It’s small and short but poisonous: Adie and Ruth – Adventure in the Blood Ruth tells of her travels and then how her son follows in her footsteps…going on a journey they hadn’t realised the dangers of….going to Gaza. The dangers of course being in a land infested with murderous terrorists and religious fanatics….or not. The danger was the Jews. Travelling in his boat to Gaza across … Continue reading
If you’d like a laugh there’s always Marx…Karl Marx this time, and the BBC’s ‘of the moment‘ meme: The Future of Capitalism Anne McElvoy talks to the social theorist Jeremy Rifkin who foresees the gradual decline of capitalism and the rise of a collaborative economy. As new technology enables greater sharing of goods and services, Rifkin argues that it provides a challenge to the market economy. The sociologist … Continue reading
And, while social media can make anyone into a journalist, citizen journalism has, to my mind, reinforced the value of the professional journalist. When there are so many voices out there, so many with hidden patrons and private axes to grind, so many confusing opinions for news, then there is something simply priceless about a voice you can trust. That’ll be the BBC then. Fate … Continue reading
It’s not whether you are right or wrong, it’s who you are that gets a response from the BBC panjandrums….if you’re Lenny Henry clearly you’ve some influence at BBC House. A few headlines in the newspapers and a private meeting with Tony Hall and the BBC falls over itself to seem ‘relevant’ and ‘diverse’. (But only with regard to gender and race.) As James Harding says: ‘Anyone with a … Continue reading
Morning all. Time to start the week with a brand new Open Thread. I bet you are all looking forward to “Woman’s Hour” on BBC Radio 4 this week. Doreen Lawrence will be hosting one such episode and it’s inspiring to see the BBC create the space for her. You rarely see her on the BBC…..
The BBC once reported on Wikipedia edits by interested parties….and …em…failed to mention its own activities in that area. Hence this mea culpa: Words like glass, house and stones spring to mind, because we weren’t exactly sharp about the other obvious question that springs to mind… What about people inside the BBC? This was an irritating oversight. Some of you have written to complain, others have given the … Continue reading
The BBC have put this on their frontpage about a local council candidate for UKIP: UKIP candidate William Henwood defends Lenny Henry tweet “I think if black people come to this country and don’t like mixing with white people why are they here? If he (Henry) wants a lot of blacks around go and live in a black country.” Along with this: UKIP candidate’s Lenny Henry tweets spark … Continue reading
Syria: the children killed by Assad’s chlorine gas bombs Syrian civilians die slow, painful death from chemical weapons used in violation of convention regime signed in September It took much of the afternoon for Mahmud Hashash to die, writhing, gasping for breath and spluttering blood as the chlorine gas corrupted his six-year-old lungs. The doctors did all they could to save him. Using a nebuliser and oxygen pump they … Continue reading
Nothing has changed….UKIP during the 2009 Euro elections was being smeared as racist: Dear Mr. Thomas, Complaint UKIP broadcast on the Today programme at 7.32am on May 30, 2009 The interview, by the standards of others broadcast during the European Parliamentary elections, as unfairly and relentlessly negative towards the party and gave undue prominence to claims that its policies were racist. John Humphrys suggested that they would “scrap … Continue reading
Mark Bolland ran the Press Complaints Commission from 1992 to 1996. He has some damning views on Leveson, that celebrity led witch hunt backed by the BBC: Politicians destroyed the PCC to take revenge on the media, says the man who helped to create it Today we are all supposed to be “Leveson compliant”. I am not sure why, when large chunks of what The Economist rightly condemned as … Continue reading
