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Censorship at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is mostly about what you choose to ignore and that is largely guided by powerful interests, usually government.

For example Hugo Chavez receives extreme scrutiny over everything he says or does. Even the mobile phone ring tone of the Spanish King telling him to shut up got a big story. Yet important topics such as the ORB survey on Iraqi deaths were pretty much ignored.

One major form of censorship (not exclusive to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ) is the exclusion of the opinions of non-official sources. For example, you might have a story about Iraq citing comments by various officials pushing their agenda, but you seldom have counter opinions from independent experts. We're so used to it that most people don't even notice, but when you step back it looks quite ridiculous.

I mean, imagine if you were writing a story about Israel, but the only opinions you quoted were those of Hamas. It would look pretty stupid wouldn't it? Yet replace Israel with Iraq or Iran and Hamas with the US Government and you have pretty much the standard situation in a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News article.

This is a result of being "embedded with power" as Pepe Escobar would put it.

censorship and the bbc and the government,
i had the pleasure to work with a man we called [h]he was skilled pannel beater,he was working for the government in the 60s he was part of a team who,s job was to conceal a special camera in the bodywork of a coach this coach was to carry ordinary holiday makers on a trip to chekozevakia,the driver was to make a diversion of the route past an air field and trigger the camera to film the russian air base ,then back on route,

they got caught inocent people got interogated,when they got home some tried to get the bbc to report it ,guess what, they did not get anywhere,

those old links between government and the bbc/old boys/licence fees/certain clubs that certain people belong to,

this was one example of 100s.

And that's all you got to say to the masses Mr. Herrmann!
Well, your explanation is beside the point, with the real question being - is OBL dead? If so, since when?
The question I bet you are not going to even touch upon.
Where is investigative journalism when we need it? Aren't you curious yourself as a journalist?

I do wish that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News website would store a "page history" accessible by the audience. You change stories as they come in all the time and it is immensely distracting for those who link through to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News site.

If, however, every published version of an article was available via a link from the page (and each revision had hardlinks for deep-linking purposes) then it would be thoroughly obvious when a revision was made. New revisions could even carry a tagline to indicate what had changed between the previous version and this one. I bet that you store all this information anyway in something like CVS or Subversion. Please make it available to the public!

It seems that ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ chose which news is
good for elite and which will damage the Agenda.³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ real face is unveiling
by every passing day.This news should be the biggest news after 911, but ironically ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ chose to censor it.What are u doing man.U are exposing yourselves.

Cue 9/11 conspiracy nuts.

Of course the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ would not broadcast the death of Osama Bin Laden, even it was verifiably true. This would undermine the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's role as the Governments lapdog on bogey-man stories. Good grief, what chickens would come home to roost should the blame it all on Al Qaeda excuse be in anyway diluted.
You have my permission to submit this comment to New Labour for censoring.

Of course the media is biased/censorious! Even if it were possible to present a completely open and balanced recounting of simply the "facts", this would not be desirable, as it would not give any insight whatsoever into the implications of events. An independent source is not intrinsically more authoritative than, say, a government source. They just have a different point of view.

I'd be interested to know if those who accuse the media of bias would be so even-handed given the opportunity to express themselves on any given topic?

Although generally a positive thing, I'm inclined to think that the fragmentation of media as the Internet increasingly allows access to anybody, could lead to less clarity being as it is far easier to be anonymous and hide your prejudices and interests.

No cue necessary Gorilla, they're out in force already. :-s

Well some of us dont evem watch the bbc, we think bbc news is selective and has lost all creditability as a news medium. If no one pointed it out then people would nt have known this and bbc wouldnt have corrected it. how many other stories the BBc has reported that were half truths? possibly many.

Do ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ editors ever distort or censor the news to fit a particular agenda? People who think the earth is flat would say no.

Doesn't it ring any alarm bells that the whole 9/11 saga and the illegal wars post 9/11 were engineered as part of pushing the agenda forward.
Look at the FBI website for yourself and see the real reason they are looking for Bin Laden, there isn't enough evidence to connect him to 9/11 so what the hell are we still doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, Oh yeah fighting this so call "WAR ON TERROR" or really it is a "WAR OF TERROR".
It's time to wake up and start asking questions for yourselves rather that waiting for the censored media coverage to tell you.

Alex, Robert,

Do you really think that if the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ could track down the truth about Osama Bin Laden, that they would not report it? Any major broadcaster or newspaper would dearly love to have that story. Equally, the suggestion that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is the Government's lapdog beggars belief. Perhaps you memory does not stretch back as far as the 'sexed up' Iraq dossier?

