The text of the Robin Aitken story is now up at Blithering Bunny. It’s written by Damien Thompson.
Thanks to reader David H for the scan, and EU Referendumfor further highlighting the story.
The text of the Robin Aitken story
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What about thanks to me for writing the bloody story in the first place?
Apologies Damien, I didn’t have the print edition, and just had a scan to go by, which didn’t have your name on it. I’ve updated the post to acknowledge you. A great piece of writing. We’re not worthy!
Yup. Good article.
Can I flag up that there is also a post about this story in Peter C Glover’s “Wires from the Bunker”, here.
In Mr Thompson’s article I was particularly interested in the references to Mr Aitken’s earlier history – the coverage of job losses in Scotland under Thatcher, for instance. In future histories of the BBC that era might loom quite large.
The revelation that Sean O’Callaghan said on tape that Pat Finucane was a member of the IRA – and that this story never saw light – is of great interest. One can and should condemn murder while still reporting discreditable but relevant facts about the victim. The BBC claims to be particularly good at this sort of principled separation of the issues, but it isn’t.
A far better condemnation of the BBC’s failings than hysterical screaming from very right wing individuals.
Personally I wouldn’t want to see coverage ‘balanced’ by, for example, bouncing wildly between libertarian and borderline communist views. A fairly detatched statement of facts, quotes from all sides involved, non conclusive speculation as to a variety of potential developments and a detailed background is what should be provided by the national broadcaster.
In order to provide this it would be beneficial if the BBC could concentrate on the major issues and transfer resources from tabloid ‘fancy that’ b*llocks and the sprawling network of local reporting overkill.
Fantastic article. The final proof if proof were wanted.
My only minor quibble would be with his view on the Met Police. I don’t think this was his area of responsibility. If it had been I think he would know that the Met Police was – and probably still is – riddled with racism of a pretty ugly kind. Whether that meant it was “institutionally racist” is perhaps another matter.
On Finucane, that is very interesting. One of the ingredients in producing the “peace process” (better described as a “truce process”) is that the Loyalists became as ruthless in their targetting of Republicans as the IRA had been in targetting the Union side.
> A far better condemnation of the BBC’s failings than hysterical screaming from very right wing individuals.
Aitken’s revelations agree entirely with what Biased BBC has been saying all along. So Cockney uses abuse to try to distract from this.
Don’t be paranoid mate, my point was that it would be very hard for anyone without their head up their backside to disagree with Mr Aitken’s analysis.
In contrast it would be very easy to dismiss an argument that the BBC was Communist, Stalinist, rabidly anti-Semitic, terrorist supporting etc etc.
Mick Jagger floors “Boring Broadcasting Corporation” in segment on Today.
Go to Today website for a rare treat, click on Rolling Stones story and get some Satisfaction
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/index.shtml
>it would be very easy to dismiss an argument that the BBC was Communist, Stalinist, rabidly anti-Semitic, terrorist supporting etc etc.
Okay, but why bring in your own straw-men?
David Field
The Met Police may or may not be ‘institutionally racist’ but the ‘Race Relations Industry’ most certainly is!
Robin Aitken’s evidence highlights the danger inherent in the BBC’s remit, as set out in it’s own Charter 7(1)(f) to: “ensure that the Corporation and its employees and all programme makers engaged
by the Corporation comply with the provisions of any code which the Corporation is
required to draw up for the treatment of controversial subjects with due accuracy and
impartiality …”
This presupposes that reporting and editorial are exact sciences when in fact science itself teaches us that: “..it is impossible to separate the observer from the event observed”(Heisenberg).
Since the inception of broadcasting, limitations on frequency availability have enabled successive goverments to require all operators, the independant sector as well as the Corporation, to adhere to a policy of notional neutrality. This has resulted in the entire industry, to borrow a New labour term, singing from the same hymn-sheet.
The advent of digital with it’s almost unlimited bandwidth creates the opportunity to throw open the airwaves to literally anyone who wants to offer a service. There is no reason why, for a nominal fee to a regulatory authority to police bandwidth allocation, any individual or organisation could not set up a radio or TV station provided they could afford the transmission costs. The oft quoted arguement that this would enable the corporate giants like Murdoch to monopolise the industry is a falacy. It doesn’t apply to the press, why should it prevail elsewhere? If you don’t like the Sun you don’t have to buy it. If you didn’t like SunTV you wouldn’t have to watch it. At least what you would see is what you would get rather than the current farce.
And thanks to Alex not only for the pointer to the Jagger interview but the opportunity to look at the list of “Extended Interviews” avaiable on the opposite side of the same page. The choice of material they have chosen exactly highlights the point Robin Aitken was making in the article. No mention of the infamous Naughty (sorry Naughtie easy typo to make) “We” though.
