Under Mugabe’s heel the people of Zimbabwe suffer with nary a peep from the BBC. Go to the Africa page [at time of posting] and you’ll find one tepid story. Admittedly, there are links to this [2June05], this [15Oct04], this [24June04] , this, [28Feb03] this [2July04] and this [27Nov04] on that page, but nothing ‘above the fold’. Why is this not considered a much bigger story than the extremely rare ‘Koran abuse’? I leave that to our informed commentariat to decide.
Hat tip: Instapundit
Update: B-BBC commenters Mark and Scott note that they have viewed and heard some tough BBC reporting on Zimbabwe. My focus here is the BBC website, but the Beeb deserves credit where it’s due. Indeed, the BBC has been banned by Robert Mugabe’s awful regime. I saw this victim’s story posted today [8June05]. That said, it is apparently still possible to get reports, banned or not. Let the BBC website put the Zimbabwean tragedy in the center of their crosshairs once more.
Update 2: Mark B notes that there is a new story today [9June05] covering the strike. It’s a story that needs to be told.
BECAUSE THE INSTITUTIONALLY RACIST BBC EXPECTS MORE FROM AMERICANS THAN THEY EXPECT FROM AFRICANS
Because the BBC has so many TV and Radio Contracts with similar type regimes around the world that they can’t afford to become too judgemental – or properly represent the society that pays for them. Stories about koran abuse ingratiates them to the Islamic crowd, regardless of whether it’s true or not.
How much do you hear about the atrocities and genocide committed daily by the Arab Muslims against the black natives in Darfur? The BBC scum sucking bosses don’t want to rock the boat by making too much of it.
BBC pretends to report the News, we should all pretend to pay the licence fee.
Whitey is always more prone to criticism. Like the [deleted] homosexual Peter Tatchell implied when he exposed the double standard lefty on Newsnight. These days they don’t even turn up to protest about Mugabe. The BBC just reflects left wing priorities.
Edited By Siteowner
BLISS
Too true. That sums up the entire left establishment. Non-white people are regarded as somewhere between mindless, perpetual victims and mere tools for “The Revolution”, an attitude the left had for the western working classes a century ago.
Mugabe would have to do something really serious like…er…drop a koran on the floor, before the BBC would take notice.
Perhaps we’ll be on the road to real equality when the BBC and Guardian start to judge third world countries by the same standards as they judge America and Israel.
I was listening on the World Service over NPR when they had a story on Mugabe expelling people from the cities. The ‘expert’ they had brought up the possibilitiy that it was just perhaps possible that Mugabe considered these people to be his political enemies. The way he put it was just dumbfounding as though it were a wild and probably impossible idea that he was advancing as a last resort to explain the inexplicable…
Because Mugabe has left-wing credentials which gio back to the time of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. At that time he was the darling of the left AND the BBC for his struggle depose the “abhorrent” white regime. The BBC with it’s leftist attitude cannot bring itself to really criticise an “old comrade”.
“We all know that money is the root of all evil”
This is how the Today programme announces a news item this morning. Of course the home of “Intelligent Speech” gets it wrong.
In Timothy 6:10, Paul says “for the love of money is the root of all evil”.
However, the misquote fits the Beeboid view perfectly. Presumably the Gideon Bibles were removed from Broadcasting House many moons ago, so as not to offend those of other faiths.
Soon after, we have this statement by the dreadful Sarah Montague to introduce an item on global warming/pollution:-
“America is the world’s biggest polluter”.
So we know where this one is going. But am I wrong! An American scientist is interviewed who casts doubt on the accepted views of global warming. Montague is thrown off axis, since she assumes all academics, even American ones, are lefties who hate Bush. However all is eventually well in Beeboid land as a Royal Society academic is then wheeled on to assure us that the American scientist is completely wrong and that all scientists (apart from those obviously polluted by a Bush or Zionist worldview) accept the fact that global warming is man made, mainly by Bush types. However, remember that at one time many scientists predicted that hundreds of thousands of CJD cases would decimate the land, and that the world’s oil reserves would have run out by now. Most scientists are academics with an overwhelmingly centre-left worldview. This should be factored into these sort of issues.
