More on media censorship

TENS OF THOUSANDS MARCH THROUGH LONDON: THE BBC IS SILENT…

the Respect Party,

19 July, 2014

Crowds of tens of thousands gathered in Central London today to protest at the on-going military actions of Israel in the Gaza Strip. Estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000, making this one of the largest demonstrations in recent years in Britain.

Not that you’d know it had even taken place if you relied on the BBC – that’s the British Broadcasting Corporation, I remind you. Despite the fact that this demonstration to highlight the war crimes currently being perpetrated against Palestinian men, women and children in the Gaza Strip brought central London to a virtual standstill all day, the BBC have instead decided that reporting on a small outbreak of food poisoning at Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games village is a more important story than the mobilisation in London.

                                 

The story failed to appear on the BBC News website page

We have come to expect this kind of censorship from the BBC, but it doesn’t make it any less shocking. This institution used to be admired worldwide for its integrity and quality reporting. These days it has been reduced to an echo-chamber of the state’s prevailing orthodoxy with its Orwellian pro-Israeli bias.

That a news channel should have a certain perspective on news is inevitable, and of course not everyone will like a channel’s take on a particular issue. But the suppression of news on this scale is altogether unprecedented and warrants serious consideration. We could of course simply turn over to alternative news providers which are not at the mercy of the dead hand of government directing their editorial standpoint – after all, what do we expect when the main parties, including Labour, are led by self-avowed Zionists?

    The reality is that many people already are seeking out such alternative channels of information, including social media. But this doesn’t really soften the blow. We pay for the BBC through the license fee, and they therefore have a fiduciary duty to represent a balanced and representative platform of news. Their refusal to even come close to reporting today’s demonstration properly is a serious failure of this.

Thousands had gathered to march in Central London on Saturday

    George Galloway MP, who spoke at today’s demonstration, has already announced his intention to stop paying the license fee. How long will it be until serious questions are asked about the integrity of the BBC’s reporting?

The orginal interview that I wanted to post has been removed by You Tube so I found this one with the now-notorious Liz Wahl who earlier this year quit RT on air

CNN Propaganda Machine Exposed - Interview with Former Reporter Amber Lyon

Three-time Emmy award-winning journalist, photographer, and former CNN reporter Amber Lyon discusses the brazenly false stories CNN forced her to report, as well as paid propaganda being aired as normal news reporting.

Try following this link through to the video - 
http://www.americanthinker.com/video/2012/10/cnn_propaganda_machine_exposed_-_interview_with_former_reporter_amber_lyon.html

Reposting this article

BBC: “Pravda-upon-the-Thames”
Seemorerocks

I was brought up on the BBC.

The BBC produced the best television series, the best comedies - and most importantly, it produced the best documentaries - they were snappy and informative and revealed some of the dark secrets of the time.

The BBC was hated by Margaret Thatcher and by Tory governments.

For all that, the BBC was always the voice of the British establishment.

This BBC was torn apart, partially by cost-cutting by governments but the coup-de-grace came after 9/11, and especially during the lead-up to the Iraq War, when a BBC journalist spoke to scientist David Kelly who was employed to investigate Saddam Hussein's WMD. The problem was he didn't have any.

Under political pressure from the Blair government, Kelly was hung out to dry by the BBC and put under such pressure that he committed suicide.

The later Hutton Inquiry later became the basis for changing the BBC forever into the organ of state propaganda and apologist for the Empire.

You can read what Wikipedia says about David Kelly HERE, and about the Hutton report HERE.

At the time, following the terrible events of the Anglo-American 2003 invasion of Iraq I let the political scandal in Britain at the time pass over my head. Perhaps I should have paid more attention.

Here is some coverage at the time of the issues from the WSWS

Britain: Blair government blames BBC for crisis over Iraqi war lies - 2 July 2003

And some liberal-left Establishment views from the Guardian - 

The media's part in the death of David Kelly

After the Hutton inquiry, how can any broadcaster claim to be free?

TV and radio journalists insist Leveson-style statutory regulation does not hamper them. But history (and Lord Patten) disagrees

BBC reform: cut management and give more freedom to programme-makers

Top-heavy management and a culture of self-censorship means staff are too scared to make the right decisions

The BBC was never a major source of information for me over the last years so I was only peripherally aware of the distortions (and lies) of the BBC from the Iraq war, to Afghanistan, to Libya, to Syria - and now, the Ukraine.

It is now that I am looking in detail at events in Ukraine that I can say that the BBC narrative is part of the Big Lie and is (along with CNN) leading the pack when it comes to painting a completely false picture of events in Ukraine.

It has, it is true, produced some individual reports on, for instance the Right Sector  in Kiev and on refugees in Russia.  However, this is negated by the general line of reporting, which paints a picture wholly from the point-of-view of the Kiev junta.

The BBC still continues to do good, investigative journalism, but on issues that are not central to the interests of Empire. An example of this would be the BBC exposure of the Sri Lankan massacre of Tamils

As a general point, interestingly it is the right-wing press that is often a little closer to the truth on the Ukraine - and it is interesting that it was a journalist from Murdoch's Sunday Times,  Mark Franchetti, who provided the sole example of a western journalist describing things as they are on Ukrainian TV.

A few times recently, I have started to listen to the BBC in bed, but every time I have ended up switching off in disgust and switching over to Voice of Russia, which specialises in talking about real issues and even, as I have notices, gives air time to contrarian points-of-view.

All this is very ironic as now the BBC is now closer to a very slick version of the Soviet-era Radio Moscow than its modern Russian version.



The decline in the BBC is at least a part of the destruction of the more decent world I was brought up in.

As much as anything this was illustrated when, just a few years ago, the BBC, on putting together a commemorative stamp collection refused to acknowledge their most popular comedy show ever (and which was a favourite of mine as a youngster), on the grounds of political correctness.

I don't go along with everything that James Corbett says by any means - but this piece of his, on the BBC, is worthy of attention.

The BBC Exposed - Corbett Report

For much of its 80 year existence, the BBC has been criticized by those who believe it to be an insidious mixture of political and cultural power, and now in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, the British public is once again outraged at their national broadcaster. Join us today on The Corbett Report as we examine the history, function, and institutional biases of the BBC, and how the British people are rising up against the Big Brother Corporation.