Morning all. Time to start the week with a brand new Open Thread. I bet you are all looking forward to “Woman’s Hour” on BBC Radio 4 this week. Doreen Lawrence will be hosting one such episode and it’s inspiring to see the BBC create the space for her. You rarely see her on the BBC…..

The BBC once reported on Wikipedia edits by interested parties….and …em…failed to mention its own activities in that area.

Hence this mea culpa:

Words like glass, house and stones spring to mind, because we weren’t exactly sharp about the other obvious question that springs to mind… What about people inside the BBC?

This was an irritating oversight. Some of you have written to complain, others have given the issue a significant airing online (see here, here and here) and beyond.

I still think it was a good piece to write, but we should have asked the question about ourselves – and reflected it in the report – before it was published. That may be the sound of the barn door closing, but we have now put a line at the end of the story about the BBC and the fact that the Wikipedia scanner shows updates from people at IP addresses traceable back to the BBC.

Some of the examples are pretty unedifying, but for every dodgy one there are many, many more uncontroversial edits where people at the BBC have added information or changed a detail in good faith. The scanner also shows the same kind of results for a wide variety of other media organisations.

Oh and as for tracing or controlling those ‘rogue individuals’?…..

You are hardly the brightest button if you choose to make unpalatable updates to Wikipedia when you are sitting at a BBC computer, but policing every keystroke of more than 20,000 staff is impossible.

And The Times  reveals the Labour Party’s outrageous behaviour that undoubtedly ‘went all the way to the top’ (h/t  Andy Burnham)

Among those he alleges have been updating their entries are Wal-Mart, the world’s largest grocer, AstraZeneca, the drugs giant, Britain’s Labour Party, the CIA and the Vatican.

From the Independent:

BBC staff rewrote Wikipedia pages to water down criticism

BBC officials repeatedly altered the Wikipedia internet encyclopaedia to water down attacks on the corporation, The Independent on Sunday can disclose.

An investigation of “anonymous” edits on the site has revealed that the broadcaster’s staff rewrote parts of a page entitled “Criticism of the BBC” to defuse press attacks on “political correctness”. Also included in more than 7,000 Wikipedia edits by BBC workers are unflattering references to rival broadcasters and even the corporation’s biggest names.

An entry claiming that a BBC report found the organisation was “out of touch with large swathes of the public and is guilty of self-censoring subjects that the corporation finds unpalatable” was replaced with a brief paragraph saying the document “explored issues around impartiality”.

A BBC spokesman said staff should use the internet “in a manner that’s consistent with the BBC’s values of accuracy and impartiality”. He added: “At no time should that use bring the BBC into disrepute.”

Noted all the way back in 2007 by Biased BBC and linked to by the BBC:

With breathtaking hypocrisy, BBC Views Online’s third top story

Apparently someone at the BBC was editing Tony Blair’s entry:

Tony Blair: Difference between revisions

Original:

Downing Street aides later suggested that the palpitations had been brought on by Blair drinking lots of strong coffee at an [[European Union|EU]] summit and then working out vigorously in the gym

Altered:

Downing Street aides later suggested that the palpitations had been brought on by Blair drinking lots of strong vodka at an [[European Union|EU]] summit and then working out vigorously in the bedroom

And George Bush’s:

George W. Bush: Difference between revisions

Original:

George Walker Bush

Altered:

George Wanker Bush

The BBC have put this on their frontpage about a local council candidate for UKIP:

UKIP candidate William Henwood defends Lenny Henry tweet

“I think if black people come to this country and don’t like mixing with white people why are they here? If he (Henry) wants a lot of blacks around go and live in a black country.”

Along with this:

UKIP candidate’s Lenny Henry tweets spark fresh row

Must be a major news story….will the BBC be covering every ‘controversial’ Tweet by every candidate in local/Euro and then the national elections?  Let’s hope so eh.

Henwood is of course being denounced as a racist.  Why?  All he said was that if Henry wanted to be amongst Black people so much then he should go and live somewhere where that was possible….presumably Birmingham…perhaps Henwood meant to say ‘The Black Country’.

Unsure where the racism on Henwood’s part comes in….he’s just questioning why Henry feels he can’t watch TV if it doesn’t have ‘X’% of black faces on it.

Why, you might legitimately ask, are there is no such outbursts from the Media about Henry’s demands that white people be sidelined from jobs on the basis of their race to make way for Black people on a positive discrimination type of scheme?

Is that not racist?  It is.

