BBC Views Online’s front page just now links to Women resist ‘honour’ marriages

, a story about violence and threats of violence against the family of five female cousins, now aged 14 to 22, who were ordered nine years ago by ‘village elders’ to be married to the boys of another family in settlement of a dispute. Whilst BBC Views Online goes into some detail about the tragic circumstances of these unfortunate girls (sadly not uncommon in their part of the world) and … Continue reading

Whilst watching BBC News 24 at 1.20am

, presenter Deborah Mackenzie introduced a report on Her Majesty’s trip to Malta with: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth… What a damn cheek! Almost everyone in the UK refers to Her Majesty as ‘The Queen’, but no, not the other worldly BBC News 24, even though it’s the BBC’s domestic 24 hour rolling news channel, targetted at and paid for by the BBC’s UK telly-taxpayers (as distinct from BBC World, or for … Continue reading

Roundup:

Adloyada has an important post on what she has said in comments to the BBC’s Israel/Palestine impartiality review. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow. One of the BBC pages she cites is this page of statistics about the Intifada. As Adloyada observes, the BBC breaks down the statistics of Israelis killed by Palestinians into civilian and military but all the Palestinians killed by Israelis are placed in one large group. … Continue reading

Scott Burgess reports on the £60,000 Tracey Emin sculpture

that BBC licence-payers have just coughed up for, and the BBC’s attempts, reported in the Sunday Times, to justify the expenditure: The BBC was embarrassed last night by e-mails that showed it “invented” a justification for spending £60,000 of licence payers’ money commissioning a Tracey Emin sculpture. Emin’s Roman Standard sculpture of a bird on a post was bought by the BBC at a time when Mark Thompson, its director-general, … Continue reading

Yesterday evening’s horrific events in Bradford

reminded me of the murder in Birmingham last year of the last police officer to die on duty in the UK. Alone among news organisations, the BBC’s pathetic choice of lead story that night was the appointment of Mark Thompson as the BBC’s Director General. Tossers. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

It’s compare and contrast time again.

Yesterday’s edition of The Times reports that London bomb victim lied about rape history. Garri Holness, who lost part of a leg in the July 7th Islamist terror attacks in London, formerly known as Gary Linton, is revealed as a convicted rapist, guilty, along with six others, of a brutally violent gang sex attack on two sixteen year old schoolgirls in 1985.     Downing Street: What about the victims … Continue reading

Under the rather bland headline Ex-police authority head charged

, BBC News Online reports that: Former Humberside Police Authority chairman Colin Inglis has been charged with 14 counts of indecent assault in relation to allegations of child abuse. News Online goes on to say: Following the launch of the North Yorkshire Police investigation last September Mr Inglis was suspended from the police authority and the Labour Party. He was replaced as leader of Hull City Council in May this … Continue reading

The Beeb’s struggle for some moral values

continues with John Simpson’s thesis that the Jordanian bombing proves the Iraq war was wrong!!, and with this pictureof a suicide-dressed kiddy above a caption which says: ‘Palestinian children learn at a young age about the struggle for freedom. To some, the Palestinian martyrs are heroes. Here a child poses for a photograph at a rally organised by militants.’ This from a series about the making of a film about … Continue reading

I may not have time to blog much or deal with emails in the next few days

. But I must make time to draw your attention to the BBC’s Israeli-Palestian impartiality review. the Panel invites written submissions from any individual who would like to comment on the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and will take account of these contributions as part of its process. You can write to the following address: Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review BBC Governance UnitRoom 211, 35 Marylebone High StreetLondon, W1U 4AA Or … Continue reading

Oops !

This is not an example of bias. But the BBC do like to display their multicultural virtues and awareness of diverse faiths. So this cricket report is rather unfortunate. “Flintoff capitalised two overs later, with a delivery typical of former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis, utilising reverse-swing to beat new batsman Mohammad Yousuf.” New batsman, eh ? Most people would think 59 Tests, over 4,000 runs and 13 centuries made Mohammad … Continue reading