Not that I’m surprised or anything, but you can tell when the BBC are really “behind” a certain news narrative because the quotemarks go out the “window”.
Man in a Shed notices the BBC’s spin on the Government knife stats story.
Nadine Dorries objects to Kirsty Wark and the unequal match up for Mr Choudhary
Iain Dale questions another Opposition-lite day of Sunday politics coverage for the Left.
Maurizio meanwhile, is “looking hard for reasons to believe” that the BBC’s “Climate scenarios ‘being realised‘” article has not been written with the intent of misleading the average reader”.
Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
[Update: I see David has posted on this below. I think I will leave this post here for now, as it brings a different angle]
I suppose they’re out of practice, but the BBC has made a hash of reporting the terrorist attack on British soldiers in Northern Ireland. As Pounce and others have pointed out, and as I noticed too, the headline has shifted from “Two die in ‘barbaric’ Army attack” to “Two die in ‘barbaric’ Northern Ireland attack”. Like others, the first title had me confused as to who attacked whom. The current one completely lacks specificity, and the surrounding text fails to mention the nationality of the “military personnel”.
Even more interesting for me is the disappearance from the front page and from the links to the topic of this highly relevant contributionfrom Deputy First Minister McGuinness, who claimed late last week that “army special forces are a ‘major threat'”. It certainly seems that someone was listening very closely to the DFM’s words. Initially this must have seemed relevant to the BBC, as they published it alongside the main story of the attack. Now they seem to think it irrelevant. Or is it something else?
By the way, discussion of this topic will probably arouse strong feeling. I hope people remember we can see the BBC as meddlesome, ignorant, cringing and politically motivated without adopting too rigid a view of the issues behind the news.
Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
Aunty Big brother is concerned that you should be concerned about global sexual equality in this time of World Economic Crisis which the dear leader Brown is not responsible for and grappling with . The fact that the concept would barely be understood by half the world is unimportant (they haven’t even noticed the WEC poor dears!). You and your emotional condition are the targets. Let’s only talk “global female unemployment”. Yes, that would be meaningful. To make the report especially meaningful, let’s leave this little detail to the end:
“The ILO is predicting a global rise in unemployment this year of up to 51 million people – 22 million, it believes, will be women.”
You may think this undercuts the report- oh no, you’d be wrong. It’s all about “raising awareness”, after all.
I wonder if the BBC can realise just how pandering this Kevin Connolly article is to Gordon Brown’s chosen narrative of his trip to Washington?
Right from the beginning it takes the Brown line:
“Even as the Prime Minister grapples with the catastrophic economic fallout of globalisation, he has been suffering at the hands of the media’s own version of it.”
Attacks on Brown’s blatant showboating are described as “unkind”. Brown’s economic responsibility is summed up passively and yet personally. Imagine if “you were at the helm when the seeds of recession were sewn”. Just imagine. How do you feel about your low poll ratings by the way? Oh, you don’t have any poll ratings? Well, try to sympathise with poor Mr Brown, please.
Connolly deserves an anti-Orwell award simply for the risible mixed metaphor of being at the helm when the seeds were sown. You can see why the licence fee is necessary to fund such talent, can’t you?
and on, and on until the pathetic “bottom line”. In this case it is a Brown bottom. And it stinks of bullshit:
The bottom line for Britain is that lots of foreign leaders come here and any absence of column inches reflects more on Britain’s standing than Gordon Brown’s
Yeah, right- it is because we is unimportant, not because Gordon’s future is as unpromising as his past.
of imbalance
Via a number of blogs, including the excellent Augean Stables, from figures discussed here, the casualty “footprints” of two ongoing conflicts. The BBC is obsessed with one of these conflicts. Can you guess which?
As one blogger says:
“My only hope is that, forty years from now, this scandal will be seen as a problem of the past. As a symptom of the problems of a society -our developed one- that, with time, changed for better. I hope to talk about it to my grandsons in the same way afroamerican grandparents talk nowadays about Rosa Parks. Like talking about an evident problem that finally, one day, one person dared to face. And changed for good.”
. Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
