Category Archives: BBC bias

Media Distortion

By | |
26 Comments

 

Artifacts.

Some of the things we see in the microscope are not a part of the original structure of the living specimen but are artifacts. An artifact is a product of man’s workmanship. Workmanship may bring to mind the craftsmanship of the Eskimo’s polar bear carved out of walrus tusk or the graceful gazelle of African ebony. Man’s workmanship also includes the embedding, sectioning, and staining of tissues for microscope observations. The effects of these manipulations often produce distortions and color changes which are not characteristic of the tissues when alive. In order to interpret what we see and to understand the structure of living tissues, we need to know what artifacts are and what makes them.

 

 

The ‘reactive howls of ‘outrage’ from some politicians and commentators.’

The Media, and not just the BBC, by its very fact of observing, for example, politicians in action, can introduce ‘artifacts’ into events as said politicians react not only to those events but react in a way that is influenced by them trying to either generate favourable comment or avoid unfavourable comment in the Media…..either way they act in a manner that they wouldn’t naturally do if they were unobserved…for better or worse.

 

Recent events have given us some perfect illustrations of this.

MP’s pay is one such example….all three leaders of the main political parties have been trying to out compete each other to make it quite clear that ‘in the present economic climate‘ such a  pay rise is ‘inappropriate’…….

That is despite it being made quite clear that the plan is ‘cost neutral’ and will cost the tax payer nothing.

Why do the politicians all posture and  prostrate themselves before the Media?  Because they believe they will be torn apart if they so much as suggest that perhaps the cost neutral ‘payrise’ is in fact appropriate.

The irony is that the BBC has been very even handed, if possibly more inclined towards the payrise…giving a lot of coverage to explanation of the ins and outs of this.

 

 

Another example is this:

Lack of a proper national policy to get UK children to do more exercise amounts to mass “child neglect”, the British Journal of Sports Medicine says.

Charities and other august bodies know that they have a ready audience in the Media for any sensationalist claims…the more sensationalist the better….and this distorts the news agenda which favours such tripe.

And yet only a day or so later we hear that 1.5 million more people are taking part in sport as a result of the ‘Olympic legacy’…no doubt many of them children.

Not only that but obesity is actually going down.

And apart from that I don’t think sport in school has anything to do with obesity or fitness…or it is marginal…..these doctors are demanding 1 hour a day of sport in school….I must have had at most 2 hours a week…and yet managed to be more Laurel than Hardy.

[And..if fat is genetic the spooks would have whisked some of these miraculously fat people off to Area 51 for examination…because if you can get fat on a Ryvita then your genes will save the world from starvation as you can convert minute amounts of food into large amounts of stored energy in the shape of fat. Ab Flab!]

 

 

The last example of how the presence of the Media distorts reactions is again genetics…but not concerning fat…concerning IQ.

Boris Johnson was monstered last week when he suggested that a high IQ gave you an advantage in life:

“I am afraid that violent economic centrifuge is operating on human beings who are already very far from equal in raw ability, if not spiritual worth.”

 

Naturally the usual suspects all came out against such apparent ‘elitism’…Clegg saying it was ‘unpleasant, careless elitism….that treated people as if they were dogs’.  Even Cameron had to distance himself from Boris….Labour MPs also clamoured to denounce him…saying it was an insult and shameful.

 

However today we have this:

Exam grades ‘more nature than nurture’

Genetic influence explains almost 60% of the variation in GCSE exam results, twin studies suggest.

Scientists studied academic performance in more than 11,000 identical and non-identical 16-year-old twins in the UK.

The team from King’s College London found that on average, genes explained 58% of differences between GCSE scores in core subjects such as maths.

Differences in grades due to environment, such as schools and families, accounted for about 36%.

The remaining differences in GCSE scores in maths, English and science are explained by environmental factors unique to each person, say the researchers.

 

 

 

So….what Boris said was in fact the case….as most people probably believe…..which is the point of this post…the politicians react in a way that is more tuned to how the Media will react than to what the Public actually thinks…..the Tory Party famously changing its core beliefs and values  under Cameron in the hope that the BBC will stop calling them the ‘Nasty Party’.

