EclectEcon

The staged appearance of the killing of al-Dura, staged to make it appear the boy was killed by Israeli troops, set off a wave of fury:

On September 30 2000, two days after Ariel Sharon, then the leader of Israel’s opposition Likud Party, went for a walk on Temple Mount, Palestinians mounted a demonstration at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction. A 55-second piece of video footage of that demonstration, transmitted that day by the French TV station France 2, was to cause unprecedented violence in the Middle East and throughout the world.

The footage, with a voice-over by France 2’s Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin, showed what was said to be the killing of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura by Israeli marksmen. Viewers saw the child crouching in terror behind his father, Jamal, as they sheltered next to a barrel under what Enderlin said was Israeli gunfire, and then slumping to the ground as Enderlin pronounced that he was dead.

That image of the boy screaming in terror before being killed was uniquely incendiary. It portrayed the Israelis as diabolically gunning down a child in cold blood, even as he cowered for his life. It ignited the Arab and Muslim world with apparent proof that the Israelis were deliberately killing their children, inciting a murderous frenzy.

Al-Dura became a poster boy for the Palestinian and Islamist war against Israel and the West. The day after the France 2 broadcast, the second intifada erupted in its full fury; according to the 2001 Mitchell report, the two events were directly connected. Twelve days later, a mob of Palestinians shouting, ‘Revenge for the blood of Mohammed al-Dura’ lynched two Israeli army reservists and dragged their mutilated bodies through the streets of Ramallah.

When al-Qaeda decapitated the journalist Daniel Pearl, the video of this atrocity was punctuated with references to al-Dura. After September 11 2001, Osama bin Laden said: ‘Bush must not forget the image of Mohammed al-Dura.’ Several Arab countries issued postage stamps with his picture. On Palestinian Authority TV and in its school books, al-Dura’s example is used to encourage other children to emulate his spirit of ’sacrifice’.

But we now know that this whole fiesta of violence and incitement was based on a lie. For whatever people think they saw in those 55 seconds, it was not the death of that boy. He was not killed by Israeli bullets; he was not killed at all. At the end of France 2’s famous footage, he was still alive and unharmed. The whole thing was staged, a fantastic piece of play-acting, an elaborate fabrication designed to blacken Israel’s name, and incite the Arab and Muslim mobs to mass murder.

Melanie Phillips has a very detailed account of the entire affair. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

In addition, Alan Adamson links to some insightful comments about the media trial that ensued, in which France 2 and Charles Enderlin sued Phillipe Karsenty for libel when he exposed the sloppiness, bias, and outright untruths in the original story as reported on France2 by Enderlin.

To understand the al-Dura affair, it helps to keep one thing in mind: In France, you can't own up to a mistake.

Not even if it contributes to intifadas, death, anti-Semitism, and more hatred.

For links (omitted here), see this.

Many years ago, I watched South Park once or twice with my younger son, Adam Smith Palmer. I hated it. But if you like it, you might want to follow this link to find all the back episodes online.

From the National Review Online [h/t to BenS]:

Most of the media in Canada and the United States ignored the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal that took place last week in a windowless basement in Vancouver. Now, a group of provincial human-rights commissars will decide whether or not National Review’s incomparable Mark Steyn and the largest-circulating magazine in Canada, Maclean’s, will be fined or otherwise censured for printing an excerpt from Steyn’s book, America Alone. The piece argued that demographic trends indicate that Western Civilization will sooner or later be forced to confront problems associated with radical Islam. We believe that the right to free speech must be defended almost without exception, but it’s worth noting that Steyn’s article was perfectly within the bounds of reasonable opinion journalism.

Please, PLEASE read the whole thing!

On the same topic, here is a cartoon BenS sent along:

Conrad Black is presently serving a 6 and 1/2-year term for mail fraud and obstruction of justice for his operation of his former newspaper empire. His case is now under appeal, and Judge Richard Posner is one of two judges on the 7th circuit who is hearing the initial appeal. From the CBC (h/t to Brian Ferguson):

Fallen media baron Conrad Black had harsh words for the American judges hearing the appeal of his fraud conviction, saying they don't understand the case and sometimes acted like part of the prosecution.

Black made the comments in an e-mail sent to the Globe and Mail from the Coleman minimum-security prison where he has been serving his 6½-year sentence since March.

"As you will have noticed, [Judge Richard] Posner and [Judge Diane] Skyes had little understanding of the case and were, in a way that I am unfortunately familiar with, essentially part of the prosecution until the realization began to dawn that they didn't really understand the case," the Globe and Mail quotes Black as writing.

Most of us know that, for the most part, the mainstream media have a serious anti-Western bias. Nobody says it better than Rebekah, who started her posting by noting that the weather forecast was inaccurate:

Still, it seems to me that the little picture of a gloomy sky is a lot more accurate, in the long run, than the Associated Press, ABC News, and other sources, on the topic of the "unrest" in Lebanon. Sure, they mention "possible civil war." Sure, they mention the numbers of dead, the "militants", the people of Beirut, Tripoli, etc., still living in fear... but they gloss right over its true root cause:

Heavy fighting broke out Sunday between supporters of Lebanon's Western-backed government and opposition followers in the central mountains overlooking the capital, security officials said.

Um. "Western-backed government". Would those "opposition" members be Hezbollah? Who's backing the "opposition followers"? No mention, although it has been very well-established that Iran and Syria have been pulling the strings for that "opposition" group for quite some time, now. Hezbollah, the invading force, gets labeled as "opposition"!

This sits right up there with blaming the Israelis for shooting back at the sphincters in Gaza who target Israeli civilians for death. Nice "journalism", guys!

Last week, Ron sent me a copy of a mass e-mailing urging people to sign an on-line petition to protest recent changes to CBC Radio 2:

On March 19, 2007, CBC Radio 2 cancelled its excellent evening classical music programming, and the immensely informative Arts Report, and the award-winning Two New Hours. We consider that with these changes the management of our only national public broadcaster has compromised its tradition of providing stimulating and informed programming. We also believe that these changes are not consistent with the CBC mandate and the recent UNESCO treaty on cultural diversity.

The public voices of many dedicated and world-class Canadian writers, hosts, composers, producers and artists are being muted. If the changes are allowed to stand and the trend to continue, the CBC will have entirely squandered its unique capacity to represent the arts, with their inherent qualities of complexity, depth and order.

