Setting the Agenda:

How the Left propagandise the news.

I have embarked on an exploration. It is not scientific or particularly scholarly. It is essentially anecdotal. I defend this because that what news literally is. Anecdote. And this is where the search for the truth falls down. On this platform I could give you ten stories about migrants in which the people in question made a success of their lives here and contributed to society. I could also give you ten stories where the migrants were career criminals who were eventually imprisoned for violent crime, including murder. Choosing one particular path in affecting to present the news is dishonest. But this is what the news media do. Here I shall present some examples.

Left wing media have important agenda streams and the Right tend to have fairly shabby sensationalist agenda streams. The Daily Mail is a case in point when it comes to the latter. “Man loses scrotum in horrific bicycle accident” “Philip Schofield seen out of doors looking shifty” “Shock as parent seen dropping off kids in pyjamas” “Aren’t kittens funny?” (By the way, who is wearing the pyjamas, the parents or the kids?) The Guardian on the other hand loves to take any story and align it with their softy liberal stance, if possible making sure it is one of the big ones like climate change:

Here is what they wrote at the end of a recent comment piece on the fire storms in Hawaii (they had to get that one in, didn’t they?):

Global heating has inaugurated an era of climatic instability and volatility

The link is theirs. It portrays an utterly cataclysmic account, inciting the reader to live under a tree and on a diet of broccoli. Fair enough Guardian, that is your schtick, but it is not the whole picture is it? An article in Forbes magazine tells us that global weather and climate disasters have actually declined since 2000. It is a complex issue and I don’t pretend to understand it, but the fact is that such organs as The Guardian will not entertain any criticism or challenge to their public view on climate change. (Interestingly the Forbes article does include balanced arguments against the writer)

The Daily Mail skirts the boundaries of acceptabilty when it comes to stories of minorities. You will find that ‘comments are moderated’ whenever an issue involving race or gender or ‘certain religions’ is reported on because the Mail knows its readership. The readers would add the icing to the cake, so to speak. But at least it reports on them. Of the two, examples - The Guardian and The Daily Mail, the latter tends to have a much tougher editorial line. Reporters must know the agenda and stick to it. If you are working for the Mail, you jolly well stick to the schtick, as one former journalist told me, or you are out. The Guardian is just as guilty but in a more subtle and pervasive way because they are not ruthlessly going after ‘clicks’ The Guardian also benefits from a generous pot of money set up for the purposes of supporting a left wing newspaper - The Scott Trust - which effectively keeps it afloat. As a subscription model it could not survive.

The chief sin of The Guardian and the BBC (We shall get on to them in a moment) is the sin of omission. They simply will not run with a view that opposes their explicit agenda. Suzanne Moore a journalist with over 25 years of writing for The Guardian had to resign over the trans debate. She was effectively denounced by her colleagues, and you can read the piece here, but she has this to say about the editorial position at the paper:

It is March 2020. For several months now I have been trying to write something — anything — about the so-called “trans debate” in my Guardian column. But if I ever slip a line in about female experience belonging to people with female bodies, and the significance of this, it is always subbed out. It is disappeared. Somehow, this very idea is being blocked, not explicitly, but it certainly isn’t being published. My editors say things like: “It didn’t really add to the argument”, or it is a “distraction” from the argument.

So much for The Guardian. It makes my eyes bleed just to think about it but I read it every day in order to get some kind of balanced view.

The BBC

In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there.” Jeff Randall, former Business editor at BBC, 2016.

I think most of us are generally aware that the BBC specialises in burying the news they do not want you to hear. Curiously though, they love to promote their pet themes big time. I looked on the front page today and there were two stories about gays. In total four people were involved.

I utterly condemn homophobic attacks, or in fact any attacks. But why does it merit a BBC front page? It is local news at best, but hardly surprising because the BBC seems to think that this particular minority is worthy of constant mentions in a positive light, or to portray them as perpetual victims. I do not personally think this helps anybody. Predictably the BBC is coy about negative stories about the gay community. A recent article on Sexually Transmitted Diseases completely failed to mention that gay men are vastly disproportionately responsible for the rise in infections, preferring to go with, ‘The age group most likely to be diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection (STI) is people who are 15-24.’ This is not the whole truth, is it? It is the sin of omission and incredibly misleading if you are concerned about your sexual health. Why is the BBC on a campaign to highlight the lifestyles of just over 3% of the total population? Andrew Marr, erstwhile BBC personality and political interviewer has may shed light on this particular slant:

(The BBC employs) “an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people”

You will never see a BBC front page with naughty black people on it. The story of the Oxford street looting spree never happened. It was reported in the Mail, the Indy, The Guardian and many others, but not the BBC. The nearest they got to it was a report of two weeks ago, before the latest incidents, and even that has been removed from their website. Even the Hindustan Times covered it! (They did however, catch up a few days after I wrote this section, but in their typically oblique way. See below)

You won’t see this on the BBC

You will never see this on the BBC

Again, we find lots of black faces on the BBC, but they are always cheery and happy and successful. Any mention that ethnic minorities are disproportionately responsible for violent knife crimes has been erased. Even the Labour dominated London Assembly admits:

This Assembly is concerned that despite making up only 13% of London’s total population, black Londoners account for 45% of London’s knife murder victims, 61% of knife murder perpetrators and 53% of knife crime perpetrators.