The public, as the head of IPSA said, are quite capable of thinking for themselves:

“This shows us something important: this is an issue where the public has a more nuanced, and split, opinion than the reactive howls of ‘outrage’ from some commentators and politicians.”

So when will politicians get brave enough to say what they really think rather than shaping it to fit in with the Media’s values and let the Public judge?

 

What is also amusing is Richard Bacon’s reaction along with that of his guests (9 mins in )..including a teacher, to this story.

We were told that genetics played a ‘huge part’ in how pupils performed academically in school.

Bacon said ‘Brass tacks…if your parents are stupid then you will be stupid..that’s what it is saying.’

He said this was ‘Really interesting stuff.’

He brought on a teacher who said that this was only ’emphasisng what teachers knew already….every pupil is different…it is a very interesting piece of research.’

 

What a remarkably different reaction to that given to Boris….could it be that, regardless of the truth of Boris’ statement,  because he is firstly a Tory and secondly an Old Etonian, the Media, commentators and craven fellow politicians, either saying what they believe is ‘acceptable’ to the Media or taking an opportunistic chance to attack Boris, all denounce Boris and thereby distort not only perceptions of reality but the political process as a whole.

Paxman recently complained about politics and its apparent detachment from ordinary life….well who creates that detachment?…the Media which forces politicians to react in an artificial and absurd manner saying things that bare little relation to life or indeed what the majority of the Public probably think…Boris accepted….all to please that very same Media which is in fact the most out of touch group of people in the country…and yet who are setting the political agenda more often than not.

 

‘Do you find our industry slightly ludicrous?’

 

 

 

Ruff Trade

By | |
16 Comments

 

Nothing to do with  BBC bias….just thought you might like to see something I spotted whilst passing through Herefordshire today….the ‘Missing Pet Search Team’ on manoeuvres:

 

 

Just an unfortunate coincidence for sure.

 

 

Making It Up

By | |
18 Comments

 

 

Does this make any sense at all?…….

BBC Trust stands by ‘robust’ Pollard Review despite criticism

Nick Pollard’s review of Newsnight’s dropped investigation into Jimmy Savile has been defended by the BBC Trust after criticism from a Conservative MP.

Rob Wilson provided the Trust with a recorded conversation in which Mr Pollard appeared to admit omitting a key letter from his report.

The Trust said it was a “mistake” not to include the letter’s claims about former director general Mark Thompson’s knowledge of Newsnight’s report.

[Pollard] failed to make reference to the letter, which was sent by Ms Boaden’s lawyers, and later admitted in a taped telephone call with a journalist that this may have been a “mistake”.

The recording, which was obtained by Mr Wilson, MP for Reading East, was made public via the Guido Fawkes political blog on Wednesday.

It was suggested the recording raised questions about the validity of the conclusions of the report.

In response, the trust said: “The Trustees noted that Nick Pollard feels he had made a mistake in the drafting of one aspect of the report – the failure to make reference to the letter from the solicitors of then Director of News Helen Boaden.”

However, the trust said it was “satisfied” that Mr Pollard “properly weighed all the evidence that was available to him and that the conclusions of his report are robust”.

 

 

So….

The Trust agrees ‘it was a “mistake” not to include the letter’s claims‘

Mr Pollard appeared to admit omitting a key letter from his report.

However despite omitting key evidence and the Trust saying this was a mistake…the Trust was “satisfied” that Mr Pollard “properly weighed all the evidence that was available to him and that the conclusions of his report are robust”.

 

In summary…..The Trust said omitting the letter was a mistake…Pollard admits it was a mistake…..and yet the Trust concludes he weighed ALL the evidence and his conclusions are robust?  Shurely shome mistake?

 

How does that work?

 

Rob Wilson thinks it doesn’t and smells of a cover up:

Wilson said: “Instead of immediately challenging Nick Pollard to get to the truth in September about what the most powerful man in the BBC at the time knew about Savile, Lord Patten seems content to resort to vague legal threats on behalf of other people to close the matter down.”