And yet Henry gets a bye on that…because he is black and we know that no Black person can be racist (h/t Jo Brand)…and anyway after centuries of white oppression they are entitled to be so, if they so wish.

Remember where that sort of patronising thinking got us:

Police ‘covered up’ violent campaign to turn London area ‘Islamic’

Victims say that officers in the borough of Tower Hamlets have ignored or downplayed outbreaks of hate crime, and suppressed evidence implicating Muslims in them, because they fear being accused of racism.

If Henwood is racist then how about this example:

Smelling the coffee

‘If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?’

Who said that?  John Humphrys to Trevor Brooks….who, a double whammy, is both black and Islamic.

Syria: the children killed by Assad’s chlorine gas bombs

Syrian civilians die slow, painful death from chemical weapons used in violation of convention regime signed in September

The BBC is always happy to broadcast claims that British foreign policies increase radicalism in the Muslim world.

When Muslims, including ironically those ‘radicals’, are demanding ‘Western intervention’ in Syria, and chemical weapons, amongst other horrors, are being used against Syrians en masse, perhaps the BBC would like to flip that…and start asking if non-intervention is increasing radicalism….as British Muslims go to Syria to join the Jihadists and fight Assad in their hundreds because no one else is doing so.

So to be clear…British non-intervention in the Muslim world is creating radicals in the UK.

And the BBC isn’t interested in that line of thought.

Perhaps it should be and start asking the person who is reponsible for that non-intervention, and, considering  his self-professed and new found Jewishness, how does that play into the Muslim world’s view of Britain and its foreign policy?

Miliband claimed he would be the first Jewish Prime Minister….no doubt that is due to the Left’s habit of re-writing history when it suits…Disraeli (Clue in the name) was the first PM of Jewish heritage….an odd lack of knowledge as Miliband ‘wrapped himself in the cloak of Disraeli’ for his conference speech in 2012….can it all be mere spin you ask.

As Miliband is proclaiming he will be the first Jewish PM and presenting it and his Jewishness as an electoral strategy what might Muslim voters think of his actions with regard to Syria…from where UK Muslims are having to retrieve the bodies of their sons killed as they fought for their beliefs and a free Syria?  Free of Assad anyway.

Last year this was the headline BBC news:

Syria crisis: Miliband says decision was ‘right for Britain’

Ed Miliband has insisted he did the “right thing by the British people” by helping to block UK involvement in any military action in Syria.

The Labour leader said an “ill-thought out” intervention would make things worse for the Syrian people in the wake of last week’s chemical weapons attack.

MPs rejected the principle of UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to deter the use of chemical weapons by 285 votes to 272.

So Miliband voted against possible military action designed to deter chemical weapon use.…but he claimed the vote for military action was ill-thought and that….

“They don’t want a rush to war. They want things done in the right way, working with the international community.”

He said Britain “doesn’t need reckless and impulsive leadership, it needs calm and measured leadership”.

This is the basis for the vote and military action if there was to be any:

The UK government’s motion was in support of military action in Syria if it was backed up by evidence from United Nations weapons inspectors, who are investigating the attack.

So let’s get this right…the vote was for the threat of possible military action to deter future chemical weapon use, a threat that will only be used after an investigation by the ‘international’ UN has carried out inspections to confirm chemical weapons have already been used.

Is that ‘reckless and impulsive’ or working outside the ‘international community’?  Doesn’t sound like it…sounds very much like great care was being taken to gather the evidence and get the international community to back the actions….and never mind the unusual vote in the Commons.

So just more spin to justify Miliband’s spineless charade.

Miliband could have accepted Cameron’s motion and taken credit for getting proper process established, he said. But instead he chose to exploit and scavenge….a political vulture.

Miliband was frequently praised for his double dealing vote…this is Oborne in the Telegraph drooling over him:

Ed Miliband is proving himself to be a brave and adroit leader

If Mr Miliband is remembered for nothing else, his stand on Syria changed the course of history

Mr Miliband’s great achievement: his opposition to David Cameron’s foolish suggestion three weeks ago that Britain should take part in an impetuous military attack on Syria. The Labour leader stood up against this – and changed the course of events. Whatever the fate of Mr Miliband from now on, even suppose he falls under a bus tomorrow, he has made the history books.

Well, ‘made the history books‘?…for a while…but it seems the BBC has already forgotten that ‘brave’ stand on Syria and seem coy about mentioning Miliband in relation to this anymore.

