Hannah Bayman, a BBC journalist, well known to longstanding BBBC readers, has her own blog at bayman.blogspot.com. Hannah’s posts are usually quite banal, but yesterday’s post, reproduced here in full, offers an interesting glimpse into the thoughts and objectivity of a doubtless up and coming BBC journalist:
Only hours to go before the Land of the Free starts to vote and I already have butterflies in my stomach.
My mother emigrated from the US to Britain in 1966 when she was 21, after falling in love with Harold Wilson and The Beatles. My brother and I are both joint passport holders and the three of us registered to vote for the first time especially for this election.
I registered at my uncle’s house in Philadelphia, PA, and have since found out that Pennyslvania is one of the key three swing states, with Ohio and Florida.
But who knows if the vote I posted for Kerry and Edwards last week will even be counted.
Another close family member has voted for Nader. With most polls I’ve seen so far putting Bush 49%, Kerry 48% and Nader at 1%, I’m struggling to see this as anything but a vote for Bush.
Yeah, yeah, Kerry and Bush are both baddies if you’re a left-wing purist, but they are the only two horses in the race.
There is only one question in this election: do you want Bush in or out of the White House?
Let’s hope the US chooses a candidate who stands for international relationships, abortion rights, medical research, secular values and taxes on the richest…
…instead of a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp.
Fingers crossed polling is fair as possible. If, as predicted, there is not enough time for everyone to vote in some precincts, or many find themselves wrongly barred from voting lists, there could be serious unrest.
So who are you rooting for? Or if you have a vote, which way is it going?
I wonder how typical Hannah’s opinion of George Bush (“a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp”) is among BBC journalists? And given Hannah’s opinion of Bush, is it appropriate for her (or anyone with similar views) to report on anything to do with Bush or matters relating to the US or US policy without at least declaring their opinion up front? Can one hold such strong views and yet remain impartial and objective?
Moreover, given that Hannah was born (if I recall correctly from her past comments here), brought up and educated in Britain and continues to live and pay taxes here, it surprises me that she feels it appropriate to cast a vote in the US election, even if it is legal for her to do so under US law (if the situation were reversed I don’t think she could legally vote in the UK) – and I doubt very much that Hannah will desist from voting in the next UK general election either.
Remember, to paraphrase Rageh Omaar, it’s not your BBC, it’s their BBC!
Update: A couple of excerpts from Hannah’s follow-up posts, first, this charming effort:
So it is all about Ohio, the third of the swing states. NBC and Fox have already called Ohio for the chimp, but I think I will wait for my colleagues at BBC News Online (remember Fahrenheit 9/11).
Ah yes, better to wait for a reliable news outlet Hannah. And the tear-jerking:
I was woken first thing by two pessimistic texts from a colleague working the early shift at BBC Telly Centre, saying it would take a miracle for a Kerry victory
Oh to have a fly-on-the-wall webcam inside the BBC’s Newsrooms this morning!
P.S. While we’re on the subject of leftie journalists, if you will indulge me a little, congratulations must go to The Guardian for their splendid Operation Clark County – in 2000, according to The Grauniad, the good people of Clark County voted for Al Gore by a margin of 1% (~324 votes). Following the combined letter-writing efforts of Guardian readers I’m pleased to report that Clark County voted for Bush this time, by a margin of 2.4% (1,622 votes, by my reckoning). To paraphrase another newspaper in another election, it was The Guardian wot won it!
Y’all,
I too have been celebrating Dubya’s fine win. The letters which express concern at the BBC’s continued and continually denied bias are fully justified but nobody has proposed a solution. I’d suggest that the BBC be privatised with shares going to all licence fee payers then, if like me you are repelled by the bias in the programs, don’t watch and see the decline in the advertising revenues. The puirists will wail about advertising polluting our beloved broadcaster but they spend so much time advertising their own output that commercial advertising would be unnoticed.
