Category Archives: BBC bias

George Zimmerman’s Innocent!!??

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‘George Zimmerman’s  innocent?????’

Say that in the tone of ‘Flash Gordon’s Alive!!?’  and you get the idea of the BBC’s incredulous reaction I just heard on the radio news announcement.

 

WHAT!!???  An almost whitish sorta man kills a ‘unarmed  black boy’….surely he’s got to be guilty?

 

All the President’s men and all the President’s horses couldn’t jail ‘Whitey’.

 

Even though they tried to pin a charge of ‘child abuse’ upon him in the dying moments of the case…not bothering to inform the defence.

A charge which the BBC seems to have ignored.  Could it be that the charge was so obvoiously ridiculous, drummed up  in a last desperate measure to get Zimmerman for something, anything that the BBC knew it would discredit the prosecution’s case and how the public view this.

 

It could also be why the BBC have ignored the wider perspective of the US government’s determination to find Zimmerman guilty and the lengths they went to to try and ensure that….not least the shameful manipulation and interference by Obama when he said of the victim , Trayvon Martin:  if he had a son he’d look like Trayvon.

 

Mark Steyn elaborates:

Mark Steyn: Zimmerman case’s legal absurdities astound

 

 

 

 

 

BAD JEWS..

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It’s a recurring BBC theme – the alleged cruelty of the IDF. I was reading this nonsense on the BBC today.

The Israeli army has been accused of illegally detaining a five-year-old Palestinian boy for throwing stones in the West Bank town of Hebron. Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the child should not have been detained because the age of criminal responsibility in Israel was 12. Video showed the boy taken into an army jeep accompanied by a Palestinian man.

It’s only when you get past this diatribe that you read the IDF explanation that this young boy was not arrested, he was not detained, he was simply returned  to his parents. So this is a non story but the BBC gratefully take up the theme since it helps blacken the reputation of the IDF.

The BBC loves B”Teselem as they provide a stream of anti-Israel stories that the State Broadcaster can they take and utilise. B”Tselem is always presented as an impartial human rights group. The BBC chooses not to question the motivations of this group but you might want to have a look at this ..by way of balance.

The Sign Of The Four

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 It is normally Paul Mason who gets highly excited about the Arab Spring and Social Media which he thinks is as good as  a tank division to any budding revolutionaries, but here is Roger Hardy telling us why it’s not kicking off everywhere…..

 

Democracy or disorder? The four lessons of the Arab Spring

It is necessary to ask what went wrong, and draw the right lessons.

1. It was never going to be quick or easy.

2. There is no fixed pattern.

3. The Islamists are at a crossroads.

4. People power is not enough.

 

 

Here’s my 4 conclusions from the Arab Spring, riots in Brazil, Turkey and the Occupy movement:

 

1.. Muslims don’t actually like the real, fundamental Islam….Muslims are ‘Islamophobic’.

2. Capitalism and the desire for individual freedoms and pleasures, and a progressive comfortable life, not Marx, Communism and Occupy’s desire to turn us all into peasants, is what is driving the ‘revolts’.

3. Social Media means little…it is a means to an end and is nothing new…revolts happened throughout history on word of mouth, pamphlets and the telephone. Churchill noted how fast an Islamic preacher could rouse a devout army of Afghans to fight a Jihad against the British in no time at all…in the depths of the most backward country on earth.

4. Iraq was probably a good idea long term….an ‘Arab Spring’ with 250,000 American troops to eventually establish order….without those troops a ‘revolt’ would have happened eventually but would have been even more violent with far reaching regional consequences….Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia fighting over the spoils…with Russia, the US, Syria and Egypt all wanting their piece of the action.

Triple Whammy

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This is number heavy and involves a bit of reading…but it’s worth some effort as it is a classic example of the BBC either being lazy and incompetent and/or deliberately missing out relevant facts when it suits them.

 

The BBC are happy to ‘fly a kite’ or two with speculative ‘reports’  that present a negative image of any one of a number of BBC bête noires based on what ‘someone’ claims…usually a Labour MP, a charity worker or a community leader.

