Open Thread…..Monday

 

We all know that any suggestion that there is a streak of bias coursing through the BBC’s corridors is ludicrous, or so says the BBC’s top newshound, James Harding.  However, should you happen to come across any vestigial bias lurking in the darkest corners of the BBC please feel free to list it here so that the BBC can immediately rectify the unfortunate lapse in standards…..a new open thread….

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501 Responses to Open Thread…..Monday

  1. Guest Who says:

    http://bbcwatch.org/2015/06/18/head-of-bbcs-me-bureau-slams-israeli-government-criticism-of-gaza-reporting/

    “And no less remarkable is the fact that the video’s critics do not seem to be overly keen to address the actual issues behind the satire”

    Now there’s a surprise.

    Maybe they are too busy focussing their infantile efforts on investigating themselves, claiming they get it about right and excluding from FoIs to get around to such introspection?

    It was a pretty simplistic vid, but the pompous flouncing by its targets has really been predictably worth it.

    I bet the FPA equivalent of Frankie Howerd was packed to the gunnels for hours with the highest of dudgeon to arrive at at such a response.

       9 likes

  2. deegee says:

    Who knows less about climate science – the pontiff or BBC journalists? Either way Pope Francis: Climate change mostly man-made is a boost for the BBC narrative giving a religious boost to the movement.

       15 likes

    • ID says:

      Who knows the climate change modellers may return the favour and come up with a program that predicts the Second Coming on a scientific basis. I love the holistic approach.

         9 likes

    • Phil Ford says:

      I’m sure the Pontiff knows as much about so-called ‘climate change’ as that other internationally-recognised voice of scientific excellence, Al Gore.

      This is how liberal fascism works. Gore – completely unqualified to speak on the subject of climate science – is awarded a Nobel Prize for his science fiction movie on the subject, whilst the msm (liberal Marxists, all) refuse to hear the voices of anyone – even qualified climate scientists – who might dissent on the issue.

      The BBC, of course, operates it’s patented ‘due impartiality’™ clause when it comes to so-called ‘climate change’. In a nutshell, this means that anyone who takes issue with the agreed CAGW narrative is effectively banished from the airwaves.

      BBC impartiality at work.

         12 likes

      • Englands Dreaming says:

        The Pope’s solution is to make everybody poor as if there is some virtue in being poor. If he was remotely serious about helping the world he might advocate birth control – less people, less pressure on finite resources.

           11 likes

  3. Guest Who says:

    Seems Mr. Donnision, when not raging still about Israel, has decided on another tack… at least in the headline, for his latest obsession:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-33179049?

    Rather wisely, there is no option for interactive comment, so he can huff and puff away as he pleases.

    There is a Facebook complement. Let’s see how his speaking for the Australian nation fares there.

       8 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      Donnison is completely transparent about which side of this issue he supports and he is in a privileged tax payer funded position to promote and to advocate for his one side of the argument. He and his employer are not about to ask us what we think. Wait up…. we are his employer.

      I have noticed for years now that the BBC have employed commentary on US politics as a cipher for their attitudes to British issues that would be too blatantly partisan leftist to get away with domestically.

      Now, as the BBC expands its world ambitions, we see a consistent BBC editorial opinion beginning to crystalise to a point where you can confidently predict: support for arabs against Israel…. Pakistan great/India rubbish etc etc

      Why are we paying for this? Let Jon Donnison find himself a job with an NGO. Then stop our government funding for them too, of course.

         18 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      Slightly OT, but making one of my rare forays onto Facebook suggests (from a cursory look) that most commenters think Tony Abbott is being dreadful and in fact most Ozzies support the refugees.

      Then I looked at when the comments were made and found the times all over the place. Wondering why (having assumed they’d be chronological), I looked for some setting and sure enough, comments were set to “Most Relevant”. That got me to thinking. Who decides what’s most relevant? Is this an automatic feature of Facebook via some algorithm, or perhaps use of key words such as “racist”? Or is it under the control of the account owner (i.e. the BBC) to decide? I’d be interested to hear from those more versed in Facebook than I.

         19 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        You learn something every day.

        I must await a teenager awakening in an hour or two to help me surf my settings.

        Mine appears to default to some kind of ‘most liked’.

        ‘Most relevant’ sounds like an FB version of ‘Editors’ Picks’, and if the BBC has any influence (so savvier social media opinion indeed welcome) it is hard to imagine it is any less guided by corporate duty than HYS threads.

        Interestingly on matters Oz, Mr. Abbott seldom fares well with the BBC World or News audiences, but on this topic they overwhelming suggest approval and the BBC butt out.