OFF TOPIC: I would like to make a post about BBC bias, can I send it in to you? Btw it might ruffle a few feathers.
Dogbits –
I think it’s more complicated than you suggest. Your argument is a bit like saying “…and if you don’t like Microsoft you have every right to use alternative prodcuts.” Fine in theory but what does the right mean in practice.
Murdoch is a baleful influence in the media. He turned the Times into a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist dictatorship. He is behind a lot of questionable political decisions in this country e.g. the decision to force aged grannies to go digital. You can even see his influence in the Mnachester United saga. New Labour who have never before shown any interest in football supporters’ rights are suddenly talking legislation to stop Glazer type deals. Nothing to do with the fact that Sky’s football deals (and thus its raison d’etre) might go down the pan if FCs were ruled by ruthless American operators able strike one on one deals!
The Aitken story gets an airing in Today’s Grauniad – A quote:
The BBC said it did not recognise Aitken’s “scenario of institutional bias”.
“Impartiality has, and always will be, our watchword,” a spokesman said. “[It is] a point reiterated last week by chairman Michael Grade, whose board of governors has recently underlined the significance of the need to be even-handed, with the introduction of subject reviews and a tracking survey of public perceptions of impartiality.”
They just don’t get it do they? No refutation of Aitken’s specifics just the usual blanket self righteousness.
David,
Thanx for proving my point, and I’ve a suspicion that Basil is shortly going to do the same thing too.
I don’t have to buy the Times. If I choose to do so, I do so in the knowledge that Murdoch’s got an agenda and uses his mouthpiece to forward it. If the Blair apparat want’s to dance to his tune that’s their business. Murdoch only looms so large because of the enormous investment needed under the current system to offer an alternative to the terrestials. Free up the bandwidth and there’d be a broadcaster out there reporting your point of view, not trying to plead a genteel detachment whilst meanwhile plugging their own interests as hard as they can. Of course the BBC hate Murdoch. They’d just love to go back to being able to put on Match of the Day for the cost of the DG’s lunch bill. Why not some sort of deal where the clubs get to broadcast their own matches on a pay to view basis? You wan’t to watch ManU – pay ManU or whoever they’re playing this week. What the hell’s it got to do with the government?
Whatever Basil is going to come up with is only relavent in the sense that whoever said it is supposed to be unbiased. Let’s have more bias. A MORE biased BBC. Make this sites title mean what it says. But let’s have it in the open.
And thankyou Michael grade for your support too
David, I’m sure Murdoch would love to get a bilateral deal for all ManUre games rather than having to show Wigan and Fulham occasionally. This would exlain the Sun’s hilarious squirming between endorsing the Glazer bid for commercial reasons and criticising it to avoid antagonising its MUppet readership. Ironically, to get this sort of deal in place Glazer would have to go through Rupert’s best mates the European court!!!
‘Why not some sort of deal where the clubs get to broadcast their own matches on a pay to view basis? You wan’t to watch ManU – pay ManU or whoever they’re playing this week. What the hell’s it got to do with the government?’ It’s nothing to do with the government, it’s Premier League rules and most Premier League clubs appreciate that a vaguely equitable income split is required to keep things competitiveish and the spectators coming in. Any club is free to resign from the Premier League with notice, but I suspect the Man U v Man U reserves superduperleague might get tiresome after a while.
melanie phillips is on the case too
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/001204.html
“Murdoch is a baleful influence in the media. He turned the Times into a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist dictatorship.”
Yes, he married a Chinese bird a while back [deleted] and they have started a family together.
The murdoch media ’empire’ may well end up in the hands of this woman when the old geezer pops his clogs in the next few years.
Edited By Siteowner
OT. Naturally National Review have done something on the disgraceful attempt by Newsweek to smear Americans, and by extension, Brits, as the enemies of Islam. Don’t expect too much in the Beeb or the Grauniad, though. A story about US interrogators flushing pages of the HOLY KORAN down the loo just sounds too juicy to let inconvenient facts get in the way. 15 people dead in riots over an untrue story? Why would a smug limousine liberal Newsweak hack care about tragic real world consequences when the subject of your fabrication is the White House?
