Interesting catch from a Biased BBC reader here; "Piece on 5Live today about the Hight Speed Train line to Manchester. A frustrated B-BBC reader writes; "Is the BBC making no mention of some important protests by large numbers of people all round a country, proof of bias? 24 hours ago, Saturday evening, in Israel 150,000 people protested in at least five cities about the cost of living - food, housing, childcare, baby and child necessities and others. it's a major happening in Israel, the PM cancelled a trip to Poland and there is talk about the summer recess for the Knesset being postponed or cancelled. Netanyahu is setting up committees to urgently look at the problems. Israelis are talking about the relatively few rich Israeli families who apparently own many commercial and industrial companies. There is a lack of competition and many prices are far too high for people's salaries, people just can't manage What does the BBC have on its website about this groundbreaking story? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. WHY? Because the BBC would have to show Israelis as ordinary humans rather than Palestinian-bashing monsters. Because the BBC seems to have an aversion to economics generally? Because they're lazy and it's easier to keep hacking on about the Palestinians? Who to my mind are increasingly irrelevant. The BBC has always had a strange reluctance to show film of Israelis doing ordinary things, shopping, walking along Israeli streets, in ordinary homes. Showing this would reveal that Israel is a busy, bustling, vibrant and especially peaceful country. Anathema for al Beeb." Some BBC journos are on strike today so I am following their example. The floor is yours.. Greenery continues to infect every part of the BBC. Last night the Dragon's Den was back. The centrepiece project - introduced in awed tones by poisonous host Evan Davis - was an eco-conman from Halifax, who off the back of the feed-in tariff (a subsidy from the government under which money from jacked-up energy bills is given to those who can afford to install solar panels - i.e. robbing the poor to stuff the bank accounts of the rich), had registered a massive growth in his business and couldn't keep pace. All of the dragons but one salivated at the prospect of feasting on this government bonanza and they clambered over each other in their obscene haste to grab a stake in the scam. In a sense, I don't blame them - why ignore such a cast-iron guaranteed money-making scheme? But it was clear from their comments that all of the so-called dragons are signed-up green-creed fanatics. And who else would the BBC choose to supposedly represent the entrepreneurial spirit? So the US Congressional leadership has agreed to a budget deal - the first real one since the President took office, as it happens - to temporarily stave off a default and financial ugliness. The agreement will raise the debt ceiling by $900 billion, and create and a cut of $1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. Most media seem to be qualifying it as an "immediate" cut, but that seems rather silly as the actual cuts won't happen immediately, and will be spread out rather thinly over time. And it's pretty much a wash, so nothing is really fixed. However, the key factor is here that the agreement also requires the forming of a committee within the year to come up $1.5 trillion more spending cuts. Now that means something. And no tax increases. We'll have to wait and see how the vote goes on Monday, of course, but it's hard to believe that Boehner would agree to this if the party whips hadn't come up with the votes to pass it. Sounds pretty much like the Boehner plan, which Mark Mardell described as having basically vetoed itself by not raising the debt ceiling even more, or raising taxes. On Friday, the BBC North America editor informed you of theWhite House talking point that it was wrong. It seems like we're about to get a deal of some sort to temporarily alleviate the debt crisis. I say temporarily, because there's no telling how it's all going to work out over the next two years. In any case, it's not done yet, so it's a couple days early to start mocking the BBC's coverage with "Lo! The Conq'ring Hero Comes". What I'd like to do is provide some examples of the exact same budget issue the country has been experiencing at the state level. The BBC has mostly ignored all of this. It's important, though, to bring this up for two reasons. 1. Spending a moment on how individual states solved their problems provides some helpful context with which to understand the national debate. 2. The reality of what's gone on at the state level basically puts the lie to what the BBC has been telling you about the national issue. First up, Wisconsin. Many people here will remember the BBC's wild-eyed coverage of what went on in Wisconsin a few months back, when a Republican governor was, as the BBC put it, trying to pass an anti-union budget. Searching this blog for Wisconsin-related content will provide plenty of evidence of the BBC's biased coverage, telling you how awful Gov. Walker's plan would be for honest public sector workers. I don't even want to get into how the BBC censored all news of violent and hateful rhetoric from the Left, in stark contrast to the way they focused on every fringe outlier in the Tea Party protests they covered. In any case, the state had the same budget crisis the country is facing: too much spending, not enough money coming in. The Governor and the Legislature decided to cut spending. The BBC wasn't happy. So it's important to check in now to see how things turned out. Apparently, pretty well. It seems that, by saving money, the state was able to save lots of teachers' jobs they were going to lose the way things were going. Not only that, but the state itself went from being deep in the red to nosing into the black. It's possible, you see, if you don't listen to the likes of Ed Balls or Harry Reid or Mark Mardell. I'll let the Lt. Governor of Wisconsin, Rebecca Kleefisch, explain. (After just looking at her and hearing the first three words out of her mouth, tell me Ms. Kleefisch wouldn't absolutely drive the Beeboids like Justin Webb insane.) Who'd have thought, eh? Not the BBC. 
ALL SHADES OF OPINION,,,
>> MONDAY, AUGUST 01, 2011
MANCHESTER UNITED IN FAVOUR OF HST?
OLIGENAOUS KEITH
I seem to have missed the announcement that Keith Vaz is back in the government. You too? The reason I assume Keith is back in Government is that the BBC couldn't get enough from him. During the TI frenzy over the past few weeks Keith was one of the go-to guys and let's face it, who can speak about integrity with more gravitas and experience than Vaz? Today he was on to wax about the need for Turkey to join the EU and further enrich our lives but - panic not - not before it has secured its borders. (Keith probably has referred them to the template his Labour government used between 1997 and 2010 as a great example of erm...tight borders.) The BBC seem to love Vaz. He is on more often than most Coalition Ministers. UPDATE' Keith is now sorting out all Winehouse related issues on the BBC. He is now universal.
