Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:


Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

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226 Responses to Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

  1. Gavin says:

    Oh I forgot to say I have also emailed Unite against Facism and the National Assembly Against Racism to ask if they will be holding any protests outside certain religious establishments exposed for racism and homophobia, again I will not be holding my breath on a response.

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  2. JimBob says:

    Gavin, don’t worry.

    First of all the BBC are going to investigate racist nightclubs

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6274389.stm

    Then when they’ve done this, they’ll get on to the subject of hate preaching in mosques….won’t they?

    Their priorities are just a little different to ours.

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  3. Alan says:

    ‘Turkish-Armenian writer shot dead’
    http://news.bbc.co.uk (19 Jan.)

    As Al Beeb does not want to discuss the uncomfortable political connection between this murderous event and Turkey’s application to join the E.U., let Hugh Fitzgerald speak on the subject:

    ‘Fitzgerald: There is no chance Turkey will be admitted to the E.U.’
    http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/014243.php (30 Nov. 06).

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  4. Alan says:

    I reckon Al Beeb’s Caroline Wyatt in Paris will not want to discuss this article, about Sarkozy’s policy towards Turkey, written two days before the murder of writer, Hrant Dink in Istanbul; but this article is an important antidote to her stuff on the ‘popular socialist’ Royal.
    “The Turkey Question: The E.U. and the Concept of Borders.”
    http://www.brusselsjournal.com (17 Jan).

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  5. Nicklaas says:

    A long time lurker on this excellent blog.

    Sky News just ran a tickertape that BA agrees that all employees can now wear one item of religious significance.

    Looks like they backed down.

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  6. 123 says:

    Re the murder of Hrant Dink.

    BBC report: “Turkey’s NTV television said police were searching for a teenager wearing a white hat and a denim jacket in connection with the murder.”

    Reuters report: “NTV television said Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, had been shot three times in the head and neck.

    Muharrem Gozutok, owner of a restaurant near the Agos office, said the assailant looked about 20, wore jeans and a cap and shouted “I shot the non-Muslim” as he left the scene.”

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  7. Jon says:

    Just a thought – would the Beeb have asked Maggie her opinion on BB?

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  8. tom atkins says:

    Whilst we spend a media-induced weekend of self flagulating hatred of ourseves and the disgusting attitudes of our countryman,thanks to CBB.

    Spare a thought for the Armenian community in Turkey (where holicaust denial is the law)

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6279241.stm

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  9. Jon says:

    “World Cup own goal for chancellor”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6280663.stm

    “Crowd ban on Big Brother eviction”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6277875.stm

    What the hell has happened to this country where these stupid things are bloody headlines. Stop the World I want to get off!!!

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  10. tom atkins says:

    I forgot to mention the use of inverted commas around the word genocide in the BBC online description of the Turks killing of 500,000 Christian Amenians during The Great War.
    -The victims were Christian so the whole affair can be disputed with the suttle use of speach marks.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…ope/ 6279241.stm

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  11. Tim says:

    Update from Baghdad:

    I’ve been seeing some bollucks on the BBC, about how the US military are not arming the Iraqis, to fight the insurgancy.

    Well, I can’t currently speak for other areas of Iraq, but I do drive around Baghdad (covertly)on a daily basis and the Iraqi Police and Army have all AK’s and PKM’s or Dushka’s and are well armoured. Baghdad being where the worst insurgancy activity is taking place.

    Also, schrapnel from the mortar that landed near to our villa the other day was Iranian and new (Still had it’s green paint on it – had not been weathered, or old war stock, very new)

    Sorry not been on for a while, more soon from your myth busting reporter in Mesopatamia

    Tim

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  12. Chuffer says:

    NEwsnight tonight: MASSIVE hatchet job on Tory councillor who sent unpleasant email.
    This wouldn’t be covering up for a certain Mr Blair in trouble, would it?

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  13. Richard says:

    Chuffer

    A Blair aide is arrested for obstructing a police enquiry. Someone allegedly connected to Cameron (you say just a Tory councillor, I couldn’t stand to watch the programme, so cannot comment) is said to have used the term “cripple”.

    Which is the obvious lead story on Newsnight? Of course it is not the official who might have committed an arrestable offense, but has to be someone who the BBC thinks is politically incorrect. can’t see why you object …

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  14. Anonnynonny says:

    ‘NEwsnight tonight: MASSIVE hatchet job on Tory councillor who sent unpleasant email.’

    Risible.

    A Tory councillor in Yorkshire used very impolite un-PC language to describe a Labour opponent in a private email in September 2006.

