Category Archives: BBC agenda

Myth-Spinning From Detroit

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There’s yet another BBC North America correspondent pushing an agenda these days. Ian Pannell has gone to Detroit to spin a tale of woe and misery, blaming all of it on the current economic situation. He even clearly articulates the message one is meant to take away:

“The gap between the rich and poor in America is now bigger than it’s been for 30 years.”

Pannell closes the piece with this line, followed by a statement that “what we’ve seen” all over the US is a similar problem.  In case anyone didn’t bother watching all the way through, the message is spelled out equally clearly in the blurb accompanying the video.

Now, before we get into the problems of Detroit, let me just say that I’m in no way denying that there’s a severe economic problem in the US right now. I’m on record here many times complaining about exactly that. In fact, I believe we’ve been in a Depression for the last 18 months or so, and will continue to be unless there’s a drastic change nationwide. So this post is not meant to challenge Pannell’s last sentence. Instead, I mean to challenge the agenda being pushed and the myth being spun specifically from Detroit.

Detroit, of course, is definitely a problem city. Unemployment in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn region is the worst in the nation  among what we call “greater metropolitan areas”. As of May 2010, Detroit had about 90,000 (!) abandoned homes or residential lots, and the city has had to spend money demolishing them. If that seems like an awful lot of homes emptying over a relatively short period of time (we’re meant to assume that this is all about the “downturn” since 2008), you’d be right to be suspicious. Yet Pannell wants you to believe that Detroit is just like the rest of the country, a victim of economic inequality thrust upon it by outside forces. Well-trained BBC audiences will already know the approved causes: greedy bankers and the evil rich appropriating more than their fare share of wealth.

Except it’s simply not true. Detroit has been going down the tubes for years and years. Here’s what Pannell and the BBC don’t want you to know, because it detracts from their agenda:
First of all, Detroit suffers from relying far, far too much on a single workhorse: the automotive industry. The fact that the industry has been in decline for a couple of decades or more – so bad that the President had to bail out the unions out GM and sell Chrysler off – is an inconvenient truth which interferes with Pannell’s tale, so he leaves it out. White flight and urban blight have been a problem for decades. How could Detroit’s struggles as portrayed by the BBC be largely due to a recent phenomenon if a site like “The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit” won a local award in 1998?  There were 12,000 abandoned homes as of 2005.  In 2008 – at the beginning of the economic crisis, mind – unemployment was at 21% in some areas, and criminals were re-offending to stay in the safety and comfort of prison rather than trying to get by in a disaster area.

Detroit’s population has declined by 25% over the last decade. This has very little to do with the “downturn” (it’s only a recession when conservatives are in charge, right?). Pannell provides none of this context. The problems of the last three years have obviously made things tougher, but to portray Detroit purely as a victim of the recent economic crisis is false. But it does help feed the class war mythology which the BBC loves to push.

Another Detroit problem Pannell doesn’t want you to know about is that Detroit was on the brink of insolvency by 2005. It was driven there by powerful unions and poor management from a series of economic denialist Democrat mayors, and capped off by a Democrat mayor who ended up in prison over a sex scandal. To be fair, I’m pretty sure Republican mayors in that area wouldn’t have done much better, considering the corruption and cronyism that went on, and that precious few Republicans over the last decade have been fiscal conservatives. Regardless of who was in charge, though, the city lost 39% of its manufacturing jobs – mostly in the auto industry – in the 1980s. Unemployment ten years ago was among the worst in the nation. This has nothing to do with the current economic situation.

As of 2002, five of the ten largest employers in the area were state-run organizations. Indeed, the top two employers were the public school system and the City government itself. Does that sound familiar? This is never a recipe for growth and success. The Post Office was the #7 employer, and I think we can all guess how that works out after the city loses a quarter of its population. Even a media studies graduate can do the math here.

But none of this context is provided to the BBC audience. All you see is a tale of woe, people struggling to survive in tough economic times. The struggle is real, but the direct cause presented to you by Pannell is false. Using Detroit like this to highlight the current economic crisis in the US is like using Grimethorpe to highlight what Tory Cuts have done over the last couple years without telling you about the closing of the mines.

This is the result of agenda-driven newsgathering and reporting. It’s a dishonest report, pushing a specific agenda, intended to support the BBC’s Narrative about income inequality. Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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Editorial Independence, Or Unaccountability?

