Seeing the headline href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3890821.stm”>BBC Iraq war coverage criticised on BBC News Online’s UK page was puzzling – had the penny dropped at last? Or are they reporting someone else’s criticism of their lamentably biased coverage last year?
No fear! The story, appropriately enough in the Entertainment section of News Online, reveals that:
“BBC coverage of the Iraq war did not treat military sources with enough scepticism, the corporation’s annual report has said.” and “there was “much to be proud of” in the BBC’s coverage of the war. It included a good range of Arab and Muslim opinion, the governors said, while “outstanding analysis” came from Newsnight and The World at One. BBC news reporting in general was praised.”
Turning to the News
section of the href=”http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/report2004/download.shtml”>annual report
reveals this gem:
The main international story of the year was the war in Iraq and its aftermath. The conspicuous lack of national consensus here meant that, once again, the BBC’s impartiality came under intense scrutiny. BBC News passed the test. An ICM poll in April 2003 indicated that it had sustained its position as the best and most trusted provider of news.
Presumably the ICM poll in question was conducted in Wood Lane, W12 and Farringdon Road, EC1, outside BBC Television Centre and the office’s of The Guardian, results compiled by Mr. G. Dyke and Ms. P. Toynbee.
Could this be the same organisation that was described in href=”http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,922206,00.html”>The
Guardian (Jason Deans, 26MAR03) thus:
The BBC’s coverage of the war has come under fire from one of its own correspondents in the Gulf who has fired off a furious memo claiming the corporation is misleading viewers about the conflict in Iraq.Paul Adams, the BBC’s defence correspondent who is based at the coalition command centre in Qatar, complained that the corporation was conveying a untruthful picture of how the war was progressing.
Adams accused the BBC’s coverage of exaggerating the military impact of casualties suffered by UK forces and downplaying their achievements on the battlefield during the first few days of the conflict.
“I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering ‘significant casualties’. This is simply not true,” Adams said in the memo.
“Nor is it true to say – as the same intro stated – that coalition forces are fighting ‘guerrillas’. It may be guerrilla warfare, but they are not guerrillas,” he stormed.
“Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving ‘small victories at a very high price?’ The truth is exactly the opposite. The gains are huge and costs still relatively low. This is real warfare, however one-sided, and losses are to be expected,” Adams continued.
Or this one, from The
Times (Tim Hames, 07JUL03):
For this affair has left the BBC dangerously exposed. It has served as a catalyst, allowing diverse complaints about its news coverage to resurface simultaneously. The Beeb has been accused of, among other matters, fanatical suspicion of the motives of
those in power and unrelenting hostility towards the Conservative Party. It has beenattacked for a wholesale scepticism about capitalism, combined with a weakness for quack environmentalism and health-scare speculation over hard science.
Reporting the Middle East, it sometimes seems so remorselessly anti-Israeli that Mr Dyke might as well be open about it and allow his reporters to appear speaking Arabic, riding a camel, stopping occasionally to suck from a long pipe in a crowded souk.
Put bluntly, the BBC, a public sector bureaucracy funded by a poll tax, with a privileged status that looks starkly anomalous in an age of hundreds of television channels and thousands of radio stations, needs more friends. It is already detested by other broadcasters, derided by the print press for squandering its vast resources and damned by publishing houses for its increasingly aggressive marketing activities in their domain.
Could be. And what can we conclude from these contradictions?
Little has changed, other than the names on the doors of the DG and the Chairman of the Governors. Smug old Auntie’s grand party continues – at least until we benefactors realise that Auntie’s not the slim, sober, reliable soul she once was.
It’s time to find her a nice home to while away her dotage, on a much reduced allowance, of course.
I think you’ll find that in the poll mentioned more correspondents felt that BBC war reporting was biased towards the US/UK viewpoint than against but that the BBC provided the most impartial coverage. This was a scientific poll conducted by a respectable research organisation.
Whilst you and I might well disagree with these conclusions that puts us in the minority – pretending otherwise is just plain childish.
