I rest my case ...

Arye old bean, If you honestly take any notice of what the so-called British Press has to say then you really do have a problem my friend.

Fritz Von Iciparis

Er..Fritz..Arye was quoting an Israeli rag.
Not some British chip-wrapper.

Nime

quote:

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Originally posted by Nime:
Er..Fritz..Arye was quoting an Israeli rag.
Not some British chip-wrapper.

Nime

---

I understood it to be British press reports etc, reported in said Isreali rag ?

Lot's of attention on other things more important lately, the poor lambs are once again feeliung out of the limelight, you know it's true.

Cheers, Fritz Von Proper Ghandi

Isn't there a certain irony that, but for the holiday makers, many of those poor souls who perished might not even have been in the coastal areas?

Now we air-lift "our lot" out post-haste in case they get poorly or hungry. Leaving the local holiday industries in ruins.

The Danish radio news reported massive bureaucratic resistance to getting aid to those that needed it in Indonesia. Local 'jobsworth' chiefs and the military being heavily implicated)
There is no Tsunami without a silver lining?

I haven't heard mention of this in the British TV "man in a rowingboat" reports.

Nime

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arye_Gur:
..... puts Israel in several subjects at the most ugliest rank out of many countries in the world, with the exception that the Brits think that the French people are worse than the Israelis …
Now comes the interesting part – the paper asked for response from the UK embassy in Israel and they said that there are many people in England who don’t know Israel and their mind is shaped by the unbalanced media in the UK.
Arye

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Shalom, Ayre

Perhaps you think that the correct response from the UK Embassy ( based in Israel, remember ) to say that it is well known that Israel flouts human rights, ignores UN sanctions ( repeatedly ), bulldozes the homes of the families of terrorists/freedom fighters ( depending on your point of view ), occupies land illegally etc etc etc?

The response was made by a Diplomat - and was Diplomatic.

Nime - I am impressed by your comparative knowledge of the merits of ( unnamed ) British Newspapers vs. one Israeli. Your 11.43 post leaves me very confused, though.

Regards

Mike

Spending money I don't have on things I don't need.

Mike,

I didn't mean to open again an argue here, I found it funny and I think that your embassy here could find a better reason. BTW, all your opinions about us here is from your own knowledge or from the papers you read?????

Arye

Ayre,

The British media is famous for its general anti-Israeli bias - especially the BBC, an organisation which I detest for lots of different reasons.

I can't say that I've noticed that there is a general anti-Israel bias in the British media so it cant be especially famous. Compared to most media back in the States I see the BBC as way more fair and balanced. I read an interesting article and book on this last year which by analysing BBC and ITV reporting of the middle east, convincingly argued, that if anyhting the Plestinians got a less favorable exposure than Israel in the British broadcast media. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1242833,00.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0745320619/customer-reviews/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/202-3921938-0317402

Mikes' right about the diplomats. They're guests invited to set up an embassy on foreign soil. If they piss off their hosts and relations deteriorate they cease to be of any use. The most important competency of a diplomat is to lie like hell through smiling teeth and tell his hosts exactly what they want to hear.

Earwicker said "The British media is famous for its general anti-Israeli bias"

And Patrick noted "not just the 'red-tops' which have a fairly small circulation"

For the record, the UK's largest circulation newspaper by far is a "red top", has naked breasts every day and is a staunch supporter of Israel. As are the two highest circulation broadsheets (The Telegraph and The Times) and both the middle market tabloids (The Mail and The Express).

So despite what some people like to tell you, it's much more likely than no that the average Brit is reading a newspaper with a pro-Israeli editorial line. For every person exposed to the occasional mistakes in, say, Suzanne Goldenberg's otherwise excellent reporting from the West Bank and Gaza there are 100 who get to read, say, Trevor Kavanagh's pro-Israeli, designed to please Mr Murdoch rhetoric composed from the comfort of his desk in Wapping.

Matthew

Matthew,

I sort of see what you mean, but I stick by what I said about the BBC and most people watch the TV for their news and news "debates". Or listen to BBC Radio...