Over the last couple of days reports have come out of Syria that chemical weapons have been used by the regime over the last few weeks :

France backs claims that Syrian forces have used chemical weapons recently

Allegations that Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemical weapons in recent attacks gained traction on Sunday when France said it had “information” of toxic gases being used against opposition targets.

The claim, by the French president, François Hollande, follows accusations by the exiled Syrian opposition and rebel groups in the west and south of the country that gas has been used nine times in the past two months, killing more than 10 people and affecting hundreds more.

The BBC are reporting the chemical attacks but not a single reference to Miliband who normally gets a mention in relation to his ‘changing the course of history’ and his supposed subsequent part in the chemical weapons agreement that was cobbled together in Assad’s and Russia’s favour.

An odd omission you might think.

Miliband abandoned the Syrians, and those 2 million refugees, to their fate….never mind the barrel bombs, we now have chemical weapons being used again….and at home Miliband and his spinners are roaming the comfortable TV studios denouncing the government for their callous creation of ‘food poverty’….whilst Syrians genuinely starve….forced to eat boiled grass in some cases…as reported on the BBC (FOOC I believe)….as Miliband makes pious sounds about poverty in this country.

Possibly about time the BBC started asking questions about Miliband’s brave stand…and of Cameron’s equally cowardly ducking of the issue once the vote had gone through…saying there would be no more such votes, Parliament has spoken.  Is it possible the jelly-like Cameron didn’t want to use force and only went along because he thought history would condemn him for not taking action…and then when given the chance he ducked out from similar dilemmas in the future ?

I will listen to the BBC with interest especially as Osborne left us with this thought after the vote…..

“I hope this doesn’t become a moment when we turn our back on all of the world’s problems.”

And I wonder what Muslims make of the ‘Jewish’ leader of the opposition’s abandonment of Muslims in Syria.

UN: Syrians feel abandoned and hopeless

Children are starving to death in besieged Syrian towns and villages according to the International Commission of Inquiry looking into human rights violations in the country.

Still, at least some children in Syria are being ‘recruited’ to fight in the war…so they’ll get fed.  Never mind the snipers targeting them.

In Talmenes on Friday, as the father of six-year-old Mahmud held a vigil in his memory, the doctors that tried to save him, were running a chemical weapons education campaign for the surviving residents.

“We gathered everyone in the local mosque today to teach them how to made home-made gas masks,” said Dr Jubran. “Its not much, but it is the best we can we. We don’t think this is the last chemical attack we will see here.”

Here the BBC admits there is a problem:

Bashar al-Assad and his leadership are there to stay. It did not really need one of his closest allies and saviours, the Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, to say it.

It is now the working assumption of most observers and analysts, Western diplomats who have toiled to dislodge him, and even some of the more realistic elements among the Syrian opposition.

The reason is simple.

Unless some of the elements in the equation change radically – and there is no sign of that happening in the near future – there is no foreseeable set of circumstances that would exert sufficient pressure on Mr Assad to stand down, or the regime to negotiate its own demise.

It is a startling turnaround. Many observers – including this one – who barely 16 months ago believed the collapse of the regime under rebel pressure was imminent, have had to eat their words.

What it doesn’t admit is that it was Miliband who prevented the ‘elements in the equation from changing radically’ enough to make Assad stand down or negotiate.

A ‘startling turnaround‘ in Assad’s fortunes?  One engineered by Ed Miliband.

Nothing has changed….UKIP during the 2009 Euro elections was being smeared as racist:

Dear Mr. Thomas,

Complaint UKIP broadcast on the Today programme at 7.32am on May 30, 2009

The interview, by the standards of others broadcast during the European Parliamentary elections, as unfairly and relentlessly negative towards the party and gave undue prominence to claims that its policies were racist.

John Humphrys suggested that they would “scrap with the BNP” for votes, a direct insinuation that the party had racist policies. This was exactly in line with what UKIP’s opponents wanted to project about the party. Mr Humphrys could have asked tough questions about immigration without pushing into the territory of racism at all.

This morning Today had a little chat about UKIP (08:21) and what should be done to avoid giving them ‘victim status’ (and the subsequent voter appeal) and the impression that they are being bullied by the big political parties and media….asking why the Public still supports them despite the ordure heaped upon them….the conclusion…it is because the Establishment is seen as out to get them….and this interview doesn’t dispel that.

UKIP supporters are dismissed as ‘believers’ by Evan Davis….so not reasoned, thoughtful people…but merely driven by a sort of blind religious fanaticism?

The conclusion was don’t concentrate on what UKIP actually stands for, limiting EU power and immigration, but denounce them for their apparently incompetent economic policies….as opposed to the competent policies of….?

