Category Archives: BBC bias

The BBC’s reaction to complaints seems to be to blame the person complaining rather than admit fault in its reporting….here’s Kevin Connolly’s weasel words (ht  Craig at Is the BBC biased?)…

Roger Bolton: Kevin Connolly has been a BBC Middle East correspondent for five years. I asked Kevin if the job of reporting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is getting even more difficult.

Kevin Connolly: I don’t think so. The pressure comes and goes according to the pressure of the newes. The higher the profile the story has in our news bulletins the more we will hear from people who have very strong views on the conflict themselves about how our coverage measures up against their own feelings.

So the complaints aren’t based upon facts or reason but strong views and feelings so can be dismissed…..however that doesn’t apply to Connolly and his own colleagues where ‘feelings’ and local narratives are the key ingredient in any report it seems…

You know, before I write something for From Our Own Correspondent I will circulate it among my colleagues. I’ve got colleagues who are Israeli Jews. I’ve got colleagues who are Palestinians from Gaza. We have colleagues who live in Bethlehem and in Ramallah and in Jerusalem. So we take as collegial approach as we can because, you know, that brings in feelings that they are coming across in their own communities and the stories that they are hearing reported by their own local media.

He goes on….

We absolutely accept that, you know, we are accountable to the British public and that they are entitled to express what are often very, very strong opinions and a very strong sense of disappointment where they feel that our narrative is not close enough to the narrative of one side or the other. 

Ah yes, our narrative, their narrative…..what about the facts, what about not reporting a narrative but what really happened?

Interesting to note that Bolton raises a criticism of BBC reporting but it is one that says the BBC is pro-Israeli.

BBC Watch also investigates the same Connolly piece and asks about the lack of context….

BBC explains why it can’t always report history accurately

There are lots of newsworthy events happening the world over that deserve just as much time spent on them as that dedicated to the Middle East. We’ve to make difficult decisions based on the evidence and independent verification our news teams can gather in order to report on the news we do. This does lead to subjective decisions being taken on what news we report on and as is often the case the lack of reporting on any issue lays the BBC open to criticism from interested groups/supporters who accuse the BBC of deliberately failing to tell the whole story. This is never our intention.

We’re subject to ensuring our news coverage is of national interest to our domestic audience and there isn’t the time or resources available to cover every current or historical aspect of a conflict that some sections of our audience would like.

As a public service broadcaster and ingrained in our Royal Charter all journalists and news teams have a firm commitment to impartiality and we cannot be seen to be taking the word of interested groups and we always aim to verify all stories we receive before we give airtime to them. The situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories is fraught with difficulties, two sides with opposing views, each seeking to undermine the other. It is a difficult path our journalists take, they’ve to bury their emotions as much as possible to remain impartial when reporting on the attacks that take place in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and any other conflict. They come under intense pressure to report on what one side is saying but they’ve to keep a clear head and remain committed to reporting events as they happen to avoid emotional language.

I can tell you feel very strongly that the BBC has failed to properly convey the impossible situation that Israelis are in. Our only goal is to report truthfully and honestly the situation faced by both Israelis and Palestinians without bias. “

Unfortunately most of that is self-serving rubbish.  The BBC seems to be saying that it concentrates on Israel/Palestine because it has good access to information there whereas in other parts of the world it doesn’t….which is why we get relatively little from say Kashmir where Pakistan is running a terror campaign as well as a proxy army, the Taliban, in Afghanistan.  Israeli ‘settlers’ may or may not be a problem but are in no way comparable to the extremists of the Taliban…and yet it is the Israelis who get the bulk of the BBC’s evil eye.

As for lack of time for ‘context’, the BBC always finds time to claim Israeli ‘settlements’ are illegal under internationasl law and to always add on the casualties from the last conflict in Gaza to most of its reports.  The BBC always likes to play the numbers game…more Palestinians have died, the Israelis have better weapons and bunkers for their kids,  so therefore the Palestinians are the victims here….funny how the BBC always finds time and space for such ‘context’.

Yolande Knell displays total ignorance or cynical manipulation of the conflict…..

Knell closed this report by telling BBC audiences that the story of the current wave of terrorism in Hebron is all about ‘narratives’.

“Basically on the ground here you get two starkly contrasting narratives. Speaking to the Israelis over there, they see all of this as hateful, senseless violence. But Palestinians here say that their anger stems from the political situation and their feelings of despair. This is really a nationalistic struggle but increasingly, it’s also taking on a religious dimension.”

