Although I really hate to say this on the week that the BBC bosses will announce job losses in news and current affairs (why don’t they merge BBC3 and BBC4 instead of cutting the very heart of what the BBC should be about?), there was yet another example of massive over-staffing today. When Chris Huhne launched his Lib Dem leadership bid, our cameraman took the trouble to count the number … Continue reading →

– the usual mush of dumbed down right-on BBC output. Highlights included, in no particular order: a report on the appearance of Northern Rock executives before parliament, including mention of criticism of the BBC for their part in precipitating the run on the bank, followed by a fairly lengthy studio discussion with Robert Peston justifying the BBC’s role. Naturally enough, this was countered by someone with an opposing view, er, … Continue reading →

From the BBC News Search engine (which has lost a lot of functionality in the last couple of months. Gone is the ability to search by date range or by news area. It didn’t always work properly, but the current search is pretty minimalistic) – Eid has just passed, Navratri is still with us, so compare : Your 7 pages for Lent. Your 23 pages for Ramadan. Your 1 page … Continue reading →

Catching up on some summer posts that I didn’t quite finish at the time, there was an interesting article in Private Eye no. 1191, 17-30 Aug. 2007, giving “the full story of Channel 4, the CPS and the lies told by West Midlands Police” about the recent to-do over Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque programme broadcast in January. Although Undercover Mosque was a Channel 4 programme it is pertinent to Biased … Continue reading →

courtesy of Youtube, here are excerpts from last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News and Sky News at Ten programmes, their respective headlines and their coverage of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the UN climate change panel:   BBC Ten O’Clock News headlines, followed by Al Gore, lead story. Sky News at Ten headlines, cutting to Al Gore, the third story. Unfortunately I don’t … Continue reading →

Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts. Click through to read and contribute comments on this … Continue reading →

according to Guardian blogger and media commentator Roy Greenslade, blogging about a new broadcast monitoring service called Newswatch that: has emerged from a research body founded in 1999 that famously carried out an analysis of the BBC’s coverage of the European Union and found it unduly biased in favour of the EU. …and undertakes to: use a range of robust analytical tools to study the British broadcast media. Our methodology … Continue reading →

In the days before 7/7, when the BBC were still worrying about a post-9/11 backlash, someone had the idea of a programme depicting ordinary Muslims coping with other people’s prejudices. “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic“, went out on 12th June 2005, to mixed reaction. What must the odds be against the footage inadvertantly including alleged British jihadists? Mohammed Hamid, 50, who called himself “Osama bin London” and ran a religious book … Continue reading →

on the BBC Editors Blog to recent criticism here and elsewhere of Andrew Marr’s “the election is off” interview of Gordon Brown last Saturday. What Barney labels the ‘fourth charge’, that Marr and the BBC were used by Brown and co. as part of their spin operation, comes closest to my own view, that Marr and the BBC were used by the Brownies as the least painful (as distinct from … Continue reading →