(aka Amnesty and HRW) It was a while back that I read the Human Rights Watch report on the war between Israel and Hezbullah. I realised then that there was quite a bizarre section which claimed that on the one hand Hezbullah had used settlements for rocket launch pads, while on the other that they hadn’t used “human shields”. Just how wrapped in humanity one has to be to have … Continue reading →

My colleague Andrew recently highlighted a case where the Beeb re-wrote a company’s press release and called it news. He felt, he said, a Mandy Rice-Davies moment coming on. Here’s another instance where Mandy’s wisdom should be heard. NHS Blog Doctor pointed out this BBC story. Nearly 80% of 500 doctors polled by the medical taskforce Act Against Allergy thought their colleagues confused milk allergy symptoms with other conditions. Experts … 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 →

Cunningtitle wonders if an article about David Cameron has been deliberately buried. My experience of the BBC search system suggests chaos rather than conspiracy, but you be the judge. A lot of media outlets, the BBC pre-eminent among them, siezed on Tony Blair’s “It has, but…” as an admission that Iraq had been a disaster. Powerline calls it “wishful thinking” in the link. I’d call it gaffe-mining. My impression was … Continue reading →

Quentin Langley has been counting mentions of “left wing” and “right wing” on the BBC. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

A link-rich article by Peter Glover in American Thinker was recommended by Ritter and Kulibar Tree. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

– so Richard Lovelace wrote to his love Althea while imprisoned by the Roundheads during the Civil War. Apparently the BBC thinks that Lovelace’s philosophy is also an appropriate attitude for fallen women imprisoned in an Iranian House of Compassion. Although the story does make clear that the inmates are imprisoned, it is referred to as a “shelter”. Commenter “pounce” examines the BBC story: They include runaways, drug addicts and … 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 →

According to the The Register, an irreverent but generally respected technology news site, there’s been a bit of a punch up on the BBC Radio 4 message boards. Apparently: “Only messageboard hosts will start new threads”. Oh dear. Cue indignation, to which the Beeb replied: “We believe these changes will allow the Today programme to better reflect the thoughts and opinions of its listeners, making it more relevant to its … Continue reading →

Putting on my hat marked Lazy BBC (since there isn’t such a blog), here’s a great example of BBC Views Online lazily re-publishing corporate puff dressed up as news: Websites face four-second cut-off Shoppers are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than four seconds to load, a survey suggests. The research by Akamai revealed users’ dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up. It found … Continue reading →