Tag: bbc

BBC presenter calls for Trump to be assassinated

BBC presenter David Aaronovitch has called for the “murder” of former US President Donald Trump in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Aaronovitch later deleted his message following a backlash, claiming it had been “satire.” 

Aaronovitch, the voice behind the British state broadcaster’s Radio 4 program ‘The Briefing Room’, tweeted on Monday: “If I was Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.”

The post was accompanied by the hashtag #SCOTUS, indicating that the comment had been triggered by Monday’s confirmation from the US Supreme Court that former presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for their official actions.

Aaronovitch was forced delete the post after an online backlash, and claimed in a follow-up message that he had been accused of inciting violence by “a far right pile.” The presenter insisted his tweet was “plainly a satire.”

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BBC Journalist Allegedly Threatened by CIA Over 1994 UFO Landing Case in Zimbabwe

BBC journalist Tim Leach was allegedly threatened by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) while reporting on a 1994 Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) landing case at a school in Ruwa, Zimbabwe.

The case involved 62 students from Ariel School in Ruwa, who reported seeing a disc-shaped craft land in a field behind their playground on 17 September 1994 – some students even claimed that humanoid beings emerged from the craft.

Following the incident, the BBC’s correspondent in Zimbabwe, Tim Leach, visited the school to investigate the case.

After filming a report and sending the tape to London to be aired on the BBC, the tape went missing. That meant Leach had to file a separate report. 

Liberation Times can reveal that according to a source who wishes to stay anonymous, Leach confided that he had received threats from the CIA. Leach indicated that the CIA was interfering with his story. 

The source also provided Liberation Times with audio of a conversation with Leach from 1994, in which the journalist, sounding rattled, warned them to “be very careful.”

Leach, a former head of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association, died in 2011.

News regarding the CIA’s alleged involvement in the Ruwa case comes months after the Daily Mail revealed allegations that the Agency’s Office of Global Access had conducted multiple retrieval missions of non-human craft.

Three sources, who spoke to the Daily Mail on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, were all briefed by individuals involved in those alleged UFO retrieval missions.

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BBC boosts Ukraine’s falling morale by slandering Russia’s war dead

MI6’s BBC outlet is at it again. This time, in a disgusting effort to boost Ukraine’s flagging morale, they featured a story by their crack Russian unit explaining how Russian graveyards are full to the brim of soldiers who fell in Ukraine. As always with the MI6’s B team, it is the sort of misinformed guff that belongs in a badly edited student newspaper rather than in such a globally prominent propaganda outlet.

Or indeed in the website of Ukraine’s Ministry of Misinformation. If we first go to Ukraine’s site, we see that the Russkies are getting a right mauling, with some 442,880 soldiers dead up to April Fool’s Day, 2024. Although Wikipedia parrots those numbers by using the same tainted NATO sources, to put them in context, Wikipedia claim that the United States lost a relatively modest 58,281 dead during its genocide campaign in Vietnam, and the Watson Intstitute claims that the United States lost 7,057 troops in the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns, with a much higher number, 30,177, committing suicide.

Other things being equal then, the Russkies should be up in arms against their government over these deaths in Ukraine. But other things are not, of course, equal. First off, as a quick Google search shows us these numbers of Russian dead are part of a vociferous NATO echo chamber, we can see no need as to why this should be a major NATO news story today unless Russia is experiencing the turbulence the United States did during its Vietnamese cull or if the BBC has brought additional information to light, thus making it a story worthy of coverage today. Or, of course, as we suspect, that the BBC has once again been leaned on to put its shoulder to the NATO wheel.

That is certainly the impression we get from this Politico article, which claims that the morale of Ukraine’s Armed Forces is crumbling as their casualties exponentially mount. The pleas of Clown Prince Zelensky and the rest of Kiev’s circus for more arms, more sanctions and more Swiss bank accounts certainly seems to help counter BBC’s flagging line that Russia is on its knees. As do all the tiktok and Twitter videos of Ukrainian grandfathers and pregnant women being frog marched off to the front.

This is not to negate the BBC argument but to say that the Ukrainian war has got less hands on media coverage than perhaps any other since the Korean war. And, though much of that lack of direct coverage has been due to the use of long range drones and artillery rather than the preponderance of close hand to hand fighting, much more of it has been due to the way both High Commands are conducting their affairs.