We, the undersigned, believe the new programming is a retrograde step, one that duplicates material readily available on other stations and compromises the cultural integrity of our public broadcaster. We respectfully insist that the current programming changes to Radio 2 be revisited, and the damage reversed by reinstating the type of intelligent, provocative and informative programming that has long been a hallmark of Radio 2.

My reaction to the changes was a bit different. First, I have always hated the so-called "arts report"; it is usually a collection of special pleadings from the arts community for more gubmnt support.

Second, I have been delighted that CBC Radio 2 has cut waaayyy back on its newscasts. There's no good reason for both CBC1 and CBC2 to run long newscasts, and given the biases of CBC news, the less news the better.

Third, I rarely listen(ed) to CBC2 at night. But I'm certainly willing to give up evening classical music if that means we can also get rid of the arts report.

Further, with web radio and satellite radio, there is far less reason to have the taxpayers of Canada support the performance and broadcast of classical music. CBC2 has traditionally represented a distinctly non-egalitarian redistribution from the taxpayers at large to elitist snobs. But with these technological developments, those of us who want to listen to classical music can easily pay for it and find it ourselves.

While we're at it, why don't we just shut down all of CBC Radio 2 and sell off their broadcast frequencies and equipment?

Related Digression: The television coverage of the World Curling Championships on CBC has been far less than satisfactory.

I confess. I have not seen Fitna, the movie. Having read some reviews, I don't really care whether I see it. I doubt if it is a very good movie or a very bad movie. But I'd rather read blogs or watch CSI on television.

If you really want to see it, there are lots of sites hosting it even though threats from Muslim extremists caused LiveLeak to remove it from their site.

Nevertheless....

As when the Danish cartoons caused so much violence among Islamic extremists, I am once again appalled and deeply concerned about the clash between their perceptions of their religion and the heretofore sacrosanct western ideals of freedom of speech. I am equally appalled that Canada's embarrassment to the world, Louise Arbour, has once again spoken out against freedom of the press and in favour of appeasing terrorists. Here is a letter my friend Eva sent Ms. Arbour:

I have just read that you have condemned the movie, "Fitna".

Have you seen it? I doubt it. I have seen it because I took advantage of the opportunity to watch it during the short number of hours it was shown on a web-site. I knew that the time would be short and, of course, threats have been made to the lives of the people who posted the film on the internet and they have been obliged to withdraw the film.

If you had seen it, you would know that the film consists of exact extracts from the Koran. Yes, the verses are very bloody and full of hate, but Wilders didn't invent the verses. What he did was to show that there are powerful, murderous sectors of the Islamic world who take the inflammatory, incitement contained in the verses very literally indeed. The verses were accompanied by newsreel shots of the incitement being carried out in the real world, by Islamic militants, not by Mr Wilders. The newsreel shots were originally broadcast on AL Jazeera, the BBC and other media outlets. You didn't complain then, did you?

Aren't you addressing your moralistic fervour in the wrong direction? Aren't you blaming the messenger and not the originators of the worldwide hate, blood, gore and mayhem? Admit, you are terrified of the true violators of human rights and turn your anger to those who point it out. If you were truly concerned with human rights you would speak out against the atrocities committed in the name of Islamic extremism.

Geert Wilders' film Fitna, a critical examination of Islamism and the Quran, is now available on the internet (e.g. see here). For reviews, see this by Eugene Volokh or this from Reuters.

Update: For more, see this, especially see the statment from LiveLeak, which is hosting the video, and see Update III:

I just watched Geert Wilders’ film, Fitna, The Movie. My initial reaction is a yawn. No surprise, of course. ...

Anyone who has seen terrorist propaganda films is familiar with most of the scenes and most of the disgusting conflations of the Quran with acts of violence, murder, kidnapping and anti-semitism. Such behavior has been condemned resoundingly among Muslims. Those that use the Quran for illegitimate and criminal ends should be punished by the fullest extent of the law.

What I’m really wondering: is Wilders’ protesting against Islam or the monopoly extremists already have over grainy, low-budget, youtube videos? The only difference I see is that Wilders plays the best of Western classical music — an insult to the legacy of Tchaikovsky — than death chants.

From Reuters:

AMSTERDAM, March 23 (Reuters) - A U.S.-based web service, which Islam critic and Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders planned to use to show his film critical of the Koran, said on Saturday that it had inactivated the site due to complaints.

"This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy," the company said on the site www.fitnathemovie.com.

Wilders, who has given few details about his 15-minute film, has said he plans to release 'Fitna' on the Internet before the end of the month after Dutch broadcasters declined to show it. Fitna is a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife". ...

The film is not so much about Muslims as about the Koran, Wilders wrote in a commentary in Dutch daily De Volkskrant on Saturday. He said Fitna was a last warning for the West.

Wilders had previously warned of a "tsunami of Islamisation" in a country home to almost one million Muslims.

I expect there are other, bigger, faster sites willing to host his film, but if not, let me know and I'll figure out a way to do it on one of the sites I use.

From the Sandbox [links omitted in this excerpt],

The Boston Globe has just run an op-ed under the headline "Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza." The authors are Eyad al-Sarraj, identified as founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and Sara Roy, identified as senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. The bias of the op-ed speaks for itself, and I won't even dwell on it. But I do want to call attention to this sentence:

Although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent.

You don't need to be a math genius to figure out that if Gaza has a population of 1.5 million, as the authors also note, then 680,000 tons of flour a day come out to almost half a ton of flour per Gazan, per day.

A typographical error at the Boston Globe? Hardly. The two authors used the same "statistic" in an earlier piece. They copied it from an article published in the Ahram Weekly last November, which reported that "the price of a bag of flour has risen 80 per cent, because of the 680,000 tonnes the Gaza Strip needs daily, only 90 tonnes are permitted to enter." Sarraj and Roy added the bit about this being "a reduction of 99 percent."

Note how an absurd and impossible "statistic" has made its way up the media food chain. It begins in an Egyptian newspaper, is cycled through a Palestinian activist, is submitted under the shared byline of a Harvard "research scholar," and finally appears in the Boston Globe, whose editors apparently can't do basic math. Now, in a viral contagion, this spreads across the Internet, where that "reduction of 99 percent" becomes a well-attested fact.

