This is the BBC world service …

// January 29th, 2004 // Personal

I spent about 2 hours last night drafting a response to Kate’s post and finally clicked submit only to find that the post had disappeared into the ether. This is probably a good thing as I was more than a little vocal and would quite possibly have turned a few people off.

Let me just say that the BBC was, is and always will be the leading producer of objective news output in the world. They have no political bias, and very rarely make mistakes in their reporting.

I’d also like to point out this to those who suggest the BBC’s attack on Tony Blair was unwarranted. Tony Blair lied to Parliament and his nation. He lied to the BBC and to countless other news networks. The fact that the Hutton Report has exonerated him does not change this simple fact. Nor does the suggestion that these lies were based on unsound intelligence. If you’re running a country what the hell are you doing listening to people who give you questionable information.

Teflon Tony has once again come out of a political shit storm mostly unscathed whilst one of the world’s most respected broadcasters has been brought to its knees to cover for him.

So when you’re reading the latest updates regarding the latest beeb employee to be axed please just remember that there was only ever going to be one winner in this battle – and our government looks after its own.

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6 Responses to “This is the BBC world service …”

  1. andrésgentry :: water says:
    February 1, 2004 at 5:02 am

    False marketing

    Andrew Gilligan doesn’t get it. The BBC doesn’t get it. Members of the National Union of Journalists from newsrooms in London urged their management to mount a “robust defence” of the BBC’s journalistic independence. “The NUJ regrets the resign…

  2. Simon World says:
    January 30, 2004 at 10:01 am

    Independence

    The BBC is in trouble. They’ve been found lacking and blah blah blah. You can read all about it in numerous places around the net. You can even read about the aftermath at the BBC itself. But there’s a broader issue many are not addressing. Do we need …

  3. celebrex says:
    February 16, 2004 at 10:02 am

    finished as like I want it, and I don’t have celebrex the words. And, I’ve written a few where the ambien words are to that same point, but although soma I can hear music to set them to, it’s nothing phentermine solid, or it isn’t fully Right. That’s weird paxil for me

  4. Rob says:
    January 30, 2004 at 11:01 am

    Good point. I should have said “attack on the government” and was referring to to period when the BBC were refusing to retract or even investigate the statements made by Gilligan. In this instance it wasn’t so much an attack but more a holding of ground and I agree that it was handled badly.

    My main concern is that whilst the world focuses on the BBC and it’s actions they are overlooking the much larger issue of a government misleading its citizens.

  5. Chris says:
    January 30, 2004 at 11:01 am

    “…the BBC’s attack on Tony Blair was unwarranted”

    Where does that come from? A maverick BBC reporter reported some genuine concerns expressed by David Kelly, but made some serious errors in the way he reported the issues. Then the BBC refused to properly investigate it, claimed that Dr Kelly was a senior intelligence source, and basically mis-handled the whole thing. The BBC was right to raise the issue, but wrong to get into a stupid fight with Alistair Campbell.

    The BBC did not attack Tony Blair, though it seems that you think that they should have done. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

  6. Chris says:
    January 30, 2004 at 1:01 am

    I agree that Lord Hutton should have criticized the government as well, but he was obviously chosen quite carefully as a safe pair of hands.

    However, although I was against the war in Iraq, I don’t believe that Tony Blair deliberately misled anyone. The evidence was there, but it is only with 20/20 hindsight that we can say it was obvious all along that it was wrong. How many people really believed all along that Saddam Hussein had no WMD?

    Tony Blair genuinely believed that it was right to attack Iraq (even more so than George Bush), and the intelligence services gave him the evidence he needed. That made him unstoppable. So we certainly need to find out why the intelligence services got it wrong, but I don’t think they made it all up to suit what Tony Blair wanted!

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