A Grieving widow has been hit with a £180 fine after her dead husband was summoned to court. Maureen Davies was stunned to be told her husband had been hit with the fine for failing to appear in court – despite the fact he died five months ago…. Following a six-week stay in hospital, the 47-year-old returned home to find that Swansea magistrates had fined husband Leonard, even though he … Continue reading →

Today, Jon Craig, late of the BBC, asks How many BBC men…? On the day the BBC announced cuts and job losses, even the Prime Minister’s mild-mannered and quietly-spoken press spokesman, Mike Ellam, couldn’t resist a little dig at the number of the corporation’s senior correspondents attending the EU summit in Lisbon. At a briefing about Gordon Brown’s so-called “red lines” in the controversial new EU treaty, Mr Ellam was … Continue reading →

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about proposed BBC budget savings, including a filmed report by Liz McKean, Paxman interviewing Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust and the best bit, a studio discussion with Stuart Murphy, former Controller of BBC3, Jeff Randall, former BBC Business Editor and Paxman. Liz McKean’s package started off informing us that “[The BBC is] having to do so with less, £2 billion pounds less of the public’s money”, then … Continue reading →

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 →