“In a world where people can choose their news when and where they want it, and from a huge range of sources, we want to understand how best the BBC can retain their trust and confidence so that it remains clearly their number one choice.”

Probably by not being the broadcast arm of the Labour Party, the European Union, Climate fanatics and Al Qaeda.

Trust begins service review of BBC News and current affairs

The Trust has opened a public consultation today seeking views from audiences on the BBC’s News and current affairs output.

The review, announced in February, is the latest in the Trust’s rolling programme of service reviews.  It will examine the performance of the BBC’s network news output against the commitments set by the Trust in the BBC’s service licences and its broader public service role. 

The review will cover the BBC’s network news and current affairs for UK audiences across TV, radio and online, including:

• On TV, the daily national bulletins on BBC One, relevant weekday morning output (such as the Daily Politics) and Newsnight on BBC Two, 60 second news on BBC Three and World News Today on BBC Four. The review will also follow up on our 2012 service reviews of the News Channel and BBC Parliament.
• On radio, news bulletins and Newsbeat on Radio 1 and 1Xtra, news bulletins on Radio 2 and 3, Radio 4’s daily news programming (Today, World at One, PM, The World Tonight) and daily politics output, 5 live’s daily news output (largely its weekday daytime schedule) and news on the Asian Network.
• Online, the news sections of the BBC’s website and the Red Button, including mobile apps and social media. Current affairs output includes Panorama, This World and around 40 hours of output on BBC Two and Three, as well as political strands such as Question Time and the Daily Politics.  On radio this includes the range of Radio 4 and 5 live’s current affairs and politics programming. 

The review will particularly focus on what audiences think about the quality and distinctiveness of BBC News and current affairs, the ways that audiences consume and access BBC News, and how well positioned it is to deal with future challenges such as changing audience viewing habits and technological shifts.

Remember only talk about ‘quality and distinctiveness’ because:

This review will not look at impartiality, because the Trust already has a rolling programme of major impartiality reviews underway, or at the market impact of BBC News, because that is outside the scope of all the Trust’s service review work. 

Which is at odds with the earlier statement:

[We] will examine the performance of the BBC’s network news output against the commitments set by the Trust in the BBC’s service licences and its broader public service role.

Judging by past reviews by the BBC perhaps we should be judging the quality of those reviews…..

From Seesaw to Wagonwheel....which didn’t look at all at its coverage of Israel/Palestine…one of its most contentious areas of journalism.

Or The Balen Report…..into the Israel/Palestine conflict…..so contentious that the BBC spent £300,000 hiding the conclusions…presumably because it shows that the BBC has been working on the side of the Palestinians and providing anti-Israel propaganda.

Or the BBC’s Impartiality Review…Israeli-Palestinian Conflict…which found that the BBC was biased….in favour of Israel.

Or its science review….done by a man who is basically a BBC employee and a fundamentalist pro-manmade climate change fanatic, Steve Jones.

Let’s guess what the BBC’s final analysis of any review might be…..

Yes some issues need looking at…but overall we are doing rather well, and the People love us.

BBC faces new bias row over charity given millions by EU

The BBC is facing questions over the impartiality of its coverage of the European Union after its charity arm received millions of pounds to promote the EU’s political agenda.

Rob Wilson MP: Time to scrap unfair poll tax on television

The writing is on the wall.

The Telegraph tells us that:

49% of people questioned wanted the BBC licence fee scrapped….

and 21% want it cut.

Only 18% wanted it frozen…

and 10% want it increased.

The BBC tells us:

‘…the licence fee is the most popular means of funding the BBC, ahead of subscription and advertising, the spokesman said.

“With 96 per cent of the UK population using BBC services for more than 18 hours a week on average, the licence fee model has shown itself resilient and continues to remain good value for money to the public,” the spokesman said.

As 2016 is post Election….I wonder what sort of coverage the Tories will be getting now in the run up to 2015 from the BBC.

The same wilful blindness that allowed girls to continue to be abused by Muslim gangs is still in operation…..it is a wilful blindness that refuses to examine some harsh realities about Islam.

From Harry’s Place:

The Quiet Death of Moderate Islam

These days, one can happily believe and even state publicly that the death penalty should apply to anyone who has sex outside of marriage, takes part in a homosexual act, insults the Prophet or leaves Islam without being ‘extreme’.

