Category Archives: BBC bias

Time for a new Open Thread. Here is where you detail the bias…

“It really matters that our news and current affairs is the best, the highest top-level journalism you can have.”  Gwyneth Williams, Controller Radio 4

If this is the best they can do gawd help us.

Remember Asad Shah, the Ahmadi Muslim killed in Glasgow?  The BBC are doing their best to disremember him and all the inconvenient truths that his death brings out into the open.

We’ve looked at the BBC’s reluctance to examine the reasons behind the killing a couple of times now but it’s worth looking again at a classic example of how the BBC edits the news to suit its own agenda and will refuse to discuss issues that raise awkward questions about one of the BBC’s favoured groups that it protects regardless of what it does.

The Today programme, the BBC’s prime news and current affairs outlet, the one that sets the agenda for the rest of the day for BBC News, gave only a token mention of Asad Shah’s murder, limited to the basic fact of his death and what a nice bloke everyone thought he was.

Compare that to the coverage Today gave to boxer Nick Blackwell who was hospitalised.  We got a long discussion on what happened in his fight and on the dangers of boxing.  This was followed up on 5Live at 0900 with a phone in on the subject…and there’s more…from Newsbeat…

Nick Blackwell: What are the rules for stopping boxing bouts?

Boxer Nick Blackwell was put into an induced coma after suffering a bleed on the brain during his British middleweight title defeat to Chris Eubank Jr.

The referee stopped the fight after 10 rounds, saying Blackwell couldn’t carry on.  Two rounds earlier, Chris Eubank Snr asked “why hasn’t the referee stopped the fight? ” Some agree with him, others side with the referee. So what are the rules?

A serious event for Nick Blackwell and one that deserves some discussion but where is the similar level of concern for a man who has been killed in the street, the killer kicking him in the head and sitting on his chest laughing….killed in a hate crime….so often the BBC’s call to arms.  This wasn’t a random killing, it wasn’t one of Mark Mardell’s ‘senseless tragedies’, this was a targeted attack, targeted for a reason.  Where are the discussions about the likely causes of his death…that being the fact Asad Shah was an Ahmadi Muslim?  Where are the discussions about hate crimes against Ahmadis and who is inciting them and why?

Interesting to see that the young girl who was killed in an accident on a bouncy castle is still frontpage news whilst  the mass killing of Christians in Pakistan is slowly disappearing…it hasn’t been on the frontpage all day and is slipping down the order on the world page now…tomorrow it will no doubt have vanished into the Asia section to be flushed down the memory hole and forgotten till the next mass killing.

The BBC reports on the frontpage that the family of the little girl are heartbroken at the cruel death of their girl….absolutely no mention that the family of Asad Shah are living in fear of being killed for their beliefs in a British city.

Just what are the BBC’s news priorities?  They can’t seriously expect us to swallow the guff that “our news and current affairs is the best, the highest top-level journalism you can have.”

A bit of a diversion from the usual……I’d watch it with your eyes shut if you don’t like heights…

Just remember…no smoking…it’s bad for your health…..

Ritula Shah introduces the guests on Any Questions and announces that the right-leaning, pro-Brexit Freddie Forsyth has ‘given up writing fiction but is now writing a weekly column for the Daily Express where he comments on a wide range of things including Brexit.’  I thought the Now Show had finished at one, obviously not, one last gasp in them.

Any chance that there was supposed to be a snidy little subliminal hit there?  Is she suggesting he is writing fiction about the benefits of Brexit?  Not that the BBC has any opinion itself…or indeed would ever dream of inventing pro-EU material however many backhanders they get from the EU.

Another open thread to kick things off……I imagine it will fill up fast as the bias is coming thick and fast with immigration, militancy, the Tories and UKIP tearing themselves apart [Labour apparently not so much] and lots of people being eradicated for not being Muslim….oh, and Trump of course!  The BBC has a lot to manage as it spins its narratives for that lot.  Watch out and report in.

