Author Archives: DB

LEFTY COLUMNIST: WE DOMINATE BBC FLAGSHIP NEWS

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Following Jeremy Clarkson’s comments about the strikers on The One Show yesterday, outraged Liberal Conspiracy editor and Guardian contributor Sunny Hundal tweeted:


He received many replies, not least from fellow lefty and Guardian columnist Deborah Orr (wife of Will Self, one of the BBC’s favourite “controversial” lefties):




“We dominate the really serious flagship slots.”

Orr is only scratching the surface, but it’s interesting to see an insider’s take from within the metropolitan lefty media bubble that confirms what we’ve been saying all along.

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BIASED BBC XMAS GIFT IDEAS

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In the first of an occasional series dedicated to BBC-related Christmas gift ideas I would like to take this opportunity to draw our readers’ attention to the following items…



Further Xmas gift recommendations from Biased BBC readers are welcome.

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CLIMATEGATE 2

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Understandably there’s a great deal of discussion about Climategate 2 in the comments. I’m sure Robin will be along to give us his take but in the meantime here’s a thread dedicated to the subject. There’s a searchable database here (those with time might like to start sifting through the results for “BBC“).

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BBC CHURNALISM

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Many thanks to Katabasis for pointing out his analysis of churnalism and the Environment Agency. I urge you to read it all, but here are some highlights:

The BBC is by far and away the worst offender for simply repeating whatever the Environment Agency claimed in its press releases.Out of the 393 articles where “significant” churn had taken place, the BBC were responsible for 44%. Likewise for the 49 articles that had “major” churn (meaning in most cases they were almost complete cut and pastes of the press releases), the BBC was responsible for 30.6%.

“Glaciergate should not distract us from climate battle”
Here the chairman of the Environment Agency is asked to write a piece for the BBC. It repeats exactly the majority of a press release issued by the Environment Agency two months beforehand claiming to quote the chairman by declaring what he is going to say at a forthcoming event. Yes I had trouble getting my head around that too.

“Flood defence project gets small seal of approval”
An absolutely stunning 94% paste job by the BBC. Even the churnalism engine struggles to represent it visually – make sure you click through to the BBC article itself. You can see from eyeballing it and comparing it to the submitted press release that it is a straight cut and paste.

[UPDATE – the Churnalism.com website Katabasis uses for his analysis can get a bit precious if you open too many tabs/windows. I suggest following one link at a time, closing it, then going on to the next one to avoid crashes.]

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YOUR TUESDAY EVENING MOMENT OF ZEN

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Meanwhile, over at BBC News online – another report about the MF Global scandal which fails to mention that Jon Corzine is a former Democrat governor and major fundraiser for Obama. And imagine how many times the word “Republican” would be screaming out from the headline and opening paragraphs of this article about the jailing of Tony Rezko if he’d been a GOP supporter (also check out the BBC’s ass-covering on behalf of the beloved Mr President).

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OCCUPY UPDATE

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As I pointed out in the comments yesterday, the BBC’s Matt Danzico has been touting for book donations for a new Occupy Wall Street library organised by his sister Liz (aka “bobulate”):


(Liz sounds like she could be one of Occupy’s Uptown crowd.)

Even *ahem* impartial BBC journalists such as Matt Danzico might think twice about giving stuff to OWS when they hear of the money swilling around the place.

Last month Danzico interviewed this guy, Thorin Caristo, from the OWS media centre at Zuccotti Park:

Caristo was also interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme following the clearance of Zuccotti last week; he told Evan Davis that the occupiers’ next move would be a takeover of Central Park.

It turns out Mr Caristo is a bit of a divisive character within the OWS set-up. According to audio-plus-transcript posted today by OWSNYC at Livestream (recorded secretly by other occupiers, it seems) he has been taking substantial amounts of money from a rich benefactor called Jean Louis Bourgeois (no, seriously). Here are some screengrabs to give you an idea of the sums being discussed, not to mention a somewhat two-faced attitude towards the guy with the money:

The Livestream clip linked to above is worth watching in its entirety to get a full sense of the bitterness, backstabbing and bitching that’s going down within OWS. There’s talk of chauffeur-driven cars, alienated celebrities, and even a threat to kick someone in the teeth. And if you’re really into the soap opera of it all, you can see one of Thorin’s former friends responding here.

You don’t get any of this stuff on the BBC, do you?

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BBC NEWS-FIXING ROW – FURTHER REVELATIONS

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From today’s Independent:

The London-based television company being investigated by Ofcom over a global news fixing row tried to “cultivate” a world-famous environmental economist and other leading opinion formers in the green movement for the documentaries it made for the BBC and other news broadcasters.
FBC Media claims in its promotional literature that it targeted Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, to be an “ambassador” for its corporate client on programmes it made about the controversial palm oil industry in Malaysia.
Mr Sachs, a special adviser to United Nations secretary general Ban-Ki Moon, was a prominent interviewee on a BBC World “Third Eye” documentary about Malaysia which was produced by FBC. The Independent has established that FBC was paid £17m by the Malaysian government to work on a “global strategic communications campaign”. The documentary was one of eight FBC programmes made for the BBC found to have been in “serious” breach of corporation editorial guidelines in a report issued yesterday by the BBC Trust.

Previously:
BBC VIEWERS HOODWINKED
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

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LAURA TREVELYAN’S OCCUPY POSTER BOY IS RAGING ANTI-SEMITE

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From Laura Trevelyan’s “At the scene” report:

Daniel Klein shows me his bruised face and his broken ribs – a casualty, he said, of last night’s eviction of Zuccotti Park by the NYPD. Daniel is back, and intends to stay in the park overnight, somehow – though he can’t sleep here.

She’s put his picture on Twitter (although there she calls him Daniel Maslwosky, but it’s definitely the same guy and Danny Cline appears to be the name he usually goes by):

My first thought on seeing that was, “He looks familiar.” Remember this video I posted back on October 6?

Yup, same guy. Here’s a collection of more outbursts by Danny, aka “The Lotion Man”:

Even if one takes the claims of injury at face value (which I don’t – unlike Trevelyan) it’s not too difficult to imagine how this nasty piece of work might have ended up getting hurt during the course of the eviction.

Given that the BBC has been doing its utmost to portray the Occupy movement in as positive a light as possible, it’s wonderfully ironic that Laura Trevelyan should choose this angry racist little weasel as a symbol of OWS defiance.

UPDATE. This recently posted video suggests that Danny has indulged in one petulant outburst too many. “I got angry and threw my piece of artwork on the floor by mistake… You want me to leave the park? I’ll never come back, and this place will be deserted…” “OK, now collect your gear.”

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