BBC WATCH

BBC WATCH

>> FRIDAY, APRIL 08, 2011

Here is an excellent site that also details the BBC's antipathy towards Israel - recommended and worth a visit! Trevor Asserson should be congratulated for his meticulous work on this!

"The bbcwatch Reports demonstrate how the BBC consistently fails to adhere to its legal obligations to produce impartial and accurate reporting. Our systematic, objective and rigorous research points to the firm conclusion that the BBC frequently displays marked and consistent pro-Palestinian bias in their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Their inability to report on this subject in an impartial way raises questions over their ability to report on all other politically sensitive issues."

ALLAH'S LITTLE HELPERS...

A perceptive reader picks up on this; Nicky Campbell this morning gave a lot of airtime to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association who are running an advertising campaign to lessen 'Islamophobia'. This is of course hugely ironic because the Ahmadis are considered heretics by other Muslims and not Muslim.....only recently 100 of them were slaughterd in Pakistan by 'real' Muslims. So we have to ask where lies the real violence and conflict? And then also ask why is it that Jewish schools need bomb proof windows, security fencing and security guards? None of these questions were raised by Campbell....but he did suggest that people's perceptions of Islam were wrong...what they believed were acts of violence or bigotry carried out in Islam's name were in fact the result of cultural traditions and practises. This seems to be a recent theme on the BBC....Is it an editorial guideline to presenters to suggest this line in order to make people believe Islam is not to blame for many social ills? A recent report from Saudi Arabia on women's oppression did not mention Islam at all. In an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali Emily Maitlis does not ask if culture is the cause of women's oppression but states that it is...Homophobia, women's lack of rights, violence to other religions are caused not by religion of Islam but by deep cultural conservatism...Islam is a mass of different Islams she claims (Islamically impossible...there can be only one Islam). But the culture is Islam...taken from Arab culture and turned into the word of God replies Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Maitlis uncritically defends Islam and claims Hirsi Ali is fuelling anti-Islamic bigotry and the Far Right. The BBC is playing a dangerous game promoting this religion and doing all it can to impede any criticism and indepth questioning of the religion, its origins, its real meaning and where it will lead us to should it take hold in this country.

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?

A Biased BBC reader asks; "Listening to Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed, rofessor of the Anthropology of Religion at King's College London, being interviewed on 'Woman's Hour' ) this morning the thought came to me that perhaps the Pope is not Catholic. His, some might say, extreme views on women, homosexuality and contraception are surely not what the Catholic Religion is really about. In other words the Pope is perverting or distorting the real Catholicism. Then to see Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard of Brussels spalttered with pie for expressing such Popish views shook me...perhaps there is a God, one with a sense of humour....is God confirming my radical thoughts? No it was the BBC. My eyes were opened to new thinking about religion and authority when the above mentioned professor suggested that the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia had its origin in religion, but not the religion of Islam. The Saudi religious establishment were not the true representatives of Islam...they were perverting its Truths for their own ends. This might seem strange as Islam was born in Saudi Arabia, Islam's single most Holy shrine is in Saudi Arabia and the pronouncements of the Saudi religious authority are followed around the world and indeed the Saudis pay for much of the Islamic infrastructure burgeoning in Britain right now. The question therefore arises if the Saudi Religious Establishment is not the true Islam because of its extreme and unIslamic nature, then possibly the Pope is not Catholic. This is of course the new BBC narrative regarding Islam....the various 'extremes' which are shot through Muslim societies are actually a result of conservative cultural traditions and not Islam. Curious that cultures as disparate as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Luton all have the same culture.

HELD TO ACCOUNT?

I am getting bored with this, but Matt Ridley, one of the most respected commentators on sustainability and climate issues, wrote a long and learned piece in the Times of April 5 in which he carefully mapped out why the response to supposed climate change was hugely disproportionate because the tenets of the creed did not stand up to scientific scrutiny. He SPECIFICALLY said this about rising sea levels:

The...paper appeared in the Journal of Coastal Research (salute the web, in passing, for its extraordinary capacity for giving us access to such sources) and it concludes: “Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in US tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records. The decelerations that we obtain are . . . one to two orders of magnitude less than the +0.07 to +0.28 [millimetres per year squared] accelerations that are required to reach sea levels predicted for 2100 by [three recent mathematical models].” To translate: sea level is rising more slowly than expected, and the rise is slowing down rather than speeding up. Sea level rise is the greatest potential threat to civilisation posed by climate change because so many of us live near the coast. Yet, at a foot a century and slowing, it is a slight nosebleed. So are most of the other symptoms of climate change, such as Arctic sea ice retreat, in terms of their impact. The rate of increase of temperature (0.6C in 50 years) is not on track to do net harm (which most experts say is 2C) by the end of this century.