Did you know Christians were being persecuted in Burma?  You knew Muslims were in conflict with the Buddhists because the BBC has relentlessly been promoting the cause of the Muslim insurgents in Burma…but I have never heard the BBC mention that Christians were under attack.  This is the same BBC of course that told us a couple of years ago that Christians in the Middle East were thriving and those in Gaza were getting on famously with their Islamist hosts.

The BBC asks Why is there communal violence in Myanmar? but it is only the Muslim community that they are interested in…strange really when you consider this headline from the Telegraph in 2007..

Burma ‘orders Christians to be wiped out’

The military regime in Burma is intent on wiping out Christianity in the country, according to claims in a secret document believed to have been leaked from a government ministry. Entitled “Programme to destroy the Christian religion in Burma”, the incendiary memo contains point by point instructions on how to drive Christians out of the state.

The text, which opens with the line “There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practised”, calls for anyone caught evangelising to be imprisoned. It advises: “The Christian religion is very gentle – identify and utilise its weakness.”

Its discovery follows widespread reports of religious persecution, with churches burnt to the ground, Christians forced to convert to the state religion, Buddhism, and their children barred from school.

That was in 2007 but it’s still going on…

Myanmar’s first fair elections for decades took place in November 2015, seeing the opposition party win a landslide victory, but already violence against Christians has risen.

The Burmese army is influential in Myanmar’s politics; Buddhist nationalists are known to attack Christian communities which are seen as a threat to Burmese-Buddhist heritage. Ethnic minority groups to which many Christians belong, such as the Rohingyas, also experience attacks from the army and radical Buddhists. Buddhist-background believers and Muslim-background believers face being shunned by their communities.

But it’s not just the Buddhists attacking the Christians…no surprise you might think about the other culprits…

“The Muslims in the village still wanted to kill me. One day, they came to do just that. They attacked me but some believers shielded me from harm. Another night, Muslims surrounded my home while I was sleeping and pelted stones on our roof.”

Amod is on the run. He’s from the Rohingya (Muslim) tribe and converted to Christianity after 33 years as a Muslim.

The Spectator asks why Christian persecution and ‘ethnic cleansing’ is ignored by the Media…

Imagine if correspondents in late 1944 had reported the Battle of the Bulge, but without explaining that it was a turning point in the second world war. Or what if finance reporters had told the story of the AIG meltdown in 2008 without adding that it raised questions about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages that could augur a vast financial implosion?

Most people would say that journalists had failed to provide the proper context to understand the news. Yet that’s routinely what media outlets do when it comes to outbreaks of anti-Christian persecution around the world, which is why the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the early 21st century.

Those atrocities are indeed appalling, but they cannot truly be understood without being seen as small pieces of a much larger narrative.

Just been listening to 5Live and Adrian Chiles [The man who hates UKIP]…talking about the attack on Christians in Lahore and when it was stated that this was a deliberate attack on Christians [and I believe the Taliban have said as much] Chiles pipes up with the standard BBC meme…‘there were Muslims hurt as well’……as if this proves it wasn’t an attack on Christians in particular or that this lessens the fact of the mass murder of Christians in a deliberate attempt to clear them out of Pakistan. Muslim terrorists can blow up whom and what they like as long as a few token Muslims get killed as well so that the BBC can say this isn’t really anything to do with Islam and Muslim intolerance of other religions.

The Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack.

“The target were Christians,” a spokesman for the faction, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told the Reuters news agency while the Pakistan Express Tribune reports that he said, “We claim responsibility for the attack on Christians as they were celebrating Easter.”

Just noted this from Chilli in the comments…seems there must be a BBC memo scripting the BBC response…

I must say the BBC news at 10pm after the Night Manager took the biscuit for bias in every item.
First the Lahore reporter’s bizarre assertion that the suicide bomb attack on Christians celebrating Easter “didn’t just affect Christians”.

And yes, the news is pumping out the message that ‘Christians were targeted but many Muslims were also hurt.’…and ‘We must not forget this is Muslim on Muslim violence’…..really….I thought it was deliberate targeting of Christians.

Let’s just forget the Christians hey?

