Media

Does the BBC hate Palestine?

Why does the BBC hate Palestine? Yuri Prasad asks rhetorically in Socialist Worker . Prasad asserts that the BBC’s interest in the Hamas tunnel networks and use of civilians as human shields is minimising the bombing of Gaza. In fact most people horrified by the Israeli onslaught in Gaza know about the horrors from the BBC and similar media. The BBC interviews lots of Israeli journalists, government and IDF spokespeople, retired diplomats, ex-prime ministers and similar; but it reports the figures provided by Hamas for casualties. It has reporters in Gaza, and they have reported on the ground...

Telegraph gets it wrong

An open letter to the Telegraph , signed by over 40 academics, has condemned Oxford University Student Union for disinviting the Oxford Union debating society from the annual freshers’ fair. The letter claims the move had been motivated by the Oxford Union’s upcoming event with former academic Kathleen Stock, known for her denunciations of pro-trans-rights groups like Stonewall. This open letter gets a number of significant details wrong, largely as a result of a misleading article in the same newspaper a couple of days prior. Oxford SU did vote to disinvite the Oxford Union (a private...

The BBC, Gujarat and Modi's fake anti-imperialism

India’s far-right government has banned even clips from a BBC documentary under legislation that allows for “blocking of information in case of emergency”. The “emergency”? The programme documents how India’s ruling Hindu nationalist movement, and prime minister Narenda Modi specifically, are responsible for bloody anti-Muslim pogroms. In 2002, when Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he facilitated the murder of many hundreds, possibly thousands, of Muslims by far right-led mobs. Many tens of thousands were driven from their homes. We told the story in Solidarity last March. Part...

Letter: Qatar, Al Jazeera, Israel and The Labour Files

Keith Road’s review of The Labour Files on Al Jazeera mainly accuses the series of saying nothing we don’t know while conflating all accusations of anti-semitism in a way that suggests none of them has substance. That seems pretty spot on. But one sentence troubles me. It seems overly simplistic and conspiracy-minded. “The primary purpose of the footage is not to give insight, but to further Al Jazeera and the attitude to Israel of its owner the Qatari state.” Russia Today, Press TV, etc. are straightforward propaganda mouthpiece channels for their regimes. Al Jazeera is different. Many of its...

Defend the BBC!

Most of us are acquainted with the phrase: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Yet when the Government announce that they are going to scrap the licence fee there is a resounding lack of fuss. Because the licence fee is unfair right? It’s a flat tax that spreads the load evenly among an uneven populace. However, with the much-maligned licence fee we actually have something beautifully valuable: a stake in our broadcasting. Let’s be fair it is a small stake for a corporation that produces a dizzying array of output on a daily basis and can compete with much better funded and much less public...

Converting TV to the US model?

The Minister of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Nadine Dorries, has proposed scrapping the BBC licence fee. She backtracked quickly, but maybe not for long. The BBC charter is up for renewal in 2027. Dorries talked demagogically about old age pensioners not longer being “carted off to jail” for not paying their TV licence (but in fact the government itself confirmed last January, no-one was in prison for non-payment). Even the strongest of the BBC’s supporters would agree that the Corporation needs to change to adapt to online streaming, pay-on demand, channels such as Sky, and the end of...

Women's Fightback: Taliban ban women actors

The Taliban have banned dramas and soap operas which include women actors. This comes as part of newly announced directive from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The Taliban also called on women television journalists to wear the hijab when presenting. The Ministry called for banning films or programmes that were against Islamic and Afghan values, a vague formulation. “These are not rules but a religious guideline”, ministry spokesman Hakif Mohajir told AFP. Afghan television channels have offered a wide range of programmes — outside of news the most popular have...

Maxwell: a charlatan capitalist

The subtitle of John Preston’s new biography, Fall , is "The Mystery of Robert Maxwell". Mysteries certainly abound in this story — and not just about the fraudster’s death. The biggest mystery of all is how it was that this extraordinary charlatan was allowed to continue with his business activity right up to the time of his death in November 1991, despite having been declared by a Department of Trade and Industry investigation in 1971 to be “not in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company”. This gripping book is so entertaining...

Facebook, Australia and democracy

In the week ending 20 February, users of Facebook platforms in Australia found links to many external sites no longer available. Facebook claimed they aimed only to cut links to news outlets, but the bans were more wide-ranging including some trade-union and campaigning organisations (such as Living Income For Everyone, LIFE, where Workers’ Liberty people in Australia are active), as well as state bodies. Facebook have stated that some of the bans have been errors, but it is unclear which will be reinstated or when. It has gone for “shoot first, question later” maximum disruption. That is its...

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