Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

I thought at post 4840 there might be a chink of light regarding a serious conversation on today's hot topic, but I see the temptation to talk about Trump (and Farage) was just too much. At least it hasn't spread to the Matchday thread

What an odd comment. You raised the topic and asked for discussion.
You’ve got your discussion and the story has developed so that now we have Trump and his entourage, along with Farage, Johnson and assorted others all piling in, but apparently you don’t like discussing that bit.

So far you’ve had GP playfully guessing what I’d have to say and both Sith and I agreeing that the BBC have messed up, but querying the notion of Trump and Farage holding any high moral ground where truth, fake news and propaganda are concerned.

What on earth is wrong with that, or do you just want to determine what can be said? Sorry to disappoint.

[Andy_Faber]

What an odd comment. You raised the topic and asked for discussion.
You?ve got your discussion and the story has developed so that now we have Trump and his entourage, along with Farage, Johnson and assorted others all piling in, but apparently you don?t like discussing that bit.

So far you?ve had GP immediately guessing what I?d have to say and both Sith and I agreeing that the BBC have messed up but querying the notion of Trump and Farage holding any high moral ground where truth, fake news and propaganda are concerned.

What on earth is wrong with that, or do you just want to determine what can be said? Sorry to disappoint.

Nothing wrong I guess, just that you're allowing yourself to be dragged along by the personalities, So what if Trump, Farage, Johnson or whoever else 'pile in', that's incidental to the issue in question, not the issue itself.

You will remember that BBC bias of this nature was something I touched on many years ago after gleaning info during an unguarded conversation with a BBC exec on a train journey home once, (one of those little anecdotes you rubbished as 'made up' incidentally) so I'm not surprised at any of the content of that memo, only that its taken this long to come to light. A number of commentators last night and this morning have pointed to a big problem in BBC being a journalistic/editorial cohort and management cohort being 'out of step' with one another, the former seeing it as a platform for pushing their opinions, the latter being too weak to push back or too inundated to see the often subtle way its being done. Now of course that's me maybe cherry picking to some extent but the journalists are just plods going about their business not any of your list of celebrities

[ramAnag]

Nothing wrong I guess, just that you're allowing yourself to be dragged along by the personalities, So what if Trump, Farage, Johnson or whoever else 'pile in', that's incidental to the issue in question, not the issue itself.

You will remember that BBC bias of this nature was something I touched on many years ago after gleaning info during an unguarded conversation with a BBC exec on a train journey home once, (one of those little anecdotes you rubbished as 'made up' incidentally) so I'm not surprised at any of the content of that memo, only that its taken this long to come to light. A number of commentators last night and this morning have pointed to a big problem in BBC being a journalistic/editorial cohort and management cohort being 'out of step' with one another, the former seeing it as a platform for pushing their opinions, the latter being too weak to push back or too inundated to see the often subtle way its being done. Now of course that's me maybe cherry picking to some extent but the journalists are just plods going about their business not any of your list of celebrities

Can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not allowing myself to be ‘dragged along’ by anyone. It’s just that the POTUS and the self proclaimed leader if the UK opposition rather transcend the term…’celebrity’, imo.

As for your anecdote, I’m sorry, not entirely surprisingly, I don't remember a conversation you had many years ago on a train journey home. Neither have I any idea how I responded to it, if indeed I did.

For me there are at least three separate issues here.
1. The BBC haven’t misquoted Trump but they have abbreviated his comments. To what extent is that wrong?
2. If that is wrong, who was responsible, why is it wrong and how misrepresentative is it of what Trump said and what he intended.
3. To what extent is this an example of a Right wing POTUS and his UK sidekicks launching an unprecedented attack on the British media…and why?