Rapid Response Media Alert: Targeting Iran – The BBC Propaganda Begins

[pk]

Oh give over, you completely misread and misunderstood my original point (did you bother to read the Robert Fisk article?) which was that the restrictions under which the journalists are reporting are not being conveyed to the viewer in his or her home.

I think it could be said that the "stringers" you refer to are a reliable source of information, and that BBC journos stuck in the secure zone of Baghdad have access to phones and faxes and everything else they need to compile a reliable report.

Added to the fact that it's been made clear movement is restricted outside this zone, I fail to see why each and every report from Baghdad should carry a disclaimer.

Nor do I see how this somehow adds up to a "propaganda" exercise perpetrated by the BBC.

As someone who actually knows quite a lot about the BBC, more than most, I find the notion that some twat reading conspiranoid sites should be able to accuse the BBC of a proaganda attack with no basis for evidence, a sham, and risks the credibility of this website as a viable alternative resource for news and comment.

 

[Pickman's model]

you don't need conspiracy websites to tell you that the bbc's biased.

 

[pk]

Are you going to elaborate on that, Picky?

 

[Pickman's model]

yeh. look at david miller's books "don't mention the war" and "tell me lies", the former about media coverage of the 'troubles' in the six counties, the latter about media fuckwittery in the coverage of the iraq adventure. i'll go and get you the link for his website too, cos i'm in a good mood. temporarily.

 

[Pickman's model]

while i'm off doing that, you can ponder the reversed footage from orgreave shown on bbc news. was that merely a fuck-up or a nice bit of beeb propaganda?

 

[Pickman's model]

http://staff.stir.ac.uk/david.miller/publications/Tellmelies.html

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Dirty bombs may well exist - no evidence can be provided to the contrary.

Ah come on - you can't prove a negative. WMDs may well have existed in Iraq. The fact that no dirty bombs have ever been found or used and no proper plans to build them (apart from a bit of disproved yank "arrest the immigrants" propaganda) have been discovered - as well as the fact that they just wouldn't be very good compared to a bomb of equivalent size, probably explaining why nobody's bothered - says to me that the amount of times they're mentioned in the media is *way* out of proportion to the actual threat posed by them. It's scare propaganda.

Not that I think the BBC are deliberately putting this out - they're reporting what politicians say, and politicians use propaganda. But I'd prefer for them to, say, link in the sidebar of any website story referring to dirty bombs to the large amount of information about them, so that people know this is not the case. If you ran a survey about them, I imagine a lot of people would say they'd been discovered and/or used already, just like people say about Iraqi WMDs in countries where it's not constantly pointed out that they were never there i.e. the USA.

 

[steeplejack]

There was also the coverage of the anti war march in London, which mysteriously was knocked off the headlines by John Major's decade old affair with Edwina Currie.

 

[pk]

For every supposed pro-Government propaganda accusation, you can name a supposed anti-Government propaganda event.

If Orgreave is the best you can do - 20 year old news - then that doesn't really stand up to today's issues, especially in the field of the war against terror, does it?

I want you to give me an example of BBC bias, or BBC propaganda, undertaken since 9/11, for example.

That's over 3 years.

 

[Pickman's model]

For every supposed pro-Government propaganda accusation, you can name a supposed anti-Government propaganda event.

If Orgreave is the best you can do - 20 year old news - then that doesn't really stand up to today's issues, especially in the field of the war against terror, does it?

I want you to give me an example of BBC bias, or BBC propaganda, undertaken since 9/11, for example.

That's over 3 years.

the iraq war build-up?

there's so much i wouldn't know where else to begin. but if i say the bbc's coverage of every major government policy i think that'd be about right.

 

[steeplejack]

How about the coverage of the march in London, then?

I wouldn't call it propaganda, more collusion by omission with the government agenda of the time.

 

[pk]

Ah come on - you can't prove a negative. WMDs may well have existed in Iraq. The fact that no dirty bombs have ever been found or used and no proper plans to build them (apart from a bit of disproved yank "arrest the immigrants" propaganda) have been discovered - as well as the fact that they just wouldn't be very good compared to a bomb of equivalent size, probably explaining why nobody's bothered - says to me that the amount of times they're mentioned in the media is *way* out of proportion to the actual threat posed by them. It's scare propaganda.

Not that I think the BBC are deliberately putting this out - they're reporting what politicians say, and politicians use propaganda. But I'd prefer for them to, say, link in the sidebar of any website story referring to dirty bombs to the large amount of information about them, so that people know this is not the case. If you ran a survey about them, I imagine a lot of people would say they'd been discovered and/or used already, just like people say about Iraqi WMDs in countries where it's not constantly pointed out that they were never there i.e. the USA.

