BBC Mid-Term Election Epilogue

Check out this election wrap-up by Matt Frei and Katty Kay, who co-anchored the BBC’s coverage of the second-most important election in human history. Their bias is there for all to see. Frei’s personal bias and unwavering support for the President gets even more outrageous in his blog post.

Their first point is about all the money spent on the campaign. I completely agree – as do most people in the US – that it’s gotten ridiculous, but Matty and Katty reveal their political bias here. The only names mentioned in association with high spending are Republican multi-millionaires who spent their own cash, both of whom lost their races. Katty calls this “divine retribution”, although Matty quickly corrects her editorializing. But two things are missing from their comments.

Ted Koppel actually pointed out to Katty on Tuesday night when she was whining about this issue that her comparison to British elections are completely unfair because the campaigns are of drastically different lengths. British general elections go for a few weeks, while the US production can start as early as anyone likes and seems to go on for 18 months at least these days. I don’t like it any more than Katty does, but that’s how it is. Then there are the dramatic differences in both geography and media outlets. Several states are larger than the entire area of the UK. Statewide candidates (for Governor and Senator) have a huge amount of ground to cover, and in some states have a large number of local media outlets to hit and local newspapers in which to buy a seemingly endless stream of full-page ads. This would cost far more money that the UK spends even if the election campaigns lasted the same amount of time. So they’re making a completely false analogy.

Secondly, notice that Matty and Katty do not mention the tens of millions George Soros spent on his pet organizations, nor the fact that Comedy Central donated several hours of free air time and got sponsors to spend a huge amount of cash on St. Jon Stewart’s “March to Restore Smugness”. Which seems to have been an epic fail on a much larger scale than any individual race. But the BBC has been totally silent on that, as it confuses the Narrative.

When Matty and Katty fret about gridlock, notice that Katty is concerned only that there will be no progress on her pet issues towards the Left. When she talks about making progress on the issues of energy and climate change, she is of course not concerned about progess in a non-Left direction.

Both Beeboids speak with great sympathy for the President, which really goes beyond analysis betrays their personal emotions. At one point, Frei tells the same lie he puts forth in his blog post, that the President is always admitting His mistakes and taking responsibility. In fact, his blog post opens with this:

President Obama is no stranger to contrition. At the beginning of his term, he didn’t shy away from saying that he had messed up, screwed up, made mistakes and so on. But he was apologising about the small stuff from a position of supreme confidence. The buck stops with me, he was fond of saying serenely, confident that the buck wouldn’t give him too much trouble.

Oh, really? Let’s remind ourselves of certain things the BBC censored from their reporting.

When it became glaringly obvious that the public was not happy with what ObamaCare was going to do to the country, the President took the same line of defense that the BBC and the EU mandarins took when the Irish voted against Lisbon: they just don’t understand it well enough. When the President accepted blame for people being upset, He said that it was His fault for not explaining it well enough. This isn’t the same thing as admitting an actual mistake. We heard the same thing from Him during His audience with St. Jon Stewart two weeks ago.

As recently as Sunday, the President was singing the same song:

“Making an argument that people can understand,” Mr. Obama continued, “I think that we haven’t always been successful at that. And I take personal responsibility for that. And it’s something that I’ve got to examine carefully … as I go forward.”

This is not the talk of a man capable of contrition, nor of one who will feel “chastened” by the election results.

In fact, any time there has been a mistake with His Administration, His first instinct is to blame someone else. Problems with the clean-up effort for the BP oil spill? Distract by blaming Bush for it in the first place. People unhappy with the Stimulus? Blame Republicans for not letting Him spend even more money. Caught up in a controversy over a criminal act by the Governor in His home state? Lie and say He hasn’t been involved. Air Force One causes an outcry by buzzing lower Manhattan near Ground Zero just to please a few wealthy donors? Blame somebody else. Can’t get every single bit of legislation rammed through Congress fast enough? Don’t admit it’s a mistake to be so impetuous at a crucial time: blame Fox News instead.

Where’s the contrition? Where’s the willingness to admit mistakes? It doesn’t exist. Matt Frei still has such huge respect for Him that he just imagines it does.

As for Matty and Katty fretting over gridlock in Washington, Katty does just barely admit that the President “doesn’t find it very easy to reach out to the other side”. Where were you in 2008, Katty? Oh, that’s right – back then the BBC was telling us that He was going to be bi-partisan and end the awful politics of Washington.

Instead, immediately after the taking office, the President was in a meeting with Republican leadership about His Stimulus Plans for Us. When Republicans complained about it, He dismissed them by saying, “I won”. This is not the attitude of someone willing to work together with anyone. But the BBC censored that news.

