September 06, 2003

BRITISH BLUNDERING CORPORATION

Even the Arab News is now piling on the BBC:

Has the BBC learned absolutely nothing from the Kelly inquiry?

It would appear not.

Even before the inquiry has finished deliberating, the news organization is up to its old tricks again, this time running a hugely contentious — and ultimately baseless — story on Saudi Arabia.

As the article points out, the BBC’s method (reliance on a single source) and forum (the Today show) for the Saudi story mirror the Kelly debacle. The BBC is running repeats.

Posted by Tim Blair at September 6, 2003 06:09 PM
Comments

Bugger. I only posted the story on The Command Post after getting it second-sourced from ITV as well.

Posted by: Alan E Brain at September 6, 2003 at 08:29 PM

The story isn't about Saudi Arabia; rather some Saudi Arabians, surely?

Posted by: Ginger at September 6, 2003 at 09:17 PM

Finally, some group the BBC may actually listen to. I'm sure it must be a terrible blow to the BBC to be criticized by Arabs.

Posted by: Chris Josephson at September 6, 2003 at 09:28 PM

And i thought that we in Australia had a problem with the intellectually bankrupt monochrome-leftyism in the Australian ABC ...

only to find that there is an even more monumental hijacking of public money to further the pre-conceived armchair socialist nonsense of a small group of BBC employees (don't call them journalists).

The methods are the same (include the US PBS in this as well) and the output is similar.

Time to stand up to this small clique

Time to turn off the money tap

Time to say, if you want to do this sort of ex post facto justification of your biases, find someone else to fund it because ordinary taxpayers like me can find a million things we would rather spend our taxes on than this sort of crap.

Even 7c a day is 7c too much !!!

Posted by: The GOP Elephant at September 7, 2003 at 12:18 AM

I watched the Sex Pistols documentary "The Filth and The Fury" on DVD the other night and was reminded how the BBC, on the Queen's Jubilee, refrained from playing or even listing the Pistol's single "God Save The Queen" as the number one selling single of the week.

Without taking a position on whether that was right or wrong, it had certainly been BBC policy in the past to "shape" the news in the national interest.

With the stakes so much higher, how can the BBC possibly justify supporting (and they are most certainly guilty of that) Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athist thugs in the midst of a war?

Disgraceful.

Posted by: JDB at September 7, 2003 at 02:19 AM

Next thing you know whole countries might go to war over unconfirmed weapons and such.

Posted by: MacMan at September 7, 2003 at 09:55 AM

Wow Tim, what a scoop, you must have spent all day and night surfing the world's media to find a story that was wrong so you could say 'I told you the BBC gets it wrong', as they always do. But to quote a Saudi owned news organization as having a reliable position to take on the issue of media credibility is pretty funny.

Does it occur to you that the Sauds have no interest to give any credence to any report involving their own country?

Meanwhile, did you go through the multiple news reports since this bag of missiles story was first reported - very briefly - the other day.

Did you check to see that there were no further reports that showed this to be an unfounded report - among the many thousands of reports that flow through any global news wire organization each day.

How shallow is your research capacity. Why is your depth of "reporting" so incredibly lazy.

Is that why you have never worked as a rounds reporter in any capacity for any newspaper?

In fact, your allegation that you are a "writer" is also questionable given that you don't seem to be able to actually write a coherent essay of any length. Look at your column and weblog, it's nothing more than little cuts and pastes of what you saw pasted elsewhere in the same vacuous level of 24 hour a day publishing that like you is so often wrong.

I guess that's why they call it Fox and Friends.

Posted by: White Bread at September 7, 2003 at 03:06 PM

White Bread: Could I get the address of your " no cuts and pastes here," web log, so I can be awed by your coherence. How about it, superstar?

Posted by: Mike at September 7, 2003 at 03:28 PM

White Bread prefers to mooch off the web space others pay for. White Bread (aka "Big Hawk," aka "zMit," aka "labor pimp") is advised to enjoy his/her/its little romp while he/she/it can.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at September 7, 2003 at 03:52 PM

Hey, who invited ballillo? (sp)

Posted by: Sandy P. at September 7, 2003 at 05:48 PM

So what's the point of this website Andrea.

Tim has ensured that there are links all over the world so people visit this site. He puts them at the end of anything he manages to get published - which I grant is a rate event.

But what do you want people to do when they get here. Simply sign the non existent guest book and say what a right-hip Gen X guy Tim is. You know full well that Tim makes makes whatever gold coin he can get, by trolling for wimpy liberals to bait and then you get all upset when you get a bite.

It really does look like the last week of onslaught against Tim has taken its toll of your sensibilities. How nice to know that you can get knocked down a peg or two if we keep it up.

I'll be sure to observe this point to my fellow travelers as we prepare to defeat you and your ILK in the year ahead.

BTW: so are you joining Tim tomorrow at the Pitt St ADF recruiting office. I'm sure someone with your incredible IT skills could get a job in the network centric war that's going to deliver victory any day soon. Better hurry up, the war will be over before you get to the front.

Posted by: White Bread at September 7, 2003 at 07:50 PM

Whitey, did you support Australia's military involvement in securing independence for East Timor?

If so, with which division of the Australian armed forces did you serve?

Posted by: tim at September 8, 2003 at 12:15 AM

What is Tim's problem with "single source" stories?

After all, Tony Blair's claims of Iraqi WMD available in 45 minutes came from a single source, as did the "yellowcake from Niger" story.

Any chance of him screeching about that?

Nah.

Posted by: Analogue Voter at September 8, 2003 at 12:26 AM

What we have here folks is several acute cases of success envy. The irony of the BBC being pro-Arab but being savaged by the Arab News can't be seen by these morons because they're so fixated on Tim. Boo hoo, Tim's posted something new so it's time to have a cry.

Posted by: ZsaZsa at September 8, 2003 at 01:13 AM


okay zsa zsa, i'll bite:

"success envy"

which success in particular are you referring to?

Posted by: chico o'farrill at September 8, 2003 at 06:00 PM

chico,

How many hits do you get at your site?

Posted by: ZsaZsa at September 8, 2003 at 06:08 PM