Monthly Archives: May 2007

Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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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.

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Coincidence?

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Mr Blair’s visit to Iraq coincided with an interview in which former US President Jimmy Carter criticised the UK prime minister for his “blind” support of the war in Iraq.” report

Making the News

I’m not talking about the BBC reporting big events which “make the news”, but actually manufacturing it.

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It’s one of the curses of our time that the big media, with none bigger than the Beeb, get to summon politicians almost at will. They do so especially to suit their own agendas, and their agendas are often quite extensive.

Recently two politicians interviewed separately by the Beeb were John Bolton and Jimmy Carter. The contrast in interviews was stark [and I notice that Richard North has noticed this too]. On the one hand, John Humphries on the Today programme gave Bolton the hardest time imaginable (superbly documented by Richard North at EURef blog). Fortunately Bolton in the end made Humphries look precisely what he is- an emotional, empty-headed leftist wind-bag. His attempt to force Bolton to backtrack in his support for the Iraq invasion (yes, still hearking back!) floundered amusingly as Humphries’ intent and line of questioning was exposed.

So that left the BBC with Jimmy. Needless to say, there was an eery calm as the BBC journalist waited to receive Jimmy’s words of wisdom, however contentious they might appear to someone who doesn’t see Iraq as the innate disaster it appeared through the lens of Bush House. They then created a webpage so that everyone visiting BBCOnline would get to read and hear too. A commenter to ATW (which drew my attention to it), pointed out that the article was more than slightly charitable to Carter’s record:


“In 1976, Mr Carter unseated the incumbent Gerald Ford to become the 39th US president, serving until 1981.”

Yeah, no mention of that nasty acting fellow who beat Carter soundly, or, I would add, Carter’s crowning accomplishment, the Iran hostage crisis.

One point about Carter’s comments: is a man really a friend of this country who would attempt to make Britain co-equal in responsibility for a supposed cause of terrorism, the Iraq war. Does Carter care about the relative vulnerability of the UK to terrorist attack, when he makes Osama’s talking points up for him? Does the BBC? Or do they just always see the cheap political points sitting temptingly in front of them, and to hell with the ordinary people?

It does seem quite likely that there is a cause the BBC has in mind in raising these tired points at this political moment- Blair is leaving, and the BBC would very much like Uncle Gordon to give them the gift of an ultimate moral victory for transnational correctness by admitting in proper fashion that they were right all the long by getting our soldiers well and truly out of there.

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Propaganda Victory, Propaganda Defeat

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: the BBC 10 o’clock news report (Wednesday May 16th) on the MOD decision not to let Prince Harry go to Iraq was an interestingly pure example of a kind of bias the beeb has acquired in the years between WWII and now. It was (I’m most pleased to be able to say) virtually unmixed with any of the other kinds of bias we often blog about here (what I talk about below could therefore be studied in its pure state).

Back in 1986, when three kidnapped Britons were murdered in Lebanon after the U.S. bombed Libya from UK bases, the BBC fell over itself in eagerness to give the terrorists the propaganda advantage they sought by the murders. (This was so obvious that pointed contrasts were drawn at the time between the beeb’s, “Britain is paying the price for its support of the U.S. … “, and ITV’s ,“Three kidnapped Britons were killed today … A spokesman for the group said it was in retaliation for the U.S. bombing …”.) This unwholesome enthusiasm has often been seen since but was pleasantly absent from last night’s report, which did not yet again wheel out Reg Keys or similar for predictable negative comment. The framing remark that opened their summary of Warminster views, about Prince Harry and others of the royal family being “… usually popular here but now …” was hardly necessary, but that’s a very minor point. Showing yet another cameo of April’s British casualties in Iraq was also somewhat irrelevant since it is fairly clear that it was the Iranian-backed threat to kidnap and torture the prince, not the long-known-and-accepted threat of death or injury, that caused the MOD’s reversal, but this fact did emerge strongly from the overall report so that too is a very minor (perhaps even carping) point.