What's the truth? I see from a 2007 UN document that Gaza consumes 450 tons of flour daily. The Palestinian Ministry of Economy, according to another source, puts daily consumption at 350 tons. So the figure for total consumption retailed by Sarraj and Roy is off by more than three orders of magnitude, i.e. a factor of 1,000. No doubt, there's less flour shipped from Israel into Gaza--maybe it's those rocket barrages from Gaza into Israel?--but even if it's only the 90 tons claimed by Sarraj and Roy, it isn't anything near a "reduction of 99 percent."

The ledes of the coverage of George Bush's statements in the Middle East were truly horrid. From the opening paragraph in the coverage by Washington Post,

JERUSALEM, Jan. 10 — President Bush said Thursday that Palestinian refugees should receive compensation for the loss of homes they fled or were forced to flee during the establishment of Israel and declared that there should be an end to Israel's "occupation" of lands seized in war four decades ago.

Bush tied his remarks about ending the occupation to statements expressing concern for Israel's security. In fact, he expressed an understanding that so long as Israelis are experiencing rocket attacks and suicide (and other) bombings, there would good reasons for Israel not to want to pull back to the pre-1967 borders. But we see that only much later in the story:

"These negotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized and defensible borders."

He also said,

"I can also understand that until confidence is gained on both sides, why the Israelis would want there to be a sense of security."

These are important qualifications to "end the occupation." The stories could just as easily have led with "Bush defends Israel's right to security," and have captured the essence of much of his speech.

If I were an Israeli leader, I would say something like this:

We, too, want peace in our land. We have tried time and again to negotiate a withdrawal from the west bank territories, but every time we reach an agreement, the arabs renege and our security is threatened once again. Until the rest of the world can guarantee our security, we must hang onto those territories and maintain the security fence.

And as for compensation, keep in mind that most of the arabs who fled Israel nearly 60 years ago did so not out of fear of the Jews. They did so because the arab nations (in particular, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt) told them to leave, promising they would drive the Jews into the sea in a few days. I.e., don't blame Israel for most of the dislocations.

I understand that paying compensation is probably preferable to the "right of return" that the region's arabs are demanding. But if there is to be compensation, make the surrounding arab nations pay it. And not just because of the bad advice they gave in 1948, but also because they refused to allow, much less encourage, the refugees to integrate into their new countries. But of course the western media don't mention these little items.

For a solid analysis of Bush's speech and of the situation, see this.

For more on media anti-Israel bias, see this about the BBC.

Every day I receive an e-mail from The Washington Post with headlines and blurbs about the day's news. The one I received this morning had the following sports stories [links omitted]:

SPORTS
U-Md. Hangs Tough, Nets Confidence-Boosting Win
James Gist, above, scores 25 points and Greivis Vasquez scores 24 as Maryland nearly blows a 21-point second-half lead before dispatching Charlotte, 76-74, for a third-straight victory Saturday.
(By Marc Carig, The Washington Post)

These Statistics Do Not Lie: Georgetown Wins Ugly
The Hoyas Hold Rutgers to 31 Percent Shooting, but Give Up 43 Rebounds: Georgetown 58, Rutgers 46
(By Camille Powell, The Washington Post)

Patriots Rebound To Beat Towson
(By Steven Goff, The Washington Post)

Celtics Top Pistons in East Showdown
Boston 92, Detroit 85
(By Larry Lage, AP)

Louisiana State's Miles Balances Risk, Reward
Coach's Gutsy Decisions Have Propelled Tigers Into the BCS Championship Game
(By Eric Prisbell, The Washington Post)

Notice anything missing? No story there about the Redskins' meltdown in the game with Seattle yesterday. If I click on "more sports", that NFL game is the lead story. Odd that it wasn't in their distribution of stories, though.

From Melanie Phillips,

[T]he iconic image of the child Mohammed al Durah, pictured crouching with his father behind a barrel next to a concrete wall in an apparently vain attempt to shelter from the gun-battle between Israel and the Palestinians that was raging around them before he was allegedly shot dead by the Israelis, served to incite terrorist violence and atrocities around the world after it was transmitted by France 2 at the beginning of the second intifada. Yet it is clear to anyone looking at this in detail that the whole thing was staged, not least from the devastating evidence here which shows the boy raising his arm and peeping through his fingers seconds after the France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin said he had been shot dead.

Philippe Karsenty, who runs a French media watchdog, criticized the France 2 report and was successfully sued for libel. That case is now under appeal, and the additional evidence that is coming out strongly indicates that France 2, its journalist(s), and its managers all had/have a strong anti-Israel bias that smacks of anti-Semitism. As Phillips says,

There were many very strange things about this footage which just didn’t add up. When it came to the footage of the ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah, the following stood out:

* This sequence was not a continuous narrative but was repeatedly broken up and spliced onto footage of other scenes from the demonstration
* Although the France 2 cameraman had told a German film-maker, Esther Shapira, that he had filmed six minutes of the al Durah father and son under continuous Israeli fire, the footage of them lasted for less than one minute

* There was a camera tripod next to them
* There was no evidence of the boy actually being hit
* At one point, people in the crowd cried out that the boy was dead, while he was sitting up large as life clinging onto his father with his mouth wide open
* After he was said to be dead, he moved his arm (the sequence I have already reported which has been available on the web for years)....

The ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Durah was swallowed uncritically by the western media, despite the manifold unlikeliness and contradictions which were apparent from the start, because it accorded with the murderous prejudice against Israel which is the prism through which the Middle East conflict is habitually refracted. This scandal has the most profound implications not just for the media, not just for the Middle East conflict but for the western world’s relationship to reason, which seems to grow more tenuous by the day.

Bill Sjostrom writes,

[T]he Guardian has dedicated itself to supporting murder and genocide pretty much everywhere.

And many leftist academics still regard the Guardian as a legitimate source for news.

Also see his piece in which he says,

There is no getting around it: the Guardian is scum.

Jack just sent me this:

LONDON (AFP) - The BBC announced approximately 1,800 job cuts over the next six years in a statement released by the broadcaster on Thursday.

I know I am dreaming, but I hope most of the cuts are among the leftist senior assignment editors and editors (and among all the lefties in the field).

According to a proposed US Senate Bill, bloggers are journalists:

One of the biggest issues is just who is a journalist, or in the phrase the bill uses, a "covered person." Once that definition is clarified -- and even Judiciary members say it's not settled -- a journalist would under most circumstances not have to disclose to federal authorities or in civil lawsuits the identity of sources who have been promised confidentiality. Also protected will be records, communications, documents or other information that this "covered person" receives from confidential sources, as well as notes the journalist makes of conversations with these sources.