The intent?  To keep an idea afloat, to keep it continually in the background of people’s minds even when there is little to no evidence to prove it conclusively…perhaps the suggestion that ‘racism’ is behind  every bad experience for a black person or that every social ill can be linked to Tory policies, especially Austerity…or failing that a quick double take and we’re back to the eighties and the fall back cause of all the world’s woes is of course Thatcher.

 

Yesterday we had three classics:

Demand for food banks has increased hugely…..due to welfare cuts.

A Labour MP states that a constituent may commit suicide because of the welfare cuts.

A black cafe owner claims customers won’t eat at her cafe because she is black.

 

 

All given headline treatment but you could argue all stories that are baseless…at least on the terms the BBC wants to portray them.

 

Just look at one…suicide rates…..I’ll note this here first, that the figures given below indicate a fall in the suicide rate per 100,000 of the population….the BBC reports a rise in overall numbers but without that all important qualification…..amongst others that it also conveniently misses out.

The BBC et al became very indignant when arsonist Mick Philpotts, and his benefits funded lifestyle (£60,000/year), was used as the poster child for Tory suggestions that welfare might need to be reformed.  The BBC were more than happy to label the Tories as heartless monsters politicising a tragedy linking welfare reform to the killing of Philpott’s children…which of course the Tories never did…a highly politicised invention of the ‘Left’….but no one said anything about that exploitation.  

All that indignation at alleged politicisation and exploitation of personal tragedy gets thrown  overboard when the BBC scents Tory blood.  They are more than happy to link the personal tragedy of suicide to Tory Austerity policies….such as they are.

 

Here the BBC makes it clear the importance of how this is presented:

Tragedies such as the one that befell Stephanie Bottrill have the potential to cut clean to the heart of a debate that has the potential to intensify still further.

 

In this recent article the BBC takes a press release, likes the cut of its jib and slots it into its own world view of the economy…for which it is a perfect fit:

Will the age of austerity harm health?

It starts off with the usual anti-Thatcher rhetoric (Not the only BBC reporter to try and make the link…Mark Easton blamed a rise in depression on Thatcher…and of course Thatcher’s ‘Big Bang’ was the ‘real cause’ of Gordon Brown’s economic crash):

Sandwell, like many areas that were heavily reliant on manufacturing, was hit hard by the recession of the 1980s……But it has only been over the past few years that the impact on the health of the local population has been fully felt.

A host of areas badly affected by the 1980s downturn can point to a similar impact.

It is further proof that economic hardship is bad for health.

 

Then we get onto the figures for suicides….the numbers are rising…due to austerity the BBC tells us:

The problems could be further compounded by cuts to the welfare system.  The charity Mind has drawn attention to research just published by Manchester University.  It shows that the number of suicides among mental health patients rose from 1,175 to 1,333 last year.

 

The figures are taken from a 2013 report by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide

Here is a video on YouTube from the NCI which explains some of the findings….one of which I repeat here:

That rise is unexplained…though it coincides with a rise in suicides in the general population which most people have related to the difficult economic circumstances at the moment.

So..the rise is ‘unexplained‘….though ‘attributed’ by others, not the NCI, to the state of the economy.

 Here are some of the reports actual findings and explanations:

• Our figure for suicide by patients shows a rise in 2011. This figure should be interpreted cautiously as it is a provisional figure based on incomplete data.

 

So the BBC reports as fact a ‘provisional figure based on incomplete data’.

 

The BBC also reports:

Prof John Ashton, the new president of the Faculty of Public Health, believes we need to heed the warning.

“Young people have been the hardest hit this time,” he says.

 

But the NCI says:

Suicides in patients aged under 25 and those aged 25-44 fell in the report period. A rise in 2011 is projected for most age-groups but not in those aged under 25.

 

 

And why have the figures risen anyway?  Is it purely a result of more people committing suicide or what?

The NCI says:

Suicide by mental health patients has risen – 1,333 deaths in 2011 (England). A change to the coding of causes of death has contributed to this figure and changes to the Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS) method make comparisons with earlier years difficult but it is likely that this is a true rise in patient suicide, following a previous fall. The rise probably reflects the rise in suicide in the general population, which has been attributed to current economic difficulties.

