Atanu Dey On India's Development

BBC and the Attack of the ASSes

June 1, 2009 by Atanu Dey | 6 Comments

Attack of the Advanced Self-propelled Screwdrivers

BBC News reports that, “In one of the recent attacks in Melbourne, a student was critically injured by a screwdriver.” Wonders of this modern world, don’t you know. Automatic self-willed screwdrivers on a rampage. The student was injured by a screwdriver, and not “A student was attacked by someone with a screwdriver.”

BBC continues with

There have been more than 70 assaults in the past year, with at least four in the past fortnight.

Police have denied any racial motivation, saying the students were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yes of course. Be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you get attacked by screwdrivers. It’s your fault, not the self-propelled screwdrivers’.

But the students and Indian officials have demanded action, including more police at train stations and other problem areas.

You see, it’s the students’ fault in the first place. And yet they demand action. How bloody unreasonable. It’s their fault but they demand action. The BBC and ASSes — advanced self-propelled screwdrivers.

The protest was described as largely peaceful, although the Melbourne Age website showed photos of damage to a main train station after some protesters reportedly threw missiles.

No ASSes at the protest. And this time BBC reports that protesters threw missiles; they were not self-propelled missiles. Yes, this time a human agency is identified. But as my friend Nitin over at The Acorn pointed out to me, “Not a SINGLE word to suggest that there were attackers behind the ‘attacks’.”

The BBC is biased, as I have noted here a couple of years ago. I just did a search on “BBC is biased” on Google and got 7,400 hits. See, for instance, biased-bbc.blogspot.com. Saudi funding can do wonders.

Also see, “We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News“.

  • amity

    BBC went to great lengths to keep the Balen Report, which examined their coverage of Israel-Palestinian conflict and bias in reporting, from being published.

  • http://www.worldisgreen.com worldisgreen

    A friend tells me the story of Shravan. His roomate his my friend’s mate.

    These guys were having a party at home and two kids come up and gatecrashed the party.

    After a while, Shravan and some others make their point and help them to go out of the house.

    The kids run to the car, pick up a screwdriver and start stabbing shravan as he is the closest to them. They use the screwdriver to hurt 4 others.

    One of the arrestted is a 17yr old minor and was charged for attempt to murder. But nothing of that is generally heard in the media in Oz.

    Interestingly, after the incident there is a generaly shutdown of traffic in the street where they live. The whole thing is cordoned off.

    Shravan is in the hospital in coma and others go out. After the second day after the attacks, with police in the streets, their entire house is robbed. Not a single item is left. ipods, laptops, tv, clothing…everything is gone.

    The kids hurled many racial epithats at them. This is the same with many of the cases which the police are not considering.

    The problem compounds because we do not see much coverage in Oz media, especially TV. That is frustrating considering the protest march, petrol bombs, stabbing etc.

    In a morning show on the day after the protest, the news channel covers the protest for 2 minutes without actually talking about the situation of shravan and others. 10 min later, they have a constable and family members of a Irish man lost in Sydney. They interview them and ask them about their feelings etc.

    That really pisses you off.

  • nirmalni

    I empathize with the students there as I also went to a university in US and have heard of such incidents.

    However, I disagree with your view on BBC in the context of this article. To quote the actual sentence where they used ‘But…’ :

    “Indian students tend to travel on their own, late at night – either from study or employment – and carry valuable items such as laptops and phones, Victorian Police deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe said.

    Education destination

    But the students and Indian officials have demanded action, including more police at train stations and other problem areas. ”

    Hence BBC has used ‘But…’ to differ on what the deputy commissioner said.

    Why did you also fail to mention “Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, was stabbed with a screwdriver a week ago. ”

    I think BBC does a good job of reporting both sides of the story and stops short of making a judgment however trivial it is. What you are expecting is that they report everything from the victim’s point of view – which should no the best case in my humble opinion.

    I do agree with the view that there may be other articles where the BBC maybe biased. My view is that the beeb is better than many other news networks in this regard. It does a fairly good job in reporting accurate information without sensationalizing and judging.

  • Pingback: Curry bashers beware | The Acorn

  • http://daily10minutes.blogspot.com ashish

    i would not have read this. i stopped reading BBC a long time ago. i sent an email to all my friends for the first time in my digital life (about 15 years now) about a public issue.

    i will ask all to do the same, stop reading BBC and tell others to follow suit.

  • http://the-redpill.blogspot.com vakibs

    The British Bullshitting Corporation (otherwise known as the BBC) is commissioned by the British taxpayer and watched by the international idiot.

    All news is advertising. Anybody with the means to do so should read varied news points (BBC, Russia Today, Al Zajeera, CCTV of China etc). Which brings to mind the total absence of an Indian news-channel to present India’s perspective to the international audience. We countrymen are doing it fine in our post as the eternal suckers in the international arena.

    Nirmalni

    Nice try, but your comment has neither the substance nor the wit to refute Atanu’s post.