RSSBBC enters the election campaigning against Tories
Another fine example of media bias, the BBC sends 3 hecklers armed with microphones to heckle the Tory Prime Minister candidate. I wonder if this was a condition of the there contract to continue broadcasting. If it was Canada, that would be part of the status quo.
Tory fury as BBC sends hecklers to bait Howard
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
(Filed: 24/04/2005)The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.
Michael Howard addresses the crowds in Horwich
The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party’s head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC’s director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were “distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party”.
These included “Michael Howard is a liar”, “You can’t trust the Tories” and “You can only trust Tony Blair”.
Mr Black’s strongly-worded letter accused the BBC of staging the event “to generate a false news story and dramatise coverage. . . intended to embarrass or ridicule the leader of the Conservative Party”. The letter said that BBC staff were guilty of “serious misconduct”. At least one of the hecklers was seen again at a Tory event in the North East, Mr Black added.
Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a “completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling” and said that other parties’ meetings were being “observed”. However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair’s meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.
The Conservatives have called for an apology and an assurance that no such incident will occur again. It has also demanded that the BBC promises never to broadcast the footage. The corporation said it would investigate “very fully”. It and other broadcasters have a statutory duty to remain impartial during election campaigns. The corporation’s guidelines for producers state: “Our audiences rightly expect the highest editorial and ethical standards from the BBC.”
Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton, last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio microphones.
Mr Black said that they described themselves as “shoppers”. In fact, they were under direction from a BBC team making a programme called The History of Heckling for the BBC3 channel. The programme, whose producer is Paul Woolwich, is in the process of being edited.
Mr Black’s letter said of the hecklers: “It is entirely clear to me that the success of their presence required an element of performance on their behalf, and that this was a premeditated event intended to disrupt the course of Mr. Howard’s speech.
“I do not believe that the BBC should be in the business of creating news. It also appears that the same crew was at the Michael Howard visit to Stockton-on-Tees and it can be no coincidence that someone with them was one of these ‘hecklers’.
“I understand that Sally Freestone, the assignments editor UK Special Events, was ‘aghast’ that the BBC had engaged in such behaviour.
“This is a clear and serious breach of recognised BBC producer guidelines, and accordingly a breach of Section 5.3(b)1 of the BBC Charter Agreement. I also believe that the recordings which were taken of these organised hecklers, of ordinary members of the crowd and/or of Conservative officials who reacted and were recorded, would amount to ‘surreptitious recording’ under those guidelines.”
Hat Tip Drudge
Update: Another great take on this over at USS Neverdock.
Another Media Wish: Gas Prices Fueling Increase in Public Transportation according to the AP
So says the headline.
But reading the article, there is no proof that this is the case. Here are the pertinent quotes.
It’s a trend that Joe Calabrese, general manager of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, expects to continue as long as a gallon of gas remains about $2.
“I know there are people on the bus today that weren’t on the bus three years ago,” he said.
…
Bonnie Arnold, Spokeswoman for South Florida Regional Transportation Authority:
We get to know our people,” spokeswoman Bonnie Arnold said. “It’s just a recurring comment that gas prices have gotten out of hand. Once it goes over $2 we do see an increase down here.”
…
Spokesman Scott Reed:
It’s pretty clear the spike in gas prices resulted in a corresponding increase in ridership,” Reed said.
…
Owen King, Patron
Owen King, 54, has been taking the bus to work in Cleveland for 10 years and knows that recently there’s been a little less elbow room.
“I’ve seen more people than usual and overheard conversations where people are saying gas is out of sight and there’s no end in sight,” King said.
So you have anecdotal evidence by 4 spokepeople for the rail companies and riders that they feel that ridership has increased and that increase is because of the price of fuel. But there is no survey data to back it up.
At the same time these mass transit providers are being hit by the same fuel increases and if ridership does not improve they will be faced with greater losses. And it will bust another myth in the folklore of liberalism.
I do not disagree that some people will ride the bus instead of pay 30% more for gas. But the reality is that if you took the losses that mass transit costs the tax payers and applied that money for oil exploration, the price of fuel would probably not have gotten that high as we would already have fuel coming out of the gulf and ANWAR to counteract this problem.
I would always feel better if they could show a survey on new ridership to prove this point, as opposed to spokespeople trying to drum up business.
Jeff Jarvis:”we’re at the tipping point in media”
Jeff has had a few posts lately on how the media is starting to recognize the power of the blogs. I am not going to get into great detail right now, I am working on a longer post to address this, but I am going to link to a few of Jeff’s posts on the matter. If you are reading this post, you are ahead of the curve. Most of the country will learn that media will change from being a one way lecture to a two way conversation. We already know this, anybody can respond to one of my posts and tell me what I am doing correctly, and what I have messed up. That is intimidating and liberating all at once. The media is just now learning this lesson.
Here are some of Jeff’s most recent posts on what he calls the tipping point:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_04_17.html#009478
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_04_20.html#009498
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2002_03_15.html#002179
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2003_10_24.html#004932
http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_04_13.html#009456
These are just a few observations by Jeff, whom I respect very much on media matter. If you have the time, read these posts as they will help you to understand the media landscape over the next couple of years.
Alex Smith – First Pick of the NFL Draft
The San Francisco 49′ers have chosen Alex Smith to be the 1st pick in the NFL Draft.
Here is the ESPN Coverage.
Also, coverage at NFL.com.
Update: Congratulations to Auburn Football. They had 3 players go in the Top 10 picks of the Draft. 2 – Ronnie Brown 5 – Carnell Williams 9 – Carlos Rogers . That may explain why they went 13-0 .
UPDATE 2:
1st Round is Complete:
Top Conferences by Picks
SEC – 10
ACC – 5
Big 12 – 5
Big 10 – 4
Pac 10 – 3
Big East – 1
Mountain West – 1
Conf USA – 1
WAC – 1
Sun Belt – 1
Independents – 0 (And yes NOTRE DAME is an independent, and the independents got 0)
Blogging for Hits
It looks like blogging is hitting a home run. That is, if MLBLOGS takes off like those involved are hoping. They are setting up a site where people can read blogs written by baseball greats such as Tommy Lasorda and others. This site is brand new, but it looks as if it is another step for blogs going mainstream.
Hat Tip Om Malik
