…from the Telegraph UK today – read the article here.  Hasan’s mosque is the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, VA.  The “imam” there is Shaker El-Sayed (read more here and here), as stated, a mentor to some of the 9/11 terrorists.  The Washington Times did a piece on Shaker El-Sayed (back in 2005) – here.  This is the same “imam” who is a self-professed friend of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the Muslim who was linked to an al Qaeda plot to assassinate President bush.  This is the same imam who stated, “We muslims have a license to respond with all force necessary to answer our attackers.”  Read even more – here (scroll down to read specifically abou Elsayed.)

I suppose this is just like Obama worshipping at the foot of Rev. Jeremiah Wright for nearly 20 years, but never having heard Rev. Wright’s hate-fueled vitriol and radicalism and never having been influenced in the least by Rev. Wright…..right?

As I’ve said previously, recall that it was Osama Bin Laden himself who threatened, “We will attack you from within.”  Indeed, we are witnessing that firsthand…on many fronts and levels.

Hattip to allahpundit via Twitter.

*UPDATE – There’s now this report of a fellow member of Hasan’s mosque who, apparently, stated he does not condemn Hasan for his actions; stating that the murders were justified.  Read here and here. 

Hattip to littlebytesnews via Twitter.

*UPDATE – State-run ABC news now reports that Hasan had “reached out” to al Qaeda and that the CIA knew of these efforts.  Read the story – here.  If you still do not think this was a terrorist attack upon our nation and servicemen, you are in denial.

*UPDATE – Also read a great piece by Michelle Malkin – further illuminating the terrorist Hasan.

Coming up on Radio 4 next week … the history of the humble park bench. And because there are lots of park benches in London, it’ll include an interview with former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Following that, on Cbeebies, a programme about the letter “L”. “London” starts with the letter “L”, and so there’ll be a piece from former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Yes, I’ve exaggerated to make a point, but you do you get the picture? There must be some media-studies intern at the Beeb tasked solely with finding excuses to get old Ken on the air.

On the PM programme this evening, there was a package on the forthcoming Gordon Brown shows the world how it’s done expo G20 summit, and the number of protests that are planned to coincide with the event. So, was there an interview with someone from the police? No, too obvious. The Mayor of the last city that hosted the G20 (Washington D.C.), for that international perspective? You must be joking: Justin Webb’s busy, so we would have to have an American on (old habits die hard). Maybe a two way discussion between one of the soap-dodgers and, say, a right wing commentator? No, too much chance of some wacky and unacceptable views being aired (you know, like scepticism about man made climate change, or something in support of capitalism).

Nope, the obvious choice of interviewee was, of course, “someone who has been involved in preparations for security for summits before” … former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

I wonder how many other commercial radio presenters (Livingstone hosts his own show on LBC) get so much airtime on the BBC? Nick Ferrari gets on Steve Wright’s Radio 2 show once in a blue moon … and that’s pretty much it.

Of course, our Ken has never hidden the fact he wants to return to City Hall (and not just to sit in the public gallery nursing his carrier bag). His brothers under the skin at the BBC are clearly on board with the project.

So who said this?

Was there bias? Not really and indeed I would single this programme out for being true to Reithian values…

Click on this link to find out.

if you’d listen, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse, at this historic moment in time; I am inspired to say your brother is the best president we’ve ever had! We’ve never been this close to taming tigers from ferocity to mere futility, but my mind lingers with some important questions which I can’t find any good answers, answers to which may be only known to your brother and time only. Yet I got hope…

hope= Mandela Rajapakse

Many past presidents have brought frustration upon us with the failure of reckoning with the LTTE both militarily and peacefully. So he truly has become our symbol of defiance against devils who wish death and destruction to our people and values of freedom and democracy. Yet I fear…

It is the mirage of the future which puzzles me with fright; despite my confidence being entrusted in your brother. Maybe I’m just paranoid. This after all is the victory of all Sri Lankan citizens of all backgrounds who wanted the carnivorous tigers vanquished; never must my unborn children should see a spiteful tiger roaming this land of heroes.

fear= Mugabe Rajapakse

Buoyantly; nonetheless meaningfully, we’ve never been this close making this dream a reality. Of course whatever socio/economic/political solution will have to be implemented, even so hardcore tigers will remain as a discounted force just for their nuisance value in the streets of London and unmistakably the streets of Toronto. It was a dream which was born during sleepless nights we endured during a 3 decade long bloody civil war waged by the widely banned LTTE, it was a dream which idealised on the finer things in life; instead it just elaborated on the need to relieve and liberate this nation from clutches of war. In this defining moment in our history, my heart is filled with hope about a day when I wake up to a peaceful Sri Lanka.

