Category Archives: BBC bias 24/7

Mardell Tells A White House Lie

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Yes, I say “lie”. Mark Mardell is lying. I say he’s lying and not merely reporting something when he’s misinformed, or making a claim based on false information for which he’s not responsible. I’m saying Mardell is lying because he knows what he’s saying is not true.

The BBC’s US President editor continues pushing the White House talking points about the “Sequester” budget cuts on Today, and here’s a link to the printed version.

Sequester budget cuts: America’s grim fairy tale

It’s more or less the same biased stuff he produced the other day, which I wrote about here. This time, though, instead of avoiding telling you who really came up with the Sequester plan, Mardell just openly lies about it.

Many Republicans say the idea for the “sequester” budget cuts was President Obama’s in the first place. The White House rejects that.

Whoever came up with the idea, the 2011 law meant failure to agree would cut both cherished Democratic programmes that helped the poor and defence spending beloved of Republicans.

There’s even a bit of bias in the last line there, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, to expose the lie.

It’s not just Republicans saying it. By phrasing it that way, Mardell leads you to believe that it’s a matter of opinion. In fact, as I showed in my previous post on Mardell’s spin, the White House has admitted that it was the President’s offer. I’ll just reprint the quote from CNBC (not Fox News, not Breitbart) about it, to save defenders of the indefensible the pain of having to read another post of mine:

Woodward documents in his 2012 book The Price of Politics that team Obama first proposed the idea of the sequester. Expanding on his work in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed, he noted—as he has before—that both President Obama and his would-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew lied on the campaign trail by saying the sequester originated with House Republicans. The White House has now ceded that fact.

“Fact”. Not good enough for you? Forbes says it was His idea. The Washington Post, which Mardell reads regularly, gives His claim Four Pinocchios, and provides evidence to back up the fact that it was His idea. Even Politifact rates the President’s claim that the cuts was Congress’s idea as “mostly false”.  Politico, which Mardell reads regularly, almost admitted it, but they couldn’t quite bring themselves to hurt Him and so framed it in an amusingly contorted bit of spin that would make Helen Boaden proud:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed to give Obama the authority…

Then there’s this bit from a different Washington Post article (not Fox News, not Breitbart):

Last year, the House passed two bills that would have stopped the sequester and replaced some of the spending cuts with others. But the White House said the magnitude of the cuts was unacceptable and would imperil critical government programs.

Anyone who gets their information on US issues from the BBC will be very aware of which Party runs the House. The President could have prevented this, but chose not to. Curiously, Mardell chose not to tell you about it.

If none of this is good enough for you, here’s White House spokesman Jay Carney, personal friend of BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America Katty Kay, saying, “the sequester was one of the ideas yes put forward, yes, by the president’s team.”

In other words, Mardell knows exactly who started this, exactly whose idea the sequestered cuts are, and exactly what he’s doing when he misleads you. Blame must always be shifted from The Obamessiah. Trapped in a world He never made, it’s not His fault, you see.

Almost forgot about the bias in that sentence about which cuts supposedly hurt whom. Consider the pantomime caricatures Mardell uses: the Democrats want to help the poor, while it’s the war machine that’s so beloved by the Republicans. Can you tell where you’re meant to boo and hiss, and where you’re meant to cheer? I guess that makes Mardell the pantomime dame, although that’s probably an insult to the integrity of pantomime dames everywhere.

In case you didn’t come away from all this “journalism” with the idea that the cuts supposedly forced on Him by evil Republicans would be a catastrophe for the country (another White House talking point which is going to turn out not so true) and, by extension, the UK and the world (which is why it gets promoted on Today), the BBC’s US President editor ends with this bit of dramatic prose:

There is seemingly no end to this toxic tale of cruel dismemberment and government by crisis.

Emotive terms, value judgment, full stop. Notice whom he’s criticizing, and who gets a free pass. This is an editorial, an opinion piece, not journalism. Don’t trust him or the BBC on US issues.This is your license fee hard at work.

PS: I realize most people here don’t really care much about the US or much foreign stuff at all, and are mostly – and quite rightly – concerned with the BBC’s bias on domestic issues. All I can say is that you should be concerned that the BBC spreads poison elsewhere at your expense, and that they’ve clearly gone far beyond their remit of providing public service broadcasting and are actually dedicated to expanding the BBC’s tentacles across the globe purely because they can. The BBC exists now for itself, and not for you. It’s also a relentless drive for more revenue, something else that’s not supposed to be part of the BBC’s reason for existence. The BBC does this stuff in your name, and the BBC bias is everywhere, across the spectrum of broadcasting, all over the world.

More Guns or More Propaganda?

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This latest “bespoke” video magazine feature in the BBC’s “Altered States”* series really appears on the surface to be not only a balanced presentation on gun rights and laws, but could actually be interpreted by people not paying attention as being biased in favor of gun advocates. It isn’t, but it’s very cleverly disguised.

