From AFP.
"Tony Blair -- perhaps I shouldn't repeat this conversation -- told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week. And he turned on the BBC world service to see what was happening in New Orleans," Murdoch was quoted as saying in a transcript posted on the Clinton Global Initiative website.
"And he said it was just full of hate of America and gloating about our troubles. And that was his government. Well, his government-owned thing," he said of the publicly owned broadcaster.
Murdoch went on to say that anti-American bias was prevalent throughout Europe.
"I think we've got to do a better job at answering it. And there's a big job to do. But you're not going to ever turn it around totally," said Murdoch, one of three media magnates who spoke at Clinton's "Global Initiative" forum on peace and development.
The former US president, who held his conference to coincide with the United Nations summit in New York, agreed that the BBC's coverage was lacking.
While the BBC's reports on the hurricane were factually accurate, its presentation was "stacked up" to criticize President George W Bush's handling of the disaster, Clinton said.
Clinton may want to read our blogs and learn that the BBC's reports were in fact not factually accurate.
From the Guardian.
Tony Blair has denounced the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina as 'full of hatred of America' and 'gloating' at the country's plight, it was reported yesterday.[...]
Blair allegedly made the remarks privately to Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, which owns the rival Sky News.
The comments threatened a new rift between the government and the BBC following the Andrew Gilligan affair over events leading to the Iraq war and recent criticisms of ministers Today presenter John Humphrys, which were controversially leaked to the press.
Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation and a former head of CBS News, said he had been 'nervous about the slight level of gloating' by the corporation.
There was nothing slight about it!
The disapproval will come as a blow to BBC executives, who had declared themselves delighted with the hurricane coverage, led by Matt Frei. They believed they had learnt the lessons from the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia, when the BBC was regarded as being slow off the mark.
They weren't slow off the mark in criticizing America then either.
The Telegraph reports.
Last week we were subjected to one of the most extraordinary examples of one-sided news management of modern times, as most of our media, led by the BBC, studiously ignored what was by far the most effective and dramatic response to Asia's tsunami disaster. A mighty task force of more than 20 US Navy ships, led by a vast nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, and equipped with nearly 90 helicopters, landing craft and hovercraft, were carrying out a round-the-clock relief operation, providing food, water and medical supplies to hundreds of thousands of survivors.[...]
The BBC went out of its way not to report this. Only when one BBC reporter, Ben Brown, hitched a lift from one of the Abraham Lincoln's Sea Hawk helicopters to report from the Sumatran coast was there the faintest hint of the part that the Americans, aided by the Australian navy, were playing.
But because, to the BBC, it is a case of "UN and EU good, US and military bad", the story is suppressed. The BBC's performance has become a national scandal.
The BBC didn't just downplay America's role in the tsunami relief efforts, they denegrated it.
Seen on BBC’s Newsnight programme yesterday, a report on the UN "Oil for Food" scandal. In what was supposed to be a critical piece, we heard Peter Marshall, the Beebie reporter state, with not a hint of a blush:
The Asian tsunami has provided a perfect example of the need for an effective UN under an activist Secretary General. This time Kofi Annan was quick off the mark and America's independent efforts soon looked superfluous.
From Scotland on Sunday.
But it is the BBC that deserves to have a red face, because Blair's strictures are quite right. The corporation's coverage of New Orleans was an anti-American hatefest. The tone was gloating: distrust of the Bush administration in particular now colours BBC reports to the point of caricature.
During recent decades the BBC has drifted into political bias to a degree that makes its licence-supported status as a "public-service broadcaster" a mockery. Alongside some excellent programming exists a mind-set almost always slanted leftwards. It needs much more pluralism in its output if it is to survive.
The BBC should take care: it has made too many enemies. Both main political parties now regard it as bloated and in need of radical reform.
All this just goes to show that the BBC learned nothing from the Gilligan affair.
Personally, I think it has more to do with arrogance than anything else. The BBC is tax funded and answerable to no one - they simply just don't care and say and do what they damn well please.
The BBC takes millions of pounds from us every year and we're suppose to like it because the BBC is advertising free. We are told that it makes for better viewing, but more importantly, it lets the BBC remain impartial. This may come as a shock to those of you not familiar with the depth of corruption at the BBC, or to those that are still in denial, but the BBC has been engaging in illegal advertising for some time now.
Here are two reports from the Times (UK).
How to get ahead in advertising at the BBC
COMPANIES are paying fees of up to £40,000 to advertise their products covertly on BBC programmes, often in breach of the corporation’s rules.
At least 50 cases have been identified where top brands have bought favourable exposure on BBC television by paying specialist agents.
The practice, known as product placement, is so widespread that some leading BBC dramas and lifestyle programmes depend on free gifts. [In other words the programs would fail without this advertising]
Examples range from eight different brands on the current series of Spooks, the hit BBC1 drama, to a Volkswagen Sharan driven by James Nesbitt in Murphy’s Law. An agent boasted that the value of the car’s appearance was equal to a £30,800 commercial break.
And as for remaining impartial, "Some product placement agencies influence editorial content."
The article concludes, "The BBC said that it would investigate the allegations"
Fact chance of that.
Just how bad and how widespread is advertising on the BBC? The Times (UK) went undercover to find out and what they found out may surprise you, but only if you have not been reading my blog or Biased BBC.
Watch closely: how BBC shows connive in 'stealth' advertising
THE BBC might have to do a lot of investigating. The Sunday Times investigation found that product placement is no longer something that happens in “rare cases”. It has become a multi-million-pound industry.
Our reporters approached a series of agents who charge up to £40,000 a year to get clients on to the top television shows.
Companies such as Rogers & Cowan and Brand Exposure claimed they could get “our” product — this time a vodka mixer — on to top BBC dramas as well as soaps.
Over coffee in the Savoy hotel, London, Steve Read, managing director of 1st Place, explained that he could get up to 10 placements of the product on television a month.
Although he places products with films, theatre and ITV, he claimed that 50% of his business was with the BBC.
If you're new to this site and want to learn more about the institutionalized anti-American and anti-Israeli bias at the BBC, read my Case Against the BBC.
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