First off, please note I’m off on my hols. So don’t write to me for the next two weeks. I hope my colleagues will keep posting; but if they, too, are busy on other aspects of their lives I expect the world will carry on somehow. Matt comments: All of the way through the US Lobbyist scandal BBC Online have been presenting the matter as if it were only Republicans … Continue reading
There is more coverage of the BBCs Religion and Ethics webpage (as mentioned in Will Wyatt’s letter and Andrew’s related post below) at the Telegraph and Eursoc. Here are the relevant web pages for the Prophet and the Prince of Peace. Make up your own minds. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.
I thought I’d create a special post to recognise something from the BBC website which is very interesting. Paul Reynolds has taken, in his opinion articles, to updating by means of clearly bracketed insertions into the main text. Further from stealth editing it would not be possible to get. This latest piece is currently featuring alongside the BBC’s top story, the cartoon controversy. I’m interested to know what people think … Continue reading
Chief Executive of BBC Broadcast from 1996 to 1999: Double standards in dealing with Islam Sir, I applaud the BBC’s news treatment of the Danish cartoons (report, Feb 4). On its website, however, the cultural cringe is evident and double standards obtain. In its history of Islam we read: “One night in 610 he (Muhammad) was meditating in a cave on the mountain when he was visited by the angel … Continue reading
John Simpson is asking the question that needs to be asked: how did the cartoon controversy develop into the cartoon war? Simpson asks the question of how the Danish cartoons published on 30th Sept. 05 came to be so inflammatory in Feb 06. He claims to have the answer when he says that Egypt’s Foreign Minister was leading a campaign ‘As early as November’. Well, that is so, but as … Continue reading
Someone could try telling Magdi Abdelhadi of the BBC. Abdelhadi has an opinion piece in which he attributes the cartoon situation to three factors: ‘1)the rise of violent political Islam 2)America’s war on terror 3)modern transnational media.’ So it’s one part bad muslims, one part bad America, and one part neutral (I suppose). Well, curious. I thought that ‘America’s’ war on terror was contingent on a certain act of Islamic … Continue reading
Do we believe this? I don’t. This page entitled “Should ‘anti-Islam’ cartoons have been published?” is an edited roundup of opinions sent in by readers of the BBC website. This is the style that the BBC used to have for all its Have Your Say pages until the organisation rather creditably changed to a lightly moderated forum style last year, in which posts can either be read in the order … Continue reading
Stephen Pollard takes issue with a Michael Buchanan piece – which has since been stealth-edited. As for the idea that, All the Danes can do now is hope the repeated apologies for the offence caused, by both the government and the newspaper, will end this unseemly row, has a sentence more indicative of the BBC world view ever been written? Take a running jump, Mr Buchanan. So much for the … Continue reading
A reader writes: Just wanted to point out how quickly the story of the storming of the EU offices was taken down from the Beeb’s Middle East section on the News website. It was first merely squeezed into the other stories list and then in the blink of an eye removed from the page altogether. In contrast, a story such as ‘One killed in Israeli air strike’ was first entered … Continue reading
but they are chary of showing even a picture of the cartoons in a newspaper. At Harry’s Place a commenter notes that BBC television news showed the cover and inside pages of France Soir newspaper (where various cartoons of Mohammed are reproduced) but did so in a ludicrous, semi-blacked out style thereby preventing viewers seeing what the fuss is about. Treating satirical cartoons as if they were pornography is disgraceful. … Continue reading