But what if, we get all we ask for but loose what we always had? our freedom and values, can we afford to? What good “hope” and “yes we can” do at the pretence of gun point? I imagine you already have judged me to treacherous to the homeland, by hinting that I might have a slight doubt about the ability of our brave men and women have in liberating the homeland from the tyranny of conventional war waged by the blood thirsty tigers. But no my will is simply is too strong. Not to say that I never viewed the war with eyes full of cynicism and doubt. But what a transformation; the often hailed so called “effective leadership” can bring.

Besides the pregnant suicide bombers and infant soldiers (yes, that’s right not even child!) have alienated me too much, for too long… The ever ominous inevitability that one day you “will” at least come close to a suicide bomber; and the mere lucky ones among those who stumbled upon breathing-walking-talking charnel chamber, will inherit memories scared with the sinister and bloody scenes of scattered organs of familiar strangers who for a moment ago were thinking of getting back home up till now a another day, to hug their children who were awaiting for their fathers to bring them a meagre sweetie treat; but that day would be their last, for at least this life; leaving behind mothers and children with hearts consumed by hopelessness, no one to earn them a loaf of bread. Some nights these scenes of annihilation leave me awake, when I lay a thousand miles away from my hometown. For what wrong to anyone have I ever done? I know it was karma, and they try to reassure by explaining the universe through chains of events. But I say, all blame is on the tigers. If not for their irrational hatred for all things “Sri Lankan”.

how many lives would have been saved? Home many years could have we taught our children stories of peace and tranquillity. So I have suffered direct and indirect consequences of the tiger’s war which we had to fight, without much choice. So not for a moment think that I doubt that our army and the current leadership can eliminate this common enemy, not just of the people of mother Lanka, but of those who fight to protect freedom and democracy, from the grip of those like the tigers. Thus I do not want the current offensive which has put the tigers on the run to flag or fail. Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse, I have no doubt in your brother’s ability, as the Executive President of the Democratic socialist republic of Sri Lanka, to emerge us victorious.

As for now they have two options left; drowning or destruction. Oh no, I forgot; that they can bite on a glass encrusted cyanide capsule? Besides wouldn’t it be rather droll if the world sees a drop in demand for cyanide after the “awasan satana” (final war)? Anyway Mr. Gotabaya, sometimes conspiracy theories have a nasty habit of coming true… don’t they? The assassination of Lasantha Wikramathunga (you might like to read this article by Lasantha himself; I would suggest you read it with an open mind and also pinch of salt), and mugging Sirasa TV HQ? I am not in a position to make any sort of allegations; even my usually reliable gut feeling is distorted with different possibilities, or maybe it’s just the CIA trying to steal oil from Sri Lanka (ha-ha) as some politician wanted us to believe, or is it? But If one expects these pestering theories to fade out within tangles of reverse psychology and supposed make belief that a bunch of ailing tigers are trying to ruin the pristine reputation of the Rajapakse brothers? Then, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse, 6 decades of free education will be your worst enemy!

So let’s get to the point shall we. I fear about us the Sri Lankan people, losing our freedom whilst being consumed in a battle against an enemy frankly deserve to be eliminated! The mirage evermore lingers in my heart provoking many questions, mainly because we as the people of the free world require enough reassurance that our freedoms are intact; simply because those values are all what we ever had.

It is images from a distant land, once a land of prosperity and wealth, although land locked it was able to feed its self through what it grows, its exotic wildlife and stimulating society was a stream of potential when the imperialists were “chased out” by a then larger than life leader of the republic of southern Rhodesia; now Zimbabwe, its none other than the despicable Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Now then Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse, today your brother and is a saint compared to the man I mentioned. Sadly, many in and out of Africa believe that Mugabe still remain Africa’s symbol of defiance against British imperialism!  To me he is a failure… but who might have guessed that that Mugabe would be seeking his 6tg term in office when the retrospectively-hypocritical British washed their hands off Southern Rhodesia, while the world smothered Mugabe with praise to his leadership to achieve the Zimbabweans cause. However I am dying to make a point, which is that the Rajapakse government must bow down and respect democracy. Because if your brother does so, he certainly will be Sri Lanka’s champion of democracy and its war against terror, he shall be venerated along the lines of king Dutugemunu. My unborn children will hear bed time stories of a contemporary hero, who managed thwart the tigers, and leave Sri Lanka, in one piece, rather than two. But Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse, if your brother does not, whatever excuse it may hypothetically be, he shall not be my symbol of defiance; instead a villain would be more appropriate in that case.

