Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

Compare And Contrast – Again

The BBC are at it again. Yesterday I noted how the nationality and immigration status of a police killer is newsworthy if the killer’s American but not if he’s Somali.

Here’s the conviction of a bigamist and con-man.

“American William Jordan, 41, who has at least 10 children, wove a web of lies to con his victims, a court heard.”

Mr Jordan is a naturalised British citizen. But apparently he’ll never be British enough for the BBC.

Here’s the conviction of some killers.

“South Londoners Diamond Babamuboni, 17, his brother Timy, 15, and Jude Odigie, 16, were convicted of manslaughter. The four will be sentenced in February.”

The “South Londoners” are Nigerian nationals and illegal immigrants, but that doesn’t get a mention in the BBC report.

Probably just not relevant or newsworthy. After all, it’s not as if foreign criminals are a big news story.

One in 20 Hispanics ‘goes hungry’

BBC Views Online informs us that: One in 20 Hispanics ‘goes hungry’:

Five per cent of Hispanics in the US regularly go hungry and as many as 20% do not have sufficient access to nutritious food, a US report says.

Poverty and lack of awareness about state entitlements are the causes, says the study by Hispanic civil rights group the National Council of La Raza.

Hmmm, do we think that, possibly, maybe, the “Hispanic civil rights group the National Council of La Raza”, might just have the teensiest of agendas? Wouldn’t it be good to be told the origins of these claims up front, in the first paragraph, the one in bold, instead of the official sounding ‘a US report’ says?

Immigrants also face a series of linguistic, legal and cultural obstacles in accessing enough food.

Really! That’s shocking. Do you think they’d have realised that before they became immigrants? While we’re at it, compare and contrast this BBC concern for the welfare of Hispanic immigrants to the US with the BBC’s concern for British immigrants to Spain, as spotted by my colleague Laban the other day:

“It would be helpful if they could integrate a little more – why can’t they learn the language? It’s just lazy, isn’t it? Why don’t they bother to integrate more?”

To be fair to the BBC and their unvarnished reporting of this typically tedious ‘A report says…’style space-filler, I have heard that things are so bad in the US that large numbers of Hispanics apparently run, jump and swim across the border with Mexico every day. Oh no, wait, can someone remind me which way they’re heading?

Compare And Contrast

When American David Bieber was convicted of killing police officer Ian Broadhurst in Leeds, BBC coverage left you in no doubt as to his nationality.

The report of his conviction opens with the words “A former US Marine“. He is portrayed as “the clean-cut, all-American boy“. We even have a report asking why UK immigration “failed to stop a killer“.

Another police officer was murdered in West Yorkshire recently, by Yusuf Abdillh Jamma, 20, “of Whitmore Road, Small Heath, Birmingham“. You’ll search the article in vain for the word ‘Somali‘.

It’s not as if the BBC are suppressing his nationality – they described it back in May. It just doesn’t seem to be considered of interest or pertinent – unlike Mr Beiber’s.

The trouble with this sort of ‘unwitting and unconscious’ racial bias in BBC news coverage is that you start wondering which other stories have had the appropriate racial filter applied.

The BBC reported this morning on an investigation into the ‘grooming’ of under-age girls in Oldham. There was a similar investigation in another Pennine town a couple of years back, unreported on the BBC website but the subject of a Channel Four documentary, a BBC Five Live report and a police investigation, in which the victims were overwhelmingly from one community and the perpetrators from another. You have to assume from the BBC Oldham report that no such scenario exists there – or they would have reported it. I think.

UPDATE – anyone reading this after around 11 am this morning might not understood my reference to the grooming story, which has changed utterly since I read it at 7.50 and should really be a separate report. The title, “Inquiry into sex grooming cases” is now “Five charged over abuse inquiry” and refers to specific criminal charges against named individuals, dating back to August. Thanks to the excellent Revisionista, we can see that the BBC are currently on revision 6. I read revision 2 which was as follows :

Inquiry into sex grooming cases
Wed Dec 20 07:40:12 GMT 2006
A major investigation is under way into the sexual abuse of as many as 20 girls in Oldham, some as young as 12.
It is alleged they are befriended by older men, who buy them expensive gifts. The relationship later turns sexual and the girls are abused.
Police said while it was a big problem, they did not have evidence it was an organised paedophile ring.
They have arrested more than 20 men, five of whom have been charged with offences including abduction and rape.
In care
The men are said to pose as “boyfriends” but they are much older than the girls.
They are not previously known to the girls, whom they approach in public places.
The men provide gifts such as mobile phones, electronic gadgets, and perhaps drink or drugs.
After a time the relationship changes and, it is alleged, the girls – a small number of whom are in local authority care – end up being physically harmed or forced into sex.
The council and police believe as many as 20 girls – aged between 12 and 17 – could have been abused.
The joint inquiry was carried out by police, Oldham council, Oldham Primary Care Trust and the charity Barnardos.

UPDATE – the Telegraph reports on the same issue. Any differences between that and the coverage of the £3bn tax-funded BBC ?

“Suppressing uncomfortable information (unless it’s about America or Israel). It’s what we do.”

They are like ravening beasts. What shall I feed them?

Blimey. 409 comments. Looks like it’s time for a roundup, below, and a new “open thread” post coming up in a minute.