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/marshall200505160837.asp
David,
Returning to your Microsoft analogy. This is being typed on a PC running 2K. I could of typed it on my Mac. I’ve just got Linux (which for the uninitiated is a FREE !!!!! operating system that works just like MS)so I could have typed it on that. Irrespective of which system I use I can still type what I want. Even Bill Gates doesn’t presume to tell me what I can use his OS for. When I write this there’s no error message coming up saying ‘These are inappropriate sentiments- please refer to our sysadmin’
And thanx to Alex for his link to Melanie Phillips who concludes:
“BBC journalism is trusted around the world ….” which is a much over worked paradym that the BBC uses to justify itself.
What we do know is that the BBC is broadcast around the world, paid for at our expense, which is a slightly different matter.
This blog has run out of steam.
Short attention span mate. Typical bloody student. You’ll be a Communist next week.
Cockney
Wish I’d never risen to the football gambit but to partially quote a perceptive American, why should “..eleven highly paid young men chasing around a field in their underwear after a piece of cow in the most boring sport in the world” have any bearing on how broadcasting is organised?
The most boring sport in the world is actually golf.
OT:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001203.html
Don’t get me started on American ‘sports’. However much the world owes the economic dynamism and relatively positive political example of the US I struggle to trust a nation that would rather watch grown men playing rounders than the beautiful game….I digress…..
Footy is extremely important to broadcasters because it delivers the advertisers dream – a vast army of AB 20/30s males – and hence immense revenue. Sky in particular would be completely f*cked without it. As I said though it’s the Premier league that sells media packages and through its democratic decision making process currently determines that clubs can’t sell stand alone TV rights, so free market zealots moaning about the government are way off the mark.
Damn, I thought Melanie Phillips was going to have some suitably hard hitting views on the most boring sport in the world but it turns out she’s just banging on about the Middle East again.
Hang on, I’ll email and ask her…
You may not like our sports Cockney but at least give us credit for not having a sport like curling.
Credit where it’s due Susan (see also bowls). I’m reluctant to admit it but I think we invented golf as well.
Susan
Yes indeedy, golf is without doubt the most boring sport.
Cockney
It was invented by the Dutch. The Jocks appropriated it and made it their own.
Back to business:
John Simpson has his 2 pence worth on the Newsweek/Gitmo/koran-down-the-toilet business. What a surprise, he goes light on Newsweek and IMO wriggles every which way to exonerate them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4551149.stm
Most worrying though, is his praise for one Juan Cole. Simpson describes him as
” … the respected US authority on the Middle East, Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan …”
The reality is that the ‘respected’ Juan Cole [rest of sentence deleted]
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/12/is_juan_cole_a.php
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/004328.html
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2005/01/did-we-win-juan-cole-puts-up-this-post.html
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17422
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17520
http://volokh.com/posts/1107009094.shtml
If the likes of Simpson are relying on the likes of ‘the respected’ Juan Cole it really is time to pull the plug.
Edited By Siteowner
Edited By Siteowner
OT
BBC gives plenty of attention to the disturbances in Uzbekistan, probably because the Uzbek government is on the wrong side in the war on terror ie our side. Lots of mentions about how those nasty americans are going easy on the Uzbek government, whilst the elightened EU are speaking out against it.
What a pity they weren’t so vocal about the murders committed by Sadam, and in Darfur.
Nice one pete ’cause the first link on the list; http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/12/is_juan_cole_a.php leads you to nutty professor Cole’s provacative post and the grovelling apology that he subsequently had to make. As in the Justin Webb piece back on May 2 on this site a BBC journo quotes someone who turns out to be several sandwiches short of a picnic. I’m sure there’s an authorative reference to train time-tableing in Mein Kampf that could be useful to them next time the BBC want to discuss Network Rail.
They did a whole interview once with Lyndon LaRouche, a US “politician” who is considerably more than a few sandwiches short of a picnic. More like several loaves of bread and three jumbo-sized packages of balogna short. But he was anti-Iraq war and that was all that mattered to them.
I tried to find the LaRouche interview a while back, but couldn’t, although I know I’ve read it online before (should have copied it to my hard disk). Perhaps it’s been “stealthed” once they found out that this guy is regarded as a first-class prime-grade loon in the US, by both left and right BTW.
Pete_London
For John Simpson (who has never been short of picnics) to quote with approval a nasty moonbat like Juan Cole suggests that the BBC has really run off the rails. Simpson deserves to be ridiculed to high heaven for this lapse. It is like a reporter quoting with approval the words of David Irving or the BNP leader.
BBC interviews in the files:
Pol Pot on family planning in Cambodia
Herman Goering on inner city redevelopment.
Tony Blair on truth in politics.
John Simpson on the value of careful research in journalism.
Well, to be fair, Juan Cole also gets quoted a lot in the New York Slimes.
