More Bolshie Broadcasting Company Bollocks

Two things I noted about the BBC news last night.

1) Regarding the latest teacup storm concerning Jeremy Clarkson (see link in my previous post): the BBC didn't show the video either in part or whole but presented a sequence of photos of it and played a voice recording - ONLY OF THE FIRST HALF OF CLARKSON'S COMMENT, ie 'in England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot', thus leaving out the really important bit about Brown lying to us over the economic situation, and thereby directing the PR into Righteously-Offended La-La Land.

2) Regarding the settlement at Killingholme refinery and the 'social dumping' of foreign workers under EU regulations: the reporter on our regional tv interviewed a man from a local engineering company who said we can't afford to be protectionist because his firm did so much trade with Europe. Notice the misleading blurring between employment and trade.

This is not the first time this line has been used when reporting the strikes and walk-outs. The Lindsey dispute is about employment, not the ability to trade with European countries and it may have escaped the notice of BBC journalists that people on these islands have been trading with people on the Continent for thousands of years - with or without regulations.

And Just Journalism have released an analysis of media coverage of the Gaza conflict which proves what was blatantly obvious to many of us, ie that the BBC in particular was biased against Israel.

Its summary includes the following: that the BBC failed to make crucial distinctions between opinion and fact; that it did not differentiate between civilian and Hamas casualties; and that its Middle East Editor's online diary was 'highly partial', 'often emotional' and showed 'a preoccupation with humanizing Palestinian perspectives' to the detriment of his impartiality.