uh oh....the beloved BBC finally admits THEY ARE BIASED against religion and politics. how long have some of us been saying this??? Many of us are able to admit FNC's own biasness but few have ever been able to come to terms with BBC's own biasness - viewing the network as an unbiased source of the "truth."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3318582,00.html

BBC admits: We are biased on religion and politics

Internal corporation memo on ‘impartiality’ summit leaked to British media exposes truth on BBC bias

Hagit Klaiman

LONDON – The British Broadcasting Corporation has been struggling for several years against criticisms and claims of biased reporting concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and distorted coverage of the global fight against terror.

Following a diplomatic incident with Israel, the BBC appointed an editor known for his objective reporting, however, the true stance of the corporation’s editors remained the same.

An internal memo, recently discovered by the British media, revealed what the BBC has been trying to hide. Senior figures admitted in a recent 'impartiality' summit that the BBC was guilty of promoting Left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment.

Most executives admitted that the corporation’s representation of homosexuals and ethnic minorities was unbalanced and disproportionate, and that it leaned too strongly towards political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism, anti-Americanism and discrimination against the countryside.

Okay to trash Bible, not Quran

A truly shocking revelation to come out of the summit was expected to invoke a storm in Britain, which has already reached the boiling point with regards to the treatment of Muslims and the issue of the veil.

For the purpose of illustration, the executives were given a scenario in which Jewish Comedian Sasha Baron Cohen would participate in a program titled ‘Room 101’, a studio program where guests would be asked for their opinions on different issues, and allowed to symbolically throw things they hated in a garbage bin.

The executives were asked what they would do if Cohen decided to throw ‘Kosher food’, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bible, and the Quran in the garbage bin.

The executives said they would allow everything to be thrown in the garbage bin, save the Quran, for fear of offending the British Muslim community.

According to the ‘Washington Times’, the BBC also reportedly revealed that its executives favored interviewing terrorist leader Osama bin Laden if the opportunity arose.

Among other issues raised in the summit was the question of whether or not veiled women should be allowed to read the news. The BBC’s diversity editor said that since news anchors were allowed to wear crosses, any news anchor should be permitted to wear anything they wished, including the veil.

One senior BBC executive admitted to the ‘Daily Express’, "There was a widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it."

Jordan .

The Daily Express is garbage, this 'news' is old, and the BBC has nothing to hide.

Just stop it, you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Puts them one up on FOX News.

JVScant - once again, no one has ever said that FNC is not biased. Not sure why there is this need to keep "proving" FNC's own biasness when everyone accepts that they do lean right.

HOWEVER, repeatedly, people have stated that BBC is NOT biased.

And the fact of the matter is THEY ARE BIASED (LIKE ALL NEWS MEDIA) 

Jordan .

And who the hell are "ynetnews" when they are at home? Never stop to think that they might have an agenda here in slating the BBC? Oh look, at what else they report on their website, mmmmm.....

Is the BBC biased? My opinion is that they generally get it right. AND I certainly trust them much more than I do Sky - or ITN (ITV) for that matter. I think I am more than qualified to express this opinion since I watch it just above every day.

As well as examples of left-wing bias, where is the balance in this article in reporting the accusations that the BBC lean the other way and indeed are anti the current government (witness: the whole Dr David Kelly/Andrew Gilligan affair). But that would dilute their argument wouldn't it?

The Sacha Baron Cohen scenario is a complete red herring as well. If that same question had been asked to a group of international TV execs, do you think the BBC execs would stand out alone? Of course not! unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I would guess that the vast majority would share the BBC's view. Why? Because in Judeo-Christian societies we have a healthy culture of poking fun at our culture and institutions, unlike say in the Islamic world (Debate for elsewhere)

You're wrong in one respect, herofix. The Daily Express isn't 'garbage'. It's shite of the foulest order. But then what do you expect of a rag whose owner's Christmas party piece is to walk around his office pretending to be a Nazi (salutes, goosestepping, the whole shabbang) and then very audibly wondering where the "Jews' sense of humour had gone" (as reported in Private Eye at the start of this year)

DMG

I hope they cannot see / The limitless potential / Building inside of me / To murder everything / I hope they cannot see / I am the great destroyer

"The Daily Express is garbage, this 'news' is old, and the BBC has nothing to hide."

BTW - how is this news "old"? The meeting took place last month and the Daily Express has the article from Oct 21 -- 3 days ago.  that ain't old.

I'm always suprised by the responses anytime anyone suggests that the BBC is biased. It's like no one can grasp the simple notion that the beloved BBC would be a biased news source. ALL NEWS SOURCES ARE BIASED in some form. They've always been and always will be.

