Four Whores of the Apocalypse

Four Whores of the Apocalypse

>> SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2010

Robin Shepherd is one of the most articulate of Israel’s supporters. As he’s not Jewish, a single word from him counts, in the eyes of the world, as twice that of a Jew, so the BBC should sit up and take notice. He understands only too well the way the BBC misrepresents the complexities of the I/P conflict, leaving out essential information while maintaining a semblence of the impartiality it is obliged to display. Here is his analysis of Barbara Plett’s BBC article about anti Israel campaigner Richard Falk’s report to the UN General Assembly. In one corner, in apocalypse terms, is the white horse, representing evil, in the form of Barbara Plett, famous for her emotional outburst at Yassir Arafat’s departure, in a helicopter, to die. On the red horse (war) is Richard Falk, well known for associating Israel’s "treatment of Palestinians with [the] criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity”, not to mention some odd views on 9/11. Number three, black, representing famine, is the UN - always ready willing and able to condemn Israel for anything and everything while ignoring terrible misdemeanours of other countries. In the final corner astride the pale horse which stands for ‘death’, is the BBC, which is obsessed with denigrating Israel, whilst praising the Palestinians and showering Islam and the Muslim world with admiration. What a formidable quartet. Robin Shepherd understands how it works. Barbara Plett’s article ignores Falk’s biased political agenda. Basic good journalistic practice obliges the BBC to provide context and sufficient information to “ help the reader understand precisely why Israel and the rest of us should treat his words with something less than the reverence they are accorded by the BBC.” Barbara Plett sees no need for that. The travesty of ‘balance’ consists of: “Israel said (Falk’s) report was utterly biased and served a political agenda, criticising its author for making no mention of what it called Palestinian terrorist attacks”. So, now they do mention Falk’s political agenda, belatedly, in such a way as to dismiss it as Israel’s fabrication, and they also imply that Palestinian terrorist attacks are a fantasy, an exaggeration and a matter of opinion. Do read Robin Shepherd’s article to get the full picture. He concludes:

“You can bet your house that Barbara Plett and the editorial team that helped produce this story have no inkling at all that they have violated what should be considered basic journalistic standards and practices. In their world, their behaviour is reasonable and normal. And so, they would argue, is Richard Falk.”

OPEN THREAD...

I can see that yesterday's Open Thread is filling up very quickly so I am opening a NEW one to see us through until Monday.

It's The Policies, Stupid.

Now that we're approaching the mid-term elections in the US, the BBC has been ramping up the rhetoric against those who don't approve of the President's policies. In fact, to hear it from the BBC, it's not His policies at all, but rather evidence of bad attitudes, inadequacies, and racism among His opponents. In the last few days, BBC North America editor Mark Mardell has told us that it's not the President's fault at all, because the unwashed simply can't relate to His intellectual behavior. When critics say He's aloof and people don't feel like He hears them, it's not that His policies and statements clearly go against what most of the public wants and believes, but that He just hasn't communicated the message in a dumbed-down enough fashion for the masses to understand. Mardell has made other posts highlighting the "anger" of people dissatisfied with the current Government's policies, as has Katie Connolly, which is an easy trick to disqualify those voices from the start. When someone is presented as angry, that context automatically reduces their credibility. The thing is, it was okay for people in the US to be angry when Bush was in charge; the BBC never looked for nefarious forces underlying that anger. Yet they do spend an extraordinary amount of effort trying to make it seem to their audience as if racism and extremism are the only things which would compel someone to oppose the President. It's never because of His and the Democrat leadership's policies. It's just "the economy", which is of course not His fault as it was inherited from George Bush. Does that sound familiar? This Narrative is spread across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting, from BBC World News America to Newsnight to HardTalk to The Culture Show (h/tOliver on the Open Thread).

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Spending Cuts In Word Clouds

A fascinating contribution emailed in by All Seeing Eye reader Nick Heath which deserves crossposting here at Biased-BBC. The bias in the BBC is often by perception and not often possible to quantify - but here it is. He has done a word cloud of coverage of the Comprehensive Spending Review from the BBC News website, Sky News website and CNN...and also one of the Hansard entry for Osborne’s speech. See if, without using the names of the graphics, you could have guessed which one came from the BBC?

So, no trouble working it out at all then, was there? In the order of BBC News website, Sky News, CNN and Hansard. The particular prominence of the word Cuts in one of them gave it away.

HELP! MORE OF THE SAME...

I'm getting bored with keeping track of BBC greenie/environment/climate alarmism nonsense - there are so many stories, so much rubbish, so many inane, insane claims, that each report I file here is looking and sounding like more of the same. Black, Harrabin (though he has been keeping a low profile of late) Kinver & co seem to be under instructions to provide a torrent of one-sided propaganda, so much so that I have no doubt that this is being coordinated. They are like the Terminator androids, capable of self-repairing and continuing with their pre-programmed, lunatic mission no matter what happens. The latest is wearisomly here; it's going to get warmer by 4 degrees C over the next century (the models say so), so a bunch of loony scientists have constructed 20 big saucers (sorry, "replicated ecosystems" in the language of the green religion) and have studied what happens at different temperatures. Why they need to do this, I do not know (or care), because I think any child would tell you that plant and animal life is different in a lake in tropical Africa from one in Canada. But hey-ho, this is science grant money, so it can be sprayed around like champagne on the Grand Prix winners' podium. As usual Mark Kinver reports the whole farce with reverential tones, ignoring obvious countervaling arguments such as this. Actually, in this case, those involved in this "research" acknowledge that they don't know what they've proved with their saucers, but the irony is totally lost on Mr Kinver. My question to myself (and you) this morning is whether I continue to write about this drivel. Part of me says that logging the lies is important, another that it's like shooting ducks in a barrel, and that the nonsense has become so obvious and so absurd that it's pointless to chronicle it. Nothing will stop it. It's daily, it's there, it's relentless, it's a campaign to indoctrinate us. I have come to see the BBC as a gigantic Trabant, trundling on but oblivious to the parody it has become. Yet the stuff it spews out is dangerous. Our political class and our schoolkids are totally on board (as the normally mild-mannered Harmless Sky blog testifies today). It's a religion of divisiveness, of fascism and of hate (towards the human race); every bit as loathsome and cynical as Nazism.