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Can somebody please read this update of the BBC Agreement (as in “Charter & Agreement”) and tell me if “Editorial Independence” actually translates into “Unaccountability”?

Continuing Agreement

Concerns have been expressed that the NAO reviews could lead to individual star’s salaries becoming public, or the details of managerial decisions on finance, because the NAO can ask for any information it needs for its audit. The wording of the agreement makes no specific reference to those concerns and no such information has been revealed in previous NAO reports on the BBC.

A Trust spokesperson said: ‘The NAO already have full access to the information they need to carry out reviews of the BBC; today’s announcement confirms and continues that arrangement. In addition it will now enable the NAO to decide which areas to look at, but in an arrangement where it will continue to submit reports to the Trust. We believe that the terms agreed build on the BBC’s existing relationship with the NAO to the benefit of licence fee payers, while preserving the BBC’s independence.’

Editorial Independence

The agreement makes clear that whilst the NAO is ‘entitled to review any BBC decision’ it is not entitled to ‘question the merits of any editorial or creative judgment or policy decision about the way BBC services are made or distributed.’

The Trust will still do its own value for money reviews, in fact the agreement requires it to lay out its own programme of such work each year. The NAO can’t examine the same area as the Trust in the same year.

The NAO will submit its reports to the Trust, which will prepare a response before sending both to the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament.

There’s more at the link. The NAO (or anyone else, presumably, like OfCom) can say what they like, but the Trust will decide what to present to Jeremy Hunt, decide what is value for money, and decide if the BBC can syphon off extra Government/taxpayer cash to spend on the World Service. (Hopefully not for hiring yet another field correspondent to cover the US.)

This sounds like unaccountability by any other name.

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Bill Nighy Plays Himself And Gives Those Evil Americans/Israelis One In The Eye..

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Bill Nighy, wooden, crinkled and oozing bus pass angst, meets up with earnest young woman (Rachel Weisz, born 1970!). Nighy, as per usual, autocues his lines in a monotone to nobody in particular, is hardly ever out of his overcoat and sacrifices his career and pension to flag up the evil Americans.

You’ve guessed it – “Page Eight” (BBC2 28/08/11) another glossy drama of beautiful people in NW1 (and weekend rural retreats) pumping out a subliminal version of the eternal and unchanging BBC philippic against capitalism, America (pre Obama, of course) and those vicious, conniving Je…whoops….Israelis.

Written by Richard Curtis David Hare, the storyline is as predictable as a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Public School/Oxbridge educated MI5 boss hands Public School/Oxbridge educated MI5 agent (Nighy) a file fingering UK PM as the The Evil One Covering Up US Rendition. Said agent discovers his next door neighbour had a boy friend killed by Israeli soldiers while innocently protecting defenceless Hamas protestors. This has also been covered up by the same UK PM.

Usual ending of any Nighy drama….he forces UK PM to publish the truth about the evil Israelis in return for remaining schtum about rendition. Nighy then heads off into the sunset until the next BBC drama.

Production values – AAA+
Characterisation – pure unadulterated cardboard
Message – BBC Goebbels TV at its most blatant

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Moral Panics? At The BBC It’s What We Do…..

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Obviously over the last few days the great and the good at the BBC have become rather unsettled as control over the urban mob violence and looting narrative began slipping through their fingers.

Shocked by the tsunami of contempt that hit them when they tried to frame the discussion in terms of “protestors”, poverty and/or race the Beeboids and their allies in the left wing media/academic cultural elite have been desperately searching for a way of regaining control of the issue by shifting the parameters of the debate.

The initial attempt was laughably unsubtle. Making much of a bevy of leading police officers, spearheaded by ACPOs big cheese Sir Hugh Orde, the aim was to portray the Cameron government as being out of touch. “Leave it to the boys in blue” became the watchword.

Unfortunately the evidence of a lack of leadership and control from the higher echelons at the Met over the first 2/3 days of mob rule in parts of London was so overwhelming that the utterances of Orde and Co. had a very hollow ring.

But, as David at noted yesterday, a new editorial line had been adopted by the BBC suits and programmed into the robotic Sarah Montague as she fed the appropriate cues to the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, over sentences handed out to looters. Naturally he came back with the appropriate response – “a collective loss of proportion” This triggered Sarah’s circuitry and produced the key phrase we shall be hearing over and over again at this weekend’s North London dinner parties.

Moral panic.