Would more guns save more American lives?

Remember the choice of “more” and “more” in this title for later. First, let me point out that this video piece was put together without BBC influence or prompting. It was made by Charles Ledford, who recently became Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He seems to be a recent hire, as he only finished his MA less than two years ago. From what I’ve been able to find online, Ledford is into exactly the kind of new digital media journalism that the BBC has been pushing for the last couple of years, and which many see as the future of journalism, full stop. No problem there, I’m just pointing out why the BBC looked to him for content. It makes perfect sense from a newsgathering standpoint.

(UPDATE: John Boch, from Guns Save Life has posted a comment below.)

Now for the bias. If we judge this piece simply on the basis of how much time is given to each side of the debate, then gun advocates win handily. More time is definitely given to their side. However, Ledford very cleverly undermines all of it.

Ledford was, for reasons unknown (not necessarily devious, just literally unknown to me, and the BBC doesn’t reveal any), doing some video journalism on the issue of gun rights for some time before the Newtown mass murder happened. So this piece was clearly not created with that particular agenda in mind. Was there an agenda anyway? I think so.

The first segment features gun advocates from the Guns Save Life group in Illinois. One of the Directors, John Naese, who seems to be acting as spokesman here, is given uninterrupted air time to explain the group’s positions on gun ownership laws.

The blurb accompanying the video on the BBC website says that Guns Save Life “are arguing for more permissive gun laws”. But are they? Considering that politicians in Illinois and in other parts of the country are always trying to enact ever more restrictive gun laws, one could just as easily say that the group is arguing to protect existing gun rights. But that would be speaking from their side of the argument. The opposite side of the argument is that they want more permissive gun laws. This bias is inherent in Ledford’s production and in the headline provided by the BBC sub editor. “More guns”. Gun advocates don’t necessarily want more guns, they just want to be allowed to keep what they own, and for citizens to keep the rights they already have. That’s not “more”.

The blurb also claims that Ledford’s video provides “an insight into the strongly held beliefs that influence discussion on this topic”. It doesn’t. What it really does is show you one perspective on the people who strongly hold certain beliefs about gun rights. Which is actually the goal of the piece. Naese pretty much just spells out the position on gun rights. There is no insight offered into the beliefs themselves. Nothing new is offered. But to people like Leford and the BBC editor who thought this was great stuff, the key is that they look down on the people who hold those beliefs.

The clever bit, though, comes after the segment featuring the Guns Save Life meeting. At the meeting, we’re treated to a scene of members reading out humorous rhymes about self defense. We then segue to the mother of a victim of some mass murder. Naturally, she is going to hold absolute moral authority, and actually claims it herself.

The first words out of the mother’s mouth are: “I don’t have a sense of humor about deadly force”.

Ooh, cuts you right to the quick, doesn’t it? Just look at those fat, hirsute, rednecks laughin’ about killin’. Pretty much destroys their argument, no? Well, no. The light-hearted scene has nothing whatsoever to do with the real attitude about gun rights, the right to bear arms, the right to self-defense. But that’s the “insight” Ledford wants to show you, and the brilliant point the BBC editor who selected this for publication saw and felt you needed to see. It’s fairly obvious that Ledford (or a student he sent over to do the interview) showed the woman footage of the fat old rednecks reading their little jokes, and asked something like, “So, what do you think of these assholes?”

Then the mother claims absolute moral authority by stating that the joking gun owners don’t know what it’s like to to lose a loved one.

If one goes by the stopwatch or word count, sure, the gun advocates get the lion’s share of the piece. But it’s very obvious where the weight of the feature lies: with the absolute moral authority of the mother who lost her only child. It doesn’t get more tear-jerking than that. The gun advocates are even given the last word, but it’s just more boilerplate, more simple spelling out of their position: banning guns doesn’t help. There’s no insight, no actual argument being made.

This, to the BBC, is the entire argument about gun rights in a nutshell: stupid rednecks who have no clue love their guns, while the reality is that innocents are killed and it hurts all of us. At no point are we given any actual insight into the gun owners’ beliefs, but we are given insight into why some people are against gun ownership. One side is portrayed as serious, based on morality and compassion, while the other side is portrayed as a figure of fun. It’s a biased piece, intended to denigrate gun rights advocates while elevating those on the other side of the argument.

Again, Ledford did this on his own. Or, at least, did part of it on his own and then got a  follow-up quote or two from the Guns Save Life folks after the Newtown tragedy at the BBC’s behest. Either way, the goal is clear, which is why the BBC selected it for publication.

*I hate the BBC’s title “Altered States”. It has negative connotations, implies things have changed, and not necessarily for the better. It’s been a running theme in BBC reporting since we elected a black man as President that the country has become more divisive, more messed up, more racist. This title emphasizes that perspective. Yes, I know it’s a reference to the rather entertaining little sci-fi movie starring William Hurt about a scientist who manages to regress himself back to a primitive state of evolution. It just supports my point.

