Apparently the new front runner for the job of BBC Trust Chairman is Nicholas Prettejohn…already a BBC Trustee…and yet another Oxbridge PPE graduate.

The Guardian tells us he is a former ‘city Grandee’ and  advisor to George Osborne….but he is also a former trustee of the Royal Opera House working with the BBC’s DG, Lord Hall, who has already employed a former work mate from the ROH, Anne Bulford, along with several other appointments made without an open recruitment process.

Good that one of Tony Hall’s mates may become the person who would be responsible for regulating the BBC run by Hall.

The BBC…starting to look like the top tier of the Tory party.  The irony.

Seen this?

“A BBC journalist has been scolded by his employer after a tweet he wrote appeared to reference the conspiracy that a Jewish elite are puppet masters, gifted with vast control. Producer Anish Shaikh said: “Attacking David Ward is a strategy to divert focus from real issue #Gaza politicians have no soul as they can be bought & sold by u know who.” He had also been referring to Liberal Democrat David Ward’s tweet,in which the politician said that he would fire rockets to Israel if he lived in Gaza. Mr Shaikh has since deleted his account and has been reminded “of his responsibility to uphold” BBC guidelines, the broadcaster said.

Meanwhile, I am worried that Jeremy Bowen may be going blind..

After leaving Gaza Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati tweeted.

Hamas Spells it Out: Our Aim is the Extermination of the Jews

As the 22nd day of the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza draws to a close, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) has published a video in which a Hamas cleric lays out the organization’s “doctrine” in its fight against Israel: genocide.

Speaking in a televised address from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the preacher said that Hamas’s aim was to “totally exterminate” the Jews living in Israel, because “wherever the Jews lived they spread corruption”.

H/T  Rob

Hamas defector slams ‘death worship’

Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Hamas defector who worked for 10 years as an informer for the Shin Bet, explained to CNN last week that, for Gaza’s rulers, human life is of no consequence.

“Hamas is not seeking coexistence and compromise; Hamas is seeking conquest,” he added. “The destruction of the state of Israel is not the Hamas final destination.”Hamas, Yousef asserted, wants to build an Islamic state “on the rubble of every other civilization.”

“In the mosques, Hamas told us that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology we will not be able to build an Islamic state,” he said. “At five-years-old, that is what they were feeding us.”

The correct use of words and phrases is essential when trying to communicate your message accurately and clearly to an audience…Theresa May hopefully recognises this after her disastrous use of the phrase ‘The nasty party’ in reference to the Tories, a phrase that will now haunt the Tories forever more.

The Israelis already know that the media will leap on any nuanced or mangled phrase and use it to propagate their own conspiracy theories.

Jon Donnison has recently done just that in an attempt to discredit the Israeli position that Hamas was responsible for the kidnap and killing of its three teenagers…via Is the BBC biased?:

Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership1/2
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014

Israeli police spokes Mickey Rosenfeld also said if kidnapping had been ordered by Hamas leadership, they’d have known about it in advance.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014

Donnison’s Tweets had a dramatic effect:

The twittersphere exploded with I-told-you-so’s from pro-Palestinian activists, who claimed Israel had manipulated events surrounding the killing of the teens to prepare for and justify its assault on Gaza, which has since killed more than 1,000 Palestinians

Rosenfeld said that he had told Donnison what the Israeli government had been saying all along. “The kidnapping and murder of the teens was carried out by Hamas terrorists from the Hebron area,” he told The Daily Beast. “The security organizations are continuing to search for the murderers.”

Ironically the BBC’s not so impartial journalist Jon Donnison is now complaining of Israeli ‘spin’ and doing his best to undermine Israel’s PR effort in the face of a pro-Hamas and hostile media…such as the BBC.

Donnison and his anti-Israel cohorts are merely regurgitating very old news….the  Israel Project’s 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY came out in 2009 as might be guessed from the title and was immediately leaked.

Why is Donnison linking to 5 year old news just now…and why is he so concerned with Israeli PR and attempts to discredit it?  Why is he, a BBC journalist, trying to blacken the name and reputation of other journalists?….journalists who may take a more even handed approach to reality.

