Old films are very popular. We love nostalgia, the costumes, the funny accents, lots of smoking, and we can observe with the benefit of hindsight, people going about their business in the 20s and 30s. We know, as they do not, of the tribulations to come. We particularly relish seeing everyone pooh-poohing the threat of Nazism, and we empathise with the frustration felt by a lone voice expressing alarm. We understand the complacency and innocence that made people miss the obvious signals, if only they would spot them, of the gathering storm. Even when war became a reality, obstinacy and blindness persisted. We know all that now. Last night on BBC World service “The Strand” I heard Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator Adhaf Soueif talking from Tahrir Square. She’s one of Egypt’s liberal female writers, and was breathlessly enthusing about the uprising; the diversity, the creativity, the unity and the spirit of the people in Tahrir Square. All marvellous, until her final words - “we must stop pandering to the interests of America and lsrael.” In the same programme there was an interview with German photographer Kai Weidenhofer who has an exhibition in London. Images of the human cost of war. (Gaza) He cited the Goldstone report to justify using such voyeuristic subject matter. The bout of insomnia wore off and I woke up to the dulcet tones of William Hague complaining about Israel’s belligerence. According to Hague, Israel must reinstate the settlement freeze and abracadabra there will be Peace in Our Time. Actually, I saw the same interview on the telly, and he did mention that the Palestinians should also make a concession or two, but that was omitted for the purposes of Today. Then there was a shameful interview with Sir Sherard Cowper Coles, who echoed Hague’s sentiments, and said in no uncertain terms that all the region’s problems are Israel’s fault. James Naughtie disgraced himself by confusing PaliLeaks with WikiLeaks, and then repeating the Guardian’s and Polly Toynbee’s face-value interpretation of them: ‘Israel was offered everything, turned it all down, offered nothing in return. Swaggered.’ Does he actually think it was WikiLeaks, and not Qatari Al-Jazeera’s malicious “release” of selected spin, designed to undermine the PA, Abbas, Israel and the entire peace process? Where was Israel’s point of view? Oh I forgot. We don’t need that. Because we’re well into the olden days. The days when, despite some lone voices expressing alarm, everyone’s happily missing the signs if only they would spot them, of the gathering storm. Further to Robin's earlier post, here's another interesting blast from Fiona Fox's past: Bishop Hill has blogged on the BBC's response to concerns about theHorizon programme which shamefully stitched up James Delingpole. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. All I would add is that it shows yet again, the utter dishonesty and bankruptcy of the BBC approach to climate change. The content of Fiona Fox article on the BBC College of Journalism site has been ably and rightfully savaged in the comments that have been posted. There’s nothing I can add, except that it was shooting ducks in a barrel. My point about this latest exercise in smug, we-know-we-are-right agitprop is to ask who at the BBC thought Ms Fox was qualified in the first place to write such a piece? First, Miss Fox is not a scientist. According to her own CV, she is a press officer who happens to have been appointed to a post that provides information to journalists about science. Most of her career has been actually been spent in political activism. Her current role is no different, as the Centre’s consistent, one-sided support for the political objectives of the warmist creed illustrates. Everything she does is underpinned by warmist zealotry; she is not objective, and is thus in no position to be able to reliably rebut Mr Sissons’ arguments - especially as she herself spends much time berating those who dare to challenge "the science" of global warming. Second, she is an extremist who has demonstrated a lack of sound judgment. For example, she has written for Living Marxism, a publication in which she seemingly sought to blur the lines of responsibility for the Rwanda genocide and to gloss over the massacre by machete of thousands of children. Even the Guardian attacked her for the extremism of her stance. This was admittedly some time ago, but nothing she has done at the Science Media Centre indicates that she has changed her politics or worldview. Thirdly, and most importantly, Miss Fox says she is a journalist, but I am afraid her qualifications and work experience are very limited. She obtained a trendy two-a penny media degree