Stranger than Fiction

: never let it be set that the BBC headlines all news from Iraq negatively. Yesterday’s CEEFAX headline Baghdad morgue dead rise again suggested very positive if extremely surprising news from that quarter. Sadly, the article made it plain that only this month’s count had risen, not the dead themselves, so that morgue staff were ‘worried about their ability to cope’, making it a very unsurprising minor example of the … Continue reading

En Passant …

At the Social Affairs Unit blog William D. Rubinstein, Professor of Modern History at Aberystwyth, mentions the appointment by Australia’s Howard administration of a ‘revisionist’ historian, Keith Windschuttle, to the board of the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Commission. “Alas, no Tory Prime Minister here has ever had the nerve or intelligence to make similar appointments to the Board of the BBC, which continues to be a free-to-air version of the Guardian.” … Continue reading

Fauxtography courses available on the web!

–brought to you by the Dan Rather Institute in Old Media Studies. Following up on Ed’s post below, YNetnews, an Israeli site, takes the BBC to task on its imbalanced, disproportionate coverage of the war between the IDF and Hezbollah. With the Beeb, it’s a glaring example. A BBC photo display entitled “In pictures: Conflict impact,” made up of eight images, uses six out of eight pictures to illustrate damages … Continue reading

Strange ….

Yesterday’s Radio Four and Five news bulletins featured the story of a prolific burglar, one Gavin Gibson, who was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to seven counts of burglary and asking for a further 420 offences to be taken into consideration. The recorder stated that the unusual leniency of the sentence was a reward for ‘the unprecedented help given to police following his arrest’. By amazing chance the … Continue reading

New words for old.

First it was “militant”. The BBC used to use that term to describe far-left figures like Derek Hatton – not an admirable man, in my opinion, but someone who worked within the political process. Now it means terrorist. Then it was “activist”, which brings to mind images of earnest, sandal-wearing young folk seeking signatures for a Greenpeace petition. Now it also means terrorist. Does the BBC really think that using … Continue reading

Typical.

A reader writes: It’s visceral! Paul Mason, a generally excellent reporter, let his prejudices show last night [Monday] on Newsnight. Surveying the fall in ITV’s popularity, he speculated that changes in viewing patterns had been triggered by changes in the British family. He stated categorically: “And there is no longer any typical British family”. Well many at the BBC might want to see the end of the traditional family and … Continue reading

Something new every day

Bias oozes from the Beeb. Or maybe B-BBC commenters are just brilliant at noticing. However, I have a couple of items I think from other blogs (including dear old DFH) which must have an airing here. Here’s the rigorous Richard North’s observations about the self-satisfied John Simpson’s easy going attitude to body-armour (one could extend this observation, but one would look uncharitable): “had he been in Kiryat Shmona during a … Continue reading

Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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

Small world.

Yesterday I made a brief post at Samizdata to highlight a post from Drinking From Home concerning two pictures of a woman lamenting the destruction of her home by the Israelis. The pictures have different dates, and show different homes, but are pretty obviously same woman. What do I find when glancing at DFH this morning? That one of the pictures turns up on the BBC. And that was spotted … Continue reading