It’s all out of proportion, you see. There’s no real threat but a lot of opportunists have jumped on this bandwagon to further their own political agenda.

Moral panics allegedly arise when an event is perceived as a threat to society and its values. Those who foment the panic are said to be motivated by a fear of losing control. They therefore attempt to channel potentially disruptive energy by portraying another person or group – “folk devils” – as more of a danger than they actually are. So the Sarah Montague/BBC line appears to be that Cameron is using the riots as an opportunity to demonise the disenfranchised and divert attention from his austerity drive and, strangely enough, that was the angle recently taken by The New York Times…..surprise, surprise….

Heavy stuff, indeed…

But wait a minute – “no real threat but a bandwagon to further an agenda”……”folk devils”…..that seems to ring a bell….

Rupert Murdoch, Anders Breivik, bankers, EDL, AGW deniers, Israelis – now there is a collection of folk devils for you, always presented as the symbols of dark forces ever ready to take us back to some Thatcherite nightmare away from sweetness and light.

Moral panics? At the BBC it’s what we do…..

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Your License Fee Hard At Work: BBC Arabic and Persian Edition

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Here’s one for you:

Proud to be American

With a sister who wears the hijab and a cowboymad Muslim father who dresses like John Wayne, Seema Jilani enjoys a diverse family life. The Texas-based paediatrician, who has worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan and written extensively on health and social issues, is an engaging contributor to a new BBC documentary, American Muslim: Freedom, Faith and Fear.

Sure, why not? The whole family is Muslim, but their clothing is diverse, so that counts as “a diverse family life” when seen through the agenda-tinted glasses.

Other participants include a fashion designer, an imam, a comedian, a Marine, a Republican congressman and a forthright newspaper columnist – all with something to say about Muslims who live in the Land of the Free. The illuminating 60 minute tv programme, to be accompanied by a World Service radio documentary, emerged from a competition that invited proposals for a collaborative project between BBC Arabic and BBC Persian.

Which means it’s meant to be targeted at Mohammedans in those regions, and not for your consumption. It’s nice, though, that the BBC is actually presenting these people with a positive image of the US, for a change.

‘The original idea was to concentrate on the Bible Belt where there are fascinating similarities between devout Christians and devout Muslims,’ explains BBC Persian reporter Karen Zarindast.

You mean like how they think of women as childbearers first and foremost, subject to the absolute rule of the husband, and their feelings about homosexuality, for example? I won’t hold my breath.


The remit later broadened out and the resulting programme, commissioned by Global News, will be shown on BBC World News, BBC Arabic and BBC Persian in the run-up to the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I bet it did. But we’re not at the ‘fear’ part yet. The BBC Persian reporter involved says this:

Originally from Lebanon, he went to university in the US in the mid-80s and this was his first trip back. ‘It was interesting to return after so many years, and I have to say that I fell in love with the country all over again.’

Again, nice to see a positive image about the US from the BBC, for a change.

It’s a familiar sentiment. ‘Everyone we met, from the most recent Muslim arrivals to the surgeon who left Pakistan 30 years ago, told us how much they loved America,’ says Farah. Zarindast, who moved to the UK from Iran 15 years ago, and travels regularly to the US, where her mother and brother now live, was also struck by Muslims’ loyalty to their adopted land.

What shock, eh? People move here on purpose to escape the sh!thole Mulsim countries they live in, and don’t hate it as much as certain Beeboids do.

‘Muslims in America are better integrated than in Britain,’ Darius Bazargan notes. ‘The country is more of a melting pot where people go to escape repression and really value their freedom.’

Shall we examine why that is, BBC? Any future documentaries about what’s preventing Mohammedans from becoming better integrated in Britain? Or have you already decided that it’s down to the inherent racism of the indigenous population, full stop?

Not that Muslims’ love of the States means they are always loved equally in return, he points out. ‘There seems to be more Islamophobia now than immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

Do you think it might have to do with the fact that there have been a few more attempted terrorist attacks by Muslims since then, not to mention Maj. Jihadi Nassan at Ft. Hood? Nah: it’s the inherent racism of the indigenous population:

‘Attitudes have hardened since the election of President Obama. People know they can’t express anti-black opinions but think it acceptable to be anti-Muslim. In fact, [in the case of politicians] their ratings can go up if they appear to be anti-Muslim.’