Elton Charles

This is a picture of Elton Charles who was recently convicted of a charge of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. In a nutshell, he was involved in a drive by shooting. Also convicted was his younger half-brother, who opened fire on an Indian restaurant. Charles also happens to be the son in law of Lord Christopher Patten. Apparently this story is not considered newsworthy by the BBC. Instead, its front page looks like this:

They are still running with the “homophobic” attack, even though no evidence has been put forward to verify the motive. The victims were also discharged from hospital the same day. This is ‘Victim’ piece number 1.

Next is the ‘Ex Met Officers charged over racist WhatsApp posts. This is presumably a racial issue in which white officers are the aggressors. This is ‘Victim’ piece number 2.

Then there is Black Gay man abused by staff in care home. This is ‘Victim’ piece number 3.

Bear in mind these stories are all on the same page on the same day.

Of course, there has to be a Black Hero story about a black chef who ‘hopes’ to bring the abandoned Queens Arms ‘back to life’. The article positively gushes with approval and emphasis on the subject’s disadvantaged background. In fact it is all a puff to get the project crowd funded.

It is important that stories like the above see the light of day. It really is. But the BBC majors on portraying minorities only as victims or heroes, never villains. You will notice there is mention of the Oxford street looting riots, and the arrest of nine people, but only using the headline, Rishi Sunak criticises social media craze that led to disorder. The only black face you will see is a police officer and a white colleague, looking particularly aggressive. It must have confused the editors somewhat. But for all the reader can guess, they could be going after fluffy kittens.

A BBC picture of the Oxford Stree riots

Next time you visit the BBC News website, try the test yourself, Ask how many minority victims, how many minority heroes, how many minority villains? The tally is always depressingly the same and not representative of the statistics or the communities involved. It is rather, how the BBC fondly imagines the world to be. And accordingly, you cannot rely on the BBC to tell you, either the whole story or, any story at all. Whilst they are very keen to foreground the ethnicity or sexual orientation of victims and heroes, they go very very quiet when it comes to minorities who are villains.

When it came to Brexit, nobody could fail to see the constant barage of Pro-Remain propaganda. Sir Simon Jenkins, a Guardian columnist and BBC broadcaster said the broadcaster could not undo the impact of “years of brazen pro-EU bias”.

None of this would be a big deal - a broadcaster with a bias - if it were not for its baroque business model. Here’s the deal, the BBC’s business model, enshrined in British Law; imagine Simon, from Marketing, is a consultant on the launch of a brand new media organisation. This is perhaps how the conversation in the boardroom would go…

Simon: Here are some bullet points, gentlemen. And lady. We have engaged in some blue-sky thinking, thinking out of the box, pushing the parameters and we have come up we what we think is a uniquely triangulated funding model based upon realtime explorationally cogent forensic thinking.

Billionaire Chairperson:Get on with it Simon, please.

Simon: Erm, yes. Firstly, we charge a subscription!

Billionaire Chairperson (muttering): Been done.

Simon: But we are going to get legislation to make it compulsory!

B.Cp: (giggling) How are you going to do that son?

Simon: We have done a lot of research into this and our focus groups have told us that politicians are as bent as ninepence and will do anything for a brown envelope full of cash and a freebie to Marbella

B.Cp.(Laughing out loud) Still won’t work, Mr fancy pants consultant. What if they. don’t want to use our channel?

Simon: Oh we had that one covered from the get go, sir. We simply make it illegal to watch any channel unless you have our licence.

B.Cp (Laughing with tears in his eyes) Do you mean that if a punter wants to watch a programme on Sky, such as the live footie, they have to pay us? Even if they never use our channel?

Simon: Yes sir. Unique we think.

B.Cp: (Rolling on the floor choking with mirth, like a Smash Martian) Simon..

Simon: Yes sir?

B.Cp:That is the stupidest idea I have heard - and believe me I have heard some stinkers - You expect me to get behind a business model that extorts a subscription fee on pain of prison? (chokes) You expect us to compound that with making people who use our rivals pay for it? It would be commercial suicide. It would make Gerald Ratner look like the acme of discretion. (gasps for breath) The press would kill us. So thank you Simon. Now fuck off.

Ps. In compiling this I necessarily used search engines. I found it difficult to source much of the stuff because Google buries right-leaning opinion and news outlets. Don’t believe me? Read this from the UK Press Gazette

Consequently I have to work harder than that! I use other search engines and and other tricks.