By Their Tweets Shall Ye Know Them: The Tweets

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Following on my post explaining the situation, here are the tweets. Some will be screenshots or some other form of publishing because the actual tweets have been deleted after the BBC staff member responsible was caught. With one exception, there are no retweets here, as that’s a separate debate. A comprehensive research project if far beyond my means, but just scanning through so many of them tells me that for many BBC employees, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Note the trends on certain issues.

Because some people seem to keep missing the point, let me repeat: This is not meant to prove that all tweets are biased, nor is it meant to prove that all BBC staff are 100% of the Left. Many BBC employees are fairly responsible with Twitter, and do not tweet their political opinions at all. This is meant to prove that those who do freely tweet their personal political and ideological opinions are nearly all of the Left. Nearly every department of the BBC is represented here, both on air talent and editors and producers behind the scenes. This also demonstrates that in many cases the line between official and personal accounts has been blurred so much as to be essentially non-existent, contrary to BBC guidelines. The whole thing needs to be trashed and re-examined.

This is mostly all thanks to the keen eye of DB, without whose vigilance this would not have been possible. I just kept a list as the sheer volume of them began to reveal certain patterns, before starting to search the feeds myself. Other contributors are: Craig, Reed, Jeff W, Guest Who, Laban, Notasheep, BBC Waste, David Vance, ChrisH, and yours truly. (Apologies if I missed anyone.)

Kaye Adams, BBC Scotland radio presenter

KAYE Adams, the BBC broadcaster, has been accused of being unfit to present a top current affairs programmes after she tweeted that Boris Johnson “should p*** off back to boarding school”.

The former presenter of Loose Women, the ITV talk show, who presents a popular Radio Scotland show, was on holiday in Tuscany when she made a series of expletive-filled Tweets about London’s mayor. She has now apologised and deleted the comments from her Twitter site.

Paul Adams, BBC Washington correspondent

Also, when reporting from the Republican National Convention, Adams made 10 tweets, all negative, and for only one day, Aug. 30. From the Democrat’s convention, he made 30 tweets over three days, Sept. 4-6, all positive, including the #DNC2012 hashtag. The RNC hashtag was absent from all of his tweets.

Sarah Afshar, Senior producer for Newsnight

 

Anita Anand, BBC Radio and TV presenter

In case anyone isn’t sure who Anand is, a charming photo of her can be seen here. The other person in that photo is the star of his own R5 Live show, Richard Bacon.

Here’s a screenshot of Bacon telling his followers to check out a vicious anti-Palin article by her personal womb inspector, Andrew Sullivan.

Wendy Bailey, former BBC Radio broadcaster, producer Children in Need, and lots more.

 

 Ros Ball, BBC Parliament correspondent (with an activist statement photo on her Twitter page)

 

 


Bob Ballard, BBC Radio commentator on swimming and diving

 

well said that man – and she could be your next President? And we thought WE had troubles in the UK – it’s bloody utopia.

 

 

Mark Barlex, BBC On Demand editor, tweeted from the BBC College of Journalism account(!)

The “gift” is the video hosted on the BBC website of that Iraqi reporter throwing a shoe at George Bush.

He’s talking about the Newsnight report on the inauguration speech which the BBC edited to make the President sound more Green-friendly.

Mark Blank-Settle, BBC College of Journalism social media maven

Claire Bolderson, BBC presenter

Peter Bowes, BBC correspondent in the US

Jane Bradley, BBC Midlands Current Affairs producer

 

 

Toby Brown, BBC News Channel producer

Am reading an essay on American capitalism and it’s effect on women. 50% jealous of academia. 50% glad to be out of it…

— Toby Brown (@browntoby) April 19, 2012

Mario Cacciottolo, BBC journalist

 

  Jenny Clarke, BBC Radio Manchester

Shut up going on about how great Manchester is George Osborne. We know it is and flattery will not buy our votes. Now kindly fuck off.

She soon got caught out, tweet and entire account deleted before we could get the embed code. Original tweet url was: http://twitter.com/#!/jenrclarke/status/120849989885902848. She then set up a new account @jennyfleur88. Tweets protected now.

Katie Connolly, ex-BBC US correspondent. From Newsweek to the BBC, now works at a Democrat strategy group, worked on the campaign to re-elect the President. Go figure. Lots of tweets, too much to post here, but Craig’s list and full analysis can be read here. Highlights:

this palin speech is more like a stand up routine, esp with the redneck jokes 1,273,863,138,000.00 via TweetDeck ouch. sarah palin calls us the lamestream media. #palin #nra RT @chucktodd: FOIA-requested Todd Palin related emails involving Palin’s time in office in Alaska now up on MSNBC.com. http://ping.fm/YGnCF 1,265,387,931,000.00 via TweetDeck My boss Jon Meacham responds to critics of our Sarah Palin cover photo http://bit.ly/G5iCz 1,258,492,120,000.00 via TweetDeck

She regularly corresponded with a number of JournoListas, and RTed their groupthink as often as possible.