There you have it: we’re still bloody racists, only we keep quiet about the blacks now. And just like Baroness Warsi said, it’s acceptable to hate Muslims at dinner parties instead. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that not a single second of this is spent discussing any attempted terrorist attacks, or any incident which might even remotely have caused concern about Mohammedans wanting Shariah Law to take precedence over domestic US law in certain cases, or Mohammedan cab drivers in Minnesota refusing to pick up fares at the ariport if they have alcohol on them, or jihadi imams who are forced to leave. Nope, it’s all just racism.

And of course, the best bit:

In another side of the story, the documentary features white Americans who have converted to Islam as a reaction against Western materialism and the constant pressure to look slim and attractive. They include a woman who used to make her living photographing people in nightclubs and is now a devout Muslim.

You couldn’t make it up. It’s White Girl all over again. Remember, this is specifically meant for Muslim audiences in the Muslim World.

What you might call a step change…

What you might call pandering….

A positive message about Islam and Muslims, with a qualified mixed message about the US, and not even meant for you to see or even know about. All at your expense.

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More U.S. News The BBC Thinks You Don’t Need To Know

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The current top story on the BBC’s US & Canada News page is about the President meeting with the Dalai Lama. How many people really care? I realize that this will probably get pushed down the page within a couple of hours as new stories are posted, but why is this even worth reporting at all? Surely there are far more important issues to cover. It’s very revealing of the BBC’s newsgathering priorities that a non-functional meeting with someone who isn’t head of state and isn’t ever going to be one is more important than, say, the news that Standard & Poors just upgraded the state of Ohio’s credit rating because the Governor passed a budget that will mostly fix the state’s economic troubles. Oh, but that’s a Republican Governor, while the Democrat-led US is about to get spanked by S&P instead.

No, the Beeboids love the Dalai Lama, their favorite ex-feudal lord, and so anything about him is more important than mundane economic issues, especially when it makes Republicans look good.

What else is the BBC ignoring in order to make room for celebrity gossip, non-stories about LA road construction, and a non-story about a possible technical glitch in the statehood status of North Dakota (this last one is actually pathetic in that a real story worth reporting is mentioned as an aside near the end: the movement to break Southern California away from the destructive far-Left Northern half. But again, that would be a real story that makes Democrat economic policy look bad, and we simply cannot have that at the BBC.)?

Lots of stuff to cover this week. The BBC thinks you don’t need to know about the following:

Remember when the President signed that “landmark” ObamaCare into law, the one which the BBC championed for ages and lied to you about how it would provide free health care for all those uninsured? One of the President’s favorite anecdotes in His fight for it was about how His mother battled evil profit-driven insurance companies while on her cancer deathbed. The BBC included that anecdote in their report of Him signing the bill into law. Turns out that it’s a little white lie.

Book Challenges Obama on Mother’s Deathbed Fight

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.

And the BBC will be silent.

While the BBC used to spend time searching for even a whiff of angry behavior from Tea Party groups and the Right, they always censor news of violence and violent rhetoric from the Left. Like in Wisconsin (remember Wisconsin?), where the Left is protesting against a non-Left State Supreme Court justice and has a big effigy of him being lynched at a lamppost. Nothing to see here as it’s not the Tea Party doing it, move along. There’s a whole story behind that about how one Justice attacked another in a “he said/she said” incident. The Left has behaved angrily and violently like they did when Gov. Walker was trying to pass a budget, but none of the intrepid platoon of Beeboids covering the US is interested in that kind of story.

Democrats in the US seem to be prejudiced against certain religious groups (just like the BBC), and are less likely to vote for a Mormon to be President. What a shock, eh? The BBC isn’t going to inform you about that kind of poll result because, well, you know….

Newly appointed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – kicked upstairs from being CIA boss – just said that the reason the US went into Iraq was 9/11. Oops. BBC not interested. Gaffes are only worth reporting when George Bush or a Republican does it.

Tax-dodging GE boss Jeffrey Immelt saw 36,000 jobs cut at his company in the last two years, and even sent jobs overseas (well, to Mexico anyway), but now that he’s the President’s Jobs Czar he is scolding business owners to start hiring whether it hurts their business or not. Hypocrisy from The Obamessiah Administration? BBC not interested in telling you.

The BBC has done plenty of reporting on how the dictator of Syria is cracking down on his people and killing protesters, but they have not told you about how the US Ambassador spoke out – on Facebook, no less – and got praised for it – by Syrians.

