BBC Bias

How to lie with figures; a handy BBC guide

BBC Bias, Poverty
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So there’s this well meant but kinda touristy initiative to get people in the UK to live on a pound a day for a week to see what living in poverty means. The BBC did a nice propaganda article about how this was totes possible and still eat healthy. Surprise, surprise, this turned out to be a tissue of lies:

Forget the fact that the BBC have posted an article claiming that £40+ of food can be had for less than £5, even if that is the kind of thing you might hope would be picked up in the editorial process. How did Mr Milligan, personally, suppress the massive cognitive dissonance involved in writing the article? How do you persuade yourself to write the subhead ‘Day 4: Amount spent 91p’ when you know that the items listed under it cost a total of £11.80? Even if he believed that readers wouldn’t add the figures together, how on earth did he persuade himself that no-one would spot that the day’s shopping list includes one single item priced at £2.40? I’m astonished he ever thought he could get away with it. I’m pleased to note from the comments that he hasn’t.

BBC self censoring Frozen Planet for the American market?

BBC Bias, Climate change
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Remember back in 2007, when it turned out the Dutch broadcaster which put out David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals had removed all traces of evolution from the series? That at least had been done behind the BBC’s back, without their or Attenborough’s consent. Not so for Attenborough’s latest series, Frozen Planet, where the BBC allegedly has started to self censor by selling it abroad without the episode on climate change:

British viewers will see seven episodes, the last of which deals with global warming and the threat to the natural world posed by man.

However, viewers in other countries, including the United States, will only see six episodes.

The environmental programme has been relegated by the BBC to an “optional extra” alongside a behind-the-scenes documentary which foreign networks can ignore.

[…]

Over 30 networks across the world have bought the series but a third of them have rejected the choice of the additional two episodes, including the one on climate change.

[…]

Viewers in the United States, where climate change sceptics are particularly strong group, will not see the full episode.

Instead, the BBC said that Discovery, which shows the series in the US, had a “scheduling issue so only had slots for six episodes”, so “elements” of the climate change episode would be incorporated into their final show, with editorial assistance from the Corporation.

Shocking though not surprising to see such cowardice from the BBC. Money is again more important than truth.

Proud of the BBC

BBC Bias, Video
Published on



Mitch Benn tells it like it is about the BBC — grumble as we may at it and annoyed as we are by it from time to time no other broadcaster anywhere in the world has such a record of quality behind it and best, it’s not owned by the state nor by the likes of Murdoch, but by the people. I wish we had any public broadcaster here with even ten percent of the quality of auntie Beeb.

(And I thought I recognised at least one face in this clip — Adrian Ogden, good on ya.)

And oh yeah: buy the t-shirt.

QotD: Justin Webb appreciation society

BBC Bias, Comment of the Day
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Glad to see we’re not the only one to fully appreciate Justin Webb, as this extract from Chicken Yoghurt shows:

ITEM: Using the voice of John Humphrys ‘to scare off hungry deer from eating gardeners’ prized fruit and vegetables’ is a great idea. His voice certainly scares me away from listening to Radio 4′s Today programme. No doubt the voices of the programme’s other presenters could also be put to good use. When I hear Justin Webb’s voice, for instance, it always scares off feelings of wanting to be alive.