Free Republic

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko banned a number of Western and Russian journalists from the country, accusing them of being a "threat to national interests" or promoting "terrorist activities," according to a list published on the presidential website on Wednesday. Two British journalists working for the BBC—Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg and producer Emma Wells— and BBC cameraman Anton Chicherov had been banned from entering Ukraine but Judith Gough, the British ambassador to Ukraine, confirmed on Twitter that the BBC journalists would be released. Two Spanish journalists, Antonio Pampliega and Angel Sastre, were also included on the blacklist although Sastre went missing...

BBC journalist Franz Strasser has filmed through rubber bullets and tear gas in Rio de Janeiro and has at times been told by police to stop filming while on assignment. But he had never been ordered to delete footage until Wednesday, after he and a fellow journalist came upon the scene on Interstate 66 where Vester Lee Flanagan crashed a car following a pursuit by Virginia State Police. A trooper told Strasser that police would need to seize his camera because his footage could be evidence, but then ordered him to delete the footage. The trooper watched as the journalist...

The BBC announced enthusiastically Wednesday that “what may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.” This news is not only of interest to scholars and Muslim intellectuals; it appears to buttress the Islamic claim that the Qur’an’s text has remained unchanged for 1,400 years – which is purported to be proof of its divine origin. There is only one problem with all this: the BBC article raises more questions than it answers, and reveals more about the wishful thinking of the academic and media establishments than it does about the...

One news event that may have passed most people by last week was the election of Tim Farron as leader of the Liberal Democrats.The party, which was once Britain’s third largest, was decimated in May’s General Election, losing all but eight of its 57 seats, completing a brutal period of decline while it was in government alongside the Conservatives. The inquisition began the morning after Farron’s election when the BBC’s John Humphreys asked him if he would “seek advice from God when it came to making important policy decisions”. Farron accused Humphreys of focusing on “the shocking revelation that a...

A damning catalog of multi-million-pound waste within the BBC is exposed for the first time today by The Mail on Sunday. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws reveal a climate of “feckless” excess and extravagance—including millions spent on first class travel. The figures expose a revolving door culture in which staff are given large redundancy payments and then rehired at exorbitant rates, as well as overpayments leading to vast sums of license fee payers’ money being wasted. […] The news of BBC excess comes at a time when the beleaguered Corporation is facing the prospect of root and branch...

Was watching BBC Europe yesterday -flicked it on the the hotel for five minutes while unpacking- and the amount of left wing pom-pom shaking they can pack into a brief period of time is just about any intellectually-honest person can stomach... And that's regardless of political bias -like we never knew The Beebe leaned to the left. But it's relentless these days... I used to admire their professionalism and world coverage in the 80s/90s, as I still do the Telegraph, etc. British press is in many ways superior to my own country's, imho- even car magazines, i.e. CAR was a...

Early July saw Britain basking in a brief heatwave, with air temperatures across much of south and east England hitting the mid 30s centigrade. On July 1, the Met Office announced that the UK had recorded the hottest July day on record, with temperatures hitting 36.7° centigrade at Heathrow airport. The claim was widely repeated in the media—the BBC’s headline read “Hottest July day ever recorded in UK”, while The Guardian opted for a live blog under the headline “Heatwave live: Britain swelters on hottest July day on record”. But eagle-eyed climate bloggers immediately spotted a problem with the so-called...

Even before the BBC’s new documentary on last summer’s war in Gaza airs, the broadcasting organization has admitted that it distorts the truth in order to make the Palestinians appear more sympathetic. The documentary, entitled “Children of Gaza,” aims at depicting how Operation Protective Edge affected children living in and around the Gaza Strip. The program has not yet aired, but according to the Jewish Chronicle the Palestinians’ testimonies were mistranslated in order to cover up frequent anti-Semitic comments. The Palestinian children regularly used the word “yahud,” meaning “Jew,” when talking about their enemies. The BBC’s translators insisted on changing...

David Cameron today called on the BBC not to use the phrase 'Islamic State' when referring to the terror group operating in Iraq and Syria. The Prime Minister - who calls the group 'ISIL' - said Muslims would 'recoil' at the phrase being used to justify the 'perversion of a great religion'. He insisted that the battle against extremists targeting Britons around the world can be won but will require 'extraordinary resolve and patience'. Gunman Seifeddine Rezgui targeted tourists at the Tunisian beach resort of El Kantaoui near Sousse on Friday morning, killing 38 people including up to 30 British...

