End Of An Era?

End Of An Era?

>> THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 01, 2011

Guido is running with this Tweet right now - and it's a sight to gladden the heart of seasoned bias-watchers. Could it be? Or is he just playing hard to get for a salary bump? Who is likely to replace him? And (a different question entirely) who should replace him? Or is the whole concept past its usefulness?

WHEN LEFT BECOMES RIGHT...

>> WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2011

I thought this was an excellent tour de force on the BBC and wanted to end August by sharing it. My sincere thanks to the contributor;

"Watching any BBC programme whether drama, comedy, science or nature you soon become aware you are not merely learning about the history of the Roman Empire for example but are also being subtly lectured on the evil done under the British Empire, a programme about hedgehogs might, will, end up with the message that we need more wind turbines, a programme about a town's history will be a lesson on immigration and so on and on and on.

Whilst commercial product placement is banned on the BBC no such restrictions seem to exist or be recognised when it comes to political 'product placement'. Ideas are the most powerful 'weapon' and the ability to broadcast your own ideas is therefore extraordinarily valuable and possibly dangerous and open to abuse.

Most writers seem to be of the left wing persuasion and the BBC seems unconcerned about what favourite hobby horses they flog in their scripts.

'New Tricks' is a deservedly popular programme but is often used as a vehicle to peddle ideas on feminism, the evil of Israel, capitalism and now government cuts in the police service. Similarly in 'Doctors'.....a story about a mix up with handbags and frog spawn ended up with a political comment on NHS cuts. On the 'Conspiracy Files' we are told that the public believe more in such conspiracies because of the lies told to us by politicians...roll out Nixon, Clinton then a clip of George Bush talking about WMD in Iraq. Now this is purely the BBC's take on history...and of course is part of its effort to defend itself after the Kelly Affair and Hutton by rewriting history in its favour.

The default position must be that both Blair and Bush had an honest belief that the intelligence was correct (and Kelly himself believed the intelligence was right....see Hutton....'I had no doubt about the veracity of it (the Dossier) wasabsolute.'...'It is an accurate document, I think it is a fair reflection of the intelligence that was available and it's presented in a very sober and factual way....it is well written.' "I was personally sympathetic to the war because I recognised from a decade's work the menace of Iraq's ability to further develop it's non-conventional weapons programmes.....We were 100% certain that Saddam had a biological weapons programme.") For the BBC to state otherwise is mere propaganda on its own behalf.

The BBC uses its everyday programmes to quietly and surreptitiously insert its propaganda, its own ideas about the world into your mind. It is attempting to manipulate what you think and how you act...it is an exercise in thought control. Does it work? Yes it does. After 13 years of Labour corruption and incompetence the BBC manages to avoid talking about those lost years....they talk more about the Thatcher years than the unlucky 13.

Discussions on immigration, Europe, Islam and the economy are either non- existent or strictly controlled....and the majority population views of these things are suppressed.

As Chomsky said: 'The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.'

And Tony Blair's view on the media's power to corrupt the nation..... 'Blair's conclusion was a bleak one. "I do believe that this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair. The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future....it is intrinsically unsatisfactory and unhealthy for a significant proportion of the population to have a distorted view of reality."

This is the BBC's open declaration of its intent to manufacture your consent to its ideas...... 'Drama can be a powerful mechanism for development. It can build an emotional connection with target audiences over a period of time, while modelling situations or behaviours. Viewers or listeners become attached to characters and share in their experiences. The process of designing a mass media programme or campaign begins with a 'messaging workshop', where the results of formative research are analysed to produce a 'messaging brief'. The brief describes which messages need to be communicated to achieve key behaviour change.'

All endorsed by the wonderfully bonkers Polly Toynbee declaring that “left-wing people are more intelligent, and just generally better people”.

We can all learn a lot from the left wingers in the corridors of power at the BBC