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“I Am Going To Lecture You On Climate Change”: BBC Reporter Gets Schooled For Hypocrisy

On March 28, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali of the South American country of Guyana became an instant hero to many as he refused to take lectures on climate change from a BBC reporter during an interview. In a two-minute video clip that went viral on X (formerly Twitter) and other social media, President Ali turned the tables on the BBC’s Stephen Sackur when the reporter accused Guyana of worsening the “climate crisis” by allowing the exploitation of its newly found oil and gas reserves.

“Over the next decade or two, it’s expected that there will be $150 billion worth of oil and gas extracted off your coast,” Sackur told the president. “It’s an extraordinary figure. But think of it in practical terms. That means – according to many experts – two billion tons of carbon emissions will come from your seabed from those reserves and released into the atmosphere.” Guyana’s head of state quickly rebutted: “Let me stop you right there. Did you know that Guyana has a forest that is the size of England and Scotland combined, a forest that stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon, a forest that we have kept alive?”

When the reporter asked President Ali whether the rainforest gave him the “right” to release the carbon, the Guyanese leader retorted: “Does that give you the right to lecture us on climate change? I’m going to lecture you on climate change.” Being lectured by the BBC on climate change is not a new development; it’s what the state-supported media service often does, and in hectoring tones. But is the BBC correct in its proclamations about what the “climate science” says?

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BBC Tries To Frame AI Parody Images as a “Disinformation” Scoop

The BBC used to produce some of the best comedy series – but now many of the “comedians” seem to have moved to the news division.

To make things more perplexing, they appear not to – or not want to – understand humor. Now they (pretend?) not to understand content produced by obviously parody accounts, and (pretend?) to be taking them seriously.

So now, critically minded observers are not laughing with the BBC, but at them, especially when the BBC comes out with a deceptive podcast episode (based on parody content, falsely framed as “serious news).

The target: the highly likely US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

It’s one thing to not like Trump – but is it worth, so to speak, “burning your own house down?” In this case, what remains of BBC’s once commanding credibility?

And yet the situation is actually no laughing matter, in terms of free speech and free press. Unsatisfied with turning out questionable, in terms of bias, and just clickbaity content these last years, the BBC News would clearly like to establish itself as an arbiter of truth for other media to follow. Absurd, or what?

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Senior BBC Employee Branded White People a “Parasitical Deviant Breed”

A senior BBC employee described white people as a “barbaric bloodthirsty rapacious murderous genocidal thieving parasitical deviant breed,” while also calling the UK a “bigoted” country.

Tell us what you really think.

Dawn Queva, who is a scheduling coordinator at BBC Three, made the comments on her Facebook page. It is unclear whether they were made before or after she was hired by the BBC, which appears to have done no checks on her background.

While Queva appears to vehemently hate white people, that didn’t stop her living in the UK, a country she branded “bigoted” and “genocidal,” while also referring to Britain as the “UKKK,” a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the BBC staffer, white people are “barbaric bloodthirsty rapacious murderous genocidal thieving parasitical deviant breed” who disturb the natural order of the planet.

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BBC presenter says ‘overwhelmingly white’ workplace affects his mental health

BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Nihal Arthanayake has said an “overwhelmingly white” working environment is affecting his mental health.

The presenter told a journalism diversity conference on Wednesday: “It’s really affecting me that I walk in and all I see is white people.”

His colleagues’ response when he told them this was to reply defensively that they were not being racist, he claimed as he said that was missing the point.

Speaking at the Journalism Diversity Fund (JDF) conference at BBC Media City in Salford, he said: “I’ve seen a lot of people leave this building because they couldn’t deal with the culture.”

He also said others found they had to try to be a certain type of person to progress with the broadcaster, adding: “If you want journalists to progress, they have to be who they are.

“I don’t think there’s a single Muslim involved in the senior editorial processes” at BBC Radio 5 Live, he added.

He went on: “The hardest thing is to walk into a room, look around and nobody looks like you.”

The presenter made the comments in an on-stage interview with Jo Adetunji, editor of The Conversation, at the JDF’s annual equality, diversity and inclusion conference organised by the NCTJ, which trains new journalists.

The JDF awards bursaries to aspiring journalists from diverse backgrounds who do not have the financial means to support themselves through their training.

Mr Arthanayake added that he has noticed a difference since moving north after living in London for 20 years.

He said: “Since moving up here, being called the P-word – that didn’t happen in London.

“You’d get a slap for that in London, not even from me.”

Following the interview, Cheryl Varley, a BBC Radio 5 Live producer, said the organisation is committed to tackling the lack of diversity in its newsrooms.