So a decades long conflict based upon Muslim hatred of Jews is only now ‘taking on a religious dimension’?  Curious how the BBC  finds time for a bit of context there….context that just happens to be painting the Palestinians as the victims, I’m sure that’s completely unintended by Knell.

Why do Muslims not object to the creation of Jordan from ‘Palestinian’ land?  Because Jordan is a Muslim country. If it wasn’t you can be sure it would be under attack from ‘interested parties’ as Israel has been for 70 years.

The Palestinian’s are in the position they are in now because their leadership and the Muslim countries around them have set a course that seeks the destruction of Israel and of continuous conflict until that is achieved.  Nowt to do with the Israelis.  Shame Knell & Co can’t find time for that little fact.

Contrast the BBC’s entirely different take on ‘illegal’ Israeli settlers to the one they  take on Muslim settlers in Burma where they have been fighting a ‘Jihad’ to annex and establish a Muslim state…the BBC blatantly supports the Muslim insurgents and denounces the native, Buddhist, counter reaction…the BBC goes so far as to tell us that Buddhism is a religion of violence….how different to their narrative on Islam, that well known religion of peace,  and Muslim terrorism and extremism.

It will be a cold day in Hell before the BBC’S climate propagandists bring you any story that casts the slightest doubt on their fairy tales……so here’s a couple that must send a chill down the backs of Harrabin’s cabal of climate hacks, his ‘hacktivists’…

NASA study: Mass gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet greater than losses

Ice increasing and sea levels not so much…..

A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.

The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice – enough to outweigh the losses from fast-flowing glaciers in other parts of the continent and reduce global sea level rise.

Or how about doubts about the importance of CO2?…From WUWT…

Greenpeace founder delivers powerful annual lecture, praises carbon dioxide – full text

The contention that human emissions are now the dominant influence on climate is simply a hypothesis, rather than a universally accepted scientific theory. It is therefore correct, indeed verging on compulsory in the scientific tradition, to be skeptical of those who express certainty that “the science is settled” and “the debate is over”.

But there is certainty beyond any doubt that CO2 is the building block for all life on Earth and that without its presence in the global atmosphere at a sufficient concentration this would be a dead planet. Yet today our children and our publics are taught that CO2 is a toxic pollutant that will destroy life and bring civilization to its knees. Tonight I hope to turn this dangerous human-caused propaganda on its head. Tonight I will demonstrate that human emissions of CO2 have already saved life on our planet from a very untimely end. That in the absence of our emitting some of the carbon back into the atmosphere from whence it came in the first place, most or perhaps all life on Earth would begin to die less than two million years from today.

Or this on predicting future climate….

Over on Vox.com a few days ago, David Roberts wrote an essay about climate modeling uncertainty loops. In his Vox essay, Roberts noted that climate modeling didn’t really have any skill out to the year 2100::

Basically, it’s difficult to predict anything, especially regarding sprawling systems like the global economy and atmosphere, because everything depends on everything else. There’s no fixed point of reference.

Grappling with this kind of uncertainty turns out to be absolutely core to climate policymaking. Climate nerds have attempted to create models that include, at least in rudimentary form, all of these interacting economic and atmospheric systems.

Think about how insane it is to try to predict what’s going to happen in 2100.

Or this…

Russia’s official view appears to have changed little since 2003, when Putin told an international climate conference that warmer temperatures would mean Russians “spend less on fur coats” while “agricultural specialists say our grain production will increase, and thank God for that”.

The president believes that “there is no global warming, that this is a fraud to restrain the industrial development of several countries including Russia,” says Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and critic of Putin. “That is why this subject is not topical for the majority of the Russian mass media and society in general.”

Can’t say he is entirely wrong…climate change is more about politics than climate, especially the politics of ‘redistribution of riches from the industrial countries to the no hopers.

Fascinating story from Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph that puts a spoke, should one be really needed, in the BBC’s desperate narrative that the 7/7 bombs had nothing to do with Islam….despite the bombers stating clearly this was all about that…

7/7 bombings ‘were aimed at Olympic bid’

A Scotland Yard detective at the heart of the 7/7 bombings inquiry says he believes the attacks were originally planned to stop London winning the right to host the Olympics.

David Videcette, a former officer with the Anti-Terrorist Squad who worked on the bombings investigation for five years, said derailing the Olympic bid would also have helped protect a fundamentalist sect’s project to build Europe’s biggest mosque….the investigation did find clear links between the bombers and other TJ figures who appear to have had a clear interest in the large mosque being completed.

