Author Archives: DB

GILES FRASER

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Check out the BBC’s profile of Giles Fraser. I was just wondering what the odds are of him getting his own BBC series within a year when I saw that Toby Young had had a similar thought:

“…no opportunity for Giles Fraser to air his Left-wing views in the media is ever neglected… Perhaps the BBC can find him a berth. He’s already a regular on Thought for the Day – surprise! – and The Moral Maze could probably cope with another Left-winger on the panel. Perhaps he could present a 12-part series on BBC2 about how every church in England should be occupied by hysterical anti-capitalists until everyone in the City of London has turned over their annual bonus to the Labour Party.”

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JOURNOLIST 2.0 – THE UK VERSION?

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Is the UK’s NUJ developing its own more radical version of the now-disbanded left-leaning JournoList group from the US?

Thanks to BBC London journalist Jane Bradley (first seen on Biased BBC a couple of weeks ago) my attention was drawn to an event called Reclaim The Media which took place last night. Fresh from interviewing St Paul’s protesters for her employer, Jane asked yesterday if any of her colleagues would be attending the NUJ-backed meeting:


The link in that tweet goes to a website called Right To Work (“Save jobs. Stop the cuts. Defend public services.”) but the speaker list advertised there was a bit out of date. The actual line-up – apart from Pilger – included BBC NUJ rep Becky Branford, the NUJ’s “anarchist” president Donnacha Delong, and Gary McFarlane, Socialist Workers Party activist (and not, sadly, Gary McFarlane the Christian relationship counsellor sacked by Relate for refusing to give sex advice to gay couples. Now that would’ve been an amusing mix-up.)

Unfortunately for Jane, as with the Trafalgar Square demo a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t make it herself. But hey, she wanted to go and that’s good enough for radical cred at the BBC.

What did she miss? Well, according to one student journalist (not BBC – yet) who attended there was an exhilarating political vibe to the evening:

The same student said that they were getting a list together:

I wonder how many BBC journalists will sign up.

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BBC IGNORES BIDEN LIES, GOES AFTER RUBIO

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The BBC has managed to squeeze two items out of a Washington Post story on Marco Rubio’s family history, with a news report and an accompanying bit of pointless padding from Daniel “let’s defend Obama” Nasaw (unsurprisingly both pieces make prominent reference to Rubio’s status as a Tea Party favourite). Thanks to the internet we can get a different perspective, and Hot Air provides us with a statement from the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies:

The Washington Post seems to have very little understanding of the Cuban exile experience and what it means to be an exile. Marco Rubio’s family was forced to stay in America because they refused to live under a communist system. That makes them exiles. It makes no difference what year you first arrived. The fundamental Cuban exile experience is not defined according to what year Cubans left, but rather by the simple, painful reality that they could not return to their homelands to live freely.

It’s so predictable that the pro-Democrat BBC would cover the Rubio story in the way it has and yet totally ignore Joe Biden’s recent outrageous claims that opposition to Obama’s jobs bill will lead to increased rape and murder. We know from the Rubio articles that BBC journalists have been reading the Washington Post this week; it’s stretching the bounds of credulity to believe not one of them saw the paper’s Fact Check column in which Biden’s statements were debunked and awarded the highest mark of Four Pinocchios.

It’s also revealing of BBC priorities that there’s been no follow-up to Fast and Furious since August, and that it hasn’t touched the Solyndra story in over three weeks, despite more revelations in both scandals. And goodness how the BBC’s US journos are suddenly quiet about the Occupy movement since it all started going Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm. They were queuing up to cover it a week ago. [*See updates]

When Bush was in power the BBC went out looking for political scandal (for example agenda-driven conspiracy-peddling left-wing activist Greg Palast – who recently told a crowd of lefties they should urinate on Republicans – was a regular reporter on Newsnight). Can anybody think of a single example of BBC journalists digging up dirt on the current administration? Has there been any scuffed BBC shoe-leather in pursuit of Democrat scandal? Some of Mark Mardell’s efforts read like they’ve been dictated to him by White House press secretary Jay Carney (who is, let’s not forget, husband to the co-author of Katty Kay’s book Womenomics). The BBC really should drop the laughable pretence of impartiality and just declare its hand:

[*] UPDATE 13:40. Related to the Occupy Wall Street protests – here’s another story from this week’s Washington Post which the BBC chose not to pick up:

Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data.

UPDATE 14:00. H/t John Anderson:

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WAKE-UP CALL

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If, unlike me, you missed the first half-hour of this morning’s Today programme on Radio 4 here’s a summary of the main points. You may detect a theme.

BBC R4 TODAY CLIMATE CHANGE OBSESSION (mp3)

That was as much as I could take on a frosty morning. On the plus side – shouting expletives at the radio wakes you up, so there is that at least.

