Category Archives: Uncategorized

(this is getting to be a habit), study this BBC Views Online article from 20:18 last night, ‘Santa’ party girl dies in crash, then complete the following sentence:

The passenger is described by police as ______, 6ft 3ins tall. The driver is also believed to be ______.

Clue: See this Times article, Girl, 5, dies in hit-and-run after Christmas party, which, unlike BBC Views Online, passes on the Police description of the suspects without the BBC’s censorship.

Update: Since I wrote this post last night a subsequent BBC article was published at 05:27, Grief over hit-and-run death girl, that doesn’t censor the police descriptions. The PC cretin that wrote the first article ought to have their backside kicked – but I doubt anyone at the BBC believes in backside-kicking, metaphorical or otherwise, these days.

Mean spirited, perhaps, to laugh at typos, but this is unintentionally rather amusing – BBC News Online have stopped their fatuous “Allies on trial“ online poll (just as the no votes were gaining ground), and have posted bar graphs of the results instead.

I knew we were bad and all, deposing poor innocent Saddam, but breaching “the convention on the methods and means of WELFARE” is beyond the pale!

Update:It’s taken the Beeboids until Sunday afternoon to correct their typo – so much for sub-editing and quality control!

. Study this BBC Views Online article, Ex-Minister fined for being drunk, then complete the following sentence:

The ex-Minister is a member of the ________ Party.

Clue: See this Times article, Ex-minister in wine frenzy, which does manage to mention Twigg’s political affiliation – yes, it’s the same party that’s just pushed through 24-hour drinking legislation.

For advanced players, The Times also provides many more details than the BBC article, with which you can create further examples of BBC Views Online Blankety-Blanks!

– where once we had BBC defends ‘digital face’ trails we now have, according to The Times, BBC drops ‘horrific’ bouncing head:

The BBC dropped a “bouncing head” trailer for digital television after it was described as horrific by viewers and prompted 1,300 complaints. It featured a dismembered animated head, made up of hundreds of tiny heads, bouncing over hills. The head transformed into the face of well-known BBC presenters. One viewer said: “As a registered psychotherapist, I wish to protest that this image is disturbingly psychotic.” The BBC said that it had not been its intention to offend.

It seems the BBC’s version of this story was snuck out ever so briefly in the BBC Views Online Entertainment section, with the usual shilly-shallying equivocation much in evidence:

In a statement, the BBC said: “The digital faces trail was one of a very long series designed to capture the attention of viewers and stimulate interest in the BBC’s digital services.

“The latest, which was first transmitted on 5 November, has been very successful in this respect and early indications are that it has achieved its goal.”

“We have been very conscious that some viewers disliked the nature of the trail, although clearly it was not our intention to offend.

The trouble is, even though the BBC doesn’t set out generally to offend people, they seem to manage it time and again. I’m sure you, like me, can think of a few other BBC horrors that ought to be dropped.

was devoted mostly to the topic of Christianity in London. The presenter, Emily Maitlis, noted that 70% of Londoners (in common with ~70% of the nation at the last census) describe themselves as Christians, although the media devote more time to other much less statistically significant faiths (although by far the next biggest group in the UK are those of no faith).

Whilst this makes a welcome change, the coverage seemed somewhat over-focused on the divisions within the Anglican movement over the acceptability of homosexual clergy.

I look forward, in due course, to coverage of other faiths focusing similarly on the acceptability or otherwise of homosexuality within those faiths.

Intrigued by Dan’s comments on the people smuggling issue (read comments), I clicked again on the BBC article I had hyperlinked.

It has been changed! The headline said words to the effect “international migrant smuggling ring” (and “people smuggling” was certainly not prominently displayed in the first paragraph). I know that there is such a thing as a screen capture but don’t know how to do it (nor, naively it seems, that I should do it).*

Would readers who are more tech savvy than me see what they can do? There is a way of finding out “what the web looked like” historically or something like that.

Is Dan the mole?

*”People smuggling” most definitely was not the headline, or I would not have posted in the way I did. The front page had a link to “migrant smuggling gang smashed”, and it was the rather curious and clumsy “migrant smuggling” that got me to click through anyway (the sniff of bias was obvious). In any event, google once again shows that “migrant smuggling” very much is BBC preferred house style.

…or so hits to go. 1,000,000 will happen while I am asleep Sydney time, so preemptively, congratulations and thanks to the indefatigable Natalie for all of her hard work in “keeping the bastards honest”.*

*Australian political slang (see Don Chipp if you are interested).

PS Remember to vote – the good guys are gaining ground!

Very subtle, but this on 14 December:

“The large-scale violence in Sydney started on Sunday, when thousands of young white men attacked people of Arabic and Mediterranean background on Cronulla Beach – apparently in revenge for a recent attack on two lifeguards.

Many of the rioters had been alerted to congregate in the area by receiving mobile text messages.

The fighting then spread to other parts of the city, injuring more than 30 people, including police officers.

The violence continued on Monday night, apparently in retaliation, despite calls for calm and ethnic tolerance by Prime Minister John Howard and other senior figures.”

changes to this on 15 December:

“The large-scale violence in Sydney started on Sunday, when thousands of young white men attacked people of Arabic and Mediterranean background on Cronulla Beach – apparently in revenge for a recent attack on two lifeguards.

Many of the rioters had been alerted to congregate in the area by receiving text messages.

Apparently in retaliation for the violence, groups described by police as having “Middle Eastern or Mediterranean” appearance were involved in two nights of violence and vandalism.

On Thursday, Prime Minister John Howard called for calm.” [emphasis added]

“Staged” would be better than the circumlocution “apparently were involved”, but this is a real advance. Don’t worry about the somewhat circuitous description – that is the local Sydney semi-official (police and reputable press) way of describing them.

*See B-BBC 14 December

Interpol calls it “people smuggling“, but at the BBC, they are “migrants“.

Talking of Oliver Kamm, he has posted on the Newsnight “Allies on Trial” show. The writer and broadcaster William Shawcross, having declined to participate, wrote to Mr Kamm, who continues the story thus:

William explained that, while he would be happy to be part of an investigation or discussion, he would not take part in a form of entertainment. I am glad to set down his reasoning, with his permission.

Newsnight has done important work in reporting many areas of the war in Iraq and the war on Islamist terror more widely. A ‘courtroom’ pastiche is a fashionable but frivolous conceit that detracts from that record of excellent and courageous reporting in Iraq by Mark Urban and other correspondents. The allegations about “rendition” need a thorough investigation and merit the closest attention of Newsnight, but a ‘trial’ will do nothing in that regard. The name of the programme and the choice of counsel and witnesses suggest a spectacle more than an analysis. It is especially unfortunate that the ‘trial’ should be scheduled when a British hostage is threatened with death by real criminals in Iraq, and on the eve of the most important election that Iraq (and perhaps any Arab country) has ever had. One has to assume that the timing is deliberate; its effect will be to detract from the sacrifice of British and other forces in Iraq, and belittle the heroism of the Iraqi people in seeking to create a civil society in a nation ravaged by tyranny.

Kamm writes that he is “frequently a defender of the BBC against allegations – which I think are mistaken and miss the real criticism of its approach – of political bias.” You will not be too suprised to learn that I disagree. But the points he and Shawcross make about this programme hit the mark.