What was lacking was any counterpoint to the report’s closing line about the propaganda victory we have given to Iran. The whole report simply led naturally to this line. Yes, indeed, we have given them a propaganda victory. In WWII, Germany sent films of its army and airforce in action to neutral countries. Their message was clear: see our tanks blasting your neighbours, our planes bombing them – this can be you if you don’t cooperate with us. Thus Germany gained a propaganda victory from its acts. These films were re-shown in British newsreels; you can hear the disdain in the voice of the British announcer saying, “This is what Germany is proud of.” Thus the Nazis’ propaganda victory was also their propaganda defeat: they got respect from their ruthlessness and military skill, and they got a lack of respect from the same thing. In those days, British media coverage hid neither the one nor the other.

The Iranian government (it would seem from the BBC’s report, and I can very well believe it for many other reasons as well) are extremely ready, nay eager, that their agents in Iraq arrange the kidnap and torture of the prince (or presumably, of anyone else suitably prominent whom they can hope to capture) and have made such effective and convincing preparations to support this that the MOD are no longer willing to take the risk. That we are so unsure we can protect him in Iraq is a propaganda victory for them, and would have been in WWII. That they are so very ready to do such a thing would have been a propaganda defeat for them in WWII. Will we hear a BBC announcer say that, “This is what the Iranian government is proud of.” ? One may hope.

[All quotations from memory after the programme.]

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Strewn

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The very wonderful Jane Garvey is just too honest. Listen to her reminiscences (mp3) of May 2nd 1997, the morning after the Labour Party’s overwhelming election victory – from the Drive show of 10th May 2007.

Ah, well – I had been up for most of the night but I was doing this Five Live breakfast programme with our colleague at the time – it was a bloke called Peter Allen so – I had to get a bit of sleep, and I do remember I walked back into – we were broadcasting then from Broadcasting House in the centre of London – all very upmarket in those days – and the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles – I will always remember that (Allen laughs) – er – not that the BBC were celebrating in any way shape or form (Allen, laughing – ‘no, no, no, not at all’) – and actually – I think it’s fair to say that in the intervening years the BBC, if it was ever in love with Labour has probably fallen out of love with Labour, or learned to fall back in, or basically just learned to be in the middle somewhere which is how it should be – um – but there was always this suggestion that the BBC was full of pinkoes who couldn’t wait for Labour to get back into power – that may have been the case, who knows ? but as I say I think there’ve been a few problems along the way – wish I hadn’t started this now …

The mp3 gives you the full effect. Champagne socialists ? Hat-tips to Barnet Pete and al-dumbdown in the comments.

UPDATE – blogger (and B-BBC reader) Not A Sheep was first to pick up on Pete and dumbdowns good work.

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Congratulations must be given to BBC’s Panorama for their show tonight on Scientology

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Congratulations must be given to BBC’s Panorama for their show tonight on Scientology. Not that I would hold it up as a great example of unbiased journalism, and Ed Thomas makes an important point below below about the BBC’s double standards when it comes to dangerous religions, but nevertheless it was a brave program, as various critics of Scientology’s tactics can attest. Scientology came across very badly, not because of anything reporter John Sweeney said, but because of they way they treated him. Their chances of being taken seriously as a religion in the UK have decreased even further now.

(I think the releasing on YouTube of Sweeney losing it and screaming at themmay have backfired, because of the interest it has created in the show. The Church had apparently launched a new campaign to get the Charity Commission to grant them charitable status in the UK — this show is hardly going to help them).

It was telling, though, that Sweeney said of Scientology’s apparent bully-boy tactics that “you can’t imagine the Chuch of England acting this way” (or words to that effect). No, but there is one well-established recognized religion in the UK you can imagine acting that way, which Sweeney conveniently did not mention.

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True Colours

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Andrew McCann has written of his attempts to put his views across to the Beeb over Sweenygate. I am referring, of course, to the bullying, hectoring behaviour (caution, highly entertaining stuff) of the BBC’s fearless sleuth, John Sweeney, as he ventured into the deep hidden danger facing us all from Tom Cruise’s religion, Scientology. McCann’s words are well worth reading. Summary account of the incident here.

He points out the BBC’s complacent reliance on the freedoms accorded them in the US and UK. He demonstrates what true objectivity might mean- the fearlessly equal treatment of all on an equal basis. His analogy was the most obvious one going- between the BBC’s treatment of Scientology and its treatment of Islam- but the point is a deep one.

