It was interesting, I thought, to listen to Helen Boaden’s comments in response to the comments of Robin Aitken and others on the Talking Politics show highlighted by Andrew below. Boaden’s comment about impartiality not being a “state of grace” I thought especially revealing. I mightn’t actually have to think too hard to think of a few apples which the BBC ought not to bite, or commandments they shouldn’t break. … 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
was on the subject of BBC impartiality, or rather partiality. The programme features notable contributions from two recent critics of the BBC’s partiality, Robin Aitken, author of Can We Trust The BBC?, Anthony Jay co-creator of Yes Minister, and author of Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer (PDF) published by the Centre for Policy Studies. The programme also features contributions from Professor Adrian MonckDepartment of Journalism and Publishing at City … Continue reading
, published in The Spectator, is about Alan Johnston, a BBC reporter who was kidnapped in Gaza until released, with the aid of Hamas, or so the media, including the BBC, have portrayed events. Phillips outlines the web of interconnected groups. factions and individuals surrounding the kidnap of Johnston, pointing out: But since Johnston was so close to Hamas it is naive to think that Dagmoush would have kidnapped him … Continue reading
as an ‘execution’, longtime Biased BBC reader Dave T pointed out that this (ab)use of the word ‘execute’ is contrary to the BBC’s own BBC News Styleguide (PDF), where, if Robin turns to page 69, Troublesome words, he will find: Execute means to put to death after a legal process.Terrorists or criminals do not execute people, theymurder them. I’ve yet to hear from Robin or any other Beeboid in defence … Continue reading
In ten days time we will remember the partition of the subcontinent into Pakistan and India 60 years ago, followed later by the [later] breakaway of Bangladesh. To mark this there are several programmes on radio and TV. I declare an interest – I was in army intelligence in Bombay in the days leading up to the end of the Raj – I left on the Georgic, the last ship … Continue reading
, near the end, Jeremy Paxman announced: Well, that’s all from Newsnight tonight. Before we go, a correction to our markets, the Dow Jones was actually, aw, this is bad, up this evening, not down as we reported. How do we manage to get it so wrong so frequently on the markets? Well, I don’t know Jeremy, but I could hazard a guess or three! Then: It was the 100th … Continue reading
by Nick Higham about an ITV documentary about the death of terminally-ill Malcolm Pointon. Here’s a transcript of Nick Higham’s report: An ITV press statement implied the end of the film showed the point of Malcolm’s death. Newspaper coverage reflected that, so did interviews with Malcolm’s widow. One of those interviews, on Radio 4’s Today programme, prompted this email from a listener: We then cut to a mock up of … Continue reading
of twenty-three South Koreans, with reporter Robin Denselow opening with: Close-up footage of dumped body (that wouldn’t be shown in this detail if the victim was British): “Another death in Afghanistan. The body a South Korean information technology worker who’d volunteered to join a Christian church group hoping to be involved in missionary and aid work was discovered yesterday morning. Cut to Al-Jazeera film of frightened kidnap victims: He was … Continue reading
Five years of monitoring, recording and publicising the biases, inaccuracies, omissions, foibles, stupidity, waste and arrogance of the BBC, and, just occasionally, some of the BBC’s good points too. There have been more than 2,100 blog posts from the Biased BBC team, over 83,000 comments from our readers, more than 350,000 views of our Youtube clips and nearly 2,000,000 visits to Biased BBC – not bad for a small team … Continue reading