As long as one says “in an ideal Islamic society”.

HP ran a piece about Abdul Qadeer Baksh, Chairman of the Islamic Centre in Luton. Baksh asserted on BBC 3 Counties Radio that every moderate Muslim believes that gays would be executed in an ideal Islamic state. Whilst the presenter, Olly Mann did challenge him on this, I couldn’t help but feel irritated by Mann’s lack of outrage – the challenge was far too polite almost to the point of being deferential – “Er, I do accept that you said in an ‘ideal’ Islamic state”.

How does ‘ideal’ make any material difference to the hatefulness of what was being said?

It’s ironic that in modern Britain, it is far, far more dangerous for me to state my beliefs in public in than it is for Baksh to state his.

What chance do people like me have when the ‘great and good’, the liberal media and the ‘anti-fascist’ organisations that ought to be supporting and defending us, instead support and defend those who believe we should die? In an ‘ideal’ world.

The gutless media. The unprincipled trade unions, universities and student unions that turn a blind eye to the wickedness being promoted in their midst. The hypocritical ‘anti-fascist’ organisations that enable and defend hate. Most of all, the lickspittle political class. Shame on them all.

‘Extreme’ has quietly become ‘moderate’ whilst Europeans have been too polite, too unprincipled or too cowardly to object.

There are those who say, “Islam needs a ‘Reformation”. To them I say “Look around you – the Reformation has already taken place”.

Moderate Islam is as good as dead. It didn’t stand a chance.

Throughout Europe today, someone can advocate a Utopia in which gays and apostates are killed and nevertheless expect to be considered a ‘moderate’, fully entitled to and deserving of tolerance and respect. They can even call themselves an ‘anti-fascist’.

As long as that Utopia is “an ideal Islamic society”.

Note BBC’s Olly Mann states Baksh is ‘playing into right wing hands’…….by revealing what Islam really means.

Better late than never, here you go, a new Open Thread to start the month and end the week!

Mark Easton, the BBC’s immigration cheerleader, has leapt upon some research about ‘Diversity’ and manages to put a classic BBC spin on it.

Unfortunately the ‘research’ tells us nothing that you couldn’t dream up yourself….i.e. that where communities are segregated, separated into different races and religions, things will fall apart as a ‘society’.

Conversely where there is no segregation and everyone mingles without adopting the identity politics so beloved of the likes of those employed in the BBC, people just get on with things and generally get on together.

Easton proclaims this as a break through revelation….and then adds his own spin…

What the new research calculates is that ethnic diversity helps improve community life…what this paper suggests is that where you have non-segregated and relatively prosperous communities, diversity is likely to improve community life, not damage it.

Diversity improves community life?  And yet where’s his evidence? In what way exactly does community life become improved?

Maybe he is comparing ‘community life’ in a non-segregated and a segregated society….then there is an improvement…by comparison….but is he actually claiming diversity itself is beneficial and improves a society?  That’s highly subjective.  What is he saying is wrong with the original community?

Is he saying that an all white community is somehow bad, deficient, morally wrong, dysfunctional?  Or an all black society…or a Japanese society?

A rather simplistic and naive, not to say insulting, assertion to say that a few black faces improves a society just because they’re black.

Even a completely white community is ‘diverse’….having a vast array of different ‘white’ people…not to mention body types, religions, political views, languages, accents, social groupings, fashions, music, football teams etc etc…and of course they may themselves not be ‘British’.

Ridiculous to lump all Whites together as one distinct and well defined group that needs to be leavened by a bit of colour to make them less racist…which they obviously are, being hideously white….and which is the real subtext to Easton’s comments about ‘improving’ a community.

Easton, with a complete lack of contrition, has finally come round to the realisation that Multi-culturalism is a disaster….because surely that is what this research is showing….the separation of communities into separate, well defined groups, is highly damaging to a society.

Shame the BBC has been pushing that narrative, of multi-culturalism, of identity politics, for years now.

Shame that the BBC has felt it is its job to push that narrative.

Once again the BBC’s interference in politics and society, trying to socially engineer that society in the BBC’s own image, has caused immense damage.