Nevertheless in the good old days, southern Rhodesia was rosier than post war Sri Lanka (“almost post war” to the day I’m writing) Now apparently, these days the logic according ZANU PF is that, if Robert Gabriel Mugabe isn’t in power then the credit crunched British would quick to colonise Zimbabwe again! Your brother must make sure that, this mirage remains as a mirage, and never be the case in my beloved land in the future.

One might vividly remember how Mugabe came to office with an opposition crushing majority both in the executive and legislature. So Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse, the people of Sri Lanka require reassurances that your brother; our lion, is a none other than a Mandela who bows down to democracy rather than a mischievous Mugabe who seeks to bow democracy down to him and his government. But so far we haven’t told or made to feel that a Mandela is in the making… it will be Mahinda Rajapakse’s greatest test, how he deals with post war Sri Lanka, he will get ample chances to prove that he is none other than a Mandela.

My mind can’t yet be put to rest for the day, until I question the motives for your apparent hurry to register all citizens living in Sri Lanka? Sure one could say that it is to stop tiger terrorists infiltrating as civilians, and maybe I’ll be accused of hampering the way to total victory. I have been to www.citizens.lk, it’s a website which doesn’t even have basic encryption of data and only relies on big brother style, ip address tracking. Ip addresses can obviously be cheated with the use of the services of ample international websites which give free access to proxy servers which easily allow you to access any site anonymously? (I decided to include a Google search link just for the sake of freedom of information). How can a website which is not safe itself; be used for the security and the “greater good” of my countrymen? There is worse news, haven’t you heard about national databases being lost in the London underground tube? And that it was reported that the UK government losses a PC a week UK ending probably to be changed hands from fraudster to fraudster for countless scams and credit card rip offs. A technically competent hacker could hack the database and end us all up in a massive data disaster.

The sad thing is, I never saw Lasantha Wikramathunga as a patriotic man, and I always felt that Sirasa TV always had their own agenda, and I was always annoyed with myself about the fact that I succumbed to watching their somewhat cheesy, but arguably being acceptable, Hindi sitcoms which were dubbed into Sinhala. But now I’m not happy about either of them having to bear the brunt for being different. And the fact is that, however much I didn’t agree with them at times, I respected both Lasantha and Sirasa for “having balls” to say things Mervin wouldn’t approve. I am aware of the many alternative theories, too many for a sane mind. But now I’m in a dilemma where it is hard for me to decide to which side I should align myself to; as I wish to protest both incidents. Should it be the, the tiger front organisations, which try to score petty political points by blowing their trumpets against government? or is it better to be in the side of Church based organisations which want obstruct legalised resistance against poor people being converted?, by exploiting their lack of even the basic necessities, in a way Christ wouldn’t approve; from the trivial amount of knowledge I posses about Christianity?; or the supposedly imperialist minded BBC, which has been excessively cynical about the recent victories achieved by the Sri Lankan forces when informing the world. Or is it best if it’s the ministry of defence; Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse? should I align with you by giving my blessings to citizens.lk. But the matter of fact is that I wish not to align myself with any above mentioned parties regarding this particular issue, but I oppose the sad state of affairs regarding journalism in Sri Lanka, under my own judgement! But, just as Lasantha did, I am  aware that “they will come for me”  as once said by Martin Niemöller, thus I wouldn’t hesitate to speak out before hand.

I fear if that dreaded day when wishful thinking goes sour ever comes, this database stemming from citizens.lk would be used to carry out persecutions of the people of this nation. This database would give governments as self interest agents too much information about its citizens. Hypothetically a corrupt; more significantly an undemocratic government can get rid of me, for good; if they can trace me through this all intrusive database, not only threatening the freedom of media but my rights to exercise free speech. Predictably, the expatriate fascists running websites like “sibernews” and “tamilnet”; which blatantly do not provide “reliable and accurate information about Sri Lankan Tamils”, will be quick to dub your brother as the next Mugabe; if they haven’t done so already! But Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse I urge you to convince and guide you brother to be a Mandela and not a Mugabe… In the mean time I fear if I had fed fuel to lion larger than life; (which obviously was the need of the day), that it might turn around and bite me!

After All both the Tiger and the lion are both carnivores in the wilderness. We can only hope the lion is much civilized and democratic… So whatever you’re plotting you better reassure us soon! We long to hear a roar from a Mandela!