“These were leaders who exercise enormous control over the large and ghettoised Tablighi Jamaat community in Yorkshire. I believed they wanted to create a similar community and extend a similar arrangement to London. They didn’t want the Olympics because it would have made it more difficult to realise those plans.”

Khan and Tanweer did record videos, aired after the bombings, praising al-Qaeda and edited to include footage of Osama bin Laden’s then deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

They are also believed to have had some contact with al-Qaeda figures when they travelled to Pakistan in 2004-5.

I haven’t seen or heard the BBC making any noise about this analysis and conclusion about 7/7….why not?  Why does the BBC look to be ignoring a story that makes very uncomfortable reading for those who wish to claim that extremism, radicalisation and terrorism have no connection to religion and who want to bury awkward news that illustrates just how unintegrated, and how unwilling they are to be integrated, certain communities are into British, Western, democratic, secular and liberal society?

Then again the BBC hid evidence that linked the biggest and most representative muslim organisation in the UK, the MCB, to the ‘Trojan Horse’ plot to hijack British schools…in fact not only did the BBC hide that possibility but they denied there was such a plot and instead blamed it on the ‘racism, islamophobia and paranoia’ of those who wanted the plot investigated.

Having been off grid for a while it is comforting to know that some things never change…one if them being the BBC narrative.

When I left the BBC was pumping out the usual sympathy engendering pro-immigration propaganda in the shape of a sad tale about a missing migrant boy whom the BBC set out to find…..though you rather suspect that they were hoping they had another ‘dead baby on beach’ type tale….preferably a dead boy kidnapped and killed by Zionist neo-Nazis to be harvested for his organs….when I returned 5 days later the story was still on the frontpage.  Why?

Sadly for the BBC it turns out it was the boy’s own family that took him…to Germany.  Still, the BBC turned it into a triumph of investigative journalism…the boy was ‘safe’.

‘Missing’ Syrian refugee boy Azam found in Germany

Now  this is a very minor human interest story in the scale of things so why was it literally front page news on the BBC website for a week?

No one is really interested in a lost boy who wasn’t lost.

Oddly the BBC shows no interest in the thousands of migrants who are quietly disappearing from migrant centres to go who knows where…..

Die Welt is reporting this.

Thousands of refugees leave accommodation on their own

“They are simply not there anymore” – daily many refugees disappear from the first reception facilities without giving notice. This is a serious problem for the authorities.

Thousands of refugees leave accommodation on their own

“They are simply not there anymore” – daily many refugees disappear from the first reception facilities without giving notice. This is a serious problem for the authorities.

From the initial reception facilities in Brandenburg, refugees are increasingly heading on their own to relatives in Germany or abroad. Several hundred people disappear each week since the beginning of september without signing off, Ingo Decker, the spokesman of the Potsdam Ministry of the Interior said, answering an inquiry. “Eventually, these refugees are simply not there anymore.”, the spokesman said, and that sometimes they would come back or they would be picked up by the police.

At least 7000 people left without registration.

Why the lack of interest in a story that doesn’t tug on heart strings but instead raises many serious questions about what is going on in Europe right now?

Does the BBC have a deliberate editorial policy that only endorses ‘good news’ or sad stories about migrants?  It would seem to be the fact.

The BBC reported the ONS report about migration swamping the UK but it hardly hit the headlines and vanished soon after.  A curious lack of interest in a significant and important story…From the Mail….

UK population set to rocket by 10million in just 25 years as high birthrates and migration make Britain Europe’s most populated nation

The BBC quotes…

The overall trend is “very similar” to past figures, said Prof Christian Dustmann, director of the Centre for Research and Analysis on Migration at University College London.

“What we see in many European countries, in particular the larger economies such as Germany, is actually a trend in the opposite direction,” he said.

“Population is decreasing in Germany, as it is in Italy or Spain. That puts these countries in a very difficult situation.

“[When] populations are decreasing, you’re dealing with a shrinking working-age population, which basically has to be confronted with an increasing ageing population which is not productive any more.”

You may remember that Prof Christian Dustmann was in fact one of the architects of Labour’s mass immigration policy….

Prof Dustman runs the Centre for Research and Analysis of Immigration…CReAM for short…. a pressure group for immigration.

Prof Dustman also runs the Norface Research Programme on Migration

In 2013 it organised the Migration: Global Development, New Frontiers…Interdisciplinary conference on migration.

Interesting who not only turned up, not to report on it,  but to actively participate in the conference…That’s right…as an active speaker at the conference rather than as a reporter…the BBC’S pro-immigration Mark Easton….

