A comment from StewGreen at Biased BBC re the BBC's coverage of the new Orwell statue caught my eye:
They did indeed. The culprit was Amol Rajan, the BBC's media editor:
His concepts of thought crime and newspeak, chronicled here in 1984, the film of his novel starring John Hurt, have evolved into worries about political correctness. He reported on the struggle for independence in Catalonia, which has so violently reared its head in recent weeks. And though he never used the term, Orwell satirised fake news before it entered common parlance. From 1941 to 1943, Orwell worked in Room 101 here at the BBC.
This nugget of historical inaccuracy featured in a report which has been repeatedly broadcast on BBC One and the BBC News Channel since the early evening news yesterday.
There was no 'struggle for independence in Catalonia' during the Spanish Civil War and Homage to Catalonia in no way reports that non-existent struggle. The Catalan republicans at the time had already settled for greater autonomy within Spain.
Oh, the irony indeed!
And I pointed out another huge gaffe in their Fake News reporting - claiming the Isle of Man is part of the UK which it most certainly isn't. It has its own parliament and is not part of the UK, neither is it a British Overseas Territory.
ReplyDeleteThe Isle of Man is basically a possession of the Crown and it is through the Crown linked to the UK.
Such distinctions are important when you are talking about "tax havens" and the like and given the amount of air time given over to the fake-named "Paradise Papers", you'd think they would have got it right.
"Such distinctions are important when you are talking about "tax havens" and the like and given the amount of air time given over to the fake-named "Paradise Papers", you'd think they would have got it right."
ReplyDelete"Don't let facts get in the way of a good story" springs to mind. The BBC want to big up their scoop not to give pause for thought.
My broken hipped grandmother has more balance.
Irony indeed - of course, the BBC is 'championing the truth' so 'Newspeak' is not something they would use - you know, euphemisms like: 'militant' for 'terrorist,' 'migrant' for 'immigrant,' 'undocumented worker' for 'illegal immigrant,' or 'vehicle attack' for 'terrorist attack. Anybody care to add to the list?
ReplyDeleteAmol is up for the job vacated by Harding.
ReplyDeleteHe of the BBC 'fact checking unit'.
Ironically.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901297
ReplyDeleteNot just Fake History, Fake Political Geography but also Fake Use of Statistics by Chief Ideologue of the BBC, Mark Easton.
The only purpose of this article is to soften people up for the concreting over of our green and pleasant land.
There is no recognition that agricultural land is vital to our future wellbeing, both nutritional and economic (balance of payments). Nor that most of the "free land" is located in places where people don't want to live...even if you plonked a huge new town there. Nor is there any reoognition of the huge amount of road building that would be required if you start building huge new towns in our countryside.
Yes - to soften us up for the consequences of the colossal increase in non-EU immigration that a Corbyn government would allow.
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