Jordan .

I agree that all news sources have a bias (or more specifically a number of biases each, probably more the closer they arer to center).  And I acknowledge that I tend to trust BBC coverage because they usually present what, according to my own personal biases, appears to be the most balanced, most nearly objective reportage on the topics I follow.  I read the New York Times news because it's important to know what the New York Times news is saying (and I don't watch CNN for the inverse reason).

Now FOX I don't read mostly because their website is so freaking ugly, but when I read someone else accuse them of being extravagantly imbalanced on some pertinent issue I do go to the source to check out the veracity of the claim.  If I were them, however, I certainly would never have hung a shingle on the front door reading "Fair and Balanced", for the same reason I wouldn't write "Safe and Reliable" if I was a medical clinic, or "Won't Rip You Off" if I was a garage.

So I do feel marginally less spun-to by the BBC news than by most others, even if that's only by virtue of already being in the choir.  In a field burdened with the expectation to produce objective information, admission of bias is at least a point of transparency; FOX may do similar soul-searching and with better memo security.  But then, this thread wasn't intended as congratulatory, was it?

Hmmm, here we go again. I pretty much despise all TV news because of the filters, I mean the anchorpersons or presenters as the BBC might say. Ask my husband what it's like to watch TV news with me. I've got the remote chugging through the batteries with a click a second while I'm groaning over this talking head or that pundit. He'll ask, "Aren't you going to watch any ONE station?" NO. I hate them all.

Jamie's right about the NYT. It's the source of most of the news you see on American TV anyway. I'd rather read that filter first especially if it's a foreign correspondent on the scene of what he's describing. The point is when you read the NYT you can make a daily assessment of a particular journalist and tally it up over the long term for credibility, accuracy and consistency. TV news is completely different. Too many others have sorted through the key newspapers, decided which stories are important and in which sequence, handed over to writers and then on air readers. They are TEAMS not individuals and none of the news has generated from their research or experience. So frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn what any of them -- FOX included have to say or what they think any more than --- probably far less than, in fact -- my neighbors. At least my neighbors process on their own as we all do with a variety of sources and sorting out what strikes as making the most sense.

So, the final word for me on BBC, which I read and occasionally watch on TV (we only get two half hour programs a day and one is at 6:00 AM), is I like my news as close to the primary source as possible and TV is for the imagery of those correspondents on the ground.  The in studio stuff I could TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY do without! 

Example of what Makes a US News Story: 

Take yesterday, for example. Just about the entire Rush Limbaugh radio show was devoted to the brouhaha over Michael J Fox's political ad and Rush's discussion of it the day before. Apparently Rush said Fox was either 'acting or stopped taking his meds' because Fox was filmed in serious uncontrollable motion as a result of his Parkinson's disease. Rush pointed out that Fox had admitted stopping his medication when he went before a Congressional committee to discuss medical research. Fox said he wanted to demonstrate how bad the tics would be. He made that calculated choice and thought the worst symptoms would be more compelling than being on his medication.

But the original Rush discussion was motivated by a candidate using a popular young actor with an terrible disease in order to convince voters to NOT vote for the opponent who (ask MJFox says in the ad) like George Bush would stop stem cell research. But the subject of the complaint from Rush is overlooked and all the context for a headline like this that AOL has this morning.  This is one of the top 3 stories according to AOL for October 24, 2006...

RUSH MOCKS AILING ACTOR

Okay. I guess sorta kinda in a small way but not only does that headline miss the point of the radio show discussion it becomes the talk show fodder for however many days. As if it were important. Think of the opposite type of campaign ad that was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company that showed Michael J Fox with motor control looking like everyone else without a neurological disease. Then the voice over says, "The Democrat candidate wants to stop pharmaceutical research that has helped people like actor, Michael J. Fox." I mean, THAT was more the subject. Not Rush being cavalier about Parkinson's disease in two or three words during a daily four hour show.

Oh, and the candidate was not against stem cell research. And the candidate was not for passing legislation to prohibit stem cell research. The candidate was, like Bush, against FEDERAL FUNDING OF EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH.

But, like many surface level discussions of important issues, the deeper important issues are left behind while the troops rally around either their beloved radio host or their beloved American actor who was stricken with Parkinsons.

ARggggggggggghhhhhhh.

I need a cup of coffee.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I'd be all up for discussing the deeper, more important aspects of getting caught coming back to America from one of the child-sex capitals of the world with a suitcase half-full of Viagra...

