Even the BBC needs to tone down the shrill

Muslims, Muslims, Muslims! It must be difficult for the bottom-brow press. So desperate are they for scary stories about angry swarthy types shouting and threatening to take over the world that they have to resort to exaggerating and making stuff up when reality refuses to provide them with the copy.

Three lonely thickoes with bits of A4 can become a mob of protesters. Someone mentioning Muslim friends in an offhand way when complaining about a vent chugging out cooking smells into his flat can be turned into a story about Muslims forcing the vent to be banned. When pigs are taken out of toy farmyards because of some misguided fool wanting to protect Jews and Muslims, the mention of Jewish people can be ignored in favour of saying they were taken out because of Muslims. Job done.

Who doctored the picture, the Mail or the BNP?

This will be a short post, but I'm surprised this hasn't been covered more widely.  In its haste to use Griffin's disastrous appearance on Question last week to attack the BBC (while at the same time, attacking the BNP), the Mail published 'The BNP backlash - MPs accuse BBC of playing into Nick Griffin's hands by stage-managing Question Time onslaught'.

So Nick Griffin was rubbish then

After much worring and nail-chewing about Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time, it turns out we all had very little to be anxious about. Griffin was rubbish. So embarrassingly bad that even the BNP can't lie about how well he did, which is their usual reaction to goons from the party appearing on television and looking like goons. He looked so bad and out of his depth that the best they can do is cry 'fix'.

Whatever happened to 'SACK THEM!'?

"SACK THEM!" screamed the Daily Mail around a year ago, on the fourth consecutive front page to feature news of a now infamous prank call. This was the point that the paper went beyond reporting the 'outrage' and started demanding drastic action from its commercial rival, disguising its calls as reportage of others' demands. The action just so happened to include sacking two of its biggest stars and audience-pullers, which was a nice coincidence.

The tabloids and right wing extremism

Just who are these blackshirted fellows?
The relationship between tabloid reporting and the increase in the BNP's popularity is an interesting one to look at.

What do we do with the drunken sailor?

See how the killjoys remove all reference to booze from - uh - what's that? No references to booze in this one? Um, why did they change this one as well then. Umm...ahh...'ELF N SAFETY!

Make up some old non-sense. Sorry.

I've called a tennis player a golliwog - get me out of here!

A couple of months ago, in characteristically muted coverage, the Mail quietly raised concerns about a personality exposing himself live on air. Being a paper that always sticks to its principles, the paper was unconcerned with the fact that the flashing had only happened on the radio, no member of the public saw and nobody at the station complained.

Now we know who to send the poo to

That's part of the headline of the top story on the Mail website today. Well, not really. The paper has censored the word 'poo' for its delicate readers. The full headline is 'Now we know who to send the *** to; police probe Jo Brand's anti-BNP race joke'.

Surely, that should be 'race'

Who rioted in Aylesbury? Muslims, Asians, or no one group in particular?

A riot? During Eid? Must be Muslims then.
Remember this? The Sun reported on how nasty Muslims had hounded brave soldiers out of their new home in Windsor, except it turned out they weren't Muslims. How about this? A disturbance in Windsor that ended up with a dairy owned by Muslims being firebombed was blamed by some papers (although not the Sun, curiously) as being the fault of the Muslims who had been firebombed?

You couldn't make it up

Some heartless cartoon poking fun at the concept of Eastern Euopeans being prostitutes
Sorry Smellyface, I nicked your rubbish catchprase.

Get your pitchforks and torches - we're off to the BBC

***UPDATE*** Bugger. I've only just thought of the punning possibilities of the word 'Torchwood' in this post. I really need to sharpen up.

What's the Mail complaining about here? That the BBC didn't broadcast pictures of Barrowman's willy?

A question of ethics

Imagine this. You're a newspaper editor and a major international incident is unfolding. Sketchy details start to emerge about people involved in the incident, but they're very sketchy and far from being confirmed. Reporting the details could cause problems with a demonised section of society at home, but if they're true the details are quite shocking. How do you break these sketchy, unconfirmed and unclearly sourced possibilities to your redaership? What's the ethical way to do it?

Here's how some of our national newspaper editors answered the first question yesterday on their front pages.

More Political Correctness goes Mad. MAD I tell you!

Ooh - they look nice. Wonder if the paper will tell us where to get them?
It's an old one, but I've only just seen this Political Correctness Gone Mad panic story used as an example of something that's really happened that proves that Political Correctness has really gone stark staring bonkers and is ruining the fabric of this country as we know it. Gah! Batten down the hatches, chaps! The PC Brigade is coming!

Dacre's speech to the Society of Editors

Paul Dacre has given a speech to the Society of Editors on the subject of privacy and press intrusion. Septicisle gives it a thorough going over in 'The Daily Mail in the Flesh', which you should read, now. But it would be remiss of me not to look at the speech to see what it can tell us about why the paper is the way it is. This is gonna be a long one, kids. Skip it if you like.

Won't someone please be outraged by Jeremy Clarkson?

It's not that often that the Mail misjudges its audience, so it's good to see it happen twice in as many weeks, over the same thing.