Matt Danzico, BBC News reporter in the US, and former Obama campaigner. His Twitter page has both the disclaimer and the BBC logo wallpaper

 

(UPDATE: Forgot to mention this last one is from before Danzico worked for the BBC. This was from back when he was working for the 2008 campaign. Usually people go work for a political party or campaign after a stint at the BBC. I included this to demonstrate both his consistency and as an example of what is not an obstacle to being hired as an impartial journalist.)   Several more can be seen here. Tom Donkin, journalist for BBC News Online Magazine

 

  Gavin Esler, newsreader, presenter for Newsnight and Dateline

  Stephanie Flanders, BBC Economics editor

  Matt Frei, ex-BBC, now with C4, former anchor of BBC World News America

  Leah Gooding, newsreader for BBC Newsround (Screenshot because Jude Machin changed the avatar after complaints, relevant tweet deleted.) Leah Gooding approves of Jude Machin's Obama Avatar Jim Hawkins, BBC Radio Shropshire (One of many presenters who uses his “unofficial, personal” account as the official one for a BBC show)

 

 

Rhys Hughes, BBC Radio 1 producer

Here’s what his avatar was until DB posted it last week and somebody told Hughes to clean up his act.

Katty Kay, anchor, BBC World News America and pundit in official BBC capacity on MSNBC and other show

 

 

 Rachel Kennedy, BBC News editor Screenshot because Kennedy deleted the tweets after Guido Fawkes linked to DB’s post on them and it gained wider attention. Same goes for this one: Dominic Laurie, Business presenter for Radio 5 Live

 

 

  Brian Limond, “controversial” BBC Scotland comedian

“Would Prince William write to FIFA on behalf of the Scotland team wearing poppies? No. Cos he thinks ENGLAND won the war.” This message was quickly followed by; “I’d love to slide a samurai sword up Prince William’s arse to the hilt, then yank it towards me like a door that won’t f@*king open.” This was eventually followed by another anti-Royal family message: “Absolutely f@*k England and its royal wee family living it up while pensioners freeze to death.”

Tweets deleted after complaints. More here. Sue Llewellyn, BBC social media expert This is the only Retweet in this collection, included here as evidence of the groupthink regarding Sarah Palin, and particularly the blood libel so many BBC journalists and other staff tried to push. Even one of the BBC’s experts in social media felt free to retweet such a thing. Now for an original tweet:

Jude Machin, BBC journalist, formerly US-based, now in UK (See Leah Gooding above) Screenshots because it’s all been sent down the memory hold after she got caught, then got caught again, then got caught again.


Jude Machin Twitter Screenshot Obama avatar

Leah Gooding approves of Jude Machin's Obama Avatar

James Macintyre, former BBC Question Time producer, now political editor for Prospect magazine and Ed Miliband’s biographer

 

Chris Mason, BBC political correspondent
Screenshot because his Twitter feed archive wouldn’t go back far enough

Paul Mason Newsnight economics editor

 

 

 

John Mervin, BBC News New York business editor

 

Link goes to Time magazine article about how “Conservatives have lost touch with reality”

  Claudia Milne, editor BBC News Online US edition


Fallows was Jimmy Carter’s speechwriter and is a popular Left-wing pundit

Daniel Nasaw, US-based feature writer for BBC News Online Magazine

 

 

 

Matt Prodger, BBC Home Affairs correspondent

 

 

 

Mark Sandell, editor World Have Your Say, BBC World TV and World Radio

 

 

Joan Soley, BBC News Pentagon correspondent (note BBC News wallpaper despite “my views” disclaimer)

 

Regarding one of the Republican presidential candidate debates:

Brett Spencer, Radio 5 Live Interactive editor Screenshot because he deleted the tweets after being caught. Allegra Stratton, Newsnight political editor

 Jeremy Vine, Radio 2 host, Eggheads presenter, former Newsnight journalist (and another one who uses his “personal” account as the official one for his BBC show)

  Sarah Walton, journalist for BBC Look North

  Tim Weber, ex-BBC business & technology editor for BBC Interactive, now Director at Edelman

 

 

  Lucy Williamson, BBC Seoul correspondent


Screenshots because Twitter feed archive doesn’t go back far enough:


Plenty more here.

And there you have it. Come see the bias inherent in the system. I’ve actually lost count of how many tweets there are and how many Beeboids are represented. Someone else will have to do it now since my eyes are all bleary from laying this out.

For balance, here’s one which appears to be from the Right by James Landale, BBC News political correspondent (h/t Jim Dandy)

Oh, and apparently Andrew Neil is on the Right, and Nick Robinson used to be in his youth. Balanced or what?