Yee-ha
Susan: “K-S was just expressing his “private views” when he ran afoul of the Beeb’s thought police.” Private? In a newspaper column? Kilroy stated that Arabic world was effectively without merit on any level, while Hannah said Bush looks like a chimp. Only one of these is true, can you spot which?
“I’d suggest that the BBC be privatised with shares going to all licence fee payers then, if like me you are repelled by the bias in the programs, don’t watch and see the decline in the advertising revenues.”
And watch your shares depreciate in value at the same time? Someone get me Goldman-Sachs on the line, we’ve discovered a new economics genius!
Ghost:
“Kilroy stated that Arabic world was effectively without merit on any level, while Hannah said Bush looks like a chimp. Only one of these is true, can you spot which?”
What exactly did K-S state that was inaccurate?
http://www.caabu.org/campaigns/kilroy-article.html
Mike: From Kilroy:”what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful?” Mathematics is very useful, just for starters.
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html
http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_0708_02.html
My goodness. This is truly amazing.
The day after the US election, on which there must have been more BBC hours of political reporting on radio, TV and online than any other this year…
…and personal musings on the election made on the personal blog of a 20-something BBC worker in the English regions (who isn’t even at work this week) is still your top line?
Perhaps the BBC isn’t all that biased.com if this is all you can find to lead on at 5pm British time.
“Arabic world was effectively without merit on any level”
Correct.
‘Mathematics is very useful, just for starters.’
OK anything else within the last 1000 years?
Ghost: K-S said “what do they contribute”, by which I presume he means currently contribute. Can you refer us to anything Arabs have contributed that is less than one millennia old? Anything post-Renaissance? A patent of a useful product/invention held by an Arab? Nobel Prizes outside of the laughable Peace Prize to Arafat?
Surely if Kilroy’s remarks were so off the wall you can do a good Fisking of him?
red ken: Hannah’s website is more “private” than K-S’s newspaper column? Uh, I don’t think so. [Rest of comment deleted]
Edited By Siteowner
The problem with Kilroy’s article is that while he starts off criticising Arab states specifically (fair enough), he then shows his true colours and refers to Arab people generally. That Kilroy is a bigot isn’t really in doubt. The thing I don’t understand is that it took until that article for people to realise it.
cf. http://bfewster.members.gn.apc.org/euro/kilroy.htm
Christian Arabs have contributed a lot. Peter Brian Medaway and Elias James Coley spring to mind. Although they made their major scientific contributions after moving to the West.
Some of the comments are getting a bit too personal here. Please, everyone, don’t make me delete stuff. Too little sleep to want to get into that.
Instant quote from Johnnie Walker on Radio 2 just now:
“Ohio what have you done … another four years!”
Not that JW has ever made much attempt to disguise his political leanings.
[Sentence deleted]
This is getting ridiculous.
Go away and pick on someone more important.
Again, I’m amazed you still find the personal viewpoints of a BBC worker bee the main thing to talk about in the aftermath of the biggest election of the decade.
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Dylan – with very little effort, Kilroy’s remarks on Arabs can be substantiated. I invite you or Ghost to Fisk the article and show us where he is badly awry.
Remember, it was this article that made him unemployable by the BBC. But referring to someone as a ‘chimp’ seems to be okay.
Hannah
If you are so sure your personal viewpoints have no effect on your ability to do your job properly then I imagine you have every sympathy for Rocco Buttiglione.
Or not
Re: comments about Hannah
OK, getting bored now
Natalie: So sorry if I’ve stepped over the line.
Wasn’t there an article on Biased BBC months ago about Hannah’s interviewing some guy for one of those anti-globalization hoo-hahs in Italy or something, and then later someone posted piccies of her and the same guy [deleted]? That is what I am referring to
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Anyone fancy leaving all this “intellectual” discussion and having a pint? I really think a personal Blog site has little if anything to do with the usa election, or much of anything else. I think we should leave Hanna alone to enjoy her evening. If she was not such a good journalist you would not be so keen to feature her work so prominently on your web site, would you???
