Monthly Archives: April 2005

Everyone’s piling in on him. A reader writes:

BBC correspondents in America have a huge canvas to draw on. So Justin Webb obviously decided he had found a story that had a moral for British voters when he filed for the Radio 4 6pm News on April 1 that those in Arizona who were worried about a flood of illegal immigration for Mexico – and concerned that the federal government was doing nothing to stop the tide – had formed a group of modern-day “Minutemen” to watch the borders.

Mr Webb’s main point, though, was not to impart how many immigrants there were, why border controls were not working, or other such facts that would have given the story context and proper meaning. Such crucial details were entirely absent from the report. Instead, he focused firmly on that there were opponents of the group who had labelled the new Minutemen as “irresponsible” and potentially violent “vigilantes”. In BBC liberal speak, beware all those who are worried about immigration…they are not nice people.

In the comments to the post below this, Alex criticises him about his interview with Dan Rather. And in the comments to the post below that everyone but Alex is teed off about this piece on the Schiavo case.

”America is often portrayed as an ignorant lazy sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.

I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture, and that picture is in many respects a true one”

However, according to our commenters, his description of the legal position is in many respects not a true one.

Actually I thought that Marc Landers was a little harsh on the BBC’s David Reid in dealing with his treatment of Iranian bloggers. Blogging has improved freedom of speech there, despite the recent appalling state persecution of bloggers. The tone of the BBC article when writing about Chinese and Iranian bloggers was not objectionable to me.

However Marc Landers hit the Beeb fair and square when it got to Rather and Jordan. The BBC talks as if Rather was eased out of his job merely for some error of fact such as any journalist (or blogger) is statistically certain to make every now and then. Wrong. He lost it for sustained, reckless, arrogant, obviously partisan refusal to confirm the authenticity of a major political story both before and after it was broadcast. All bloggers did was make that obvious to the public and his employers. The BBC also makes it sound as if there is room for significant doubt as to what Eason Jordan said to get him fired. As Landers says, if Jordan feels he has been misquoted he has only to release that tape.

And hasn’t David Reid discovered the many highly political blogs on the left?

It’s been awhile since former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger’s embarrassing shenanigans splashed across the newscape. He has been given a mercifully light sentence after perjuring himself in a Washington court. For some strange reason the Beeb repeats Berger’s ‘inadvertent’ defense in this story as if it is still Berger’s claim. Did Berger just accidentally walk off with those documents? Here’s how the Beeb puts it.

Former national security adviser Samuel Berger has admitted taking copies of a classified memo to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission.

Mr Berger has said it was “an honest mistake” and apologised. He has agreed to give up his security clearance and co-operate with the investigation.

Here’s how Bloomberg puts it.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty today to removing classified documents from the National Archives while reviewing anti-terrorism efforts by President Bill Clinton’s administration.

In pleading guilty to the misdemeanor in federal court in Washington, Berger, 59, reversed his earlier claim that he took the documents inadvertently. He agreed to surrender his security clearance and cooperate in the government’s continuing investigation, the Justice Department said.

Here’s how the Scotsman puts it.

A top national security aide to former US President Bill Clinton pleaded guilty today to removing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives.

Sandy Berger admitted in a Washington court that he had deliberately taken three copies of the same classified document and cut them up with scissors.

Here’s how the Washington Post puts it.

The deal’s terms make clear that Berger spoke falsely last summer in public claims that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, then later lost them.

He described the episode last summer as “an honest mistake.” Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger’s permission said: “He recognizes what he did was wrong. . . . It was not inadvertent.”

I don’t know whether this is a case of bias or just sloppy journalism.

Update: See Natalie’s post of Clark T Irwin’s email in Comments.

Update 2: The original BBC article was stealth-edited within an hour or so of the original post. The “inadvertent” is completely gone and the article has been substantially re-written to reflect Mr Berger’s guilty plea as being justified. Still no mention of his shredding documents with lowly office scissors.

Another reader writes:

There was an extraordinary example of presenter bias on WATO yesterday about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s warning on the politics of fear ( i.e. don’t mention right-wing issues!).

Nick Clarke: Now, have you seen evidence in the campaign so far of the exploitation of fear?

Rowan Williams: Well, of course the campaign hasn’t formally started yet, has it?

NC: I accept that – in the pre-campaign then, there’s been plenty going on, have you seen any evidence so far?

RW: I think it’s inevitable that there’s an emphasis on this campaign to go that way, and the temptation is to hit that first, I think.

NC: So when, for instance, I know you’re not going to be party political, but the Conservatives have raised, quite often, haven’t they, immigration and crime and so on, that’s the sort of thing that worries you, is it?

RW: It’s a cross-party phenomenon, but yes, that’s the sort of thing that worries me.

Dr Williams had to correct Nick Clarke (!), who assumed, as BBC presenters so often do, that the raising of issues such as immigration is beyond the pale.

Reader Alex writes in with some observations from March 31 2005

– Whilst Sky News for the most part treated the Prince Charles story as a bit of fun, The BBC took a very serious tone indeed and on News 24 invited the Royal Correspondent of The Mirror to comment, he took an even more serious line (well, he would wouldn’t`t he). Amongst his remarks was “…they cost us a lot of money”, no mention of the fact that the BBC cost us quite a bit too.

-Also News 24, and who is invited to comment on Blair’s Political Cabinet….Michael White The Guardian. Quel Surprise!

– Later on The World Tonight, invited to give her comments on Terry Schiavos death, why its NPRs` Diane Roberts. D`oh……

– On radio bulletins PM and also on Radio 4 after midnight, a breathy and uncritical piece about the rehabilitation of Stalin across the former Soviet Union. If a left wing genocidal mass murderer is rehabilitated its reported through misty eyes with sentimentality, imagine the outcry had it been Mussolini or Hitler.

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