Earwicker
i don't see what you mean about the bbc. Why are you so angry abot it and why don't you tell us the basis for your accusations? As far as i've seen the analysis and my experience doesnt support your feelings.

BBC rdio news is good and BBC radio comedy is a riot.

In addition to Harvey's otherwise estimable summary of the requirements of diplomats to be ...err..diplomatic towards their hosts (!), they are also required to toe the line of whatever their ruling 'home' government happens to be.

Witness the Iraqi ambassador to the UK going on innumerable news shows to defend the indefensible when Saddam was in power, then meekly resigning in shame when Saddam was imposed, claiming that it was all nothing to do with him and that he never agreed with anything the old regime did!

JR

PS: Earwicker, as has been expressed earlier, I am also curious to know these reasons why you detest the BBC so much - please elaborate.

quote:

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Originally posted by Earwicker:
I sort of see what you mean, but I stick by what I said about the BBC and most people watch the TV for their news and news "debates". Or listen to BBC Radio...

---

Earwicker,

I've been down this path on this forum and it's an almost total waste of time.

People ask for examples of BBC bias. You could point them to a number of web sites that cite numerous examples of BBC bias but it wouldn't make any difference. Regarding the BBC's coverage of Israel, you could mention Jeremy Paxman's disgraceful initial assumptions and reporting on the Jenin incident, but don't bother. You could discuss the implicit assumption of the moral integrity of the UN, exhibited by the BBC, in the face of the evidence to the contrary. You'd be wasting your time.

Not only does the BBC view the world and express itself from a position which is to the left of centre, anti-American and, generally, anti-Israel but it also considers that its position IS the centre and morally unambivalent to boot. It is thus incapable of perceiving its own political bias and few here seem capable of perceiving it either. I now rarely make any attempt here to persuade people of what to an increasing number of people is becoming quite obvious.

Of course, BBC radio comedy is often very funny, Radio 4 is generally good listening and the BBC's TV comedy and sports coverage are often good, too. So what?

Steve M

7V's view is of course the right wing, pro-Israel Freeper view that anyone who doesn't have essentially the same view as the Israeli government is biased against it. And that if you are not like Fox "News" or National Reivew you are irredeemably "left of centre" and anti-American, etc. etc.

It's something of a simplification, but the BBC argument pretty much comes down to this:

-- Palestinians who blow up buses full of people in Israel call themselves "Resistance Fighters"

-- Israel calls them "Terrorists"

-- The BBC, not wishing to be seen as baised, calls them "Militants".

-- Israel calls the BBC anti-Israeli for not calling the "Terrorists" terrorists and thus implicitly supporting the Palestinian position.

The BBC is very obviously not perfect but its better than most and takes its responsibilities very seriously.

Matthew

History is what gives some meaning to a debate of this type. I have searched in vain in New Zealand libraries for Egyptian or Syrian histories of the Six Day War.

There is no unbiased reportage of anything anywhere. It is the consumers of the media products that bear the responsibility for gathering information from a wide enough selection to form balanced opinions.

Deane

quote:

---

Originally posted by matthewr:
7V's view is of course the right wing, pro-Israel Freeper view that anyone who doesn't have essentially the same view as the Israeli government is biased against it. And that if you are not like Fox "News" or National Reivew you are irredeemably "left of centre" and anti-American, etc. etc.

It's something of a simplification, but the BBC argument pretty much comes down to this:

-- Palestinians who blow up buses full of people in Israel call themselves "Resistance Fighters"

-- Israel calls them "Terrorists"

-- The BBC, not wishing to be seen as baised, calls them "Militants".

-- Israel calls the BBC anti-Israeli for not calling the "Terrorists" terrorists and thus implicitly supporting the Palestinian position.

The BBC is very obviously not perfect but its better than most and takes its responsibilities very seriously.

---

Well said, Matthew.

Actually, I don't generally agree with the Israeli government - I prefer the Israeli Labour party - and I wouldn't describe myself as right wing - more a disenchanted, ex-Democrat, Neocon (most of the Neocon movement comes from disenchanted socialists rather than the traditional right). Yes, I know I'm British but the UK parties don't exactly inspire me and President Bartlett is, sadly, not an option.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty clear about what I call people who bomb civilian buses and I make no apologies for that.

