And you thought PBS was bad.

Maybe the Tories will get serious about privatizing the beeb

the history of heckling?

You have to wonder just how desperate (or caught off guard) the PR goob who answered that question was.

what a dumb ass.

Look, I hate to defend the BBC, and I actually hope that I'm wrong and they get nailed, but...

My take on what they were saying is that they found people already intending to go and heckle, and as part of their news piece on heckling they wanted to put microphones on these hecklers. So that's what they did, and they paid them a few pounds for the trouble.

Stupid? Yes. Unethical? Possibly. But that's a far cry from them hiring people to go and heckle, which seems to be how the story is being interpreted all over. Maybe it's an academic distinction to other people, but to me paying some hecklers for the privilige of putting mics on them is very different than hiring people to heckle.

But, as I said, maybe I'm wrong. I certainly hope the BBC was doing something very bad and gets nailed for it...but I'm just not sure this is as bad as it's being portrayed...

Hmmm...actually it looks like I probably am wrong. I missed the part about how they "admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader." I thought they had only admitted to paying them and putting microphones on them.

If they decided where to send them, then that was way over the line. If they told them what to say, then this is a major, major scandal.

Bob, I agree that we shouldn't jump the gun here - but imho, the payment is where the line is crossed.

The BBC is scandalously biased and this story will get huge play along with the recently discovered Labour vote scandal. (Labour has been caught red-handed fraudulently filling out mail-in ballots in local elections)

The bad news is that if the Torys win, they will inherit a huge financial deficit. It's probably best if Labour wins this one so that everything goes down the crapper on THEIR watch.

Sounds to me like the hecklers would have been heckling anyway... at least we now have these useful idiots on camera...

They’re like a Soros 527 group, only without the ethics or neutrality.

I remember after the tragedy of that British scientist Kelly’s suicide (for which the BBC’s fabricated report on him, in which they falsely claimed he said the WMD dossier was “sexed up,” was later blamed by the official inquiry into his death), Greg Palast went on TV, laughing and smiling as he talked about the “fake case for war.” I’m still angry every time I think of it.

These are people interested in ideology first, journalism a distant second, and responsible behavior not at all.

If labour wins, it boosts damages that case that there is much unrest of the war. However, the country will go further down the pan.

OTOH, a Tory win means they will probably be as spineless as the GOP is at the moment, and Bush has already burnt his bridge with Michael Howard.
However, it will at least slow down the indoctrination of the UK into a PC, soci alist, rabidly multicultural member of the EU.

(Dude, why is your spam blocker complaining about 'cia list' ?)

Nice post title... it works, even with the BBC ;-)