new blog Talking Hoarsely will join the list of personal blogs by B-BBC posters just as soon as I summon up the courage to dive into the template.
Ed’s most recent post is headed “Controversy over at B-BBC.” It’s about Patrick Crozier’s post of a few days ago, which was indeed very controversial.
What’s our official collective position, then? Answer: there isn’t one. This blog is a functioning anarchy.
, quoting a BBC article about Sheikh Yassin that says:
“Militant groups like Hamas did initially declare a temporary truce, but that unravelled in July 2003 after Israeli forces killed two Hamas members in retaliation for the suicide bombing of a Jerusalem bus that left 21 people dead.”
Walter comments:
Note how the BBC has got this deliberately and completely a**-about.
The suicide bomb that killed 21 people was not the end of the temporary truce. It was all Israeli’s fault – they should have just copped the 21 deaths sweet and left it at that. Then we’d still have the truce.
In the BBC’s distorted world view Hamas can murder but that’s not breaking a truce – that’s just all in a day’s work.
Pardon me while I spew.
UPDATE: In the first comment to this post. La Marquise asks, “Does Ian Paisley ever get called a ‘spiritual leader’ by the BBC?”
On the one year anniversary of the Iraq war, we are reliably informed by the BBC that
“many Arab newspapers are deeply unhappy over the continued presence of foreign military forces.”
This is not surprising given the sense of shame many Arabs feel over the downfall of the once proud and powerful regime led by Saddam Hussein. He seemed to be the only Arab leader willing to stand up to George W Bush. But why select only those Arab newspapers with the greatest angst? There are hundreds of newspapers in Iraq which were not allowed to exist or publish under Saddam. Could the BBC not find one of them to quote?
about the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist on the Today programme. Laban Tall heard the programme. So did Melanie Phillips. So can you if you click Laban Tall’s Real Audio link.
Your BBC.
Tonight at nine o’clock BBC2 will show a “If… things don’t get any better, a docu-drama set a decade from now in which Andrew Kirk, Britain’s first black Prime Minister (played by Colin McFarlane) confronts rising inequality and crime.
As it happens I have a small but definite reason for wishing the show well. Colin McFarlane’s brother is Kevin McFarlane, who like me is a member of the Libertarian Alliance and has written for it on political theory and scientific issues. I’ve exchanged the odd cordial email with him.
OK, OK, the admirable political opinions of the brother of the lead actor of a show are a teeny bit off topic. You are here for BBC bias and you’ll get some, don’t worry. Let’s not judge the show itself till we’ve seen it, but the website pages telling us about it are firmly in the BBC bubble. The assumptions that run through these pages are the most innocent type of bias – but are all the more pervasive for that. The writers mean no harm. They’ve just never seriously considered alternative intepretations. All the more reason to offer some.
For example, in the link above it says:
Kirk – played by Colin McFarlane – is determined to narrow a rich-poor divide through welfare spending and higher taxes. It’s political science fiction, of course, but the issues are 100% real.
His is an idealism unpopular with middle-class taxpayers, many of whom live in gated communities – a physical divide between the haves and the have-nots with whom they share a postcode.
It is assumed that narrowing the rich-poor divide through welfare spending and higher taxes constitutes “idealism”. It is assumed that the opposition of the middle-class taxpayers is anything but idealistic. One day before I’m old I’d like to read of a BBC drama about how a brave band of middle-class taxpayers idealistically oppose the force-based politics of a prime minister determined to keep power in elite hands by the creation of a welfare-dependent client class.
The assumption that inequality causes crime is also ever-present. For instance, here’s a page with factoids about inequality and crime. Never mentioned: a hundred years ago inequality was much greater and yet crime was much less. Never mentioned: total crime may have fallen but violent crime has steeply increased. Never remotely considered: welfare causes crime and perpetuates poverty.
I’m not saying that this particular programme or any particular programme is obliged to go by my assumptions. But let’s put it this way: “If… things don’t get any better” is the first of a series of similar docu-dramas. It will be interesting to see if any of them look at things from outside the BBC worldview.
of “professional journalists” you might be interested to visit the website of one Greg Palast, producer of documentaries for the BBC. Don’t fail to notice the fair, evenhanded approach Mr Palast takes. No axes to grind here, I’m sure. Tomorrow the BBC will broadcast the latest version of its ‘Bush lied’ mantra on Newsnight, a production Greg Palast unabashedly flogs on his site. Feel free to visit PowerLine too, to have their take on continuing BBC decline.
. Again, an item from NormBlog about an amazing exchange between Peter Hain and John Humphreys on the Today programme (audio file). Humphreys seems more like Jorge Haider, less like a professional journalist.
Norm Geras doesn’t want you to miss the results of this poll commissioned by several news orgs including the Beeb and America’s ABC News. Let’s hope the Beeb editors can resist the urge to bury this one.
. In what looks like a hopeful development, the BBC reports that Kano State is now going to vaccinate, but using Asian-made vaccines – the idea being that Asian vaccines are safe from CIA and Mossad contaminants. This sounds like a face-saver to me, but sheesh, whatever works. Since it is now the case as the story says that “half of the world’s new polio cases originate in northern Nigeria” anything that puts the lid on the epidemic is good.
I’m still deeply disappointed by the fact that the BBC still has up the conspiracy-mongering story I posted about here. I found out something new about that story today, hence this post. When I did a search for “polio” I got this page. At the moment the relevant story is second entry down. Look at the describer line below the heading. It says: Kano state governor gains fame among Muslims for his firm stand against the polio vaccine.
That makes the governor’s policy against vaccination sound brave and admirable, particularly to a Muslim audience. Even the word “stand” subtly points the reader into seeing the issue as one where Muslim pride is at stake.
The BBC’s audience in Africa is large. There is no doubt that Africans do, just as the BBC claims they do, turn to the BBC for an impartial voice. And this is what they got. It can be fairly certain that the fact that the BBC gave some credence to the vaccine conspiracy theory has, in giving the supporters of Governor Shekarau the opportunity to say, “look, even the BBC thinks there might be something in it”, prolonged the vaccine boycott and crippled and killed some Nigerian children.
