With breathtaking hypocrisy, BBC Views Online's third top story this evening is: Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits'!

 

Hypocrisy writ large: the BBC pot calls the CIA kettle black

Biased BBC's story about the BBC's own editing of Wikipedia has been online for 18 hours - and has been blogged on the BBC's internal blog system by Nick Reynolds, a senior advisor on editorial policy, and yet this article, by Jonathan Fildes (is that a typo for Fidler?), a BBC science and technology reporter no less, allegedly (maybe he's the same work experience kid that happened to edit George Bush's Wikipedia entry!), the third most important story the BBC can find, apparently, makes absolutely no mention of the BBC's own Wikipedia edits. Unbelievable.

The BBC's Mr. Fidler writes:

An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.

Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency's computers made edits to the page of Iran's president.

It also purportedly shows that the Vatican has edited entries about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

Now for some BBC-style Wikipedia 'revising' for the BBC's Mr. Fidler:

An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the BBC was involved in editing entries.

Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the corporation's computers made edits to the page of America's president.

It also purportedly shows that the BBC has edited entries about Britain's former leader Tony Blair.

Now, if one of you Beeboids that hangs around here could just commit my minor edits (in bold above) to Mr. Fidler's BBC Views Online version of the article (the third most important story in the world!) that would be grand. Thanks very much. (See here for the BBC's edit of George W. Bush's Wikipedia entry and here for the BBC's puerile edits of Tony Blair's Wikipedia entry).

P.S. If that's too much to ask, just do the decent thing and update Mr. Fidler's article to extend the same level of scrutiny the BBC subjects the CIA to to the BBC itself.

Thank you to the many spotters of this development and to Sam Duncan for the Tony Blair Wikipedia link.

Update: You can see the rest of Biased BBC by going to our top page. While you're here, make sure you see and hear our story from Tuesday about the BBC's decade long cover up of Neil Kinnock exploding in anger at James Naughtie on Radio 4.

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Following up on our post from Sunday about what Iain Dale reported and also about the BBC's (ab)use of that Redwood footage again, Helen Boaden, the BBC's Director of Views, sorry, News, has written about the BBC's Red Tape Reporting on the BBC Editors Blog, saying:

In retrospect we weren't right to use that footage again, which came from a long time ago.

In retrospect Helen? Wasn't it obvious that it was wrong beforehand? It was obviously wrong to everyone outside the White City Viewsroom, but it's like a knee-jerk reaction at the BBC: mention Redwood, show that footage, as sure as night follows day.

Some Beeboid posteriors really ought to be getting a boot imprint on them for such stupidity - and Helen Boaden really ought to be apologising for it - not just coming out with a bland, passive acknowledgement of their bias, sorry, Helen, their 'mistake'. It's not as if it was an accident - someone purposely dug out that footage and used it to embarrass Mr. Redwood, quite out of context from the news story. Someone wasn't doing their job properly or professionally. Surely someone in the Viewsroom at the weekend had the power and the nous to stop such stupidity before it got on air? But no, it seems not.

Boaden goes on to list a selection of news headlines in a bid to defend the BBC from Iain Dale's comments about the BBC's approach to this news story, but it's all in vain - anyone can pick a small selection of headlines that don't happen to say the words Iain Dale quoted, but the tenor of the BBC's approach was plain - Helen Boaden would do well to admit it, to apologise and to kick some backsides.

It looks like it's Bloggers (and The Sun): 1, BBC: 0, again.

P.S.: If you haven't heard it already, see the post below to listen to the BBC interview with Neil Kinnock that was covered up and hidden for more than a decade after Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition and would-be Prime Minister at the time, exploded in rage during an interview. By the same BBC standards this should be (but of course never is) played whenever Lord Kinnock pops up on the box to give us the benefit of his wisdom.