If she was just some spanner writing anything that came into her head, would you all be foaming at the mouth so much at her every word.
She only voted in the US elections, she didn’t win them!
Maybe next time Hannah….
I think you’re great and I loved your funny articles on eBay, art from old body parts, the lobster liberation front and all the other quirky original stuff featured on your blog.
What I want to know is, am I too late to put in a bid to buy you on eBay?
An admirer
For what it’s worth, I felt it was wrong to sack him because of the article. That he’s just generally insufferable would’ve been good enough. 😉
There’s an assumption throughout the article that Arab people generally are somehow inherently inferior. It ignores completely the socio-economic pressures which gave rise to fundamentalist or extreme Islam in the first place.
But I think the article is relatively tame compared to the quotes collected by Private Eye. Particularly the one on Pakistanis.
The article Susan is thinking of is this one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/dorset/2953710.stm
Which quotes a Chris Blake. Possibly the same Chris Blake as here:
Click to access r8p45.pdf
For what it’s worth I don’t have a problem with Hannah voting in the US elections. I have relatives who’ve lived in Germany for 30 years and still vote in absentia. My governor is still a dual citizen of the EU but I don’t know if he votes in their elections or not!
However, I think that Hannah’s political views are much more likely to get her a job at the BBC than Natalie Solent’s would (and Natalie is also a very fine writer and blogger) and I don’t see anything wrong with pointing that out. It’s the truth.
Please calm down everyone!
My article referring to Hannah’s blog is not intended as an attack on Hannah the person, nor even Hannah the journalist. Hannah the BBC journalist perhaps. Hannah is entitled to have her own views and to post them online if she wishes.
I do wonder though how typical Hannah’s views are among twentysomething (and older) BBC reporters – from reading News Online it seems to me that there are a whole load of left-leaning journos there straining to get away with as much nuance or emphasis as they can get away with in promoting their own belief in what is ‘right’.
Hannah is just one example of BBC lefties – one who’s record of activism and sympathies is easily found via Google, but she is also open and honest enough to blog and to engage in debate here at BBBC.
I’m surprised that someone with Hannah’s record of political activism is a BBC reporter – but that’s a question for the BBC – it’s not a question for Hannah.
Thank you.
Leaving aside the issue of Hannah (who?!)
I have to say that after watching the BBC news at six it has to be said (and as a fellow welshman it hurts me to say this) that Huw did look particularly pissed off. I dont know if it was because he was tired or what but the man did not look happy. To be fair I thought that the report was reasonable even if it did seem to play up poor old kerry’s fate, I thought it got the analysis right. By which that Kerry was dead the moment they started to run those attack ads on his tarnished military career his crediability went out the window. I have spent a fun day logging onto the Guardian com and numerous leftist bloggers watching them eat their words. In particular I would like to raise a glass to Mr Moore whose website is oddly quiet and given the failure of his slackers uprising (given the average turnout of the young yanks) I wait with pleasure his particular spin of the result!
Excellent song, Maureen. I was just in New Carlisle Sunday night. I’ll have to share the song with my friends there. I forgot to ask if the Grauniad reached them. I can imagine their response.
Anyone who accuses me of bias when I refer to President Bush as ‘stupid’ is an out and out liar. You may feel he is smarter than you but I know is not smarter than I am.
I outperformed him in IQ tests, grade point average and SAT scores. So there’s no bias going on over here, just plain facts. Or does supporting Bush mean ignoring the facts?
Toaday is Schadenfreude DEay. The Chimp has won, nuances and booufants and tort lawyers are out.
And all the BBC lefties can swallow their bile.
Praise be.
