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alexswanson

Listed below are comments made by alexswanson between Wednesday, 2nd July 2008 and Saturday, 21st February 2009.

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A questioning climate 12:02pm on 21 Feb 2009 "I thought the BBC's position was that we should listen to suitably qualified experts."

True, but the BBC confirmed to me officially lsat year that "suitably qualified experts" can mean whatever any particular reporter wants it to mean, and that if any ordinary license-payer wants to know who such "experts" might be in any particular case, or how exactly they might be "suitably qualified", you have no right to know.

Really true.

Draw your own conclusions.
BBC News and disabled audiences 7:16pm on 19 Feb 2009 This concern for minorities is all very well, but try being a member of a minority that the BBC disklikes - ie someone who has political views BBC staff disagree with - and suddenly the BBC's duty to be "accessable to all" goes out of the window.

In such cases,the blind amongst the general public are actually treated exactly the same way as everyone else: information about minority views is simply denied them, or even false information supplied.

Equal access to all is laudable, but if the news content itself is wrong, then what's the point?
Duelling gentlemen 8:26pm on 22 Oct 2008 "make their feelings known by following the BBC complaints procedure"

Forget it. As I know from expereince, the BBC complaints procedure won't even correct blatant falsehoods.
Graphic images 02:22am on 25 Sep 2008 The problem with the coverage is not the video footage - it's the uncritical way that you reported suggestions that Finnish laws might be changed to possibly ban handguns. As always, you completely omitted any relevant background information - for example, the fact that the 1997 ban in this country has proven to be completely ineffective.

You are supposed to be impartial, but BBC reporting on gun crime in general invariably assumes that anti-gun laws are self-evidently worthwhile and effective, and never gives the case against them, even though that case, properly put, is overwhelming. It's not even that you just lie by omission (though you do) - I've caught you on occasion actually peddling genuine untruths, and complaints are simply rejected out of hand.
Propaganda war 7:02pm on 22 Aug 2008 "Is it not obvious that GERORGIA INVADED
S. Ossetia?"

Erm, by definition you cannot invade an area which is legally yours anyway.
Olympics figures continue to impress 11:30am on 20 Aug 2008 I've been keeping my eye on BBC coverage up to the Olympics and now during the events themselves.

There has been no mention whatever of the problems or challenges facing UK pistol shooters who have had to train for, and compete in, events which have been made illegal in this country.

There people are heroes, and the BBC has ignored them, clearly because of internal left-wing BBC culture.

The whole thing is sickening.
The weapon of choice 8:19pm on 11 Jul 2008 more crimes of passion are committed in the US using the motor car as the weapon of choice than are committed with guns! Could this be true?

Why not?

- Even in the tolerant parts of the US (ie the ones with gun laws unlike Washington DC) a car is more likely to be available than a gun
- People know how to use cars, killing someone with a gun is harder than most people imagine - it's not like on the movies where you just point and pull the trigger
Controversy and conspiracies III 3:27pm on 02 Jul 2008 senojnerrad:

I don't think anybody is suggesting that policemen and firefighters were part of the conspiracy. I personally don't see that they would need to be, if they genuinely believed that the plane crashes caused the towers to collapse. you might claim that they were experts; I humbly suggest that very few people are experts in what happens if an airliner hits a skyscraper.

All I'm doing is pointing out that the anti-conspiracy arguments are often feeble as well.

I chose the soccer comparison as a neutral one, but I could just as well point out that socialism has killed millions of people over the last century or so, and yet some people are still proud to claim allegiance to that doctrine. For some people, the right ideology will justify anything. I'm not saying it happened: all I'm saying is that it is naive to suggest that it physically couldn't.
Controversy and conspiracies III 1:35pm on 02 Jul 2008 "If this really was a government plot, then why has NOBODY involved (of which there would be hundreds) come forward and said anything?"

Code-breaking at Bletchley Park during World War Two involved thousands of people, all of whom kept totally silent until the work was officially revealed during the 1970's.

"If, as people claim, the whole point was to justify Bush's desire for war, then why not just knock ONE tower down? "

If I were to invade Russia I wouldn't do it in June, but Operation Barbarossa was.

"And how on earth would all these people have been persuaded to be part of mass slaughter of their own people in the first place?"
I don't understand why anyone watches soccer matches, but millions do. There really is no accounting for how some people think.

"I suspect most of the news room had been running around for the majority of the day in controlled panic"

But the BBC is supposed to be the world's premier news organisation, more than capable of handling something like this, which after after all happened in accessible areas in the most favourable country possible apart from the UK itself.

I don't actually subscribe to the conspiracy theory myself, but let's face it, if feeble arguments like this are all that's offered against it I can see why people do.
Controversy and conspiracies III 12:35pm on 02 Jul 2008 #3 I meant worst terrorist atrocity, obviously. Sorry about that.

Mind you since I'm posting again anyway, can I extend the "you can see why people wonder" comment to the satellite feed cutting off? How often does that happen to the BBC? But it happened this time? The same obscure event that you mislaid the tapes for? The same event that you had a misreporting problem with?

You really did have a bad day, didn't you.

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