Where Do People Get These Ideas?

[Sukerkin]

Whilst pootling around some links on the political blather site that BillC likes to link to, I came across some frothing polemic against the BBC. I've heard some here, such as YL go on about it being some Left-Wing propoganda arm of the government with great emotion and I am not surprised when I think that sources like this are what are drawn on as if they were gospel truth:

Its name, of course, is the BBC. During the first Gulf War, it was briefly rechristened the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation – and understandably so, given the relentlessly anti-Coalition bias of its reportage. But then the BBC doesn’t much like the West. Or the capitalist system. Or the US. Or old-fashioned concepts like liberty, freedom of choice, personal responsibility or limited government. It is – and has been for decades – the official broadcast outlet for the values of the progressive left.

On any given subject you know exactly what the BBC’s line will be. If it’s covering the Middle East it will be bigging up the gallant Hezbollah freedom fighters and the plucky Palestinians at the expense of the hateful, damned-near-as-bad-as-the-Nazis Israeli oppressors. If it’s covering the European Union (what you and I might better know as the EUSSR) it will treat every politician who is not in favor of ever-closer-political-integration as a rabid, swivel-eyed crypto-Fascist loon. If its covering any kind of war in which the US or Britain are involved it will be of the view that the enemy are the good guys and that we thoroughly deserve to get our asses whupped. If it’s covering the environment it wil, of course, conclusively demonstrate that the earth is doomed and it’s all the fault of greedy Western capitalists.

Where do these ideas come from? Is it just that American media is so polarised that the very concept of balanced reporting is unrecognisable?

In Britain, I can assure you, most people consider the BBC to be very reliable and even-handed in their reporting and their political programming. No one 'side' gets to have it's say to the exclusion of all others and, generally, whoever it is that is running the country is the party that gets the most scrutiny. That's as it should be in my book - but maybe I'm not intelligent enough to recognise bias when I see it?

 

[Sukerkin]

Here is the complete article for reference {I shall refrain from calling it a groundless rant, tho' that is what it is}:

http://biggovernment.com/jdelingpol...-more-evil-and-dangerous-than-rupert-murdoch/

Viewed through the distortion lenses of that fellow, I would assume that this article on the BBC is a secret Communist agenda piece, designed to turn all we poor gullible Brits into obedient socialist monkeys:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wondermonkey/2011/07/why-do-people-and-other-primat.shtml

 

[RandomPhantom700]

I would say that, yes, most of it's due to the polarization of politics in modern America. You are Left or you are Right; you fly a red flag or a blue one. There is no gray area in American politics; there is a line, and it is a thin one. This idea extends to media outlets; Fox is known as catering exclusively to the Right, CNN is colloquially called the Clinton News Network, nevermind whether either of these preconceptions is accurate, and people choose their outlets and news sources accordingly.

The other aspect to consider is that biggovernment.com is a website with a very specific audience that it caters to. It is not a major news outlet like Fox or NBC, with wide audiences, journalistic obligations, and heavy scrutiny. Political websites like biggovernment.com or moveon.org do not have any of the constraints, reasons to hold back, or reputations to maintain. Their only job is to cater to their readers, which in turn feeds the all-or-nothing, them-or-us mentality of American politics.

 

[granfire]

I guess that's what happens when private parties control the easy accessible news.

Sadly, the quiet news where you actually have to listen to and see in which direction it goes is relegated to PBS and hardly anybody watches that!

 

[Brian King]

I think that there is A part time BBC news channel/British TV shows channel available on cable television but am not sure about that (do not watch television) On the radio and in print I do not think that there is a BBC source, that is all BBC all the the time. We get selected bits and pieces of their (BBC) reporting. Many of the radio and print 'news' stories originating from the BBC world or BBC Americas are hand picked and sorted by the local outfits that are airing or printing them. The local PBS stations which are publicly funded and in a fight for funds (way left leaning) and justification play BBC spots, but the ones they pick often support the same view and perspective as the host. The written stories selected to catch exposure are poorly written opinion type of pieces that often bare very few facts but filled with fluff or loaded emotional descriptive words designed to lead not inform.

An example of what I am talking about http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/547581.stm
If you read the article the terms the author uses to describe the authorities, the protesters, the anarchists, all have a tone and a flavor to them. The authorities are all military and bleak oppressive terms, the terms and tone describing the protesters are colorful, favorable, understanding, playing down the violence they were as a group directly involved in, the terms describing the anarchist protestors are minimalistic, playing down the their numbers and the damage they were doing to personal and public property.