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An anonymous Biased BBC reader notes that people at the BBC have made somewhere in the region of 7,000 anonymous Wikipedia edits (i.e. not including those Beeboids who have their own Wikipedia accounts), including this BBC edit of George W. Bush's entry, changing his middle name from Walker to the Beeboid's own name. How amusing.

Of course the real joke is that we telly-taxpayers are paying these morons to sit on their backsides and indulge in their petty personal political prejudices whenever they think they can get away with it.

Update: Lots more BBC Wikipedia edits have been uncovered by Biased BBC readers, (see the comments), including this one, where a BBC Wikipedia editor has changed 'terrorists' to 'freedom fighters'. What a surprise. Lots more Wikipedia edit-o-rama drama to come I'm sure!

Meanwhile, The Grauniad has picked up on this story too (from where they don't say - unlike Biased BBC they don't credit their sources) - but of course, they don't make any mention of their BBC bedfellows penchant for er, 'revising', Wikipedia!

Thank you to Anonymous for this excellent detective work, and to (another) Anonymous for The Grauniad link.

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From Michael Gove's Times column on Tuesday:

This August I’m sorry not to be in Edinburgh. Not because I’ll miss the Fringe. If I want left-wing propaganda masquerading as comedy I can always tune into Radio 4...

Sadly there's much more than a grain of truth in Michael's dig - far too often Radio 4 seems to be filled with the idiotic whining of unfunny class warriors like Mark Steel, Jeremy Hardie and so on - all spreading their prejudice while sucking on the telly-taxpayer teat. It almost makes Jonathan Woss's £18 million for three years look like good value for our money...

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Arthur Dent for the tip.

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The message of Biased BBC reaches farther and wider than ever: see this editorial from today's Sun:

Anti Auntie

THE BBC’s coverage of Tory plans for £14bn cuts in red tape and bureaucracy was a mockery of impartial journalism.

Instead of examining John Redwood’s arguments, it made a joke of them by unearthing his garbled version of the Welsh anthem from a decade ago.

The caustic bulletins could have been scripted by Labour ministers.

Mr Redwood may be a colourful character. But few can match his understanding of the way Labour and the EU have tied our economy in knots with pointless regulation.

Certainly not the BBC — a bastion of smug, self-satisfied bureaucracy which rightly stands accused by its own watchdogs of being “institutionally biased”.

Following on from Sunday's post about the BBC using that Redwood singing footage, again, since what's good for the goose is sauce for the gander, have a listen to this - James Naughtie interviewing Neil (now Lord) Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, would-be (and almost was) Prime Minister, back in 1989:

Click the play button to listen online:

N.B. You might need to click play twice the first time.

To save yourself a copy:

Right-click on this link, Kinnock Kebabbed MP3, and select 'Save As...', save it to your computer, and then play it using your own choice of media player.

This incident was covered up by the BBC for more than a decade until it was finally admitted to in 2000 in a Radio 4 series called, appropriately, Kebabbed:

But James Naughtie pressed Kinnock on the likely effectiveness of Labour's alternatives.

What listeners heard was an abrupt pause in the conversation, followed by an explanation from Naughtie that the interview had been suspended when Kinnock objected to the line of questioning, before being resumed.

The tape recorders, however, whirred on to capture the unexpurgated exchange, never previously broadcast.

In it, Kinnock raged at Naughtie, telling him that he would not take part in "a WEA lecture" on Labour's economic strategy any more than he was inclined to be "bloody kebabbed" by Naughtie.

We are grateful to Mr Kinnock for giving us the title for our series, along with permission to transmit the untransmitted material. Even across the passage of more than a decade, it makes your ears go pink.

Note the sickening thanks to Kinnock for permission to broadcast the full interview - as if the BBC would have waited a decade and asked for permission if a Conservative had given them such an explosive interview - it would have been on air the same day, leading every news bulletin!

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Dave T for link to The Sun. Thank you also to Hotlink Files for their excellent online file storage service.

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Open thread - for comments of general Biased BBC interest:


Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

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