Newsweek forced to concede faulty journalism, and Dan Rather at CBS and Eason Jordan at CNN and Jayson Blair at The New York Times and The BBC in the Hutton Report……….
I`m seeing a pattern here and I`m thinking that the Left is going to end up on the wrong side of history once more…..
Here`s where the Left are all messed up, John Simpson (Liberator of Iraq) in trying to defend the position of faulty Newsweek reporting ( all Brothers must stick together) has to concede that when dealing with Afhanis and Pakistanis and whatever other “…stan” has had violent anti US demonstrations, one is dealig with “…… some of the least advanced countries in the world”.
Gone is the usual Political Correctness. Gone the Relativism of his previous whining reports now, in thier hour of need, a Spade is a Spade and Newsweek and its Leftie Position are all that matter.
Bingo.
Paul Roberts writes about the reliability of journalists and the practice of quoting anonymous sources http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4551683.stm He confesses that bloggers have “..forced journalists onto the back foot” when stories don’t stand up.
OT apologies just had to point out a new strand of bias at BBCLeft HQ. MORNING STAR is now de rigueur for the daily newspaper roundup on bbc website. It’s been featured every weekday this month.
“You may not like our sports Cockney but at least give us credit for not having a sport like curling.”
It’s probably cruel of me to find this funny, but after the Athens Olympics I laughed out loud at hearing that the British curling team had been offered an endorsement deal by Safeway, for floor cleaning products.
It’s probably cruel of me to find this funny, but I have to laugh out loud at someone who can remember the Athens Olympics.
Anonymous – I guess that means The Morning Star has a bigger circulation than any one freesheet around London? Surely not!
‘The BBC said it did not recognise Aitken’s “scenario of institutional bias”.’
That is the problem. They don’t recognise their own biases, and set-in-stone world views (which are left of New Labour); and of course, they never will. They’re way too busy massaging their own egos amongst themselves; and partying amongst themselves, at licence-fee payers expense.
The only way of maintaining this State broadcaster, if that is what is seriously desired, is by regulating it from the top down with an active Communications minister (who legitimately represents the people/electorate) being at the top of the organisation (Who the hell is gave the convention of responsible government – even in the realm of the media – such a bad name in the first place?); or alternatively, this media monster should be privatised. There are no other legitimate alternatives.
How does the BBC provide “balance”?
This is how.
On the Today programme this morning there was an article about offenders wearing uniforms, such as the orange boiler suits. So, the BBC address this issue by inviting on the most reactionary US lawman they can find, who runs a very strict regime in the deep south, including chaingangs and dressing prisoners in striped clothes. Of course he comes over very badly on Radio 4’s refined airwaves. I swear that the presenter (Quin/Montague?) sniggered under her breath following one of the comments by the US lawman.
But of course the BBC can now say they broadcast the view from the right, so providing balance. But it was a complete sham, and they know it. The serious issues were avoided.
The editorial line from the BBC was crystal clear; uniformed prisoners are a bad thing, because it is so, well, how can we put it, American.
Thankyou, Radio 4, the home of intelligent speech.
Meanwhile, as Today presenters sigger about American approaches to crime, one wonders whether they find this amusing also:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/17/nyobs17.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/05/17/ixportaltop.html
“Today” goes from bad to worse.
If you can bear it, listen to the silly Galloway article on at 8.55am.
Clearly the Today team are gunning for the Gorgeous One. But then, they always did.
Dogbits –
You don’t have to watch the BBC either. That’s not the point.
Murdoch tried to kill off the Telegraph with price subsidies to The Times. Not real competition – just a bottomless pit of (borrowed) money. Had he succeeded what am I supposed to read as an antidote to Chinese propaganda? The Guardian??? The Independent??? The man is a great danger to the public good.
In criticising the BBC one has to be very careful not to do Murdoch’s work for him. He’d love to break up the BBC, force us all to watch digital and then rack up the subscription rates for his (mostly piss poor) channels.
Ken Kautsky
And who do you suggest Blair appoints to the post of ‘Communications Minister’?
Cut to scene in Downing Street, PM’s sofa.
TB-“We need someone to keep an eye on the BBC. Someone to ensure they present a balanced view.”
Cherie Blair, from kitchen-“Carol Caplin’s new boyfriend needs a job, Tone.”
David Blunkett- “We’d need a good communicator. What about John Prescott?”
TB-“Mmm…No. I’ve been thinkin’ of appointing him Yobs Tsar. Crack down on people being assualted in the streets”
CB, from bathroom “Carol’s not doing much at the moment…”
DB- “What we need is someone with integrity, someone who understands fair play. Someone the public will trust”
TB- “That’s settled then – Alastair Campbell.”