Monthly Archives: February 2004

: having now seen the second episode, I too would like to praise BBC2’s series on Dunkirk (‘Against All Odds’, screened yesterday, today and tomorrow).

When so many today, in the BBC and elsewhere, like to tell the fashionable PC lie, these programmes seem to have been made by someone who prefers to tell the truth. ‘Faction’ documentaries – dramatised history – are too often a particularly happy hunting ground for those who would rather express their prejudices than the facts, but the two episodes I’ve seen so far give the impression of an effort simply to convey a flavour of what happened.

That’s all we ask: that people care more about what is true than any agenda, and simply make the effort. It’s also what the men who were there deserve. It’s good that they are receiving it. It’s less good that they are again winning against the odds. There exists a PC revisionist history of Dunkirk, as of everything else. It’s a distortion, but no more so than much BBC material we have dissected on this blog in the past. It would have been no great surprise to see it appearing in the dramatised episodes.

I shall be pleased if this is a harbinger of better things. Whether or no, it is good in itself.

Bad Dairy Products and Faulty Electrics. Or Parmalat and Enron- not that there’s anything wrong with the actual substances they both deal/dealt in, especially Parmalat, whose dairy products are allegedly yum-yummy. No, the question I have is whether the Beeb really enjoys talking more about the Enron scandal than the Parmalat one. You see, 404 articles versus 48 might be said to tell a story. That story might be that one scandal’s been around longer than the other, or that one scandal is much bigger than the other- and that latter point one of the BBC’s own articles makes:

‘Parallels with Enron should not be taken too far…Enron was notionally 11 times larger than the Italian firm’.

Fair enough. Then why does another article say that

‘It is becoming clear that a vast fraud, probably the biggest in corporate history, has been perpetrated at Parmalat’

Why, too, are the figures given by the BBC for the companies’ respective debts 14.3bn Euros and $15bn? In today’s currency climate that would make Parmalat’s debts significantly bigger than Enron’s.

Not only these anomalies worry me. There’s also some hyped up anti-capitalist language, and contradiction as well. In one article we find in quick succession ‘disgraced.. giant Enron … byword… corporate misgovernance.. greed’ . In another article (the first one highlighted) we hear that

‘Enron was so shocking because it epitomised everything that American capitalism had been taught to admire- glamour, nerve, rapid growth and revolutionary thinking. It’s failure was- perhaps rightly- seen as a failure of corporate America, and so shook the very foundations’

Yet, in the same article, we are are introduced to the problems of ‘Parmalat, Italy’s iconic food and dairy company’. What’s the difference here between an ‘epitome’ and an ‘icon’- both indicate a brand that is looked up to? So even on that front, Parmalat would appear to have claims to rival Enron- but the rhetorical gulf completely undermines that reasonable conclusion. That’s not to mention the question of employees, and potential unemployment, where again Parmalat (36,000 vs 21, 000) may be seen to outstrip Enron (a fact not surprising when you consider their businesses). The judgement that Enron ‘perhaps rightly’ symbolised the failure of ‘American capitalism’ should at least be extended to ‘European social capitalism’ through the Parmalat scandal in Europe, or it should be retracted. The coverage on the BBC’s part appears to be quite deliberately unequal. The really sad thing is they can’t even maintain a consistent line on the matter in their own articles: hence their coverage draws attention to itself with the whiff of hypocrisy and self-contradiction. Friday Update: I’ve altered the above post- mostly about synchronising quotes with links, but also some changes of tone. Sorry for any confusion.

Here is a cracker from DumbJon (there, that’s something I’ve been wanting to say for a while) about the Sean Gabb/free speech affair I referred to three posts ago.

Kudos to the BBC, again:

BBC gets the historical drama of Dunkirk absolutely right

By John Keegan

A Plague on Stealth Editors. Well, that’s what I could wish, given the number of times the BBC have squirmed out of an insupportable first version of a story. The trouble for the BBC is that more and more people are noticing. How can a so-called reliable News gatherer require so many reverse gears? This time it’s a story about the Kerry ‘whatsit’ by Paul Reynolds that’s caught the attention of Rush Limbaugh. It’s slightly unusual for what was essentially a commentary that stealthy editing should occur, which makes Rush’s observations all the more telling. (via Instapundit)

A tongue-in-cheek remark, from Peter, directed at the Beeb in the next post-but-one below, had me chuckling. He said

‘I guess that we’re simply not up the rarified air (waves) of Britain where they’ve got no need for data because they know better. In fact, why even file a report or visit these farms. Just tell us what is good and bad in the world and we’ll follow. ‘

Well, Peter, that’s just how it works over here. You’re obviously backward in your education, education, education- but you’re learning! Truly though, there are two more instances I need to pass on where Aunty (as we little children often refer to our elders and betters) knows best. One is where Aunty slapped down naughty Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance for taking advantage of her hospitality to make rude remarks about how he wasn’t happy about giving away money to immigrants. The other is an instance where Aunty quite properly turned the other cheek when she found out that the nice people against hunting were telling porky-pies (lies) about not shooting deer on their own estate. When oh when will people just learn that they can rely on Aunty to know best? (thanks to Samizdata and Bob- and check out the many Samizdata comments- there should be some good ones.)