I quote this is full because it is directly relevant. RICHARD BLACK MUST HAVE SEEN THIS. But completely undaunted by such inconvenient facts (note that Ridley's are based on measurements, not models), Mr Black has today filed this pile of sensationalist gutter-press tut warning that massive sea-level rises are imminent. As usual, he worships at the altar of the IPCC (ignoring, too, this very recent post by Donna Laframbois - in future the IPCC should be known as Pachauri's political poodle); as usual, his alarmist claptrap is based purely on modelling; and as usual, he does not deign to quote anybody who opposes these grant-guzzling buffoons. The reason I am bored is that such utter bull-necked, crass, mis-reporting is simply beyond belief. I continue to churn out these observations because one day, one day soon, I hope and pray, he and the rest of the alarmist goons at the BBC will be held to account for the poison they are spreading.

Them and Us

The way the recent upheavals in the Middle East have been reported by the BBC show clearly that it’s beyond their collective imagination to wonder whether the Arab/Islamic population is really and truly full of ordinary people just like us. Even though Jon Donnison and Jeremy Bowen have spent considerable time in the Arab world, they still can’t grasp the concept that there is a “them and us” and that *their* worldview is antithetical to *ours* . Would Jeremy Bowen send his young relatives off to prosecute holy jihad wearing a suicide belt? Would Jon Donnison support the stoning of an adulteress or the limb amputation of a thief? Would he expect to enter Paradise if he copped it in the fog of struggle? Probably not. But they must know that these beliefs exist and can’t be shrugged off with a casual “I’m sure they don’t really mean it.” The BBC’s reporting on the escalation of attacks from Gaza is an example of this moral equivalence. Towards the end, the BBC’s report demonstrates how the writer identifies with Hamas, “Last month saw some of the worst violence since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008, says the BBC's Jon Donnison in Gaza." reminding us as usual, of Cast Lead. “In one week in March, at least 10 Palestinians - including several civilians and children - were killed by Israeli attacks” Donnison begins, adding: “In the same period, militants in Gaza fired more than 80 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel.” This implies that Israel killed “several” (how many?) innocents, then Hamas responded, pitifully, killing no-one. “Hamas had pledged to try to restore a ceasefire that ended on 16 March when an Israeli air strike killed two of its militants in the Palestinian territory.” This makes no sense. Would or could Hamas ‘try to restore’ a ceasefire that was allegedly broken by Israel? “However, Israel said it had suffered "bouts of terror and rocket attacks." Israel said? Hamas has pledged? Which is more reliable, a *say* or a *pledge*? “Despite recent calls for calm, neither side seems to be able to stop firing, our correspondent says. Both say the other started it. Israel says it holds Hamas responsible for all attacks coming out of Palestinian territory, even if it is other militant groups carrying them out” Read Melanie Phillips and Honest Reporting on that kind of remark. While I’m at it - “Attack on Bus” Why does Hamas attack just *a bus?* Is 'damaging a bus' their intention? When rockets land without killing any Israelis, is that intentional? Also, when is a teenaged boy a child? When he’s a Palestinian, of course. Israeli children are ‘people’ or teenagers, young Palestinian resistance fighters are counted as children till they get the key of the door. The invariable chronological inversion of attack and retaliation and the habitual emphasis on the retaliation and downplaying of the provocation is automatic for the BBC. Not many people used to know that, but thankfully more and more people are starting to notice. Even Sky has: “The violence began when Gazan militants launched an anti tank-missile at a school bus in an apparently deliberate escalation.” The BBC prefers to begin their article by concentrating on Israel's military might, emoting a disproportionate response to a damaged bus. “Israeli tanks, helicopters and planes have struck Gaza after an anti-tank missile fired from the Palestinian territory hit a bus in southern Israel.” If the BBC understood what is happening it could have speculated that the escalation in hostilities might be related to the “Arab Spring.” It might have occurred to someone that Hamas has been emboldened by the the Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood’s prospective rise to prominence throughout the Arab world. Here’s a quote from a thought-provoking article everyone should read.

And, as in much other coverage of the Middle East, the journalists – take a bow, BBC – did not bother to exercise the elementary functions of their craft: to be inquisitive, to question assumptions, to look beyond the overheated excitement. Having written the script, they were determined to stick to it in breathless, eye-moistening interviews – “live and direct from Tahrir Square” – with self-selecting, highly educated, English-speaking protesters. And just as the media made their bizarre extrapolations and re-wrote the script, they also changed their language. In less than a month, Mubarak had made the seamless transition from “moderate, pro-Western Egyptian president” to “corrupt, tyrannical dictator”.

I blogged something like this myself not so long ago.