Category Archives: BBC bias

Don’t know if anyone caught the BBC News on Radi0 4 at One but they managed to find a UK tourist in Tunisia who took exception to the Foreign Office advice to leave that country due to the “highly likely” nature of another terrorist attack. The gentlemen concerned said “It’s what you would expect from a Tory Government”. Now then, last time I checked, it was a Tunisian Islamist who massacred 30 of our fellow citizens of the beach in Sousse. Nothing whatsoever to do with OUR Government. Just how does the BBC hunt down these visceral Conservative haters even in places like Tunisia?

Mark Mardell must have dropped dead when he saw this piece by Nick Bryant…and if so will be steadily rolling in his grave at the blasphemies being uttered by Bryant….The decline of US power?

Its fairly standard stuff about Bush and his wars, Guantanamo and economic woes dragging the US’s reputation down and its influence in the world down with it.

However there is a long blast at Obama, the usual stuff about his lack of interest in foreign affairs and unwillingness to engage….but there is one thing of unique interest….

One of the reasons why the world has become so disorderly is because America is no longer so active in imposing order……Washington has lost its fear factor.

World leaders nowadays seem prepared to provoke the wrath of the White House, confident that it will never rain down on them.

It explains why the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after unleashing chemical weapons against his people, continues to bombard them with barrel bombs.

Why Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, and also offered a safe haven for the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Assad’s flouting of American warnings is especially noteworthy.

In killing so many civilians with chemical weapons, he flagrantly crossed the “red line” imposed by Obama, but escaped punishment.

The president was unwilling to carry through on an explicit threat, in what was the biggest foreign policy climbdown of his presidency and also one of the most significant in the past 50 years.

Even supporters of Barack Obama believe he made a fatal strategic mistake, because it demonstrated endless flexibility and a lack of American resolve.

Needless to say, despots around the world took note.

Powerful stuff and a ‘damning indictment’ as the phrase goes.

But there is something missing from the picture. No mention of the man who promised to tackle Assad but then backtracked on his promise and told his party to vote against taking any military action against Assad.  That man being Ed Miliband…the man who claimed it was a great victory and whom the Left has applauded for his cowardice….a cowardice that then spread to Obama who also backtracked on his determination to bomb Assad leaving him free to continue his murderous rampage.  Not tackling Assad also had the unfortunate side-effect of boosting ISIS as Assad released members of that group from his prisons and left them to their own devices as they became a proxy army for him attacking the other ‘Free Syria’ forces who were fighting Assad.

So Miliband’s betrayal has allowed Assad to continue his vicious war and led to the rebirth of ISIS…..Just think, he could have been our Prime Minister!  Obama has followed on and used Miliband’s betrayal as cover for his own reluctance to tackle Assad in any meaningful way.

And the result is….as said above by Nick Bryant…’a fatal strategic mistake of which, needless to say, despots around the world took note.’

The BBC always seems reluctant to mention Miliband’s role in the Syria vote….I wonder why?

Good that the BBC uses its own ‘news’ and analysis resources to once again promote its case for maintaining the licence fee and its privileged, pre-eminent position…

Free-to-air broadcasters around the world are finding it tougher to afford the spiralling costs of sports rights at a time of mounting competition and demand from pay TV. In the UK, the emergence of BT Sport as a true challenger to Sky has pushed up the value of rights.

Sport has become one of the few remaining ways of offering must-see content in today’s fragmented, multi-media environment, enabling broadcasters and advertisers to reach significant audiences. It is the ideal way for media companies to drive subscriptions towards other related services such as broadband and phone lines. The result is inflation. As recently as the 1970s, the BBC was able to pay just £5,000 for each rugby international it showed live. Those days have long gone.

Many worry about sport’s migration towards pay TV. They argue the country’s biggest sporting moments are cultural events, like a royal wedding or Last Night of the Proms, and should, by their very nature, be available to as many people as possible.

Sport, by this logic, ultimately belongs to us all. The concern is that taking sports away from free-to-air platforms invariably means smaller audiences, a lack of visibility and the removal of a crucial source of inspiration for young people who don’t happen to have parents who can afford pay TV.

The BBC has its supporters though…

It is instructive that in the wake of the Six Nations deal, Clive Efford MP, Labour’s shadow minister for sport, said: “In the face of significant cuts to the BBC’s budget this sort of partnership between broadcasters may be the only way that major sports events will be shown on free-to-air TV.”

The BBC wants more sport to be handed to it on a plate…

But as well as more collaborations between rival networks, another result of this will be a renewed debate around regulation, and the list of ‘crown-jewel’ events the government ensures must be shown on free-to-air television. Currently, only the Olympics and Paralympics, football’s World Cup, European Championship and FA Cup final, the Grand National, the Derby, Wimbledon singles finals, the rugby league Challenge Cup final and the Rugby World Cup final must be broadcast on free-to-air TV.

