The BBC’s coverage of the FIFA world cup scandal has been woeful.

FIFA released a report that exonerated Russia and Qatar from accusations of corruption in the bidding process for the World Cup…however England and Australia were singled out for special attention.

The BBC failed completely to question FIFA’s decision and concentrated almost solely on England’s claimed abuses.

Now that might seem extraordinary considering the background to the story and the well known and substantial claims of corruption against Russia and Qatar.

TalkSport told us that the report was a farce, a disgrace and a whitewash….that Russia had managed to ‘lose’ all the data on its computers relating to the bid and that no emails or phone records were examined by FIFA.

In contrast the BBC took the report at face value.  Listening to their news bulletins it was all England, even their specialist sports reporters on 5Live, the ‘home of football’ apparently, failed to question the claims.

We had Peter Allen telling us England’s behaviour was ‘shocking news’ and he emphatically declared that ‘this was an independent inquiry’.

An ‘independent inquiry’?  This was FIFA investigating FIFA and finding itself not guilty and conveniently, the two countries who are going to hold World Cups are also innnocent, and therefore the bidding process won’t have to be reopened.

Very convenient.

However that all changed at 12:10 when the man who investigated the bids, Michael Garcia, but who didn’t provide the conclusions released to the world by FIFA, stated that the FIFA report “contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations”.

The BBC tells us that ‘Garcia’s statement, issued less than four hours after the report was published, has reopened the debate about the validity of the bidding process for both the 2018 and 2022 competitions. ‘

‘Reopened the debate’?  Well, no it didn’t, or rather everyone else was already asking serious questions about the credibility of the report….everyone except the BBC.

Once again the BBC fails to do any work for itself and relies on press releases by organisations that can’t be trusted….and adds insult to injury by taking a distinct pleasure in laying into the England bid operation whose Chief Operating Officer, Simon Johnson, on the BBC, told us that it was ‘sad that the headlines are all about England.‘…when the real story is elsewhere…..the story “shouldn’t be about the conduct of England’s bid, it should be about the pre-ordained exoneration of Qatar… and this smells of a politically motivated whitewash”

Perhaps the below might explain the BBC’s haste to condemn the England bid, trying to excuse and justify their own actions in order to claim that the bid’s failure had nothing to do with their  badly timed stunt …from the Daily Mail 2010….

WILL BRITAIN’S MEDIA BE BLAMED FOR LOSING VOTES?

Yesterday the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) proclaimed that there was far too much hype by government ministers in favour of Fracking…the BBC was happy to oblige in giving them plenty of sympathetic coverage.

Jim Naughtie told us that the UKERC was completely independent and had no axe to grind.

That’ll be the UKERC, along with the pro-climate change propaganda organisation, the Grantham Institute, and the UEA’s CRU, that told the government in 2008, in the shape of Ed Miliband, to cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050.

The UK government announced yesterday that it will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ed Miliband, stated last night that the assessment was based on an independent scientific report from Lord Turner’s committee on climate change.

The decision comes just nine days after Lord Turner’s committee, which includes Professor Jim Skea, research director at the UK Energy Research Centre and Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College, published its interim advice to government recommending more stringent cuts.

This is not business as usual

The speed of the decision is not a surprise to Turner’s panel. Skea says, ‘The Prime Minister indicated at the Labour Party Conference that he was willing to respond quickly once we made a recommendation.’

But the scale of the changes will be challenging. ‘We have said in our letter to the government that this is not business as usual. The very obvious priority is decarbonising the electricity industry. Buildings and transport are also up there as priorities.’

 

So, far from being neutral in the debate on CO2, climate and fossil fuel use, the UKERC is deeply involved in agitating against coal and gas…and set us on the road to a ruinous and suicidal extermination of industry.

Bishop Hill takes a look….

Public relations, not research

Nov 12, 2014 Energy: gas Greens

The BBC is spreading its influence…

Local papers cautious as BBC courts them with free content

They are traditionally the bitterest of rivals but now a BBC olive branch to regional newspapers has been given a cautious welcome by an industry whose sales have been in dizzying decline. James Harding, the BBC’s director of news and current affairs, has looked to build bridges with beleaguered editors with the offer of free licence fee-funded content and the prospect of the corporation picking up the tab for local court reporting.

Largely through pilots and proposals at this stage, the BBC will look to ease the financial burden on local newspapers by sharing more of its content, as it did with video footage of this year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Nigel Pickover, editor of the Archant-owned Norwich Evening News and Eastern Daily Press, said he hoped the BBC would go beyond words to take action.

