The BBC discovers ‘positive Iraq news’

only to come up empty-handed once more. Yes, friends, the BBC has a story about Iraq the Model, a pro-western blog by Iraqis (and sometimes linked on B-BBC of all strange things). Now, however, such hopeful news is clouded by this ‘revelation.’ (Hmm, the Beeb must read the New York Times once in a while.) The fight has raised the issue of identity and misrepresentation in weblogs, where often it … Continue reading

In a world of its own.

In the parallel universe inhabited by Beebazoids this panel might seem like a representative, even right of centre, assortment of opinion regarding the next four Bush years. Having selected eight panelists, all the Beeb can muster is two solid Bush supporters and a semi-supportive one. The remaining five might consider Michael Moore a bit too mushy. Alice in Wonderland makes better sense. The BBC must still be trying to come … Continue reading

The Cold Shoulder

. The Diplomad is, well, kind of mad at the BBC. The EURef. is too. Both have recent excellent blog posts on the matter of the BBC, and in EUref’s case some interesting serious observations. The Diplomad is plotting its revenge for the BBC’s ‘balance’ in not covering the tsunami relief effort the way it is, but how they’d like it to be (amongst other items of complaint): ‘OK, so … Continue reading

Miserable Conservative Traitor becomes happy shiny New Labour MP

– at least that’s what you’d think from comparing the two BBC pictures of Robert Jackson on BBC Views Online. Jackson the traitor is happy and smiling, whilst Jackson the Conservative is as glum as can be. And yet if you look at the two pictures they were obviously taken at the same time as part of the same set – the clothing and lighting are identical in both. So … Continue reading

Quote of the Day

: ‘We are up against a large, self-satisfied and introspective culture.’ -Lord Pearson of Rannoch Indeed, despite some of the movements since Hutton. It’s not just about bias, it’s about blind assumption and pure ignorance at times, which amounts to much the same thing. Lord Pearson goes on to say that ‘Their main problem is that they and their researchers know very little about the detail of our relationship with … Continue reading

Balance

. Got to have balance, haven’t we? Six to one and half a dozen of the other, tit for tat, a fair crack of the whip, everyone’s human etc. That’s maybe why the Beeb put two reports out with apparent simultaneity showing the US as critic (of Iran) and the US as criticised (by Human Rights Watch). Now for the differences. The headlines are written in such a way that … Continue reading

It’s deja vu all over again.

The Rathergate report [pdf] must have been a shade touchy for some loyal BBC scribe to report. Replacing a name here, a circumstance there could easily conjure images the Beeb would prefer to forget. It’s a bit ironic to read the following: The internal investigation received widespread coverage in the US media, which has been battered by a series of media scandals in the last two years at such major … Continue reading

In China’s disastrous Great Leap Forward

the communist authorities ordered the construction of millions of backyard iron furnaces to forward the revolution. Nearly all this vast effort was useless. You can’t make industrial-quality iron from mud-brick furnaces. I thought of this when I read in Christopher Booker an item (scroll down) about Another ludicrous example of how the BBC now pushes its own cock-eyed agenda was an item on Radio 4’s You and Yours last week … Continue reading

Three links worth following from the Blithering Bunny

Do more people read the blogs than watch BBC Digital? Speaks for itself. Second comes a wee snippet about the Kirsty Wark affair which in turn links to this post from Freedom & Whisky. (Some of our US readers, or indeed some of our English readers, may not have been following Warkgate. You should. It’s something like Celebrity Big Brother for the Scottish ruling elite. Check out Ed Thomas’s recent … Continue reading

Avi Linden

writes: Just have a look at this. The Hizbollah attacks an Israeli army vehicle in Israel, Israel shoots back and the headline is “Israel mounts south Lebanon raid.” Not “Hizbollah attack Israeli army vehicle” or anything similar. Bloody Trots. UPDATE: That was the headline when I wrote the post. Now it’s different. David B comments: “Looks like they changed it to “clashes erupt on Lebanon border”. Let’s blame both sides … Continue reading