Shame that the BBC seems to be entirely unaccountable and shamelessly unprepared to take the blame for any of its dangerous actions.

Shame no one will take the BBC on and put a stop to their self imposed mission to ‘improve’ society.

Shame the BBC itself seems entirely confused about what its role is:

Mark Thompson proclaiming that:

The BBC is not a campaigning organisation and can’t be, and actually the truth is that sometimes our dispassionate flavour of broadcasting frustrates people who have got very, very strong views, because they want more red meat. Often that plays as bias.

However he also said this:

The BBC is no longer just a broadcaster, the corporation was to be a social force in the land, he said. The corporation was an “important builder of social capital, seeking to increase social cohesion and tolerance”, which in future would try to “foster audience understanding of differences of ethnicity, faith, gender, sexuality, age and ability or disability”…

BBC coming under political pressure to silence climate sceptics (as if it needs it):

From the Guardian:

The BBC has come under fire from the chairman of an influential committee of MPs for favouring climate change sceptics in its coverage – and, according to documents seen by the Guardian, replied by saying that putting forward opinions not backed by science is part of its role.

That has enraged MPs further. Andrew Miller, chair of the science and technology committee, told the Guardian: “At a time when poor editorial decisions have dented trust in the BBC, the organisation should be taking much greater care over the accuracy of its reporting – especially in the area of science where misreporting can cause disastrous results, as the MMR media scare has shown.”

Apparently this is the BBC’s reply and here are some interesting extracts:

The BBC remains committed to the principles, set out in its Charter and Agreement, of due accuracy and impartiality, and to applying them to coverage of all the issues around climate change.

BBC Editorial Guidelines
The Editorial Guidelines (www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines) set out numerous considerations for content producers. To ensure our audience is clear about the background and expertise of interviewees on news programmes, content providers must abide by the following guidelines: We should normally identify on-air and online sources of information and significant contributors, and provide their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status.
(3.4.12)
We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made. (4.4.14)

In 2011 the BBC Trust published a report it had commissioned from Professor Steve Jones on the impartiality and accuracy of the BBC’s coverage of science. It covered a range of topics including climate change, his assessment was that the BBC had continued to give undue prominence to climate change sceptics and had not kept pace with the debate: “The real discussion has moved on to what should be done to mitigate climate change. Its coverage has been impeded by the constant emphasis on an exhausted subject whose main attraction is that it can be presented as a confrontation”.

The BBC’s Science Editor, David Shukman, was appointed following the Professor Steve Jones review of the impartiality and accuracy of the BBC’s science coverage. David’s role is described in some detail in the BBC Executive’s follow up report (December 2012): http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/science_impartiality/science_impartiality_followup.pdf.

College of Journalism science training
As part of the BBC’s response to Professor Jones’ report, the BBC’s College of Journalism set up and runs a course called ‘Reporting Science’, which is open to all staff. During the course, delegates discuss issues raised by the Jones report, and work on ways to ensure that future BBC science coverage complies with our accuracy and impartiality requirements. BBC News has made the course
compulsory for assistant editors and above (i.e. all those with editorial responsibility for programmes and web pages), and highly recommended for other grades.

Extensive discussion with scientists and the scientific community took place during the preparation of the course material. Most notably, we spent an afternoon with the President of the Royal Society and Nobel Laureate, Sir Paul Nurse, and interviewed him about science reporting, how science works, pitfalls and opportunities and so on.

The BBC Editorial Guidelines set out our due impartiality and due accuracy requirements. In essence, interviews should be conducted on the basis of reasoned argument. However, so long as ministers have to face arguments based on misunderstandings, even ignorance, they will be given the opportunity to rebut them on the BBC. This is recognised in the Editorial Guidelines, which say “Accuracy is not simply a matter of getting facts right. If an issue is controversial, relevant opinions as well as facts may need to be considered. When necessary, all the relevant facts and information should also be weighed to get at the Truth” (Section 3: Accuracy).

If nothing else it shows just how influential Prof Steve Jones has been in corrupting the BBC’s reporting on climate change…as well as that other climate change fanatic Paul Nurse…who appointed Jones to the Royal Society ….undoubtedly for his good work at the BBC on climate change.

