Compare and Contrast

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

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

Compare & contrast:

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

Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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

Media bias is in the eye of the beholder

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

Rather Unfortunate, That

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

Barney Jones, editor of The Andrew Marr Show responds

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

Your BBC tellytax pounds in action:

at the end of Stephen Fry’s second HIV & Me programme on Tuesday viewers were directed to a new BBC website, G.I. Jonny (caution: not safe for work or children), “a viral information campaign produced by the BBC to raise awareness about HIV in the UK”, aimed at 16-24 year olds, running from October 1st until World AIDS day on December 1st 2007. Advising people about the risks of HIV … Continue reading

Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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

The BBC is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Radio 4’s revolutionary Toady programme

. A previously unseen document found in a skip outside Narrowcasting House gives a unique insight into the years of dedicated training that have gone in to producing some of the Corporation’s brightest stars.   Comrades Jim & John: well known Radio 4 Toady presenters An excerpt from the full Handbook of the BBC’s Young Pioneers: “After years of training, John and Jim are finally allowed to run Toady – … Continue reading