Category Archives: BBC Online

READ AND WEEP

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A guest post by Hippiepooter.

This is overdue but I think you’ll agree very worthwile covering. H/T to ‘Buggy’ for bringing this up in the Open Thread a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a BBC Online report 7th April that they headline thus:-

Blackpool children ‘safer than ever from grooming gangs’

When you compare it to the Blackpool Gazette story below, you may agree with me that it touches levels of Orwellian depravity that belong in a surreal horror movie. This is the Blackpool Gazette headline for the story:-

‘We hid nothing’ say sex case cops

Both stories stem from a paywalled report in The Times. Below is how both reports address the The Times as the source of the story.

BBC

A report in The Times said more than 60 girls in the resort were groomed for sex by a group of men.

The Times reported that an unpublished report by Blackpool Council recorded that more than 60 girls in the resort had been groomed for sex by a group of men connected with a cluster of town centre takeway restaurants.

Blackpool Gazette

Lancashire Police came under fire in a report by The Times which accused the force of ‘hiding a sex grooming scandal’ in Blackpool and ‘inhibiting’ further research by political correctness.

The Times article also connects to another missing Blackpool girl, Paige Chivers. […] Paige was just 15 when she disappeared in 2007. The report claims the teenager was also a “victim of sexual exploitation” but police say her disappearance remains a missing person inquiry and they are “keeping an open mind”.

You will be wearily unsurprised that the BBC report mentions nothing about Paige Chivers, nor the comments below by a retired senior detective featured in the Blackpool Gazette:-

Former Lancashire Det Supt Mick Gradwell, said police should, however, have a “more open debate”.

He said: “There is a lot of work going on with these operations (such as Awaken) but there is a reluctance to talk openly about the full facts.

I would suggest that all the BBC report was interested in was whitewashing how Lancashire Police had been whipped into submission by 25 odd years of BBC thought policing and the disaster that their ‘nationcidal’ promotion of multiculturalism has wrought upon us.

The mailonline also published a report on this the same day as the BBC, although they didn’t mention it had been prompted by what The Times ran. It carries more extensive comment from former Det Supt Mick Bradwell and draws yet more stark and chilling contrast to the take of the BBC.

While trying to find the Times report I found there’s plenty on this on BNP and EDL sites, but the views of racist neanderthals don’t interest me.

The Gramscian BBC and the BNP are twin sides of evil. They couldn’t live without each other.

From one of the areas of the BBC untainted by its Gramscian subversives, here is information on how to assist the Police with their inquiries over the missing Paige Chivers.

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INTERNAL DISAGREEMENTS

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Today‘s Evan Davis and BBC political correspondent Louise Stewart had a lot of fun at the expense of David Cameron and Nick Clegg this morning over their disagreement over internships. They returned to the subject later, after which Evan talked to Gus Baker. The Today website describes Gus as “a student and co-founder of pressure group Intern Aware.” Evan Davis described him in similar terms on the programme. Mr Baker criticized the prime minister.

His Twitter account tells us a bit more:

Gus Baker
@gusbbaker Bristol
President-elect of Uni Bristol Students Union. Proud and independent minded Labour Party activist and NPF member. Co-founder @internaware.

Is it unreasonable to think that Mr Baker’s Labour affiliations should have been mentioned?

The same question applies to BBC Online’s write-up of the same interview (Cameron and Clegg differ publicly on internship places) which merely describes him as “from the pressure group Intern Aware” (and generously links to his website).

The Today programme interviewed no-one other than Gus Baker on the subject.

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PLAYING FAVOURITES

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Certain think tanks, pressure groups, unions, associations (etc) can pretty much rely on the BBC to report their press releases, reports and studies. Articles appear daily on the BBC website devoted to such things. Others are not so lucky, having their reports ignored – or, if not ignored, marginalised or criticised.

There’s an article on the website at the moment that, rather unusually, considers two separate reports from different organisations. Not that you’d know that from the headline:

****Teachers’ survey: Schools changes ‘won’t benefit poor’

The headline summarises the findings of one of the reports – that from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) on behalf of BBC regulars, the Sutton Trust charity. This undermines Michael Gove’s education policies from the standard BBC perspective, so it is given the vast bulk of the article. The short fourth paragraph, however, shifts to another report – “Separately, the pro-free market Adam Smith Institute has said free schools should be able to make a profit.” This other report attacks the government from the Right and is subsequently marginalised. Immediately Paragraph 5 reverts to the Sutton Trust study and dwells on it at great length and in considerable detail. Finally, in Paragraph 19 (after 14 paragraphs on the Sutton Trust report), we return to the Adam Smith Institute report. This is given just three paragraphs in total (one of Lilliputian size) and goes into no detail whatsoever.

I suppose the Adam Smith Institute should be grateful that the BBC gave space to their report. (They may even have been surprised!) But I suspect their gratitude will be tempered by not being given an article to themselves, by being given very short shrift, by being shoved at the bottom of a long article about another very different report and by not being given a mention in the article’s headline. I only found the BBC’s take on the Adam Smith Institute report by accident because I spotted the headline and thought it might be a good chance to check out whether the Churnalism search engine (h/t Katabasis)would suspect it of being churnalism for the Sutton Trust. (It did).

(This post of mine might be proof of the saying ‘You wait ages for a bus and then three come along at once!’)

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HOBSON’S CHOICE

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If you use the BBC News website’s ‘Search’ function, as many do, you’ll find that broad categories have a right-hand section where BBC editors recommend sites ‘elsewhere on the web’ for readers to investigate. Some of these (usually links to newspapers or news agencies) are regularly updated. Others are much more permanent choices, staying up for several months. The three examples below have been the editor’s choice for over half a year now (at the very least). Do they provide BBC Online readers with a fair spread of opinion? Hardly.

Type in ‘Climate Change’ and the two other sites permanently linked to are:
The Met Office
Greenpeace International

Type in ‘Wind Farms’ and the permanent Editor’s Choices are:
Renewable UK
“Renewable UK, formerly the British Wind Energy Association, the professional body for the UK’s wind and marine industries, providing news, links and downloadable resources”
Yes2Wind
“Learn about the Yes2Wind campaign to use wind energy to tackle global warming”
(Incidentally, there is also a No2Wind website, which the BBC chooses not to link to).

Finally, type in ‘European Union’ and the only other site on the web permanently linked to is:
Europa
(the official website of the European Union)

P.S. Happy Easter!

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