from Thames Polytechnic, then went straight into agitprop press office work with a succession of agencies which are hardly at the centre of national life. Peter Sissons, by contrast, the man she tells us does not know what he is talking about on the subject of bias, went straight from Oxford university to the bear pit of ITN newsroom, and he rose under the great Sir Geoffrey Cox to become one of their leading foreign correspondents. He was shot covering the Biafra war, and, re-invented himself as an industrial correspondent and then presenter. He rose to the upper echelons of ITN under Sir David Nicholas and when Channel 4 News was launched in 1981, he was the natural choice as presenter. In that pioneering role he won numerous accolades and awards. When he was at the height of his powers, the BBC decided to do what the BBC does and throw more than the equivalent of a million pounds in his direction to poach him. I dwell on this because, in my book, though Miss Fox is entitled to her opinions (as we all are), she is emphatically not in a position to be able to judge properly or objectively whether Mr Sissons has got it wrong when he says the BBC's climate reporting is propaganda. Nothing she so piously says undermines his observations, and the way it is said demonstrates instead that she is not fit to lick his boots. She is a jumped-up press officer of limited vision and intellect with no experience of working in a newsroom, he is a giant of British journalism who won his spurs at the coalface of newsgathering time and time again. That the BBC College of Journalism – their self declared “centre of excellence” – should choose her to rubbish Mr Sissons in this way is a disgrace, and an indication of how low BBC journalism has sunk. The BBC are running a series on the rise of the 'far right' in Europe, and leveraged their investment with a report on The World Tonight featuring the Danish People's Party*, and the hopes of human rights (aka open borders) activists that the judiciary may change some of the unsatisfactory immigration legislation resulting from the unrestricted use of democratic elections and the universal franchise. I'll pass by the writer's assertion that the unauthorised use by the DPP of an Abba song is 'a scandal' and note instead the concern that DPP influence was changing something essentially Danish : I'm sure my fellow blogger Robin Horbury will have one or two things to say about this article by Fiona Fox at the BBC College of Journalism website, but in the meantime savour the comments underneath. Marvellous stuff. (H/t Umbongo) BBC journalist Iain Mackenzie has returned from his stint in America. I've just stumbled across his newly-named Twitter account and was quite taken with this tweet from last month: A reader sent me the following picture taken by his daughter. As part of some sort of school/youth project she has been transferring the results of a climate questionnaire onto computer. Being a big fan of Top Gear she was amused to see the following answers from a Year 10 boy (click to enlarge): This morning's Today programme devoted substantial time to allegations - scandalous if true - that the Metropolitan Police has undertaken anorchestrated campaign to discredit expert defence witnesses in Shaken Baby court cases. One of the pathologists in question stated: One of the areas I have reported on recently is the extent to which established concerns (blue chip corporations, professional bodies and so on) are tied up in the climate change scam. Their senior executives are engaged in multi-dimensional strategies to work out how to the scare the public and the government into coughing up ever-greater amounts in subsidies and into developing crackpot schemes to deal with “climate change impacts" that the climate models ludicrously predict will happen. Thus big industry funds the alarmist Science Media Centre; there areconsultancy companies who specialise in forcing the government’s hand; senior personnel of blue chip companies meet on a regular basis to work out how to scam yet more money; and, of course, senior former BBC executives have become “advisors” in the whole rotten, stinking enterprise. I have said before that when I trained as a journalist, both at the BBC and on the now defunct excellent regional newspaper scheme, it was drummed into us relentlessly to be sceptical and cynical; and especially, where money was involved, to find out who benefitted and why before rushing into print. In those days, that led, for example, to the unearthing of the massivePoulson local authority corruption, and the demise, eventually, of ex-Tory Chancellor Reggie Maudling for his part in the fetid mess. I had a modest part in this. Spool forward to