So Andrew, what exactly is your point. If you’re saying is that there are some left wing people at the BBC that’s almost certainly true, but there are some left wing people in every organisation (less than a third of the country votes Tory after all). Or are you claiming she acted unprofessionally (“straining to get away with as much nuance or emphasis as they can get away with in promoting their own belief in what is ‘right'” are the words you used)? But you haven’t given an example of anywhere where she *has* acted unprofessionally. So it really does appear to be simply a cheap personal attack.
The problem is that the cadre of BBC news staff and presenters give a PREDOMINANTLY left-wing view of the world.
s for Ms Bayman – check out the earlier references to her “unbiassed” reporting for the BBC on a leftie-activist demo – when she actually interviewed a close friend. [Deleted]
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Hello Chris (Blake)
I’ll briefly step outside of the hudna I called with Hannah. Of course individuals have their views. They may even think that the President of the United States of America is a primate. However, when employed by a public organisation, funded by a compulsory tax on the general public, which is obliged to be impartial by its own charter I’m afraid that airing such views in public is not on.
That’s all. Its as simple as that. Do we understand that now?
Good. And do please come back (I mean it!) Its been fun, Hannah seems like a game girl, right wing (© redken) girls are gorgeous and the tunes are better 😉
Hmmm. ..so Hannah has called in reinforcements to defend her honor? Not cool, not cool at all.
As a matter of interest, does anyone know of any BBC reporter blogs where the author refers to Robin Cook as a moonbat, calls Trevor Philips a race hustling weasel and suggests bombing Iran ?
In fact, can you even imagine one existing ? That’s the thing – for all the pontification about Kilroy-Silk’s alleged bigotry, if he’d only used the same language to denounce Conservatives, he’d have been fine.
That Hannah feels its acceptable use the language she does is symptomatic of an organisation that is wholly antagonistic to Conservatives – but it’d quite like us to keep paying for it.
This comment is daft – she has every right to hold whatever views she wants, or to air them privately or in a blog, so long as this does not affect her reporting skills.
With such polarised views on the election aruond the WORLD it is impossible to find someone who doesn’t care on such a big issue as the US election.
Of more concern are the many newspaper journalists, who put much more spin on their articles and do so without incurring your wrath. Whether it’s the Sun or Mirror, Telegrpah or Guardian they’ve all taken sides as publications. The BBC have not.
Don’t pick on Hannah. I don’t mind at all if she calls Bush a chimp – or any other names she can think of. I love to listen to the impotent abuse of the loser left! 😀
Ms Bayman is paid by the BBC – by us.
[Rest of comment deleted]
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This is getting totally out of hand.
I work hard during work time, writing scores of un-bylined stories a week, mostly on local court cases, crime, council issues, human interest tales etc., usually following an agenda set by the local telly and radio output. I also do Ceefax pages, weather and the Ceefax going out guide. George Bush doesn’t tend to feature much down South.
I would be very keen to follow up any stories you feel are of interest in the Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset or Oxfordshire areas.
Indeed, I emailed Natalie Solent to ask if she would like to do a first person comment/interview piece, as I think she may live in the patch, but I did not hear back.
I am entitled to have a blog in my spare time, as are any of you. I am also entitles to sign petitions, go on a demo (haven’t for a couple of years, too busy with shift work), or write a letter to the paper.
Most of my blogging has little to do with politics.
contd
contd
Surely on the biggest political news day of the year, you have more to talk about?
Your energies would probably be spent picking on someone a bit more well known or important. The guy who wrote Hannah (who?) probably has it right.
I’m happy and pleased to debate, but 50 against one and many personal attacks is getting boring.
P.S. John in London
The BBC does not tend to pay for reporters to travel to events when a phone call will do. Cost: 50p.
How many circles have we gone around now?
Hannah – our hudna is back on. I’m a little uncomfortable with so many picking on one blogger. Its not as if we were talking about Matt Frei or John Humphrys here. Jeez I must be going soft! By the way, if you ever come across Polly Toynbee or the Yazzmonster send’em over. I have business with those two.