In the mean time, my simple thought which goes out to all my country men and women is that, let us think long and hard before we vote again… As I said I must be paranoid after all… So vote according to your own fundamentals, never a vote as means of gratitude. What can I say, yet only time can tell….

And i wonder if you will ever hear my words; but i can only shout out loud for everyone to hear… but i’m a thousand miles away.

At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital�or ice pick�lobotomy.

Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn�t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the �normal� life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why?

�October 8, 1960. I gather that Mrs. Dully is perpetually talking, admonishing, correcting, and getting worked up into a spasm, whereas her husband is impatient, explosive, rather brutal, won�t let the boy speak for himself, and calls him numbskull, dimwit, and other uncomplimentary names.�

There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor�s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn�t intervened on his son�s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers.

�December 3, 1960. Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it.�

Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman�s sons about his father�s controversial life�s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor�s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth.

Revealing what happened to a child no one�not his father, not the medical community, not the state�was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man. Without reticence, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption.

From the Hardcover edition.

My Lobotomy is available at Amazon for $11.16. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
• The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness
• Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s
• Center Cannot Hold, The: My Journey Through Madness
• Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital

Yet more bias from the beeb.

I heard a few days ago, the  BBC Political Correspondent on Radio 5 say that President Obama had an overwhelming popular mandate, funny that I don’t remember the beeb being so enthusiastic about Ronald Reagan winning bigger majorities in 1980 and 1984, but I do remember the beeb were gloomy after the 1980 election and kept criticing Reagan.

The beeb is not supposed to show any bias but they always do.

And ordinary people are forced to pay for this because of the licence fee television tax under threat of imprisonment if they don’t comply.

I have no problem with private organisations showing bias and having an orgasmic frenzy when their political heros win because the taxpayer doesn’t have to support them and can choose not to use their products/services.

The beeb must be broken up completely, all the staff should be sacked and the assets sold piecemeal.

Over the last week, the BBC had hundreds of staff, on the other side of the pond,  covering the USA election.

One of the strengths of the BBC has always been to provide great coverage of big occasions…..coronations, state funerals, elections, sporting events etc. They lost the plot on sports coverage* some time ago with second rate commentators & a failure to keep up with Sky’s investment in technology. Coronations & state funerals are rare events & our state broadcaster usually exercises monopoly coverage over these events.

* The BBC’s Christmas present from Bernie Ecclestone was to take away Formula 1 coverage from ITV (which was excellent except for the ad interruptions) & give it to the BBC for 2009. This may be the BBC’s last opportunity to showcase their sporting coverage.

 Which brings me to elections.

The last big election event was coverage of the local elections & the London Mayoral election on May 1. The BBC’s coverage was truly dire, particularly the cringe making pantomime which was Jeremy Vine’s attempt to “sex up” the statistics. For the first time in an election, I actually switched off the BBC coverage from sheer embarrassment at how low the BBC now pitch their assumptions of the average viewer.

So the BBC had an opportunity to redeem themselves in covering the USA election. This was a truly momentous occasion in prospect but, the BBC coverage was again second rate. They failed to get access to real opinion leaders in the US and they failed to offer a serious contextual & historic analysis of this globally important event. But, perhaps even more seriously, the BBC adopted a partisan approach to their reporting. This isn’t a problem for an independent broadcaster but, it should be an absolute “no no” for a state funded broadcaster.

And perhaps this is why the BBC has lost its way. It is still a respected observer of global events by audiences in many countries. However, slowly but, surely the BBC is losing its domestic reputation for independent, unbiased reporting, as intelligent viewers realise the BBC is increasingly pushing its own  agenda in its news coverage. This approach is beginning to legitimise politicised attacks on the BBC like the one in the video clip from John Bolton on US election night.

Look what those evil Tories are planning now…

Cities in northern England such as Liverpool, Sunderland and Bradford are “beyond revival” and residents should move south, a think tank has argued.

So who is suggesting that the cattle trucks be readied? Policy Exchange. Now I haven’t read the report yet, but it appears to boil down to the conclusion that throwing taxpayers’ millions at run-down areas isn’t the silver bullet that some might think. Whatever, it’s is clearly deemed by some at our esteemed state broadcaster to be good for a bad headline about the Tories.

Listen to the BBC radio bulletins (Radio 2 at 7 and 7:30 this morning) and the headline is “A think tank favoured by the Conservatives has suggested …”, or as at 8am “David Cameron’s favourite think tank”. The fact that the Party has pointed out this is not party policy is relegated to an afterthought at the end of the short piece.