 

‘Helen Boaden’s position is ‘I did tell him about it”

Tape is available on Guido

 

listen to ‘The Tape Patten Does Not Want You to Hear’ on Audioboo

 

 

 

Thanks to Number 7 for the link:

 

Pollard: I’m pretty sure that we did ask Mark Thompson about this and he said ‘no, I wasn’t told what the inquiry was all about’. I don’t know whether the Mark Thompson transcript is out yet but I think the gist of that is in there.

Journalist: I’ve seen that one, yes. You did press him, it looks like, and you did say – or rather maybe it was mcclean – hang on a second can we just get this straight?

Pollard: Yeah. Just putting that aside for a moment and this is off the record. It’s all off the record, this is purely for background. I think we’ve talked about this before. It is clear that it is Helen Boaden’s view that she told him about the nature of the investigation.

Journalist: How do you reach that conclusion?

Pollard: Because she sent us a letter to tell us that.

Journalist: Sorry, when did she send you that letter?

Pollard: Just before the report was published.

Journalist: You mean in December or this month?

Pollard: Back in December. And I think the truth is that I sort of overlooked that. I didn’t see there was a particular significance in it. Partly because Mark Thompson had said ‘No she didn’t tell me about it. It was an open question. She might have done or she didn’t.’

Clearly whatever Helen Boaden’s recollection was he was going to say “That’s not my recollection and she didn’t tell me about it.”

But I think it is clear and Helen Boaden’s position is, if she was asked, she would say I did tell him about it.

So that’s the position, between you and I. It’s a slightly awkward position for me because it’s something that actually if I’d thought about it immediately before publication and I’d picked up on the significance of it I think I’d have probably put it in the report.

But quite clearly Mark Thompson would have said ‘Well whatever she says I think in this case she’s wrong and her recollection is wrong.’

So it’s quite a tricky position this, I think, and again this is strictly at the moment solely between you and I for no purposes other than me discussing it with you.

Helen Boaden is pretty relaxed about all this. I’ve talked to her about that. I’ve said to her I know you’ve sent us that letter.

It was one of these right to reply letters that most of the witnesses had if we had any criticism to make of them.

There was no criticism being made of Helen Boaden that she didn’t tell Mark Thompson, so it was a sort of peripheral issue, but she happened to mention in this letter ‘I did tell him’.

And I think that is what she has told anybody at the BBC who has asked, that whatever Mark Thompson says, she did tell him. Not that she gave him chapter and verse but she said…

Journalist: …She said the words ‘sex abuse’

Pollard: Yeah, I think she said Newsnight were doing an investigation of Jimmy Savile and it was about abuse of kids or whatever.

Whether or not there was any reference to BBC premises I don’t think she says.

Now the slight oddity of this position is that the letter, these right of reply letters, which I think are known as Salmon letters, they are not being published

I think probably that’s right that they are not being published because each one of them is from a lawyer on behalf of a client.

So the position is that it is Helen Boaden’s position that she did tell Mark Thompson about it but it’s not in the record anywhere.

So that’s how things stand. You’ve been very straight and very square with me and I just wanted to let you know what the position is.

Now, you could say it doesn’t particularly reflect well on me that I overlooked this in the report.

It’s not in the report that Helen Boaden says on the record “I did tell Mark Thompson about it.”

That’s just a fact of life. If somebody went to Helen Boaden and said ‘I just want to check, did you or didn’t you tell Mark Boaden [sic], I think she’d say ‘Actually, yes I did.’ But there’s not an obvious way of me making that public, shall we say.

Journalist: I was thinking there is one possibility. I don’t know if you read the Sunday Times on Sunday I wrote a piece in there which made clear that a member of the Commons media select committee has written to Helen Boaden. There has been no reply yet, but I wonder whether you feel it would be in your gift to independently contact that member of Parliament and say look, this is territory which was actually raised on a voluntary basis by Helen Boaden and she did actually confim that.

