SPHERES OF INFLUENCE... - Biased BBC

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE...: "Oxfam, one of the BBC's favourite political organisations - spreading dissension and hate in the name of climate change - has spent megabucks of donor cash (no doubt given in the mistaken belief that it would help the poor)in a project to try and understand how the blogsphere supports sceptical thought about the causes of warming. In so doing, it's drawn up this diagram (with the heading 'how to combat sceptics') showing the 'pro' and 'anti' sides. Guess which organisation is at the centre of the 'pro' side? There's dear old auntie, right next to the Guardian, the New York Times and the World Bank. I suppose this only confirms what we already know - but now it's official. The greenie fanatics know exactly what they are doing and they know that the BBC is a an ultra-safe pair of hands and friend, ready to do their bidding and puff any alarmist press release that's spewed their way.

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Hopin' For Change - Biased BBC

Hopin' For Change: "On BBC Radio world service yesterday Jon Donnison reported Ban Ki-moon’s depressing reaction to his Gaza visit. Somewhere along the line someone has used the word ‘medieval’ in connection with Gaza, language modelled on Michael Buerk’s iconic ‘Scene of Biblical Proportions’ speech.
This emotive word must have appealed to the BBC; it appeared again and again in various news bulletins.

Jon Donnison’s report contained the parts of Mr. Ban’s statement that were critical of Israel with particular emphasis on Israel’s denial of permission to import concrete and the continuing state of disrepair of Palestinian houses.

A news bulletin that was broadcast immediately afterwards included the bit in Mr. Ban’s speech about recognising Israel’s need for security.

The juxtaposition of these two reports delivered a perfect example of bias by omission. The exclusion from Jon Donnison’s report of the only bit in Mr. Ban’s statement that was vaguely supportive of Israel was highlighted by its inclusion in the news bulletin that came next.

By ignoring the matter of security for Israel, Jon Donnison’s report exaggerated Mr. Ban’s already biased condemnation of Israel and provided a fairly typical example of the way the BBC’s reporting meddles with public opinion.
Another small but subliminally emotive trick was the ambiguous sentence “Israel only allows in limited humanitarian aid.”

That could either mean Israel cruelly deprives Palestinians of sustenance by only letting in some of the vital humanitarian aid, or, with the addition of a comma or two, it could mean that it lets in vital humanitarian aid but nothing more; nearer to the truth I think.
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Robin Shepherd invites readers to suggest a way forward.
Most contributors realise that unless Israel is confident of going it entirely alone, without outside support of any description, they need urgently to address ‘getting the message across.’
That would necessitate a massive change of direction from the BBC.
Firstly to allow the public access to full and fair information.
Secondly, to put a stop to interviewers behaving like adversarial inquisitors when they’re trying to bring forth vital and illuminating information from someone like the mayor of Jerusalem. Justin Webb was positively discourteous this morning. Who does he think he is? Jeremy Paxman?

I would have no objection to Justin Webb putting the other side of the argument to Nir Barkat, but first he must fully comprehend the background, get the facts straight and allow the discussion the breathing space it needed.

Robin Shepherd’s newest post links to Charles Krauthammer’s JPost article. If Justin Webb were to read that article before jumping in with his inquisitorial attacks, he might be equipped to conduct an interview with an Israeli spokesperson.

The power of telly is such that Delia Smith only needed to make a passing reference to some ingredient or other to start a stampede at the supermarket. If the BBC were to give more air time to people like Douglas Murray, and commission Robin Shepherd to make a documentary or two it might go some way to undo what has been done.
But people are being kept ignorant, and the puzzle is whether it’s through malevolence or stupidity.

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Carrying on a long tradition - Biased BBC

Carrying on a long tradition: "File under 'Bears shit in the woods' - Dr Who luvvie hates the Tories.

Becoming part of the Dr Who team must be similar to joining The People's Front of Judea:

'Can I join Dr Who?'
'No. Piss off.'
'But I hate the Tories as much as anybody.'
'Are you sure?'
'Oh, dead sure. I hate the Tories already.'
'Listen, if you wanted to join Dr Who, you'd have to really hate the Tories.'
'I do.'
'Oh yeah? How much?'
'A lot!'
(Pause) 'Right. You're in. But first, we might have another little job for you. How d'you fancy writing an episode of Basil Brush?'

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HOT AIR (AGAIN) - Biased BBC

HOT AIR (AGAIN): "Put together a potty, unneccessary EU directive abour air quality, an EU-fanatical greenie nutter like Tim Yeo, and the BBC, and what do you get? A well-tried formula of alarmism warning us that unless we stop keeping ourselves warm with nasty power stations, refrain from using petrol, and wind down our industrial base completely, we're all gonna die. One thing missing from the equation? Recent peer-reviewed research that shows that all the scare stories about air-borne pollutants should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, and that claims of massive death tolls from the type of matter involved in the EU directive are abject nonsense. But that, of course, can't be mentioned because it would spoilt the political agenda; the boys and girls at the BBC want to send us all back to the greenie idyll of the stone age.