Donnison would be justified in linking to the document itself if he can show it is in use by Israeli officials…but he offers no proof.  He is certianly not justified in linking to Patrick Cockburn’s article in ‘Counterpunch’ which is itself nothing but spin, anti-Israeli black propaganda.

And which organisation doesn’t have guidelines on how to talk to the Media or the Public?

The BBC itself has extensive ‘spin’ :

The BBC’s Editorial Values

Audiences are at the heart of everything we do.

We are committed to giving them high-quality, original and at times challenging output.  Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation.

Equally, we must give our audiences content made to the highest editorial and ethical standards.  Their trust depends on it.

We must therefore balance our presumption of freedom of expression with our responsibilities, for example to respect privacy, to be fair, to avoid unjustifiable offence and to provide appropriate protection for our audiences from harm.

This is of course the BBC’s famous guidance on reporting ‘terrorism’:

The relevant Editorial Guideline states:

Use of Language

11.4.5 We must report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly.  Terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones and care is required in the use of language that carries value judgements.  We try to avoid the use of the term “terrorist” without attribution.  When we do use the term we should strive to do so with consistency in the stories we report across all our services and in a way that does not undermine our reputation for objectivity and accuracy.

The word “terrorist” itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened.  We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as “bomber”, “attacker”, “gunman”, “kidnapper”, “insurgent”, and “militant”.  We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.

11.4.6 For similar reasons, it is also usually inappropriate to use, without attribution, terms such as “liberate”, “court martial” or “execute” in the absence of a clear judicial process.

Perhaps Donnison should give them a read and have a look at his own work before he presumes to lecture others……..

This is what Donnison links to….an article that is clearly designed not to enlighten but to encourage anti-Israeli hate, trying to portray everything the Israelis say as mere spin and lies to cover up war crimes and atrocities….but what war crimes and atrocities?

How Israel Spins War Crimes

by PATRICK COCKBURN

The Israel project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its “dos and don’ts” for Israeli spokesmen.
These are highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear.
On every occasion, the presentation of events by Israeli spokesmen is geared to giving Americans and Europeans the impression that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and is prepared to compromise to achieve this, when all the evidence is that it does not.

This is the Independent’s own spin on the story…..Patrick Cockburn being an Independent journalist…..

The secret report that helps Israel hide facts

The headline is already trying to twist your thoughts by claiming Israel is hiding the facts…but nowhere does it say what facts are being hidden, in fact in a later article Cockburn complains that the Israelis want you to know the facts and not just the ‘message’….

“Don’t confuse messages with facts,” Dr Luntz advises the spokesmen as he explains how facts should be selected and best presented to make Israel’s case.

The Israelis can’t win….Cockburn thinks any ‘message’ such as Israelis having empathy for Palestinians and wanting to live in peace together is a lie……he gives this as an example of such a  ‘lie’:

 “The day will come when Israeli children and Palestinian children will grow up together, play together, and work together side-by-side not just because they have to but because they want to.”

Cockburn however admits if it is spin it doesn’t work……

‘A Gallup poll shows that among Americans aged between 18 and 29 some 51 per cent said Israel’s actions were unjustified while only 23 per cent said they were.’

The Independent is so desperate for this negative narrative about Israeli propaganda to take off that it has Cockburn have another go two days later:

Israel’s propaganda machine is finally starting to misfire

Cockburn says that Israel is making outrageous claims that Hamas welcomes dead civilians:

For all the good advice of Dr Luntz there are signs of Israeli leaders getting rattled. Mr Netanyahu complained on CNN that Hamas wants “to pile up as many civilian dead as they can” and “to use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.”

Curious though that even BBC journalists admit Hamas exploit dead civilians for propaganda purposes….

Hamas’s military leaders might be calculating that the sight of Palestinian civilians suffering under terrifying aerial bombardment will force the Palestinian Authority to show much greater solidarity and prompt Arab governments to show more support.

Hamas might reason that there were few advantages in keeping the peace whereas once hostilities have started it can demand concessions for agreeing to end them.

Israel might argue that it’s trying to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas is trying to cause them. But television pictures of civilian dead in Gaza – especially children – will help shape perceptions of Israel round the world.