I couldn't care less if a bunch of brain dead Americans think they're under attack.

Redsquirrel said the threat posed by dirty bombs didn't exist - I said that was crap, and your own link proved it.

You now say: "the fact that they just wouldn't be very good compared to a bomb of equivalent size" is also untrue.

The mad crush to leave a city if it's inhabitants knew that radioactive material had been detonated there would be horrific.

And this is the aim of terrorism.

 

[editor]

no, i'll leave that to the experts.

It might be easier if you just left it to the person it was addressed to rather than cluelessly butting in.

 

[Pickman's model]

how's that the aim of 'terrorism'?

 

[kyser_soze]

I don't get

a. Why Bigfish started this thread

b. why he/she is singling out the BBC for specific criticism

From doing A-Level sociology and the agenda setting role, creation of folk devils and all the rest of it I learned a very healthy technique for digesting the news:

1. Everyone claims to be telling the 'truth'
2. Every single person who reports news events has their own agenda they wish to put forward. This agenda can be progressive and largely honest (medialens) or highly selective and conservative (Fox news)

Therefore the way to deal with it is to remember that 'the news' is someone else trying to build their version of your reality for you - all this stuff is mediated because we can't be everywhere at once experienceing everything at once, and thus are reliant on a mediated construction of reality. All you have to do is remember that new services are part of this and that it's you, the individual, who has a responsibilty to yourself to investigate issues that interest you further using other sources.

It bothers me when people bang on about one specific story not recieving enough coverage - dirty bombs have been mentioned on here but IIRC there were several articles about their relative lack of effectiveness in the broadsheets a few months ago. It wasn't front page news, but then TBH it ISN'T a front page headline IMO - there is only so much you can fit on a front page, just as there is only so much you can fit into a news bulletin.

The BBC isn't perfect by a long shot, but then no other new gathering organisation is. Each has an agenda and a reality it wants you to believe and accept. Just deal with it FFS.

 

[Pickman's model]

It might be easier if you just left it to the person it was addressed to rather than cluelessly butting in.

it might be...

now, what have you against unions?

 

[Barking_Mad]

I think it could be said that the "stringers" you refer to are a reliable source of information, and that BBC journos stuck in the secure zone of Baghdad have access to phones and faxes and everything else they need to compile a reliable report.

So why report from Baghdad in the Green Zone when we might as well save tax payers money and employ the Iraqis to file the information back to BBC TV Centre? The journalists there have access to phones, faxes and everything else they need to compile a reliable report there. Ermm right? See my point?

Added to the fact that it's been made clear movement is restricted outside this zone, I fail to see why each and every report from Baghdad should carry a disclaimer.

And does the BBC make clear to its viewers on a regular basis that their journalists movement is restricted outside this zone I mean they were quite willing and correct to do so when Saddam was in charge, so why not now? Its funny because I sit and watch lots of BBC reporting and I've yet to hear JUST ONCE a BBC journo/news presenter (or any other) qualify a report by giving a similar disclaimer in the same style as was done under Saddam.

As someone who actually knows quite a lot about the BBC, more than most, I find the notion that some twat reading conspiranoid sites should be able to accuse the BBC of a proaganda attack with no basis for evidence, a sham, and risks the credibility of this website as a viable alternative resource for news and comment.

Nor do I see how this somehow adds up to a "propaganda" exercise perpetrated by the BBC.

I'll ignore your petty insults and your attempt to group me together with conspiracy theorists. I object to your insinuation that I said this was a "propaganda" exercise perpetrated by the BBC." Perhaps you'd like to try and cram a few more words into my mouth?

It might be an entirely genuine lack of recognition of what is going on, but since the BBC is so keen on 'balance' it should be quite prepared to point this out to its viewers on a more regular basis. The truth is by not doing this it distorts where the news is coming from and how it was gathered, or are you going to tell me that this isn't important?

 

[pk]

How about the coverage of the march in London, then?

I wouldn't call it propaganda, more collusion by omission with the government agenda of the time.

Hardly knocked off the front page was it though.

And the million plus march was reported as such, blatantly in the face of the police statistics which were obvioulsy lies, so, that doesn't lie with me.

BBC as a corporation obviously have their faults - the utter waste of public money on middle management and useless commissions for one - but the integrity of BBC News is just not questionable as far as I am concerned, certainly not when compared to any other news network you can think of.

It is the benchmark of transparency, from which all other news groups are compared.

 

[editor]

it might be...

now, what have you against unions?

What the fuck are you babbling on about now? Are you losing your marbles or something?

When have I ever made any comment at all about being "against unions" in this thread?