Love this final blast from the BBC blaming government cuts for the pressure immigrants put on services…nothing to do with over 300,000 a year swamping the country then?….

Dr Jo Michell, of the University of the West of England, said the population rise would increase the pressure on public services.

“It will have an impact on public services such as health and education, services which are already under pressure because of cuts in government services and cuts which are planned for the next five years,” he said.

“So the government should consider whether these cuts are appropriate at such a time.”

And what of ‘Dr Jo Michell‘?  As you might expect an extremist lefty in the Corbyn camp.  Curious how the BBC fails to define the politics of those it quotes from….highly relevant to know such information one might think…the BBC is usually pretty keen to label someone as being from  a right wing think tank or ‘pressure group’ as the BBC prefers to malign them, so why so coy about the leftie’s cedentials?

Has the BBC made the slightest effort to report the words of ex-Oz PM Tony Abbott?…From Cranmer….

Tony Abbott on Europe’s migrants: “All countries that say ‘anyone who gets here can stay here’ are now in peril”

Tony Abbott was robust in his Christian belief that the imperative to “love your neighbour as you love yourself” ought not to mean that “anyone who gets here can stay here”.  With millions living in poverty and peril throughout the Middle East, there is no logical end to the waves of refugees who would prefer to live in the West. And the moment they reach safety, they all become economic migrants by definition “because they had already escaped persecution when they decided to move again”.

The more you preach peace and security to those in regions of poverty and conflict, the more will risk their lives to reach the shores of prosperity, and so the more will drown in the process. What moral clarity, political maturity and complete common sense.

Odd what the impartial BBC filters out of the news….odd what it doesn’t want you to know.  A trustworthy, honest and open organisation or one that shapes, manipulates and manufactures news stories to suit its own agenda?

Here you go, a brand new Open Thread to see us all off into the wide blue yonder.

Middle of the week and time for a new House of Lords approved Open Thread!

BBC exultant over the decision by The House of Lords to undermine the Chancellor’s plan to cut tax credits. Robert Peston twisting the figures, Laura Kuenssberg claiming this is a “humiliation” for Osborne and hailing this as “a triumph” for Corbyn. The BBC has been leading the attack on the perfectly reasonable plan by the Chancellor and sees this as a victory for itself. I was on BBC5LIVE on Saturday Night and Stephen Nolan would not listen to any reason on this subject. The BBC basks in satisfaction tonight, but it stands exposed in its true BIASED colours had it the wit to see it.

New week dawns and time for a new open thread to detail the bias!

Tony Blair has admitted he is guilty, his illegal and disastrous Iraq War adventure has detroyed Iraq and led to the creation of the Islamic State (‘so-called’  BBC™)

Or that is what the BBC has always wanted us to believe and yesterday they spun a bit of Blair spin to their reflect their own narrative…

Tony Blair concedes link between Islamic State and Iraq War

Most significant, though, in terms of new revelations is the former prime minister’s admission that getting rid of Saddam Hussein may have had some bearing on the rise of so-called Islamic State.

Only that’s not really true, there is very little ‘significance’ to what he said on ISIS…what Blair alluded was that the democratically elected Iraq government’s sectarian behaviour, it is Shia and it neglected the Sunnis, allowed ISIS to get a foothold in Sunni areas of Iraq and that it was more to do with the Arab Spring and Assad than the Iraq War that created ISIS….ISIS, under a different name was long in existence, created in Afghanistan as part of Al Qaeda.

And curious that the BBC refuses to mention the Labour leader who  is the real culprit in this huge failure of geo-politics….Ed Miliband, whose betrayal of the Syrian people in his refusal to honour his word to vote for military action against Assad letting Assad stay in place and allowing him to then go on to release Islamists from his prisons who went on to reform their terrorist group that is now known as Islamic State…a group that Assad, Turkey and many Gulf states have backed one way or another.

So who is to blame for the creation of the Islamic State?  Not Blair, but Miliband and the countries with vested interests in the prospering of ISIS…..and let’s not forget that the BBC refused to broadcast film of an Assad attack on a school with chemical weapons just before the Common’s vote on military action….a very political choice by the ‘impartial’ BBC?

All the more ironic when today Justin Webb ( Today 07:52 ish) suggested that military action by the Russians could be forcing the peace process in Syria….something that could have happened years ago if Miliband hadn’t been such a coward and the BBC hadn’t hid the evidence of Assad’s atrocities.