Thanks to NCBBC in the comments who links us to this from Breitbart:

BBC Radio Drama Gave Tips For Illegal Migrants In Somalia

A BBC department that produced a radio drama giving practical tips to would-be migrants on how to cross from Somalia to Europe received nearly £90 million of British tax payers’ money.

The drama, broadcast to Somalia and Kenya at the height of the migrant crisis, featured one character advising a woman to travel only with small luggage to make the illegal crossing easier.  Another character is later advised that “this current time is the best opportunity to reach Europe”.  The drama is produced by BBC Media Action, the broadcaster’s charitable arm, which is funded by the British government’s foreign aid budget.  Titled ‘A Better Life than Today’, it follows the fortunes of a group of Somali youths and has more than two million listeners on BBC Radio Somali.

Here is Media Action‘s own report on the impact of that drama…you may believe it or not….they tell us that it has been effective in persuading Somalians to stay in their own country…..

Rather think that might just be the BBC justifying its government and EU grants with exaggerated tales of its own success.  Are there any independent studies of the effect of such programmes?  What are the chances that many listen when the BBC itself tells us the problems…

Although youth is the biggest segment of the population in Somalia, they are marginalised and excluded from decision making on family, community and national issues. This combined with high unemployment rates and low school enrolment rates means that Somalia has an extremely high proportion of disenfranchised youth.

Here is Media Action calling for film makers…judge for yourselves whether the BBC is enabling and encouraging migration……I think it might be……

Call for Proposals: Short Information Films for Syrian refugees in
Lebanon

Theme: Illegal Migration
Target group: Syrian refugees mainly, but it could include the Lebanese host community as well.
Age group: Adults, with a focus on youth.
Background: Many Syrians are pondering whether or not to join the exodus of refugees travelling to seek asylum in Europe. There is some content around the risks inherent in the journey to Europe but not much else about the challenges and opportunities once there.
This could include hearing from Syrians who have made the journey about their new lives abroad.
Objective: Help Syrian refugees make an informed decision about whether or not to attempt to seek asylum in another country. The aim isn’t to advise them either to stay or to go, but rather to help them reach an informed decision based on a realistic understanding of the potential risks and benefits.
Call to action: Look before you leap.

Here is the BBC website for the Somali programmes…

Inspiring young people through radio drama

Interestingly there is this from the BBC in 2011 where the presenter, Frances Cairncross puts the case for immigration…

CAIRNCROSS:  And every year, immigrant workers like Shagid and Olive, send billions of pounds home from money transfer centres like this one.  These remittances are one of the unsung success stories of the fight against poverty in developing countries – but as a tool of development, they raise as many questions as they answer.   At a time of  austerity and cuts, the government has decided to protect the aid budget. And yet at the same time the government wants to discourage migrant workers from coming to Britain. In this Analysis programme we ask whether there is a contradiction here. If we really want what’s best for developing countries, is it more important to encourage remittances than to protect state aid.

Asad Shah’s wife and siblings said they had been left “heartbroken” by the killing and they had been overwhelmed by the messages of support they had received from the local community in the Shawlands area of Glasgow.

James Dean, BBC: “Controlling #media in the name of preventing terrorism is not a good idea”

We’ve already looked at the BBC’s reluctance to report the religious identity of the killer of Asad Shah in Glasgow and the reluctance to bring the issues that frame that murder into the open continues….and it is even now ignoring the family living in fear of being murdered by what, I suppose are in fact, no less than Muslim terrorists attacking the Ahmadi community.  Still there is this important BBC news from Scotland on the frontpage…

Polar bear romance in Scottish highlands

Hopes are growing that the UK may soon have its first polar bear cub in 25 years, after Victoria and Arktos, two bears at the Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland, started mating.

 

The Today programme [39 mins in] gave all of a couple of minutes to the murder and limited itself to the bare facts and reporting how loved Asaf Shah was and what a nice man.  That was a cynical tick box exercise by the BBC  done to show ‘respect’ but in fact what it revealed was a contempt for, not only Asad Shah, but also the truth which the BBC is prepared to sacrifice for what they believe is the greater good…that elusive community cohesion.  Tell Mama wasn’t invited on to discuss this latest example of ‘Islamophobia’ for some reason but they give us an idea of why the BBC wants to play down this sectarian, religiously motivated murder….