The Independent…Masters of spin themselves….

Thank god we’ve got the honest and impartial BBC to bring us the real truth….oh hell!!!…no!!…they’re busy spreading the Independent’s smears and lies as well……but then who needs the Independent to do the dirty work when you can do your own:

 From Is the BBC biased?:

@HughNaylor @CiFWatch is not a real organization, just a crappy smear campaign run by a couple of dunderheads
— Bekah Wolf (@BekahWolf) July 27, 2014

And who exactly is this Bekah Wolf who doesn’t reckon much to CiF Watch?

Bekah Wolf @BekahWolf Founded @PalestinePSP with my husband Mousa Abu Maria. I live in the U.S. and in Beit Ommar, #Palestine. Have worked in Palestine since 2003

BBC seems outraged this morning that HSBC have chosen to close some Muslim groups and other individual and organisations accounts. Given that the radical pro-Jihad Finsbury Park mosque is amongst these, this seems a prudent banking decision but the BBC are in their sniffing around to see if they can detect the Islamophobia that so deeply concerns them.

Here you go, an on-time new Open thread for you to detail the bias!

Just a bit of context to that last post where fracking was mentioned.

One of the questions that kept coming up during the programme was why do we need to frack and use gas when we have so many opportunities to use renewables.

One reason might be this:

German Utilities Bail Out Electric Grid at Wind’s Mercy

Germany’s push toward renewable energy is causing so many drops and surges from wind and solar power that the government is paying more utilities than ever to help stabilize the country’s electricity grid.

Twenty power companies including Germany’s biggest utilities, EON SE and RWE AG, now get fees for pledging to add or cut electricity within seconds to keep the power system stable, double the number in September, according to data from the nation’s four grid operators. Utilities that sign up to the 800 million-euro ($1.1 billion) balancing market can be paid as much as 400 times wholesale electricity prices, the data show.

Renewable energy sources has apparently lowered the wholesale price of energy but there is a massive hidden cost as the government pays energy companies to back up the renewables with fossil fuel and nuclear power….as well as an increasing risk of blackouts.

R4 had a phone in on fracking today, Call You and Yours: Fracking, on which they asked ‘Would you welcome fracking near you?’ but we didn’t actually hear too much of that, the show being more a question and answer session with Francis Egan, Chief Executive of Cuadrilla, in the hot seat fending off the fanatics.

One caller at 23 mins, a Jake White from London, as he was introduced, turned out to be Jake White, Friends of the Earth’s legal advisor…..Egan recognised him and blew his cover….or rather the BBC’s cover as Winifred Robinson had to admit his allegiance was on her computer screen but she had decided not to reveal it to the listeners for some reason.

Other than that little faux pas the show was actually more pro-fracking with its ‘experts’ more weighted in favour…even the ‘neutral’ academic, a geological expert, was on message for fracking.

The BBC’s David Shukman admitted that fracking could be the short term answer to reducing CO2 emissions as advised by the IPCC in its AR5 report….which the BBC at the time of the report’s publication limited itself to mentions of ‘natural gas’, making no mention of such gas coming from fracking.

Robinson finishes on the usual BBC misrepresentation…she ‘fitted in’ a last caller (52 mins)  but cut him off saying ‘I wanted to get you in because what you said summarises the huge scepticism that there is between the people and big industry.’

Curious…she told us earlier that a large majority supports fracking….off message there for a minute then.

Another programme of interest was this…National Parks:   In this week’s Shared Planet Monty Don looks at where wildlife fits into this complex mix of wilderness and human activity.

What was interesting was one of those little truisms that slip out when the BBC thought police lose total control over the message….here Monty Don concudes that there is a problem for national parks due to there being ‘so much human pressure inside and outside the national parks’…meaning of course pressure to develop, especially housing, in such a small and crowded land.

Not a message the BBC likes to expand upon normally as it brings into question mass immigration and the resultant housing and land shortages.

Another programme was typically BBC, ‘Roots Reggae and Rebellion’ in which racism (White British of course), slavery and colonialism all got a shoeing.  Interesting to hear that West Indians are still traumatised by their slavery….hadn’t realised it is still going on…oh and Rastafarianism saved the world.