           6 likes

  4. Dave666 says:

    BBc breakfast Main story is a multiple murder in America. We don’t live in America but the gunman is white & it’s being treated as a hate crime. Which gives the presenters to go back over the recent Policemen shooting unarmed blacks etc.
    Weather bint is at Royal Ascot
    I knew they couldn’t resist it. Yes the “missing 12” it’s down the pecking order but still there.
    The Pope & climate change

       20 likes

    • DYKEVISIONS says:

      Dave666, yes I agree. Al Beeb was quick off the mark as usual with the ‘man’ is white but….
      I am waiting with baited breath to be informed about the ethnicity of the alleged perpetrator of this rather ugly incident in our green and pleasant land!
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-33177590

         17 likes

      • Dave666 says:

        I’m sure I read somewhere that the suspects were black, although I can’t remember where.

           8 likes

    • Alan Larocka says:

      I noticed too the attack in Peckham had no racial profile, yet the US gun attack was ‘white man’ ‘black victims’.
      Why the need to differentiate between the two incidents??????
      Why not report ‘church goers gunned down by madman’?

         22 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      Interesting use of the term ‘hate crime”. As opposed to what? A loving crime? A benevolent crime? Surely all crime is by definition ‘hateful’. The alleged perp is described as White, but can we be sure that he is not one of those transracial people who seems to be White but actually think they are Black? You know, like that Rachel Dolezal woman?

      All right thinking people will condemn this horrible crime regardless of motive or anything. The purpose of the above comments are to illustrate the contradictions and illogicalities of liberal thinking and the BBC.

         17 likes

    • Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

      The ‘white’ gunman looks about as white as Rachel Dolezal is black.

         11 likes

  5. ID says:

    The left are profound believers that any circle can be squared and logical inconsistency is never seen to be fatal flaw in any argument. The BBC has no logical difficulty in claiming asylum seekers are a boon in one breath while demanding “burden sharing” in the next. If what you are sharing is a burden then it cannot simultaneously be a boon. Not in normal logic anyway.

       9 likes

  6. Old Goat says:

    Kwis Packham waxing lyrical about the demise of the vulture, somewhere or other…

       9 likes

  7. Dover Sentry says:

    BBC News.

    Early end to wind farm subsidies. Not approved by BBC. Hooray!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33177025

    Deeply regrettable to the ScottIsh Parliament. Hooray!
    And the constructors of these useless abominations whinge. Hooray!

    ..

       19 likes

  8. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    Kate Hoey, Labour MP, sums up all that’s wrong with Labour, and therefore the bBBC:
    … Hoey blames her party’s “extremely unpatriotic” outlook for its increasing alienation from its traditional working class supporters. “They feel very strongly about their country and we have been extremely unpatriotic as a party to our country. There’s just a feeling that we’re half-hearted about being British, we’re half-hearted about the monarchy, we’re half-hearted about the way we see our country in the world. I’m very proud of being British and I think the United Kingdom is a force for good in the world and we seem to feel all the time that we have to put ourselves down because somehow that might upset people”.

    She continues: “We’ve moved away from the basic decency and values that working class people had and the way that I and others were brought up … All of that seems to be ridiculed now by some of the people in leadership positions and not necessarily because they’ve really believed that but because we’ve been taken over by this kind of London, intellectual, academic-y, liberal-y people who feel that, really, if only we just got rid of all those people out there who ask awkward questions about immigration and ask awkward questions about people living off benefits when they shouldn’t be, that Labour would somehow be wonderful.”

       30 likes

    • Ian Rushlow says:

      Interesting character, Kate Hoey. In February 2013 she put forward a parliamentary motion to memorialise the victims of the two Viscount passenger planes shot down by terrorists in Rhodesia. Readers of a certain age may recall that some passengers, including children, survived the crash only to be butchered on the ground and that terrorist leader Joshua Nkomo duly appeared on the BBC on September 3rd 1978 to claim responsibility, laughing as he did so.

         26 likes

    • 60022Mallard says:

      One of only a handful of Labour M.P.s who could get my vote.

      My best recollection was as Minister of Sport she rode round the Isle of Man TT course on the back of a bike and declared that if people wished to risk death doing so, then good luck to them.

      I believe she crossed swords with Tony Blair on something and lost her ministerial position.

      Also talks a lot of common sense on Northern Ireland I believe, possibly from her being from there.

         16 likes

    • 60022Mallard says:

      Reading her cv seems just the sort of person they want to have on Question Time, although Wiki did mention she is a critic of the BBC and seems against many of their “takes” on matters!