“The BBC’s licence fee means the corporation gets a soft comfort blanket of subsidy to compete with local newspaper organisations, which themselves have to fight and scrap for revenues at every turn,” he said.

“This, in turn, protects the journalism which, ironically, the BBC and others often rely on for their daily agendas.”

A reflection of the tension often felt between local papers and the BBC’s own local outlets, which span TV, radio and online, Pickover said it was clearly in the BBC’s interests to see thriving local news businesses as “many corporation outlets would be lost without us”.

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said there had been a “good and positive” exchange of views between the BBC and local and regional editors. “There have been lots of times when we have talked in the past and it has come to nothing. It’s obviously not something that can happen overnight,” he said.

“The BBC, with its resources from, in effect, the taxation of the public through the licence fee, that can create an uneven playing field. But there is a genuine attempt here on the part of the BBC to meet the concern of local papers.

“Where difficulties can arise in a partnership is if you have a big and powerful partner, it is usually the big and powerful partner that benefits the most. But both sides of the partnership have to see the benefits.”

 

 

Incredible really what the publicly funded BBC gets up to in the commercial sphere, never mind the political sphere with BBC Worldwide and its Media Action arm.

Here are a couple of examples of what the BBC provides to the world…..

What is BBC Worldwide Showcase?

BBC Worldwide Showcase is a unique annual sales festival hosted by BBC Worldwide.

Our flagship four-day festival attracts more than 600 of the world’s top TV and digital executives to Britain, and is the nation’s biggest television export market.

Beloved by buyers for its special atmosphere, each year BBC Worldwide Showcase unveils a spectacular array of new shows – accompanied by our catalogue of over 50,000 hours of first-class content.

 

 

And the BBC’s facilities and expertise used to provide ‘Studios and Post Production’ to other companies.

Creating and preserving award-winning content

We work with media companies to create and manage award-winning content across all genres for a wide range of platforms and broadcasters, including ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, as well as the BBC.

 

You could argue that this is the best use of the BBC’s resources and in providing them enables other media businesses to piggyback off them and grow.

or you could say this is a mega sized corporation dominating the business and smothering development of companies in their own right, killing off independent competitors.

And of course this makes the BBC the most dominant player in the market with huge power and influence to make or break other companies or competitors…..and if it is providing news content then we are also treated to the prospect of the BBC world view being disseminated through other outlets unable to compete with the BBC and unable to provide their own content and interpretation of news and events.

Things seem a bit pear-shaped so here’s an open thread to keep things moving.

The Brand wagon is still rolling strongly, promoting his book and revolution.

Apparently the BBC still think he has important things to say and that he ‘has the ear of the youth’…the worthy Giles Fraser not being the audience winner they had obviously hoped for….I’m sure yesterday’s Radio One’s Breakfast show audience were thrilled to once again have Brand shoved down their throats….never mind R1’s audience apparently being an average age of 32…

Back in 2008 Allison Pearson in the Mail declared……

The age of the over-sexed, overpaid moron should be declared over.

As someone who treasures the BBC and the great contribution it can make to the life of our country, I hope it turns out to be on the side of Us not Them.

 

I imagine she feels somewhat disappointed 6 years on that the BBC is very definitely on Their side.

You have to laugh…..the multi-millionaire Brand is worried that anti-Austerity protests will make him late for his trip to the theatre….but you know what….he’s there with ’em on the barricades…….in spirit…..

Russell Brand has said he can see why “there is so much frustration” among protesters who took part in an anti-austerity march in London.

Did I really hear an EU apparatchik telling us on the Today show (08:34) that the UK has benefitted from the EU, receiving £70 billion in benefits from it, whilst the UK gives the EU a mere £6.7 billion?

Sure I did hear that.

What I didn’t hear was any challenge to that, quite obviously, misleading ‘Fact’.

Even the Guardian admits the UK pays in more than it receives:

The UK contributes much more than it receives too, about €4.7bn more.

The UK’s contribution…..£11.273 billion

The UK’s receipts from EU…..£6.570 billion

It’s all ‘a question of the definition’ as the apparatchik claimed.

BBC journo’s seem to like the romance of the AK47 wielding terrorist

‘Today’ (08:40) brought us Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, who after a spell educating himself in Soviet Russia, pre the collapse of the Berlin Wall (No surprise there….a BBC journo studying in Moscow), and continuing to live there for the next 15 years (I’m sure he’s not gone native) tells us that the fall of the Berlin Wall was a disaster leading to war and conflict.  The Soviet Empire was a peace keeper that meant the world could relax in the knowledge that having a Soviet jackboot on your neck and AK47 toting insurgents murdering anyone who didn’t agree with their world view was in fact a welcome sign of a benevolent regime much preferable to the unconstrained freedoms that would allow an outbreak of the nightmares that come with democracy, free speech and liberty.