The Senate committee bill employs a broad definition: A "covered person" is someone "engaged in journalism," which itself is defined as "the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public." That would cover those working for major news organizations as well as individuals putting out their own blogs or newsletters.

KT recently sent me this, from the Financial Times in which Philip Stephens points out that while the BBC purports to be objective it really isn't because in its moral equivocating equivalencies, it ignores and omits so much that is so wrong with the totalitarian regimes. Here is an excerpt:

The BBC’s omissions, the careful juxtaposition of alleged cause and effect, and the choice of language invite the conclusion that there is moral equivalence between a US presence in the Middle East and the random slaughter of innocents.

No mention is made of the totalitarian nature of al-Qaeda, of its stated plan to tear down every regime in the Arab world and replace them with a single theocratic state. There is not a hint of the jihadis’ proud anti-Semitism and their pledge to destroy Israel. Nor of their abomination of democracy. Instead, the suicide bombers – the BBC never calls them terrorists – are cast implicitly as freedom fighters. What Mr Bin Laden wants, we are invited to conclude, is a better deal for Muslims. If we stopped interfering, all would be well.

Let's face it: Islamic fundamentalist terrorists exist. To ignore that fact or to deny their existence is suicidal. Stephens makes the case really well. I recommend that you rtwt.

This is a huge tragedy. Although I fervently disagree with so many of the Western Standard's writers who are non-libertarian social conservatives, the journal as a whole provided an important voice for the political right.

I am sure other print voices will emerge. Some thoughts:

• If it will help, they can keep all the pay I get for blogging at their website (I receive no pay, and the website will likely continue for quite some time as a profit centre).
• Clearly there is a market failure here. The gubmnt should subsidize the magazine to keep it going.
• If the gubmnt really cared about jobs, it would subsidize the continued publication of The Western Standard to save their jobs.

Best regards to everyone there.

We may hear news stories about the receding glaciers in some places, but we never hear in the MSM about how temperatures in Antarctica are falling and the ice pack is growing. From Icecap [h/t to Melanie Phillips],

While the news focus has been on the lowest ice extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979 for the Arctic, the Southern Hemisphere (Antarctica) has quietly set a new record for most ice extent since 1979.

This can be seen on this graphic from this University of Illinois site The Cryosphere Today, which updated snow and ice extent for both hemispheres daily. The Southern Hemispheric areal coverage is the highest in the satellite record, just beating out 1995, 2001, 2005 and 2006. Since 1979, the trend has been up for the total Antarctic ice extent...

While the Antarctic Peninsula area has warmed in recent years and ice near it diminished during the Southern Hemisphere summer, the interior of Antarctica has been colder and ice elsewhere has been more extensive and longer lasting, which explains the increase in total extent. This dichotomy was shown in this World Climate Report blog posted recently with a similar tale told in this paper by Ohio State Researcher David Bromwich, who agreed “It’s hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now”.

Indeed, according the NASA GISS data, the South Pole winter (June/July/August) has cooled about 1 degree F since 1957 and the coldest year was 2004....

This winter has been an especially harsh one in the Southern Hemisphere with cold and snow records set in Australia, South America and Africa.

Selective reporting in the MSM? I am so disappointed.

King Banaian has a superb analysis of what happens in j-skools and in most newspapers in his explanation of why so many syndicated columnists (e.g. George Will) are conservative:

Suppose you run a paper that runs five op/ed columns a day. Four will be written by liberal commentators, one by conservatives in the interest of "balance". The market for liberal commentators flourishes and the j-schools flood with young liberals seeking entry into that market. The j-schools discourage conservatives from applying for admission, and as a result the market for conservative commentary contracts into a small oligopoly of a few writers. Each oligopolist is syndicated broadly; many of the liberal writers end up being columnists for a major city newspaper and not syndicated. Editors will eventually not carry local conservative writers, because a few columnists can dominate the industry and provide the conservative view at low cost. They, in short, outsource the right side of their "balanced" newspapers.

Then some guy gets the bright idea to test for media bias and chooses, as his measure, the number of papers each columnist appears in. What will he find?

What he finds is a great trove of small cottage liberal writing industry, and a few grizzled veterans of conservative commentary providing one column placed on the far side of hundreds of papers. And will report it as a success ... for conservatives.

And the newspapers will smugly report same, and the j-schools will tut-tut and go back to admitting [even] more liberals.

Yesterday I finally had a chance to watch some NFL pregame and postgame shows. I found I was enjoying them more than I had in the past few years and wondered why.

Then it hit me: the talking heads were actually offering analysis and commentary. They weren't yelling at each other like drunks in a sports bar (though I confess I didn't see all the shows, and some -- Terry Bradshaw? -- might still be shouting a bunch).

Here's hoping the media folks and the producers got to all the commentators and told them to calm down and be serious. It is a wonderful change; may this please not be just a temporary phenomenon or, worse, a figment of my imagination.

The only explanation I can come up with is blatant anti-Semitism. From Honest Reporting [h/t to Judith},

A Palestinian youth football team from Gaza has been unable to tour the UK after falling afoul of British visa regulations as well as the continuing problems in leaving the Gaza Strip following the Hamas takeover. Writing in the UK's Independent, Mark Steel criticizes the British Foreign Office, which is his right, before launching an astonishing diatribe against Israel, based not on facts nor reason, but on overt hate and disinformation.

All Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip may encounter problems exiting crossings at Israeli and Egyptian borders, particularly following Hamas' violent takeover of the area. But since the question of visas reached the British Foreign Office, it implies that Israel did not block the footballers from traveling.

Yet, Steel suggests "that the Foreign Office has been leaned on by the Israeli government to refuse entry to the team." Since when did the Israeli government exercise any power or control over British policy? Is Steel attempting to play on classic prejudice that ascribes such mythical power and influence to Israel and its supporters?

Steel's brand of 'satire', littered with inappropriate sporting analogies and terms that British readers will be familiar with, descends into simple hatred and demonization of Israel. For Steel, "the latest incident is simply part of the process of petty vindictiveness that occupying forces often dish out. Even if there's no obvious military or political advantage to be gained, you can imagine them passing a law that no one in Gaza is allowed to hum, or on Mondays everyone has to speak in a Geordie accent."