As long as there divisions, they will be manipulated and used by extremist far right groups to drive a wedge between communities… They will use it to malign Muslims and to seek division.

Maybe it’s not just the Far-Right who have legitimate concerns about what Islam brings to Europe….but the BBC would rather hide Muslim prejudice that ends in murder than confront it and give ‘ammunition’ to the critics of Islam.

Asad Shah was probably killed because he was an Ahmadi, someone not considered a Muslim by mainstream Islam.  They have been persecuted, much like the Jews, wherever they live in Muslim countries, and they are not even safe in  Britain.  The BBC, the champion of the oppressed and downtrodden minorities, looks away as they are murdered on our streets.

The murder of Asad Shah is history for the BBC, relegated to the Scottish page despite his family saying they are in fear of their own lives, something the BBC mentions only at the bottom of its ‘What the papers say’ page…the Scottish papers’ page that is……

The family of a Muslim shopkeeper who was attacked after posting an online Easter message have revealed they feared for their lives following the incident, according to the Scottish Daily Mail.

The BBC is otherwise not interested that a family lives in fear of being murdered by conservative Muslims.

The BBC will try to claim, if it ever gets around to examining the issues, that the extremists who attack Ahmadis are a small group who pervert the religion of Islam…but that’s not true….the persecution of Ahmadis is given divinely sanctioned motivation by mainstream British Muslim groups and commentators….

The MCB spells out explicitly how Ahmadis are viewed….

So to be clear, the MCB states quite uncategorically, that Ahmadis are not Muslim.

The results of which you can see at Tell Mama or indeed on the streets of Glasgow, just not on the BBC today….

Whatever, the motivation, we know that Police Scotland regard this murder as religiously motivated. Asad Shah was an Ahmaddiya and the murderer, another Muslim of Sunni heritage. We cannot extrapolate and we must not influence process where justice needs to take its course. Yet, the current information provided is worrying and may indicate sectarian hatred.

How can the BBC ignore the fact that the largest, most representative Muslim group, the conservative MCB, is fueling hatred against Ahmadi Muslims?  Why is the BBC so reluctant to investigate these issues that lead to murder when any example of ‘Islamophobia’, however suspect, spurious or minor, is news for days and days?

Much like Rotherham and Rochdale the guilty get away it because the BBC doesn’t want to report the truth due to the race or religion of the perps.

Nice to see that the BBC is referring to the terrorists in Brussels as ‘militants’ on their news bulletins this morning…not ‘very militant’ or even ‘very, very militant’,  just ‘militant’.  Of course the use of the word ‘terrorist’ is controversial as so many Muslims see these boys as freedom fighters and victims of Western oppression…so we can’t be seen to be taking sides at the BBC can we?

Rather surprised to hear that there were two bomb attacks in Europe this week….the ones in Brussels and one in Ankara.  Somehow I just don’t see Turkey as part of Europe…the BBC has obviously come to the editorial decision to make it firmly European which, as it is geographically dominantly Middle Eastern or Asian, and Erdogan has firmly placed it back in the Islamic camp, is questionable and is clearly a political decision by the BBC with three possible motivations…one Turkey is Muslim, therefore the BBC wants to present Islam as part of European culture and not alien to it, two, Turkey is supposedly the solution to the refugee crisis so again anything that makes Turkey seem on side is good, and three Turkey wants to join the European Union and so being presented by the BBC as already part of ‘Europe’, again not alien to, is obviously a good PR move for those who want it to join.  The BBC is ‘nudging’ our perceptions and trying to shape, manipulate, our views on Turkey.

It is especially questionable as Turkey is backing IS to a large extent as a weapon to stop the Kurds….never mind this…

King Abdullah of Jordan accused Turkey of exporting terrorists to Europe at a top level meeting with senior US politicians in January, the MEE can reveal. 

The king said Europe’s biggest refugee crisis was not an accident, and neither was the presence of terrorists among them: “The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy and Turkey keeps on getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook.”

