Monthly Archives: August 2004

I’ve been away. So I might have. But has the BBC reported the Swift Boats controversy at all?

The dispute about the terror warnings in the States rumbles on- despite the continuing emergence of plots and plans from the al-Qaeda hard drive treasure troves. This one is the best I’ve heard of so far– filmmakers take note (let’s hope it’ll only ever be a storyline).

The BBC has made its position clear, and has reported largely on the political issue of whether the Republicans are trying to scare their populace into crossing the (R) box in November- and issues arising, such as how real the threat is.
I mentioned the Telegraph’s view previously. Well, they, like the BBC, are still at it. This accusation– that the US spoiled a sting operation in Pakistan because of political concerns- is likely in part due to cultural differences. It would seem Americans, instead of trusting the professionals as we do ;-), like to be involved in their own security- and if the US had stood firm and not released information they would have been standing against a tide which the BBC and the Telegraph both added their weights to.

I was wondering whether to critique this article by Stephen Evans which adds some further spin to the BBC approach, and then I re-read what has become the B-BBC motto- the words of Andrew Marr challenging critics of the BBC to explain where the BBC got it wrong and what was unfair. This was a very cheeky challenge really- as though the viewers of a PSB are responsible to the channel rather than the other way round.
Despite the fact that the BBC (and the Telegraph, that partisan privately owned organ) were clearly wrong to jump on the bandwagon of scepticism about intelligence and terror alerts, it’s typical of them merely to laugh it off, never mind printing any retractions and putting on record their misjudgement. Compare that with this Mark Steyn letters page.

To come to the article I mentioned, we kick off with some barely concealed BBC Americaphobia. Stephen Evans says
‘To live in America in these strange, tense times is to live in a country of the bizarre, the unsettling, the surreal.’

My response to this was, ‘so what’s changed in the life of a BBC correspondent? Isn’t America always land of the surreal, unsettling and bizarre?’
Observing Evans trying to fit his superior BBC feet into the shoes of an average Joe in NYC is somewhat bizarre in itself. This is not the voice of the BBC you’re about to hear, but some parody of a US mindset:

‘We know there are evil people out there intending to kill and maim us, perhaps watching us, riding the same trains… Against them are the authorities, officialdom…’
I would refer at this point to the quote from a passer-by the World Bank which found a place in one of the BBC’s anti-Bush efforts about a week ago:

‘”Bush has to have something to get him back into office,” he added.’
There is a coincidence between this New York-based correspondent’s creative writing and the casual accusation seized on by the BBC Washington reporter. They fit together in presenting an idiot’s guide as to why W might win in November.

Evans then digresses into a tale of apparent US’ laxness where it apparently really counts- in the environs of Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. How sensible this point is I don’t know- I expect there would be varying accounts. However, the point being made is obvious: here’s the BBC correspondent depicting his view of near-panic in New York, yet at a militarily sensitive site apparent calm.
I sense another Democratic campaign point coming on: GWB overreacts where he shouldn’t, and underreacts where he should react strongly. Something about a need to restore balance to the “War on Terror”; something about not politicising intelligence.

Next thing you know Evans has moved onto another example of mismanaged security- an incident I could swear I’ve heard replicated on other occasions when people want to laugh at security services. So there are these two guards, see? And they spot an unattended bag, see? And one of them says ‘I wonder if it’s a bomb?’ And the other one says ‘I don’t know’, and then kicks it over to see if it’ll explode. By the way, you know how fat Americans are? Well, the security guards (both of them), actually ‘waddled’ up to the suspect bag.
Moving on, or rather, back, remember the false tone in the description of ‘evil’ people out to get Mr Evans? Well, later in the piece we get some indication of what our correspondent really thinks:

‘It is true I am only a sample of one, but I live in Lower Manhattan and work in Times Square – two targets on any evil doer’s list, you would think – yet when the authorities tell me I am more at risk today than yesterday, I have to say that I am unconvinced.’
You have to note the sarcasm here, and the ability in the same article to completely contradict himself (or does ‘us’ suddenly not include ‘me’?). I think such tactics can only be described as rhetorical devices.