Pollard: I think the slight danger is that it’s a little unpredictable what might happen then. I’ll have a think about that. There’s not an obvious other route to this. It’s absolutely in Helen Boaden’s gift to say at any time either ‘I did tell Mark Thompson’ or ‘Not only did I tell Mark Thompson but I told the Pollard Review as well.’

Journalist: One assumes now the transcripts have been published she’s going to seize that opportunity.

Pollard: Well if she thinks it’s important, and she may not do, to be honest.

Journalist: Except that she’s got to respond to this MP so I’d guess she’d say to the MP ‘Thanks for your letter. By the way I have written to Pollard about this already.’ I assume that’s what she’ll do. That’s what I’d do. And I anyway I don’t think anyone for a second believed that Helen Boaden wouldn’t have been asked what the investigation was about and wouldn’t have told him what it was about anyway.

Pollard: No, I think that’s right and common sense suggests that. Certainly I’d say listening to the Ben Webster tape, most people would come to the conclusion that that was a guy [Thompson] trying his damndest not to say yes of course I knew about it.

Journalist: Because he’d already stupidly committed himself to a denial.

Pollard: Well that’s exactly it. He’s painted himself into the corner. So I don’t quite know about that. I don’t think it’s the most important thing to do with this entire process but…

Journalist: Well you say that but actually I’ve always thought the head of the organisation having heard about that would have been able to either take steps or…

The fact remains the BBC broadcast tribute programmes to Savile knowing they’d heard allegations that month that he was a paedophile.

Furthermore if Thompson knew that he’d have had the wit to say hang on I think this could potentially explode in our faces. What else did this investigation consist of?

And at that point Meirion Jones would have said ‘we also heard about Glitter and Starr’ and Thompson would have said ‘Well they’re still alive. We’re going to have to tell the police about this.’

And so this is why I’ve always pursued it. That’s apart from the moral element of it, Nick, which was always…if you or I heard of abuse taking place in our office I’d bet the farm on either of us saying we can’t leave this one hanging.

Pollard: I agree with that. I wouldn’t put myself in the position of defending Mark Thompson or in that sort of similar way, George Entwistle who was told about it and didn’t react..

I suppose what you don’t know is how you might react if someone said ‘Look we heard a pretty lurid allegation against a presenter who just died but this was 30 years ago but you might be relieved to hear we did an investigation and the editor of the programme tells me there was nothing in it.’

We know that is very very far from being the whole story because there was something in it and the editor’s decision was wrong but you know what I mean, if you were a busy exec further up the chain and you were told ‘The bad news is we got a pretty nasty allegation about someone. The good news is there that there wasn’t anything in it for you.’ OK, that’s not an explanation. It’s an element of how it came to be brushed under the carpet.

Journalist: I also think it’s a fascinating insight that the instinct of Thompson according to Helen Boaden’s version which you’ve just told me was to lie about this. Was to say I never heard anything about it. That tells you an awful lot about the man.

Pollard: Yes. Well…yeah…yeah

Journalist: I may be sounding rather black and white about this, but I was always told you don’t lie.

Pollard: I think that’s right. There’s no doubt he painted himself into a corner…and actually if he’d said ‘I wasn’t told about it and rightly or wrongly when I was told the whole thing had been dropped I came to the conclusion that meant there was nothing in it. As it turns out that was wrong and perhaps I should have double, treble checked’. It’s not a happy position but it’s a better position, isn’t it?

I think in a way this is your story. You’ve made the running on this. I think what this does is it puts you in a position where you know for sure that Helen Boaden did tell the Pollard Inquiry that she told Mark Thompson the nature of the allegations. I think it puts you in a position where you can’t say in print how you know this but you’re pretty watertight on the fact that that’s the case. Because it seems to me reading between the lines that you could have heard this either of two sources – Helen Boaden could have told you or I could have told you.

Journalist: Or her lawyer could have told me.

Pollard: Absolutely. I’m including that in the Boaden side of things. You’ll gather I’m in a slightly uneasy position about this. I think you would say it was a mistake of mine not to have picked up on this and included it in the report.