More Wagging Tonge– this time ‘at the invitation of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme’ . Please feel free to make observations. (Thanks to Eamonn for pointing to this).

Back To The Old Assumptions. This anti-US story seems a much more natural expression of the BBC’s judgement on world affairs. In the ‘good news Guantanamo Bay’ story below, the reader was expected to be surprised to hear that a young detainee was not bitter over his treatment. The assumption was that the reader would naturally believe that the US is treating inmates badly, with just the odd ray of sunlight being a story like that teenager’s. In the story I link to above there are as many overt and covert anti-Americanisms as I’ve come across- frighteningly so for what is really an online offshoot of a BBCWorld Service series (presented by Jonathan Marcus).

I offer just a sample. The piece begins

‘Mike Haverty has the sort of job most small boys dream of. He is president of his own railway.‘,

which is a familiar ‘boys with globalising toys’ sort of approach. It goes on to say,

‘The US is clearly seen by many as the villain of the piece.’,

and then

‘Big US agro-business is intent on spreading its products around the world, with the simple mantra of “what is good for the US consumer is good for the rest of us as well.” ‘

In between such proclamations, we get a non-stop stream of interviews almost wholly concentrating on opponents and ‘victims’ of US policy, combined with the odd apparently ‘human touch’,

‘But when I met Bill Wylie on his small farm in Kansas, he did not look much like a villain.’,

to which my response was ‘well, why should he, and isn’t the very concept ridiculous in the specific trade context? And which empire was it that presided over such real ‘disasters’ as the potato famine? And wasn’t Mexico (especially rural Mexico) really, really poor before Nafta- or was there a golden era I missed somewhere? And where’s the balance, the other point of view, in this entire article?’ (btw, I should point out I’m British, despite the number of times I write accusing the Beeb of anti-American positions. To me, that’s a reflection on them, and the priorities they make in their reporting). One other aside- according to Marcus, US policy has been so self-centred for so long, even Bill Clinton wasn’t entirely fair. That bad, huh?

The Happiest Days of Your Life. Kudos to the BBC for reporting this tale of happy days at Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps they might consider rethinking the kneejerk headline slot that’s been given to groups of professional worriers like Human Rights Watch? Among other lovely ‘think again’ passages:

‘You might think he (detainee’s father) would be angry with the Americans. Actually he thinks they have done Naqibullah a favour. ‘

Tuesday Update. Melanie Phillips expresses my feelings on the ‘categorically untrue’ affair.Sunday Update: Read Mark Steyn on The Lop-Sided Take. So there are two rounds of scandal-mongering taking place as Kerry and Bush begin to square up to each other. One is well known from the last election, the other is becoming well known. How this process is handled by the BBC is very important: each word in a report about the Kerry ‘whatsit’ must be measured, and of course journalists themselves are sparring over the way this ‘whatsit’ finds its way into the public mind. The report I saved yesterday on the BBC website is very different to the one I found this morning.

Firstly, what’s the case for ignoring the Kerry ‘whatsit’? As Vodkapundit illustrates, it’s important to stay cool. Firstly I suppose that not enough information has been revealed to prove the central allegation true. Secondly that many of the sources are clearly politically interested ones. Thirdly you may not think sex is that important in deciding who is fit to govern. Fourthly the alleged source of the allegation, Wesley Clark, has just offered his wholehearted endorsement of Kerry, and you may say that proves that the story is poorly founded, if the source can’t be relied on to reiterate the allegation(s).

But while the BBC devoted only a few lines to the Kerry ‘whatsit’ as part of a report in which the major foci were General Clark’s endorsement and alleged Republican dirty tricks, they gave a whole report to the continuing rumpus over President Bush’s alleged poor Vietnam war service record. Never mind the fact that this is old news. Never mind that it was covered during the last campaign. Never mind that the parties prolonging the affair are clearly politically motivated, never mind the fact that the records support Bush against accusations of major wrong-doing, never mind the fact that whatever behaviour Bush might be accused of, it happened not just over one year (like Kerry’s ‘whatsit’) but over thirty years ago. Never mind the facts, in fact, lets run a story against President Bush and be hush-hush over the Kerry ‘whatsit’.