Monthly Archives: October 2010

OBAMA IN OVER HIS HEAD

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The latest article by Time magazine political analyst Mark Halperin (hardly a frothing right-winger) is quite a doozy (via Hot Air):

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

Not the impression we get from the BBC.

Matt Frei described the book Game Change, which Halperin co-authored, as “the definitive account of the 2008 election campaign” (Americana, BBC R4, 26 Sept 2010). It’ll be interesting to see if any BBC correspondents acknowledge these latest revelations about insider attitudes towards Obama’s failing administration.

(Frei will have to catch up on the article later – he’s joined the ever-growing army of BBC hacks in Chile. Another “I was there” moment he simply had to have for his memoirs.)

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AMERICANS TO BLAME

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You know, I was very sorry to read of the tragic death of kidnapped UK aid worker Linda Norgove in Afghanistan. As you know, an attempted rescue was made but it ended in her death. What annoys me is the way in which the BBC are going after US forces on this now that it appears a US grenade used in the attempted rescue may have killed her. The BBC is coy about the fact that it was Islamic savages that kidnapped her, that it was Islamic savages who planned to kill her, and that responsibility for her death lies entirely with the Islamic savages concerned. The BBC meme is that US soldiers must always be in the wrong. Well, maybe the BBC want to go after the man in ultimate charge of US forces, Obama!

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something something US REPUBLICAN NAZI !!! something something

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For at good few hours today this was the main news story on the BBC US & Canada page:


A Republican candidate for a very safe Democrat seat is a member of a re-enactment society and dressed up as, among other things, an SS officer. A bit embarrassing for a political candidate when the photos come out, but was it really the most important news item in North America? No, of course not, but the BBC wasn’t going to miss the chance to bash the Republicans. Added bonus – using “Republican” and “Nazi” in the same headline. “Republican” appeared in the blurb beneath, and in the opening sentence of the actual story, too. [Read More…]

How very different from the BBC’s treatment of stories embarrassing to Democrats where the party name is either not mentioned or buried so far down the page you’ll probably miss it. That’s when the BBC even covers such news items. Here are some recent stories the BBC hasn’t reported on, let alone given number one headline prominence:
Democrats run fake Tea Party candidate in Jersey congressional race.
Democrat aide calls female Republican candidate “a whore”.
Democrat Congresswoman’s phone message asking for lobbyist money.
Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr accused of trying to buy Obama’s old Senate seat.

The Nazi uniform story quotes “the BBC’s Ian Mackenzie in Washington” (note to BBC subs – it’s “Iain”). As Craig pointed out in the comments a few days ago, Mackenzie is another whose Twitter account is quite revealing. Here he is summing up Obama’s inauguration day:


And here’s what he thinks of Sarah Palin:


This comment about Fox News is a bit rich given the BBC’s huge preference for leftie guests (not to mention presenters and of course journalists). MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann only likes to have people whose views he shares on his show but you won’t find sneering comments about that from an Obama-lovin’ hipster Beeb journo like Mackenzie. The received wisdom is strong in him. A perfect addition to the BBC’s team of Right-hating US correspondents.

Full marks for this snippet of honest self-analysis, though:


Helen Boaden claimed that impartiality is in the BBC’s genes. She’s either a deluded idiot or a liar.

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THE GATES OF VIENNA…

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It’s curious that despite it’s vast journalistic and technological resources, the BBC seems unable (or unwilling?) to report on the substantial gains made by the anti-Islamic unfettered immigration Freedom Party in Vienna, Austria yesterday. I wonder why? I am sure they will give this due prominence, eventually but at time of writing I cannot find any news update from them. Not a word.

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UTOPIANISM…

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It’s a question of priority, of course, but is there anybody out there who REALLY thinks that a report by the leftist quango headed by Trevor Philips merits the prime time slot on “Today”? Philips was spouting the usual lefty clap trap about “unfairness” and the BBC earnestly carries the headlines from the reports that transgendered students “said” they were bullied and that Pakistani babies were twice as likely to die in the first year as white babies. Oh, and that pesky gender trap has still not closed. I thought Humphyrs was reasonably robust with Philips but towards the end of the interview this seemed to melt and the bon homie appeared. Philips is a greivance-monger whose utopian fantasies are indulged rather than critiqued.  The BBC is running a week long series of items on “fairness” – it seems to me that this has the pre-designed aim to ensure that whatever the Coalition does is viewed as “unfair”

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GAY – THE FINAL FRONTIER

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Right, let me start by saying I abhor intolerance and violence towards ANY group of people. (Except terrorists). So reports of mob violence at a Gay Pride parade in Belgrade are concerning  – as would be the case if they were happening to any lawful parade, anywhere. But I was surprised at this comment by by BBC reporter Mark Lowen in Belgrade;

This is not the image Serbia wants the world to see. A successful gay parade was supposed to be an indication of how far this country has come from the ultranationalism and violence of the 1990s.

Really? Is the acceptance of gay parades now the marker of a civilised society? Is tolerance of public expression of a particular sexual lifestyle proof of a move away from “ultranationalism”? I missed that memo – maybe it is instilled into BBC reporters when they are young but it seems to me that seeking to equate an tolerance of gay activists in the public square with a sophisticated modern Nation is, at least, somewhat peculiar. Mark seems quite interested in this topic area, having filed a story about Albania “approving gay marriage”  I must admit that I had not realised the centrality of the gay issue to these emerging societies, so thank goodness for Mark.

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IMPARTIALITY GENES?

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Piers Scholfield, one of the many BBC journalists reporting from the Chilean mines, was a new name to me. Just had a little look back through his Twitter account. You couldn’t make this stuff up:


Caroline, please listen to my gushing report about your election chances, slurp slurp.

A Brighton-based BBC Green Party supporter reporting on the Green Party in Brighton during the election. Your licence fee at work.


I’m getting quite a collection of screenshots of BBC employees expressing political opinions on Twitter. They’re all lefties. Funny that. I guess the BBC’s thousands of right-leaning employees take their duty to uphold the concept of impartiality more seriously. Unless – and I know this might sound crazy – there aren’t many right-leaning employees at the BBC, and they don’t express political views on Twitter because they fear opprobrium and career stasis.

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THE BIAS IS ALWAYS THERE

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Interesting piece of analysis sent to me by a Biased BBC contributor…

“I have looked at the BBC Website Politics Home Page stories for the 3 weeks covering the party conferences. The analysis was done by reading the headline of the story where possible since this is the impression any reader of the page first gets. If unable to allocate the story I clicked on the story to read it in order to categorise it as good(in favour) or bad(adverse). 

The categories were good and bad for each of the 3 parties and the rest were allocated to Other.

Over the 3 weeks there were 496 headlines, 35% related to the Conservatives, 37.5% to Labour, 13% to the Lib Dems and 14.5% to Other.
The ratio of good stories to bad were: Conservatives – 3 good for every bad story. Labour – 6 good for every bad story. Lib Dems – 8 good for every bad story.
The coverage figures were reasonable since they equate roughly to the size of each party and/or to the current % vote in Opinion Polls.
But the content of each story was twice as likely to be adverse for the Conservatives compared to Labour and nearly 3 times as likely to be adverse for the Conservatives compared to the Lib Dems.
I would call this BBC bias against the Conservative party.”

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