 

[Pickman's model]

pretty much the only times the bbc have said about the restrictions on their reporters were a) when that evil saddam was in charge, when they never let us forget about the bloody restrictions; and b) during the recent fallujah bit where they mentioned once or twice about their reporters being under yankee imperialist restrictions. iirc.

 

[steeplejack]

They also always specify whether a journalist is 'embedded' with US forces, or not.

 

[Pickman's model]

What the fuck are you babbling on about now? Are you losing your marbles or something?

When have I ever made any comment at all about being "against unions" in this thread?

yr obviously not pro- them, else you wouldn't have dodged the question by asking me a couple some pages back. i answered yr questions in the hope (vain, as it transpired) that as a quid pro quo you'd answer mine. so if yr not a member of the nuj freelancers' chapel, what have you against yr profession's union, and by extension other unions?

 

[pk]

So why report from Baghdad in the Green Zone when we might as well save tax payers money and employ the Iraqis to file the information back to BBC TV Centre? The journalists there have access to phones, faxes and everything else they need to compile a reliable report there. Ermm right? See my point?

Because many of these stringers don't speak English, nor do they have the means to communicate with the SPAR/RCR system that the BBC use to handle incoming media feeds.

And does the BBC make clear to its viewers on a regular basis that their journalists movement is restricted outside this zone I mean they were quite willing and correct to do so when Saddam was in charge, so why not now? Its funny because I sit and watch lots of BBC reporting and I've yet to hear JUST ONCE a BBC journo/news presenter (or any other) qualify a report by giving a similar disclaimer in the same style as was done under Saddam.

They are not restricted by government order, as they were then.
They are restricted because they risk being killed by "insurgents" or stupid trigger happy Americans.

[/QUOTE]I'll ignore your petty insults and your attempt to group me together with conspiracy theorists. I object to your insinuation that I said this was a "propaganda" exercise perpetrated by the BBC." Perhaps you'd like to try and cram a few more words into my mouth? [/QUOTE]

LOL... sorry Barking Mad - my comment thus: I find the notion that some twat reading conspiranoid sites should be able to accuse the BBC of a proaganda attack with no basis for evidence, a sham, and risks the credibility of this website as a viable alternative resource for news and comment was NOT aimed at you, it was aimed at the thread starter, Bigfish, and the title of this thread. Sorry for the confusion.

It might be an entirely genuine lack of recognition of what is going on, but since the BBC is so keen on 'balance' it should be quite prepared to point this out to its viewers on a more regular basis. The truth is by not doing this it distorts where the news is coming from and how it was gathered, or are you going to tell me that this isn't important?

If the stringers work for the BBC, it is a BBC news report.

They don't credit sources, and neither do they credit cameramen.

If the stringers are just part of the sources that make up the story - I don't understand why the BBC should put disclaimers out, when anyone who has been following the news will know that Baghdad has serious restriction of movement around the Green Zone.

 

[Streathamite]

There was also the coverage of the anti war march in London, which mysteriously was knocked off the headlines by John Major's decade old affair with Edwina Currie.

I think that possibly a CT too far. i'd imagine major was horrified it got out...

 

[pk]

I'm not a union member either Pickmans, unusually - but I still know more than you'll ever know about BBC news.

 

[steeplejack]

damned convenient for the government though, wouldn't you agree?

I'm not a CT-er either.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Conscription beckons.

I have thought about this do you think it's possible to conscipt a generation who have had free access and have used that free access to drugs?

I mean atm if you were to sign up the will not take you if you have had any experinces of physcotropic or phyicdelic drugs or ecstasy or opaties ... no acid, 2c familly users, no mushies, no mecaline, smack etc so in which case could they even actually conscirpt people who may 'freak' out in a combat situation due to their previous drug use....

would there ever be enough people left over for them to be conscripted... i can't think of a single one of the people i know who would pass the armed forces drugs test ....

edited gonna turn this into a new thread ...

 

[Barking_Mad]

I couldn't care less if a bunch of brain dead Americans think they're under attack.

Redsquirrel said the threat posed by dirty bombs didn't exist - I said that was crap, and your own link proved it.

You now say: "the fact that they just wouldn't be very good compared to a bomb of equivalent size" is also untrue.

The mad crush to leave a city if it's inhabitants knew that radioactive material had been detonated there would be horrific.

And this is the aim of terrorism.

Article here on dirty bombs by the World Nuclear Association

http://www.world-nuclear.org/opinion/washpost170903.htm

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I think that possibly a CT too far. i'd imagine major was horrified it got out...

i know i was ugrrrrhhhhhh

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not a union member either Pickmans, unusually - but I still know more than you'll ever know about BBC news.

then i'm even more surprised you think it's not biased, when it's obvious to anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear. i'm also bemused by the apparent correlation you draw between union membership and knowledge of the bbc.