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 →

about the trial over the awful murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford. Today’s proceedings have centered on Yusuf Jamma, described by the BBC in each instance as being ‘from Birmingham’. Er, no. Birmingham might be where he was arrested, but he’s from Somalia, the same Somalia that was his apparent reason for being given refuge in our country, and the same Somalia to which his brother, Mustaf Jama, is … Continue reading →

, according to a startling article by Stewart Payne in today’s Daily Telegraph: …a leaked memo revealed that phone-in presenters on a local radio station have been barred from allowing callers who sound old on air. Mia Costello, managing editor of BBC Radio Solent, told her broadcasters: “I don’t want to hear really elderly voices.” She instructed presenters to appeal to an imaginary couple she called “Dave and Sue”, who … 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. UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Come … Continue reading →

has said that the BBC is afraid to criticise Islam. Discuss. Andrew adds: The Telegraph article was based on an interview by Sarah Sands in the Daily Mail, Archbishop blames ‘chattering classes’ for collapse of Britain’s spiritual life, also well worth a read. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

via DFH in the comments, Raymond Snoddy (‘until this week not one word on national TV bulletins‘) interviews Peter Horrocks (Realplayer video), head of TV news, on the Kriss Donald coverage. They’ve had 200 complaints about the lack thereof. But then ‘the British National Party has encouraged its members to write in‘, as Mr Horrocks points out. He struggles gamely with a few straw men of his own devising (I … Continue reading →

(Apologies for linking to many of my own blog’s postings, but I have been following this story since it first broke). Last Wednesday saw what I believe was a first for BBC news. A racist murder featured as the main story on the PM Radio Four five o’clock bulletin. The same murder featured in subsequent bulletins and was the top story on the BBC UK News website the same afternoon. … 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 →

Government manipulation of the Beeb in Northern Ireland? Slugger O’Toole reports on a case of “vigorous counter-briefing of the BBC from a very senior government figure.” I was hacked off that this article on the red poppy/white poppy controversy describes Ekklesia as merely “a Christian lobby group”. That may be why some of the comments in the associated Have Your Say slag off “the Christians” or “the Church” for sticking … Continue reading →

Mourning the loss of impartiality on the BBC Like John Simpson, who this week leapt to the defence of BBC “impartiality”, I began my near 40-year broadcast career in BBC TV news. It was impartial then; it certainly isn’t now. I have seen my own visual material presented in an entirely different timeline, totally distorting the actual event that I witnessed, and at no time did the intellectually lazy journalists … Continue reading →