today. All this seems to be forgotten. Richard Black instead acts as an unquestioning mouthpiece for a bunch of engineers who ought to be ashamed of themselves . Their logic beggars belief; first they accept unquestioningly Met Office model forecasts that temperatures are definitely going to rise by several degrees (disregarding evidence like this), then they say, that as that happens, new investors are going to be more likely to stump up cash in countries where there is a “secure infrastructure”. This is la-la land, the logic of the madhouse, though of course, it is a framework for getting out their begging bowls in the queue for subsidies to slay these imaginary dragons. Not so for Richard Black. As usual – while his colleague Roger Harrabin is with other eco-nutters in Oslo– he accepts the whole fantasy as gospel truth – and goes to town in his toadying scaremongering. It’s a travesty of journalism and the tragedy is that quite patently, he is not remotely aware of it. Honest Reporting poses a significant question in its latest lament about Israel’s coverage in the media. Why does Israel’s every move get scrutinised, magnified, exaggerated and endlessly regurgitated through a filter of disapproval, while seriously reprehensible events that occur in the surrounding Arab countries, namely Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, pass unnoticed by the tunnel-visioned press pack? Honest Reporting answers its own question, putting this bashfulness down to fear of having their access withdrawn, but I’m afraid it’s simply down to pure you-know-what. “At any one time there are some 450 foreign journalists permanently resident in Israel,” they say, plus copious support staff, but all of a sudden, due to present circumstances, most of them decamped to Cairo. Apparently there was a bit of a media fuss when an Al-Jazeera journo was made to take her bra off at a security check before attending an event with PM Netanyahu, but virtual silence over “many stories of foreign journalists inconvenienced, detained, threatened and sometimes worse.” in neighbouring Arab states. Pardon me, then, for being mildly amused at this. After the eulogistic praise we’ve had all week for the uprising in Egypt from the BBC’s reverential reporters, how about this from Tom Gross: BBC’s Jerome Boehm also targeted by protesters BBC also reported their correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes’ car was forced off the road in Cairo “by a group of angry men.” He was detained by the men, who handed him off to secret police agents who handcuffed and blindfolded him and an unnamed colleague and took them to an interrogation room. They were released after three hours. BBC reporter Wyre Davies in Alexandria – Attacked and driven off by locals several times in the past few days BBC foreign editor Jon Williams said via Twitter that security forces seized the network’s equipment in a Cairo Hilton hotel in an attempt to stop it broadcasting. I don’t know how many times they’ve been attacked by Israeli Jews. This was posted a few days ago by B-BBC commentator Too True. "What do I think of the BBC today? I detect a speck of light in the darkness of that foul, propagandist, news-laundering organisation: Just after 54 minutes into a 5 Live programme on anti-Semitism, we have this exchange: It's remarkable just how intense, frequent and predictable BBC attacks on the Coalition have become. This morning on Today we had the accusation that the evil Tories were cutting off supply of funds to the "Charity" sector so undermining the Big Society. Then we had the accusation that the evil Tories were pushing funding to Free Schools rather than State Schools. It's like listening to an extended Labour Party broadcast every morning and yet this is what permeates a considerable section of the UK population on a 24/7 basis. The real danger the BBC poses is this constant drip drip drip of leftist propaganda. It's my view it has already twisted UK popular opinion on a range of issues and this it will keep doing until the day SOME politician has the cajones to say enough, the BBC must be detached from having its snout plunged in the public trough. Funny, isn't it, that Roger Harrabin's worries about climate change don't preclude jet travel? And funny, too, that he mostly turns up to demonstrate his knowledge at climate events organised and run by warmist fanatics. Next Tuesday, he's off to Carbonundrums (geddit? what a fabulous wheeze of a title) in Oslo with his chum Fiona Fox, she of the Science Media Centre, along with a chap called Paddy Coulter, who runs the equally eco-crazed Oxford Global Media group. As usual, there's not a sceptic in sight; they are worried, poor dears, that the media