But at a time when terrestrial broadcasters are under unprecedented pressure over the cost of sports rights, some would now like the government to step in and help by having a longer list.

A clue as to what sticks in the BBC’s throat…..

For some, Australia provides a sound example. There, much to Rupert Murdoch’s annoyance, 1300 sports events – including Test cricket – appear on an ‘anti-siphoning list’, which must be offered first to free-to-air networks.

The government must do what the BBC wants…

New Sports Minister Tracey Crouch is working on a landmark new sports strategy for the UK, designed to tackle falling participation rates……perhaps Crouch should also look at the way sport is delivered to us, via a broadcasting environment that is changing before our very eyes.

And then what?  Fix it so that the BBC gets the ‘Crown Jewels’?

All that’s missing from this bit of special pleading is an explicit final plea for you, the Public, to contact your MP and push the BBC’s case for them…..I imagine though that is what is expected of you,that being the whole point of this ‘analysis’.

Judging by the headlines today I’d be pretty hacked off if I was Joe Root….the BBC is far from alone in pushing this line….you have to ask why so much is made of Moeen Ali’s contribution….

Ashes 2015: Moeen Ali gives England the upper hand in Cardiff

Apparently Moeen is the ‘main man’…. Pint-sized Ashes: Moeen the main man …….he scored 77 and took two wickets.

What of Root?  England were pretty much in free fall and it looked the usual story until Root, and Ballance, stabilised the team and set them back on the road  to respectability with Root scoring 134….almost double what Ali scored.  The BBC acknowledges that Root was actually there and scored some runs but that is the only mention in this match report….

In the bowling Ali took two wickets but cost 67 runs in 14 overs whilst Anderson, in 16 overs, cost only 36 runs with 6 maiden overs….so is the BBC’s assertion really true?…..’Moeen is England’s key man’

To paint Ali as the saviour of the England team seems somewhat disengenuous when his record, in comparison to his team mates, whilst good is not quite as inspiring as the media are portraying.

Can only think ‘pressure’ has been applied on editors by certain activists to show Muslims in a good light and the result is a higher profile for a Muslim player and the attempt to turn him into a role model…play cricket not Jihad.

Never mind his open support for Hamas and a ‘free Palestine’.…of course it’s only natural that he show concern for the outrages inflicted upon the world by the dastardly Jews/Israelis…such as this……

A good role model indeed.

I wonder if the BBC will get around to defining the massacre of innocents on that beach in Sousse as ‘travel based violence”? The reason I ask if because of this…

BBC #wato says #sevenseven victims were “killed by extremists” – not “murdered by fundamentalist Muslims”. Ever-present bias. @DVATW

— Dalrymple Forum (@dalrympleforum) July 7, 2015

Sanitising Islamic driven terror seems fundamental to the BBC narrative and if they can turn the slaughter of 7/7 into just an “extremist” attack stripped of all context then anything is possible.

I came across this tweet from comedy writer Armando Iannucci.

Could those complaining to me about ‘left-wing’ bias in the BBC point me to specific examples? Otherwise it’s difficult to respond.

— Armando Iannucci (@Aiannucci) July 1, 2015

I have invited him to read this site where we have around some 10,000 examples of such. You may wish to tweet him in order to help inform his better?

Wonder what you make of this news?

“The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson is to step down from his role after 10 years. He will replace Jim Naughtie on the presenting team of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Robinson will also report and present across television and radio for BBC News and Current Affairs.”

I’ll be glad to see the back of Naughtie, he identified so readily with the Left it was visceral. Robinson is an interesting character but Today is steeped in bias and it strikes me it will be very difficult to provide balance. Thoughts?

Well, seeing as how Labour weren’t up to much of a response to the Osborne Budget, the BBC obviously felt that they needed to step up to the challenge. All day they have been running the following attack line…

Budget 2015: Squeeze to hit 13m families, says IFS

And below the headline this..

Thirteen million UK families will lose £260 a year on average because of the Budget’s tax and benefits changes, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Well, the IFS is entitled it its opinion, of course, but it might be nice of the BBC to preface such with the qualification that the IFS swings to the Left. Furthermore, even the left-biased IFS caveat their claims with words like “could” but the BBC discard that when it come to headline generation and soundbites for their news bulletins.

Here we go, a new Open Thread to detail the bias! Over to you.

David Dimbleby presents the last show in the series, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire. On the panel are UKIP MEP Louise Bours, Conservative (in name only) MP Ken Clarke, the SNP’s Tommy Sheppard MP (Yay!), Labour’s Chuka Umuna and journalist Rachel Johnson. I’m so glad to see that the huge demand for the SNP in England has not gone unheeded.

Kick off Thursday at 10.35 pm

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