I`m sure the BBC did do a panorama programme exposing the militant camps, brutality and rape crimes committed in Zimbabwe. I remember victims getting interviewed. I don`t think you hear a lot from zimbabwe because it might be difficult to do honest reporting from there under the mugabe regime, or even get into zimbabwe in the first place.
Off Topic:
Check this sentence out, its from an article written about Malcolm Rifkind on the BBC website:
“His message is a moderate, inclusive one and offers a distinct alternative from that proposed by Mr Davis”
So is Mr Davis somehow not “inclusive”, his message isn`t moderate so is it therefore extreme?
Thats the impression that sentence gives out. You know, if you are a proper tory who believes in tory values (like me and Mr Davis) then you are a nasty non inclusive extremist.
I would say the BBCs attitude to America and Israel isn`t very moderate or inclusive.
I honestly think the BBC is run by juvenile clowns who just never grew up
Isn’t the BBC banned from Zimbabwe which a) suggests that their reporting hasn’t been a Mugabe whitewash and b) makes it tricky to report much of consequence going forward unless they fancy making it up.
More balance on offer here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/4071968.stm
So, that’s it. We’re told that the Euroweasels are offended by us failing to fight the war nicely, then we have paragraph after paragraph of a member of Britain’s third party agreeing with the weasels. Ah huh. No mention of Sep 11, Madrid, Istanbul et al. No commentary from anyone supporting the government’s position, not even a hint as to how we got here (clue: blame the human rights act). A man from Mars reading this could be left with the impression that Britain’s two main parties had decided to introduce draconian legislation for no real reason at all.
Cockney,
News is what people DONT want you to know.
The BBC doesn’t seem to be able to do any journalistic legwork any more. They seem to merely regurgitate press releases from left wing friendly NGOs (i.e. tax payer farming former charities).
Just because it is easier to do reporting on a free society (such as the west) doesn’t mean the BBC should not try to get the news out? I thought this was supposed to be the advantage of the license fee?
To be honest bloggers generate more real news than the fat and lazy BBC does. I now only use the BBC to check stock prices (as these are difficult to mislead with).
Natalie,
Your server clock is wrong (fast by 10 minutes).
“A man from Mars reading this could be left with the impression that Britain’s two main parties had decided to introduce draconian legislation for no real reason at all.”
No, ‘appeasing right-wing idiots who hate nd fear brown people’ is a reason. Just not a very creditable one.
“To be honest bloggers generate more real news than the fat and lazy BBC does.”
I am, almost literally, rolling on the floor laughing my arse off. What, by arguing about Who Started It in Palestine, creating a tedious sideshow about fonts, and getting some poor bastard at CNN fired for telling the truth?
Or did I miss something important that bloggers have ever done?
“I now only use the BBC to check stock prices (as these are difficult to mislead with).”
& even then, you will get them quicker on Channel4. The BBC Ceefax “business” pages are generally more “Watchdog on text” than true business information. But, last week, we did get 2 days of an anti-Wal-Mart story of no consequence to UK viewers.
I think the BBC have to be given some more credit on Zimbabwe. I’ve seen quite a few BBC News segments where they’ve had reports on Zimbabwe, including that from correspondents who’ve smuggled themselves into the country and shot secret footage. And the BBC have been pretty critical of Mugabe for a long time now.
(I’m not denying that the BBC should be doing more on this story, though.)
I remember this story a few weeks ago. I couldn’t find it anywhere on the BBC. The BBC Saudi story that day was a light pice about a talent contest.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1114222833779
john b
What a fool you are.
The CNN stuff was not about “some poor bastard” – it was about about its boss lying that US troops deliberately targeted journalists. Even though he refused to authorise the release of the tapes shpowing him making these lies, he simply had to “resign”.