That the Policy Exchange is a centre-right think tank is undisputed – however, as is often the case on the BBC, if a report comes out from a left-wing think tank, the political qualifier is rarely used. When was the last time a report from, say, Demos or the Joseph Rowntree foundation was presented as a think tank or organisation favoured by Labour or the Lib Dems? Perhaps it’s just that the ideas that such bodies come up with are, in the eyes of the average BBC hack, so eminently sensible that they need never be the subject of a slanted bad headline.

…may well be a long title but FFS, it’s no worse than the blatant idiotic stupidity of that pompous twat Jacqui Smith and labours policy wonks at the Home Office.

Let me explain. There has been a bit of a media frenzy about knife crime recently and then suddenly 5 people were stabbed in one day in London and that cretin Smith felt compelled to issue a knee jerk reaction. Hence she came out with the idea that knife carriers and users should be taken rpound to the nearest hospital to witness the suffering and apologise to the victims of knife attacks (At this point intelligent readers may well remember Tony Blairs crackpot idea of marching hooligans to the local cashpoint to fine them on the spot, another idea that went down like a lead balloon with was quickly dropped never to be mentioned in polite society again).

At this point I assumed that this particular stupidity would simply go the same way as Blairs stupidity of a few years ago. I was wrong. A good arbiter of public opinion is the BBC’s “Have your say” section on their website. Basically, it when ballistic and utterly condemned this latest move by making the very fair point that victims wouldn’t want to meet their attackers wilst recovering from surgery etc.

So what does Smith do, she claimed it was a “misunderstanding”. Yet when confronted with the email sent to the media and the Press Assoc. report stemming from it which read

Young offenders caught in possession of a knife are to be confronted with stabbing victims in an attempt to underline the horrors of carrying a weapon, under plans announced by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Mrs Smith unveiled a series of shock tactics including visits to A&E wards where people are being treated for knife wounds, meetings with the families of stabbing victims, and prison visits to offenders jailed for knife offences.

The measures are part of the Government’s initial response to last week’s horrific spate of knife attacks which culminated in the killing of four people in London in the space of 24 hours.

Smith quickly backtracked but not before they had got the tame BBC to reort that the press release was ambiguous and therefore open to misinterpretation.

SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN

The liebour party, more spin than a tumble drier.

Or, if like me you follow George Orwells line that language should be used openly and made clear,

The labour party, a bunch of fucking liars.

The BBC is meant to be unbiased.

But is it.

This is an interesting list I got from the comments section here.

Chairman Gavin Davies (later Labour adviser)

Chairman Sir Michael Lyons (previously Labour council chief)

Director General John Birt (later Labour adviser)

Director General Greg Dyke (previously Labour donor and candidate)

C.O.O Caroline Thomson (previously Roy Jenkin’s aide)

Head of Political Research Bill Bush (later Labour spin doctor)

Deputy Head of ditto Catherine Rimmer (later Labour spin doctor)

Director of Strategy Ed Richards (later Labour spin doctor)

Head of Corporate Planning James Purnell (now Labour Minister)

Head of Northern Ireland News Tom Kelly (later Labour spin doctor)

Scottish News Editor Tim Luckhurst (previously Labour spin doctor)

Political News Editor Joy Johnson (later Labour spin doctor)

Political Editor Andrew Marr (student Labour organiser)

Home News Editor Celia Barlow (now Labour MP)

Head of European Affairs Chris Bryant (now Labour MP)

Newsnight Producer Phil Woolas (now Labour Minister)

Foreign Correspondent Martin Sixsmith (later Labour spin doctor)

Current Affairs Reporter Ben Bradshaw (now Labour Minister)

Current Affairs Reporter Lance Price (later Labour spin doctor)

“Question Time” Editor Gill Penlington (previously Labour researcher)

Many of them actually worked for the Labour party before, after and even during their BBC employment.

Unbiased my arse. The BBC is institutionally left wing.

The BBC is so riddled with the cancer of socialism that it is unredeemable. It must be broken up and destroyed.

Martin Belam’s recent post about the BBC’s Blogging Guidelines gave me a strange warm feeling. I think it might make me a bit sad that I remember a bit of policy work with affection. But it was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done at the BBC and it helped put me on my present path.