The stations from the right often pick the stories which are so obviously slanted left to ridicule and stir up opinions and emotions.

So the stories often picked by the more liberal viewed stations line up with the more left leaning stations views, the stories picked by the right or even more leftist and so easily ridiculed. It can leave one with the opinion the the BBC leans way left. For example I never once saw a story from the BBC that painted President Bush in a positive or fair light, but saw hundred painting him in a negative light.

When people read these type of slanted articles or hear them on the radio, it paints the BBC as also slanted. How they view that slant depends how they line up with the slant themselves.

For me personally I will read BBC or listen to the spots on the radio, but do not go out of my way to hunt it as a reliable source of information and would not notice if it went away.

Regards
Brian

 

[granfire]

(then again, it was not very easy to find a lot of positive things about Bush...from a European POV)

 

[Tez3]

I would say that, yes, most of it's due to the polarization of politics in modern America. You are Left or you are Right; you fly a red flag or a blue one. There is no gray area in American politics; there is a line, and it is a thin one. This idea extends to media outlets; Fox is known as catering exclusively to the Right, CNN is colloquially called the Clinton News Network, nevermind whether either of these preconceptions is accurate, and people choose their outlets and news sources accordingly.

The other aspect to consider is that biggovernment.com is a website with a very specific audience that it caters to. It is not a major news outlet like Fox or NBC, with wide audiences, journalistic obligations, and heavy scrutiny. Political websites like biggovernment.com or moveon.org do not have any of the constraints, reasons to hold back, or reputations to maintain. Their only job is to cater to their readers, which in turn feeds the all-or-nothing, them-or-us mentality of American politics.

Fox of course is owned by Murdoch who's name is on just about everyone's lips here at the moment and his name is said with disgust. We have had the news that his newpapers here have been hacking into murder victims phones, removing messages and leading the police and family to believe she was still alive, they have hacked into the phones of families of dead service personnel killed in Afghan, they illegally got hold of the medical records of the former Prime Minister's children as well as bribing police officers. We've been told there's more to come, I believe the American authorities are looking now to see if Americans have also had their phones hacked.

The BBC has it's faults, mostly I believe in paying people too much and sending too many staff to cover sporting events etc. I think too it tends to dumb down things and can be a little patronising but politically I've found they do try to balance things out, they receive complaints they say from the left saying it's biased towards the right and from the right saying they are baised towards the left so they consider they probably have got a fairly good balance when both sides complain about the same articles.
I watched the first Gulf war on the BBC and at no time was it as described in the article, I've watched a good few programmes recently on the troops in Afghan including one with the Scots Guards who I know well, it was a very balanced report from Afghan. The BBC also made a documentary recently which I had some imput into on female MMA with Rosi Sexton and Lisa Higo two British fighters, it was again a well balanced serious report.

I rather despair of the right wing postings on MT, I think some posters are judging European politics by American criteria and thus judging things to be what they are not. Our ideas of left, right and liberal are noticably different from American's ideas and to confuse the two leads to misunderstanding what and how we think here. I find this account of the BBC quite appalling frankly, I'm not a huge supporter of the BBC (or any other channel) for no other reason than working shifts and training doesn't give me a lot of time to watch television. My biggest hope is that Murdoch doesn't get his hands on Sky here otherwise we will have rabid news on there as well. That will be a big turn off!

 

[Tez3]

(then again, it was not very easy to find a lot of positive things about Bush...from a European POV)

Depends which one, Bush jnr did come across more as a figure of fun while his father was seen as serious even if you disagreed with him.

 

[granfire]

Depends which one, Bush jnr did come across more as a figure of fun while his father was seen as serious even if you disagreed with him.

LOL, I keep forgetting that the elder held office.
Yes, indeed. he was taken serious, even in disagreement.

 

[billc]

Where do they get the ideas...hmmm...maybe from stories like this...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-biased-admit-stars-BBC-News.html

From the article:

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.
One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was 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.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-biased-admit-stars-BBC-News.html#ixzz1S0LINrhu

OR MAYBE THEY GET IT FROM HERE:

​

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html

PERHAPS THEY READ THIS CHAP:

For 20 years I was a front man at the BBC, anchoring news and current *affairs programmes, so I reckon nobody is better placed than me to *answer the question that nags at many of its viewers — is the BBC biased?
In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the *pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.
By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. *Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on *running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.

Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC *people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.

All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.

Trade unions are mostly good things, especially when they are fighting BBC managers. Quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically. The Royal Family is a bore. Islam must not be offended at any price, although *Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...BCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html#ixzz1S0OGPkRZ

.................................................

YES, IT IS FUNNY THAT ANYONE MIGHT HAVE THE NOTION OF BIAS AT THE BBC...HMMMM....

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...BCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html#ixzz1S0MumG2S
​

 

[Tez3]

Where do they get the ideas...hmmm...maybe from stories like this...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-biased-admit-stars-BBC-News.html

Well the Daily Mail is a well known right wing paper who will jump on any institution they feel they can sell stories on. That story dates from 2006, now have a look at who was in government then and work it out for yourself. That it's a nonsense report on a nonsense 'meeting' is shown by their thoughts on Sacha Baron Cohen who is actually a practising Jew and would no more throw kosher food in a bin than I would, his recent marriage didn't take place until his wife to be had converted to Judaism. Sue Lawley has long retired from broadcasting and was only a news reader anyway.
Really Bill you need to understand British and European politics before you go spouting off about what's true and what's not. Taking pots shots at Auntie has been a British pastime for yonks, however she still remains a very treasured part of our lives. The Daily Mail however before the last war was a rather staunch supporter of Hitler and of Mosley's right wing black shirts.

 

[billc]

Except for the story on the post from Jan. 2011, [h=1]Left-wing bias? It's written through the BBC's very DNA, says Peter Sissons[/h]

Last updated at 12:12 PM on 22nd January 2011

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...BCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html#ixzz1S0Po6W00
​

or this one about bias against Israel at the BBC:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/apr/01/bbc.israel

 

[Sukerkin]

And the cherry picking 2011 champion is ...

The BBC is the Establishment, BillC, always has been, always will be {unless it's privatised and becomes as bad as American media for overt bias}. It was partly because it was feared that it would become the 'puppet' of government that the Independant Television Network was given charter, an outlet regulated by commercial interests.

When I was a student, the BBC was railed against for it's supposed right-wing, anti-union, stance and for actively working to keep Labour in Opposition. Hardly Left-Wing even if it was true. It's also supposed to be in the pocket of Zionist Jews ... how is that possible if it has such a monstrous anti-Israeli bias?

Take a few steps back and actually look at the whole environment rather than picking up trash stories. Or I maybe I could do the same and throw back at you stories that show the other side? But what good would that do?

Balanced reporting is giving each side a voice. Telling the story through the varied experiences of those that experience it. If you pick an article written one way and go looking only for articles that are written with that slant then of course you're going to see bias.

Like I said, where do poeple get these ideas? Precisely by only looking at things that support their point of view and being blind to the rest.

The BBC is news, not axe-grinding political commentary (unlike the Daily mail (there's a reason why there are jokes about a 'Daily Mail gene')). I've long pondered how on earth American media is allowed to be such a blatant platform for politicing - why is that? Surely is it not in the public interest for it to be like that?

 

[RandomPhantom700]

I've long pondered how on earth American media is allowed to be such a blatant platform for politicing - why is that? Surely is it not in the public interest for it to be like that?

Perhaps I sound cynical, but I believe the answer is that it's simply what the majority of Americans want. Television broadcasts are, by and large, entertainment, and nobody is entertained by conflicting viewpoints and the possibility that one's notions might be wrong. Debate and discussion isn't entertaining; know what is? Watching two pig-headed blowhards from opposite ends of an issue yell at each other like children. The problem is that, eventually, watching two pig-headed blowhards yell at each other BECOMES "debate" and "discussion".

News broadcasts are going to run what keeps the family rivetted in front of the TV during dinner hour. People by and large aren't in the mind-set for critical thinking, they're there to relax after a long day at the office or jobsite and be reassured.

 

[billc]

They might get these ideas from the BBC itself. Here is some more cherry picking.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1554749/BBC-report-finds-bias-within-corporation.html

From the cherry picked Telegraph article:

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.

 

[Sukerkin]

I am confused - you support your cherry picking with more cherry picking?