As a matter of fact, I detect a recent shift in the attitude of the BBC towards Israel (at least the attitude that is shown), which probably dates from the tearful report of that BBC journalist when Arafat left his compound to fly to France and die. I suspect that her reaction made even the BBC Governors stop and think.

My main criticism of the BBC these days is its anti-Americanism - "We didn't support the war in Iraq so we're damned if we're going to support their democratic process. Shit, if Iraq becomes free, God knows what the Yanks will be encouraged to do next."

Forum members may know that Afghanistan now has 3 women politicians in its democratically elected government (not a perfect democracy but it's a start and a heck of a lot better than what went before). Does anyone recall seeing this news on the BBC?

My other criticism is of the BBC's unquestioning position up the arse of the UN, an organization that can be described as at best ineffective and at worst criminal. After Bosnia, Rwanda, Dafur, 'Oil for Food' and 'Rape for Peace-keeping', the UN lost any moral authority that it had, as far as I was concerned, not as far as the BBC is concerned, however.

Steve M

quote:

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It is thus incapable of perceiving its own political bias and few here seem capable of perceiving it either. I now rarely make any attempt here to persuade people of what to an increasing number of people is becoming quite obvious.

---

I don't get this Steve. Are you saying that few people on this forum are capable of perceiving this "political bias", but to a whole other group of people, presumably you're suggesting with superior perception, it's quite obvious? Who are these other people and how did they come to have heightened perception relative to the rest of us?

I detect no recent shift in BBC reporting of the middle east and think it naïve to attribute such a shift to the incident described. Were I to detect such a shift, I would find the influencing factors as described by Philo and Berry infinitely more reasoned and compelling. I’m fairly sensitive to anti-Americanism and I simply don’t see evidence of this in the BBC reporting. They seem to have a lot of US correspondents and I’m regularly surprised to see the amount of coverage of domestic US events that pops up on the BBC. I sure as hell don’t see a corresponding coverage in the US media and there is little effort to conceal pro Israel, anti European and anti-arab bias.

Interestingly I heard the new UN chief of staff getting a roasting on “pro-UN” radio 4 this morning. You think that we’re getting andy card or some other admin figure to come on radio any time for a grilling? I didn’t realise that there were 3 women cabinet members in the Afghan govt but yes Steve, the BBC ran the story last year and lengthy interviews with 2 women who had been appointed to the cabinet.

I think that Matthew’s basically got it straight in that certain kinds of people see even balanced reporting or a failure of the media to completely trumpet their views as evidence of bias, be it on the US, UN, Iraq, Afghanistan whatever. In the US it’s getting so that any network or paper that so much as hesitates to back the administration is labelled by right wing blogs and sites as a US basher, biased and not to be trusted. People like this will think what they think no matter what and no amount of evidence or argument will change their outlook.

Still interested to hear how the bbc got earwicker so bent out of shape. Come on back and give us your thoughts.

I wonder whether the Danish reporting isn't less biassed than that of Britain. My feeling is that the Israelies are behaving much like the Nazi party towards the Palestinians with complete approval from the USA. Where religion and politics meet all common sense goes out of the window.

My earlier reference to "man in a rowingboat reporting" refers to the need for TV news to always have a man/woman on the spot. I can still clearly remember a local news reporter bouncing about in a rowing boat in the harbour talking about a sea accident 17 miles off shore! Hence the reference.
Doesnæt anyone ever

quote:

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Originally posted by Harvey:
I don't get this Steve. Are you saying that few people on this forum are capable of perceiving this "political bias", but to a whole other group of people, presumably you're suggesting with superior perception, it's quite obvious? Who are these other people and how did they come to have heightened perception relative to the rest of us?

---

Harvey,

Many of the people who perceive the BBC as having a political bias are those who don't hold left of centre political views. If you visit any of the blogs or commentary sites that stand to the right or centre of the political spectrum you will see many references to BBC bias.

There are several sites that have been set up specifically to comment on BBC bias. Many of them are very well-supported and there is a list of such sites on Biased BBC.