 When the Tories claimed knife crime was rising under Labour Mark Easton jumped in very quickly to claim that the figures couldn’t be compared to previous years…as the methodolgy for collecting them had changed…no such scruples here for the BBC….no qualification that the figures may have risen, at least in part, due to a new ‘coding method’…..as the NCI goes on to reveal:

Prior to 2011, some narrative verdicts were coded as accidental deaths where intent was not specified which may have led to an underestimation of suicide. However, in 2011 guidance was issued to coroners in England and Wales when returning narrative verdicts to provide clearer information on the intent of the deceased. This has led to improvements to the coding of narrative verdicts by the ONS coding team, and some cases which would previously be coded as accidental may now be coded as suicide.

 

 

What other inconvenient ‘facts’ might we find if we actually read the report?

 

First there is the same report by the NCI but from 2012:

In 2000 there were 4,819 suicides, in 2010 there were 4,021.

The report tells us that there was an average change in the general suicide rate in England between 2000 and 2010 of around minus 20%…that’s a drop of 20%.

For people with mental health issues who committed suicide in 2004 the figure was 1,317 and in 2011 1,333……..so at the height of Labour’s boom we had a very similar suicide rate.

So it must be austerity…right?  And remember the population was lower in 2004…hence…

 

The NCI report in 2013 claims that the suicide rate per 100,000 people with mental health issues was in:

2004  117.7

2010  91.7

2011  87.8

 

So in fact the rate of suicides has gone down…though the numbers have gone up…the population having grown enormously since 2004.

 

Here are some charts of the general suicide rates and the rates for mental health patients in England…note differences in the figures in the two reports (2012 and 2013)…which should be the same:

 

 suidice patient 2012

 

suicide patients fig 1 2013

 

 

Here are the figures for the general population:

 

 suicide figs 2012

 

suicide figs 1

BBC Salivating Over Possible Race Riots?

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Yes, I know that’s a bit over the top, and I’m deliberately phrasing it as a question because I’m not categorically stating that’s what they’re doing over the possible result of George Zimmerman’s trial. But it sure seems that way. Having said that, let’s all note that this is the first BBC mention of the trial since just before it actually started. They’ve been absolutely silent about the trial the entire time it’s been going on, and it’s not difficult to suspect their silence has something to do with the fact that most of the testimony – from both sides – has discredited the case for the prosecution. BBC reporting on the incident before the trial has been dishonest, misleading, and has censored key facts in order to lead their audience to the approved thought: Zimmerman killed an innocent boy from a distance, in cold blood, due to racism and racial profiling, and Trayvon Martin was murdered simply for what we call “Walking While Black”. Let’s also remember that the BBC tried to stoke racial tensions with their World Have Your Say segment in which they encouraged discussion about how the US is essentially run by white supremacists, with a legal system driven by white supremacists. They did everything in their power to suggest to the audience that Zimmerman remained free initially due to a racist State, again misleading the audience to the desired thought. After five-plus years of Beeboids in the US finding racists under the bed and telling you that opposition to the President has racist underpinnings, the Narrative is all but assured.

Now that it’s pretty much over, bar the closing statements, and a verdict is coming soon, the BBC can resume normal operations. Notice that they continue to use the “undated family photo” of a smiling, angelic, pubescent Martin, instead of the more updated photos Martin himself posted on Facebook. This is a deliberate editorial choice to lead the reader in a specific direction. If they had shown the more recent photos of Martin in a hoodie, with the golden “grill”, the gun, etc., that might prejudice the reader into thinking maybe the lad was a possible troublemaker. What’s particularly galling about this editorial decision – for that’s what it is, the photo didn’t come up randomly – is that the mere fact that Martin had grown into being a bit of a troublemaker, and was all about the gangsta act, absolutely shouldn’t make anyone think he had it coming. Yet the BBC News Online geniuses decided that they didn’t want to portray Martin as anything other than in the best light possible. It’s only natural to wonder if someone with thuggish tendencies would start the fight, which is why the BBC kept all this from you. This is dishonest, and a failure of journalism. Of course, BBC journalism on this story has been a failure from start to finish.

