Britannia Radio

Biased BBC

Friday, April 03, 2009 sue # Hail Obama! Isn’t the tone of the coverage of the G20 excitable and sort of hysterical? “Obama Hails ‘historic’ G20 Summit” as a headline; subliminal message = “Hail Obama!, You’re Historic” Then there’s this weird article breathlessly describing the mardi gras. Halfway through, under the heading 'Achievements' Dominic Casciani has suddenly written: “The death of a man near the Bank of England appears to be a human tragedy.” Comments: 4 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Thursday, April 02, 2009 sue # Tiny Glimmer Extinguished On Wednesday, Aleem Maqbool brought us the violence between Hamas and Fatah. (Murders, knee-cappings and torture.) There was only one brief reference to Israel’s wickednesses; he actually stuck mostly to Pali on Pali atrocities. This morning John Humphrys let Jerusalem Post’s Gil Hoffman speak positively about Avigdor Lieberman - he was even allowed to be optimistic about the likelihood of peace under Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime. Announcing on hourly radio news bulletins that a 13-year old Israeli boy has been killed by an axe-wielding Arab seemed almost like another small glimmer of light; somewhat dimmed by the fact that while other news outlets reporting this sign off with a mention of other terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens, the BBC reverts to type by adding instead a reminder that “this is the first such incident since the right-leaning government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office.” Later changed, extinguishing the glimmer completely, to ”All Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory are regarded as illegalunder international law, although Israel disputes this.” Understandable that militants would want to kill Israeli children, right? Comments: 7 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Wednesday, April 01, 2009 ed thomas # Icing the cake with many layers. I've been watching the BBC live coverage of the evening's G20 dinner. Interesting to watch the BBC modus operandi. It all begins with sweeping positive comments for Gordon- Gordon "couldn't have wished for better from Obama" blah blah... "could have scripted it himself" blah blah. Typical Gordon-boosting. That basic line is then refined with sometimes contradictory observations. The subtext to this has been unquestioningly about increasing regulation (taken for granted, never scrutinised, awaited with barely contained impatience). I've just heard, by the way, Bridget Kendall say that "no-one would say France and Germany are socialist countries". It all rather depends on your definition. Communist no, socialist- I would say yes. There's plenty more of stuff like that- I am sure you have noticed more... I'll add that I've just now heard Nick Robinson say that "not so long ago"Gordon "couldn't have dreamed of such praise" as he got. What? Nick seems to be on a planet where that hasn't been a recurring and obvious wet dream of the hapless Brown ever since the One descended to become POTUS- and also an entirely predictable gesture. He also seems to have attended a press conference where Obama wasn't as routine and laid back as he appeared to me on screen. Comments: 122 (unread) - Biased BBC Home