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Lord Paddy Ashdown On Our Global Security Threat(s): Is The BBC Biased?
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Increasingly, it seems that no matter how much truth and/or sense anyone any longer speaks, be they 'known' (like Lord [Paddy] Ashdown) or not, it matters not to much of mainstream media.
Especially when it concerns something 'the establishment' considers (even the slightest bit), sensitive.
Here's a clip from an item published today by (the often, much maligned), AOL.
How different does the same story sound when read in the well watered down form as released by dear old 'aunty Beeb'?
Imagine how much impartial information those of us relying solely on supposedly trusted proffesional sources such as the BBC would be denied (be it by accident or by design), if it weren't for our ability (and desire) to ferret about the internet a bit, for the benefit of both ourselves and others.
Read the rest of the BBC's so obviously biased-by-ommission, offering.
Well, what do you think?
* (Cross posted at Appletree)
Increasingly, it seems that no matter how much truth and/or sense anyone any longer speaks, be they 'known' (like Lord [Paddy] Ashdown) or not, it matters not to much of mainstream media.
Especially when it concerns something 'the establishment' considers (even the slightest bit), sensitive.
Here's a clip from an item published today by (the often, much maligned), AOL.
Global threats to national securityRead the rest of this well balanced report.
The battlelines in the fight to maintain national security need redrawing, taking urgent account of increased threats from climate change, disease, poverty and energy insecurity, a think-tank has warned.
The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said a security strategy based only on preventing military or terrorist attacks was redundant.
(snip)
Intended to inform a report from the commission later this year, it identified five key factors in the new security landscape. These were - globalisation and power diffusion, global poverty and failed states, climate change, the growth of political Islam, and socio-economic vulnerability.
(snip)
"Terrorism is a very real threat but we must not allow it to dominate discussion about national security.
How different does the same story sound when read in the well watered down form as released by dear old 'aunty Beeb'?
Imagine how much impartial information those of us relying solely on supposedly trusted proffesional sources such as the BBC would be denied (be it by accident or by design), if it weren't for our ability (and desire) to ferret about the internet a bit, for the benefit of both ourselves and others.
Read the rest of the BBC's so obviously biased-by-ommission, offering.
Well, what do you think?
* (Cross posted at Appletree)
Labels: bias, censorship, climate change, global security, global threat, global warming, Institute for Public Policy Research, IPPR, Paddy Ashdown
posted by Richard at Wednesday, February 13, 2008
5 Comments:
Bias by the BBC was not something that concerned me too much until recently. One of the major issues with their website is the apparent necessity to reduce every news item to little more than a sound-bite. Space is hardly a factor, though the cost of updating and producing such a large website probably is. The item in question, as you rightly point out, is biased by omission - an inaccurate outline sketch rather than the full picture. I could forgive the Beeb for such an occasional lapse, but what I find totally unforgivable is the "Americanization" of what was once the BBC World News, beamed by local PBS channels here at 5.00pm CST. It was once the only unbiased alternative to American news media, but is rapidly being sucked into a similar format.
Matt Frei, the regular anchor, together with Justin Webb, have become champions of the Republican party. Both show an equal ability to fawn over Republican officials invited on the broadcast, and Frei is about to conduct a lengthy interview with George W Bush, that I doubt will be anything less than utterly embarrassing, given that Frei has more than once espoused his great respect for the man.
It saddens me that this is allowed to happen, when the BBC was once a pillar of respectability in an otherwise tainted media marketplace.
During the last few years mainly since Greg Dyke was ousted (more like a government sponsored regime change really), the number of BBC employess earning second incomes via the payrolls of this country's intelligence services has grown alarmingly. Crucially, extremely influential 'mass opinion forming' programme producers included.
Such is the state of this sovereign state of ours today.
No wonder Her Majesty has [still] not ever denied Paul Burrell's public claim that in the aftermath of Diana's premature demise, he was in private audience told by the Queen herself that ... "There are forces at work in this country of which we know nothing."
While I personally don't I know much about spooks inside the BBC I DO know that Blair determined that Greg Dyke must go - and go he did. Also, it's been obvious even to a blind man that the whole BBC 'message' has swung 'right' over the last few years.
As has the sickening US ass kissing by Webb and Frei that RJ mentions.
When one considers all the information from all over the world that's available to the BBC, and how many of their people regulary travel worldwide and meet so many foreigners - and of how much influence and the unrivalled opportunities they have to spread information [of their own choice and with their own slant|spin - then it's inconceivable that the BBC has more than it's fair share of intelligence operatives.
Think about. Use your own intelligence. How stupid would a government be NOT to take advantage such ongoing golden opportunities?
Correction =
.... it's inconceivable that the BBC does NOT have more than it's fair share ....
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