BY ALEXIA JAMES It must be said that mainstream media has become extraordinarily unalluring during this pandemic. People are learning to live without. On a Zoom business call just yesterday one of those present asked if anyone had seen Boris’ latest Coronavirus press conference and four out of six on the video call admitted they had not bothered tuning into even one. Meanwhile the newspapers … Continue reading Covidian Nonexistence
BY ANDREW MOODY In the age of Amazon Prime and Netflix and the thousand channels of Sky TV, and even more importantly, the age of imposed lockdown, is it just me or has TV gotten worse? Ever since 2015’s Straight Outta Compton, the last great movie made within the Hollywood system before Trump’s contentious election, and Harvey Weinstein’s ignominious demise in Rikers Island, movies have … Continue reading Lamenting Daytime TV
BY PAUL T HORGAN The BBC seems to have fallen into bad habits in its news coverage of the current pandemic. Being a natural disaster rather than a scandal or a government crisis, it has been necessary for the state broadcaster to defer to the technical commentary of experts. The experts to whom the BBC defers have been, for the most part, Labour activists of … Continue reading Behind BBC Bias
BY ALEXIA JAMES Just when the BBC was collecting some brownie points for providing useful and entertaining education material for our home-schooled children in lock-down, those over at BBC News have once again reminded the nation that suicide can be a slow and drawn-out affair – death by a thousand cuts. BBC Editors have been exposed selectively editing a Trump speech and the edit is … Continue reading BBC News Caught Red-Handed
BY QUENTIN PIGG The gotcha inquisitions that have come to form so much of our broadcast news, more suited to cheap tabloid talk shows than serious journalism, offer few answers to a public fearfully in need of them. To witness the intemperate tantrums of Piers Morgan is to mourn a time when television was innocent of the social media revolution, journalism now reduced to 30 … Continue reading Media v People
BY QUENTIN PIGG Last month, Britain’s broadcast media subjected the nation to a series of bombshell revelations from which it may never recover. First came the news that Philip Schofield isn’t the red-blooded womaniser his tousled hair and flowered shirts would have us believe. Then the BBC’s Head of Drama, Piers Wenger (pictured), revealed that far from some happy coincidence, it is actual BBC policy … Continue reading Repurposing the Licence Fee
BY DAVID EYLES For the last four years or so, political battles have been fought, won and lost upon the Brexit issue. The punditry in the media have claimed that “Brexit has divided Britain”. But my contention is that Brexit has not, in itself, divided Britain. What has happened is that the internet and social media have developed and become much more widely used at … Continue reading Is The Guardian Racist?
BY ALEXIA JAMES Hearing debates on the BBC about the BBC is sickening. They really cannot see the damage that the licence fee does to Britain’s poorest. How do they sleep at night? The single mother of three in Aldi tempted by an offer for two pounds off healthy mince but goes for a pack of cheap frozen sausages instead, as she knows that the … Continue reading BBC Licence Fee Must Go
BY ROBERT TRIBE There was a day not long ago when you could visit the BBC website and read the news. You could scroll down the UK and World news stories knowing that they had been written by some leftist but safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t take that much deciphering to get through to the facts. Back in the good old days even … Continue reading The LGBTQBBC Website
BY RUTH LEVINE Jews hold that just months after the people of Israel left Egypt in the year 2448 from creation (1313 BCE), they sinned by worshipping a golden calf. Moses ascended Mount Sinai and prayed to God to forgive them. After two 40-day stints on the mountain, full Divine favour was obtained. The day Moses came down the mountain (the 10th of Tishrei) was to be known forevermore as … Continue reading The BBC & Yom Kippur
BY FRANK HAVILAND Unlicensed alcohol sales were dealt a tragic blow last month, as BBC prohibition finally called time on This Week: the late night speakeasy masquerading as a political show. After 16 years and countless bottles of Blue Nun, the cult after-hours watering hole has closed its doors for the last time. Chief bartender, Andrew Neil, is a refined cocktail himself: part avuncular host, … Continue reading Neil Down
BY JAMIE FOSTER At a time when the BBC is losing licence fee payers at a dangerous speed and needs to endear the nation, the organisation has chosen the suicidal path of changing its editorial guidance on social media in order to allow Gary Lineker and Chris Packham to keep on ranting over Twitter. The guidance still bans political journalists from expressing a view on … Continue reading BBC’s Social Media Achilles’ Heel
BY ALEXIA JAMES Wannabe scally Terry Christian is one of those people who you avoid in the street let alone the studio. He’s the sort of a fellow who may not have halitosis but has it by default, as his exaggerated jiggling Mancunian contortions, annoying accent and verbal diarrhoea trump the worst sausage breath at a Mettwurst convention. His appearance recently on Jeremy Vine’s show … Continue reading Let’s Not be Unchristian
BY JENNIE CHARLES So Sir Nick Clegg has confirmed what we all knew. Clegg has confirmed there is “absolutely no evidence” Russia influenced the Brexit result using Facebook. The former Deputy PM told the BBC that Facebook had carried out analyses of its data and found no “significant attempt” by outside forces to sway the vote. Instead, he argued that “the roots to British euroscepticism go very … Continue reading Activists Not Journalists
CSM EDITORIAL The imam who questioned the Tory Leadership candidates on last night’s BBC debate has since been suspended by his employer – a school where he worked as Deputy Head – for antisemitic tweets. Meanwhile, another questioner, Aman Thakar, asked the Tory contenders if they would be a legitimate Prime Minister should they win – Thakar turned out to be a Labour Party council candidate in … Continue reading Wheels Fall off BBC
BY ALEXIA JAMES It was always going to happen. Our public broadcaster the BBC is primarily funded by the licence fee, supplemented by income from commercial subsidiaries. And the number of licence fees received by the BBC has been decreasing markedly, principally because the word is out that BBC programmes are not worth £154.50 a year when competitors like Amazon Prime and Netflix return more value … Continue reading BBC’s Last Roll
BY ANDREW MOODY In Trump’s America the hashtag #CancelSouthPark is sadly a thing. I remember how it all started, back in 1998 on Channel 4 at midnight, when Channel 4 was hip and edgy, which seems a long time ago, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone were making their ascent to rock-star fame. They were amongst the first to use the internet to make themselves … Continue reading The Power of South Park
BY ALEXIA JAMES Last night’s rowdy protest outside the House of Commons was totally understandable. The people voted for Brexit and now a parliament replete with Remainers has delayed their wishes. What did they expect? Meanwhile the BBC and other mainstream media organisations have either ignored or dissembled the anger of Brexiteers and are making out that those who want Brexit are untermenschen and racists. … Continue reading Sack Snow
BY ALEXIA JAMES Watching those few who have hung around to try and overturn Brexit is a sport in itself. They are clinically insane. While the rest of us were enjoying our Friday evening in the real world at dinner parties, down the pub or snuggled up on the sofa watching a movie, the tinfoilers were busy having a Twitter meltdown about Arron Banks, the … Continue reading Watergate Codswallop
BY ANDREW MOODY Now that Jeremy Corbyn has publicly supported a second Brexit referendum, I’d like to flash back to 1972. Coppola’s The Godfather was the smash hit of the summer, Nixon was two years away from impeachment, Edward Heath was Conservative Prime Minister and unemployment (which kicked off the punk movement) exceeded 1,000,000 for the first time since the 1930s. At this time, the … Continue reading Working Class Toynbee of Toynbee Hall
