Monthly Archives: September 2006

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.

The BBC on Russian demographics: wrong, wrong, ah, right– cheers Russian Prof. How did I miss that on the BBC’s frontpage? (I commented on the BBC’s clueless approach back in April; soon afterwards came Putin’s dramatic speech emphasising the demographic crisis- somehow this follow up article escaped me). I think a really important public service would have been to run a series looking at Russia’s (and European countries’) growing demographic deficits, analysing the impacts of them and the people who are concerned about them. It could have started with a feature interviewing Mark Steyn…

However the BBC’s attempted approach to the subject was a “series about motherhood and the role of the state in encouraging couples to have more children”, and as the links above show, they were starting from shaky, wishful foundations. Something also tells me they wanted to avoid the M word.

Talk about beating about the bush! It’s the demography, stupid!

But if we were to take the human interest tack, what about the role of the state in suffocating family life? No go? Thought not.

As with most of the things one feels moved to comment on regarding the BBC, it’s auntie’s sad and unsustainable flight from reality that’s on the table.

btw I think this photo’s an improvement on the last one, don’t you? Sorry to anyone who found that upsetting

ps. Two reasons I think the story about demographics is one the BBC really ought to have had thoroughly covered in recent years: here and here for China issues. Here for the M word.

Whose calendar?

“Violence sweeps Iraq on Ramadan”

Two problems, maybe three, or more, with this headline and splash across BBConline frontpage tonight.

1)The violence alluded to appears no worse than on many other days in Iraq over the last couple of years. Loathe as I am to follow the body count rule of headlines, this doesn’t seem to qualify for the big splash effect.

2)The violence alluded to has occurred at two or three discrete locations, particularly one site in Baghdad where a disgusting car bomb killed many. Terrible, but not ‘sweeping’ Iraq.

3)What’s all this business about Ramadan? To 90 percent (plus) of the BBC’s telly taxpayers it has zero significance. If it’s the justification for the headlines then to whom is the BBC directing its coverage? I have no objection to a World News facility but not divorced from the UK ta very much.

As a sidenote, I would say that the BBC’s wrapping in this story with one about torture is a classic example of unwarranted generalism for emotional impact (so I hope no one objects that the picture is irrelevant- all complaints directed to BBConline). Notice how the headline in this case “Iraq engulfed by tide of violence”deliberately elides the distinctions between issues. Notice also that this article, from John Simpson, was posted in the “Americas” section. I wonder why?

Never one to miss an opportunity to bash the Yanks, Simpson brought a bitter smile to my face by saying “The Americans have never put enough foot patrols in the streets, and they long ago lost control of many towns and cities as a result.” Yeah right, John- love that hauteur, btw, so BBC– as if your organisation didn’t herald every US casualty as a sign that things were “spiralling out of control”, as a sign that the “cakewalk” was turning to “quagmire”.

The cravenness and opportunism of the BBC. Nice.

Meanwhile, if you waded through the quagmire treacle, or picked up on a short note towards the beginning of the BBC’s tidings of woe, you’d have found a really good piece of news which is better summarised here.

Go to Google.

Type in “Woman Sour”.

Hit “I’m Feeling Lucky”.

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.

Forgive my suspicion of this article from Frances Harrison in Tehran, but I’ve just seen such a lot of BBC pieces recently pushing the pacifist line against Iran. It was BBC world affairs editor John Simpson who described how “Iranian politics are as complex and sophisticated as any I have observed around the world”. Not that that means the BBC are soft on Iran of course, but I’ve always found that if I decide that a person or issue is a priori “sophisticated” I tend to find myself looking for sophistication come what may, and if my boss tells me, well…

So, to the questions. According to Frances, “The number of women graduating from Iran’s universities is overtaking the number of men”

Source?

Frances’ support for this statement is figurative:

“Twenty postgraduate students are sitting in a plush modern classroom listening to a lecture on environmental management…Three quarters of the students in this class are women – the five men in the class are huddled together in a corner.”

Now, while I know that environmental management in the UK is for the BBC a truly A LIST subject, I wonder how important it is in Iran? And I wonder how come Frances found his/herself in such a lecture.

I also wonder what the proportion of graduates is among the general Iranian population. Is is so significant if the daughters of apparatchiks get a nice little educashun? But I am jumping the gun- that Frances just gets me thoughts buzzing.

Frances does appear to get a bit more meaty when referring to the “applied physics department of Azad University” where “70% of the graduates are women.”

I have to say though I wondered about the pure physics department, and just whether “applied” might also mean learning to be a primary school teacher.

Frances then goes on to talk about the excited Mr Laylaz (funny how all the senior academics she talks to are men), who rhapsodises over the fact that “It will not be long… before women are in charge of recruitment in offices”

Really? All the way up to personnel?

But the vanityemptiness of Frances’ puffery is best exposed by a quote intended to show women’s lib, which makes one recoil at the whole exercise:

“Sudabeh is nervous about her future – she could lose it all if she marries the wrong man.

“I will choose a person as a husband who lets me work because I love my job”

Wow- a man who lets her work, foregoing his legal right to stop her. How about that? Real liberation. And as for her choice, Allah, (momma) and papa willing no doubt.

In short, this is an attempt to couch Iran in our terms, right down to the men “huddled in the corner”. It’s an awkward fit, so our Frances has to queeze the material very hard. It’s irritating when we pretty much know Iran isn’t soft and cuddly, emerging into modernity through girl power.

When all’s said and done though, did Soviet sexual equality make them less dangerous or alien to freedom?

Oh, I almost forgot, a classic bit of soviet style propaganda to note (see the link on why iran isn’t soft and cuddly):

“Iran’s Islamic government has managed to convince even traditional rural families that it is safe to send their daughters away from home to study.”

There must be some great stories behind the regime in Iran: pity we’re left with the BBC to try and tell them.

ps. more questions here

Been picked up talking nonsense ?

Someone had to correct it ?

Never mind – just recycle it to the World Service.

.

Paul Marks notes this at Samizdata:

Presenter of Seven Man Made Wonders on BBC 2 television on Thursday 14th of September-

“After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the old Pagan Roman ways were pitted against the new Christian ways of the invading Angles and Saxons”.

A commenter remarks:

‘If the BBC could make such a blunder over the status of religion in the later Roman empire, I wonder how on earth it can make any sense about the Pope’s speech regarding Constantinople.’

Well, indeed. I’d still love to get my eyes on the dialogue which was source of the papal quote, but, regarding the BBC, it’s just what they do.

While the BBC devote large amounts of air time and web space (admittedly inaccurate – see three posts below) to the story of the Pope and Mohammed, they seem to have missed the scenes which greeted worshippers coming out of Mass at the centre of English Catholicism, Westminster Cathedral, this morning. Obviously not a story that would interest anyone in Britain.

(Biretta-tip – the indefatigable DFH).

P.S. Mohammed is referred to on the BBC website and in all their news reports as “the Prophet Muhammad”. Why isn’t the Pope “the Holy Father” and Jesus the “Lord Jesus Christ”, I wonder ?

UPDATE 18/9/06 – I’ve been informed that there was coverage on BBC Television News last night – it’s just not been on Radio Four or the Web.

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.