         10 likes

  9. Matthew says:

    According to BBC headline ‘Boris Johnson filmed swearing at taxi driver’
    He “was involved in an altercation at traffic lights”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33178055

    But the reality is he was just riding his bicycle down the street and some passing cab driver shouted abuse at him.

       21 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      ‘But the reality is…

      Since when did reality, or context, come into it?

      If the Jon Donnison can be flown over for a special analysis it will seem like it how mowed down a nun on a mobility scooter. As it is the BBC has gone full shock horror with the best of them in headline, and muttered the actual facts a bit later on.

      To be fair, all the rest are lapping it up too, but the BBc has form.

      Now if eggs and a thrown slap were involved, there’d be ‘Boris just being Boris’ and calls for enoblement. Depending on political affiliation, of course.

         13 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:

      ‘Analysis from Tom Edwards, BBC London transport correspondent’

      Here we go… the BBC bringing full weight of journalistic knowhow to bear….

      ‘Behind this incident is a dispute that has been simmering for months. The black cab trade blame London Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London for failing to do enough to protect them’

      And for once – albeit half way down the report – the BBC delivers.

      Plebgate and Cops v Tories, anyone?

         9 likes

  10. Sir Arthur Strebe-Grebling says:

    If this doesn’t finish Burnham’s bid to become a future Prime Minister, it should:

       5 likes

    • Selohesra says:

      Burnham’s main problem is that he is just not very bright – that and the fact he is a bit Scouse should rule him out of any leadership race

         13 likes

      • oh my says:

        he’s a manc not a scouser you ignorant prick

           1 likes

        • Wild says:

          “Burnham was born in Old Roan in Aintree, Liverpool, in 1970”

             8 likes

          • Charlatans says:

            Oh my……..Ha ha ha…you must be from the left… …they get everything wrong…..lol

               12 likes

            • Oh My U R all thick says:

              Aintree has never and will never be part of liverpool, its just outside liverpool. Additionally, the Old Roan in not in Aintree. I take it Burnham was born in Aintree Hospital which is actually not in Aintree its in Fazakerley, but its closer to the Old Roan than Aintree

              Burnham is a manc, just because he was born on Merseyside (not liverpool) doesnt make him a scouser, just like mohammad ahmed muhamud born in Birmingham doesnt make him a Brummie let alone British

              Like all Mancs, Burnham is a wannabe scouser, like all mancs, he lacks a sense of identity, which is why all mancs wish they were scousers, especially when it comes to music and football

              and 5 idiots up voted u as well :p

                 3 likes

              • Guest Who says:

                I count numpty-nur angels dancing on that pinhead so far? You?

                Now, about all those with childhood memories of the Bow bells ringing as they set down their community roots…

                Maybe Cockney has a view?

                   9 likes

              • Rob in Cheshire says:

                Well if Aintree isn’t in Liverpool, it sure as hell isn’t in Manchester either. Do you have special needs by any chance?

                   4 likes

              • D1004 says:

                Brilliant criticism U R, takes a Scouser to find the holes in his story. Shoot the ruddy Manc down . Red or a blue nose ?

                   1 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      It should, as it is a simple, sound-bite, easily-tweeted, less than 140-character disaster.

      However, whether it does depends on how much, as with Ed Millstone, the BBC sees him as the best puppet to install for their corporation-comes-first purposes.

      In which case expect a raft of ‘what he meant was’ ‘analysis’ from Nick, Norm, etc.

      Frankly the BBC must be in despair at the choices they are faced with to push. No one in the country is going to get behind any of them no matter how much PR £4Bpa for 5 years buys.

         9 likes

  11. Englands Dreaming says:

    The Beeb has its claws out for Hungary and particular their Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Maybe it has something to do with Orban’s less than favourable stance on illegal immigrants entering the EU, calling EU policy “bordering on insanity”

    Today on its website the Beeb attacks with the headline
    “Serbian PM ‘shocked’ at Hungary’s plan for migrant fence”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33168125

    On the World Service today on their “news” program Outside Source they had an interview with Naomi from Budapest, thought at first she was the local Beeb journalist but she wasn’t so no idea who she was or where she came from. Asked about the fence, she said it is of no concern to people in Budapest and her “interllectual friends” were “shocked” and thought it was “pointless”. No doubt Naomi was typical of your average Hungarian, thanks Beeb most informative.

    Unlike the old EU members, the new arrivals from Central and Eastern Europe have no desire to turn their countries into multi-cultural failed states. This isn’t based on xenophobia, their record of accepting genuine refugees during the Yugoslav wars and now Ukraine is better than the West’s. It is based on common sense a commodity totally lacking amongst the EU elite.