When was the last time the BBC mentioned the name of one of The Obamessiah’s top campaign fundraisers, Tony Rezko? Not since last summer when his name came up in a news brief ex-Gov. Blagojevich’s criminal trial, I think. Rezko is in jail and Blagojevich has been convicted. Now Rezko’s partner’s trial reveals the possibility of illegal payments to The Obamessiah.

Daniel Frawley has been convicted on massive bank fraud charges (unrelated to the campaign money fraud of the other two guys), but his sentencing is being delayed because he’s apparently been secretly cooperating with prosecutors about something else: Blagojevich’s abuse of power, which landed the ex-Gov in jail.

Details about Frawley’s cooperation with the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI and the Illinois attorney general’s office can be gleaned from a 65-page court deposition he gave seven months ago in a legal-malpractice lawsuit that he filed against his former longtime lawyer, George Weaver. In the lawsuit, Frawley accuses Weaver of having overbilled him and telling him to “withhold certain information from the government” when he was cooperating with authorities.

You may well ask, what information was that?

That sworn statement, given Dec. 1, 2010, is posted at suntimes.com/news/watchdogs. In it, Frawley talks about three meetings he’s had with law enforcement authorities since 2006. The deposition outlines how he secretly recorded Rezko, and it raises a new and unsubstantiated question about Rezko’s once-close relationship with Obama — an issue that dogged the then-U.S. senator during his presidential campaign four years ago.

A relationship which the BBC casually dismissed. Too bad they’re not so casual about Tory friendships, eh? But I digress.

Later in the deposition, Weaver’s lawyer, Daniel F. Konicek, asks Frawley about what specific information Weaver is supposed to have told Frawley to withhold from federal authorities.

“I’m assuming the information is about the payments made by Rezko to Obama, so we know we’re talking about the right conversation, right?” Konicek asks Frawley.

Frawley doesn’t answer. So Konicek presses him: “Am I correct it was about Obama being paid by Rezko?”

Frawley replies: “I’m not answering that question, based upon my attorney’s instructions.”

Yet another revelation possibly tying The Obamessiah to fraudulent activity in Chicago, and the BBC isn’t bothered. If Frawley is getting his sentence lightened because of this cooperation, then it’s worth paying it heed. BBC: ZZZZzzzzzzzz

On Friday, the President claimed that 80% of the public “support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts”. The problem is that He made it up. No polls back up this claim, and actually 50% of the public would prefer a deal with either only spending cuts, or mostly spending cuts and very little tax increase (that’s what “revenues” are when they’re at home). The 80% figure comes from a Soros/MoveOn.org poll of only Ohio, Montana, Missouri, and Minnesota, and is not meant to represent the majority opinion of the country. The Obamessiah lied again. BBC: Look over there: Republican intransigence!

An email has been “leaked” revealing the Obamessiah Administration’s real goal of Operation “Fast and Furious”/”Gunwalker”/”Gunrunner”: passing more restrictive gun control laws.

“Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations.”

Which is what I’ve been saying all along, and which the BBC has censored all along. Instead, when reality forced them to report on the heat the ATF has been getting over this scandal, they dutifully shifted blame away from Him. Since the BBC is ideologically set against private gun ownership of any kind, and must support Him at all costs, they’ve treated this story with the softest of kid gloves. When they haven’t buried the story completely, that is.

On Wednesday, the debate between the President and Republican House leaders got so heated that He walked out. The BBC reported that He told them, “Enough is enough,” but they censored out this part:

“Don’t call my bluff,” the president said. “I am not afraid to veto and I will take it to the American people.”

I guess that finely-tuned brain of His doesn’t know you’re not supposed to tell them you’re bluffing. Another Obamessiah gaffe hidden from you by the BBC. As the ABC report I’ve linked to shows, He’s willing to sink the entire country for His class war ideology, and the BBC is blaming only the Republicans’ ideology (and dishonestly portraying it as protecting the rich, full stop) instead.

That’s enough for the week, I suppose. Does anyone feel properly informed by the BBC about US issues? The solution to all this is simple: Shut down the BBC’s newsgathering operation in the US and replace them all with a news aggregator. You’ll be better informed about what’s going on over here.

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BBC Busted For Narrative BS – From ‘Media Myth Alert’

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W. Joseph Campbell, proprietor of the Media Myth Alert blog has busted the BBC for the same kind of Narrative-supporting BS we often call them on. It’s worth featuring here.