is not doing enough to spread climate change lies. I wonder which of the organisers is paying our Roger's CO2-fest fare? The BBC? the British Council? The Norwegian Government? Himself?...somehow I doubt the latter. I look forward to their conclusions - no doubt those nasty, evil, sceptics will get fingered again. The army of BBC reporters who’ve been plonked in Egypt have one thing in common - unalloyed joy at the people’s uprising. We’ve heard people say, ‘Mubarak may be a monster, but he’s ourmonster,’ or, ‘ Careful what you wish for - some Iraqis long for the stability of Sadaam’ - but what we mainly hear is wholehearted enthusiasm for the 'deposing of the tyrant'. They approve of Ben Ali’s removal from Tunisia, yet have little interest in what will follow. Just because we all abhor torture and corruption, and applaud democracy and freedom, our enemy’s enemy is not necessarily our ally, and we should all be careful about expressing unreserved enthusiasm for what we know little about. Even though the Muslim Brotherhood is not considered to be an immediate threat to Egypt’s future, none of the BBC interviews I’ve seen have questioned the bright-eyed protesters about their attitude to the West, and Israel in particular. Polls suggest that the majority of Egyptians sympathise with Sharia, which doesn’t auger well for an enlightened future. Remember Iran. Representatives of the BBC should engage their brains and stop assuming all Egyptians view everything through the eyes of the western liberal. That’s a common failing of all the BBC’s reporting. None of them seem to have the imagination to put themselves in any shoes other than their own. I think I’ve said this before. The Middle East isn’t like Islington, and Islam isn’t a religion of peace. H/T True Too for Caroline Glick Via Conservative Home, this story from The Times (£):
OPEN THREAD...
>> WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 09, 2011
The fragrant (flagrant?) Ms Fiona Fox has had her say about Peter Sissons; time for a new thread to express your views about matters of BBC bias. Have fun!Stormy Weather
FOX NEWS
DISGRACED former Labour politician Jim Devine persuaded a friend to call his office manager pretending to be a journalist looking into MPs expenses, it was claimed today. But when she took time off for stress after discovering his actions had been an elaborate hoax, he told other staff that it was her being investigated for fraudulent expenses claims used to fund a non-existent gambling habit… …But when she came into the office the following day, the office manager realised it was all a big hoax. She said: "I went into work and checked my emails and I had access to Jim’s email. "There was one marked urgent so I opened it. "It was from Fiona Fox mostly about the Embryology Bill. "She is the Director at the Science Media Centre in London. "But at the end there was a PS said that ‘I phoned that poor woman in your office and left the message. Hope you’ve put her out of her misery."
Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample commented at the time:Few people who are familiar with the small pond that is science journalism in the UK will have failed to gulp on reading about the ex-Labour MP Jim Devine and the unthinkable bullying he unleashed on his office manager, Marion Kinley. Devine, who was an MP in Livingston, Scotland, before being caught up in the expenses scandal last year asked an acquaintance to make a fake call to Kinley and pretend to be a journalist investigating her financial affairs. The story gets darker with every step and you can read more about it here. Devine has since been ordered to pay Kinley £35,000. Though appalling from the off, it was not the top line that shocked many of my colleagues most. What came as a surprise was the revelation far down the story that the fake call in question was made by Fiona Fox, head of the Science Media Centre in London, a prominent venue for press conferences on all matters scientific and medical. Otherwise articulate people who read the story struggled to say more than three letters: WTF?
This is the same person lecturing about "integrity" on the BBC College of Journalism website. UPDATE. In the comments Beeboidal points us to the BBC's account of the Devine bullying case. No mention of Fiona Fox, of course.BBC RESPONDS...
UNFIT TO LICK HIS BOOTS
Pass That Violin
>> TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 08, 2011
"All this feels very different from Denmark's reputation as a place of generous Scandinavian welfare and international solidarity ... shortly before his death last month one of Denmark's leading political commentators told me about the change he'd observed from the country he grew up in".