I'm not saying that posters on this forum necessarily have 'inferior' perception, rather that they don't perceive bias because their own particular political viewpoint corresponds with that of the BBC, and they perceive this a neutral. Left of centre is not neutral, however. An equivalent situation would be if your hi-fi had a resonant peak at, say, 2kHz. Very quickly this would sound neutral to you and any truly flat system that you heard would sound to you as if it had a dip in its response at 2kHz.

Here's a statement from the BBC Producers' Guidelines:

Due impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC. It is a core value ... Audiences should not be able to gauge from BBC programmes the personal views of presenters and reporters

Clearly for a significant proportion of the audience this is not the case.

Steve M

Tis that time of the year again already ! Here we go again, innit.


Fritz Von Murdoch for World Leader

Basically Steve you're repeating what I said when I paraphrased Matthew. how can you present your views as representing a significant proportion? What constitutes a "well-supported " site and what intrinsic value is there in, for example the number of forum members? i'm guessing that there's a lot of freepers, but a quick visit tot the site revels that it's clearly a secure wing of a mental care facility. I trawled through biased bbc and many of the links last year and thought it amazingly unconvincing and really quite sad. A quick look has just revealed that nothings changed and any site which namechecks Melanie Philips in the first few lines is going to be a huge turnoff for anyone with any sense. As I've said, without any evidence i'm not about to be convinced of some huge media trickery, and nothing will convince you that it doesn't exist.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nime:
I wonder whether the Danish reporting isn't less biassed than that of Britain. My feeling is that the Israelies are behaving much like the Nazi party towards the Palestinians with complete approval from the USA. Where religion and politics meet all common sense goes out of the window.

---

By this statement you presumably mean that:

- the Israelis have stolen all of the homes and businesses of the Palestinians, who have been deprived of all human rights..

- that the Palestinians are being rounded up and shipped to camps where they are separated from their children and families..

- that they are stripped of their clothes and valuables, any gold teeth extracted and their hair cut off..

- that they are gassed to death and then burnt.

From 1941 to 1945, the majority of European Jews (outside the UK), about 6 million in all, were massacred. From 2000 to 2004, in the latest uprising, approximately 2,000 Palestinians have lost their lives, including suicide bombers, armed fighters and those caught up in cross-fire. 1,000 Israelis have perished.

Yes, it certainly seems that Danish reporting is less biased than British. As you say, all common sense has gone out of the window.

Steve M

[This message was edited by 7V on Wed 05 January 2005 at 12:29.]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nime:
I wonder whether the Danish reporting isn't less biassed than that of Britain. My feeling is that the Israelies are behaving much like the Nazi party towards the Palestinians with complete approval from the USA.

---

Nime this is particulary crass. Regardless of how you may view the Israeli treatment of Palestinians attempting to equate them with the Nazi party is contemptible.

I think you should either delete the post or apologise.

FWIW my opinion of you has just gone through the floor, not that you would care.

Mike

Harvey,

I knew I'd hit trouble when I saw Melanie Philips' piece on the site today. Bloody typical. Believe it or not she's not generally mentioned there.

When determining what constitutes a "well-supported" site, I tend to look at Google's Page Rank figure which is their measure of the 'importance' of a page. The PageRank scale is logarithmic so a rank of '2' may be 10x more popular than a rank of '1' and a rank of '3' 10x more popular than a rank of '2', etc.

Anyway, as you say, we're probably not going to get anywhere with this one.

Cheers
Steve M

quote:

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Originally posted by mike lacey:
Nime this is particulary crass. Regardless of how you may view the Israeli treatment of Palestinians attempting to equate them with the Nazi party is contemptible.

---

Of course, Mike and thanks for a voice of sanity. Whatever one thinks of the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, to compare it to the Nazi treatment of Jews implies lack of knowledge of the true situation in Israel and Palestine and/or complete ignorance (or denial) of the Nazi Holocaust.

However, in the context of this thread, I do feel that this illustrates the effects of the media bias (and Arab propaganda) and shows how deeply it can affect our judgement.

Steve M