Friday, August 03, 2007
“Go home British soldiers” - BBC
I like the BBC. It performs a quality set of services that the market just couldn’t. The reporting of the end of Operation Banner however, was disgracefully one sided across the BBC. The event was used with impunity by Republicans to lie about the troubles, misrepresent facts, and I did not see anywhere near balance on any of the channels or shows. O’Neill complained to the Jeremy Vine show, and received a quite abrupt reply.
Michael Shilliday @ 08:14 AM
That Republican triumphalist argument in full:
1. We won
2. Brits Out
3. ErThe Unionist response:
1. Democracy beat pyhsical force republicanism and the loyalist perversion it spawned so we all won.
2. Hello?, check the weather forecast. The wiggly line is still here and so are we.
3. That’s itPosted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 09:17 AMCome on folks, all this BBC-bashing about biased Operation Banner coverage is a joke.
It’s the first time the Beeb does an objective piece on the role of the Army here and some Unionist elements go crazy.
Just because the establishment is used to hearing its own news from the BBC, and UTV (anybody see the best of ‘Ulster’ thing?!), doesn’t mean things are going to stay that way.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 09:18 AMI was in Grantham for most of the day, but I listened to Radio Ulster on the way to the airport until almost 8am. I heard serving and former soldiers being interviewed, in a fair and compassionate manner by Karen Patterson. She asked about their feelings, and indeed went into some detail about PTSD.
Later that night, I watched the BBC 10 o’clock news in England, and again saw Operation Banner covered in a fair and dispassionate manner.
I fail to see how Michael can claim it was one-sided coverage. I accept I did not catch some of the coverage, but the portions I saw and heard fairly represented the British side.
Is there a suggestion that the ‘other side’ are not worthy of expressing their opinion?
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 09:22 AMLets not be insulting Miss Fitz.
I watched the coverage on News 24, BBC NI, and I have to say particularly on TalkBack, the bias of balance of commentators, as well as the downright lies that were told almost completely unchallenged by those commentators, was disgraceful.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 09:28 AMother side’ are not worthy of expressing their opinion:
The intergrity of republican wish fullfillment masquerading as ‘viewpoint’ is unmatched anywhere. But stacking this up against an agency of the state which is much more constrained and restrained in commentary is hardly ‘balance.’
I saw several instances of ‘bufton-tufton versus the shinner spinner’ on interviews. It made good television but poor truth. In my viewing of the reports there was very little evidence of the voice of Protestants along the border who relied on the army literally as a bulwark against ethnic cleansing by republican terrorists.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 09:43 AMDidn’t see much of the coverage you speak of just what was on C4 News and newsnight. What lies are you specifically referring to about the troubles?
As far as most ationalists are concerned, the troubles began when civil rights marches were held across the North against corrupt, oppressive illegalities like gerrymandering etc. The Unionists’ response, as I understand it (I’m from the South so I’m sure I’ll get some unionist ‘version’ in response) was to burn people out of their homes and kill nationalists in the street. Then you had Bloody Sunday, which cemented the BA’s motives in NI for most if not all nationalists.
All whataboutery aside, is this not the cause of all the bother? As someone recently said to me, if the Catholics in Northern Ireland were black, the situation in NI would never have been tolerated for as long as it was and would have been sorted out 25/30 years ago.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 09:58 AMRepublican revisionism has taught you well Wang.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:00 AMMS
Reporting with a tinge of political expediency should no longer be expected I’m afraid.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:03 AMI think its important to differentiate between news coverage and opinion programmes.
To say that you were particularly annoyed at the Talkback show is difficult to counter. Talkback is an open mike show for members of the public. If the show is dominated on a particular day, that has less to do with the ‘disgraceful’ BBC coverage than it has to do with other elements of manipulation.
As I said, I listened to Radio Ulster and watched the news in England, and found the BBC coverage to be fair and balanced.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:05 AMThe BBC and UTV have for years had an explicit 32 county agenda which in the former case has been rolled back somewhat because of unionist vigilance in defending our rights.
The coverage of Operation Banner seems to emphasise that this vigilance must be maintained.
Of course we still have a regional UK TV station that covers intricately the news affairs of a foreign nation as if it were local news, reports on foreign sport in regional sports’ programming and delivers foreign weather in regional weather forecasts (even to the extent of including foreign towns on the map). The border was abolished entirely on the weather map before unionists forced a slim line to be reinstated.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:05 AMprince eoghan et al - the central point of the argument is that on every occasion that the subject was discussed, professional republican politicians were pitched against army personel or journalists.
In this thread the OP was about an offensive song.
None of you have actually adressed these points - your answers have been along the lines of “nana na na na you’re upset so we’re happy”.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:08 AMmnob
C’mon now! I know the song well, as you and everyone else knows the ‘Brits’ refers to the British war machine. Not as is suggested to those who feel culturally British. A silly allegation!