Last week, the paper had to make a quick u-turn over trying to outrage its readers over a Jeremy Clarkson joke about murdered prostitutes. This week, having not learned its lesson, the paper publishes 'BBC in new taste row after Jeremy Clarkson makes obscene hand gesture at U.S. policeman'.

Please be outraged by the BBC

The Mail's war against the BBC is beginning to look embarrassing now that the furore over Brand and Ross has died down. Today's pathetic efforts look particularly desperate.

OUTRAGE as Sophie Raworth wears a blouse we don't like

Littlejohn and the BBC

A short one.

On the subject of hypocrisy and Richard Littlejohn and being an annoying tosser, in today's column, he says this:

On the Today programme, some hysterical woman claimed I wanted to scrap Radios 1, 2 and 3. I didn't write anything of the sort.

In his last enormous bowl of wrong, he said this:

No one would be disadvantaged if Radios 1 and 2 were sold off. Radio 3 could seek corporate sponsorship or go to the wall.

That's a bit like saying they should be scrapped, surely? Especially when he needs to clarify in today's column, by saying:

What I said was that Radios 1 and 2 should be sold off and Radio 3 could seek corporate sponsorship. I'm a big fan of Radio 2, as regular readers know. I just can't see why it needs to be publicly owned. If I could raise the money, I'd buy it myself, just like Chris Evans did with Virgin.

Without quoting the 'or go to the wall' bit about Radio 3, and having to spend the next three sentences explaining what that meant.

I'd really like to see exactly what the 'hysterical woman' said in full, too.

***CHEAP POORLY RESEARCHED INSULT ALERT***

He also says:

The problem with tripe on the BBC is that we all have to pay for it, whether we like it or not.

What? Even people who live in Florida?

Plus, it's a bit rich for Littlejohn to bang on about the BBC producing tripe when he relies on BBC productions for all his cultural references, from Dad's Army down to Life on Mars.

All aboard the hypocrisy express

Okay, that headline would have worked better if this post was about the Express, but whattayagonnado? You have to work with the tools you have.

The Daily Mail has opened a new front in the war against a business rival by attacking an author of several best selling why-oh-why diatribes about modern Britain, who has been described as 'A dazzling hero of political incorrectness.'

Nope, the paper hasn't turned on Littlejohn in a bizarre kamikaze frenzy, but the man's main rival for the top spot of most annoying arrogant right wing columnist in the land, Jeremy Clarkson.

Let's play a game

The Metroplolitan Police Authority has published new figures for homicide and violent crime, comparing 12 months up to June 2007 with 12 months up to June 2008. How long before the tabloids leap all over the figures and bellow front page headlines at us about them? Go on, guess.

Made your guess? Now read on.

Okay - now I can tell you that the figures show that knife crime has dropped in the capital by 14%, robbery is down by 24%, youth violence is down by 7% and homicide is down by 12%. Here they are in full if you don't believe me.

Want to change your guess?

Of course, we may see some coverage that either:

1. Pretends the figures say something they didn't. Probably by mixing the figures up with some unrelated ones from somewhere else to make it look as though they say knife crime has 'soared'. You know the sort of thing. 'Crime in London 'soars', say police' in the headline, stats revealing that someone not in the police says cake baking has risen by a few percent in the main body of the story, real stats tucked away at the bottom.

2. Bangs on about how you can't trust police statistics. Except when they tell you there are more black people involved in committing knife crime, and more white victims. Then you can even pretend 'unknown' victims means 'white', even though the one explanation for who those unknown people are says they're black. And it's alright to include that explanation even though it contradicts one of the main premises of your article, because it assumes the black victims are villains anyway.

3. Attacks lefties for ignoring the truth. Why are you ignoring the truth? Feral youths on the streets have knives that can freeze your spleen. Won't someone think of the children's spleens?

But we'll probably see nothing but tumbleweeds.

I got these stats from Mark Easton's marvellous blog at the BBC. The comments there include the most perfect distillation of the first sentence in no. 2. You can't trust police statistics because:

If you beleive other government figures accidents are down at speed camera sites.

That is why they are covering up the fact that a motocyclist was killed last week at a camera site because he braked and the numpty behind him in a car tail-ended him.

It is not an isolated case. Norfolk "safety camera partnership" and the bbc are covering up the footage that the BBC had clearly showing braking for speed cameras causing accidents.

I'll beleive crime is reducing when i see it. three people I know have had their motorcycles stolen this year that is up from one last year a 300% increase. My partners car was keyed this year thats up from no times last year.

Priceless. Accidents can't be down at speed camera sites because this fella knows of some accidents at some speed camera sites in Norfolk. Crime can't be down in London because he knows some people who had their motorbikes nicked and someone who had their car keyed last year (in Norfolk, by the looks of things).

Hat tip to Anton Vowl at the ever-cool Enemies of Reason for this one. Top spot, that.

The great immigration debate - left wing bias at the BBC

I've just seen Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch upbraid the BBC for overestimating the number of Eastern Eurpoean immigrants in the country by not pointing out that many leave.

That's some left wing bias.