, visiting family and letting my poor nerves recover from the stress of Beeb-watching. But I did scribble this one down specially for B-BBC. On 31st Dec, the Ceefax news index on page 102 said “122- Israeli troops shoot protestors.” Sounds bad, said I, thinking about the deaths or injuries implied by the word “shoot”, and grimly set the remote to page 122. It turned out that the only things shot were tear gas and rubber bullets. No injuries, let alone deaths, were mentioned. I assume that rubber bullets and (I think) tear gas canisters are usually dispensed by pulling a trigger and hence the use of the verb “to shoot” may be literally correct. But tell me, given the way the English language is used in practice, do you think the headline accurately reflects the contents of the story?
I’ve been away
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Off topic – to save you another mail … more details on my blog.
The People Have Spoken, The Bastards !
The flagship of left bias and political correctness on the BBC, Radio Four’s Today Programme, decided it would be a good idea to ask listeners what new laws they would like to be enacted, and from the 10,000 suggestions received chose five for the listeners to vote on.
They were
1) Ban all Christmas advertising before Dec 1st
2) make voting compulsory and limit a PM to two terms, as in the US. (suggested by G. Brown of W1)
3) Ban smoking in bars and restaurants
4) Make organ donation a matter of ‘opting out’ rather than ‘opting in’ as now.
5) Authorise homeowners to use any means to defend their home from intruders.
27,000 people voted – or 27,000 votes were received. The ‘Tony Martin law’ won with 37%, provoking Stephen Pound MP to the above comment. He’s supposed to be introducing it in a Private Members Bill – I bet he won’t. If he does the Tories sho
… should have a three-line whip out in support – it could be a PR disaster for Labour when they have to vote against it.
The programme’s producers – and Mr Pound, convinced the organ donation law would win, had already arranged a debate between Evan ‘Dr Death’ Harris and a former Tory health minister, which had to be hastily rebilled on the website as ‘the listeners’ law for ‘opt-out’ organ donation came second – but a possible proposal nonetheless?’. And Mr Pound had actually already had preliminary discussions with Heath Secretary John Reid about the donor law.
Still, Today did the best they could, finding a critical barrister, and putting negative reaction top of their emails.
And to think that today’s world service hate-fest compared the US to the Roman Empire, how 8 percent GDP growth is a *bad* thing, and how trying to look for terrorists is a sign of failure. The latter actually made the BBC presenter look like he had some common sense by playing devil’s advocate.
Man – they’re starting to sound like the blatherings of repressed pre-glasnost eastern europeans.
Oh where, oh where has my formerly beloved BBC gone!
Well Joe, I’m not quite sure why the BBC should ever have been beloved unto you. It supported the government during the labour protests of the 1930’s. It supported appeasement of Hitler. It prevented Churchill from accessing the airwaves to protest appeasement. It suppressed discussion questioning the monarchy. It prevented the broadcast of Beatles songs supporting Irish nationalism. It edited news footage out of sequence to show the police charging miners in response to stone throwing, when in fact the stone throwing was in response to the charge.
These are just a smattering of BBC biases of various flavours over the decades of its history. It isn’t what the BBC says (and prevents being said) at any particular time that is the problem; it is the uniquely foul way in which it has been able to say it – all of its time.
Enforced funding of a point of view is wrong even if you happen to agree with the point of view. At least it’s wrong to anyone who believes in liberty.
“It prevented the broadcast of Beatles songs supporting Irish nationalism. ”
Ah yes. It was Wings actually, called ‘Give Ireland Back to The Irish’.
I look forward to Mr Macartney’s new one “Give England Back to The English”. If it gets banned I just know PJF and others will be protesting …..