FIND THE BAD NEWS

*
This might be pure laziness on my part but I'm going to lift another article straight from Not a sheep. He puts it so well that I don't need to add a word (except for the ones I've already written):
*
Thursday, 18 February 2010
BBC in full hide the bad news mode

For the first time since records began in 1993, the government had to borrow money in January, a month that usually sees huge Corporation Tax income. Economists were said to have been expecting a small surplus of around £2bn in January's budget, allowing a small start to repaying the UK's huge debts. However tax receipts dropped 11.8% compared with January last year, when the government was able to repay £5.3bn.

Appalling news, really dreadful and so the BBC have been leading news bulletins today with the claims that Israel were behind the 'execution' of a terrorist (oops sorry militant) leader in Dubai and on Radio London behind the Nicholas Winterton story. Meanwhile on the BBC News website the parlous state of the UK economy doesn't even merit a place in the top three stories but currently sits at number 2 in the "OTHER TOP STORIES" section. Somehow I doubt that the BBC would have been so quick to minimise coverage of such "pretty ghastly" figures had they emerged under a Conservative government, indeed I seem to remember coverage of bad economic news being lengthy, in-depth and repeated ad-nauseum during the 1980s.

The BBC are moving towards full election mode at present and are concentrating on setting "the narrative" to be as pro-Labour and anti-Tory as possible. Unfortunately it seems that 5Live is to be the flag-bearer for this campaign and with broadcasters like Stephen Nolan on-board the bias will be heavy and hard to avoid.
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc-in-full-hide-bad-news-mode.html
*tH
The World at One decided not to discuss the subject, prefering to dwell on the assassination in Dubai and private involvement in the NHS instead. PM did at least discuss the issue. After spending over 18 minutes on the assassination in Dubai, Hugh Pym came into the studio to tell Eddie Mair the news about the unprecedented borrowing. This section lasted just over 2 1/2 minutes. Hugh reported the words of Alistair Darling about how the government's economic forecasts remain 'on track' and added that "there are some economists who agree with that". Who doesn't agree with that, asked Eddie. Pym's answer? The Conservatives, who you wouldn't expect to - as he said. Anyone else Hugh? He wasn't saying. And are there some economists who agree with the Conservative Party's on the government's economic forecasts? He wasn't saying anything at that either. Hugh needs watching.
*