Words fail me. I would love to listen to a British Broadcasting Corporation programme which asked elderly Brits about the changes they'd observed in the country they grew up in. But somehow they never quite seem to find the time or resource - what with tape recorders being so expensive, old people always being too busy to talk, and scarce resources being devoted to that vital Secret History of Social Networking, The Truth About The Roma, and Greta Scacchi's Celebrity Activists. Anyone know what's Danish for 'chutzpah'? * from their Wiki entry the DPP are 'far-right' in that they wish to restrict immigration, outrageously seeming to want to keep Denmark Danish. Otherwise I see no plans for massive rearmaments, paramilitary wing, minorities to wear special clothing, invasion of Sweden etc. The only places in Denmark where God's creatures are imprisoned in inhumane escape proof camps before being slaughtered in their millions are pig farms.FOX HUNTING
POT EMPLOYEE CRITICISES RIVAL KETTLE GROUP
Kudos for pointing it out, Iain, but given the BBC's record I've got to say that's quite a pair of balls you've got there.CLARKSON 1 HARRABIN/ BLACK/ SHUKMAN 0
Heh.PARALLELS
"…it appears to me that there has been an attempt to remove from the courts all of those people who are willing to challenge the mainstream hypothesis"
A supposedly impartial and highly influential state body using dubious methods to discredit those who dare to disagree with the establishment's consensus opinion. Remind you of anything? (Clue - Paul Nurse's Horizonand Storyville's Meet the Climate Sceptics.)LA-LA LAND
Pressing Matters
>> MONDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2011
THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A DAME
I am sure you can't have failed to notice that Dame Elizabeth Hoodlasshas been all over the BBC today (Radio and TV) criticising "the cuts". The BBC forgot to mention that she is a long term Labour Party member, and activist, and has been a Labour councillor on Islington Borough Council. Not quite the independent voice that the BBC would like to infer.Happily Biased BBC readers are more informed than the BBC would like us to be....
OPEN THREAD....
Hosni says "OK, I admit I am a dictator but I do admire the way the UK allows a broadcasting tyranny to provide daily news and comment. Any chance of a job later this year?" Open thread for a new week...off you go..
NICKY CAMPBELL SEES THE LIGHT?
Nicky Campbell: Are you a Muslim Abdul?
Abdul: Yes. Nicky Campbell: You are properly horrified when there are Islamophobics attacks because of the atrocities committed by Muslims and Islamists, so why aren't you similarly horrified when there are anti-Semitic attacks? Abdul: If there are anti-Semitic attacks.... Yardina, Jewish Brit: There are! Abdul: ...first of all we do not condone, we do not accept from anybody... Nicky Campbell: You seem to be looking for a justification by saying if Israel committed... Abdul: ...that's not what I'm saying; there is suspicion obviously because the funding is coming from here, the funding is coming from America... Nicky Campbell: Do you understand why there is suspicion from some people of Muslims in this country? Abdul: ...I appreciate that obviously... what the media portrays... that Al Qaeda is responsible... Nicky Campbell: Why are you saying, "What the media portrays as Al Qaeda" if it's not true? You don't think Al Qaeda is responsible for atrocities?
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TO RECORD "KISSES FOR ME"?
Sometimes, when I hear Jeremy Al Bowen talking about "the Brotherhood"I wonder if he has in fact mistaken the Egypt based bunch of Jew-Hating Islamic supremacists for the Eurovision winning Brit group of the 1970's? I listened aghast to an interview with Bowen on Today this morning (7.50am) with Bowen once again sanitising the Brotherhood to such a degree that one could hardly imagine any downside from such a "conservative" group of kindly men. The BBC is doing all it can to portray what is going on in Egypt as a wonderful example of spontaneous people power, democracy in action. It seems entirely unconcerned about the vicious anti-Semitism that characterises the Brotherhood. How odd.THE DAILY ATTACK...