And while I'm on the topic of different standards for Democrats and Republicans, why doesn't Gary Condit have his own MSNBC show? :)

Geez, Jamie.  As you once said to me, "You can do better."

Better would be to stand behind your words.  Do you think Rush Limbaugh is a child molester?  Do you think he was in the Dominican Republic taking viagra so he could have sex with underage girls/boys?  If so, have the courage of your convictions and tell us why you believe this.  Better still, if you believe this, tell me how it negates the actual POINT of what I was attempting to make over the Michael J Fox political ad.  Lastly what kind of an itty bitty suitcase would be 'half-full' with 29 tablets?  Definitely a carry-on but maybe a carry-on pill box?

Ah, man, I know this was a joke of sorts but it is no small part of why communication is breaking down all over the globe.  Probably has something to do with why I'll be eating Thanksgiving turkey without my closest SoCal relatives too.

My Constant Lament.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Well now Jaime, that is quite a post. Unfortunately there is a market for underage sex ( ah, so they tell me   ) in all the Caribbean vacation islands. And yes -a half a suitcase of viagra would be quite a shiitload of pills !  I thought Rushbo was visiting a rich guy at his DR estate next to Oscar de la Renta, and Julio Eglesias. The area does have a group of exclusive estates. Now is it possible Rush needed the pills for a wild weekend with Julio Eglesias? Oh well, your version is more salacious. Is that a news report from the BBC ?  I guess things didn't work out too well for Limbaugh - all but one pill was accounted for.

I don't know what Rush Limbaugh is, besides the evident. But I do know that if Keith Olbermann were caught in precisely the same situation, he wouldn't currently still have a job as a major news organization as one of their most prominent liberal media commentators. I'm in no position to know anything directly about Rush Limbaugh's life, a fact shared by the majority of the news and current-event issues I blather on about regularly. I will happily state that I don't imagine him to be a pedophile -- I think he'd more likely be the exotic-dancer type. (Also, I wouldn't want any of you to feel that you were associating with a backhanded slanderer, stylish as that may sound.)

If I was uncharacteristically mean-spirited in my admittedly-reflexive criticism of him, it's probably only a symptom of my substantial loathing for the man. He is, to me, mean-spiritedness and petty ugliness personified, and perhaps some rubbed off on me for the duration of the time he inhabited my consciousness as I responded. Recalling, however, some of the choice nuggets I've read around here about a certain Mr Moore we're all passingly acquainted with, I don't feel I've drifted too far off the established tonal limits for recreational celebrity-bashing.

So, while not intending undue offense, I won't quite yet be abandoning my position that when what I see of mainstream US media silently referees a double-standard on an issue, it has disproportionately favored the Republicans. On corruption, incompetence, personal peccadilloes, dishonesties -- everything except the gay scandals, which I will admit the media love to go after with special zeal when Republicans are involved, as the irony is just too tasty for them to resist.

At any rate, I'm glad I got everyone riled up; I was worried I was getting too boring lately. :)

But Jamie, we're sort of in a cocoon here:  A zone where those of us with radically different philosophies can attempt to rise above the external noise and deal with facts.  The reason your throwaway comment got to me was that it was both the stink bomb of suggestion and the feeling I had that you did not really believe it.  Letting innuendo balloons float is what is done by all those others -- not us. 

With Michael Moore, I always resisted calling him "Fatty Reifenstahl," I'm pretty sure.  What I recall most of us doing with Michael Moore was picking apart the same sort of thing from F-9/11 such as I just described in the above paragraph.  The art of innuendo -- even when actual facts are presented (i.e. Bush sat still in a kindergarten classroom for however many minutes or Rush Limbaugh was detained with 29 viagra tablets) -- is a blockade against communicating ACTUAL FULL TRUTH.  It's not that what you wrote was mean-spirited -- that would be more like "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot" -- you made a backhanded accusation which you didn't even believe.  

I wonder how many minutes in the past year or so you've listened to his radio show?  I used to dislike Rush too.  It's funny but I always think back to my heady Democratic days and the Beverly Hills fundraiser for Teddy Kennedy (!) that I went to in 1992.  I had a brief conversation with Teddy.  I wanted to know if he thought Rush Limbaugh actually had any power or if he was an insignificant blowhard.  I expected he'd have some thoughts.  He gave me a sidelong look of disgust and simply said, "He's a big asshole."  Period.   I had had this fantasy that once I had 'broken the ice' with the Rush conversation, eventually we'd be discussing the JFK assassination and I'd learn his views.  Oh well, I also got to meet Berry Gordy that night and tell him how much I loved Smokey Robinson.