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NICE TWEET

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Here’s another little nugget from Twitter just to keep the blog ticking over on a quiet day. This tweet comes from Mark Sandell, editor of the BBC’s World Have Your Say discussion show (and also Mr Victoria Derbyshire):

He couldn’t resist – he just had to put a #nice tag in there. He’s also concerned that not enough musicians are lending their support to the Occupy Wall Street demos. (Right-on Jane Bradley was on hand to offer one example via the Huffington Post.)

UPDATE 19:00. Within the past hour:

Do you think Sandell is trying to send us a message that he’s one of the BBC’s Untouchables?

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CLASSIC EASTON

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Mark Easton’s report for the Today programme (reproduced on his blog) about a study into civility by “social science think-tank” The Young Foundation is a classic of the Easton genre. He opens the piece with some Tory bashing, in this case reproducing a 2007 David Cameron quote which he then dismisses as “dangerously counter-productive bunkum”. He explains:

“Generalisations about declining standards of civility are inaccurate and problematic”, say the researchers….

I can almost hear a nation harrumphing at this idea. Where on earth did these “researchers” do their “research”?
The answer is partly in one of the poorest and most diverse neighbourhoods in London’s East End; Queen’s market in Newham to be precise.
“We observed how shoppers of a range of ethnicities queued patiently and stepped out of the way of prams and elderly shoppers”, they noted.
They also travelled to relatively prosperous communities in Wiltshire – Salisbury, Trowbridge and Frome – and recorded how “high levels of superficial civility… often hid deeper, covert incivilities” such as domestic violence, racism and prejudice against younger residents.

Poor ethnically diverse Newham is a paragon of civility because the people queue and step out of the way of prams. However, more prosperous (and – clearly implied – more white) communities display only “superficial civility” (queuing and avoiding prams is not superficial, evidently). These prosperous white areas are rife with racist wife-beaters, unlike the joyous melting pot of ethnic communities who all treat their women so well. (One wonders why the government is being forced to contemplate a law against forced marriage, then.)

The Young Foundation’s ideologically-driven conclusion would have been the same whatever the results of their study. If the noble people of Newham had not been good at queuing it would have been a sign that they’re all relaxed in each other’s company and happy to let others go ahead of them, unlike the stuck-up whities in Frome where queuing is just another blood-pressure raising inconvenience that contributes to domestic violence. And Mark Easton would have lapped it up just the same.

Incidentally, I heard the guy from the Young Foundation interviewed on R5L. What is it with the increasing number of spokespeople starting nearly every sentence with “So”? Is it a media training device to prevent “ums” and “ers” or something? It’s very irritating and unnatural.

(Be as civil as you like in the comments. UPDATE. Check out the opening comment by Umbongo for some background on The Young Foundation.)

UPDATE 2. Craig points out that one of the co-authors of the report is Rushanara Ali, Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. Mark Easton fails to mention this, of course.

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THAT TRAFALGAR SQUARE RALLY AGAIN

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A little update to yesterday’s post. Here’s BBC Newcastle reporter Sarah Walton’s reply to BBC London News producer Jane Bradley on Saturday:


The love of lefty protest is no great shock, but I am a little surprised to discover that BBC journalists still hold Assange in such high regard. I guess it’s all part of displaying one’s radical cred.

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BBC NEWS PRODUCER REGRETS MISSING LEFTY RALLY

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Jane Bradley, producer at BBC London TV News, tweeting yesterday:

She’s your typical Guardian-reading BBC lefty, but don’t just take my word for it:


I notice that she groups the BBC journalists in with all the other lefties.

Also, check out Ros Ball from BBC Parliament. Gender politics is her thing. Likes – female Marxist historians on the BBC and mooncups. Dislikes – Tories and, er, Doris Day.


Whip crack-away!

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OCCUPY WALL STREET

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On Monday David Preiser contrasted the way the BBC reported the Tea Party movement (“a bit strong for our tastes” as R5L’s Peter Allen put it) with the sanitised PR effort it is producing on behalf of Occupy Wall Street. David headlined his piece: “The BBC Loves Left Wing Protest“. No kidding – check out Paul Mason’s tweets of encouragement to the New Statesman’s lefty activist Laurie Penny:

Here are the sort of characters from the Wall Street protest you won’t see on the BBC’s coverage.

The anti-Semitic college graduate. “Why are you fighting with us? Because you got the money, Jewish man… You can’t even speak English. Are you Israeli? Go back to Israel.”

The Jews Control Wall Street Guy versus The White Anglo-Saxon Protestants Own Wall Street Guy.

The angry anti-white know-it-all hippie. “Maybe if we don’t use currency any more, like, that’d be really awesome. Maybe if there’s no currency a lot of products that don’t need to exist wouldn’t exist.”

Imagine the reaction the BBC would have had to such dickheads spouting equivalent bile and idiocy at a Tea Party rally. There would have been a determined effort to portray them as representative of the whole movement. But as we all know, lefty protest movements get rose-tinted BBC coverage.

UPDATE. More video of angry anti-white know-it-all hippie. “Are you a white man? If you’re a white man then shut the fuck up about race because you don’t know shit other than how to rape and kill.”

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