Journalist: Well of course I pick up on that but frankly that is irrelevant. What is relevant is the end result. She has gone on the record very happily, willingly, on a voluntary basis to tell you and others involved in your inquiry that she did tell Mark Thompson.

She obviously wanted to make that clear to you. She obviously wanted to do that for a reason.

Whether or not you had the time or opportunity to include that in your report is frankly irrelevant.

You are nothing more than the messenger. You can’t have included every single element of what you were told in your report. We see from the volume of transcripts it wouldn’t have been possible for you to do that. I understand you were under some time pressure. I’m not interested in pointing the finger at you. I am interested in establishing if Mark Thompson did know through his own second in command Helen Boaden this was a sex abuse allegation and what you’ve told me is this very important information that she did tell him. Do you know when she told him?

Pollard: No. From recollection I don’t think the letter says. I’ll have a look. Presumably after December 20. If there’s an indication I’ll ping you a date….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Have To Laugh

By | |
11 Comments

 

Babar Ahmad appeals for trial to be held in UK

“I absolutely reject any allegation that I supported terrorism in any way, in any place, whether in Afghanistan, Chechnya or any other part of the world. I believe terrorism to be wrong and I believe the targeting and killing of innocent people to be wrong.”

 

Oops…..

Extradited Briton Babar Ahmad admits terrorism offences

A British man who spent eight years fighting extradition to the US has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges.

Babar Ahmad, 39, from south London, admitted conspiracy and providing material to support to terrorism and faces up to 25 years in jail.

 

 

The BBC…the terrorist’s friend in need….caught semtex in hand?…locked up in Guantanamo Bay?…don’t call lawyer…get a TV producer at the BBC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Underprivileged MP’s Use Food Bank……Not!

By | |
16 Comments

 

 

Emily Maitlis not really on the ball:

 

 

 

All very nice…except of course the basic MP’s wage, already high compared to most people’s,  is topped up with enormous expenses and privileges as well as subsidies that most workers could only dream of…..so not a job just for ‘the independently wealthy’ at all…..I guess it all depends on your start point…if you work in a factory an MP’s wage is a fortune.

 

As Conservative MP Mark Field said:

The package was “cost neutral” as MPs would gain pay, but lose some expenses and allowances.

 

In other words, Charles Walker’s ‘honesty’ is not quite that honest.

And so….what goes up must come down….it all evens out…allegedly.

Of course the Public won’t see it that way…and Miliband is already trying to position himself on the moral high ground claiming to want to refuse the money….but if it’s ‘cost neutral’ why would he do that…except as a political gesture?

 

Will the BBC (Emily Maitlis beside) see through his charade?

 

 

And what is amusing is this reaction….how many times have we heard that the ‘millionaires’ in the cabinet are ‘out of touch’……now they’re criticised for being ‘in touch’ and wanting to hold down their pay……

 

 

 

D.Head won’t have like the last post either judging by his prejudices:

 

 

 

 

 

Frightening

By | |
19 Comments

 

Welcome to the future

Result:    Population……131,871  

 

 This is from the Office of National Statistics so the BBC can’t shout ‘racist’…….

UK population could hit 132 million, warn official figures

New Office for National Statistics data predicts Britain’s population could surge even faster than previously thought

The population of Britain could more than double in the next century unless immigration is tightly controlled, according to official estimates showing it could grow 40 per cent faster than previously thought.

Only weeks after the Office for National Statistics predicted that the UK will have 10 million more people within the next 25 years, it published new estimates showing that the true figure could be four million higher.

The dramatic upward revision suggests the population of Britain could rise from its current record level of 63.7 million to just under 78 million by 2037.

On the same projection it could reach and as much as 132 million by this time next century.

Frank Field, the former Labour Cabinet minister, claimed the higher estimate could be just the start of the revisions as statistics become more accurate.

He said it showed that fears among voters about immigration which he said had long been played down by politicians were now being borne out by figures.

Mr Field warned that the result could wreak havoc with the NHS, schools and the housing crisis.