Global rumours sparked by BBC staff member's errant tweetThe BBC apologised today for accidentally sparking Twitter rumours that the Queen had died. Rogue tweets were sent while the corporation was staging a dress rehearsal for reporting the death of the Sovereign. One stated: “Queen Elizabrth [sic] has died.” Buckingham Palace was forced to issue a statement reassuring the public that the Queen was in good health. The incident happened during one of the corporation’s regular rehearsal for broadcasting the Queen’s obituary which BBC bosses had asked staff to keep off social media. A tweet from the account of Ahmen Khawaja,...

Chris Evans has signed a three-year deal to replace Jeremy Clarkson as the presenter of Top Gear, the BBC says. The broadcaster decided not to renew Clarkson's contract in March after it emerged he attacked a producer on the programme at a hotel in North Yorkshire. Evans will lead an all new line-up, the BBC said.

Long before Frank Underwood, there was Francis Urquhart. Ian Richardson stars in this sublime political thriller from the BBC. Long-serving and highly respected Tory Chief Whip Urquhart has hopes of a spot in the new PM's Cabinet. When those hopes are dashed by the new - and rather feckless - Prime Minister Henry Colingridge (David Lyons), Urquhart begins to have his own ideas of how to run a country...

When I met Rachel Dolezal, I found it easy to accept her description of her ethnicity. Along with BBC correspondent Jonny Dymond, I talked to Dolezal in 2011 in a coffee shop in Spokane, Washington, while producing a BBC World Service documentary on a surge in extremist militia activity in America. She told us that she was of mixed racial heritage but that she primarily identified with her black ancestors. She matter-of-factly listed the abuse she says she received at the hands of racists, including threats, break-ins, and nooses being left at her workplace. At no time during our hour-long...

A BBC documentary depicting Winston Churchill as a drunken enemy of the working class has been branded as ‘graceless’ and ‘ill-informed’ by his grandson. Churchill: When Britain Said No, broadcast on BBC2 last week, was an account of how the wartime leader lost the 1945 General Election. It showed him as a deeply hated figure among the working class, in part because of the harsh economic policies he pursued as Chancellor in the 1920s. The most vocal critic of Churchill in the programme was a man presented as ‘activist and writer’, Dave Douglass. He said of Churchill: ‘His role during...

Greg Dyke, former director general of the BBC, has claimed that the British Government "tried to kill" Andrew Gilligan. Reporter Gilligan broke the story that British intelligence had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq that sought to justify Britain's support for US-led invasion of the country. "The Government tried to kill him," claimed Dyke about Gilligan, who was forced out of his job at the BBC in January in the wake of the Hutton report that inquired into the death of scientist David Kelly. Kelly was the main source for Gilligan. Dyke was speaking at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature...

“BBC under fire after Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton ‘compares extremist preacher Anjem Choudary to Gandhi and Mandela,’” by Steph Cockroft, MailOnline, 14 May 2015: The BBC is under fire after the Home Affairs Editor appeared to compare notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

The BBC was feared to have fallen victim to an ISIS cyber-attack this evening as 'hackers' appeared to post Islamic State propaganda during a live broadcast. Viewers were left stunned as the words 'Je suIS IS' appeared on TV screens following a feature on the BBC News Channel. Above the red and white writing was the word 'CYBERCALIPHATE'.

Nigel Farage has accused the BBC of “clear and evident bias” after he came under pressure over the quality of Ukip’s general election candidates. A number of Ukip candidates have been accused of making inappropriate comments and one was caught up in an expenses scandal, but Farage blamed Tory defectors to the party for causing the problems. He criticised the BBC for asking him about them, saying other party leaders were not grilled about their rogue candidates.

Former Top Gear presenter says being sacked by the BBC was a ‘wake-up call’ as he joins host of celebrities backing climate change campaign The disgraced former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has become the latest celebrity to support the Guardian’s campaign for fossil fuel divestment. Following what he described as a “dark night of the soul”, Clarkson said he hoped to “regain the trust of the British public” by dedicating his time and financial resources to sustainable energy, road safety and forging mutual understanding and tolerance between people of different cultures and religions. The 54-year-old said that the “fracas”...

Alleged death threats made against BBC director general Tony Hall are being investigated by the Met Police. Lord Hall is reported to have received a threatening message after dropping presenter Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear because he had punched a producer. The Mail on Sunday also reported Lord Hall and his wife were under 24-hour protection from security guards at their Oxfordshire home. …