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is not obviously 'anti' our current government, but it certainly provides critical analysis, as is it's job.

There are many problems with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and some of these lie with its news coverage. No need to invent unlikely conspiracies.

Why didn´t the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ try to find out whether Benazir Bhutto indeed did make a mistake and, more importantly, why David Frost failed to react. Was he not listening to her answer?

Surely the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ should actually research the circumstances of controversial material before rushing to publish it? Rather than just cutting the problematic bits out of it without checking what they might mean?

You're not alone, Kendrick Curtis:

"It is now more than three years since Biased ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ first called for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Views Online to provide a Wikipedia-style document edit history. Has anyone yet come up with good solid reasons why the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ shouldn't provide tellytaxpayers with this straightforward information automatically?" - Biased ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, October 2007

However also take a look at News Sniffer, which is actually doing something about it:

(deletions in red, additions in green)

Dear Mr. Herrman. Do You think that "Under time pressure, the item producer responsible for publishing the video on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ website edited out the comment, with the intention of avoiding confusion." is a really believable reason for cutting the most interesting and important part of Ms Bhutto's speach?
Do You think the most important role of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is "avoiding confusion"? How could that only Ms Bhutto's sentence confuse me? I want to know the true, I don't want to be "lulled" by fairy tale about nice and simple world.
Is ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ a "fairy-tale teller"? Why?
Excuse my English, please :-)
Thank You,...

Everything is filtered and then filtered again. Someone is even deciding which comments will appear after this post and which won't.

Here's one experience I've had: the press and media regularly publish inaccurate facts and figures about an event where I live. The public is being deceived and encouraged to buy tickets under false pretences.

The inaccurate information comes from the organisers as press releases and much of the media publishes the false info without checking.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is an exception and publishes the correct figures (I think because it insists on more than one source for stories). But, contact the other media outlets about this, and they aren't interested in the slightest bit. Even those familiar names that supposedly present themselves as 'more ethical' than others. Each year it is the same old lies.

Overall, much of the real investigative reporting has disappeared from newspapers and TV and so has a lot of the fact checking.

Although the internet gives an air of openness, comments can be censored or deleted, as can entire accounts on social networking sites, or blogs that you don't host on your own server.

If you really want to get your message out you need your own hosting space and your own website.

Mums the word... If the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is gagged just nod and shake your head to avoid confusion.

Did she offer any evidence for this claim?

I'm not sure the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ should carry this sort of thing if there is no evidence for it. 'Bin-Ladens dead' rumours have been ten a penny since 2003, but he still keeps making the tapes.

Usually the lefties are moaning about 'wheres the evidence' and dodgy dossiers, not calling for rumour to be published.

I think you do need to careful editing (anybody's) interview if it appears to be verbatim but is not.

Yes there is censorship at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ.

An example:

On the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ website's Have Your Say pages this weekend was an article about mercury in fluorescent low energy bulbs and the banning of incandescent lightbulbs. The vast majority of respondents were very critical of the government and the green movement. Obviously this goes against the orders the BC has received from the greens on how to report green issues, so the topic was closed after just two days, even though others have been kept open for up to a week.

It was quite obvious that she mis-spoke and the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ was simply trying to avoid confusion. If you look at other interviews with her before and after the Al Jazeera one she talks about Bin Laden but never claims he was murdered by Omar Sheikh. Get a life people.

Sometimes it is easy to believe that ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ "HYS" and "Editors" feedback comments are being selected to bias the discussion.

Some topics publish a lot of vitrolic apparently irrational comments - yet very few reasoned statements of known facts appear. Some of my attempts to establish known facts have fallen in that latter unpublished category.

That could be merely a balanced reflection of the ratio in the received posts. However it begs the question as to whether there should be some impartial editorial control to include as much apparently factual comment as possible. Failure to do so reinforces the view that there are no facts other than the oversimplified "mob" labels purveyed by media headlines.

It then begs the question as to whether these ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ "public" fora should just be ignored - or whether by doing so the myths and misquotes gain credibility by much repetition.

What is the difference between editing and censoring?

This is clear and obvious censorship,you say it appears that she has mis spoken - this is a ludicrous accusation to make.
Benazir Bhutto was not some conspiracy nutcase that you could ignore, infact in her position of power and integrity I would believe what she said over anything the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ reports on Bin Laden.
You got busted pure and simple.
I have totally lost all faith in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ,you should be ashamed to call yourself a journalist.