Today Editor: Twitter Main Source For Stories
>> MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
Nicholas Jones, former BBC political correspondent, recounting a Royal Television Society event held in June:
Ceri Thomas said the political blogosphere had a resonance in Westminster but it did not have a great purchase outside Westminster. But the Today programme now realised the importance of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. ‘I get more story ideas from Twitter than from anywhere else... it has become the single most useful way to get information although that was not the case during the general election’.Out: if it bleeds, it leads. In: if the luvvies tweet it, Today will repeat it.
Where once BBC editors would have to wait until the next dinner party to hear the bleeding-heart concerns of like-minded media types, now it's all instant - news determined by the daily fancies of the right-on metropolitan echo chamber. Same as it ever was, only more so.
(Luckily for the Today programme Stephen Fry hasn't expressed an opinion on the dropping of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.)
THINGS YOU WON'T SEE ON THE BBC
Richard Black, discussing windfarms, gives unmoderated almost endless space to a nutter who wants to get rid of Britain's planning laws so that millions of acres of our countryside can be blighted by these unnecessary monstrosities. He fails to mention anything about the huge cost or the level of subsidy required - facts easily available to him via Christopher Booker's column.
This BBC article tells us that Wembley stadium is selling halal meat to its customers whether they like it or not. But don't worry, friends. It has a quote from a Muslim saying that slitting an unstunned and fully conscious animal's throat - as is required in this barbaric ritual - is not cruel. Missing from the BBC is any mention that to their eternal shame, Waitrose, Tesco'sand M and S have all, like Wembley, been lying through their teeth about their alleged commitment to animal welfare. All of them think it's OK to sell us without telling us meat that has been slaughtered in this vile way. For the BBC, of course, it's not an issue; anything Muslims do in the name of their religion must be condoned - or brushed under the carpet.
Just an Act
Here’s another bit from the (tree) Telegraph, reminiscent of a similar postI took from the Telegraph about the Balen Report.
Tim Walker of Mandrake has this:
“While it is always a joy to see Polly Toynbee and her chums on the BBC, (funny haha) I was still minded to put in a request under the Freedom of Information Act, to ascertain how often - if at all- newspaper journalists who feel more positively about the Coalition are invited on to the BBC News Channel.
One month on, I have a response of sorts. “The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purpose of ‘journalism, art or literature’ and it would, in any case, be an enormous amount of work to try to find the information” says Stephanie Harris of the corporation. “the BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output of information that supports- and is closely associated with - these creative activities.”
If anything has ever highlighted the nonsense of the FOI legislation then this, surely has to be it.”
Hmm. Anyone would think that he’d read this blog. Craig, if you ever do the enormous amount of work required to find out the information, I’d send your bill in to the Telegraph.
The "Centre"
Remember that people with a Left-liberal/BBC/public sector worldview believe that they hold the centre ground. They regard any reform of the public sector as “Right-wing” and all spending cuts (including those few they grudgingly acknowledge need to be made) as representing a tack to the Right. Ask yourself what policies you’d have to adopt to earn the adjective “Left-wing” on the Today programme... (Ed M. will) stick to his insane socialist position of maintaining the current size of the state, and that will be enough for Today to place him in the middle of their political spectrum. My guess is that the BBC’s ground troops at White City were in Ed’s camp, not David’s. Now he’s about to reap the benefit.
OPEN THREAD...
Orwell saw them as a variation on the Ministry of Truth and he should know as he worked for them. New weekl, new open thread, ready, aim, FIRE...
BUILD...
My heart was breaking for poor holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas who has been put "in a difficult position" according to the BBC's Jon Donnison by those pesky Jews. The pro-Palestinian sympathy seeps out of this report as once again the BBC circle the wagons around Netanyahu.
FAT OF THE LAND
The BBC was pushing the N.I.C.E. line that we should think about bribing the fat, the smokers, the drinkers out there to encourage them to desist from their unhealthy lifestyles. Today has this broadly sympathetic interview with Sir Michael Rawlins who kept referring to imagined and unspecified "cost savings." I was invited on the BBC's Nolan Show to discuss the topic an hour or so later. My view was that this was Nanny Statism, that it has no economic value and that it encouraged irresponsibility. The curious thing was Stephen made it into a much more personal issue as he has weight issues. Now I don't want to be unkind to anyone but it is tough in an interview when I not only have to argue against the NICE orthodoxy but also against the obvious prejudice of the host. I said that fatness was NOT a disease and that fat people need to get out more, eat less and exercise more. This did not go down well but it's another way that the BBC make it very difficult for those who oppose the established view.
Whatever Floats your Boat
Jews for Justice for Palestinians. What a handle! It implies that non-signatories are for Injustice for Palestinians. What about Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Israelis?
The JFJFP mission statement is pretty platitudinous at first, then it tails off into stuff that makes you think they’ve relied solely on the BBC for information.
Their blogroll features the websites of authors of those self-hating diatribes in the Guardian.
Luvvies like Stephen Fry typify ‘I’m-alright-Jack As-a-Jews’ all wrapped in the cosy embrace of the establishment security blanket. Why should they bother tearing out their hair over the complexities of the M/E, or waste precious time anguishing over why people defend evil Israel? They may as well relax and let the BBC take the strain. It’s the most well respected organisation there is, surely? Or does the BBC simplify everything for the simpletons they have created through years of dumbing everything down and missing half of it out ?
Personally, if I could be certain that the JFJFPs knew the full story, the ominously vast number of signatories would bother me in quite a different way. But I fear they might have been listening to the BBC, and relying on Wyre Davies and Jeremy Bowen to put them in the picture. For example, would they just pooh-pooh these little known facts about settlements and ignore the ‘history of the geography’ of the region if they had read these articles? Would they completely dismiss this credible hypothesis, which questions the whole desirability of “Peace” if they’d taken the trouble to read it and apply their brains to some of the similar material that’s out there before signing up?
SIMPSON LEADING LABOUR...
Hi folks - been busy all day (was on the BBC earlier, we'll get to that shortly) so just catching up with you. Everyday is now Red Ed Day and it started on Today this morning with the most SIMPERING interview I have heard in a long time with Red Derek Simpson of Unite. He was able to suggest that the Unions have been amoderating influence on Labour, and he got away with it! I can only assume Sarah Montague agrees with such risible pro-Trade Union nonsense as she deferred to his wild claims. With a looming winter of strikes, the BBC are getting orgasmic about Labour's lurch leftwards.
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