This might also be news to most of us:

But earlier this year in a select committee hearing David Jordan, head of editorial standards, told MPs that the broadcaster had decided not to follow Jones’ key recommendations on climate change: “[Jones] made one recommendation that we did not take on board. He said we should regard climate science as settled … we should not hear from dissenting voices on the science.”

….Thought they thought it was settled:

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus [on anthropogenic climate change].

As comedian Robert Webb  re-joins Labour the New Statesman tells us:

With Eddie Izzard and John O’Farrell already among the party’s celebrity supporters, it looks as if Miliband has the comedians’ vote sewn up.

Who’d a thunk eh?

Webb’s move was one of the unexpected consequences of panto dame Russell Brand’s guest-edit of the New Statesman

In the same issue Slavoj Žižek tells us:

“Most of the idiots I know are academics”

He clearly hasn’t met Russell Brand who graced us with a 4,000 word polemic in the New Statesman:

Russell Brand on revolution: “We no longer have the luxury of tradition”

Essentially it says… Tories…boo hiss…Occupy and looting rioters… hurrah!

Take to the streets kids!  Revolution is the solution.

He doesn’t get round to telling us what comes after the revolution.

Direct from the mind of Russell Brand:

Meditate, direct our love indiscriminately and our condemnation exclusively at those with power. Revolt in whatever way we want, with the spontaneity of the London rioters, with the certainty and willingness to die of religious fundamentalists or with the twinkling mischief of the trickster.

Great though that the BBC thinks his drug addled brain has produced such original thought that he merits a place not only on one of the supposedly prestigious current affairs programmes, Question Time, but also grants him an audience on Newsnight.

I imagine this is Ian Katz trying to connect with the Kidz and shore up his dwindling audience.

Rather than bore you with Brand’s appearance on Newsnight here’s Brand as you’ve never seen him before (it’s kind of not very PC….don’t say you’ve not been warned):

It’s him isn’t it?

I can see Monday’s Open Thread is overflowing so here’s a new one to see us through to the end of the month!

I haven’t watched this yet:

Quitting the English Defence League: When Tommy Met Mo

…..but Douglas Murray has a write up in the Spectator:

‘When Tommy met Mo’ revealed how far we have to travel before Islamism is uprooted

Islamic extremism is not only a policing fault. It is also the fault of ‘Muslim leaders’ and others. It remains a melancholy fact that very few actual Muslim ‘leaders’ or individuals are willing to properly deal with the priorities we all face in the appropriate order. Many spend so much of their energies criticising ‘Islamophobia’ that they leave themselves only the occasional moment to nod to their disagreements with the fundamentalists in their own faith. If rather than spending 95 per cent of their time criticising the EDL and so-called ‘Islamophobes’ these people actually spent 95 per cent of their time not just criticising but actually stopping the extremists in their own religion and perhaps the remaining 5 per cent defending their religion against its perceived critics then not only might the primary problem be solved but we wouldn’t suffer such secondary problems either.

Murray notes this interesting reaction from a ‘moderate’ Muslim to a suggestion that the fundamental texts of Islam need to change:

There was a fascinating moment of congruence towards the end when Muslims and non-Muslims agreed on the need to tackle Islamic extremists. Then Robinson said that one of the things that Muslims must do is to tackle the problems in Islam’s foundational texts – at which point one of those Muslims who had previously been in agreement with him became furious with anger.

Which brings me onto this from the BBC:

Thinking Aloud and Muslim fundamentalism.

Muslims against Muslim Fundamentalism – Laurie Taylor talks to Karima Bennoune, US Professor of Law and author of a groundbreaking book which addresses resistance to religious extremism in Muslim majority contexts.

Once again the BBC discusses ‘Islam’ but practices a sleight of hand….redefining Islam as something not as it is actually described in the Koran and the Hadith but as whatever someone thinks it is….a spiritual religion of peace and tolerance….there is no single definition of Islam apparently.

If you know anything about Islam you will know that is impossible….there can be only one Islam.  That is the whole point of the religion (and why Sunnis attack Shias and Ahmadis etc who aren’t considered Muslims).  That was why it was revealed to Mohammed….because the Christians and Jews had corrupted their own scriptures and become divided into different sects worshipping God in many different ways….to his annoyance.

