by Justin Webb concerns the history of that curious American institution, the filibuster. Mention is made of Jimmy Stewart’s moving performance in Mr Smith goes to Washington. Mr Webb records with an indulgent smile the 87-year old Senator Robert Byrd (Democratic – West Virginia) reminiscing on the art of the filibuster: “And so when I filibustered 14 hours and 13 minutes in 1964 I never got off the germaneness of … Continue reading →

It was only a couple of days ago, and it was a story about Africa- but the UN’s renewed choice of Zimbabwe to sit on their human rights commission cannot be found in the Beeb’s Africa section. In fact it is difficult to find anywhere- and the relevant article is filed as an ‘Americas’ news item. Bizarre. It is considered an ‘Americas’ story because the US has been one of … Continue reading →

has come out today. The press release and quick summary is here. The full report is here. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

The Daily Propaganda has analysed that election logo in detail. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Well, didn’t the BBC do a good job of selecting a representative audience of normal citizens to ask questions of Blair, Howard and Kennedy? And there I was thinking that the audience would be full of the BBC’s usual partisan, grimly self-righteous, ranting loons, shaking with rage and shouting out abuse. How wrong could I have been? And didn’t that man with the funny-coloured (NHS?) teeth who was in charge … Continue reading →

Slugger O’Toole notes that the BBC World Service describe the Ulster Unionists as ‘loyalist’ and the Democratic Unionists as ‘hardline loyalist’. The SDLP are ‘moderate nationalist’. Then there’s ‘republican Sinn Fein’. Good to see that the BBC know who the real hardliners are. A year ago the Today programme was describing the ‘gulf between republicans and unionist hard-liners’. By republicans they meant, of course, Sinn Fein/IRA. Click through to read … Continue reading →

I am rebuilding from memory an email I accidentally deleted. It doesn’t matter that I can’t remember the author’s name as he did not want it used. He pointed out this entry from the ‘Election Monitor’, the BBC’s campaign weblog: PM Tips By Mark Mardell Chief Political Correspondent POSTED: Thursday 21 April, 1610BST A tip from a colleague for getting rid of Labour canvassers. Just tell them: “I will give … Continue reading →

I’m afraid I might not have time to post for the rest of the week. So any emails you send me pointing out examples of BBC bias might be even slower than usual to appear. I have a bleg. I would like to be able to do screenshots on this blog. I know how to do a screenshot on Windows XP: press CTRL + PRT SCR or ALT + PRT … Continue reading →

The EU Serf writes: An important way to understand what someone thinks is the way in which they use certain words. The BBC’s insistence on words like Militant is the best known example. Yesterday evening on the BBC World News bulletin at 18:00 GMT I came across another misuse of phrase which surprised me even for the BBC. Yesterday Bulgaria and Romania signed EU accession treaties. The story was about … Continue reading →

for publishing these voices from Iraq. (Hat tip: Rob Read.) Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.