Author Archives: Natalie

Via Instapundit, two interesting links. The first is to a Telegraph article citing BBC internal memos to the effect that the BBC’s credibility is on the line online if fact-checking doesn’t improve. The second link also offers some good advice.

Have you noticed how paranoid fantasies of the most laughable sort have been edging towards the mainstream lately? So long, of course, as it is the right sort of conspiracy theory i.e. has Dubya and Mossad in it. Rob Hinkley of Semiskinned reports how a Wayne Madsen was quoted by the BBC as a credible source. Note and follow the copious links Rob provides to demonstrate the general tenor of Mr Madsen’s beliefs. Sample quote: “Anyone who closely examines Patriot II will realize that the document represents the same sort of power grab by Hitler after the Reichstag Fire of 1933.”

Polly Toynbee, a strong supporter of the BBC, in a Guardian article advocating that smacking children be banned, says:

Debating the generally excellent Children Act, the Lords votes on a ban of all hitting of children, an amendment which is supported by every children’s organisation and charity, social services directors, chief police officers, bishops, the NSPCC and most relevant organisations. To find opponents outside Westminster, the BBC has to resort to obscure Christian fundamentalists and the more extreme fathers’ groups.

Not has to, Polly, chooses to. Whatever your own opinion on the issue (mine would take too long to explain here) you can be quite sure that the supermarkets and school gates of Britain contain thousands upon thousands of completely ordinary parents with no connection to Christian fundamentalism or obscure fathers’ groups who smack their children on occasion and think they have a right to do so. They don’t get interviewed for the same reason that American Democrats who don’t like Michael Moore’s latest don’t get interviewed.

The little numbers in brackets indicating comments next to some of the posts from a few days ago are behaving oddly again. They now say tiny numbers like (0) and (1) even though, if you check, much larger numbers of juicy comments are still there to be read. So if you visit weekly, you might like to click on the comments even if none are indicated.

I don’t know why this happens.

A reader writes:

Unfortunately, I missed the reporter’s name, but this morning on BBC radio Five-Live, Nicky Campbell was discussing the fate of Saddam Hussein, now that he is to be turned over to the new Iraqi government, with a BBC reporter in Iraq. After talking about how whatever is done with him must be very public, the reporter said: “Iraqis won’t believe what they are told. They will only believe what they see, given everything they have been told by the coalition over the last 15 months.”

The BBC would have us believe that Iraqi suspicion of authority and government claims derives not from a lifetime of living under a tyrannical dictatorship, but instead from living for 15 months under the CPA. What a joke.

Spartac.us takes a look at the way the BBC phrased the potted biographies of the participants in a roundup of views on Iraq. I would have thought this trick was now so well known as to be unusable. Seems I was wrong.

Why not search under “bbc” on the Spartac.us blog while you’re there?

, commenters and emailers both, pointed me to this article by Tom Gross about the BBC Living in a Bubble that I got it into my head that it had already been linked to here. It hadn’t but it now has.

Peter writes (regarding the media study mentioned in the post two down):

Following a link provided by a regular leftie Biased-BBC hater (supposedly to point to the error of your ways), leads to this Pilger screed:

link to “How the Media Cover for Israel”.

Pilger mentions the Glasgow Media Group Middle East media coverage study currently in the news. Check the date. The ‘new’ study is actually from May 2002.

Why the sudden interest? Well, the study is being published as part of a new book by leftie publisher Pluto Press. The BBC is effectively hawking the book.

, says a recent study by the Glasgow University Media Group. That’s that then. We pack up shop. Or do we? Normblog looks a little deeper.

writes on BBC reluctance to specify exactly why so many Afghan refugees now feel they can go home.