Russia invading the Ukraine isn’t a sign of Russian aggression trying to re-establish its old empire but a reaction to EU aggression led by NATO which has egregiously agreed to allow countries that ask to join its ranks.

It’s the old BBC meme…just as poor old Iran is only reacting to the aggression of the US and the enemies that surround it, Russia is similarly beset by sabre rattling enemies….yes…I can see his point…..

Poor old Russkies.  Just have to keep arming most of the world’s terrorist and insurgent groups to maintain world peace.

Wander what the BBC will make of the Israeli security barrier in 25 years…unlike the Berlin Wall which was designed to keep people inside the world’s biggest prison camp, the Israeli barrier is designed to keep out murderous terrorists.

But of course it is the Israeli barrier that is the target of the BBC’s provocatively misleading reporting.

To Justin Webb….

Justin, when interviewing people it helps if you actually interview them.  Part of that is an inconvenient requirement that you ask questions, any questions, but preferably ones that actually make the interviewee reveal something of relevance to the subject.

Unless a presenter is thrown into an interview without notice, they need to go in armed with good background knowledge.

Presumably Justin, this morning you were somewhat busy, too busy to do any research that would have allowed you to challenge Peter Hain’s furiously msileading rant about the economy and Public opinion.

Instead of keeping Hain on thread, talking about any challenge to Miliband’s leadership, Webb allowed Hain to bluster on for an extended period dodging the real point.

Judicious use of opinion polls may show that politicians are out of step with what the public wants

Webb instead of challenging Hain decided that he rather quite liked what he was hearing and when Hain raged that the economy was failing, other countries are doing so much better than us, people are disillusioned and angry with this government  Webb’s only quibble was to ask why, when people are so angry and disillusioned, Miliband isn’t profiting from that.

Basically it seemed that Webb accepted Hain’s premise about the economy and people’s beliefs.

It was the same Webb yesterday that when interviewing a LibDem accepted that ‘Tory’ policies such as the ‘Bedroom Tax’ were wrong and LibDems should possibly have resigned on principle in opposition to them.

 

Killer facts, produced at the right moment, can be a highly effective way of challenging a guest’s argument

 

Of course if you enter into an interview seemingly not intending to ask any questions I guess ‘Killer Facts’ are unnecessary when faced with a oleaginous politician who spouts lazy and fabricated tripe that suits your narrative.

Peter Hain being lovingly carried to the interview by his loyal team of police manservants. Lazy sod.

Just business as usual for the BBC which has a habit of bringing in Labour politicians for a cosy chat that verge on ‘party political broadcast’ with a few questions chucked in for appearances sake.

Republicans win control of US Senate

This wasn’t meant to happen…just as snow was a thing of the past the Republicans were meant to be on their last legs as the political landscape changed in the US along with the population profile.

Guess all those Hispanic and Black voters weren’t persuaded by the Guardian and the BBC.

Speakers at a pro-immigration policy conference

Isn’t it curious how the same person keeps bringing us ‘research’ that shows EU immigration benefits us….and the BBC loves it…. we’ve been here before…

The BBC, Still Selling Us A Lie On Immigration

Christian Dustmann, an immigrant himself, was one of the architects of Labour’s EU immigration policy, and yet the BBC thinks it is perfectly reasonable to quote his research as if it was entirely trustworthy….I note Migration Watch has been relegated to the status of ‘Pressure Group’ again….despite the fact that ‘Sir Andrew Green of Migration Watch(disgracefully treated by the BBC as a Right-wing Alarmist 10 years ago) has provided more accurate, responsible and truthful predictions than anyone else.’

Dustmann runs an organisation that campaigns for immigration…In 2013 Dustmann organised the Migration: Global Development, New Frontiers…Interdisciplinary conference on migration and look who turns up to speak at his shindig…..the BBC’s pro-immigration Mark Easton, not to report but to participate, and Charles Clarke, Home Secretary in charge of immigration under Labour.

The fiigures are worthless as the person who has created them has vested interests…one in that he helped create the open door policy and he supports, actively campaigns for, mass immigration from the EU.

The BBC isn’t interested in investigating Dustmann’s claims, just trumpeting them from the rooftops.

Non-EU immigration isn’t the issue here because the big controversy is EU immigration and Labour’s policy.

Peston is just now telling us as I write that ‘this study lays this to rest’.