That’s why when I find Evans saying
…‘the police scream around in convoys. People in uniform – railway officials, hotel staff, security guards – seem to think they have a right to know your business.

That is not a conspiracy to keep the people frightened.‘

I am afraid I do not believe he is sincere. Even though he goes on to question it vaguely, he has put an accusation to the reader so extreme that it has pushed the boundaries of our potential mistrust of Bush. We find ourselves, by suggestion, being urged to think ‘no, not a conspiracy… but…’, and so, if suggestible, being confirmed in a state of inchoate mistrust.
I think Mr Evans would feel some satisfaction at that outcome.

The parliamentary human rights committee today announced various conclusions they’ve reached on the detention without trial of foreign terror suspects in the UK.

The crucial point to remember about the twelve foreign nationals currently detained under this legislation is that they are free to leave the UK at any time. They are people the UK government would ordinarily deport, but in these cases cannot, because, under our human rights legislation, we cannot forcibly return them to their home countries because of their home countries human rights records.

I’ve watched BBC coverage of this story today on the One O’Clock News, the Ten O’Clock News and on BBC News Online in a story headlined Terror detention law ‘must go’.

All three of these treatments of the story are fairly lengthy – but only one of them – Mark Mardell’s report on the Ten O’Clock News, mentioned the crucial point about the freedom of these suspects to leave the UK whenever they wish, and even then with emphasis on the torture (surely he meant ‘alleged torture’!) in their home countries.

So why was this? Why wasn’t this point mentioned on News Online or on the One O’Clock News report? Is it because it puts an entirely different slant on the rationale for the legislation? Or is it just the usual amateur-hour performance of these two BBC news outlets?

Or maybe Mark Mardell read Rob’s comment here earlier in the day and decided that such an egregious omission would be indefensible even by the BBC!

I noticed today’s Telegraph with the headline ‘Terror Alert Based on ‘Plot’ Three Years Old’– and I thought (not for the first time), ‘the Telegraph are getting in on the act’.

The point is that where the Beeb leads, others follow. Not that this is always the case. The Beeb’s fawning coverage of Sen. Kerry’s Convention was not imitated by all that many- which is a good job for the sake of public understanding, and bad news for Kerry’s flaccid ‘bounce’.

In the case of the recent terror warnings, however, the Beeb has paraded some of its worst journalism because its own instincts and the public’s cynicism are perfectly matched. Their silliness has gone nuclear, ‘twould seem.

Jonathan Marcus states the BBC party-line:

‘Inevitably the Iraq War has given intelligence a very bad name and so it is easy to

see why each new alert draws a fair measure of cynicism.’

and then goes on to ‘inform’ that:

‘The prevailing wisdom is that al-Qaeda actually “likes” George W Bush in the sense that his muscular rhetoric is seen as playing up the very divisions that al-Qaeda wishes to emphasise.’

In fact this was the gist of an Al-Qaeda missive to the West, but I haven’t had any sense that this is the ‘prevailing wisdom’ here. It rather begs the question of your definition of wisdom and who the BBC correspondent is listening to.

Meawhile, Paul Reynolds is rather hung-up on old versus new intelligence. The simple answer, without all his ramblings, would be ‘it’s new to us’. Instead, Reynolds’ ramblings give him space to offload some trademark cynicism:

‘Mr Ridge might argue that he was being truthful. But it was not, it appears, the whole truth.’ etc. etc.

Finally, more than half this article about the response of Washingtonians to the terror alerts is devoted to reporting scepticism about Bush’s crew’s tactics, culminating in the irrestistible line on the terror alert phenomenon (from a stray alleged Republican sympathiser):

“Bush has to have something to get him back into office,”

The one sidedness here is reflective of an inconsiderate and gleefully selective kind of journalism motivated by anxiety that their man (Kerry) is being hurt by the apparent efficiency of the Bush administration in picking up and disabling AL Qaeda plots. The news in this train of events is clear; the BBC’s version of it as ‘Bush accused of playing politics with terror’ (examples of which line in every report) is terribly mangled by their bias.

Luckily, Jeff Jarvis has the common sense answer to this kind of journalism, and the appropriate conclusion.