ALL THE NEWS NOT FIT TO SHOW!
OPEN THREAD...
SNAKE OIL INVESTORS
We Have A Deal, But The BBC Casts Doubt On The Tea Party
President Barack Obama says there is a way out of the mess, and he is clear it is not House Speaker John Boehner's proposal. He says the Republican's plan has no chance of becoming law. It's odds on the president won't have to veto it, as the Tea Party seems to have done the job for him. He's again urging people to tweet, ring, email their members of Congress and push them to reach a deal.
Has the BBC reported that Twitter fail yet? Today, he wrote this: The sort of deal we seem to be looking at is, objectively a victory of the Republicans. The Democrats take a lot of pain and can only hope to avoid the worst political damage. But the Tea Party members don't get everything they want by any means and are quite capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Mr Boehner's people told me months ago that they knew there would always be a handful who would never support any deal. But that handful or rebels turned out to be a bucketful, sloshing with Tea Party enthusiasm. We will soon see the limits to their purity and the extent of their pragmatism.
So Mardell believes the vote could fail due to the "purity" concerns of the Tea Party movement. The negative connotations of that word really reveal his ideological bias. Let's how the vote turns out, and how the BBC covers it. Let this be the thread for discussion of the BBC's coverage of the result.An Alternative Perspective Not Heard On The BBC, And Context For The Debate
>> SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2011
DERELICTION OF DUTY
Alison Hastings, ex editor of the Newcastle Chronicle and former member of the Press Complaints Commission, is BBC trustee for England. She is also chairman of the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee, and as such arguably holds the corporation's most important position in the adjudication of complaints about BBC bias - in effect she is the final arbiter. One of her most significant tasks over the past fortnight was in the publication of theSteve Jones report into the BBC's science coverage, the key finding of which by the political activist author was that BBC journalists must work a lot harder in excluding or banishing to the absolute margins the views of those who do not accept that "climate change" has been primarily caused or made worse by the burning of fossil fuels. In effect, this was a landmark paper, in that it was aimed deliberately at shutting down free speech and honest debate so that those political activists who want a green revolution can have open mike. So how has Ms Hastings - who from her CV casts herself as being robust and fair minded - responded? The deeply disturbing answer is here. First, she tells us patronisingly and confrontationally in her intro that according to the "influential" IPCC's 1997 report, it is 90% certain that "climate change" is caused by humans (it did not say that, actually, but she is clearly following the "never let the facts get in the way" school of journalism). Then, in the key section of her argument, she states: He (Steve Jones)identified a real challenge for broadcasters in accurately reflecting the latest scientific thinking, thanks to the peculiarities of scientific debate. That of keeping pace with the evidence, and in particular in taking care when reporting to distinguish between opinion and well-established fact or consensus. This doesn't mean that BBC reports will not feature people who do not believe climate change exists. And it is emphatically still the case that the BBC must rigorously scrutinise any issues it reports – after all, scientists can get it wrong. But when something moves from opinion to well-established fact, viewers should be aware of this, and the broadcaster must adjust its coverage and its approach to achieving impartiality accordingly. Both facts and opinions have their place in science – indeed any – reporting, but the audience must be clear which is which.
High-sounding words, probably drafted by Ms Hastings herself; but they are an utter disgrace, more so because they have been written by someone who is the key guardian of the standards a taxpayer-funded £3.5bn operation supposedly aimed at generating balanced, impartial journalism. In effect, she has thus sanctioned an intensification of the efforts by Richard Black and his cronies to stifle dissent (exemplified in agitprop such as this); she has elevated the utterances of the IPCC to unassailability, despite evidence like this, which shows the IPCC writers to be nothing more than second-rate agitators; and she has said the opinions of at least 50% of those who fund the corporation (according to the BBC's own poll!) are those of the madhouse. BBC accountability? It's a sick joke.
Monday, 1 August 2011
The great thing about the BBC is that provides all shades of opinion.....get this catch from an eagle eyed reader! "America is apparently on the brink of economic armageddon and about to bring the next apocalypse upon us and the BBC brings on an actor to tell us all about it and how it could be solved.
Weekend Breakfast on 5Live at 2 hrs 20 mins, tells us that everybody (?) is talking about this doom laden scenario...'even actors'. Cue Richard Schiff....qualified to comment because he acted in the 'West Wing'....oh and they did an episode..maybe..that covered something like this....but you know, he didn't understand it then, and doesn't now but he'll do his best to give us his take on things. Bearing in mind he is a democrat, naturally being a lovey,...he informs us that the obstructionist and unpatriotic Republicans are blocking the necessary legislation (hmmm...didn't the Republican controlled Congress just vote for legislation...that the Dem. Senate voted out?) in order to paint a picture of a failing Obama presidency....the GOP is prepared to see the world economy destroyed in order to get rid of Obama.
Well thanks for that BBC, let's add him to the very long list of actors, musicians and writers who you bring on to talk about their work but always for some reason end up asking about their, unfailingly, Democrat political views."
We were treated to the views of a 'businesswoman' from Manchester who told us how vital the new line would be for her. This woman turned out to be Cat Lewis, producer and film maker....who makes films for the BBC. Isn't Salford, where the BBC's new media centre going to be, in Manchester? Guess it would be handy for all those BBC types to have a special train laid on for them.
Must watch this space to see which side of the debate the BBC comes down on."
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