In accordance with such nastiness, Steel states that Israel bombed the only football pitch in Gaza. He conveniently forgets to mention that the pitch in question had been used for terrorist training exercises. The field, which had also reportedly served as a missile launching pad, was empty at the time; the strike itself came in response to the continuing barrage of Qassam rocket attacks directed at Israeli towns and villages.

It sure looks as if they are. From the Telegraph [h/t to BenS],

Over the weekend, the BBC was forced to remove a highly offensive message about Jesus from its website... [W]hy had this message been allowed to remain there for a week, despite complaints?

Anti-Muslim comments vanish instantly. Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that the BBC has refused to allow Casualty [an ER-type programme] to carry a storyline featuring a terrorist attack by a Muslim suicide bomber. The editorial guidelines department decreed that, instead, the terrorists should be animal rights extremists.

The BBC's coverage of Islamic affairs has been unsatisfactory for many years.

In its international and domestic news reporting, the corporation has consistently come across as naïve and partial, rather than sensitive and unbiased. Its reporting of Israel and Palestine, in particular, tends to underplay the hate-filled Islamist ideology that inspires Hamas and other factions, while never giving Israel the benefit of the doubt. (Disgracefully, the BBC is still refusing to publish the Balen Report, which it commissioned to investigate allegations of anti-Israel bias.)

In its coverage of British Muslims, the BBC has been inspired by two laudable aims: to treat their beliefs respectfully; and to avoid stereotyping ordinary Muslims as terrorist supporters. In the process, however, it has done two rather different things.

First, it has presented Islam on its own terms, as if only Muslims had the authority to describe their religion.

Mohammed remains an intensely controversial figure. Yet the BBC shies away from proper historical investigation of "the Prophet", as it insists on calling him.

Second, the BBC has only scratched the surface of one of the biggest news stories of the decade: the penetration of Muslim youth by Islamic supremacist groups.

Indeed, the corporation has even helped this to happen.

Again and again, it has wheeled on Islamic "moderates" who belong to hard-line sects that real moderate Muslims are desperate to stop their children joining.

It has been left to Channel 4 to conduct undercover investigations in radical mosques and to commission a 2007 GFK/NOP opinion poll revealing that almost a quarter of British Muslims believe that the Government helped stage the London bombings of July 7, 2005.

We live in a world in which, although the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim. [emphasis added]...

To ban a storyline featuring Islamic terrorists not only misrepresents reality; it is also an insult to licence-payers whose family, friends or colleagues were blown to pieces on July 7 - and not by animal rights activists.

As Richard Littlejohn writes in The Daily Mail,

"Good morning, this is the news from the BBC. A group of animal rights activists has hijacked four airliners and flown them into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington."

I'm sorry, I'll read that again. "Four members of the anti-vivisection movement have blown themselves up on the London Transport network, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more."

I don't think so. "Two doctors have attempted a suicide car bomb attack on Glasgow airport. The League Against Cruel Sports has claimed responsibility."

As the late Bill Deedes might have said: shurely shome mishtake.

But it all makes about as much sense as the BBC's decision to can an episode of Casualty which starts with a young Muslim blowing himself up in a crowded bus station - and rewrite it so that the bombing is carried out by animal rights extremists.

The Casualty plotline was rejected by the Beeb's "editorial and ethical standards" commissars, who were worried that it was stereotyping young Muslims as terrorists.

The BBC likes to boast about the gritty reality of its dramas. But if that were the case, they'd have stuck with the original script.

In real life, it's Muslims committing all the terrorist atrocities in Britain these days.

That's not to say that all Muslims are terrorists, far from it, but to pretend that the bunny liberation brigade are bombing bus stations is preposterous. ...

I would love to see a major political party advocate the abolition of the BBC. Or at the very least a major cutback in their funding.

From Stephen Pollard,

... they rejected this entirely factual and mainstream piece by him [Dr. Denis MacEoin] on antisemitism, dismissing it as exaggerated.

Who'd ever have thought that the Guardian would behave like that, eh?

And check out the comment, too. The entire episode smacks of more anti-semitism by The Guardian.

Jason Keenan was a student in one of my Economics for Journalists classes way back when. We have kept in touch ever since then, though our attempts to get together several times have been thwarted by unforeseen events.

He has been a reporter, an editor, and a political consultant/PR manager. He is extremely knowledgeable and very well-read. He recently led the campaign to get me to join Facebook.

Here is his list of the top five books in political communication. And be sure to check out his advice to Lindsay Lohen. No wonder Jason has had continued success.

It has recently come to light that some employees of the BBC knowingly flagrantly lied about the timing of events in stories involving the Queen and phone-in scams. So what is upper management doing about it? SFA. From Melanie Phillips:

The BBC is apparently in crisis. We are told that its top brass take very, very seriously the blow to its integrity delivered by the recent series of scandals involving the reversed footage of the Queen and the phone-in scams. Yet the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, whose whereabouts when the furore exploded on July 19 in New Zealand were revealed when his phone-line went down in the middle of his interview on the BBC Radio Four Today Programme, appears therefore to have conducted his stern encounter the previous day with the Director-General, Mark Thompson — in which we were told Thompson was summoned to explain the BBC’s behaviour — in a long-distance telephone call. Some stern summons. Now we read today that the Commons Culture Select Committee, which was due to grill Mr Thompson yesterday, had to make do instead with his deputy, Mark Byford, since Mr Thompson had gone off on a family holiday - forcing the committee to listen incredulously as Byford declared that every BBC employee would be sent on courses teaching them about the importance of not lying to the public. Thus the BBC’s response.

Like Macavity, it seems, Mr Thompson is never there to face the music in person. What does this tell us about the seriousness with which the BBC takes this fundamental blow to its integrity?

I think they should hold the courses at Ben Miller Inn, a lovely resort/spa near here, so my friends can come to visit and go geocaching with me.

More seriously, sending EVERY employee on a course because of the sins of a few is really dumb. It would be much more effective just to fire those involved in the lies.

Shortly before I left England, I met a person who works for the BBC.

Me: Gee, you don't seem like a flaming bleeding-heart elitist liberal to me...

BBC employee: I'm not a journalist; I do technical work for them.

I guess that explains it pretty well.