I do remember the meeting that Martin describes at Digilab. It was the first time I had ever met a large group of bloggers gathered together. I remember being disconcerted by the fact that some of them were busy with their laptops throughout the discussion (I think Tom Coates was one of them). Were they being rude? Were they blogging the event?

Since then I’ve come to realise that this is common amongst new media people who seem to be able to concentrate on two things at once.

The meeting was organised by Euan Semple who sadly is no longer with the BBC. Euan was one of the prime movers and inspirations behind the Guidelines. It may have been his idea that we had some Guidelines in the first place, or it may have been Dan Hill’s, or both. It was definitely Euan’s idea to draft the Guidelines on an internal BBC wiki so that bloggers who worked for the BBC could comment and change them. Euan was an inspiration throughout and deserves more credit than me.

Dan was also very important. By reading his blog, the beautiful City of Sound (and also Tom Coates’ plasticbag which I read a lot at that time), and by him graciously dispensing his wisdom, I started to get a handle on how to approach the task.

Pretty early on I think I stumbled on two things that shaped my thinking about the Guidelines.

1. Blogging may be personal but it is not private, despite a perception among some bloggers that it is (this is possibly why as Martin mentions some bloggers were anxious about telling managers they had a blog). But it is not like writing for the press either.

2. Personal blogs by BBC people can benefit the BBC. It seemed to me obvious that it was a good thing that Dan was working for the BBC, and that therefore him having an high quality personal blog, where he would sometimes talk about his BBC work, was also good for the BBC.

Many people don’t visit bbc.co.uk. So their only contact with the BBC might be on someone’s personal blog.

The trick was to find a way of keeping this door open, while ensuring that BBC people didn’t do things on their personal blogs that might damage the BBC.

Another problem was how to police this type of activity. Again I felt strongly that over policing might shut the door. If people had to refer every blog post about their work to their manager they probably wouldn’t post at all.

I was also very clear in my own mind that I did not want to audit BBC people’s personal blogs as part of drawing up the Guidelines. This was (I think) because at that time I had just stopped auditing the use of the BBC News syndication box. Trawling through hundreds of blogs to find out who ran them and what they were saying seemed to me to be pointless and likely to freeze blogging activity.

Instead as I learned more about the internet I started to rely on certain tools (in particular Google blog search) and communities to flush out any problems that there might be on a BBC employee’s personal blog. I figured that if there was a problem somewhere Biased BBC would find it for me (and of course once I started reading Biased BBC well, the inevitable happened).

I can proudly say that I still don’t know how many people at the BBC have a personal blog.

This post is too long already, so I’ll end here. I’ll do another one with further thoughts, in particular about using a wiki to draft the Guidelines.

I was interested to read this story in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday.

People who read my internal BBC blog, Biased BBC or Wikipedia will know that this story originally surfaced back in August this year. It provoked this blog post from the Telegraph. Pete Clifton (Head of BBC News Interactive) wrote this about the incident on the BBC Editors Blog. I also mentioned what happened in this post about Biased BBC on this blog (sorry it’s a bit long, the bit you need to read is about half way in).

And people who have read any of the above will know that the BBC person who edited the Wikipedia entry “Criticism of the BBC” was me.

I defended my actions in this comment thread on Wikipedia and on Biased BBC.

Let’s take a look at a quote from Brian Brady’s article:

“Late last December, a BBC-registered machine changed a section title from “Political Correctness” to “Impartiality Seminar” on a page called “Criticism of the BBC”. There was heavy reworking of an account of newspaper reports about a meeting in September 2006 at which a senior executive admitted “there was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.”"

1. I changed the title of the Wikipedia section from “Political Correctness” to “Impartiality Seminar” because this section was about the Impartiality Seminar not about general accusations of “political correctness”. This now appears to have been changed back, but the rest of my changes appear intact.

2. I did indeed rework this section. Before I did so it consisted of often inaccurate press quotes. I didn’t delete any of these but rather I added quotes from BBC sources and links to other press reports to give a more balanced account of what happened at the seminar. The seminar was streamed live on the web where anyone could see it and I made notes on the sections I watched on my internal blog. (A full transcript of the seminar is now available on the BBC Trust’s website).

The quote at the end is I think from an article by John Lloyd in Prospect magazine (I can’t confirm this because most of the article is behind a pay wall). (NB Correction 1.27 p.m. - someone has now sent me the full article from Prospect and the quote isn’t there – my apologies)

I didn’t hear it said during the seminar. And I didn’t try and edit it out of the Wikipedia article either.

I notice that despite all the fuss, no one has attempted to reverse the changes I made to the Wikipedia entry, other than the title.