The BBC could of course do a programme looking at the oppressed British workers in the factories, the mines and in the fields during the industrial revolution, or even the conscripts forced to fight and possibly die for Queen and Country…just as much slavery as any suffered by Africans shipped off to whereveer.  The BBC however is more interested in Black ‘suffering’ and how it can be used as a tool to force Whites to hand over cash and advantage.

What else did we have today…oh yes…shoplifting is on the up…due to Austerity….shoplifters are victims of this government’s callous indifference to their plight.

Shoplifting offences ‘rise over 20%’ in North Wales

Inspector Paul Wycherley from North Wales Police explained the force’s changing strategy in tackling food theft, with officers trained to guide potential shoplifters towards the use of local foodbanks.

Hmm OK……..but then there’s this example of what might be a cause from last year:

Shoplifting gang jailed after string of thefts across North Wales

A SHOPLIFTING gang have been locked up after admitting a string of distraction thefts across North Wales.

Colea Niculescu, 34, and his partner Mandria  Rostas, 29, his uncle Toie Niculescu, 40, and another woman Maria Rostas, 34, from Luton but all Romanian citizens, admitted charges of theft from jewellers shops in Ruthin and Llangefni and a Llanberis pottery in March this year.

And this from 2012:

Shoplift gang hid stolen goods in leotards

All five were arrested and one of them, Romanian national Inot Constantinescu, 25, of Bear’s Road, Birmingham, was jailed for ten months after he admitted theft and entering the country in breach of a deportation order.

Just so we know that this isn’t a local thing down to a few bad apples….

The Star (Ireland), February 18, 2008

DETECTIVES in the border counties have sparked a major alert over Romanian shop raid gangs after huge shoplifting sprees.
Gardai believe the gangs are composed mainly of young females, directed by male “bosses”
Several Romanians have appeared in courts in recent weeks throughout counties Louth, Monaghan and Cavan, in connection with shop hits.

The police are so concerned about foreign nationals shoplifting, amongst other crimes, they set up a special taskforce:

Op Trivium II – Police build on success of operation targeting foreign gangs on Britain’s roads

March 24, 2014, 12:01 am

An annual national campaign to target foreign criminals on roads in England and Wales has been launched by police.

Police officers from Romania, Lithuania and Poland have arrived in the UK to join the campaign, launched today (24 March 2014) and aimed at catching travelling criminals who use the roads to avoid detection and move around the UK.

Such gangs are thought to be involved in shoplifting, fraud, metal theft and theft from vehicles.

Immigration must contribute to this rise in shoplifting….but the BBC yet again looks away and is happily able to blame the ‘Tory’ government.

The BBC’s Jon Donnision is back in Gaza despite not having a very good reputation or track record when reporting from there previously…this is one of his efforts and is worthy of some scrutiny as he reported on the death of a friend and colleague Jihad Mashhrawic’s baby…

Note although the man’s name is actually spelt ‘Jihad’ Donnison has changed the spelling to Jehad….for obviously ‘political’ reasons…….

Gaza baby ‘only knew how to smile’

Standing in what is left of his burnt-out home this week, Jehad showed me a photo on his mobile phone.

It was of a cheeky, chunky, round-faced little boy in denim dungarees, chuckling in a pushchair, dark-eyed with a fringe of fine brown hair pushed across his brow.

“He only knew how to smile,” Jehad told me, as we both struggled to hold back the tears.

Most likely is that Omar died in the 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.

Donnison and his colleagues all immediately blamed Israel for the death and spread the story around the world

Unfortunately that was a lie:

UN verifies that BBC reporter’s son was killed by Hamas

On 14 November, a woman, her 11-month-old infant, and an 18-year-old adult in Al-Zaitoun were killed by what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel.⁶⁹ In addition, OHCHR received reports related to an incident in which two civilians, including a child, were killed, and five persons, including three children, were injured, as a result of what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short and hit a house in Al-Quds Street, near Khilla Gas Station, Jabalya, on 16 November.