This is probably a trivial example, but it frosts me anyway. The NYTimes recently had a lengthy article about why English chocolate and candy bars are so much better than the same brands produced in the U.S. [h/t to BenS]. The article is titled, "The World's Best Candy Bars? English, of Course".

The article is replete with quotes from people who go way out of their way to get English versions (vs. US versions) of certain candy bars. From these instances, the writer concludes that English candy bars are better? What about all the people in the US who avoid English candy because "it tastes sort of funny"?

If English candy and chocolate is so dad-blamed good, why does Hershey still survive? And why do the US candy manufacturers (and the Chinese ones, too) continue to produce what the NYTimes considers an inferior product? Surely, if English candy is so much better, the process by which it is made should have emerged as the competitive victor in the US as well.

That fact that it hasn't suggests that perhaps most people in the US prefer the US versions of the chocolate and candy bars. And if they prefer the US versions, that suggests that in their minds, the US versions are better, despite the continuing anti-US biases of the NYTimes.

Digression and warning to readers: I have to admit that reading the article made me rush down to the corner variety store to sample a few different chocolate bars. Oh well, I can always go back on the diet tomorrow....

Addendum: Of course one might expect anti-US elitist snobs to write nonsense like the NYTimes piece. They also tend to put down things like light beer, plonk, and fast food, all of which pass the market test with flying colours.

[h/t to JC] from the Gulf News:

'Cover up or we will cut your throats'

Gaza City: An Islamic group threatened to behead female TV broadcasters if they don't wear strict Islamic dress, frightening reporters and signaling a further shift toward extremism in the Gaza Strip.

The threat to "cut throats from vein to vein" was delivered by the Swords of Truth, a fanatical group that has previously claimed responsibility for bombing Internet cafes and music shops. The new threat was the first time the organization targeted a specific group of people.

On Sunday, around 50 anchors and employees from government-run Palestine TV, mostly women wearing Muslim headscarves, marched from the station's offices in Gaza City toward the office of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to protest the threat.

Most of the 15 women broadcasters on government-run Palestine TV wear headscarves. But they also wear make-up and Western clothing — not considered strictly observant by extremists.

The Swords of Truth issued the statement Friday in an e-mail to news organizations.

"We will cut throats, and from vein to vein, if needed to protect the spirit and moral of this nation," the statement said. The group also accused the women broadcasters of being "without any ... shame or morals."

One of my colleagues informed me at lunch yesterday that,

• People who read The Guardian think the country should be run by the communists.
• People who read The Telegraph think the country already is being run by the communists.

His succinct version is much better than this one from Yes, Minister, which he later forwarded to me.

Here is the full version of Jim Hacker (MP) discussing the national press with his civil servants, from the episode 'A Conflict of Interest':

Jim: I know exactly who reads the papers.
The Daily Mail is read by people who think they run the country.
The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country.
The Times is read by people who actually do run the country.
The Daily Mirror is read by the wives of the people who run the country.
The Financial Times is read by people who own the country.
The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country.
The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about people who read the Sun.
Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country as long as she's got big tits.

If one of the goals of the public funding of the CBC is to help inform the rest of the world about Canada, surely a mandate of the CBC should be to telecast everything they can (I realize there might be contractual barriers with some programming) via broadband so that anyone with a computer anywhere in the world can watch CBC programming. And yet, the last time I scoured their website, I could find nothing about broadband telecasts from the CBC. This just smacks of more misplaced priorities within the CBC.

The next time they need a chairman, I nominate myself.

Ms. Eclectic and I have a subscription to MLBtv, which means we can watch any games not involving the Trono Blue Jays via broadband over the internet. Here are two photos I took of the game on Friday between the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Indians (in Cleveland)



Those are leaf-blowers the ground crew is using to try to remove the snow.

By the way, I'm not at all pleased with the MLBtv product.

1. Technically, it freezes up and jerks way too often, even in the crappy low-res format.
2. The black-outs of the Blue Jays are annoying since our cable system doesn't carry the away games that are blacked out.
3. And most amusing of all, I called them to ask about the black outs and was kept on hold for an hour and and twenty minutes before someone came on the line to explain that even though my cable company didn't carry the Blue Jays away game in Tampa Bay on Friday night, they couldn't lift the black out anywhere in Canada because Rogers was making the game available to some customers on its cable network.

I have a feeling MLBtv will not be a product we buy again in the future. I can live without watching baseball while I'm in England.

Matt Marks (son-in-law of Preston Manning) has started up an on-line magazine called "Right Thinker" with the sub-title, "Think global from the right perspective." Registration is no-charge, quick and easy. The link is www.rightthinker.com.

Look for Rondi Adamson's piece on Turkey.

It is disappointing that no one is telecasting the Women's World Championship curling games to Canada. I'm especially puzzled that TSN didn't send a crew there to do at least one game per day. Fortunately for us addicts, CBC will televise the semi-finals on Saturday morning (March 24th) at 7am and the finals on Sunday morning at 1am. But what about the rest of the games which started today???

If you know of any site from Japan, Europe, or China that might be telecasting the round robin via broadband please let us know!

Surely it must be worthwhile for someone to do a minimalist web-cam type telecast at the very least.

I know that sometimes in a rush to get things posted, I do not proofread my postings as carefully as I should for this blog, and I am grateful for readers' corrections, comments, and suggestions that help improve the postings.

But I am not a big-time publisher like, say, The Financial Post. Last Friday, Brian Ferguson sent me this link for a different reason, and I was appalled by the number of typos and grammatical errors in several of its paragraphs [my questions in brackets]:

TORONTO — Frank Stronach has confirmed that the auto-parts giant he founded, Magna International Inc., is participating in the process which could see Chrysler Group separated from its parent, DaimlerChrysler AG, through a sale process, a published report said on Friday.

DaimlerChrysler on Feb. 14 announced that it was exploring all of its options with respect to Chrysler, and the Financial Post first reported Magna was taking a peek at the division the following week. But this is the first time Mr. Stronach himself has confessed that his company has met with DailmerChrysler’s chairman, Dieter Zetsche.

Chrysler is an [sic] crucial part of Magna’s financial well-being — about US$20-billion of its revenue comes from the company. Magna builds Chrysler vehicles at a plant in Graz, Austria and also works on Jeep Wrangles [Wrangler?] at a paint shop it runs [in?] Toledo, Ohio. It also builds minivans, cars and a slough [slew?] of parts that go into Chrysler vehicles built in North America.