The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman typified the deceitful approach to talking about immigration that is now adopted by politicians and the media….‘OK yah it’s good to talk about immigration, absolutely essential…….but aren’t UKIP, and anyone who does talk about immigration, racist?’

Hardman came up with a classic of hat ilk this morning (08:21)….we mustn’t say talking about immigration is racist but….UKIP’s posters were so mean spirited and xenophobic.

…that was despite in the same sentence saying Labour MP Mike Gabe’s declaration that the posters were racist was daft…..70% the Public didn’t think the posters were racist she said….so his party must have been dismayed to hear him say that they were…..Not an ideal strategy  to say the public are racist if you want to appeal to them…..politicians aren’t engaging with the public’s concerns and have insulted voters  (by calling them racist) for many years.

And yet Hardman states those views are ‘mean spiritied and xenophobic’ herself.

Just another Today programme UKIP smear about the UKIP ‘problem’ as they see it dressed up as reasoned debate.

Hardman is hardly someone who is a natural UKIP supporter:

Here’s another example of the stupidity and double dealing of the chatterati:

Nick Cohen in the Guardain says:

Instead of tearing into the preposterous Ukip leader, Britain’s famously aggressive media have made him a celebrity

Cohen then goes on to do that very thing…tear into UKIP……

[Farage] says he represents “ordinary people”. But he is a public school-educated former banker, whose policies will help him and his kind. He claims he is the voice of “common sense”, while allying with every variety of gay-hater, conspiracy crackpot, racist, chauvinist and pillock. The only sense he and his followers have in common is a fear of anyone who is not like them.  [Yes…so afraid of foreigners that Farage married a German…and UKIP  does employ many foreign staff]

When considering Ukip…… For all the bombast, they would think that, underneath, these must be civilised men with an ironic sensibility who might have been educated at Winchester………..”Actually, they’re a bunch of thugs.”

The same should be said of Ukip.

So Cohen says attacking UKIP is a bad idea…and yet Cohen couldn’t resist, just as Hardman couldn’t stop her superior moralising inner nanny coming to the surface.

Cohen finishes up with this complaint that the media created the bland politician and now complain about that blandness, but Cohen says that it is ‘sinister of [broadcasters] to promote fanaticism as a cure for the boredom it generates.’

So UKIP are ‘fanatics’ ….because they have views Cohen doesn’t agree with….isn’t he once again doing exactly what he complains of…..he hates that ‘difference’ that UKIP represents and attacks them as sinister and fanatical because of it….doing exactly what the media did to politicians, attacking their convictions and turning them all into bland copies of each other…the BBC’s effect on Cameron the most notable….always labelling the Tories the ‘nasty party’ and hence Cameron’s appeasement of them and the evisceration of his own party and its policies.

Mark Bolland ran the Press Complaints Commission from 1992 to 1996.  He has some damning views on Leveson, that celebrity led witch hunt backed by the BBC:

Politicians destroyed the PCC to take revenge on the media, says the man who helped to create it

Today we are all supposed to be “Leveson compliant”. I am not sure why, when large chunks of what The Economist rightly condemned as a “shoddy” report following a dodgy inquiry have been torn apart or discredited – but let me ensure I am suitably transparent, with a declaration of interest. I was the first director of the Press Complaints Commission, appointed by its first chairman, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord McGregor. My partner, Guy Black, was its second director and is now chairman of its funding body. So every reader will know where I am coming from.

What began with the Calcutt inquiry ended with the monstrosity of the Leveson inquiry. I have no doubt that its proposal – swiftly and rightly rejected by the Prime Minister – to introduce press controls underpinned by statute was pre-determined from day one. That was why assessors like Sir David Bell who, as chairman of the Media Standards Trust, had conducted a long campaign against the popular press, were chosen to sit alongside Leveson. That is why he packed the first few months of his show trial with the so-called “victims” – a celebrity circus in which bile against the media was assiduously reported by the BBC and others day in day out.

It was a fix from the very start, and it certainly didn’t need £6 million of our money.

It is remarkable that a document, Meeting the needs of Muslim pupils in state schools (save to open), written by someone now central to the claims about a ‘Muslim Trojan Horse’ plot to Islamise schools is now ignored by the BBC….the document proves that this person had the intent to Islamise schools….and yet the BBC instead prefers to suggest another document professing the same Islamising agenda is fake in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the reports.

To report on the 2007 document would just confirm the Trojan Horse allegations are true and that a so-called moderate body, the MCB,  that represents the Muslim community in the UK, and a frequent guest on the BBC, was at the heart of that operation.

