Monthly Archives: October 2003

Here’s a piece on recent website coverage of the so-called revamping of US Iraq policy. The website provides the most detailed and broad range of BBC coverage available anywhere, and must surely be important in shaping international opinion through the internet. The newsgathering it employs must also be very important for co-ordinating all branches of the BBC- terrestrial TV, radio, digital and cable.

Another Salvo in the War: Vendettas to Pursue

The BBC is not paying attention to reports that it is having a bad war. In fact, it is particularly keen to emphasise that the war isn’t over until the fat lady is free to sing in a UN sponsored concert tour of Tikrit, Fallujah and the Baathist triangle compeered by Rageh Omar. Until then, or until Bush is re-elected to their chagrin, they will not budge an inch or give a budge in their implacable war on Dubya’s terrorism.

It might surprise some people that the Beeb has run a series of reports capitalising on Donald Rumsfeld’s perceived ‘snub’ by Condoleeza Rice. There are no fewer than four correspondent pieces dealing with this ‘hot issue’ in Washington, Colorado and Iraq, which Rumsfeld portrayed as a routine memo. You’d almost think the Beeb didn’t like Rummie.

This week’s Iraq centrefold (well, it’s fairly sexy anyway) appears to be Nick Child’s report, ‘Has Rumsfeld been demoted?’. Since this would imply a loss of rank, and Rummie hasn’t been removed from his post, the answer is obviously ‘no’- end of story as billed. This article is one of those ‘rent a gob’ pieces, where the big blows are dealt by an ‘expert’, in this case prime bruiser being William Hartung of the grandly titled ‘World Policy Institute’, author of ‘Power Trip: US Foreign policy After September 11th’and guest on the subject of ‘America Attacked: Alternatives to War’ for a Washington Post online debate on 20th September 2001. Sounds friendly to Rummie. Actually, on investigation, he sounds like Rummie’s biggest enemy: who better to share the moment of Rumsfeld’s ‘decline’ with? Did they even need to rent this gob?

Surprisingly, ‘Mr Hartung… said that, not before time, President Bush was putting Mr Rumsfeld in his place’. He was ‘a loose cannon’… who ‘believes he can get away with it because he’s an elder statesman’… and ‘says these things in a jovial fashion’ . Another, more moderate, ‘expert’, talked in terms of a gentle decline. The combined effect of one vaguely (though arguably) moderate voice and one enemy of Rumsfeld? I’d say the Beeb’s attitude towards Rumsfeld, exemplified by David Dimbleby’s comment in a televised interview six months ago, is pretty consistent, and Hartung is a useful chap to knock the nails in the coffin:

‘DD: Are you saying things the rest of the administration won’t speak out about? Are you part of the problem of the United States getting the kind of backing that it needs?

DR: Well, I doubt it.’ (March 04 2003)

I think we need to ask the BBC: ‘Are you part of the problem of the United States getting the kind of backing that it needs?’ They are the story, everybody, as they have said about Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor.

BTW, the other dispatches are almost as bad- each suggestive rather than factual, with the same half truths and insinuations found in this one. Look- here, here and here.

The Saturday 11th October edition of ‘Talking Politics’ (Radio 4), hosted by Sheena McDonald, was a model of BBC P.C. bias.

Let me say at the start that I have nothing against opinion programmes, so long as there is diversity in the kind of opinions offered, and opinion pieces are clearly sign posted as such. Talking Politics is not sign posted as an op-ed piece.

The programme was on the subject of women in politics (Westminster politics). A group of like-minded labour politicians and left-wing writers gathered together to discuss what is wrong with politics. Naturally, it is awful, and it’s those pesky men.

If I tell you that one of the contributors has written a book called ‘Why do women vote Conservative?’ you’ll understand the thrust of the programme. The assertions that ‘Affirmative Action’ was a good thing was hardly challenged – in fact we need more of it. That ‘Affirmative Action’ could also be called ‘State-Sponsored Discrimination’ was not discussed, nor was the irony that such policies fell foul of anti-discrimination law discussed either.