Reminders of the BBC’s failure can be read here, here, and here. Note especially how the BBC has censored the fact of the physical altercation between Martin and Zimmerman from all reporting – except for one article. This physical altercation is the key to the entire case, as Zimmerman’s defense is that Martin was beating the crap out of him and then, when he noticed Zimmerman’s holstered gun, made a reach for it. It was then that Zimmerman grabbed his gun and shot Martin. This should be included in every single report about the case, from start to finish, because it’s the single most important element on which the jury will base their verdict. If one doesn’t know about this very close physical contact – and BBC audiences who blinked and missed the lone mention don’t know about it, as its been deliberately kept from them in nearly all reporting – then the entire case looks dramatically different from reality. Even though the BBC didn’t mention the fight once, I think they got away with it as they’ve never mentioned Zimmerman’s testimony that Martin was reaching for his (Zimmerman’s) gun, which would then make a clear case for self defense. An acquittal would seem like a sham of a travesty of a joke. Which would then mean that BBC audiences would not only be unsurprised at a resulting race riot, but would be inclined to understand and support the outrage. I think that’s the goal of BBC News producers and journalists here: to direct their audience to a specific opinion on the case.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, the BBC has never reported on Zimmerman’s history of fighting against racism, or his efforts in support of blacks. Nor have they every made mention of Martin’s checkered recent past. Can’t have those inconvenient truths interfere with the Narrative.

The  way the BBC opens the report betrays their agenda:

Florida officials have appealed for calm as the trial of a neighbourhood watchman who shot dead an unarmed black teenager enters its final phase.

“Unarmed”. This is “accurate”, but at no time does the report mention the physical altercation between the two. The BBC is once again censoring the most important fact of the case, and it’s important to call them on it. This makes it all the more bizarre for the BBC to then mention further down that both Martin’s and Zimmerman’s mothers said that the screams heard on a recording were their own son’s. Why was anyone screaming? Without the key fact of the fight, this is a non sequitur. Expecting the reader to remember the one mention of the fight from two weeks ago doesn’t work. Just in case anyone might possibly start edging toward an unapproved thought, the BBC makes sure to tell you that Martin’s mother was “absolutely” certain it was Trayvon. Wasn’t Zimmerman’s mother also sure? I guess the BBC thought her opinion was not as relevant because she didn’t qualify it with such a strong word. By elevating one mother over the other, the result is that the BBC guides you once again towards the desired conclusion that Martin was completely innocent, and that Zimmerman was possibly beating the crap out of him before drawing his gun and murdering the lad in cold blood. They reinforce the notion of Zimmerman’s complete guilt by informing everyone that the prosecutor told the jury that Zimmerman killed Martin “because he wanted to”. Again, without the knowledge of the physical contact – especially about Zimmerman’s repeated testimony that Martin was reaching for his (Zimmerman’s) holstered gun – people already inclined to believe the racist Narrative – which the BBC encouraged – will draw the desired conclusion.

It’s entirely possible that the BBC journalists who put this together believe in their hearts that Zimmerman is a racist who killed an innocent boy in cold blood. But that’s no excuse to censor the most important fact of the case, or to emphasize one side’s argument over the other.

In actual fact, the only racist remarks made were by Trayvon Martin to his girlfriend moments before the incident. He referred to  Zimmerman as a “creepy-ass cracker”. This was all over the news after her testimony in the trial, yet the BBC censored it, as they have everything else during the trial. So BBC audiences have no idea about reality, and know only the dishonest Narrative forced on them by BBC journalists. As it became increasingly clear that the racism angle was a non-starter in the trial, Martin’s own family made a public statement that it wasn’t about racism. Yet the BBC kept that from you, and are now wringing their hands over a potential race riot in the event of an acquittal, because, well, that’s been the Narrative from their friends and acquaintances and thought leaders in the US mainstream media, as well as their friends and acquaintances and thought leaders in the far-Left blogosphere.