       13 likes

  12. Guest Who says:

    Was laughing at the strong showing of Stewart Lewis amongst Labour voters in the leadership race, and noticed this as (£) Guido’s current ‘quote of the day’:

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4471990.ece

    ‘“…let’s have an inquiry into the way thousands of people were trying to stop lorry drivers going about their business in a free country. And about the barrage of bottles, stones and broken fencing thrown at the drivers.
    Let’s inquire into the intimidation of working miners in their homes and as they made their way to their jobs, choosing to work rather than obey a strike called without a ballot.

    Let’s inquire into the death of David Wilkie and try to find out what was in all those maps and papers Kim Howells felt he urgently needed to dispose of. Let’s find out what the hundreds of miners in Merthyr Vale were thinking when they decided that the appropriate reaction to the guilty verdict on the men who orphaned Wilkie’s young children was to walk out in support of the killers rather than the dead man.
    Let’s have an inquiry into the way that Arthur Scargill brought the dispute about and the role of his union and its supporters in the encouragement of what became major incidents of public disorder. Let’s look at the role of left-wing fringe organisations and outsiders in mobilising menacing groups designed to frighten others into complying with their political demands.

    And maybe we could call someone from the KGB and the former Soviet government before the inquiry. We could try to find out about more about how they funnelled money to the NUM.”

    Given certain media have, are and look set to hang on every ‘call’ made by their eagerly anticipated big hero 4, as the initial one was dutifully passed on, one wonders if this aspect may be accorded high-profile contemplation, or best moved on from by the selectively inquiring minds of the others, maybe still smarting from being labelled the wrong kind of propagandist on the line.

    A fitting topic for David Dimbleby to mull, with all due editorial independence and integrity of course?

       15 likes

  13. The Old Bloke says:

    Coldest June (so far) for 24 years.

       11 likes

  14. Guest Who says:

    The force-funded, £4Bpa, trusted and transparent ((c) A. BBC poll) media monopoly and accuracy:

    http://bbcwatch.org/2015/06/18/bbcs-evan-davis-misleads-on-bds-proportionality-in-warfare/

    Now, who to believe?

    This little free blog, or those wonderful people who brought licence fee payers the McAlpine settlement?

    Fraser Steel doubtless roused again to act… soon?

    Also seems Evan seeking to emulate Mishal in the moral equivalence stakes again.

    When such shoddy and blatantly partial ‘journalism’ is broadcast on prime time British television it is once again patently obvious that the BBC’s lack of commitment to its legal obligation to “[e]nhance UK audiences’ awareness and understanding of international issues” is precisely one of the factors contributing to the existence of UK residents’ negative views of Israel touted by Davis in his introduction.

    Cause and effect, BBC ‘tell-it-often-enough’ styly.

       10 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      ks for posting that article and its link to the Evan Davies interview.

      Davies’ whole tone was malevolent. He really is a nasty piece of work – and a dreadful “journalist”.

         8 likes

  15. Arthur Penney says:

    Enjoyed ‘Your call’ this morning on 5-live at about 9.30 when the ‘Greenie’ on the BBC panel was hung, drawn and quartered by a caller who knew something about the issues involved.

       9 likes

  16. JimS says:

    Remarkably there has never been an instance of an African-American ever killing a white American.

    Perhaps the BBC could make a programme about it, or, at least make it the lead item in the news.

       6 likes

    • ihategodbotherers says:

      There have been many instances of that, of course, but they generally like to murder their own.

         2 likes

  17. Leha says:

    sorry

       0 likes

  18. Leha says:

    just had

       0 likes

  19. Leha says:

    to make

       0 likes

  20. Leha says:

    500!

    get yer finger out DV 🙂

       2 likes

  21. John Anderson says:

    Since Tudor times – if not before – British foreign policy has been based on preventing any power dominating Europe. Latterly the threats were Germany leading to two World Wars, then the Soviet Union.

    Right now the threat is domination by unelected EU Commssioners driving towards a single State of Europe. So the 200th anniversary of Waterloo today is highly relevant – the time when Napoleon was finally stopped from dominating Europe. There followed 100 years of Pax Britannica. But the BBC has been giving very little coverage of Waterloo, especially its historic context. Instead we have had a daily dose of Andrew Roberts contra-history about Napoleon ! His theme has been mainly that Boney was a “benevolent” dictator. Playing up the benevolent bit – and playing down the dictator bit.

    Tonight I am off to a Waterloo Dinner. And the theme is that once again we have to contest Britain being dominated by the EU – domination that is plugged at every turn by the lackey BBC with its propaganda and scaremongering about Brexit.

       10 likes

  22. ihategodbotherers says:

    ALL religions are false religions.

       2 likes