Back in the present Donnison continues the good work on Twitter:

The return of the BBC’s Jon Donnison and his tall Twitter tales

And isn’t a lot better on the job proper…here subtly cheerleading for Hamas..the same report on the website and the Today programme this morning:

West Bank Palestinians politically divided, but united in anger

Donnison gives the impression that the Palestinian Authority (Western backed as Donnison slips in), and Fatah by extension, are not popular in the Palestinian territories…..he tells us that the PA might be considered collaborators with Israel…as they work together to provide security in the West Bank….no misgivings reported about Hamas though.

Donnison shows us pictures of the PA police tackling rioters..or ‘protestors’ as Donnison prefers.

He also shows the Israelis dealing with similar events but makes no mention that the Palestinians have been using live ammuniton and petrol bombs against the Israelis….hence some get shot….Donnison instead picks up a rock from the road and tells us this is what the Palestinians have been using…indeed they have….along with guns and bombs.

Donnison then tells us that the PA has failed to capture the public mood, they do not listen to the people… they don’t launch rockets into Israel presumably….that ‘people’ who ‘all’ support Hamas we are given to believe.

The whole piece is a subtle pro-Hamas piece, anti the ‘Western backed’ PA, the people ‘united in their anger’…ie against Israel which must be doing evil things...and if the PA doesn’t reflect that anger in its actions, as Hamas does, it cannot be representative of the people and their demands….and if the people support Hamas and its policies, those demands must be to rocket Israel.

We could easily conclude that Donnison is giving implied support to Hamas’ policy of rocketing Israel here….what then does he make of Hamas’ intention to wipe out Israel?

The BBC thinks the below is a major story judging by the coverage given over to it:

England’s Moeen Ali warned over pro-Gaza Test wristbands

The BBC for some reason refrains from mentioning Moeen Ali is Muslim and yet it is an important part of his identity, symbolised by his beard apparently, and must play a major part in his support for Gaza:

“It’s a very important part of myself and the community I’m from and I’m very proud,” he added. “In terms of trying to inspire other people with faith to play and stuff I am very proud of that. I remember seeing Muslim athletes or guys with other faiths performing and still carrying the label of being a religious person and it does inspire people.”

However the BBC doesn’t seem too concerned, or at least concerned enough to report it, that Iran is threatening, once again to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and presumably slaughter all the Jews who live there….all to be done in partnership with fellow ‘Final Solution’ enthusiasts Hamas…wonder if there is an arm band for that…..and what would it look like:

We Will Hunt Down Israelis House To House

The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed revenge against Israel for its ongoing military incursion into Gaza, which has already killed hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis.

“You [people of Israel] are trees without any roots which were planted in the Islamic lands by the British,” Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said at this week’s Friday prayer sermon in Tehran.

“We will chase you house to house and will take revenge for every drop of blood of our martyrs in Palestine,” Salami said. “and this is the beginning point of Islamic nations awakening for your defeat.”

“Imam [Khomeini] with the statement that Israel must be wiped from the face of the Earth gave a true message to the world. This message enlightened the Muslims and became the concept on the streets of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.”

Salami, recalling previous wars Israel fought against Hezbollah in Lebanon, said: “The end of the Zionist regime [Israel] has arrived. Islamic movements are armed, missiles are positioned, and today we witness how the arms of the resistance in a corner of the Islamic world are controlling the events in the face of the tragic and barbaric attack by the Zionist regime against the oppressed and defenseless Palestinians in Gaza.”

The Islamic regime’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the only solution for the region is the destruction of Israel, and that the armed confrontation must expand beyond Gaza. “These crimes are beyond imagination and show the true nature of the wolfish and child killer regime, (and) the only solution is its destruction,” the ayatollah declared to his audience.

The flag of Islam will be raised.

The present clash in Gaza is not the cause of this attitude from Iran…the exact same sentiments have been repeated many times….one of the last times earlier this year by the same General….via MEMRI:

“Despite the geographical distance, we are attached to the hearts of the Palestinians. How is it that our slogans and goals are identical to the slogans and causes of the Palestinians? Why do we strive to become martyrs and risk our lives for the Palestinian cause? The answer is that the religion of Islam has designated this for us – this goal, this motivation, this belief, this energy – so that we, here, can muster all our energies in order to annihilate the Zionist entity, more than 1,400 kilometers away.”