: Now, let’s see… violent politicised Islamists are out to kidnap and kill a soldier from what they see as an occupying army… So if it was Hamas or Islamic Jihad out to get an Israeli soldier, we could rely on the BBC to refer to “militants” “seizing” a soldier. For example, way back last July we had:       Cpl Gilad Shalit was seized by Palestinian militants       in an attack on … Continue reading →

writes Jason Deans in yesterday’s MediaGrauniad, reporting on an article by Jeremy Paxman in the BBC’s internal magazine Ariel (known satirically inside and outside the Corporation as Pravda!). Some excerpts: Jeremy Paxman has accused the BBC of hypocrisy over climate change, saying it takes a “high moral tone” in its reporting of the issue while at the same time pursuing environmentally irresponsible policies… “I have neither the learning nor the … Continue reading →

Ben Brown, BBC News 24 headlines at 9pm: “Nine men are in custody in connection with an alleged plot to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and film his execution” Note to all BBC journalists (and some at Sky News too): ‘Execution’ implies a legal or judicially sanctioned killing. You cannot be charged with conspiracy to ‘execute’ someone. These people are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to murder (along with … Continue reading →

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. 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 … Continue reading →

A BBC report headed Iraq blasts kill Ashura pilgrims contains this sentence: Ashura, the most important Shia festival, has witnessed serious sectarian violence since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. That, alas, is true. But the BBC should have made clear (as it did in the report from 2004 I am about to link to) that the reason for the relative absence of of bombings of Shia pilgrims at Ashura … Continue reading →

The BBC banned then unbanned one of its message board threads discussing Little Green Footballs. There is a detailed post discussing the affair at Augean Stables: On the Politics of Silence. The latter post led me to this post from Daniel Pipes’ blog, mentioned by Laban here, in which he said how odd it was that his recent debate with the mayor of our capital city, Ken Livingstone, in front … Continue reading →

, I couldn’t help but notice how this BBC Views Online story, Three dead in Israel suicide bomb, about the tragic murder yesterday of three people in Eilat, had this paragraph tagged on to the end of it: The last suicide attack was at a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing 10 people. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in that time, mainly in the Gaza Strip. The first … Continue reading →

Nigel Farndale in the Telegraph takes issue with the BBC’s Diversity Tsar. Sooner or later she was bound to feel the need to justify her salary. So, just six months into the job, she has made a pronouncement. It is about the BBC’s coverage of Saddam’s execution. When BBC reporters expressed horror at the manner of it they were being “culturally insensitive” she says, because doing so imposed Western values … Continue reading →

The reason is the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel’s military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government which are destroying Palestinian institutions that were anyway flawed and fragile. The “death of hope”, eh? Sounds pretty comprehensive to me. I thought about the leaked email from Jeremy Bowen when I made comparison between this November 2006 BBC … Continue reading →

from Saturday’s Daily Mail: The BBC faced more claims of New Labour bias Friday night after giving prominence to Downing Street’s instant denial over the latest twist in the cash-for-honours scandal. Rival ITV News led its 6.30pm bulletin on Thursday with allegations that police had found deleted e-mails on a second computer system linked to the probe. The Mail was also working on making the story its front-page splash Friday. … Continue reading →