A View From Outside The Echo Chamber

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Defenders of the indefensible love to belittle this blog by claiming that it’s nothing more than a microscopic minority of cranks and haters caught up in an echo chamber, not representative of any popular opinions, not a single word to be taken seriously. The views expressed here about BBC bias do not, we’re told, represent anything other than an extremist, miniscule minority.

With this in mind, I’d like to direct your attention to this piece by  US writer from Minnesota, James Lileks. He’s of the Right, but socially pretty liberal and has plenty of mainstream opinions and tastes, although maybe an unhealthy obsession with advertising and magazine art from the 1950s. In other words, he’s not the kind of extremist defenders of the indefensible claim we are. So when he independently catches the BBC in exactly the kind of bias we point out here, it’s worth taking note.

Read the following, part of a larger point about “offensive” art and intentions, and notice how it could have been written by any number of people here:

While listening to the BBC today I heard an interview with a California church singled out by the Southern Poverty Law Center – “an organization that monitors hate groups,” and thus utterly neutral and trustworthy, of course; the very act of dedicating yourself to the task proves you’re on the side of the angels. The interviewer, having been informed that the church endorsed the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video, badgered the pastor about supporting hate,  sounding as though he had a film of sour jam around his teeth as he spoke. The pastor asked the interviewer to explain how the film was inaccurate. There wasn’t any response to that, but the earnestness of the pastor and all that JEEESUS talk was supposed to say it all.

Then the  Southern Poverty Law Center spokesperson said that the church wasn’t violent, but such extremism, combined with easy access to firearms, made for a worrisome situation.

The impetus for the story, just to recap, was a video that supposedly made people on the other side of the world rise up in murderous rage, which had nothing to do with the church in the profile, except that they endorsed its sentiments. They do not believe that Mohammed was a prophet. I suspect the interviewer didn’t, either, but of course he said “The prophet Mohammed” whenever the subject arose.

It’s just easier all around that way. You get less mail.

It’s stuff like this that makes me laugh when defenders of the indefensible do their “you’re an obscure tiny minority and nobody agrees with you anywhere outside the echo chamber” routine. This is also yet another example of the institutional bias at the BBC. Same perspective on this story, same angle of attack, same “Prophet Mohammed”, but on another programme on another channel. Lileks doesn’t say, but this is most likely the World Service, editorially independent and far away from Barbara Plett on Radio 4 and some Beeboid on the News Channel and the rest of the spectrum of BBC broadcasting. They don’t need to pass memos around or send editorial directives from on high or hold secret meetings to deliberately plan this kind of biased reporting: it’s reflexive. It comes naturally to them because that’s the kind of people the BBC hires and that’s the atmosphere in house.

Mark Mardell – Anti-War Correspondent

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Sometimes Mark Mardell just can’t help but express his opinion on world affairs. This time he’s expressing his disdain for the way US troops will continue to engage in military action in Afghanistan even though a decision has been made by the President to hand full military control over to the Afghan Government in 2014. The fact that he simply doesn’t understand what this means shows just how naive and ideological the man is.

Mission, sort of, accomplished

After the obligatory dig at George Bush, Mardell gives us an analogy to show us what he thinks about the whole state of affairs. He likens the troop draw-down and continued military policing of the country to the pointless butchery in the last few hours of World War I after the armistice had been signed. No, this highly-paid, world-traveled, expert journalist actually doesn’t know the difference between a cease-fire and the gradual handing over of power to a new government after military reconstruction.

I have been asking some of those involved whether the end in Afghanistan amounts to a prolonged version of much the same thing.

For the next two years British and American soldiers will be risking their lives for a war that we know will end in 2014, no matter what.

See what I mean? He really doesn’t get it. And he’s not done expressing his opinion. Of course, being a clever, trained journalist, he uses the rhetorical device of asking a question behind which to hide his opinion.

Has Nato masterfully spun an acceptance of defeat and subsequent retreat into something that looks a bit like victory?

Defeat? Al Qaeda has long been broken into the tiniest of pieces, really no longer existing, the Taliban we’re fighting bears little resemblance to those who ran much of the country 12 years ago. This is obviously a definition of “defeat” I wasn’t previously aware of. It’s not a perfect, obvious victory in that we haven’t created a stable environment like we did in Germany or Japan after WWII. But Mardell doesn’t see any of that. He sees only continued fighting, ergo it’s a defeat.

So outraged and confused is he by the fact that young men will continue to die for what he sees as someone merely hitting the “off” switch, that he goes to Ft. Bragg to question the last batch of US troops preparing for their tour of engagement. Fortunately, most of the soldiers seem to understand what they’re up against, and can grasp the larger picture better than the man the BBC expects not only you to trust about US issues, but expects their own young journalists to trust for lessons on how to be a correspondent.