    This ‘story’ appears as the lead article on Newsnight in January 2007 on the same day that David Cameron visits Yorkshire.

    And, by sheer coincidence, one of the Prime Minister’s chief aides has just been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

    Just exactly who is controlling BBC News?

    And precisely why is this ’email’ story deemed to be serious enough to be run as the headline item on a national news programme?

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  15. dave t says:

    “since it was America that supported Osama bin Laden when he was fighting the Russians, ”

    How strange that Dimblbum never pointed out as a good chairman would that this statement is rubbish – the Yanks never armed Bin Laden in The Stan and even Robert Fisk carried an interview with OBL saying how much he hates the Yanks and wouldn’t accept any help…..

    Note how yet another lie pushed by the likes of the Guardian and the Beeb etc becomes common knowledge and therefore must be true. On a par with the Yanks armed Saddam rubbish when only 0.5% of his arms came from them, the vast bulk being from Russia and our old friend France!

    Thank God for blogs and other ways of asking questions when people come out with such claptrap!

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  16. pounce says:

    Baghdad Tim wrote;
    “I’ve been seeing some bollucks on the BBC, about how the US military are not arming the Iraqis, to fight the insurgancy.”

    Well the BBC does live in a funny old world Tim.
    Here’s a little snippet from, Janes Defence weekly Issue 1,3rd Jan 2007,Page 15.

    Poland delivers BTR-80UP to Iraq
    Polands Bummar group will begin regular deliveries of the BTR-89UP armoured personnel carriers (APCs) to Iraq in early 2007.
    Some 115 vehicles –new build and upgraded- were originally ordered in June 2005 by the Iraqi ministry of defence..
    http://www.army-technology.com/projects/btr80/

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  17. pounce says:

    The BBC and it’s love of the ‘H’ word.
    Hezbollah head hails resignation

    Sheikh Nasrallah: “When I heard the news, I was happy”

    Hezbollah head Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has welcomed the resignation of Israeli army chief Lt-Gen Dan Halutz in the wake of the two sides’ summer conflict.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6280899.stm

    Yup the BBC loves the ‘H’ word. Be it Hamas,Hezbollah, Hassan,etc….

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  18. pounce says:

    The BBC and how its uses the word ‘kidnap.’

    kidnap
    verb [T] -pp-
    to take a person away illegally by force, usually in order to demand money in exchange for releasing them

    Case 1
    A soldier taken by force from his own country by armed people from another country and the BBC refers to incident as “Captured.”

    Case 2
    Two soldiers taken by force from their own country by an armed gang from another country and the BBC refers to the incident as ‘Captured.’

    In fact so concerned was the BBC about referring to the above two incidents as ‘captures’ that they went on record on their editors blog in which to exonerate themselves of any so called bias on their reporting..

    “Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry value judgements. Our job is to remain objective. By doing so, I hope we allow our audiences on radio and television to make their own assessment of the story. So we try to stick to the facts – civilians are “kidnapped”, Cpl Shalit was “captured”; since troops don’t usually make “arrests”, the politicians were “detained”. Doubtless some will disagree. But that’s, in essence, the heart of the story – two competing narratives.”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/jonwilliams.html

    Right there you have it folks in black and white on how the BBC rule book dictates how they report any story concerning people taken captive.
    Civilians are kidnapped
    Soldiers are captured
    And Diplomats are detained.

    Thanks BBC for clearing that up for me.
    However could somebody from the BBC please explain this;
    Iran condemns US ‘kidnap’ in Iraq
    Iran has accused the US of kidnapping five of its citizens who were arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil. The US has denied the men were diplomats – it says they were linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and were arming Shia fighters in Iraq.
    Iran’s ambassador to Iraq called last week’s arrests “an insult to the Iraqi people”. He urged the US to prove that they were helping Iraqi militants.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6274837.stm

    I have to read the word Kidnap four times and trawl through half that report before I get to the sentence;
    “The five men were detained – along with one other who has now been released – at the Iranian liaison office in Irbil, in the northern, Kurdish part of Iraq.”

    So tell me BBC what is it. Kidnap or Detained?

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  19. archonix says:

    Regarding the caste system in India, I happen to know that it is dying out. Yes, very slowly at the moment, but there’s a gathering momentum to the reason why it’s dying out. I know a man who is part of a christian missionary operation in India, which operates on the principle of teaching people truth rather than simply telling it to them. One way they have of doing this is to teach lower caste women basic medical skills and literacy, but not upper caste women, so that sooner or later the upper castes are forced to seek out the lower castes for help in medical matters. I the process they interact with the lower castes and find out that they aren’t so different to them, and the result is that caste barriers are starting to break down in areas where these projects are put in to place.