“We have huge contracts with Chrysler, we have thousands of employees involved,” Mr. Stronach told a newspaper [which one?] published on Friday. “It is very important that we have a total understanding of what it is all about.”

Chrysler, which posted a loss of US$1.5-billion in 2006, is estimated to be worth about US$5-billion. Magna, which has about US$663-million in net cash sitting on the balance sheet, had US$7.2-billion in shareholder equity at the end of the last quarter.

Mr. Stronach is known to have a distaste for debt, and said it is too early to say whether Magna will try to takeover [take over?] all of Chrysler, according to the report.

“At this time, on [in?] order to know where everything stands, we naturally have to talk [take?] a look at the facts and the data,” Mr. Stronach told the newspaper. “Where it will go, nobody can predict. Our predicament will be we do not want to compete with our customers.”

I presume this was an early draft that somehow found its way to the internet and has since been edited.

From Alex, a contest sponsored by the Washington Post.

Send your entries -- one date only: month, day and year -- to: intheloop@washpost.com. Ten people closest to the pardon date will receive a coveted In the Loop T-shirt. You must include your name and telephone numbers to be eligible. Deadline is March 14, assuming Bush doesn't act before then.

But read the speculation in that article before you enter.

From The Borowitz Report [via Alex]:

A media watchdog group today blasted the major news networks for failing to provide enough coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death in the 72 hours following the blonde bombshell’s passing.

... At a press conference in Washington, Carol Foyler, a spokesperson for the group, hit hard at the all-news networks for giving the Anna Nicole Smith story “short shrift.”

“Instead of staying on the Anna Nicole Smith story nonstop, the networks would sometimes cut away to coverage of the war in Iraq for seconds at a time,” Ms. Foyler said. “For a nation struggling with its loss, this was like twisting the knife.”

At CNN headquarters in Atlanta, network president Jon Klein apologized for failing to provide seamless, wall-to-wall coverage of the Smith story, telling reporters, “We dropped the ball.”

“I was watching our coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death and without warning we cut away for an 8-second story on Darfur,” he said. “I can assure you that that sort of thing will never happen again – not on my watch.”

I think at least one of my sons may have slept with her at one time or another and may have fathered a child with her.

The Sun newspaper chain in Canada recently published this editorial in a number of its newspapers [this one from The London Free Press, h/t to BenS]. It very effectively criticizes the current attitudes toward Israel by many Canadians, including and especially those in a position of leadership in the Liberal party. Here is the conclusion:

[Prime Minister Stephen] Harper has not changed his view despite constant whining from the opposition parties and many in the media that his position lacks "nuance" and betrays Canada's traditional role as an "honest broker" in the Mideast.

Actually, that was the Liberals' position when they were in government and there was nothing "honest" about it. It was a position of unceasing moral equivalency, in which Israel was deemed a "friend" only when it was easy to be one. Harper has been a friend of Israel even when it was not easy.

To be sure, Harper went too far last summer when he accused the Liberals of being anti-Israel during its war with Hezbollah.

In fact, Liberal policy toward Israel -- as indicated by Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, who spoke to the same group on the same night as Harper -- is not actively "against" Israel. The problem is it is not actively for it, either.

Dion said Canada supports Israel's right to exist in a secure and peaceful Mideast.

Two points. The Mideast is not peaceful. Nor has Israel's place in it ever been secure.

To say one recognizes Israel's right to exist is really to say one recognizes the facts on the ground. Yes, Israel exists. The question is: do you support its right to defend itself? Dion is the latest Liberal leader to fudge the answer.

A great editorial. Too bad it doesn't seem to reflect the views of more editorial pages and more Canadians.

Stephen Pollard, writing on ignorance:

Talking of ignorance, where would we be without Guardian columnists? My old boss, Peter Shore, the late Labour Cabinet minister, used to read the Daily Express every morning just to get angry. I prefer The Guardian.

My friend, BenS, lumps the Guardian together with the NYTimes, referring to both or either as the "Times-Guardian".

I used this title before, and here is further evidence, provided by Stephen Pollard:

A BBC mole has sent me this briefing for BBC staff from the BBC's Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, on what lies ahead this year.

It’s all too predictable. The "fragmentation" of Palestinian society has, in Mr Bowen’s view, nothing to do with the Palestinians and everything to do with Israel (“the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government”). Indeed, Israel is to blame for almost everything. The Palestinians are not responsible for anything; Israel is the culpable party.

He has contempt for every Israeli politician he mentions; Ehud Barak, for instance, is described as having killed "various Palestinians", written as if he did so for the sake of it.

If this is what passes for high-level analysis at the BBC, is it any wonder its reporting is so poisonous?

Pollard posted the entire memo at his site. It is absolutely appalling. And be sure to read the comments there as well.

From CBS via BenS:

Good afternoon.

I wanted to give you a heads-up on a story that will be running this Sunday, Dec. 17 (7PM ET/PT on CBS) on "60 MINUTES" about a long-secret German archive that houses a treasure trove of information on 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust. The archive, located in the German town of Bad Arolsen , is massive (there are 16 miles of shelving containing 50 million pages of documents) and until recently, was off-limits to the public.

But after the German government agreed earlier this year to open the archives, CBS News' Scott Pelley traveled there with three Jewish survivors who were able to see their own Holocaust records. It's an incredibly moving piece, all the more poignant in the wake of this week's meeting of Holocaust deniers in Iran .

We're trying to get word out about the story to people who have a special interest in this subject. So we were hoping you'd consider sending out something to your listserve and/or posting something on your website.

Further information will also be available on our website (
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml), which you're welcome to link to from yours.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and thanks for your consideration.

Best,
Robin Sanders
CBS News 60 Minutes
phone: 212-975-7598
email: sandersr@cbsnews.com

I need a Tivo for this since I'll be out. I hope it's as good as it's billed.

This past summer, I spoke with a student (not in economics) who thought the European Union should start its own broadcasting network, "so they can have an unbiased network like the BBC or CBC." I nearly choked.