I guess Katty Kay should have encouraged her colleagues to take her own advice and not placed the President on a pedestal, as doing so makes it very difficult to report when He gets things wrong.

She didn’t say it in this clip, but on Tuesday night Katty couldn’t shut up about the one person not holding or running for any office: Sarah Palin. Here’s a little something from Katty herself which reveals her struggle with Palin Derangement Syndrome:

‘Katty, tell me they think Palin’s crazy’

In the blog post itself, Matt Frei still gets it wrong about the President’s efforts in closing Guantanamo Bay.

On day one, President Obama signed the bill to shut down Guantanamo Bay, using his left hand. “Get used to it!” he said. “I am a lefty.”

Wrong. It wasn’t a bill, but an Executive Order. Frei actually was closer to the truth in his Diary post from the time, when he said that the President expressed his “intention to close” Guantanamo within one year “with a flick of a pen”. Of course, we all know how well that’s working out for Him.

Frei also claims that, during the transition period before taking office, the President assembled His team “in a flash”. Also not true. Even the Washington Post was worried about how long it was taking Him, more than a month after He took office. I may make a mistake or misremember something I should have checked, but I’m not paid 100 grand a year to do this, nor do I have any research staff to help me.

This is the bias anchoring BBC World News America every night of the week, from the people whom you are expected to trust for news on US issues.

Are You Being Served?

In today’s (friday) Telegraph, tree version only, Neil Midgley has an article entitled “BBC’s £1/4m to keep Israel report secret.”

“The BBC spent more than £270,000 on legal fees to keep a report on its coverage of the I/P conflict out of the public eye, it disclosed yesterday. The sum was among nearly £400,000 of spending on outside advice about FOI requests.

The 20,000 word internal document was written in 2004 by Malcolm Balen, a senior journalist. Steven Sugar, a solicitor, asked to see it under the FOI act, and sued when the BBC refused. The case went all the way to the House of Lords. The courts eventually found in favour of the BBC and the report was never published.
In figures released under the FOI, the BBC has now disclosed that it spent £264,711 on barristers’ fees defending the case and £6,156 on other legal advice. […]On the Balen report a BBC spokesman said “If we are not able to pursue our journalism freely and have honest debate and analysis over how we are covering important issues, then our ability to serve the public effectively will be diminished.”

Mark Thompson, the D.G. complained last month about the burden of spurious FOI requests. He said questions had included the number of lavatories in Television Centre and the policy on biscuits. However, requests have also elicited less trivial facts, such as information about executive pay.”

About pursuing your journalism freely and having honest debate and serving us effectively. When can you start?

BBC WHINGEWATCH!

Pleased to see that the Daily Mail, much derided by the BBC, is going to monitor the BBC’s output and in that regard I am very supportive of this initiative as it means even more eyes watching the output from the State Broadcaster.

Which is why the Mail has decided to launch a BBC Whinge Watch. In the ensuing weeks, we will monitor the Corporation’s output to highlight bias and ensure it reflects the interests of the private sector – which pays its bills – as assiduously as the concerns of the public sector of which it is the flagship. And perhaps the BBC might even dare to turn the spotlight on its own spending. After all, the two-year licence fee freeze that it proposed yesterday is going to look very modest in the context of the savings that will have to be made by the rest of the public sector.

I wonder if anyone has contacts at the Daily Mail so we may share with them the fact that we also record BBC whingeing 24/7? If so, let them know about us. Together, we can hold the arrogant bloated anti-British BBC to account.

RE-ASSURANCE REQUIRED

Best laugh of the day.

Labour called for ”clarity and reassurance” from the BBC after the director general of the corporation was photographed going into a meeting in Downing Street to apparently discuss coverage of government spending cuts.

Cue four years of the BBC going out its poisonous way to attack the Coalition in order to prove how unbiased it is. Everybody….”Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,We’ll keep the red flag flying here.”

BIASED FRIDAY


I’ll post a new Open thread shortly but the BBC has been biased beyond belief on Today his morning and I wanted to cover a handful of these items.

It all kicks off with the news that BBC DG Mark Thompson had been spotted going into Downing Street and photographers had been able to take images of the papers he was carrying. The suggestion was that Thompson could be trying to collude with the Coalition over the coming cuts. Oh no! As if to make up for that horrible thought, Today went into pro-Labour overdrive….

Ed Balls was given a slot just leading up to the prime-time 8am news slot to rant and rave about how he would save the economy. (Ignoring how he had been there as it ran into the bumpers. Remember Year Zero – all troubles started when the Coalition came to power)  He was allowed to serially criticise and misrepresent George Osborne and then talk economic gibberish. No Coalition come-back, naturally.