Just in case anyone doubts where the BBC’s sympathies lie, just look at the one report which mentions the fight. As always, we get the angelic photo of Martin, plus a sympathetic picture of Martin’s mother wiping tears from her eyes. Of course everyone is going to feel sorry for her, feel her pain. It’s still manipulative for the BBC to juxtapose that with the angelic, smiling image instead of the more recent and relevant thug shots. The BBC has also censored the recent news that the judge blocked from the trial a load of texts from Martin about learning to fight, how he could sucker punch somebody, and getting a gun. Again, this might make Martin seem less than angelic, and possibly responsible for his own actions and starting the physical altercation. It might lead the BBC audience to suspect that this wasn’t a cold-blooded racist murder after all, so they left it out. They know about it because even the Guardian made a brief mention.

John Anderson in the open threads has been keeping us apprised of the craziness of this trial, including how even prosecution witnesses end up supporting Zimmerman’s case. A couple of examples here, here. and here. The BBC certainly doesn’t want you to know any of that, and it’s not included in this report, either. So BBC audiences will have absolutely no idea why Zimmerman might be acquitted, if that’s what happens. There’s a reason the prosecution has demanded, and the judge has in one case allowed, that the jury consider lesser charges instead of the one they brought. Their case is a disaster, and they’re desperately trying to get a conviction on something, anything. But BBC audiences don’t know about the reality, so this news of a lesser charge being introduced must seem very curious indeed.

Quite simply, you cannot trust BBC reporting on this story. And it’s because of the personal ideological biases and prejudices of BBC journalists.

The ‘Get Out ‘ Clause

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Nigel Farage stated that the BBC used him as a ‘get out’ clause…they have had him on a show…therefore that proves they are not anti-UKIP or pro Europe….box ticked.

He also said this:

Sure, there may have been criticisms about its abject failure to report the rise of Euroscepticism or reflect the public’s concerns about immigration in the past. But now the BBC is, it tells us, “pleased our coverage has been deemed ‘remarkable’ and ‘impressive'”.

 

Unfortunately for the BBC, and those who have to pay the licence fee and all those extraordinary wages nowt has changed.

 

On Thursday Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph wrote this:

The Europhile CBI continues to be wrong about almost everything

 

Friday morning in ‘Wake Up To Money’ , entirely by coincidence I’m sure, we had the CBI’s Katja Hall on to be given free rein to promote European integration…we must not leave!  The BBC fed her the questions and she fed us the Party line.

 Katja Hall, Chief policy director fo the CBI, who previoulsy….

Prior to joining the CBI, Katja worked at the BBC on employee relations, change management and reward.

Like minds eh?

A small world…even smaller if they get their way and submerge all the nations under the EU empire’s jack boot.

So that’s Europe being dealt with with a renewed vigour and transparency by the BBC.

 

As for immigration…well Victoria Derbyshire leapt into action to repair the wrongful impression that the BBC is in any way pro-mass immigration and will examine seriously and in depth the issues that arise from such policies. 

Last week there was a Home Office report which suggests half the population of England and Wales has felt the impact of immigration…Derbyshire is apparently basing her investigation upon the concerns raised in that report.

So what did we get from the BBC?

 

Off the BBC trekked to darkest Birmingham where we had a white Brit on….who was…er…pro immigration.

Then more voices…..

We were told that government measures alienate immigrants.

Immigrants do jobs lazy Britons won’t.

There is no recognition of the contribution made by immigrants.

Immigrants are ‘ghettoised’…not by choice…they’d love to be out there amongst the natives.

Oh yes….Birmingham is under pressure not because of the mass immigration but because of the government cuts….says the BBC reporter.

Then onto darkest Wales…..we are told there may be some concerns about integration…but just give it time, it will get better.

 

Then 5 minutes from the end we finally got a sceptic….though moderately so….his main concern is that he can’t get his kids into the school of his choice…but….you have to look at both sides and not look for scapegoats.

 

So, yes, the BBC has mentioned immigration…but not exactly the penetrating investigation of the sometimes devastating effects that mass immigration has on a community….nearly all the voices were pro immigration and seemed more concerned with the effects on immigrants themselves, which was hardly the point of the government report.

 

Still, the BBC has ticked another box, ‘The Get Out’ clause is up and running.

 

‘Remarkable and impressive’ coverage indeed.