Since MS and self parody are getting on so well, why shouldn’t we throw rotten fruit and laugh our little hearts out? from the cheap seats of course.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:14 AMAbsolutely, who contributes from the floor or calls into TalkBack isn’t an issue for balance, but who the BBC invite to contribute to an almost panel format for that show are. And on that day, TalkBack was hideously one sided on all counts.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:23 AMPrince Eoghan - and ‘fenian’ means a member of the irish republican brotherhood - so can we have the billy boys sung on Radio 4 a few times please ?
Still no answer on the makeup of the interviews I note.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:29 AM“The border was abolished entirely on the weather map before unionists forced a slim line to be reinstated.”
Jesus, the sheer oppression of it all. I’m glad the vigilant are standing up for our birthrights!
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:32 AMmnob
As has been noted here many times. Context!
The makeup should consist of whom then in your opinion? Was it not the IRA and the Brits at war? who else held centre stage?
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:33 AMThe BBC is disgraceful. It is infiltrated by Republicans and does not provide the public service it is supposed to. The security forces stood between us and the tyranny of Rome. The watchword should always be Not an inch to the cowards who shoot the guardians of the law in the back.
Of course, the cowards of the IRA and INLA killed more of their own men than did the security forces. Psychopaths are never satiated.
Well done Michael. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:35 AMSo what exactly is the complaint?
There have been posts about this for days now. You’re angry because the ‘accepted version’ of the history of the troubles in NI, even from the BBC’s point of view, is not the one you’d hoped for, so therefore you attack it as warped and imbalanced? That the British army don’t get portrayed as covering themselves in glory and ride off into the sunset as heroes?
Get over it, people...It’s called history. You continue to propogate your version of events, the rest of the world gets to hear and see what actually happened.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:43 AMTHAT TALK BACK TRANSCRIPT IN FULL:
David Dunseith:
So what about the Brit’s leaving? Are we pleased to see them go or do I just have something big in my pocket? Let’s talk to Kelly Gerry who has lived on Bessbrook heliport in a caravan since 1297? Kelly are you there?
Kelly: I’m here and the Brits aren’t! Sure it’s a lovely day in Ireland for beating prods, I mean swords, into ploughshares! They slaughtered us all with their scouse accents and their foreign ways, like scotch eggs. But although we’re all murdered dead, we’re still here. And I wanted to turn Boruki sanger into a chip shop but the securocrats wouldn’t let me and all my pigs have 5 legs. And who do I sue now for compensation?
David: Thanks Kelly. Let’s go to a nursing home in Cricklewood and speak to Leiutenant General Fenian D’Eath. How do you respond to the fact that you have mutated pigs and caused AIDs?
D’Eath: I can well remember fishing as a young subaltern near the border in the lakes near Meigh, lovely days, then…
David: I’m sorry we’ve lost Gen D’Eath as he’s just died a broken man. Over to our regular commentator Phil Graves who as a decommissioned IRA volunteer with an ology reflects on why catching fish is really a metaphor for shoot-to-kill.
:)
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:47 AMJesus, the sheer oppression of it all. I’m glad the vigilant are standing up for our birthrights!
You may take the piss, but when this cultural creepage is an official policy designed to sell out Ulster then vigilance is our only defence.
Resist the cultural genocide practised by BBC!
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 10:48 AMRadio Ulster would have a little more credibility if it didn’t employ Danny Morrison’s wife as a producer.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 11:06 AMWatcher
Away and troll somewhere else you buffoon
Michael Shilliday , jeez you really are scraping the barrel with this complaint. Have you listened to and watched and analysed every piece of BBC coverage of the event in the last few eeeks. I doubt it. You clearly expressing a partial view based on an incomplete analysis.
I for one listened to an excellent balanced piece of coverage on Radio 5 live last week with Gerry Kelly and Jeffrey Donalsdon.
The crux of your complaint is that the BBC did not cover and analyse the event as you would have liked.
Have you made a formal complaint to the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
or you just looking for something to say on Slugger and this is the best you could do?
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 11:07 AMWatcher,
There has been a lot of Southern accents on display in washing powder adverts lately. You may be on to something.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 11:15 AMI saw the thread yesterday about the complaint by AARSE so I checked out their website, which had threads about which advert mums they would ‘do’. Charming.
I thought some of the coverage was a bit obvious, but much of it fair and reasonable. I didn’t listen to Talkback, but I’ve listened to it in the past and it does tend to attract the more ranting listener.
Michael - history will distort your view, just as it will many republicans’ views. History is collective. We all know the old cliche about three sides to the story - one side, the other side and the truth. You may diagree with others’ views, but to call them lies is ungracious.
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 11:18 AMResist the cultural genocide practised by BBC!
The BBC is disgraceful. It is infiltrated by Republicans and does not provide the public service it is supposed to. The security forces stood between us and the tyranny of Rome.
lol does wee ian know you’ve taken his diary and are printing excerpts on slugger
Posted by on Aug 03, 2007 @ 11:24 AM