No, you see, right-libertarian-hawk is the only political viewpoint that sensible people could contemplate having, and if any organisation’s overall editorial tone doesn’t fit the right-libertarian-hawk worldview then it’s biased.
The fact that the BBC, the Telegraph and the British public have all unfortunately fallen victim to foolish left-wing propaganda is an unfortunate occurence that needs to be dealt with. The only solution is to abolish the BBC and the Telegraph, and to elect a new British public.
No John as we are forced to pay for the BBC’s reporting we merely point out where “news” has been turned into “opinion” as per what it says in the BBC charter.
A touch tetchy today, eh RB!
The issue isn’t the legitimacy of the ICM poll – they are a respected organisation, regardless of my attempt at satire (although I’d be interested to know the poll’s purpose, its sponsor and its full results) – no, it’s that, with all that has gone on over the last 18 months, the BBC Governors piously assure us that “The BBC passed the test”.
No it didn’t. Not for me, not for many others.
Perhaps we are in the minority. In which case, the real test for the BBC to pass isn’t an opinion poll – it’s the test of public approval, measured by popular subscription to the BBC’s various services, rather than the current state-collective approach to BBC funding that taxes everyone for all of it, whether they watch any of it or not.
After all, the BBC is never keen to heed opinion polls when it comes to things like the EU, immigration, capital punishment etc.!
john b, nearly there:
“you see, right-libertarian-hawk is the only political viewpoint that sensible people could contemplate having
That’s the way it looks if you ignore how this site works using “basis in fact rather than basis in opinion” to validate its findings.
Regardless of whether a thing is right wing or left wing opinionated… if its basis is consistantly contrary to the facts then it is biased. This site points out those errors and therefore the bias stands out.
The BBC’s news output consistantly contains left wing anti-american/anti Israeli/pro-islamic bias. That this site calls that bias for what it is does not make it right wing. All it makes it is sensible.
‘…a scientific poll conducted by a respectable research organisation.’ Uhm, yeah. Care to share a few facts there, RB? Like wording of questions and time of day and manner in which they were asked, sample size, dates, cost, stuff like that? Then we can all be Enlightened Ones.
Bill Clinton gave a very significant interview on the Today programme this morning, repeating his consistent line that Bush and Blair acted in good faith on Iraq. Contradicting the Gilligan/Humphrys/Naughtie line that the progamme has sustained for over a year.
So why isn’t this splashed all over the BBC website ? It isn’t even highlighted on the Today homepage.
Wally,
Can’t find the ICM poll referred to in the report but ICM is a well respected independent market research organisation and is bound by the MRS code of conduct. I sincerely doubt that they would skew results in pursuit of any kind of political agenda.
Here’s a link to the ICT survey which I was thinking of re: perception of war bias of various media.
Click to access conflict_around_the_clock.pdf
As you can see the perception of anti war bias found on this site is less than common.
Hello RB
Perhaps you do not work in the commercial sector, since you would be aware that much research can be ‘influenced’. See for example (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3026933.stm). If you spoke to an ex- senior BBCer I would suspect that this is indeed the purpose of the BBC. You simply cannot ‘trust’ private sector organisations (e.g the evil Murdoch Empire) only the BBC can tell the ‘truth’. Commercial corporations are almost always bad. ICM do not seem to be keen to define their commercial interests on their website.
Personally, I believe every one is biased (left or right).It is interesting that you had not read the report, I would suggest that if people were interviewed for the poll they would ‘trust’ the BBC, since it was created as a monopoly and has been beamed into most peoples homes for 50+ years (‘Aunty’ Beeb). However, I suspect that people are realising, that the BBC is as biased as anyone else. I have certainly voted with my thumb.
Hello Lee,
Not entirely sure what you’re getting at, however I very much work in the commercial sector in that socialist hotbed the City of London.
I am of course fully aware that research can be ‘influenced’, however ICM is not a shady organisation, it is one of the UK best known polling organisations. As such it’s questions are put together under MRS guidelines and it uses a demographically accurate sample. We’re not talking about a Sun or Mirror ‘you the jury’ type poll, or indeed a survey run through the BBC’s website.