The soldiers seem to understand that there are larger issues at play in the long term, but also realize that doesn’t discount everything that’s gone on the whole time. To Mardell, though, the fact that there are larger issues at play is proof that this war never should have happened, and needs to be shut down. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Mark Mardell report without the reflexive praising of the President, and he doesn’t disappoint:

It seems obvious to me that Obama has been pretty hard-headed, deciding to end a war when it was clear to him that it couldn’t be “won” in a conventional sense.

This view is supported by an important article by David Sanger in the New York Times.

Here we see the appeal to authority. Because he realizes most of his readers won’t know who Sanger is, he even explains that authority for us.

Sanger’s record is impressive. He gets the inside story more often than any other Washington journalist.

People who do know who Sanger is, though, will know that he mostly just likes hands-on, authoritative Presidential behavior in this matters. He like Clinton’s quasi-personal approach, mocked Bush as “Incurious George”, and expressed his disappointment when the current President dithered on Libya and then led from behind. Funny how Mardell wasn’t appealing to Sanger’s authority then, eh? So now when the President has acted decisively, Sanger is pleased. Mardell is especially pleased because on this occasion his beloved Obamessiah has done something with which he agrees.

Next comes the required “balance”. Mardell quotes John McCain’s disapproval of setting a date for withdrawal. Never mind how so far this piece is really two against one – Mardell and Sanger in support of the President’s decision to withdraw, and McCain against. And it’s about to get much worse. Where does Mardell go for the final say on the matter? Does he seek out a foreign policy expert? A military historian? A seasoned diplomat? No, becaue none of them with any credibility would call this a defeat, which is what Mardell thinks. To find somebody who agrees with him, he asks an Occupier:

The many anti-war protesters who gathered on the streets of Chicago believe the real problem is the exact opposite.
Riot police and protesters clash in Chicago The Nato summit has attracted many anti-war campaigners to Chicago

Among them is Occupy Washington’s Kevin Zeese. He says soldiers are going on fighting their way towards a deadline for one reason.

“That’s what happens when you lose a war. It is like Iraq. This is how you get out when you lose.

Mark Mardell: BBC anti-war correspondent, and dishonest Beeboid. Why am I calling him dishonest this time? Because Kevin Zeese isn’t just an Occupier or merely one of a number of anti-war protesters: he’s also executive director of the anti-war activist group, “Come Home America“, and co-founder of “Voters for Peace”. The man the BBC expects you to trust most on US issues doesn’t want you to know that, because it would detract from the credibility of his piece, so he left that out. Neither he nor his editor want you to know the truth, because it’s with Zeese that Mardell agrees most of all.

Life In These United States – No. 5

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It’s time for another one. This one lasts 16:15.  I try to keep them down to 15 minutes, but I don’t have the benefit of all those BBC editors and producers.

As always, it’s meant to be a rebuttal to BBC coverage.

Life In These United States – No. 5

(Audio hosted by EyeTube)

SOURCES:

Insurers Must Credit Obamacare When Isuing Rebate Checks

Health insurers to pay $1.3 billion in rebates: study

White House website with Presidents bios

Judge deals setback to state unions on dues withdrawals

BBC US Election section (click on the map for Wisconsin page)

Wisconsin: DCCC Involved In Gubernatorial Recall

Marquette Law School polls

Daily Kos Wisconsin Poll

Wisconsin State Assembly

Wisconsin GOP Loses Senate Majority, After Recall-Targeted GOPer Resigns

Legislators file to run in new districts
Others won’t seek re-election

Obama Crushes Romney in Ivy League Campaign Donations

Calif. watchdog sees budget gap topping $17 billion

A gold-plated burden

How California Unions Hijacked the Golden State

Has the Golden State gone bust?

State bond ratings (PDF file)

California Cities Face Massive Budget Cuts, Default, Bankruptcy

New California Law Will Restrict Cities’ Access To Bankruptcy Under Chapter 9

Untouchable Pensions May Be Tested in California

Losses of factory jobs in California blamed on regulation

California companies fleeing the Golden State

California slipping toward bankruptcy, again (info about Redevelopment Agency fiasco)

Explainer: The end of redevelopment agencies

Occupiers Sing "F@$K The USA", Civic Duty Or Destructive Force?

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Katty Kay thinks these people are nice, filled with a sense of civic duty and lawfulness. Her colleagues want you to believe this is all about lax banking regulations and corporate welfare. Last time I checked, that didn’t cause people to say “F#@k” an entire country. At BBC News Online, they see such a strong parallel between this and the Tea Party movement (is it because they’re mostly hideously white? -ed), that they’ve spent time picking cherries in order to put together a quiz, asking you to guess whether some quasi-political statement was made by a Tea Partier or an Occupier. It would much more informative to put together a set of photos and police blotter reports, and then ask which is which. Of course, that wouldn’t help the BBC’s Narrative. Although I must say I enjoy the Beeboids’ intellectual hypocrisy of suddenly using the Tea Party which they disparaged as a positive example now.

Note to the BBC: Nazis and Communists support the Occupiers. Any chance you’ll report that?

