Just another lively night in Grenoble according to the Beeb website....an armed gang robbed the local casino, police chased them, one of the robbers fired back and wounded an officer. The French police, instead of assembling a team of negotiators and counsellors, shot him dead. Yes, we know the refrain well enough by now. Those wicked Americans tortured all the poor innocent lambs held in captivity at Guantanamo and justice must be done. The BBC ran another story on this earlier today investigating British "collusion" on "torture" Here's a story the BBC seems unaware of, wonder why? Is it just me or is Laura Trevelyan not that happy about the news that BP seem to have a degree of success ij capping the spilling oil well in the Gulf? Throughout this period, the BBC seems to have aligned itself with Obama as he takes shots at BP - leading to the survival of the company itself being brought into question. What is it about British Petroleum the BBC seems to have such a problem with....? In days of yore the BBC acquired a reputation for excellence. The world switched off their local news organs, suspicious they were being fed propaganda. They turned instead unto the BBC and they saw that it was good. BBC News 24, reporting the government's apparent intention to at last cut the extortionate, ever-rising BBC licence fee, described culture secretary Jeremy Hunt as being "aggressive" towards the corporation. How dare he suggest that the BBC should be part of cuts was the indignant tone, especially as sacrifices such as the closure of the Asian network were being made. Would that the same language was applied to Palestinian terrorists and other "activists" described in BBC reporting of acts of outrageous (real)aggression in the middle east. 
A Jeremy Bowen Moment In Grenoble?
>> SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010
Parts of the city then erupted in riots as “protestors” demonstrated against police brutality.
At first sight his sounds a little strange – is Grenoble the headquarters of the French mafia? Is every other local a gangster?
But then the BBC drops a clue. The dead robber’s name was Karim Boudouba who, it seems, has three previous convictions for armed robbery. Naturally he now becomes Mr Bourdouba – and you know the the Beeb is salivating.....Mr Boudouda, 27, had three previous convictions for armed robbery.
...........
The riot erupted after a memorial service for Mr Boudouda.THE GITMO STORY THE BBC DOES NOT COVER...
>> SATURDAY, JULY 17, 2010
THE EVIL BP...
Lost in Translation
Fastforward and into reverse. It has been said that Al Jazeera is now more impartial than the BBC.
The lag between the BBC itself realising this and the media savvy public doing so has yet to be measured. What if Jeremy Hunt’s threatened cost cuts jolted it into reality?
When the BBC is less fascinated by anything Israel does, and stops poring over every fart and speculating about its malevolence we’ll know that time has come. Currently they struggle to report the intricacies of Palestinian politics, other than divulging that Hamas and Fatah are enemies. Hamas being baddies and Fatah moderates. But there’s much, much more to tell.
One year ago, August 11th 2009, Tom Gross urged those who work in the media to read his Mideast dispatch. Who knows whether Jeremy Bowen or any of the BBC Middle East staff subscribe to his blog or have even heard of Tom Gross. Judging by their output, it seems not.
At that time Tom Gross was writing about an eye-opening conference in Bethlehem attended by the Fatah General Assembly which, he said, was:
“woefully underreported in the Western Media. Instead, the BBC, for example, has been running yet more distorted reports about Israel last week, deluding themselves and their viewers that Fatah is a moderate party committed to compromise”
Mahmoud Abbas has persuaded the Western world that he is a moderate and a seeker of peace; but when he speaks in Arabic his rhetoric is somewhat different. He promises his Arab speaking followers a different kind of peace. “Resistance until the Zionist enemy is wiped out.” Even if such drastic measures were successfully accomplished, the hostilities between Palestinian factions and various other warring Islamic parties make peace unlikely. We should be told.
President Obama’s faltering support of Israel has emboldened Abbas further. One year on, things are as bad as ever. Abbas is still saying one thing in English and another in Arabic, which you’d think someone from the BBC’s generous fount of Arabic-speaking employees could kindly pass on.
The BBC is so busy criticising Israel that we don’t get to hear about matters which might broaden our attitude, such as the persecution of Syrian Kurds. Tom Gross said:
“I only wish the BBC and others would devote a fraction of the substantial resources they employ in the Middle East to not only scrutinize every little thing Israel does but to pay a little attention to the hundreds of millions of people living in the 22 dictatorships (and one partial democracy, Iraq) in the region around Israel.”
The BBC is forever urging Israelis to “talk to Hamas” and they spun the Ipsos poll to look as though British Jews agree. If every single British Jewdid support direct unconditional talks with Hamas, and unconditional surrender to Fatah, or mass self-flagellation, it wouldn’t be any wonder.Unmedia-savvy British Jews probably rely on the BBC to tell them what’s going on just as much as un-savvy British non Jews, atheists, rastafarians, the socialist workers party, pole dancers, the women’s institute and Uncle Tom Cobbley, probably Abu Hamza, and all.
So Mr. Hunt. Get the scissors out.MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
Without a breath of irony, the next item on News 24 was a reverential reference to that Jonathan Ross had presented his last show on BBC1. Why that was considered "news" in a national bulletin defeats me (except in the context of BBC self-worship), but that will be the same Jonathan Ross who has been paid millions by the corporation, despite his intrinsic, gratuitous unpleasantness - and is one of the reasons why the licence fee is so high.
Sunday 18 July 2010
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