Keith Olbermann.  Hmmm, I rather doubt a parallel story would merit much attention for a few reasons.  1.  His audience is about 400,000 on TV and not enough people know who he is.   2.  He's not a Republican.  It is HYPOCRISY most often cited when a Republican sends sexy emails to teenage pages, gambles away tons of money or is addicted to prescription drugs.  A Democrat doesn't have to deal with hypocrisy on the so-called moral issues because they already acknowledge that sex, gambling and drugs are victimless crimes, if crimes at all. Diseases?  Maybe.  So if Olbermann had returned to his Florida home from a nearby Caribbean nation with 29 Viagra tablets and was detained for 3 hours in customs, it  seems to me a non-story. Keith Olbermann, whose marital status I don't know and I would imagine most of America doesn't know, might factor into some interest.  A married Democrat pundit traveling without his wife?  Still, I think it would be a minor flap. 3.  Of course Olbermann would still have his MSNBC job in the same circumstance!  There was no crime -- not even a misdemeanor. The Rush Viagra incident was, unhappily for some,  a minor flap that merited attention because of his Oxycodin addiction and the legal problems with doctors and pills.

Oh, my dear, dear, Canadian friend (mon ami Canadien), you must not be reading the same papers I read if you think Republicans get a free ride in the US press!  But to be fair again, whoever the president is, he will have a whole lotta negative US press.  Even when the self-confessed left-leaning US press force is covering a president they voted for, they want to prove their objectivity and will cover any and every negative story that arises.  Maybe with less gusto for a Clinton than a Bush, but still.  Bush is just a whole lot easier to be MORE negative about for reasons that range from his natural inept style of communication, his face, the war/s and the disputed election of 2000.  For some, Bush loathing extends back to his father and to Bush in major league baseball.  

You are never boring, Jamie! Let's put an end to that rumor right now!

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I only have time for a brief response before I head for work, so:

A) I used to watch Rush back when he had a television show, and I became familiar with his modus operandi. I don't follow his current work, but I've encountered enough to know he has become neither more fair nor more balanced. And certainly not more dignified.

B) "Fatty Riefenstahl" is actually pretty funny.

I thought Fatty Reifenstahl was funny too, Jamie.  Which is why I stole it.  And now, I can't remember who originally came up with it.

This article discussing an interview with CNN Wolf Blitzer and Lynne Cheney backs up Jordan's point that we are all BIASED and I suppose, it is the declaration that we are NOT which is suspect when it comes from a journalist or a news outlet. CNN-BBC-FOX.  Myself, I've always thought of the FOX "Fair and Balanced" motto as a tongue in cheek rejoinder to CNN's "The Most Trusted Name in News."

Anyway, this is from Roger L. Simon. Screenwriter-novelist.  Former liberal.  Parallel traveler to Yours Truly. 

Enjoy.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

This may have helped him : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6046950.stm

I understand the point you are making Susan, I'm not refuting the fact that everybody is biased. I just read that part and was curious if the killing of Terry Lloyd was big news in the US ?

Honestly, James, I'd have to say it must not have been big news. Maybe it was news. Without Googling, (and I didn't click on your link yet) I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about the story. The name Terry Lloyd sounds familar but it seems like a name from an earlier era to me. Maybe others know.

I do recall the story about an Italian journalist who had been abducted in Iraq. She worked for a Socialist or Communist newspaper. When her freedom was bought/negotiated, the man who had facilitated her transfer was in a car with her heading for the airport in Baghdad when they were shot at by Americans at a checkpoint. The Italian negotiator was killed; she was wounded.

When she got back to Italy she wrote her version of events and openly accused the US military of purposely attacking them knowing she was in the car.

So, I'll read the BBC link you provided. But I won't stop with that link. And then I'll let you know what I think.

Chances are I'll agree with Roger L Simon though if it's a story about wanton US bloodthirsty soldiers waging war against unarmed members of the press. I do not believe our military is invested in shooting and killing journalists. I don't believe it serves any useful end. If that has happened and can be proven, I also believe our military hierarchy would take the proper legal avenues and such murderers would be prosecuted for the crime, as has happened (and is happening) with charges of civilian murder more than a few times during these past 3+ years of war.

Susan

PS Okay, I'm not finished perusing but what I got from the er, uh... BBC article is that the head of the Journalist Org was blaming the US and the coroner said the shooting was "unlawful." Well, unlawful seems a large blanket term that would include accidental, negligent and purposeful.

Here's what I saw in Wikipedia:

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin