So, you wanna have your say?

If you are like Lawrence, the bloke who ventures to utter a valid criticism at BBC news coverage, be warned. The drones in the ‘editing’ cubicles are just waiting to ‘balance’ it for you. They’ve got their Jack Thomases at the ready. The media give undue prominence to such actions. And because of that the militants and terrorists take the actions to exploit the media coverage. Would they be doing … Continue reading

The moor has done his duty, the moor may go

: Natalie Solent has already posted below about the BBC’s characterisation of one of its old-time greats, the late Alistair Cooke, as having ‘particular dislike of the shallow flag-waving of the Reagan presidency’. Let me add my testimony. For several years, from the very end of the seventies though the early eighties, my Sunday schedule let me hear Cooke’s ‘Letter from America’ week after week. Unlike the obituarist, so cocksure … Continue reading

The Daily Ablution

asks whether old B-BBC fave Michael Rosen (“the real world isn’t that simple unless you’re George Bush”) and Marie-Noelle Lamy of the Open University are playing out of their league in sneering at Pres. Bush academically. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

You know

how the Radio 4 news starts with a summary and then goes on to cover the same stories in more detail? Well, in today’s 1 o’clock news the summary said that a fax had been sent to a newspaper by the Abu Nayaf al-Afghani group saying that Spain would suffer more terrorism if it did not withdraw its troops from Iraq. Just Iraq. I thought it sounded odd, given the … Continue reading

Alistair Cooke

died the other day, aged 95 and just weeks after broadcasting his final Letter from America. This page contains well-merited tributes to him and excerpts and transcripts from the longest-running speech radio programme in history. I remember listening to his distinctive, gravelly voice literally as a child at my father’s knee. I liked his voice. After a while it dawned on me that I liked and was learning from what … Continue reading

Brian Micklethwait

Brian Micklethwait, desperate for hits over at little-known blog venue Samizdata, pleads for a link to an outrageous piece of mischief-making by the Radio Times, the BBC’s literary mouthpiece. Happy to oblige, guys. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Pondblog

is one of several blogs who have mentioned that Israeli minister Natan Sharansky sent a furious letter to the BBC over Orla Guerin’s coverage of the child suicide bomber who changed his mind. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.