    Off hand I have to confess I don’t remember the guy’s name… but I remember quite clearly the success he spoke about. It struck me that we could use a similar project here in the UK, to force the meeja types to interact with us “plebs” once in a while. Heh.

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  20. Lurker says:

    Archonix – I hate to be a miserable bugger but just how many of these Christian social engineering projects are active in India? We are talking about a billion people, the overwhelming majority of whom are in no way Christian.

    When you say dying out, what do you mean? How many generations, decades years?

    http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/05/17/doctors_block_roads_in_india_caste_quota_protests/

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-05-07-caste-barriers_x.htm?csp=34

    http://www.amrc.org.hk/5304.htm

    http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/georgesept62001.html

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  21. Anonymous says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6278867.stm

    Rob Watson’s ‘analysis’ rushes to get in the anti-US jibes (“US certainly risks the charge of hypocrisy”) and he completely misses a significant feature of this story, which is…that a satellite has been smashed to smithereens in an orbit that is similar to that used by upwards of one hundred functioning civil and scientific satellites from many different nations • US, Russia, Europe, Japan etc.

    This new debris ‘cloud’ (one estimate is that the number of pieces generated by this event exceeds 40,000!) will thoroughly contaminate the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment for these other satellites.

    The Chinese ‘target’ was orbiting the Earth at an altitude of >800km and it crossed the Earth’s equator at an angle of 98-degrees resulting in the spacecraft flying over the polar regions (north and south) on every single orbit. Such orbits are so-called sun-synchronous and they are favoured by a variety of spacecraft including those whose missions are earth-observation, meteorological and scientific/astronomical.

    The altitude is significant as at 800km (500mi) there is no natural mechanism to remove these pieces. Lower down (at 360km altitude where the International Space Station [ISS] orbits) there is…atmospheric drag generated by the tenuous upper atmosphere exerts a force on such satellites that will mean they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere within a few months at most (unless, like the ISS they are periodically reboosted).

    Had the Chinese ‘target’ been at 800km most pieces produced will remain in orbit for generations.

    It is the irresponsibility of this test and the future possible consequences for satellite operators that should have been flagged by a defence and security correspondent. US and Russian tests were never this reckless.

    Somehow, had the US conducted this test, I feel the BBC would have been more censorious.

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  22. DangerousBadger says:

    Maybe slightly off the topic in BBBC but Big Brother has been mentioned here and I think Channel 4 is the bastard sibling off the BBC, with slightly more credibility, as we have seen since advertisers have withdrawn support due to the percieved critiscism (albeit in a kee jerk and incorrect way in my opinion)
    I think the BB issue does show the way forward and how the Beeb will never accomodate the idea of the real people who are their forced consumers (god knows how ratings are worked out?).As someone mentioned above about the cosy Soviet manipulation drama Eastenders depiction of white working class
    BTW I think Eastenders is like the Archers but has social workers as consultants instead of cow herders but its much the same thing. I’m not a fan of either.

    If the alleged ‘racist’ epithets of the BB members where directed at Welsh leak eaters or French ‘frogs’, it would have all been laughed off, but poor Jade (I admit I’m being patronising here and could be wrong) has been led down the garden path by the liberal sniggering class. She is probably doing nothing worse than picking on an abvious national trait to score points but because the victim is now considered “a victim” by the critics it is beyond the pale.

    Tim Almond

    “With a bit of luck, all this cheap DV technology and the internet should help to give these BECTU people a dose of reality.”

    You’re right of course I’m sure there a lot of talented BECTU card holders who will eventually have to do just that, but speaking as someone who was in a union listening to such bollocks said on my behalf, i just thought, if I was a member How could I put in a strike claim for funds 5 years in the future that I havent earned yet?

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  23. archonix says:

    Lurker, I don’t have any statistics. I spoke to the man two years ago. All I know is, where they tried it, the caste system started to break down. The religion of the people involved was unimportant.

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  24. Janey says:

    Do you think that bbc news would be able to spend 24 hours without the use of the word Race or Racism in order to decide which news it headlines ?

    Your Views ?

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  25. Bryan says:

    24 hours, probably.

    48 hours, I’m not so sure….

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  26. BaggieJonathan says:

    I have decided to proclaim victory over the BBC.

    Apparently that’s all I need do, facts are unimportant, however a few snippets of truth twisted in do no harm…

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