He said: “At a time when political parties are being committed to longer term controls on public expenditure where would the money come from for hospitals, for housing, for schools?

“We have already got a growing crisis in maternity services.”

He likened the optimism among the political about the impact of population growth to the attitudes which gave rise to appeasement in the run-up to the Second World War.

“The British political leadership have a characteristic of not wishing to face up to what is happening until very late in the day.

 

 

 

Appeasement?  The BBC of course were complicit in the appeasement of Hitler (Though they tend to forget that when grandstanding about Daily Mail headlines supporting Mosley in the 30’s)….they silenced the inconveniently non-appeasing Churchill and hid the Nazis’ pogroms and genocide of the Jews.

And now they are complicit in Labour’s mass immigration plot…..a plot which kicked off the ‘standard of living crisis‘….it’s no coincidence that this ‘crisis’ began in 2003/04 just when mass immigration of low cost labour began pricing British workers out of jobs and forcing down wages for those in work.

Wonder when the BBC will join up the dots on that…along with Labour destroying the economy, hence ‘austerity’ now, and the resultant QE…which devalued the pound and forced up prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freeze Sucker

By | |
13 Comments

 

 

The BBC’s basic instinct kicked in today when it had to report this from the OECD:

Labour energy freeze plan ‘could bankrupt investors’

 

As said this report came from the international OECD, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development……listening to 5Live report this story their conclusion was that…the OECD is a fan of the  market economy and so would be expected to be philosophically opposed to Miliband’s plan.

In other words the BBC is dismissing what they say by claiming ‘it’s political’.

Whereas of course Miliband’s little scheme had no political side to it.

 

It has taken the BBC a long time to come up with some serious criticism of Miliband’s plan…he announced his scheme in September….the BBC has reported the concerns of the energy companies about the price freeze but hasn’t before proactively taken to dissecting them itself until now.

Contrast that with how they treated the Coalition’s plan to reduce the green levies on the energy companies…day in day out the BBC broadcast criticism of this plan leaving us in no doubt that the poor would be dying in droves in their uninsulated homes because of it.

 

Of course the ‘internationally respected OECD’…as often stated by the BBC….has beeen criticised before when it came up with statements that some perhaps at the BBC didn’t like…such as it believed Osborne’s economic policy was the correct one:

Economic body OECD reaffirms support for UK debt plan

…Flanders felt the need to tell us :

‘…. the OECD is fallible – it gets things wrong at least as much as every other forecaster, possibly more.  Remember that, next time someone tells you the “OECD has said” this or “recommended” that.‘

 

When does the BBC ever qualify statements from the leftwing ‘progressive’ Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the New Economics Foundation or the Resolution Foundation in  a similar manner?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show Me The Money

By | |
13 Comments

 

This morning on the BBC’s ‘Wake Up to Money’ they talked about this:

Growth in job vacancies hits ’15-year high’

 

That came from a report by KPMG

 

You would think that such a positive statement on the economy would be headline news….but the report on ‘Wake Up To Money’ was the last I heard of the subject.

It hasn’t been mentioned once as far as I know by the BBC in its news bulletins.

 

Not only that but there is this from the same report:

Pay growth at six year high amid growing skill shortages

 

Yet again not a mention on the news bulletins.

 

The BBC has been busy reporting this ‘top story’ though:

Other Top Stories

Supermarket for low-income families

A members-only supermarket for people on welfare support has begun trading, offering heavily-discounted products supplied by major retailers.

 

 

So….highest job vacancies for 15 years, pay growth at a 6 year high…and these are not ‘top stories’ for the BBC?

The BBC website does mention the job vacancies....not on the front page, not on the UK page, but hidden away on the business pages.

 

Maybe I’m just cynical but it does look like the BBC is  only prominently reporting news that is intended to make the coalition look bad, the poor ever more oppressed by their policies and swamping the air waves with ever increasing ‘evidence’ of a ‘living standards crisis’….as illustrated in a previous post looking at how the BBC reported who was in poverty.

 

Quite clearly that is nonsense if jobs are at an all time high and wages are rising.