnicity (was I British or English?) and how disabled I am (their assumption was that everyone visiting the site must have a handicap) than why I was visiting the site and what I thought of it. I wonder if my comment of ‘biased anti-British left-wing multicultural propaganda, for which I am forced to pay’ will be recorded as ‘getting it about right’?
There’s been about six HYS on the BBC website in the last couple of days about Syria. Every single one of them makes it clear the electorate do not want us to take military action, but the BBC continues to push its view that the Al Qaeda-endorsed rebels are the good guys and that it’s our duty to help out. We should not be getting involved, we haven’t forgotten Iraq.
Ah, but at least they can say they are asking, if not listening. Somewhere there’s the sound of a box-being ticked, even if it has no bearing on what is claimed, or reality.
Kind of a feature of the broadcast-only mentality.
Not the bBBC but I found Daniel Hannan’s blog very interesting. The opposition to Assad is not as simple, or as united, as we might think.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100232667/its-finely-balanced-but-supporters-of-intervention-in-syria-have-not-yet-made-a-convincing-case/
Where is the anti-war crowd these days, anyway? The BBC used to have them coming out of the woodwork, but now it’s as if they’ve lost contact completely.
The BBC appears to hear from the kind of people it likes when it wants to, but can’t hear them when it doesn’t.
Propaganda supported by censorship is seldom pretty. Or faithful. Guessing a few wondering why their usual speed dial access may have hit a wall for a while.
Luckily FOI exclusions mean exposure is for those responsible remote.
Well, for now.
Piss off or betray activists and things can get colourful. One of my favourite insights into Hugs’ special relationship with complaints handling was Media Lens via the Indy.
Wonder how Nick Robinson is feeling about running government press releases the BBC seems to like for a change?
Are you referring to Boaden’s admission that complaints sent to her email address just get binned and she doesn’t read them? What a shame if all these anti-war activists have been writing to her and they’re not getting through…..
The very same.
Part of the transparency and trust regime from a different time that has been… rewarded and extended.
Still, at least a few more may twig that when the BBC says they are listening or want your views… they really don’t.
And don’t have to worry who knows it.
The NAO inquiry and media plurality review may yet get interesting.
Well, at least the BBC’s US President editor isn’t caught up in that groupthink. I’m laughing out loud reading his latest analysis as he falls all over himself trying to explain that the Reluctant Warrior-in-Chief he was assuring us just the other day wasn’t going to rush into anything has apparently pulled a Bush/Blair/Iraq WMD on him. It’s quite a spectacle.
Mardell says it looks like the President has made up His mind to act, but there’s no detail about what that action will be or when it will happen (Mardell’s still hedging his bets, there). He also bravely – and I mean that sincerely, as it’s made my year to see this dedicated worshiper openly question Him so brazenly – voiced a suspicion about the “proof” that Assad has indeed used chemical weapons. I’m stunned, and very, very pleased. And Mardell says that if the President doesn’t act now after all this, His Administration will have zero credibility. It’s a bit late for that call, Mark, but glad you’ve finally caught up with the rest of the class.
I’ve said before that warmongering is the one issue on which Mardell steadfastly disagrees with his beloved Obamessiah and, having already disappointed the faithful on Libya, it looks like He’s going to do it again. I can’t wait to see what excuses he comes up with this time. I mean, he can’t even claim this time that the President is leading from behind or forced into acting by the ugly United Statesians who always want to lead the charge into war. Congress isn’t too keen on it, and there’s even one Republican Rep. who wants to impeach Him if He does another unauthorized war like He did with Libya (i.e. sending more military for too long without Congressional authorization, something the BBC decided you didn’t need to know). Tut, tut: there’s that Congress trying to block His every move again……
The WaPo has a poll showing only 9% of the public want to go to war against Assad, so Mardell can’t claim we’re making Him do it against His wishes. I guess we really are a bunch of racists to oppose His warmongering like this.
Let it go on record that I say this is evidence that there isn’t always 100% groupthink on every issue at the BBC, as here is Mardell clearly opposed to action against Syria. I’m going to be in a good mood for the rest of the week over this.
They say the first casualty of war is truth, but in reporting it the new evolution is now semantics.
‘US Secretary of State John Kerry has denounced the Syrian government for attacking its own people with chemical weapons in a highly-charged, emotional, statement.’
I’m pretty sure (didn’t hear it live, so who knows what Susan Watts may have added or taken away), that is accurate. At least of what Mr. Kerry has said… claimed.
However, there’s what is put up front, and what comes along later, in this case not that far behind…
‘Mr Kerry said the facts were “screaming” out from the pictures, common sense led to one conclusion, and that giving access to the inspectors came “too late to be credible”.
But he said that evidence had been collected and would be presented.
There’s a bunch of IF’s as well, but basically your reporter is sort of, kinda, going with the feeling that, maybe, a war would be sort of nice as Assad may very well have done something…. proof of which will be forthcoming.
Talk about curious formulations, from a person working for an entity who wouldn’t know an informed anything if it bit them on the backside and left its dental records alongside.
Top comment:
4. Curt Carpenter
26TH AUGUST 2013 – 21:28
I take MSF’s word that a chemical weapon attack has occurred. But wonder if we will ever have an equally credible source — or even some actual evidence — that it was the Assad that did the attacking?
I certainly don’t consider the word of the governments of the US, Britain or France to be credible in this. Someone could be playing our intelligence services like a cheap flute — again.
The word of their media mouthpieces, especially run through various ideology filters, is hardly credible either.
If the US and UK do start bombing Syria, I’m starting a little project, but I’ll need people’s help. I want to keep a running total on how many BBC reports – on the website or on air – mention the President’s Nobel Peace Prize in the context of the Syria situation. My bet is that it will remain at zero, but hope springs eternal.
Courtesy of an email from the Graun:
How the consumer is calling the shots (if in one unique case, not so much by virtue of not being allowed to be a voluntary consumer)
Having just started the slick and cunning Netflix series, House of Cards, I was a little star-struck to be sat in front of its lead actor Kevin Spacey last Thursday. Delivering this year’s MacTaggart lecture at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, he spoke about the changing nature of television in relation to his character, Francis Underwood.
“Like Francis I’ve come here today with no ideology,” said Spacey. “I’m not viewing today’s event as a television event. Since audiences are no longer making those decisions – why should we?”
Spacey’s point about audiences breaking the traditional rules and choosing to consume content in a way that suits them is relevant. R/GA’s Alex Wills shares a similar line of thought in his piece this week on how, in the digital distribution landscape, the consumer is calling the shots.
Well, with all bar one.
‘”Whether it’s in music, television, or gaming, traditional players should assess the ability of their current business to meet changing consumer habits,” he writes. “Those resistant to change risk getting left behind – or even worse, replaced entirely.”
Or, maybe, simply get joined by several more on their floor on £300kpa++?