Oh, and build thousands of wind farms to replace the pollutant-belching fossil-fuel power stations. Ignoring completely the fact that they are hugely expensive, subsidy-guzzling monstrosities that don't work.

Update: apologies, but this last link didn't work when the blog was first posted, but it should do now.

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Nasty Nasty Breeeetish - Biased BBC

Nasty Nasty Breeeetish: "Or, as the BBC more prosaically put it yesterday, 'Lethal landmine legacy from battle of El Alamein'; accompanied by a picture of two blokes, a flock of sheep, several buildings, some power lines with masts and a tree - and captioned 'featureless'. So why the sudden interest 68 years down the line?

The battle of El Alamein was a turning point in World War II but the unexploded munitions it left behind continue to kill and maim the local population, as Christian Fraser reports from Egypt.

Right, that'll be the time we saved all of Europe from the Germans, the Italians and their allies but let's not worry about that small factoid because we're about to find out who the real villain of the Second World War is.

...no country is prepared to accept responsibility for owning or laying the unexploded ordnance. Who then is to blame for the maiming of 11-year-old Mawa?

You've found one *just one* person to feature in the story and it's an injured 11 year old girl who likes football. Brilliant. Her father chips in:

"I used to have sheep but I had to sell them because the children refuse to go to the fields now because they're too dangerous.

You've had sheep in those fields for 68 years and only now there's a problem? Could this article be leading somewhere? Enough! Someone must be responsible! Name names, BBC, we demand it!

'Psychologically and economically we have been badly affected. And we've had no compensation.' The detonator could have been of Italian or German origin but Abdulaziz blames the British. "It was their battle," he said. "They brought the war to Egypt."

Yay! It's our fault!Perhaps we could apologise and pay them some...

Now though, a group representing some 660 registered injured is compiling a formal dossier to bolster claims for compensation.

....damn, they got there before me. So remind us all again, why did we send tanks into North Africa in the early 1940's? Without drawing breath the article informs us:

The region is rich in natural resources. There is a huge amount of natural gas that lies buried underground and the Egyptian government suggests there could be 4.8bn barrels of oil, potentially doubling the country's existing reserves.

Ah yes, Churchill was testing the waters for the whole turn of the century invading-countries-for-oil thingy. And we have 'Evil Capitalist Pigs Caught Only Clearing Some Mines Shocker'.

International oil companies that have cleared their own access roads through the mines have already been rewarded with considerable finds.

Christian Fraser has been fed a plea for cash because the Germans and Italians haven't been daft enough to fall for it. The BBC swallows the whole thing in one gulp. If only the other side in those battles had a self-loathing media as naive as ours then they too could enjoy journalism of this standard.

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sotto voce - Biased BBC

sotto voce: "As Craig and Cassandra have been pointing out in the comments, the Beeb have been subtly downplaying the cash for influence scandal of senior Labour figures. First there's the fact that the headline to their article says 'Ministers attack 'MPs for hire''. Ah, so senior Government figures are on the side of the angels then? The Gvt is acting decisively? What exactly is 'for hire?' Is that anything like soliciting bribes? Then it's noticeable that only one of the miscreants, Stephen Byers, is even identified directly as a Labour MP in the article. Moreover, they are described as 'ex' ministers- for whose actions it would surely be churlish to blame the Gummint; be rather like a husband being blamed for his ex-wife's behaviour, wouldn't it? How about 'senior Labour figures caught in bribery scandal'? How about 'three senior Labour former ministers have been caught in a sting operation soliciting payments for influence. These are Stephen Byers, Labour MP for... who was minister of..., Patricia Hewitt, Labour MP for... who was minister of... and Geoff Hoon, Labour MP for... who was minister of...'

I've only talked here about the framing sentences of the BBC article. The rest is rather detailed detail. By the time they get to it readers will have given up the will, and just be glad that 'due process' is being followed and isn't it wonderful our media is able to bang to rights those grubby 'not Gordon's Labour but ex- Labour' types.

Incidentally, it's no surprise that washed up pols peddle influence for cash- but then it wasn't back in '97 either ands that's when the BBC was washing down 'things can only get better' with flutes of champagne.

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Fury at BBC's 13-hour Saturday sportathon: Bar Lottery and the news, nothing on except rugby and football - Daily Mail

Fury at BBC's 13-hour Saturday sportathon: Bar Lottery and the news, nothing on except rugby and football: "
Last night, angry licence fee-payers complained on message boards about popular drama and entertainment shows such as Casualty being booted off."