I believe that the changes I made, rather than being “spin”, actually improved the Wikipedia entries and made them more accurate. Some press reporting of both the original seminar and the Bridcut report on impartiality were inaccurate and a bit partial.  But Wikipedia is supposed to have a neutral point of view.

Brian Brady’s article contains no links to any sources. Nor does it offer any opportunity for comment (apart from a general link to the Independent’s blogs).

This blog post does contain links to sources so people can judge for themselves. The ones to my internal BBC blog won’t work if you are outside the BBC firewall.

And if you want to comment you are more than welcome.

One thing often said by Biased BBC commentators when I describe something the BBC has done as a “mistake” is to say “funny how the mistakes are only in one direction”.

So here’s a reminder that there are people who think that the BBC has a bias towards the right.

I’ve posted on Biased BBC what I think about the mistake (see very bottom of page) in rewriting p.a. copy with an error in, based on a blog.

“Not being a journalist by training this is the kind of strange practice that I find hard to understand.”

Bias is a red herring here. 

But it shows that the old newspaper model doesn’t work on the internet. Three people were being paid, one to blog, one to produce agency copy, one to rewrite copy into a news story. Is this the best way to spend money on news? Do you need this if you can just link to the blog? Why doesn’t the agency turn its copy into freely available feeds so you can read the copy direct, or turn the feeds into a website? If they did that, would others need to rewrite it?

It is true that people still want news delivered to them in a packaged way. But I wonder if the balance is quite right.

The BBC’s Nick Reynolds, currently working on guidelines for personal blogs of staffers, offers an insight into the skirmishes with the Biased BBC blog.

Biased BBC is the bane of many editors as it regularly criticises the Beeb, accusing it of all sorts of bias.

The article was published in the BBC’s inhouse magazine, Ariel, but Nick has posted the more than 1,000 words on his blog.

He urges the BBC to engage in a conversation with Biased BBC, even though:

In two years there’s only been one piece of BBC content highlighted by Biased BBC where I thought there was a real problem. There have been three or four where I have thought they might have half a point. But these have been sloppy journalism or poor phrasing, not bias. Considering the huge amount of web pages and other content that the BBC publishes, and that we’re human beings who sometimes make mistakes, not a bad record. Biased BBC proves its opposite; the BBC is not biased.

As Martin Belam adds in his take on the article, bias is very much in the eye of the beholder.

(Via Jemima Kiss at the MediaGuardian)

Last week’s Ariel (the BBC’s staff newspaper) published an article I wrote about Biased BBC blog.

My original title for it was “My ‘Friends’ At Biased BBC”, but it was published under the headline “Don’t Dismiss Biased BBC, Join The Conversation Instead”.

Ariel isn’t available outside the BBC firewall, although the print version is pretty easy to get hold of. So I am publishing the article here so that people from Biased BBC can read it.

It’s rather long (over 1000 words), I’m afraid.

Martin Belham has already blogged about the article here. Thanks to Martin for his kind words.

And remember, “resistance is useless”!

Update 23.10.07: Also thanks to Jemima Kiss at Media Guardian, Jem Stone and Biased BBC themselves for links. 

‘My “Friends” At Biased BBC

So there I was, sitting there, writing some guidelines on personal blogs, and thinking “I’d better find out more about this blogging thing.

I fired up Google blog search and searched for “BBC”. To my surprise I saw right at the top of the page a link to something called “Biased BBC”. My surprise turned to alarm as I clicked on to a purple and white web page filled with anti-BBC invective and examples of so-called “bias”. I remember saying to my colleagues “Have you seen this?”

But in two years there’s only been one piece of BBC content highlighted by Biased BBC where I thought there was a real problem. There have been three or four where I have thought they might have half a point. But these have been sloppy journalism or poor phrasing, not bias. Considering the huge amount of web pages and other content that the BBC publishes, and that we’re human beings who sometimes make mistakes, not a bad record. Biased BBC proves its opposite; the BBC is not biased.

So why bother with Biased BBC? Well…

Biased BBC gets the basics of web publishing right

They post every day, have a very clear editorial focus, and link, link, link, link and link again.

I don’t have to read the Sunday papers anymore. Instead of lugging around a pile of dead tree I just go to Biased BBC. It’s my one stop shop for stories or comment about the BBC, from the press and the web. When Paxman gave his speech at Edinburgh I found it, not through a link on bbc.co.uk, but through a link on biased BBC.