Talking of his approach to the BBC’s phone-in minders he says:


“I posed a rhetorical question as to whether Sweeney would have lost his temper if treated in the same way by Muslims outside the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. In other words, would Sweeney have behaved that way had it not been for his own prejudices and the environment in which he found himself?”

Indeed. PS. I notice that Sweeney has done investigations in Saudi Arabia, but one does indeed wonder if he treated the Saudis as imbeciles as he did so, or whether it was their religion he was interested in targeting.

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Two hand grenades; big news on the veils

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The BBC seem to have hit a new low in Somalia with this report.

The two grenades going off which I mentioned in the heading seem to offer a figleaf of an excuse for reporting this incident, but the real focus of the article seems to be the outrageof Government troops opposing sharia apparel, namely the veil or niqab.

The real focus is here:

“The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says women were fearful of leaving their homes wearing veils on Wednesday morning.”

I think that to non-totalitarian understanding of the world, not tolerating the niqab in all circumstances may be a sign of many things- security concerns or concerns about social cohesion. Whereas the enforcement of the niqab (common in much of radical Islam) indicates one thing only: totalitarianism.

In this new world of BBC “balance”, however, an overtly political and intimidatory symbol should be allowed supposed equality in the news, along with the extremism and male supremacism which goes with it.

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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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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.

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“UK poll results hope for Labour”

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Say I just want the news. Just say. What do I get from this headline that’s been sitting on BBC world news website all night, and remains at the time of this posting?

I’m not going to regale you with the various forms that the BBC article on the local elections has taken through the night. After a long period of doing Labour’s damage limitation exercise for them (…not as bad as expected, holding up against the “Toriess” and the “Plaid”…) it’s taken a shape of more realism. But honestly, at no point was there not the situation that both Labour and the Lib Dems were losing numerically, while the Conservative Party were winning consistently. How we read the results is one thing. To turn them back to front a negation of the news.

Update 5.45 GMT

There’s a remarkable slant now to the BBC’s coverage. The main report now has as its first paragraph this:


“Tony Blair has insisted Labour has a “good springboard” to win the next general election, despite suffering big losses in Scotland, England and Wales.”

When the results show this:

“CON 839 4843 37 155

LAB -460 1736 -8 31

LD -246 1973 -5 22

OTH -129 1039 0 5

NOC – – -24 80″

Something amiss in the BBC’s intro (and headline, still)? Well, how about a wee mention for the only party listed in positive figures, whose figures are very positive? Why the focus on lame duck Blair? (clearing the decks for Gordon, perhaps, using the available scapegoat).

The first mention of the Conservatives is also unbelievably offhand and almost oblique:

“Mr Blair said the predicted “rout” had not happened, but Tory David Cameron called their results “stunning”.”

So, not even dignified by the term “leader”.

This has all the hallmarks of a mourning newsroom.

And that’s not bias, is it now?

Meanwhile, Iain Dale (and friends) reacts to the Beeb’s bias.

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Vote Fraud

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The Today programme (RealAudio) this morning reported that vote fraud in Birmingham – which took place three years ago – may have been more extensive than originally thought.

“There was even a riot” said Ed Stourton.

There was indeed – in fact there were a couple of incidents – all reported at the time in the local media and on blogs – and all completely ignored by the £3bn BBC. Even postmen weren’t safe.

Yet the BBC is fascinated by some forms of alleged vote fraud or electoral malpractice, devoting report after report to the subject – where the alleged fraudsters are US Republicans.

The BBC are catching up with the Birmingham frauds three years late – and they still can’t report it correctly – Ed Stourton stating that the (Kashmiri) People’s Justice Party is ‘now defunct’. Maybe they shouldn’t rely on Wikipedia. As Brummie gossip site the Stirrer and Labour councillor Bob Piper report, the PJP is actually standing in the 2007 elections.

But at least they’ve caught up with the Brum news. In contrast, BBC listeners and viewers remain blissfully unaware of last weekend’s Sunday Times allegations of postal vote malpractice in Leeds or the joint police-council statement on the subject. Expect an in-depth Today report in 2010 ?

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