Then, straight after the 8am news, we have Lord Prescott on to attack the evil  “Murdoch Press”, quoting favourable from those organs of reason, The Guardian and the New York Times. There was a distinct air of bonhomie between Humphyrs and the fat oaf who was our Deputy PM.  No opposing voice allowed, naturally.

Just when I thought this was going to a Conservative-free zone, up pops Bercow to pontificate on the Hague sideshow. Ah, but it’s SALLY Bercow, that well known Labour enthusiast. Given the BBC’s embrace of the gay agenda in almost every other walk of life, I find their sniping at the Foreign Secretary revolting.

Then, to finish, in all fairness the BBC moved away from Labour for a minute. Time to talk about Hamas. There was yet ANOTHER apologist for Hamas being given free rein. Yet again he was allowed to get away with spouting the most obnoxious pro-Islamic terror propaganda with no voice of opposition. Why does the BBC have SUCH a love-in a for the vicious Islamic killers from Hamas?

This was a thoroughly disgraceful programme from start to finish, an example of why the BBC needs axed. They must not be allowed to broadcast their bias at OUR expense. Maybe when they are stripped of our License taxes, they can turn to the Trade Unions for funding, like their pals in Labour. That way we can see them as the bought and paid for whores they so transparently have become.

WAS, NOT IS?


Pleased to read that BBC DG Mark Thompson shares our view that the BBC is biased towards the left. Read what he says here. Of course he is quick to point out that this confirmed BIAS was in the past, not the present and the BBC now proudly has an “honourable tradition of journalists from the right” working for the corporation. How fascinating, who are they? He confesses to that bastion of the Left the New Statesman! Wonder does Mark “do” irony?

TRAINS, PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES…

Here is a programmethat is on the face of it a harmless trip back in history…but there is anagenda…certainly from the BBC….pro nationalisation, anti-car and pro AGWbelief.

‘Ian Hislop goes off the rails’…first broadcast in 2008 and again this week. The timing surely to coincide with the non-Labour government’s plans to makecuts and improve efficiency in public services. Hislop rounds off the programme with this appeal….

‘How far do you go with cutting a public service in the name of efficiencybefore you lose the whole point of it, not just with the trains but with buses,post offices and the NHS. It’s the same argument.”

(no idea what IH’s politics are….but these words fit the BBC world viewnicely). The BBC blurb for the programme:

‘…was Beeching little more than Ghenghis Khan with a slide rule, ruthlesslyhacking away at Britain’s rail network in a misguided quest for profitability…or the fall guy implementing a short sighted government policy favouring thecar over the train? Knowing what we know now, with trains far more energy efficient andenvironmentally sound than cars(?) perhaps Beeching’s plan was the biggestfolly of the 1960’s.

 So there we have the BBC world view in one programme….pro big government,anti-profit, anti-business, anti-car, pro AGW and anti- Tory…..funny how manycuts the corporation is making in its own budget whilst railing againstgovernment cuts.

BBC Hall Of Shame – Who AreThe Barons Of Bias?

Over at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism Warner Todd Huston has created a mouth watering list of the “Ten Most Left-Biased American Journalists”. To anyone familiar with the US political scene the names are predictable – Paul Krugman, Chuck Todd, Rick Sanchez and sundry other clones of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf – and the list makes more sense if read in conjunction with Breitbart’s own takedown of the US media elite.

However regular readers of Biased BBC will be aware that the UK media contains a whole regiment of left wing hacks. Some of them, to be fair, inhabit the pages of newspapers and magazines that openly exhibit a left wing bias – but at least we are free to buy or not to buy such publications (and we’ re not buying them – hence the blood seeping out of The Guardian, Independent and Mirror)

But the BBC is, supposedly, a politically neutral organisation financed by a compulsory levy of all those who own a television. It should therefore be above reproach. I fancy, though, that my rephrasing of Breitbart would ring many bells on this side of the pond…(my tweeks italicised)

The BBC loves whistleblowers. Just not when the whistle is blown on them.
The BBC loves transparency. As long as they’re not the ones being exposed.
No steadfast journalism rule is unbendable when it comes to justifying and protecting the racket that is modern journalism, specifically, political journalism in the BBC today. The ends justify the means for the BBC. They lie when they claim to be objective. They lie when they claim to be unbiased, because these so called “truth seekers” are guilty of engaging in open political warfare. And when the whistle is blown, they simply double down

So I invite all B-BBC readers (regulars and newbies) to look again at the Beeb Barons of Bias and suggest possible entrants to a BBC Hall of Shame. Just reach under the stone and bring Jeremy Bowen and his sort into the spotlight accompanied, hopefully, by a succinct justification for each choice.
Let’s see which shifty rodents are plucked out of their BBC holes and into the sunlight….