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BBC Editor Speaks Out After False Gaza Hospital Reporting, Says He ‘Doesn’t Regret One Thing’

BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen was pressed on his initial reporting of an explosion at a hospital in Gaza on Saturday and said he didn’t regret his mistakes during an interview on the network on Saturday.

Several media outlets initially reported that Israel was responsibile for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza. Bowen claimed during his initial reports that the Al-Ahli hospital was flattened.

“The missile hit the hospital not long after dark. You can hear the impact. The explosion destroyed Al-Ahli Hospital. It was already damaged from a smaller attack at the weekend. The building was flattened,” Bowen said.

Bowen, during an appearance on BBC News channel’s “Behind The Stories,” said he didn’t regret his reporting and that he “didn’t race to judgment.”

“So it broke in, I suppose, mid-evening. And to answer your question, no, I don’t regret one thing in my reporting, because I think I was measured throughout. I didn’t race to judgment,” he said.

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BBC Cancels Event Of Singer Who Criticized Puberty-Blocking Drugs

The Telegraph is reporting that the BBC has removed Irish singer Róisín Murphy from a prepared feature radio broadcast.

The reason is a comment opposing puberty-blocking drugs. While I understand why such criticism is deeply hurtful to some, it is also political speech. Artists should be able to hold opposing views. I would feel the same way if BBC blocked an artist for supporting puberty-blocking drugs. However, these controversies evidence an orthodoxy that seems to only run against those on one side in this and other issues.

Murphy’s comment on social media was reportedly leaked by a friend last month. In the posting, she wrote “Puberty blockers are f—ing, absolutely desolate, big pharma laughing all the way to the bank. Little mixed-up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected, that’s just true.”

She added:

“Please don’t call me a TERF, please don’t keep using that word against women.”

We have seen cancel campaigns launched against figures like J.K. Rowling as TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) for criticizing transgender policies.

The same inexorable pattern emerged for Murphy. They have targeted her new album for boycotts simply because they disagree on the issue. The Guardian declared that the album was now “compromised” and “for many fans, particularly queer fans, this album is DOA [dead on arrival].”

BBC insists that the cancellation was due to other factors, but many have their doubts.  What is clear is that a full boycott campaign is now being launched despite Murphy offering a full-throated apology for uttering opposing views:

“I have been thrown into a very public discourse in an arena I’m uncomfortable in and deeply unsuitable for. I cannot apologise enough for being the reason for this eruption of damaging and potentially dangerous social-media fire and brimstone. To witness the ramifications of my actions and the divisions it has caused is heartbreaking.

I will now completely bow out of this conversation within the public domain. I’m not in the slightest bit interested in turning it into ANY kind of ‘campaign’, because campaigning is not what I do… My true calling is music and music will never exclude any of us.”

What is alarming is that artists must now repeat approved positions on political and social issues or, as here, pledge to remain silent in order to be artists.

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BBC defends airing a song which encourages listeners to ‘kick’ women with gender-critical views as 6 Music is accused of ‘blatantly’ refusing to play Roisin Murphy’s songs after the singer criticised puberty blockers

BBC bosses have defended airing a song encouraging listeners to ‘kick’ women with gender-critical views.

Listeners complained after 6 Music played They/Them by Dream Nails, which includes the line ‘Kick terfs all day, don’t break a sweat’.

Terf – trans-exclusionary radical feminist – is a term used as a pejorative against those who advocate for women but oppose transgender people using female-only spaces.

But dismissing the objections, a member of the BBC’s complaints team said: ‘People will interpret songs with any element of nuance or ambiguity differently.’

One furious complainant told the Mail: ‘It endorses an explicit violent threat on the grounds of sex and political belief yet the BBC would not remove it from their playlist.’

It comes as 6 Music was accused of ‘blatantly’ refusing to play Roisin Murphy’s songs after the singer publicly criticised puberty blockers.

The channel has played only a single track by the former Moloko frontwoman since she made the widely-criticised comments online.

The Irish singer was last featured on the channel on September 1, three days after her social media post.

Before that, her songs were played regularly and her album Hit Parade has remained at number two in the charts.

A BBC insider told the Mail: ‘It’s so blatant what they have done.’

Earlier this week 6 Music cancelled ten hours of shows celebrating Ms Murphy, with staff telling the Mail her comments were the reason behind her axing.

The programmes, part of a series called the 6 Music Artist Collection, were due to be aired between midnight and 5am next Monday and Tuesday before they were pulled.

Instead, new shows have been made, featuring rapper Little Simz.

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