At the bottom of the latest watered down report of violence and arrests and lawless behavior by the Occupiers, the intrepid BBC News Online team does what they always do for protests they support: Ask readers if they’re involved and to send in their comments. To my knowledge, there has never been one of these for the Tea Party movement. If a defender of the indefensible or BBC employee who has been notified of this “hate site” could point one out to me, I’d be most grateful.

Yesterday the nice Occupiers who are filled with a sense of civic duty and lawfulness tried to occupy a Citibank branch. This is not lawful behavior, this is not inspired by a sense of civic duty. This is an act of lawlessness. Yet the BBC plays it down this way:

Staff at Citibank near Washington Square Park called police because “very disruptive” protesters “refused to leave after being repeatedly asked,” the bank said.

“The police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed.”

They shouldn’t have been there in the first place, yet the BBC refuses to point out that this is illegal behavior. No, they love this stuff, support it 100%.

Speaking of people who support the Occupiers 100%, if anyone reads Inspector Gadget’s blog, they’ll know that he does, and claims that most police do as well. They’re arresting people now because they have to, but if the Government doesn’t do something to get the police back on side, they won’t do it forever. Or, if the idiot Occupiers ever figure this out and stop calling them fascist tools and do something to get the police on side, it will be a different story. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is a recipe for disaster. When the police are on the side of the destroyers, they will eventually stop doing their jobs. The more the BBC demonizes the police, the less inclined they’ll be to act on behalf of a Government they detest. But I digress.

Getting back to the latest BBC breathless report about the Occupiers in the US, they say this:

The New York protests began on 17 September with a small group of activists and have swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life.

Anyone ever seen a BBC report describe a Tea Party protest so generously? Funny how they’re now so careful to be generous to these people, the exact opposite of the way they’ve handled the Tea Party movement. No sneering or insulting with sexual innuendo, no suggesting ulterior motives or unseen hands pulling their strings. No hand-wringing over the “anger” this time, eh, BBC?

So I ask the BBC again: Why don’t you discuss the fact that the Tea Party movement actually went out and did what decent, civic-minded, law-abiding citizens should do and took their anger out at the polls, rather than vandalize and occupy private property, and disrupt? Why don’t you point out the irony of the Occupiers are able to do all of this only because other people are giving them money to do it? And that they believe they’re entitled to other people’s money to do it? That’s not the American ideal of working hard and having it pay off you claim they want.

Mark Mardell admits that many of the Occupiers were Obamessiah worshipers but are now “disillusioned”. So why aren’t they protesting against Him? He says it’s because they don’t want to change one political party or other, but want to change the entire system. But he won’t discuss what that actually means. He knows what they really want, but won’t say it out loud. So I’ll let them say it for him:

Why not discuss how convenient it is for these protests to fill news broadcasts so nobody is talking about the President’s looming scandals: Solyndra, where the White House is still refusing to turn over relevant documents and communication, and Gunwalker, in which Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller have been subpoenaed.

And most importantly: Why don’t you ask the Occupiers why they haven’t protested outside the White House? After all, the President is the greatest recipient of Goldman Sachs largesse, and He’s the one who authorized more bank bailouts, and is handing over billions of taxpayer money to greedy corporate cronies. Oh, that’s right: you’ve censored all that news, so can’t start talking about it now.

This is an intellectual failure of the BBC. I think I’ll go down to visit the Occupiers next weekend to see what else the BBC isn’t telling you.

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Rod Liddle Explains BBC Pro-Euro Bias

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The former editor of Today, Rod Liddle, has a brief blog post for the Spectator defending his former colleagues at the BBC against charges of a pro-Euro conspiracy. That sentence doesn’t contradict my headline. As most people here know by now, Peter Oborne wrote recently about how Liddle complained to upper mandarins about the complaints he was hearing about the obvious pro-Euro bias among the talent on his programme. He was told in no uncertain terms by a senior BBC figure that Euro-skeptics are “mad”, so those complaints should be ignored.

How many different topics now have we seen to receive the same treatment, I wonder? Warmism, the EU, open borders, the evil of the Tea Party movement, “Green” Energy, the list goes on. Sometimes it does seem that there is a coordinated effort to get a certain Narrative out there. On quite a few stories, as has been shown on this blog time and time again, the exact same position is taken by the presenter on several different programmes, radio and television, not to mention BBC News Online, essentially across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting. Then there are those quotes on the sidebar of this blog, particularly the one from Jeff Randall, in which he says that the bias is visceral, they don’t even realize they’re doing it. To put it another way, it’s in their DNA (you knew I couldn’t resist that one).

So following up on Robin Horbury’s post about yesterday’s biased performance by James Naughtie, now Rod Liddle confirms it. Liddle heard the show, and has a few words to say on the matter.

