Category Archives: Palin Derangement Syndrome

OLBERMANN ON THE BBC

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This is another post about the Tuscon shootings, but I’m not apologising because the BBC seems to be getting even more partisan about the affair, difficult as that may be to believe. Tuesday’s Up All Night on Radio Five Live gave Keith Olbermann the best part of twenty minutes to slag off the American right while presenter Rhod Sharp tossed up softball questions and agreed with every pompous sanctimonious comment from the MSNBC blowhard. Sharp’s evident political bias was matched only by Olbermann’s stunning self-righteous hypocrisy. Once you’ve listened (if you can bear it, that is) compare the butter-wouldn’t-melt moral posturing from Olbermann with this little collection of anti-Bush rage:

Incidentally, I know many of you have commented on the contrast in the BBC’s coverage of the Tuscon massacre with Jon Leyne’s report about the murder of a Christian man by an off-duty Muslim policeman in Egypt. No Pasaran has a blogpost about that very subject (and it’s attracted the attention of Instapundit).

UPDATE 17.20: More evidence emerges to undermine the BBC/MSNBC narrative:

“He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”

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BBC Editor Removes Anti-Palin Tweet

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BBC News editor Rachel Kennedy has removed the tweet, highlighted here, in which she expressed hope that recent events would “do for” Sarah Palin (h/t John Horne Tooke). In case you missed it here’s the screengrab:


Kennedy will now be attending a “masterclass” by BBC Twitter tutor Sue Llewellyn (who was herself quite keen to associate Palin with the Tuscon shootings):


No doubt the licence payer will be picking up the tab.

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BLAME PALIN

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The Telegraph’s Toby Harnden has a good blogpost about the “unseemly rush to blame Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and Republicans for murder in Arizona”.

I noticed this eagerness to blame the Right, and Palin in particular, when reading some BBC twitterers last night.

BBC News strand editor Rachel Kennedy, whose opinionated tweets (highlighted here on Biased BBC) led Director of News Helen Boaden to issue a warning email to all BBC staff, continues to be unconcerned about impartiality. In Kennedy’s view the cross-hair imagery in a map of pro-Obamacare Democrats produced by Sarah Palin was of such significance to yesterday’s shootings that she hoped it would bring about Palin’s downfall:


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As Toby Harnden points out “martial imagery is standard political fare” and has been used by the Democrats when targeting Republicans. Such details are of no concern to a Palin-hating BBC news editor, though. Is it any wonder that BBC news output is so aggressively negative towards Palin when its editors openly express a desire to see her done for? It would be nice to think that such views would “do for” Rachel Kennedy, but as she works at the BBC she will no doubt be lauded instead.

The cross-hair map attracted BBC reporter Nicola Pearson’s attention too. She was concerned that it wasn’t receiving enough attention, and evidently was also impressed with the thoughtful balanced opinions of Kevin Maguire:


BBC US correspondent Katie Connolly was another who was keen to get in a mention of the Tea Party:


For BBC Radio Shropshire’s painfully right-on Jim Hawkins the map was the thing, as it was for BBC Twitter instructor Sue Llewellyn:


(Incidentally, “fieldproducer” is Sky News’ Neal Mann who last week was warning other journalists not to jump to conclusions about the arrest of the landlord in the Joanna Yeates murder case. No such worries about wild speculation for British broadcast journalists when there’s Palin-bashin’ to be done.)

Fiona Graham, a BBC “technology of business reporter” was very taken with the views of acute Palin Derangement Syndrome sufferer Roger Ebert:


Unfortunately for all the BBC employees desperate to pin the blame on Palin and the evil American Right, Caitie Parker, a former school friend of the shooter, had been offering some insight into his past politics and strange beliefs:


Doesn’t sound like he’d be a natural Palin-loving Tea Party supporter, does it?

It’s also worth noting that none of the BBC twitterers quoted above chose to mention that Giffords had enemies on the left, as this now-deleted blogpost at leftie website Daily Kos shows [click to enlarge]:

UPDATE 13.20. Gavin Esler has blessed us with his tuppence-worth this morning:


The BBC College of Journalism’s Marc Settle (h/t John Horne Tooke):


UPDATE 13.50. Remember how the BBC’s America editor rushed to inform us, incorrectly, that the Fort Hood shooter wasn’t motivated by religion? How very different from the BBC stampede to link yesterday’s sad events to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.

UPDATE 14.20. Which US politician said the following in 2008? “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”. See here.

UPDATE 14.45. A further thought. What does Rachel Kennedy’s Sarah Palin tweet say about Helen Boaden’s authority? The BBC’s Director of News pontificates about impartiality but her underlings continue to ignore her.

UPDATE 16.00. Another tweet from last night, this one from senior BBC journalist Toby Brown:


I think it’s safe to say that BBC hatred of Sarah Palin runs wide and deep. Murderous dictators in Africa don’t elicit this type of reaction. Truly weird.

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BURNING DOWN THE HOUS

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By the way, did you read the BBC report detailing how the Church where the Obama family go to worship has been burned down in a suspected arson attempt? Alright then, it didn’t happen but if it did, I figure it would be splashed across the BBC. Fair bet? So, isn’t it interesting that when the Church where Sarah Palin worships is torched, not a word from the BBC. Maybe she never existed?