For me, the most remarkable thing about this programme (aside from the presenter’s lack of professionalism) was the fact that the ‘T’ word (Thatcher) was not mentioned. Love her or hate her, I believe she ranks with Clem Atlee as the most successful post-war PM, at least in terms of changing society. She is a woman (and a mother) but of course would have no truck with a bunch of lefties like these, and so is not worthy of mention.

As a final word on this poor programme, getting a group of like minded individuals together to discuss a political topic makes for poor radio.

The Saturday 11th October edition of Today carried an article about the California election.

Margaret Doyle introduced an American author called Jonathan Franzen. Franzen was introduced as a ‘liberal’, which a spot of googling certainly confirms to be the case (though the BBC shows progress here in introducing the standpoint of a speaker who would be unknown to most listeners).

Franzen’s interview was really a monologue. Naturally, the result of the California election was down to the stupidity of the electors. According to Franzen, there are a lot of angry people in America who have no right to be angry. The electorate couldn’t understand the issues etc etc. The failures of previous Governor Mr Davies were not mentioned.

All of Franzen’s comments were accepted without comment by a fawning Doyle. The real question was why this article was included at all. Franzen certainly was not a witty speaker (rather dull actually), and he had nothing fresh to say on the subject. Was it because has was, from a BBC point of view, ‘on message’?

Ok. I thought this piece was going to be long (hint: this is a stealth edit), but it isn’t all that bad when I look at it on the page. It’s just one out of many examples from the ongoing famine of truth and feast of slanted opinion that the BBC is harbouring during this Iraq business.

‘Birth Pains of Iraq’s Democracy’: cynicism, mindlessness and obfuscation?

Terribly strong nouns, those- those that I’ve used in my part of the headline. The rest are provided by Martin Asser’s correspondent piece here about Iraq and the chances for its emerging democracy. Asser’s nouns, by the way, create the prospect of a tension between a good result, ‘democracy’, and a difficult passage, ‘birth pains’. [creep, creep- the question mark is mine ]

On reading his article, one can only feel that the title is ironic, since the main point of the article is to question whether the birth will ever take place (‘didn’t we put the mother in danger for no good reason?’ is the rhetorical implication). Of course, with all the hoohah about negativism, we can’t expect that intent to be signalled by a question mark and scare quotes.

The article is topped and tailed with a flourish of selective hyperbole. The Iraqis, we are told, as if Asser looked into their souls, are ‘profoundly sceptical about their American rulers’ promises to restore democracy after decades of totalitarian dictatorship’ (italics mine). They are also, we are informed by an apparently summary quote at the end of the piece, concerned that ‘the presence of the Americans here takes away our dignity’. So it wasn’t Saddam Hussein who took away their dignity, after all, it’s the result of the American invasion.

Yet, of course, Asser appears not to say that when he mentions that ‘Saddam Hussein…plundered the whole country for years’.

Contradictory you’d think? Not the way that Asser puts it.

Asser has set a context for his reference to Saddam by first referring to Ahmed Chalabi and Iyyad Alawi ‘who were brought in by the Americans despite not having constituencies in the country’ (i.m.- what does it mean?). He goes on to say that ‘Mr Chalabi is widely considered a crook’. Now, after setting the scene, we move on to the biggest crook, which is admitted to be Saddam.

What Asser is saying here is that the US has allied itself with people qualitatively no different to Saddam. That seems to me completely wrong and misleading. It carries the implication that Saddam was primarily an embezzler. Since when did Chalabi have a reputation as a torturer or a mass murderer? There is surely a qualitative as well as a desperately understated quantitative difference between them- ‘billions’ is scarcely adequate by itself to express the monies we are talking of in Saddam’s case.

[Ok, I want to return here with a stealthy edit. I want to acknowledge the phrase ‘pales into insignificance’ and make a few points.
1) Asser uses a figure of speech, not a reasoned phrase.

2) A crook is a crook is a crook.

3) Compare the coverage (in numbers of words as well as detail) of Chalabi’s apparent misdoings with Saddam’s, and ask yourself how the article’s tone is affected.

4) Consider the structure I’ve outlined. My conclusion is that Asser sets up totemic phrases to avoid accusations of bias, but his whole thrust knocks those totems to pieces.]