This cherry picking shows that the corporations own investigations, from four years ago or more, determine that the muddlesome layers of middle-management need to be clearer and better handle reporting to further reduce bias in line with their legal mandate (even when that 'bias' is pro-active for a positive social force)?

Mate, just stop. There comes a point when enough is enough.

You know, I hope, the point I'm really making at this juncture, it's the one I always try to make i.e. that we need to use our brains, not our political syphon-filters, when it comes to interpreting the information we are presented with.

I've been watching the BBC and ITV news for forty years, including the previously mentioned Mr, Sissons. If there is bias in one direction on one station, there is usually bias in the other direction on the other. Opposing vectors that help to cancel out and leave a product resembling the truth to be examined by independant investigation if a person is interested enough.

As to the previously referred to Peter Sissons. Mr. Sissons is bitter because his abrasive and self-important nature, often visible when he was on air even, won him no friends amongst his bosses. Hardly a surprise. As he enters his twilight years, he uses his skill at writing to get a bit of revenge. Very human, I feel much the same about my bosses too :lol:.

 

[Tez3]

Peter Sissons is a bitter man, he's waded in lambasting the BBC about employing women, being left out of major events, and even complaining about Ann Robinson's ****!
There's another thread on MT where the Daily Mail has printed a story about a black belt fighting off a robber then turning him into a sex slave, it was proved by a MT poster that this story is bogus so there goes the Daily Mail's credibility doncha think?

http://groups.google.com/group/total_truth_sciences/browse_thread/thread/71b047325c4201ae the Zionist BBC!
Now this is interesting, the right wing bias of the BBC!
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...e-bbc-is-biased--but-to-the-right-443954.html

 

[Tez3]

Am laughing at having a very simple, non offensive word here which was the word Sissons used, censored! As it's also the name of several species of birds I'm wondering if I post them up they will also be censored, and they are such pretty birds!

 

[granfire]

Am laughing at having a very simple, non offensive word here which was the word Sissons used, censored! As it's also the name of several species of birds I'm wondering if I post them up they will also be censored, and they are such pretty birds!

Are those the birds that chop holes in trees with their beaks?

 

[Tez3]

Are those the birds that chop holes in trees with their beaks?

No, these are finches, very pretty charming birds.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/families/****.aspx

I just checked and because of the censorship you can't get to the link!
So I've copied the page, don't know how it's goin to look lol!
Print
Home > Birds and wildlife > Bird guide > Birds by family > ****
[h=1]****[/h]

Photo by Nigel Blake
Small birds with plain or colourful plumages, stout legs and strong feet and short, triangular bills. Several species have crests.
In the UK, six species breed (plus one unrelated species of reedbeds); there are a few more in Europe and Asia, plus others in Africa and the Americas. They are social, often in mixed flocks, but territorial when nesting. They are among the most persistent and successful visitors to garden feeders.

[h=3]Blue tit[/h]Its colourful mix of blue, yellow, white and green make the blue tit one of the most attractive resident garden birds. Almost any garden with a peanut feeder will attract them and they readily breed i... More...

[h=3]Bearded tit[/h]A brown, long-tailed bird, usually seen flying rapidly across the top of a reedbed. Males have black 'moustaches' rather than 'beards'. They are sociable and noisy , their 'ping' calls often being the... More...

[h=3]Coal tit[/h]Not as colourful as some of its relatives, the coal tit has a distinctive grey back, black cap, and white patch at the back of its neck. Its smaller, more slender bill than blue or great **** means it... More...

[h=3]Crested tit[/h]Although not as colourful as some other ****, its 'bridled' face pattern and the upstanding black and white crest make this a most distinctive species. Crested **** feed actively, clinging to trunks a... More...

[h=3]Great tit[/h]The largest UK tit - green and yellow with a striking glossy black head with white cheeks and a distinctive two-syllable song. It is a woodland bird which has readily adapted to man-made habitats to ... More...

[h=3]Marsh tit[/h]Not distinguished from the willow tit as a separate species until 1897, the marsh tit is smart, clean looking bird with a small, well defined black bib and glossy black cap. As with so many woodland b... More...

[h=3]Willow tit[/h]Between blue and great **** in size, with no yellow, green or blue. It has a large sooty-black cap extending to the back of the neck and a small untidy black bib. It is mid-brown above, with whiter ch... More...