That might suggest that the MCB is not so ‘moderate’ nor to be trusted….. and it might then be difficult for the BBC to pass off Islam as a ‘moderate religion’ if schools adopting  its basic practices are dubbed victims of an extremist, Islamist plot.

Best not to report it then…..as ‘Is the BBC biased’ says….the BBC’s coverage of the same story can appear to come from somewhere unique to the BBC. Somewhere strange.

We had a look at this earlier:

Trojan Horse, Spartan Facts

Now Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph has a look at the 2007 MCB document:

Guide to school Islamisation, by ‘ringleader’ of Trojan Horse plot

School governor who is alleged ringleader of the Trojan Horse plot in Birmingham wrote 72-page document on manipulating teachers and curriculum

Just a reminder of what a small world it is, a very incestuous world where Politics and the Media mix and are increasingly hard to tell apart.

Sue Inglish is the BBC’s  Head of Political Programmes, Analysis and Research

This is from BBC journo Nick Jones who is keen to see the licence fee retained and ‘to explore the factors that led executives to detach themselves from the ethos of a public service financed by a compulsory licence fee,‘ but has some other interesting thoughts on the BBC:

How did the BBC end up being controlled by so many selfish and incompetent executives? For me the starting point has to be the challenge the Corporation faced in adjusting to the rapid expansion of radio and TV services during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. Opening up the airwaves to competition and loosening the stranglehold of the BBC-ITV duopoly were steps which helped to create and then sustain the vitality of the vibrant broadcasting industry we have today. But the well-ordered structures of Auntie could not always cope with the repercussions of a Thatcherite free-for-all; new services came and went as ratings and market forces eroded the hitherto certainties of the BBC and a commercial TV monopoly that had originally been dubbed a “licence to print money”.

Rather than proclaim openly and publicly what the BBC required from licence fee negotiations, Birt and his acolytes preferred to deal directly but privately with the government of the day, adviser to adviser, strategist to strategist – a process that accelerated once Tony Blair was elected prime minister and their appointees became part of a revolving and self-perpetuating web of advisers, lobbyists and the like.

Perhaps a final word should go to Margaret Hodge, chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, who has urged Hall and Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, to redouble their efforts to establish clearer lines of accountability. She had her own explanation for the National Audit Office’s calculation that in the three years to 2012 the BBC gave severance payments to 150 senior members totalling £25m, half the budget of Radio 4:

“They failed to understand they were dealing with licence fee payers’ money. There was a culture at the top where people had known each other for years and years. They probably came in together as graduate trainees and it seemed right they should look after each other when they lost their jobs, giving out lots of public money in unacceptably high pay offs”

A perspective on Israeli military action that you won’t hear from Al Beeb (From Tom Gross):

Video dispatch 21: Al-Jazeera: Why can’t Arab armies be more humane like Israel’s?

“Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine?

I attach a remarkable new video from Al-Jazeera (the Arabic version of al-Jazeera) in which the presenter, Faisal Al-Qaseem, asks his audience why Arab armies (and in particular the Iranian proxy organization Hizbullah) can’t act in a more humane way to civilians, like the Israeli and French militaries do. The discussion took place on one of the channel’s flagship live discussion shows, The Opposite Direction. (The guest in the video on the right, Mr Muhammed, also agrees with him.)

Among the questions posed on air:

“Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine? Didn’t Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that Israeli air force doesn’t bomb those areas? Why doesn’t the Syrian army respect premises of universities, schools or inhabited neighborhoods? Why does it shell even the areas of its supporters? …

“I will also give you the example of France. All Syrians remember that the French forces, when they occupied Syria tried to avoid, when rebels entered mosques or schools, they stopped. The people would prefer that France come back! For god’s sake, if a referendum were to be held… if people were to be asked, who would you prefer the current regime or the French, I swear by God they would have preferred the French.”

“The Israeli army, if it wanted to break up a demonstration, would have used water cannons or rubber bullets, not rockets or explosive barrels as happens in Aleppo today.

“You mustn’t compare the Syrian army with French or Israeli… The Israeli army didn’t shell Aleppo University and students there. They didn’t shell the university with rockets killing dozens of students… The Israelis or the French didn’t kill their people. Please tell me how many of their people did the French army kill?”

***

You can watch the video below. One wonders when Western news outlets, such as The Guardian and BBC, which day after day single out Israel for denigration, will be as honest as this al-Jazeera anchor and studio guest?