AA:
“Whether it’s the Sun or Mirror, Telegrpah (sic) or Guardian they’ve all taken sides as publications. The BBC have (sic) not.”
Of course those newspapers have. They’re privately-owned and have every right. As for the BBC – you must be insane.
By the way, it looks like true blue American citizen, Ms. Bayman, doesn’t know how to spell the name of the state that she chose as her home: Pennsylvania. (Unless it was mistyped by BBBC Watch.)
From Jay Rosen’s PressThink blog on April 25, 2004:
where a reporter says to the president: Is it really true you don’t read us, don’t even watch the news?
Bush confirms it.
And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking?
And Bush, without missing a beat said:
“You’re making a powerful assumption, young man.
You’re assuming that you represent the public.
I don’t accept that. ”
Amen.
p.s Hannah is just Hannather-dope that just doesn’t get it.
A dope because I don’t agree with you politically? Give me a break.
Yeah I noticed the Pennsylvania typo on my blog right after writing it and logged back on to correct it. (As any BBC hack will tell you – you must proof read agency copy before cutting and pasting it, BBBC.)
I meant to post this last night, in reply to Susan, Andrew and others.
The only group I am a member of is Amnesty International, and not an active one at the moment I am sorry to say.
Before starting at the BBC, I did the design for three or four issues of a left-wing newsletter, where Chris Blake was editor. That’s how I was able to call on him as a contact when the world editor wanted an interview with a British protester at the G8 summit.
I would do it again tomorrow as he is very eloquent.
Other BBC colleagues I know are members of political parties, which I find a bit odd.
Thoughts?
I thought you might be interested to know that all staff are given a disclosure of interests form to fill in when they join the Beeb.
I listed my membership to Amnesty International and the Resist newsletter work.
And do you know that last year an email went round instructing all “gatekeepers” (assistant editors and above) and “talent” (anyone who appears on screen) from going on the big February 15th anti-war march.
No left-wing bias on the part of the corporation there.
“No left-wing bias on the part of the corporation there.”
Hannah (and you as well AA),
While you are visiting this blog, take the time to trawl through the archives and see all the documented examples of the BBC’s left wing bias regarding the war in particular and the Middle East (Israel/Palestine) in general.
AA • it is not okay for the BBC to have an agenda the way a national newspaper does. Not while they compel the country to fund their organisation and when they are supposed to be non-biased.
The reason this blog has jumped on Hannah in the aftermath of the biggest political story of the year is that this blog’s reason for existence is the documenting the bias of and within the BBC.
All the fair minded people agree that this is not about Hannah. It is about a cosily corrupt system that has “objectivity” as its Sunday best, but spends most of the time slobbing around in loose fitting liberal-left clothing.
A further sloppy example from Breakfast this morning. Natasha Kaplinsky (I was going to call her “airhead” but then thought that might seem hypocritical after decrying the use of insulting name calling by Hannah)- she said “No one wanted to believe the polls” but it seemed they were right after all and Bush won. Excuse me! First of all it would seem well over a 100 million Americans wanted the polls to be right and – more importantly since we are talking about the BBC – so do millions in this country. Amazing!
David
yoy: “OK anything else within the last 1000 years?”
http://www.netmuslims.com/info/inventions.html
Really Ghost • is that the best you can offer? A page with dates like 1340AD, 1134AD, 957AD etc., etc.
Anything post Industrial Revolution? Or even post-Renaissance?
To highlight the underachievement of Arabs/Muslims in the world of science why not compare the Nobel prizes awarded to Muslims with those awarded to Jews (a group unfortunately reviled by a large proportion of the Muslim world):
http://www.theraphi.com/nobelprizes.html
Out of interest redken, why did you choose the particular site you’ve quoted? I note that there are no footnotes or further references to back up some of the claims. In fact most of the sites I’ve looked at (majority are muslim) are not very strong on providing references.
It’s all very well to claim credit for an invention but the claims should be backed up by some kind of reference so that people can read the original source.