Biased BBC understands the value of letting the conversation flow

Biased BBC is post moderated. Despite the often extreme views expressed, up until recently you could just post and comments would rarely be edited. I enjoyed the anarchic and bizarre turns the threads would take. One for example moved from climate change, through Isreal and Palestine, the Nazis, Pete Tong’s Essential Selection, Matt Frei and Trident

In the past month or so the moderators on Biased BBC have been much tougher on off topic comments and weeded out some of the nuttier stuff. It’s made the threads tighter, but I miss the anarchy of the old days.

Biased BBC is a community. If you join that community, and behave well that community might just accept you and even help you

It took me a long while to actually post a comment on Biased BBC, rather than just watching (or “lurking”). But eventually I got so fed up with people misrepresenting the BBC’s guidelines that I started posting links. I engage occasionally, only on those things that I understand and where I think I can put a good argument. I try to be polite and reasonable despite provocation. I’ve been called a “terrorist”, and even worse, an ex public school boy. If nothing else it’s been a good exercise in controlling my temper. 

But I’ve also been praised for my “mission to explain”, and thanked for providing links.

So when the story about BBC people editing Wikipedia broke on Biased BBC in the summer, I immediately went on Biased BBC and told them one of those people was me, and explained why I thought what I was doing was OK. This provoked a furious row, with “Sao Paulo” threatening to “report” me to my boss. People supported me quickly, one saying:

“Nick… is one of the BBC people who is prepared to get stuck in and engage with his critics on this site… We generally don’t agree with him, but he argues courteously and cogently… It’s not done to try to get a blogger into trouble with their employer, and if you really have done this, then I for one deplore your action.”

But be warned: you may be their friend one day, but tomorrow if you disagree someone will say:
“And that response from Nick Reynolds — what a crock of s**t. He’s lost any credibility he ever had in my eyes.”

Biased BBC shows how important it is for the BBC to be more open

Some people on Biased BBC believe the BBC is a cross between an Al Qaeda cell and the Borg. A hive mind with Mark Thompson at the top shouting “your orders today are: destroy the West!” and then we all salute. They call us the “beeboids”.

The truth is that the BBC is just a bunch of people. Individual, creative people who combine in complex and chaotic ways. When someone like David Gregory  (Midlands Today’s Science and Environment Correspondent) discusses his approach to reporting climate change it shows a human face that belies the corporate image.

“John Reith” is the pseudonym of a BBC journalist who regularly comments. He does fantastic work, debating and rebutting, with humour and occasionally acerbic comment. I’m still trying to work out who he is. He’s an ambassador for the BBC, a real champion. Yet he must feel that if he uses his real name he will get in trouble. It’s a terrible indictment of the BBC’s culture that someone supporting the organisation so well can’t use their real name.

Biased BBC is “the people formerly known as the audience”

This phrase is well loved by new media gurus who are usually of a liberal persuasion and have a naïve belief that the internet is going to “save democracy”. But when the Guardian set up “Comment Is Free” and allowed anyone to comment on opinion pieces they were taken aback by the amount of hostility that poured onto their website. This wasn’t democracy, it was bear-baiting. An intense debate ensued inside the Guardian along the lines of “why are we giving these people a platform when they despise everything we stand for?”. 

But the people on Biased BBC are using the same new media tools as everyone else to give themselves a voice. They also happen to be licence fee payers. What they are asking for, increasingly, is more openness and more accountability from an institution they pay for. Not on the face of it, an unreasonable thing to ask.

A BBC journalist asked me whether by spotlighting Biased BBC I was giving their views a credibility they don’t deserve. But it’s not a research project, a formal accountability exercise, or a complaints process; it’s just a conversation. You can choose whether you join in. You can use your own judgement about what you think is valuable. 

I wouldn’t recommend anyone to comment on Biased BBC if you don’t have a thick skin. Things can get rough. Biased BBC recently celebrated its fifth birthday, and as it matures, it may becoming more controlled and blander, more like those newspapers with a predictable knee jerk anti BBC agenda.But there’s a lot to be learned from its’ rise, and perhaps its’ fall.

They want to talk to us.

Why don’t we talk to them?’

Where is John Sweeney? Has he been hiding in the last weeks? Cheating some new victims? Any hint as of what he is doing right now is welcome! Thanks!

Today I found a new service: esnips.com . That is a public storage place to giving you 5 gigs for you vids, scans and other material. And as BBC critics can be found so often these days, one esnipper has devoted his site to an article collection on the BBC. Worth checking out here.