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DOG BITES MAN

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DOG BITES MAN.

Did you see that the BBC is leading it’s US election coverage with the shock horror news that “Alaska newspaper endorses Obama“? Alaska’s largest-circulation paper, the Anchorage Daily News, said state governor Mrs Palin was “too risky” to be one step away from the presidency. Mmm. Funny how the BBC didn’t tell us that this same newspaper endorsed Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000. The BBC – half the picture, all the time.

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Memo to Justin Webb

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Point one: in your comment about the Right’s remarkable anger against Obama (highlighted by David here) you clearly show you are, as they say, “in the tank” for Obama. It’s easily demonstrable as your accusation precisely reflects what avowedly right-wing journalists like Michelle Malkin say is “another false narrative: The narrative of the McCain “mob” ” that is being developed by the liberal-left media. Your narrative now, Justin. If balance lies in being in the middle of the opposing poles- you aren’t there.

Point two: in case you think you can justify your claims of one-sided partisan anger, there is plentiful evidence available of Leftist hate- look at Malkin’s site here, and at the above thankfully blurred photo of disgraceful hateful activism. What’s spite and anger if that isn’t?

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HAVING A LAUGH?

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Interesting to note that on the main BBC news portal this morning is the truly momentous headline that “The spoof Sarah Palin is boosting comedy ratings.” This is all part of the BBC’s carefully contrived determination to assassinate Sarah Palin’s character. Yesterday she was labelled as having abused power, now today she is mocked and ridiculed. Palin takes the Tina Fey spoofery in good spirits of course but the malignant BBC agenda in play here is to reduce Palin to a parody of herself so she can then be damned on just about every BBC political programme with a venom that is truly remarkable to witness. She appears to have the ability to drive the BBC and it cast of courtier eunuchs way beyond the point of even a pretence of balance.

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This and That

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This and that

  • Blognor Regis, writing about the BBC’s “Time Shift 8: How to be a good president”, says he does not go in for hate, but

    …then I take a look at this motley crew, the same old same old rapid response talking head squad, ready to pontificate on anything at anytime, only five minutes from this television studio: Jonathan Freedland is helped by distinguished contributors including James Naughtie, Shirley Williams, Douglas Hurd, Simon Hoggart and Bonnie Greer. Celebrating the diversity of opinion there I don’t think.

 

  • David Friedman wrote about how the BBC reported a story concerning a worldwide improvement in the child mortality statistics:

    …the Lancet reports that, worldwide, the child death rate has fallen by 28% since 1990. Breaking it down by region, “deaths in western and central Africa have fallen by just 18%; in sub-Saharan Africa the figure was 21%, while in eastern and southern Africa it was 26%.”

 

How does BBC headline the story?

Huge split in child death rates

Beneath the headline, in boldface type:

“Progress in cutting the number of deaths among children under five is still ‘grossly insufficient’ in some parts of the world, Unicef has warned.” The picture that accompanies it is of two black children, one crying and one looking grim.

The actual news is that things are getting better. But that is not the impression that the headline, the introduction or the picture is designed to give.

I switched from CNN to BBC as a source of online news in response to CNN’s extraordinarily biased reporting of the FLDS case in Texas. BBC is not as bad—you only have to read to the bottom of the article to get the relevant information.

  • I see that after being cramped for so long by having to pay lip-service that tedious Charter obligation to be impartial, the BBC’s Justin Webb has finally drawn the “Get Out of Impartiality Free” card. Now that he has drawn this card, he, a BBC journalist paid by the BBC to write on the BBC website, can describe one of the American vice-presidential candidates in the terms detailed in David’s earlier post:

    And yet the Palin world-view – essentially ignorant, unable to name a single paper read – is not the view that a nation facing an economic catastrophe, complex and international and baffling to most minds, is likely to choose … to hear Palin screeching on about Reagan must be painful to many Republicans who knew him.

    Or he can described her in the terms detailed in Hugh’s post, namely as:

    the woman rational, educated Americans regard with ever-increasing horror.

    The other name for this card is the “Blog”card.


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THE PERILS OF PALIN.

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How the BBC have been relishing the news that the Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been found guilty of an abuse of power by an official inquiry in Alaska. If you want bias incarnate listen to this link if you can stomach it….with even Watergate being thrown into the rhetorical swirl. The BBC, like the rest of the Obamessiah cheer-leading MSM, are using this to beat up McCain and Palin bang on cue. In fact the report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan. The report also illustrates that this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior. Of course if we want real investigative journalism, I can’t wait for the BBC to get stuck into Obama’s association with self proclaimed terrorists and his outreach programme into radical Islam. For some reason, the Beeb have been mute on those minor matters but then again I guess they are so excited about the fact that they can drag Sarah Palin’s name through the mud that they just don’t have the time. Also have a look at the image of Palin the BBC use on their lead portal to illustrate this story, subtle eh? The witch-hunt the BBC have been leading against the Alaskan Governor has been remarkable in it’s intensity as even those who are not fans of Palin acknowledge. It makes me hope she will run for the Presidency in 2012 as the prospect of the BBC intelligentsia being driven mad appeals.

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