The BBC was too wet to have concocted a Euro plot

I heard my name mentioned on the Today programme yesterday, which is always nice, to be remembered by your old manor. The journalist Peter Oborne was castigating the propagandist forces, as he saw them, which back in 2000 attempted to convince of the need for greater European integration and joining the Euro. These were, he said, the Financial Times, the CBI and the BBC, pre-eminent amongst which latter was the Today programme. Jim Naughtie picked him up on this and pointed out that at the time the programme was edited by me, and I could hardly be described as a Europhile (Jim said this with a soft veneer of loathing). He was right; I was editor back then and was mildly Eurosceptic. Oborne responded by saying that I had also complained about pro-Euro bias in the BBC but that my complaints were ignored.

So it wasn’t just Robin and John Anderson who inferred a negative attitude from Naughtie, eh? Liddle continues:

This isn’t quite right; Oborne seems to imply that there was a covert plot within the top echelons of the BBC in favour of the European project, and that’s not true either. It is rather more the case that the civilised, decent middle class liberals who ran the corporation genuinely believed that the Eurorealists were a bunch of deranged xenophobes, one step up from the BNP, and therefore their arguments should be discounted. I realise that covert plot or otherwise the result was the same – a heavy pro-Euro bias, and so you might argue my quibble does not matter. But the BBC’s bias was arrived at through a sort of inherent wet liberalism, rather than an actual plot as such.

And there you have it. This is exactly what this blog has been saying – not just about the Euro, but about a variety of topics – since its inception. There is a self-affirming, ideological groupthink on these issues at the BBC because of the personnel. BBC hiring practices ensure it, BBC editorial policies enshrine it, and the style guide reinforces it. It’s not just us saying this anymore. This will not change until there is a wholesale purge in certain departments, and complete rethink on journalistic practices.

I can’t leave without including one more bit from Liddle:

One part of the Beeb back then which was, however, entirely on board with the Euro project was the Brussels office. We presented the programme from their studio on one occasion and kicked the EU from pillar to post, to the clear discomfort of the resident correspondents. Our team, in the manner of football hooligans, then plastered their office with Just Say No and Referendum Now posters and stickers. I suppose you could argue that this showed clear anti-Euro bias on our part, but it was really just a spirit of mischief and an attempt to remind our Brussels colleagues that the country was not entirely behind the project, as they might have thought.

That last line could have been said about a dozen issues. Come see the bias inherent in the system.

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LOVING NICK

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Sorry for lack of posts, but not been well for the past few days.

BBC coverage of the Lib-Dem Conference has not helped my mood. You can tell just how much the BBC are lapping up the tribal trash being served by by Cable, Huhne and now Clegg. Attacks on “right wing” Conservatives are particularly well covered, with the bashing of the Tea Party being given an extra Bruce bonus. You can tell how the BBC were rhapsodic about Cleggs defence of the Human Rights Act, Huhne’s drive to put our collective lights out, and Cable’s attack on the imagined evils of capitalism.

As if this was not irritating enough, the BBC is also relentlessly bigging up the notion that we need more of that “quantitative easing” to boost the “growth” that is not there.(Remember how well it is working across the Pond?) This neatly dove-tails with the Ed Balls/Stephanie Flanders inane narrative that now is the time to spend ourselves out of the..erm…spending induced recession! Entertainingly the BBC is also forced to report that Government borrowing in August was a record high. Ah, those savage cuts, if only we could see them!

Meanwhile, up in Bonny Scotland, the BBC gives the SNP budget a big two thumbs way up. In particular, the plan to impose a tax on “big Supermarkets” has been met with a wave of BBC enthusiasm. Way to go – tax the private sector even more in order to keep all those State sector jobs in Scotland alive and well.

Across the pond, Obama has invoked the ire of the BBC for being “on the wrong side of history” for not running with holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas and his plan to get Narnia UN recognition. I saw Jeremy Bowen was there to point out that violence “could” result from the US choosing to stand in the way of those peace-loving residents of Hamastan.

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BBC BIAS ROUND UP

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Oh no. After hyping up the great evil of Conservative created inflation all morning….comes the news that it has fallen. BBC Gutted. What to do? Well, can we ever forget how evil the British were in KENYA when putting down insurrection there? Not if the BBC can help it 😉 Shouldn’t David Cameron apologise and pay reparations? Meanwhile, buried away on regional news, we read about the shockingly callous behaviour of NHS staff, thanks to Channel 4 uncovering it. Elsewhere, BBC delight in David Cameron’s “mistake” over the number of black students at Oxford University. Wonder why the intrepid reporters never stopped to question WHY only 452 students out of a population of MILLIONS gained the necessary “A” level qualifications to even be considered? Might there be another issue in play here that the State Broadcaster chooses to downplay? Finally, on a much more parochial basis, my political party had it’s manifesto launch yesterday. The BBC turned up for the event and then, on their main news, gave us about 30 seconds. That’s 29 seconds more than I was expecting. Remember – these professionals are impartial to the core, it’s in their DNA you know!

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