SAME HYMN SHEET
>> SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 06, 2011
Scratch the surface, and there lies yet another BBC climate change fanatic. They are everywhere; they are proliferating and they rule our lives.Yesterday, I reported that Roger Harrabin was off on a jolly to Norway to discuss how the media should be forced into reporting more climate change lies. One of his companions on the carbon dioxide guzzling fest will be Paddy Coulter, who is one of the three bosses of the modestly titled consultancy outfit, Oxford Global Media. This company, I found with weary familiarity, specialises in guess what?Giving alarmist climate change advice to a whole range of government agencies and organisations, and was recently reponsible, for example, for organising a seminar on why Copenhagen went so wrong, spreading propaganda about climate change in China, and "sustainability" strategy for the developing world (codeword for ensuring that everyone involved follows the climate change agenda). One of his fellow directors on this august and enterprising body is the chap above - David A.L. Levy. And surprise, surprise, he's a former BBC senior manager - Controller of Public Policy, no less. In his own words: ...in charge of UK & EU policy, engagement with the converged communications regulator, Ofcom and government affairs. He successfully led the BBC’s Charter Review & Licence Fee policy through its most testing review to date and was responsible for the management dimensions of the pioneering Public Value Test as applied to new services. He has long experience of the regulatory framework for broadcasting, having led the BBC’s input to the 1996 Broadcasting Act, the 2003 Communications Act, the European Communications Framework review, and the first Ofcom Review of Public Service Television.
Phew! And not only that. He was also clearly a toady to Peter Mandelson, because during the last couple of years of of NuLabour, he was appointed to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills to their Science and Media Expert Group. This body was - again, surprise, surprise - packed with warmist acolytes including Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute, and Fran Unsworth, the head of newsgathering at the BBC. Oh, and it was chaired by none other than one Fiona Fox, of the Science Media Centre....who, as I said yesterday, is also off on the jolly jaunt to Norway with our friend Mr Harrabin. The findings of the said Science and Media Group were very predictably that nasty influences are keeping the true reporting of the full horrors of climate change out of the media, and steps must be taken to counter this. Exactly the same as Carbonundrum this Tuesday. It's the same people singing from the same zealot's hymn sheet. What is truly worrying is the depth to which this disease has infected the BBC, the extent to which the BBC is connected to these groups (and works with them), and the amount of our resources they collectively squander.LEAVING ON A JET PLANE...
>> SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2011
Middle Eastenders Like Us
Spot the Party
"In an interview with The Times, Paul Maynard, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North & Cleveleys, described an incident in which some Labour MPs made faces, stretching their cheeks up and down as he spoke. It appeared to be an attempt to mimic him…"
(See also Telegraph, Mail, Press Association) Whoever wrote the copy for the final newspaper review on this morning'sToday programme decided one particular detail wasn't worth mentioning. Here's how Evan Davis told it - see if you can spot what's missing:"The Times says the Conservative MP Paul Maynard has been mocked by colleagues in the House of Commons because he's disabled. Mr Maynard has cerebral palsy and he tells the paper MPs appeared to pull faces to mimic him as he spoke in a debate. He says that carrying on regardless was one of the hardest things he's had to do. The Times says MPs of all parties have condemned the general behaviour in the commons as cruel and despicable…"
There's a similar omission in the BBC's online paper review (h/t Craig):The Times has Tory MP Paul Maynard, who has cerebral palsy, saying he was mocked by MPs during a Commons debate. He says they pulled faces at him, and the paper calls it a "scandal".
As Craig points out in the open thread, this brief item in the paper review is thus far the only mention of the story on the BBC website. There is, however, room for yet more Alastair Campbell-related publicity. The BBC would be treating this very differently if Tories had been accused of mocking a disabled Labour MP. UPDATE 4pm. NotaSheep and Span Ows point out in the comments that the phrase "mocked by colleagues" in the Today paper review goes further than merely covering for the Labour MPs involved by creating the impression that fellow Conservatives could be to blame. And Hippiepooter reminds us that when a non-entity Tory activist (not an MP) sent an email to a Tory councillor (not an MP) in Bradford in which he called a Labour agent "a cripple", Newsnight led with it (here's then editor Peter Barron's response to the ensuing criticism.)
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Fair play to Campbell on this occasion however I have to say that I think the only light I see is that of another left-wing train coming. One welcomes forensic examination of the Islamic mindset and I would like to see much more. But the overwhelming BBC meme is that ISLAM is a force for good, but perhaps with a few nutters within it (Just like Christianity, natch) and in that context I think this is a false dawn.
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