I have nothing much to say specifically about the BBC as I haven’t been watching or listening, but I have been looking at blogs and videos online instead. I heard Gerard Batten’s edition of James D’s ‘Delingpod’ and I saw Batten being given the usual treatment on Andrew Castle’s LBC phone-in. I watched a clip of George Galloway and Jo Coburn sparring on YouTube. Most of the commenters thought Galloway won, and they were probably right, but only in this particular case.
The BBC must surely, sooner or later, get the message. We can see that their most highly regarded employees, Andrew Neil, Andrew Marr, Victoria Derbyshire and so on, are constantly trying to skewer their interviewees by bringing up stale trivia instead of drawing them out, and if appropriate, handing them enough rope with which to skewer themselves. It’s getting embarrassing.
When are you going to start asking me about ..Brexit / Ukip/ my policies / my book?
Never, we just want to show what an arsehole you are.
I watched several “Tommy” videos, and I’m at a loss as to how people like Hugo Rifkind can get away with writing a piece in the Times, (£) supposedly about milkshake bombs, in which he refers to Tommy Robinson as: “the far-right thug and EU parliamentary candidate Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson,” and ‘wittily’ refers to him as “the soggy fascist”
Rifkind is clearly on the side of Danyaal Mahmud, the innocent man-child whose strawberry milkshake accidentally slipped out of his hand.
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| The Guardian is pleased, at least |
We all know that videos are routinely edited and manipulated to cast the protagonist in a favourable light, but I’d argue that the BBC is as guilty as anyone of taking advantage of well-staffed, slick editing ability. In fact, the BBC seems to do that with gay abandon, because they can.
I’d be fascinated to hear Hugo Rifkind flesh out exactly why he uses the terms ‘far-right thug” and “fascist”, for Tommy Robinson aka SY-L because as far as I can tell, being “anti-Islam” is not what those terms were coined for.
Rod Liddle’s Tommy Robinson-bashing doesn’t seem to quite fit in, either. He's another of those high profile journos who use wit and humour to disparage hypocrisy, and as someone who does a considerable amount of Islam-bashing himself, it’s a mystery to me why he does it and how he gets away with it.
Sue, the MSM have relentlessly labelled TR as a thug, as a criminal, a liking for violence, a fascist and as Stephen Yaxley Lennon. They know that some of this mud will stick ...and it has.
ReplyDeleteJournalists who earn their living from MSM cannot be supportive of TR otherwise they will lose their job and source of income.
It’s a life sentence, sent to Coventry and never work again in that trade.
It’s as simple as that, they know it and play by the rules. Whether it is right or wrong is another matter but that’s the way it is, I’m afraid.
I agree Arne. Loss of income, and therefore pension, loss of friends and colleagues, of meaning in life is a powerful whip used to keep the journos in line, not that many of them need too much persuading.
DeleteBut they must at some level feel dirty and inauthentic when they edit video misleadingly, give dishonest accounts of demonstrations or apply the whitewash to Islam. In their hearts they must know that's not journalism.