Asked by one of the congressmen present whether the Islamic State group was exporting oil to Turkey, Abdullah replied: ”Absolutely.”

Hardly European friendly as Turkey seems to be not only blackmailing Europe over the refugees but also enabling the terrorism inside Europe…..not a problem for the BBC of course…The BBC’s European ‘militant’ freedom fighter, another man’s terrorist.

Speaking of whch….the Easter Rising in 1916…getting lots of favourable, almost admiring coverage on the BBC, though the IRA has always had BBC journos eating out of their hands. Ah the romance of the Oirish rebel….for sure Nick Robinson on the Today programme suggested that the Rising lit a fuse that led to decades of sectarian violence but that was brushed aside by the Irish politicians and Robinson managed to travel a parallel path paying lip service to the violence and the victims whilst ‘celebrating’ the Rising and the freedom from the ‘occupiers and oppressors’ as he put it.

No such tide of positive coverage for other momentous British events such as Trafalgar or Waterloo.  Waterloo was in fact attacked by the BBC which even blamed it for the rise of Hitler and then there were the insults to those of Bomber Command by saying they were war criminals worse than the Third Reich, in very one sided programmes about the bombing of Germany.

What was interesting though was how Irish poet and writer Theo Dorgan described the Rising [08:56] and the motivation behind it…not a narrative the BBC likes unless coming from the mouths of the romantic rebel whose violent nationalism is somehow acceptable….

The project of national identity will always inspire any citizenry and the poets.  You have to understand the Rising as a cultural gesture…they hoped to spark the imagination of the people and make them realise liberty and independence were possible.

They held out a vision of independence and quite against all the odds they succeeded.  The repossession of a national language, the repossession of a national identity and pride in a culture which had been treated as subaltern, to speak from the heart of your own culture is to speak from the most absolute form of liberty imagineable and that’s what the Rising was, it was a kind of lightning conductor for power and energy that had been gathering at cultural levels.  I’m talking about suffragism, I’m talking about pacifism as well as military insurrection.  All of these currents were lively and powerful. 

We can shape and imagine a new future for ourselves.

Curious that this poet eulogising the violence of glorious insurrection that led to freedom and independence should finish by attacking UKIP and the amiable Nigel Farage.

Curious that the BBC also hates anyone who expresses nationalist ideas, UKIP or the EDL or any ‘little Englander’, whilst adoring the IRA and the SNP or indeed any Muslim terrorist who fights to set up a caliphate free from Western oppression.

Perhaps that is what the Brexit campaign needs…less on the economy more on the passion and vision of independence and liberty…Britain shaping the future for itself.

Boris’ time has come perhaps.  Can he fill the Churchillian boots with the grand, inspirational oratory and dodge the outrageous BBC slings and arrows?

Imam tells Muslim migrants to ‘breed children’ with Europeans to ‘conquer their countries’ and vows: ‘We will trample them underfoot, Allah willing’

A top Iman has told Muslims to use the migrant crisis to breed with European citizens and ‘conquer their countries’.

Sheikh Muhammad Ayed gave the speech at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem claiming Europe was only welcoming refugees as a new source of labour.

He said Europe was facing a demographic disaster and urged Muslims to have children with westerners so they could ‘trample them underfoot, Allah willing.’ 

“Belgium Will Become an Islamic State”

Two Muslim politicians, who just won municipal elections in Belgium’s capital, Brussels, on October 14, have vowed to implement Islamic Sharia law in Belgium.

Speaking to a reporter from Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF), the public broadcasting service of the French-speaking part of Belgium, Ahrouch said: “The agenda is still the same, but our approach is different now. I think we have to sensitize people, make them understand the advantages to having Islamic people and Islamic laws. And then it will be completely natural to have Islamic laws and we will become an Islamic state.”

The reporter interjected: “An Islamic State in Belgium?” Ahrouch replied: “In Belgium, of course! I am for the Sharia. Islamic law, I am for it. It is a long-term struggle that will take decades or a century, but the movement has been launched.”

Is it poverty, alienation and disaffection or just the urge to Islamise the world that ‘radicalises’ the Belgique?  That article above came from 2012….maybe people should wake up.