Therefore claiming Islam is whatever you want it to be, or that you can reform it, is nonsense.

Islam is what the Koran says it is.

Anything else isn’t Islam, and if you don’t follow the Koran you are not a Muslim.

Here is Karima Bennoune‘s lecture upon which the interview is based:

“Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here”: the human rights struggle against Muslim fundamentalism

It is interesting if you get over the obvious problem….as mentioned above…she claims to be a Muslim…but here denounces much of what makes Islam ‘Islam’.

First thing of note is in the introduction when Fundamentalist Islam is described as coming from the Muslim ‘Far Right’.

Bennoune herself uses this description and states that the Muslim Brotherhood are no different to the Greek ‘Golden Dawn’ party…except whilst the BBC issues ‘warnings from history’ about the Neo-Nazi Far Right in Europe they ignore or even cheerlead the Muslim Brotherhood’s extremism.

She claims that the Right in the West believe all Muslims support terrorism.

She claims that the Left think terrorism is blow back…a reflection of genuine Muslim grievances and is therefore acceptable.

But she says the real victims of that terrorism, the vast majority, are Muslims….and they are ignored by the West.

Is that true?  Are they ignored?  Not really…just look at the Left’s reaction to casualties in Iraq or caused by drone strikes….of course that is purely political point scoring rather than genuine concern for the actual victims…so perhaps she has a point.

She asks ‘why are all those Muslims who stand up to fundamentalism ignored by the West‘?

She says there is a failure in the West to understand what Islamism means for the human rights of other Muslims….and Islamism isn’t the same as Islam …of course!

That raises a question…..the Koran lays out the fundamentals of Islamic ideology….therefore is she saying the Koran and its teachings undermines human rights?

She must mean that….because she goes on to say that the problem is not just the violence but also the ‘moderate’ ideology being propagated.

She also lays into the West for supporting the Fundamentalists, in Afghanistan against the Soviets for example…but also for supporting regimes like Saudi Arabia which is spending huge amounts of money spreading fundamentalist Islam around the world…including of course the UK.

But of course she claims that Fundamentalist Islam is not the true Islam which is a religion of peace and tolerance.

And yet every word she utters denies that statement….she attacks what are established Islamic laws and values as ‘unIslamic’.

And that is the same position that the BBC takes.

Which is ironic because she does exactly what she accuses others of doing…by ignoring the true cause of the violence and intolerance.

It is curious that Tommy Robinson, who was basically reading from the same script as Bennoune, was denounced as an extremist…..and even now when he has said his marching days are over he is criticised for not renouncing his anti-Islamic fundamentalist beliefs…and yet they are the same beliefs as many of those held by those the BBC present as respectable, spiritual, true representatives of Islam…..as Douglas Murray noted…the reaction of a ‘moderate ‘ Muslim was ‘furious anger’ to suggestions of any fault with the Koran’s teachings.

The BBC wants to have it both ways…..’respecting’ what are essentially fundamentalist Muslims and their religion (whilst presenting them as moderate, normal, everyday Muslims) and attacking those like Robinson who criticise their beliefs, whilst at the same time bringing on other Muslims whom the BBC also claims are the true Muslims who wish to reform Islam…..some like Bennoune who are better described as ‘cultural Muslims’ and those conversely like Tariq Ramadan and Mehdi Hasan who are in fact fundamentalists posing as moderates and reformers in order to gain credibility and respectability in the West and be allowed a constant platform on the Media to win influence and spread their message.

So who are the True Muslims?  Those in the everyday community who react with ‘furious anger’ to any criticism of the Koran, or those like Bennoune who are looking to strip the heart out of Islam?

The BBC will have to make its mind up one day and choose….is the Koran ‘Islamic’ or a fundamentalist Far Right text as Churchill claimed…not much different to ‘Mein Kampf’?…“the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”

Does the Koran hold within its pages the values and beliefs of the Islamic ideology or not?

The BBC seems confused about that.

Finally she states that she has no truck with the term ‘Islamophobia’...criticism of ‘fundamentalist’ Islam is essential if extremism is to be tackled……hope the BBC are listening.