I’m not trying to make any point other than that in this particular instance the British public does not share the opinions expressed by this site.
Hmm interesting. Andrew respects ICM and satirises them having two respondents.
Then he claims ICM got it wrong, by quoting two respondents.
Now how do I spell hippo-crass-ee again.
You miss the point Reith – the issue is the sheer contrast between the Governor’s smug, complacent, £2.5 billion-telly-tax-a-year thank you very much BBC (“BBC News passed the test”, indeed!) and the widely held view among a large swathe of the population (even if we’re not in the majority, yet) that the BBC is busy pursuing its own Guardian style right-on agenda, as highlighted in the two countering articles I quoted.
There are many other articles and people with similar views – just type “BBC bias” into Google, and come back when you’ve read them all, there’s a good chap. See you in a couple of years!
Hello RB
I meant to make the point that Pollsters are commercial organisations and quite often tell their customers what they want to hear. Please refer to
‘Inquiry into opinion polls urged’. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3763103.stm) – MPs have signed a Commons motion querying the “integrity, honesty and professionalism” of the industry.
Please consider also these other ICM polls for the BBC
a)Fewer than one out of every 10 Britons believe it would be right for the country to take part in a war against Iraq
b)No less than 93% of the British population had tuned in to the BBC in the first two weeks of the Iraq war.
My second point would be that the BBC, who believe that they are the only ones untainted by the profit motive, are actually no different to any other organization, in that they want to survive. So I think it is eminently possible that the BBC wanted such results and that a pollster would give them such results.
‘the BBC, a public sector bureaucracy funded by a poll tax, with a privileged status that looks starkly anomalous.’
Yes, that it is anomalous is precisely why it should be supported: it has not yet been subsumed within the economic, cultural and doctrinal system of late capitalism. To argue that something should be eliminated because it is ‘anomalous’ – irregular, heterogeneous – is frighteningly conformist nonsense. But again, unintentionally revealing stuff from the lunatic fringes of the far Right.
Yes, indeed, on the “lunatic Fringe of the Far Right” could ever be offended by the many errors, inaccuracies, distortions, and outright lies promulgated by the BBC!
a.user, you’re off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all Guardianista truisms are comical at best.
And you never answer my question.
Why on earth would I want to waste my time reading more garbage, usually spawned by people like yourself who have more time on your hands than is healthy, and whose reponse to seeing a molehill is to point, wide-eyed and shout “the Alps”!
Hello A.User
On the contrary there should be a left- wing media channel- but it should not be funded by the tax payer and wear its heart on its sleeve, rather than trying (and failing) to be impartial.
Before you think that that is impossible you should consider Ted Turners CNN. Which is much better quality than the BBC.
‘.user, you’re off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all Guardianista truisms are comical at best.’
So is your use of English. A ‘truism’ is something which is necessarily or obviously true, and it’s therefore surprising that you attribute such obvious truth to what you are arguing against. As for ‘Guardianista’, I don’t read the Guardian – too right wing for me.
Well, make fun of my command of English — when you can’t argue reasonably or logically. I’m surprised you also didn’t pick up on my erroneous use of “you’re” instead of “your” which I typed after a few too many sips of wine. Obviously slipping there old boy!
Typical leftist elitist nonsense. You still never answered my question in any way remotely resembling a direct and honest way, but yet, you feel obligated to spend the time to nitpick my grammar!
Sorry, I ain’t buying. Your attacks on my grammar are no more intimidating to me than your accusations of “racism”. You can’t shout us down here as if we were the lone deviant (“conservative”) panelist on Question Time! Hurts to realize that, doesn’t it?
Also, I am sure that to the Guardian/BBC mindset, anything they post to propagate their world view IS a “truism” so how is my use of the word innaccurate? That is clearly how they feel about their self-evident “truths.”
Reith,
You would not regard it as a molehill if you had to pay for a BBC news service which appeared to you to be institutionally opposed to your left wing(?) political philosophy, and inevitably to influence the opinions of the nation.
I assume you guys have already latched on to this article:
http://www.newstatesman.com/site.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_NS&newDisplayURN=200406070018