BBC calls Hearst vow apocryphal, quotes it anyway

Apocryphal but still quotable.

That’s how Britain’s venerable broadcaster, the BBC, treated the mythical anecdote about media titan William Randolph Hearst and his purported vow to “furnish the war” with Spain in the late 19th century.

In an article posted online yesterday, the BBC described Hearst as the “definitive [news] baron” and declared:

“He’s credited with the invention of tabloid journalism in the 1890s when his New York Journal began a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. He also had a reputation as a warmonger.

“‘You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,’ goes an apocryphal instruction he was supposed to have sent in a telegram to an illustrator in Havana.”

That’s right, the line is apocryphal. What, then, is the point in using it? As a none-too-clever, back-handed way of buttressing the dubious notion that Hearst and his newspapers were capable of fomenting a war?

That’s sloppy journalism from a leading international news organization.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Someone at BBC News Online instructed Peter Jackson and Tom de Castella to whip up a piece that would give everyone the idea that nasty Uncle Rupert might be responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they used an apocryphal quote to help create that context of a press baron “known” to have instigated war, knowing full well that’s what they were doing.

“Apocryphal but still quotable” = “Fake, but accurate“

The Beeboids are that arrogant. Journalistic standards? Yawn, it’s for the ankle-biters. If it’s for a just cause, anything goes. They have their agenda, and they know they can get away with it.

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U.S. Government Shut Down Blues – A Dishonest BBC Song, Part 2

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UPDATE: A stealth edit? The BBC article now includes MillerCoors’ statement that they filed the paperwork beforehand. They don’t tell quite the full story, but this more or less negates my claim. News Sniffer doesn’t have it yet, so I can’t prove anything as I didn’t take a screenshot.

In case there are any lingering doubts, here’s more proof of the BBC’s bias and dishonesty when it comes to reporting on the budget crisis in the US. They’ve put up a report about a problem caused by Minnesota’s shut down f the state government.

Minnesota shutdown puts MillerCoors beer sales in doubt

Beer giant MillerCoors may be forced to stop selling 39 popular beers in stores and bars in Minnesota because of the state’s ongoing government shutdown.

The company failed to renew their brand label registration before a budget dispute prompted a shutdown on 1 July.

This is in fact serious business. They’re going to have to start actually removing product from shells state-wide, which is a very, very costly undertaking on top of the revenue loss. Now, being fan of real ale and proper beer in general, I’m the last person to shed a tear over people being deprived of this cheap swill, and the possible boost in business for real craft brews, of which there are plenty in the region. But that’s beside the point. What I’m complaining about here is the reason the BBC reports for this happening:

State employees who process alcohol licence renewals were laid off when the government shut down, Minnesota official Doug Neville said.

Oh, did he, now? Since this is a US issue, my first instinct is not to believe what the BBC reports when it comes to obviously partisan politics. Neville could be merely protecting a Democrat government. So let’s see what the local paper has to say about it:

The company tried to renew in mid-June, but the process got delayed when they wrote a check for too much money. Green said they sent in a new check, which the state received on June 27, but nonetheless got a letter three days later saying their brand licenses had expired.

“We believe we’ve followed all applicable state laws on this,” Green said.

In other words, this is happening not because the state employees who process the paperwork were laid off due to a government shut down (caused by nasty old Republicans preventing saintly Democrats from saving the state, no doubt), but by general incompetence on both sides. The BBC is in no doubt whose fault it is, and they don’t want you to have any doubts either:

The government shutdown in Minnesota began over a budget impasse.

The state’s Democratic Governor, Mark Dayton, had called for spending cuts and tax increases, while the Republican-led legislature rejected higher taxes.

Well, at least they don’t call the Republicans “newly empowered” this time. Must look into getting that style guide updated. In any case, the BBC reports that Neville claimed that the paperwork wasn’t done because the employees were laid off, but clearly that’s not what happened. In fact, this looks an awful lot like the Minnesota state government deliberately obstructed the license renewal and is damaging businesses across the state to score political points.

What Neville really means is that the paperwork can’t be redone now (or since the day after MillerCoors got their expiration notice) because the employees are laid off. But that’s not why it got canceled in the first place. Except you don’t know that because the BBC didn’t give you the information you need.