Sadly, we’re back to usual territory: downplay Saddam and flag up what I can only describe as American inadequacies and injustices. In conclusion: the war was wrong and the Yanks are the real bad guys, yahboo!

I would end there if I could; I have given an utterly defensible conclusion but I haven’t yet addressed the main theme of the article, just the punchline. That’s the effect the Beeb has on me I’m afraid.

So, let’s track back to the article’s origins. As time and space is short, I’ll make bullet points as I scan the article chronologically.
· Contradiction

. Asser says ‘little power has been put into the hands of…the IGC (Iraqi Governing Council)’, and the Iraqis are ‘profoundly sceptical’, but they are also ‘investing considerable hope in the council dealing with their

acute

problems’ (i.m.). Apparently unaware of the contradiction there, Asser then goes on to list the problems, but why do BBC journalists so rarely emphasise that the unemployed men are the result of undoing a military dictatorship and the stagnation of the real economy under Saddam? There’s a huge story seemingly utterly ignored.

· Suggestiveness. Asser rightly states the aims of the IGC, which include its and the coalition’s dissolution, but later adds ‘It is the first real test of a political system which may have to last for years’ (i.m.). This is exaggeration and crystal ball gazing masquerading as reporting an item of news- the tension over Turkey’s involvement in peacekeeping, which might seem to have the potential to shorten the transition by giving Muslim assistance.

· Repetition. ‘If constitutional issues seem somewhat removed from the day-to-day ones that plague Iraq…’. Aren’t they the things he’s just been talking about in the context of the IGC? Or does he insinuate the Baathist terrorism? Either way it’s piling up the cynical tone unjustifiably.

· Rumour mongering from the hotel bar. ‘Recent Iraqi reports citing IGC sources talk about…’ going the same way as Lebanon? Really?

· Repetition of contradiction .If the IGC has been given so little power, and there are all the problems it is powerless to deal with, how come the Iraqis ‘appear to give the process a chance to succeed’? Are they inherently irrational, a version of the much touted ‘Arab street’? Or is it just Asser? I suppose if you really gave emphasis to how bad Saddam was, and factored in the ‘anything’s better than Saddam’ argument, it might make sense, but if, as Asser seems to intend, it’s combined with the idea that it is the Americans who have taken away Iraqis’ ‘honour and their dignity’, it just doesn’t add up.

Happy 100,000 hits to us

Happy 100,000 hits, dear Biased Bee Bee Cee-ee…

Happy 100,000 hits to us.

Was Radio 1 really making the right choice when it opted for Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love?” as the backing music for a report on Arnie’s election to the California governorship, and potential future ambitions? Is the lyric “terrorists in the USA, the big CIA, the bloods and the crips and the KKK” really appropriate? Ignorance or bias, you decide…

Ms Kay is not happy again. She still views the win as a loss for Davis, rather than a win for Arnie because people wanted him to.

More interestingly, even if one supports the argument that a narrowly-based, high culture state broadcaster is permissible to allow people to better themselves (don’t scoff too much – I believe this is the thesis of Rose’s ‘Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes’ – and the market does not appear to be very efficient at giving poor people the high culture that the better-off can afford to consume – at extreme public subsidy too I might add), even if one allows this, should a state broadcaster’s role include opinion at all?

Perhaps this is where it has gone wrong – the BBC worked all those long years ago when it provided cold news (and was relied on as the fact source of record) and also high-culture plays and opera etc (and I dare say I am happy that there might have been some miners’ children in the impoverished North who learnt about Beethoven that way). The private sector is better at the BBC at providing opinion, and can do it more quickly and more efficiently. Why should the BBC provide opinion at all?

This is a quick fix, because the soft-left bias corrodes its news reporting as well as its editorial, but some proper guidelines and real editing could go a long way to fixing that. Of course, once it was made to spin off to the private sector all of the commerical tat it produces, subsidised by us, in direct competiton with the other TV channels (like EastEnders and 500 dreary home improvement shows) and dumped all of its new, sloppily researched and error-ridden, left-leaning ‘gotcha’ attack investigative journalism (that appears to have had tragic effects), it would have much more time to ensuring that its news was sober and sensible. Why was the British public happy for BT to float (another dinosaur from the bad old days of socialist Britain), yet the defunct NHS and multiple-tentacled Marxist juggernaut that is the BBC are sacred cows? (extreme mixed metaphor alert there)

Comments?

