Do two swallows a summer make?

Further to Natalie’s post on this subject, yesterday’s (Tuesday 20JUL04) BBC One O’Clock was the usual lightweight, right-on stuff. Stephen Sackur reported on the new session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It was mostly filler – mention of the new Spanish something or other, the translation service, new member states, 480 language combinations, Tower of Babel (not a), etc., with the report closing as follows: “But not everyone finds … Continue reading

One swallow does not a summer make.

As so often, the little instance of bias I am about to point out is so tiny and insignificant that I almost want to feed it some milk on my finger. The fun part is finding out how many brothers and sisters and cousins it has under the floorboards. In this article about UKIP MEP in row over working women we have (in the grey box): Independence and Democracy is … Continue reading

BBC “inadvertently” takes Berger at his word.

This article is either laughable in its gullibility (at taking Berger for a truthteller) or despicable (for enabling him to lie). How did former National Security Advisor (for President Clinton), Samuel Berger, “inadvertently” remove said documents from the US Senate 9-11 archives? Whether they managed to find their way into his socks, it must have been, no doubt, an accident. Here is blogger Hugh Hewitt‘s take on this: This isn’t … Continue reading

Be very afraid

when dealing with the Great Satan. Here’s how the teaser reads: Manila’s Catch 22 The Philippine choice between saving a life and angering the US The question of how this will encourage further terror is lost on the Beeb. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo was faced with an awkward choice – to save the life of a Filipino held hostage in Iraq or support the United States by keeping Philippine soldiers … Continue reading

Lies, damned lies, and the sleazy, dishonest, BBC stealth editors who cover them up.

On Thursday I saw an article on BBC News Online headlined Diplomats mind their language, timestamped Thursday, 15JUL04, 15:03BST. It’s an amusing article about diplomatic faux pas’. One thing that caught my attention was this blatant lie: Margaret Thatcher, again a woman unafraid of speaking her mind, was reported to have told Jane Byrne, mayor in 1960s Chicago, that “the Irish, they’re pigs”, before remembering her host’s family background and … Continue reading

Eating a bit of crow along with that yellowcake

.  How long will it be until the BBC corrects the record on the Iraq-Niger yellowcake story? It must be hard when the ‘Bush lied’ subtext crashes like Joseph Wilson’s house of cards. It is not surprising that Paul Reynolds, in his ‘analysis’,  fails to mention the discredited Wilson/Plame story, so gladly trumpeted by the BBC. Uranium: Here the report stands by the SIS report that Iraq had indeed sought … Continue reading

Radio Five Live space filler expands sensationally.

On Monday 12JUL04, much of the BBC’s UK news featured parts of a story headlined on BBC News Online as ‘Shocking’ racism in jobs market. Five Live’s Ian Shoesmith was interviewed on BBC1’s lightweight Breakfast programme. The story was also on BBC News Online, BBC One O’Clock News, and as a lead item on the BBC London news at lunchtime, 6.30pm and 10.30pm. Watching and reading the various takes, it … Continue reading

No Auntie, you’ve had enough. It’s time to go Dear.

Seeing the headline BBC Iraq war coverage criticised on BBC News Online’s UK page was puzzling – had the penny dropped at last? Or are they reporting someone else’s criticism of their lamentably biased coverage last year? No fear! The story, appropriately enough in the Entertainment section of News Online, reveals that: “BBC coverage of the Iraq war did not treat military sources with enough scepticism, the corporation’s annual report … Continue reading

Genesis of a non-story.

Yesterday, Mon 12JUL04, BBC News Online published a story headed History spurs anti-English tirade. The first version of the story, online for five and a half hours, was simply about a moronic tirade by a moronic councillor, thrown out of a Scottish pub for being obnoxious to English patrons during the recent England/Portugal football match. On reading it, I wondered why such a moron was being given coverage on the … Continue reading