30 YEARS AGO…

Have to say how sickened I feel by the BBC this evening.

30 years ago, I was still at University. On this day, one of my best friend’s at Uni received the awful news his brother had been murdered. The IRA booby-trapped his car. He stood no chance. He was a police officer, a young RUC man. The IRA boasted they had killed him. He was 23.

Today, other Irish terrorists, most likely know to the IRA leadership (if not actually containing former IRA men) killed a police officer in Omagh. I note the BBC gives Gerry Adams response coverage very high priority in this report.

Adams organisation killed my friend’s brother. 30 years on – the BBC eulogise him. Nauseating – no wonder I loath them.

HIBERIANISATION

Just a curious little item.Lead story on BBC Northern Ireland is that…gasp..Dublin Airport is now open, having been closed by snow yesterday. Dublin Airport is not in Northern Ireland and yet those wonderful folks at BBC NI determine this to be the single most important news story affecting our lives this morning. Gotta love it.

A CURIOUS BIAS

BBC Northern Ireland has been running a story today concerning the news that “Former Sinn Fein councillor Mairtin O’Muilleoir is to re-enter politics as a party representative on Belfast City Council” There are a few problems with this. First of all, WHY does the BBC assume that O’Muilleoir will win a seat in a ward that does not currently have a Sinn Fein representative?!! Did they just take a Sinn Fein press release and run it as news without using that vast resource they have at our expense to ascertain the accuracy of what was being claimed? Further, O’Muilleoir is on record stating that he wanted to leave politics in order “to concentrate on being Managing Director” of the Belfast Media Group. The BBC avoids all reference to this and the contradiction it contains. Bias by omission is as egregious a broadcasting sin as any other form of bias and given the fact that the BBC in Northern Ireland dominates local media, shouldn’t someone somewhere be asking why such lazy journalism is permitted here? Hat-tip to Pete Baker @ Slugger O’Toole

CLINTONIAN FAWNING

Bill Clinton paid a flying visit to Northern Ireland today and the BBC was all over the event, fawning over him, inviting people to come on the air and “share memories” of the last time he came here. I have to say that the lack of any objectivity over this visit has been shocking, if not surprising, with the BBC in Northern Ireland showing themselves as hapless lickspittles. I wonder if George W Bush came would we have the same sycophantic chorus?