From Melanie Phillips,

Yesterday, I drew attention in this Diary to the fact that BBC News Online managed to report a vicious anti-black and antisemitic attack in Paris after a France/Israel football match without making any reference whatever to the racist and antisemitic nature of the attack, despite many such details having been reported by various news agencies. Subsequently, the BBC has updated its report with a new version, which contains the racist and antisemitic details it previously omitted. Whether it was shamed into doing so by my post is not known; it may simply have been forced to respond to President Chirac’s comments. However, a reader tells me that both CNN in the US and CTV in Canada also reported the ‘incident’ as merely a football scuffle, with no mention whatsoever of the racist nature of the attack. Did they both draw upon the BBC for their own reports? Or are they simply staffed by journalists with the same morally bankrupt world-view?

My answer: Yes, and the CBC belongs in that group, too.

[with some minor exceptions, like this]

See this.

[h/t to Craig Newmark]

I wrote earlier that the talking heads seemed happy with Tuesday's US election results. But see this from Russell Wilcox, via Judith:

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DESTROYED REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. “A new study by the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., analyzed midterm election coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts between September 5 and October 22. The study found during these seven key weeks following Labor Day, 167 such stories were broadcast. These big three network gave Democratic candidates coverage that was 77 percent positive.

Republican candidates got the opposite – coverage that was 88 percent negative.

This year it has become difficult to tell where partisan Democratic press releases end and news coverage by mainstream journalists begins. They sound identical, as if fabricated in the same Left wing propaganda factory.

A 2005 University of California Los Angeles-led study found that 18 of the nation's top 20 media outlets skewed their news coverage significantly to the Left.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose, the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."” Newsmax.com

Although we now have Fox News, the internet and talk radio to give some balance, when the mainstream media decides to destroy a candidate or an administration, it is almost impossible to fight them.

I sure am glad we have cable, satellite, and the internet to provide competition to the MSM!

Last night, I watched some of the returns from the US midterm election. It was pretty clear to me (but not to Ms. Eclectic, who holds somewhat different political views than mine) that the media was cheering for Democratic majorities in the US House and Senate. My evidence was based in part on this casual observation:

The talking heads were smiling a whole lot more last night than they were two years ago.

Or so it seemed to me. Of course this is a testable hypothesis. But who wants to watch all those tapes from 2004 and 2006 to code and measure smiles?

[If you get a grant to do this study, you owe me.]

One of the big complaints my colleagues and I have often had about the media is that they search out crackpots to provide "balanced" opposition to mainstream economics analysis. Media editors have defended this practice saying that they must remain unbiased, and they try to present all sides of a story.

Why don't they do this when they cover global warming issues?

Here is just one example of the recent coverage of the Stern Review from the United Kingdom. The Stern Review, itself, provides no hint that there are people who question whether global warming is happening. It also provides no idea that there are people who question whether, if it is happening, it is due to the burning of carbon-based fuels. And yet there is considerable and mounting evidence that questions these "facts" as presented by both the Stern Review and GlobalTV News are under substantial attack by reasonable scholars.

Where are the interviews with, say, Chris Essex or Ross McKittrick? What about the sources listed in State of Fear? How has global warming become such an accepted fact when maybe it isn't?

So much for balanced and unbiased reporting.

Stephen Pollard is also skeptical. And I guess this should not surprise us at all.

.

Let me reiterate: I don't know that global warming is not happening or is not caused by carbon-based fuels. My major concern is that there are clearly some criticisms of the received doctrine, and these criticisms should receive more coverage by a balanced media.

Update: Typos, etc., corrected. They were my version of spluttering.

Top executives have admitted that the BBC news coverage is biased.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran...

In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen
) known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101.

On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran.

Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show's actual producer and the BBC's head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

... Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.'

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.

And that is just the BBC News department. What about their show, "Spooks"? Here is some correspondence about the show, related by Melanie Phillips, and here is her reaction:

‘Spooks’ has now used the ‘diabolical Israelis’ angle three weeks in a row. Are they really so short of plot ideas?

Update: Stephen Pollard has more about "Spooks" and anti-semitism at the BBC.

Speaking of "Spooks", do you suppose anyone at the BBC thought about the problem Philip Roth pointed out with that term in The Human Stain?

I confess to being surprised that the spin doctors with the NYTimes and the Guardian have not yet run the above headline with this photo:



The photo is very striking and is generally used to point out the differences in degree of economic development between South Korea and North Korea, as for example in this item from the Daily Mail. [h/t to Scoop]

The BBC has been notoriously anti-Semitic for many years. Here are two of the more recent examples [h/t to MA]:

1. BBC admits misleading reporting
   
   The BBC has admitted that a report on its flagship radio news programme was in-balanced [sic] and blamed Israel for the suffering of Palestinian Christians.
   
   In a ruling issued earlier this month the complaints department of the broadcasting corportation upheld a complaint for a member of the public who pointed out that the radio report had omitted any information on the effect of the election of a Hamas government on the Palestinian Christians.
   
   The complaint referred to a May 14 report on the situation of Palestinian Christians following the election of a Hamas government in January.
   
   The listener complained that the report's suggestion that conditions for Christians hadn't worsened since the election was incorrect, and that the item as a whole created the misleading impression that the pressures on Christians resulted entirely from the Israeli occupation.
   
   
2. BBC accused of broadcasting "blood libels"
   
   Graham Morris, said: "in my car yesterday afternoon I switched on to BBC Radio 4 and I found myself listening to a young voice with a slight Iranian accent telling a story of a young girl lost in the bazaar of an Iranian city.
   
   “I was staggered to hear the girl say that she suspected the man who looked after her and held her hand to be the child snatcher whom her nanny had warned her against, being ’the Jew who snatches and kills Muslim children and makes bread with their blood’".
   
   In his complaint to the BBC Morris said: "I listened again to the story yesterday evening on your website and discovered that it was part of a series entitled Uncovering Iran and the story was Vakil Bazaar by Simin Daneshvar, an Iranian author.
   
   ... The letter concluded: "What was broadcast was the age-old blood libel which was the cause of many pogroms and murders of Jews over the ages".

For more, see this at Adloyada. It will be interesting to see how the BBC deals with complaints about unbalanced reporting of the war between Hezbollah and Israel this past summer.

I detest CSI Miami. Nevertheless, I watch its reruns sometimes when I have trouble sleeping late at night. When that happens, I try to think of it as a caricatured humour show; that works sometimes.

Their latest promotional ad says "100 murders.... 100 killers.... 100 episodes." Someone there cannot count. Most shows have two cases per show, and some have multiple murders. I will bet my unused super audio copy of this SACD that there have been more than 100 murders and more than 100 killers in the first 100 episodes.