It’s a tough job, trundling through BBC’s Editors Blog (did Goebbels have something similar at his Propaganda Ministry?) but two items are worthy of note.

Firstly a tear stained piece from Jeremy Hillman, editor of the BBC News business and economics unit. Jeremy was soooooo upset about George Osborne suggesting

the BBC’s approach to reporting the economy was relentlessly to focus on the bad news and the most gloomy statistics.

Hillman went on to produce a fistful of examples in an attempt to derail Osborne’s case, par for the course for any BBC suit when faced with accusations of bias. Then he sits back smugly thinking he has proved his point.

Actually Sarah Montague, despite Hillman’s spin about consciously downplaying Padoan, did indeed home in on the Padoan remarks so obviously she didn’t get the memo.

But we all know what Osborne was really getting at – not that they ignored positive items about the economy from third parties but the whole question of tone and emphasis which is why he used the word “relentlessly”. Ever since the Coalition took office the BBC’s overarching leitmotif has been CUTS rather than savings and one only has to watch any QT audience to see how successful that campaign has been.

However the good news is that Osborne’s comment touched a nerve. I guess that this issue has been raised at several North London dinner parties recently because Hillman and his pals realise that Charter Renewal is beginning to appear on the horizon and they cannot afford to upset a senior cabinet figure. Let’s hope that other government big cheeses start getting under sensitive BBC skins on a regular basis.

Then this abject apology re the Israeli Dog Stoning story from Nathalie Malinarich, world editor of the BBC News website

We failed to make the right checks. We should never have written the article and apologise for any offence caused.

Don’t worry, luv – we know why you failed to make the right checks…..while you were all busy filling in your expenses forms a breathless young graduate trainee rushed in and blurted out “those crazy religious bigoted Jews – as well as murdering helpless innocent Palestinians they are now going after helpless dogs…”

It fitted into the BBC’s anti Israeli narrative so perfectly you just couldn’t resist it…c’mon, Nathalie…is the Pope catholic? Those Jews, aren’t they evil?

cross posted at Biased BBC

Our friends at the BBC (you know, the ones who we pay for out of money extracted by force from our pockets and purses) do love to travel in style at our expense but they are not so keen on we ordinary mortals doing the same, especially by road.

Hence the doom laden announcement on the BBC website about the opening of the M74 extension in Glasgow.

True there were positive quotes from the Scottish Infrastructure Secretary Alex Neil and Glasgow City Council leader, Councillor Gordon Matheson but you can always tell where the BBC love really resides when you see the quotes signing off at the end of any website article.

“A fraction of this vast sum (£692m) could have delivered major public transport improvements, and to make the city easier to cycle and walk around.”

That from Glasgow Green MSP Patrick Harvie plus an equally funereal warble from Stan Blackley described as chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland (yes, you’ve got it, FoE, the organisation that’s generously funded by EU taxpayers)

So, Stan, you won’t be driving your VW Campervan along the M74 any time yet?

As someone who regularly drives westward I have often reflected that, if we were in France, there would be a dual carriageway A303 all the way to Exeter and an M30 threading through Devon and Cornwall (one of the poorest counties in England)…..but, being a realist, I just know that the Stan Blackleys of the world would have a hotline to the BBC and, within seconds, there would be the second coming of Swampy ordering us all to “get on yer bike..”

cross posted at Biased BBC

Remember how the BBC regularly hit us hard every day with stories about the arrogance and inefficiency of the Bush presidency? So hard, in fact, that you would have thought we had become the 51st (or, according to Obama, the 58th) state of the union. Also how any mistake made by an officer of the administration was the President’s responsibility?

How times change.

Not much from the Beeb about the Gunrunner scandal involving the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) allowing Mexican drug cartel operatives to buy firearms from US gunshops, ostensibly to track smuggling routes.

Some terribly nasty people say that DoJ Eric Holder, who supervises the ATF was really looking for some juicy soundbites to boost the Obama administration ambition of imposing stricter gun controls in the US.

Dear me – how unchivalrous.

Naturally Holder and Obama knew nothing about Gunrunner – just as, apparently, the BBC knows nothing about Holder and the Black Panthers voter intimidation incident in the 2008 election.

Then there are those Congressional concerns about the legality of America’s involvement in Libya’s civil war. Not much at all apart from this classic from the highly professional and even handed Mark Mardell, highlighted by David Preiser recently at bBBC.

However the US media has been fairly slow to unleash much shoe-leather on both these stories, until recently – and it has been said that the BBC takes all its US cues from the New York Times and Washington Post.

So, whatever the reason we all know that it can’t be because the Beeb is still in the tank for Obama……that can’t possibly be the case…can it?