Saturday 18 February 2017

Enemy of the BBC



The BBC News website has recently published a piece headlined:


In it, historical uses of the "chilling phrase" - from Hitler and Stalin to Mao - are detailed and a series of hostile criticisms of the President are quoted. (There are no balancing defences of the President). 

Echoing David Willis and Justin Webb this morning, the article says:


The anonymous BBC reporter's description of the man who opened fire in a pizza restaurant last year (Edgar Maddison Welch) as "a Trump supporter" is something I've not been able to verify. (Can any of you find proof of this? You may succeed where I failed.)

He seems to have followed conspiracy theorist sites and to have believed this particular conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton, and to have been highly religious, and to have been a registered Republican, so he may very well have voted for Donald Trump, but this BBC article is the only mainstream media source I've found so far that says for certain that he was "a Trump supporter", and that describes him as such. (Has the BBC fact-checked this?)

NewsSniffer shows that the piece has been toned down slightly. It originally included a paragraph saying:
Mr Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy have led to comparisons, from some quarters, with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.
...but this was removed some 35 minutes after the article was first published. 

6 comments:

  1. “from some quarters” Yet another BBC phrase to justify an unsubstantiated claim. There must be list of these posted on the wall in every office at the BBC.

    I know I am repeating myself but all this anti-Trump hysteria really is an own goal for the BBC. All they doing is nullifying any sensible criticism of Trump. Yes, mass rallies in aircraft hangers and rhetoric that at times sounds unhinged is frankly bizarre, but as far as I know he hasn’t imprisoned any opposition leaders or murdered dissenting journalists. Unlike Putin, who we should be genuinely worried about.

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    Replies
    1. "Some", "many", and "a lot of people" can normally be translated as "that person who writes for the Guardian" or "my colleagues in the rest of the mainstream media".

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  2. Here go the Thought Police again. This article is in section of the BBC News website marked 'Explainers'. It is laughable to compare Trump to Hitler Mao or Stalin, who were not exposed to the world's media and could therefore get away with abuses .

    Trump has used twitter effectively to sideline and silence the BBC. Their response is to hurl fake news and abuse towards him in the hope that we all applaud them for their courageous stand against a President they don't like.

    Far from the response the BBC are hoping for, everyone just laughs at their antics - Trump has stumbled upon the perfect put-down: 'Here's another beauty'.

    Here is another beauty: Enemies of the People: Trump remark echoes history's worst tyrants'.

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  3. Oops, sorry, you beat me to this gem. No harm in it having another airing.

    The U.K. State broadcaster equating the democratically elected POTUS with mass murderers in history based on what they want people to think he is saying is pretty unique, even for the BBC.

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  4. Being against Hillary Clinton means he's a de facto Trump supporter. Plus, that little ugly rumor about the pizza place was some obscure 'alt-right' meme, and the US MSM made the same Trump connection. So, according to the Journalist Lemming Defense the BBC uses so often, it's okay to report it like that, not bias. The BBC doesn't have to check facts if a NY red top whose 'senior justice writer' is a man in black face reports it.

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  5. For the record, this story still has pride of place on the BBC News website at mid-day on Monday 20th Feb. It's been there all week-end.

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