  • An article in the New York Sun by Daniel Johnson says

    The BBC now has a huge audience in America as well as in the rest of the world for its endless reiteration of the implied thesis that the Jewish state is the root of all evil — not only of war in the East but of terrorism in the West too — and that the ” Israel lobby” rules in Washington. Gloating over the supposed triumph of Realpolitik since the midterm elections, the BBC can hardly contain its Schadenfreude at the departure not merely of Donald Rumsfeld but also of John Bolton.

(Hat tip: Alan)

Oliver writes:

“Hi BBBC – I thought this report interesting especially the line:

“The barrier goes up, and you drive in through a gap in the 30-foot high concrete wall that Israel says it has built to keep out suicide bombers.”

Love that ‘says it has’…

Yours

Oliver

  • Neil Craig of A Place to Stand wrote to the BBC, copying us in. An extract:

    Dear BBCThis morning David Attenborough was interviewed on the Andrew Marr programme on the subject of putative global warming & made the somewhat improbable statement that “in 20 years much of Norfolk will be under water”. Since sea level has been rising at about 0.6 mm a year since the last ice age & does not appear to have significantly changed recently this would require much of Norfolk to be less than half an inch above sea level now which I do not believe is the case. Indeed historically Norfolk has, for geological reasons, been rising faster than the sea. Even the alarmist BBC have heretofore claimed only 30 cm* a century which amounts to 2 inches in 20 years.

    I was therefore somewhat surprised when the interviewer never even questioned the remark & finished the interview calling Mr Attenborough, whose basic claim to fame is as a BBC spokesman an “icon”, which clearly put a BBC seal of approval on it.

    If it really is the case that the BBC are officially promising us that Norfolk will largely be underwater by 2026 I will have to accept that as the sort of ridiculous propaganda which represents the very highest standards to which the BBC aspire.

    *Taken from the BBC article. A typo in Mr Craig’s email meant that the link url had been typed over the next few characters. Read the rest of his post here.

  • On a similar subject, another correspondent writes:

    Hi,

  • First, we know how these signed “petitions” by THOUSANDS of scientists go as reported by the BBC et al. Did deep and you’ll find a overwhelming list of left wing partisan advocates and non-“scientists”. This BBC article is no different. You get your usual suspects in this article. The BBC just carries the water whenever they put out a PR.

    US scientists reject interference

    The statement, which includes the backing of 52 Nobel Laureates, demands a restoration of scientific integrity in government policy…..[and the Bush bashing begins]

    One of the main article sources, the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security is a San Francisco area left wing “green” advocacy group represented by the BBC as a “Non Partisan” organization. Well, as usual, the reporter simply didn’t look at the board of directors or it’s advisory board. Look for yourself

    http://www.pacinst.org

    The other source The Union of Concerned Scientists, again, is a green advocacy organization. Check it out. http://www.ucsusa.org.

    I don’t see this blog as having any particular collective opinion on whether and whither climate change. But we are getting quite a few emails saying, as these do, that the BBC is very much of one opinion when presenting the issue.

    UPDATE: Ian Hart, the communications director of the Pacific Institute, comments

    First, the Pacific Institute is a think tank or a research institute, not a “‘green’ advocacy group.” While we may advocate certain policies, it is not our primary goal or tool. If you look at our staff you will not find lawyers or lobbyists, but mostly scientists.

    Second, the Pacific Institute is a non partisan organization and Jonathan Amos was correct in noting that in his article. When we work with governments, we’ve worked with Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. We’ve also worked in numerous countries where those parties mean nothing. So we are indeed non partisan.

    Looking at its website, it is true that the Pacific Institute is non-partisan in the sense that it is not connected to any political party. The Advisory Board contains both Nancy Ramsey, the Legislative Director for Senator John Kerry (D) and the Hon. Claudine Schneider, a former Republican Representative for Rhode Island.

    Nonetheless, the Pacific institute is not apolitical. Sample quotes: “Social justice has long been the missing element from the debate over environmental pollution and economic development.” “Globalization and privatisation of the world’s resources are leading to controversy, dispute and even violence.” It favours mildly statist solutions.

    I am more sympathetic to Ian Hart’s defence of his own organisation than I am to the BBC’s description of it. The phrase “non-partisan” will be taken to mean “non-political” by most readers of the website, and I rather think the BBC knows this and exploits it – in many cases, not just this one. In particular I think that the BBC gently exploits the fact that in the US, because of campaign finance restrictions and the fact that political donations from individuals are made public there, the fact that an organisation can be non-partisan and yet have a political agenda is widely understood, whereas over here the two terms “non political” and “non partisan” are practically interchangeable. A think tank as right wing as the Pacific Institute is left wing would almost always be described as “right wing” on the BBC.

 

Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

“Why don’t they bother to integrate more ?”

Today’s Radio Five Drive show featured a BBC interviewer (around 25 minutes in, RealAudio for a week) giving immigrants a hard time :

“It would be helpful if they could integrate a little more – why can’t they learn the language ? It’s just lazy, isn’t it ? Why don’t they bother to integrate more ?”

Eh ? I’ve never heard a BBC presenter talk about immigrants like that before.

She meant British immigrants to Spain. Quite different.