Author Archives: DB

WHERE’S ARI?

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Quite the red carpet treatment from the BBC for Arianna Huffington as she launches the UK version of the Huffington Post this week. Last night Newsnight:

This morning BBC Breakfast and an interview for Radio 3. Tonight Radio Five Live’s Richard Bacon will be hosting a Huffington Post event (and naturally he’s impressed with the new site).

Let us know if you’ve spotted Arianna on the BBC or have seen BBC employees gushing about HuffPo UK. You could win a monetary prize equal to the amount Ms Huffington pays her bloggers.

Update. This morning’s Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 (h/t Millie Tant).

Update. She’s on the Richard Bacon show this afternoon. So far that’s BBC1, BBC2, and Radio 3, 4 and 5. CBeebies next?

Update. She’s been on enough channels – you’d think they would know how to spell her name correctly:

And another BBC online report here (h/t RGH). Bono will be getting jealous.

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R4 TODAY TAKES LOGICAL NEXT STEP

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The Today programme is now producing its own anti-government protest songs. It was only a matter of time, I suppose.

Business presenter Adam Shaw sat down with Robbie Williams’ songwriter Guy Chambers to come up with a tune about government pension proposals. Listen to the result here.

Lyrics:

We make two big journeys in our story it’s often said,
One when we are married, one when we are dead.
I thought we were protected by a golden trust,
Now I’ve been abandoned, your words have turned to rust.
I’m betrayed
This bed we made
Went off the rails
We lie on nails
I’m betrayed
Our dreams they fade
We had a deal
And still you steal


Tomorrow, Sarah Montague and Bernie Taupin bring us their jaunty ditty Let’s Raise Taxes On Carbon Emissions.

Incidentally, is anybody else getting more than a little sick of BBC journalists doing these “look at me” reports which serve little purpose other than to raise their own profiles and create a bit of ego-soothing Twitter buzz?

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"I LOVE HIM!"

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Hat-tip to John Horne Tooke in the comments for pointing us to the Twitter account of BBC journalist Jude Machin:

“Obamama”? Urrgh *shiver*.

OK, so she’s assigned to the 2012 Olympics and isn’t covering US politics (and quite clearly can’t be allowed to do so – right, Ms Boaden?) However, isn’t it interesting that every time a BBC hack expresses a political opinion on Twitter it always seems to come from one direction? Imagine a BBC journalist declaring his or her support for a Republican candidate on Twitter. It would mark them out as a freak. Career suicide. But announcing one’s love for Obama? Hey, no big deal, everyone at work’s cool with that.

The same sort of thing didn’t do Anita Anand’s career any harm, did it?

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QUITE INTERESTING

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Here’s John Lloyd, producer of BBC quiz show QI, at a recent sustainable energy awards ceremony. He begins with a couple of gags before giving his audience what it really wants to hear – some classic end-of-civilisation eco-bullshit hyperbole:

“Unless ideas like these get heard, by the twenty-second century there isn’t going to be any one here to hear about them. All these tsunamis and twisters we’re seeing, these volcanoes and floods and earthquakes, they’re not a kind of giant snooze alarm suggesting that it’s nearly time to get up and do something about it. They’re a fire alarm, and it’s not a test.”

So, mankind must adopt sustainable energy to prevent its annihilation due to tsunamis, twisters, volcanoes, floods and earthquakes.

OK, I know the eco-zealots have already made tenuous claim to tornadoes and floods for their cause, but is it the case that tsunamis, volcanoes and earthquakes have now been declared acceptable in the realm of mainstream climate change propaganda? Lloyd is after all the producer of a show based around the theme of obscure facts, so maybe he knows something the rest of us don’t.

Perhaps we really do have to turn off our kettles to prevent tsunamis.

Or perhaps Mr Lloyd has spent far too long interacting with smug like-minded luvvies in the media bubble (eg Richard Curtis) to realise when he’s talking crap.

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FREI’S TO GO…

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… but things will stay the same.

Matt Frei’s final edition of Americana before leaving the BBC gave him the chance to talk – once again – with one of his “favourite Washingtonians”, the Palin-hating conspiracy nut Andrew Sullivan. It was everything you’d expect from a BBC discussion on US affairs – Sullivan asserted (without any contradiction from Frei) that Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal and that the highly partisan nature of politics in Washington is pretty much all the fault of the Republicans (who really should move to the left like Cameron’s – ahem – Conservatives). Their chat finished with some inevitable mockery of Sarah Palin.

Of course Frei’s departure won’t change a thing at the BBC (I noted in the comments that one of the first tweets sent by new Washington correspondent Adam Blenford after he started his new role was an approving link to Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog). The ongoing crusade against the American Right [cue scary music] continued this morning on the Today programme when Jim Naughtie discussed new BBC hate-figure Michelle Bachmann with Mark Mardell. The BBC’s North America editor, on-message as ever, took the opportunity to mention a three-month old gaffe from the prospective presidential candidate. Isn’t it amazing how these BBC US correspondents seemingly can dredge up every mistake ever made by any Republican of any note and yet never report a single one of the many verbal embarrassments from the mouth of Obama who is, y’know, actually president?  (My favourite recent one – Obama last month describing the “Teutonic shift in the Middle East”. Imagine the fun the BBC would have had with that one if it had been Bachmann or Palin. Instead, nothing.)

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