This British trainee lawyer, Aysh Chaudhry, is obviously poverty stricken and marginalised…he tells us freedom of speech is alien to Islam…..amongst other things…

How about one of the BBC’s favourite Muslim spokesmen, Ajmal Masroor?  Just what is the cause of radicalisation Sky asks?…..Naturally he utterly condemns extremism but…but…..if only our foreign policy wasn’t so anti-Muslim and unethical, that’s the real problem…and oh yes, the media portrayal of Muslims and the irresponsible linking of Islam to Islamic State only angers Muslims and makes them join…the Islamic State in order to defend..er…Islam.

Any wonder that Muslims feel the need to ‘defend’ Islam when ‘respectable’ imams like Masroor are preaching to them that their grievances are justified? The ‘firebrands’ aren’t going to listen to voices saying ‘be angry but not violent’…Masroor knows that but still peddles the Muslim’s under attack grievance line in the full knowledge that it is the same line that ISIS also feeds its potential recruits.  Of course his narrative is no different to the BBC’s highly dangerous line.  Douglas Murray has had enough of such lethal rubbish…..We must stop blaming ourselves for Islamist terrorism

Sky News tackles Masroor but then surrenders as it adopts his narrative that Islam has been hijacked by ISIS when in fact you’d be hard pushed to define the differences between the actions of ISIS and Mohammed as he blitzed the Middle East beheading captives, enslaving people, looting and Islamising the lands he captured…..the consequences of which we live with today…….but it’s all the West’s fault…..

Masroor tells us……

We must condemn extremism uncategorically, we must be tough on extremism and even tougher on the causes of extremism.

We need to come together to create a collective conscience and a narrative where there is no room for such people but……

….but at the same time we need to make sure our government isn’t supporting and siding with dictators and despots in the world.  Our silence in Syria, our silence in Iraq, the destabilisation of the entire region has caused this unfortunate development and we need to do something about it.  We need to end the unethical foreign policy that our government has been pursuing.

Sky News asks…’Can you understand the appeal for young, British Muslims to go out to Join IS and fight?’

I can understand their grievances but everyone with grievances doesn’t have justification to pick up guns and therefore to go out there and fight and wage a war….but….

…but at the same time we need to understand that 200,000 people in Syria have been killed and we have done very little to stop that.  Iraq has been destabilised because of Mr Blair’s foreign adventure, illegal war in Iraq, so whilst we condemn these young people uncategorically for what they are doing we condemn ISIS for their violence and brutality and we call on Young Muslims not to go there we also need to tell our government to behave well and to start behaving ethically when it comes to foreign policy and not side with dictators and despots as well as support democracy and freedom for people all across the globe.

Sky asks….’Who do you think is responsible for radicalising these young men?’

I think we are all responsible.  If we had done something about what’s happening in Syria, if we had not invaded Iraq, if we had not sent those drones to kill innocent people in Afghanistan and Somalia, in Yemen, if we had not done all these things, also other long term grievances such as Palestine has been occupied for a long time, Palestinians have been refugees in their own homes for years.  All these long term grievances… we will solve them, it is something in all honesty we have just left them to fester, we need to sort that out,  I can almost say, most people can guarantee, those who are extreme, they’ll find no reasons to be extreme any longer.

One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose under the flap and looked in. “Master,” he said, “let me put my nose in your tent. It’s cold and stormy out here.” “By all means,” said the Arab, “and welcome” as he turned over and went to sleep.

A little later the Arab awoke to find that the camel had not only put his nose in the tent but his head and neck also. The camel, who had been turning his head from side to side, said, “I will take but little more room if I place my forelegs within the tent. It is difficult standing out here.” “Yes, you may put your forelegs within,” said the Arab, moving a little to make room, for the tent was small.

Finally, the camel said, “May I not stand wholly inside? I keep the tent open by standing as I do.” “Yes, yes,” said the Arab. “Come wholly inside. Perhaps it will be better for both of us.” So the camel crowded in. The Arab with difficulty in the crowded quarters again went to sleep. When he woke up the next time, he was outside in the cold and the camel had the tent to himself.