Why did the BBC leave it out of context like this? Don’t they know what actually happened? Or do they know all too well, but censored the facts out in order to support their Narrative? The “More on this story” links at the bottom currently go to national sources, not local ones. Yes, I realize these change as they are updated on some schedule, but the only valid links should be local papers. Both the Time and CNN items actually tell the truth, so why can’t the BBC? It’s not good enough to lie in the report and only put a link to the truth at the bottom. Curiously one wire report has the Neville quote about the employees being laid off.

Once again the BBC reports on a US issue from the anti-Republican perspective, even allowing a little white lie in the process. And hey: if this is really down to sloppy churnalism necessitated by the 24/7 news cycle we demand from them, then what’s the point of it? Once again I say that the BBC can just shut down its entire newsgathering service on the US and simply replace them all with a news aggregator. You’d get more information that way, and less bias.

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COORDINATION

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Is the BBC trying to mastermind the attack on Murdoch? Here’s the assistant editor of The Independent Ian Burrell a short while ago (h/t MySiteC2E in the comments):

Fishing around for a “safety in numbers” line of attack, perhaps?

And as an update to my earlier post about the BBC and Guardian combining forces, the BBC’s Kevin Bakhurst has explained how they are able to claim the Gordon Brown interview as an exclusive when the Guardian’s Nick Davies says it was “an interview with the BBC and the Guardian”:

Hope that clears things up. No? Well, for the time being perhaps it’s best we all just assume that the BBC and the Guardian are one entity.

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Murdoch v The Media Elite Lynch Mob = Dan Rather’s Revenge?

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In the old Soviet Union one tool Kremlinologists used to forecast shifts in the political climate was to peruse the inside pages of Pravda and spot the apparently insignificant article that they could identify as a marker for any forthcoming reconfiguration.

The articles were placed as signposts for mid level Communist Party members to prepare for changes in direction in their party “work” which, for the CPSU, as with any other totalitarian party, was almost exclusively agitprop –agitation and propaganda.

The BBC in very many ways can be seen as an agitprop arm of the British liberal/left cultural elite, a group which usually manages to direct the UK’s political and social agenda even though much of it (EU membership, unrestricted immigration, political correctness etc etc)is deeply unpopular with the majority of the population.

Moreover, with the globalisation of information media ,the lack of any patriotic affinity in the mindset of this elite allows it to integrate seamlessly with its equivalents in the USA and elsewhere

So the appearance of this article by Tom Geoghegan on the BBC website “Rupert Murdoch:Could his US empire be affected?” should be ringing alarm bells for conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic. For this is not really about the rather shady ethics of a few phone hacking tabloid journalists. Indeed, while the story only appeared to involve celebrities and politicians it never really gained traction. Moreover, because the hacking took place several years ago under a Blair/Brown Labour government that at the time was very cosy with Rupert Murdoch and his tabloids meant that it remained low key with Milliband, Balls and co. Besides News of the World staff had been jailed and the editor at the time had resigned so heads had rolled.

But what has given it legs in New York and London is the revelation that the paper’s staff had hacked into a murder victim’s mobile phone. This has, quite rightly, created immense public anger – and given the liberal/left media elite, so often out of tune with popular opinion, a golden opportunity to spearhead a lynch mob.

It’s not about Murdoch and his papers – after all the dead tree press as a vehicle for news is a dinosaur on its way to extinction. The real target is Murdoch the TV baron with Fox News in the USA and Sky News in Britain. Note how Geoghan slips “right wing” into the mix. It’s a standard adjective that is permanently attached to any comment about Fox News in the UK and, it must be admitted, a brilliant example of the effectiveness of well organised agitprop. The fact that every other US network/cable news platform is imbued as deeply as the BBC in the liberal/left metro mindset is always studiously ignored.

It is no accident that the long buried phone hacking story was disinterred by the New York Times last autumn and quickly picked up in Britain by the Guardian and the BBC just as Murdoch’s bid for the whole of Sky. the BBC’s only meaningful TV competitor was about to go under public scrutiny. All three have a keen interest in undermining Murdoch and emasculating Fox because they know that Murdoch is the only player in the game who threatens the dominant position of the liberal/left cultural elite in the UK and the USA.

A perceptive piece in The Commentator reads the runes with chilling accuracy. This is not about journalistic ethics. It’s a fight to protect the authority of the great and the good against the upstarts of the new media – and, at the moment, the right wing establishment is doing what it does best….running for cover.

It’s the revenge of Dan Rather.

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