But yesterday’s Today programme interview with Sheik Yosif al-Nasari, who told us, unchallenged by James Naughtie, how American Special Forces had sealed off the Samarra mosque before blowing it up, doesn’t seem to be available on Thursday’s ‘Listen Again’ page. Those of you who like their anti-Americanism untainted by reality can still listen to Wednesday night’s arts review Front Row, where Syriana director Stephen Gaghan states that George Bush has … Continue reading →

A feature of the Today programme is the succession of Americans from the arts world who invited to tell us just how much they dislike George Bush. Today we were treated to this ‘Today’ interview (RealAudio) with veteran American director Robert Altman, in which he was invited to hold forth at length on American politics (‘the wrong war, wrong time, wrong leader’). (One tiny note of reality intrudes, where interviewer … Continue reading →

that got the feminists at Harvard so angry? Was it “Lawrence Summers lost the first vote in March last year after suggesting women had less “intrinsic aptitude” than men for science.”? That’s how this BBC report described what he said. Butterflies and Wheels is scathing about that over-simplification. (Via comments to this post at Crooked Timber) Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

How many times does a BBC writer laugh at a piece of satire in the Wall Street Journal? Three times. Once when he reads it, once when it is explained to him and once when he understands it. This post from the American Expatriate will make you smile. And if you want to hear the audio of the “torture in Gitmo is established fact” issue of Any Questions, it was … Continue reading →

Hat tip to Ritter, who spotted this story: French ‘anti-Jew gang chief’ held I don’t take any pleasure in repeating the same stuff again and again. Trouble is the BBC keeps doing the same stuff again and again and I sort of feel obliged. So I’ll just repeat words from my earlier post as often as need be. If the religion of the victim is relevant to understanding the crime, … Continue reading →

B-BBC commenter Eamonn was in amusing form over today’s Today: The Today team (pbut) is in fine form this morning. James Naughtie (pbuh) gives an Iraqi henchman of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr a few minutes of prime time (around 7.15am) to peddle the most ridiculous conspiracy theory i.e. the CIA planted the bombs in the mosque. Rather than dismissing this (as he would any statement made by a law … Continue reading →

compares BBC treatment of Muslim-on-Christian violence in Nigeria to that of Christian-on-Muslim violence. He has screenshots. (Max in comments here spotted the same thing.) Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous wrote the following email. I lost it for a bit, and seem to be unable to cut and paste the internal links he provided to the R4 programmes, although I can play them myself. Never mind. You go find them yourselves. Here’s the email: Today (Feb 18th) I’ve witnessed one of the grossest examples of the BBC’s anti-American agitprop (or rather, anti-American-when-there’s-a-Republican-in-the-White-House agitprop). … Continue reading →

I think it was on yesterday’s 8 am radio news that I heard the rioters captured and beaten by the British Army two years ago described as ‘demonstrators’, with its comforting overtones of placards, badges and cries of ‘What Do We Want ?”. Blogger Squander Two noticed it too. He thinks the ‘demonstrators’ were the ‘demonstrators’ described in this BBC report. That is not to justify the beatings. Were BBC … Continue reading →

of Ilan Halimi in France has been reported by the BBC here. In fairness to the BBC, I must point out that my colleague Laban was mistaken in thinking this murder had not been reported as of yesterday. A search for “Halimi” would not have found the earlier report that the BBC did make (on 17 February), as only the first name of the victim was mentioned at that time. … Continue reading →