A comical series of counter comments runs through this article.

One of the things Auntie doesn’t like is that it might seem to boost the Republicans. Remember, Arnold was only running on a ‘Republican ticket’, whatever they are (something to do with trains or whatever). Remember too, Arnold, you’ve been ‘short on detail and “big” on promises’, but also that you’ve got by by ‘not promising very much of anything’. In general, Auntie doesn’t feel you deserve your victory (that’s scarcely mentioning your wandering hands). She hopes you’ll bear that in mind as your economy outgrows that of the United Kingdom.

Here goes…

For serious coverage of the California circus, which also happens to be a State not far away from having an economy the size of Britain’s, Mark Steyn’s essay ‘A state too far’ is available here.

There’s no denying though that the Beeb has a great sense of humour. Take a look at an example from David Bamford

here

Note the gentle indulgence of George Bush’s mental flailings over Israel’s recent actions. Poor George it seems can’t help but contradict himself as a matter of custom. This despite the fact that they are merely fleshing out ‘formal’ policy. The US do not seem ’embarrassed’ by Israel’s strike meanwhile, not that I can think why they should be since they say they had no prior warning of the decision, and therefore no real say in the matter, which has elsewhere been described by the Beeb itself as a ‘response’ to the Haifa bombing. Stop putting ideas in my head, you Beebies!

The real issue involved here is the lumping together of the US and Israel as a solid block engaging in violence and intimidation of countries and groups in the Middle East. In reality, the bombing of the camp in Syria was an act of self-defence, one way or another, against a group (Islamic Jihad) which engineers the slaughter of civilians, and its supporter Syria. To try and pull the ‘stupid Bush’ wool over the moral understanding of these events seems to me despicable. In ridiculing Bush the BBC do a disservice to a proper understanding of events, however funny a character he presents. Actually, they are just boringly following the queue of satiricists from Slate magazine onwards. In my view, there is rarely contradiction in Bush’s words- merely a straightforwardness which fails to pander to journalists with their desire for ‘nuance’.

Have a look at the rest of the article for a carefully worked attempt to make us join in with a denunciation of US/Israeli policy. It begins with us being bored with the ‘same old, same old’ US/Israel schlock. Then we get the cynical BBC hackism of ‘reasonable’ supposition about the raid. Finally, this is topped by the assertion that this act, of which the US (we are assured a little disingenuously) is not embarrassed, is really a coded warning to Syria. In other words, the US was as much behind the attack as Israel. They’re in it together! Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Oh, and by the way, have you forgotten, in all the excitement and wit, what caused this much-hyped shooting match, the other day, in Haifa? I hope not.

BBC correspondent Katty Kay has a good laugh at Arnie the Terminator, wacky Californian delis, joke candidates and so on. She probably thinks she’s being impartial because she freely admits the incumbent Democrat, Gray Davis, is likely to lose.

“Arnie appears to have been given something of a free pass precisely because he is a film star and not a politician.

“Which, in the end, may be precisely the reason that Californians elect him over their very experienced but rather wooden governor.

“Which takes me to Gray Davis.

“What is it about this slim, silver-haired politician that Californians hate so much? “

Let me see… could it be the financial, energy and sleaze crises that have marked his administration? Not according to Kay. It can only be because he is a wooden public speaker. No doubt there are many funny and foolish aspects to the California gubernatorial election – but I am surprised that Katty Kay cannot even manage one word about the substantial reasons that one million Californians might have had for petitioning to recall Gray Davis before Arnie’s candidature was ever heard of.

If this were a case of explaining the odd customs of an obscure tribe the BBC would make a creditable attempt to dig beneath the surface to make apparently strange behaviours comprehensible. However when it comes to the democratic process in the largest state of the world’s most powerful democracy the only motives Kay ascribes to those she reports on are frivolous ones.