The “font sideshow” was about obsessive CBS staff using forged documents to manufacture a lie about Bush during the election – even though they had been warned that the docs were not genuine.
You think these incidents don’t matter ? Try looking at vthe plummeting audience ratings of CNN and CBS.
And your remarks about anti-terrorist measures suggest that you think there is no threat whatsoever from Islamic extremists, that it is all a figment of rabid right-wingers’ imaginations. Try telling NYC or Madrid, or the people on the planes that carried shoe-bombers. Try telling the Metropolitan Police commissioner that he is a right-wing fool.
I expect you are an SWP campaigner for Respect ?
“I expect you are an SWP campaigner for Respect ?”
By the same token it is clear that J_i_L is a goosestepping protofascist who undertakes pamphleteering on behalf of the BNP.
Gosh, random ad hominem comments are *so* conducive to constructive commenting.
John Bull,
You will see that some of your comment on Tatchell has been edited. Not for the first time you came near being banned.
Commenters in general please note: for sexual conduct as for religion, sober expressions of disapproval will generally be tolerated but not encouraged. There are other and more relevant places where those who wish can argue about these issues.
Personal slurs will be deleted and the authors may be banned.
Blimey, here’s two more. I’ll leave ’em in for now on the grounds of being mildly amusing tit-for-tat.
Oh, and Bliss, lay off the caps lock button.
anonymous
The initial and very sweeping ad hominem remark was the description of all who object to those lies by leading CNN and CBS journalists as mere right-wing extremists. All part of the attempt to dismiss Republicans as bad, misguided, extreme. In fact the middle of the road in America went more for Bush, who was in fact more moderate and nuanced, as well as more consistent, than his opponent. And if you want to see an American politician making really crazy remarks every week – follow Howard Dean, who is dismaying even his own party.
I have seen many comments from john b at this site. In light of those comments he really does seem to me to be from the extreme end of UK politics. Hence my question – I would be interested to know where he stands on UK politics. Incidentally – the BBC does not seem to regard Respect and its SWP control as any kind of extremist party. So where the BNP riposte came from I am not clear.
No J_i_L.
john b is at the extreme end of *your* politics, just as you may be at the end of his.
It is my assumption from the way you perceive bias at the BBC – and feel free to correct me – that *you* consider the SWP to be extremists and therefore casting random aspersions about john b campaigning for them is an irrelevant diversion to write off his opinions.
Similarly what you think the BBC does or doesn’t believe about the SWP is irrelevant to what *you* mean when *you* write something for this readership.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4073864.stm
Galloway story has not made it to main headlines as yet.
anonymous
But I am not at the extreme end of politics, as john b suggests about everyone who objects to media lies such as Rathergate and the Eason Jordan scandal. And as you (or maybe some other person who signs as Anonymous” suggest about people who criticise the BBC’s bias. As a matter of fact, I was undecided until the last minute about whether to vote Tory or Labour. Is that extreme ?
Incidentally – do you find it impossible to think of a screen name for yourself ?
“I`m sure the BBC did do a panorama programme exposing the militant camps, brutality and rape crimes committed in Zimbabwe…..”
“I think the BBC have to be given some more credit on Zimbabwe. I’ve seen quite a few BBC News segments where they’ve had reports on Zimbabwe,….”
Good points, Mark and Scott. My focus here is the online reporting which is weak. Since my exposure to BBC TV and Radio is limited from over here in the USA, I’ll leave that for others to evaluate.
For the record, I’m economically centre-ish (free up trade, cut regulation, but keep taxation at medium levels to fund the welfare state and public transport) and socially liberal. I think the SWP are a bunch of silly students, some of whom are well-meaning and some of whom are power-crazed loons, and I think the BNP are a bunch of stupid thugs who would be scary were they in any way competent or plausible.
It’s massively in the interests of everyone in the security services and in government to talk up the threat of Scary Brown Folk, to increase their powers and budgets. As (I assume) a conservative, surely you should be sceptical about governments coming up with scare stories and Terrible Consequences in order to take more of your money and freedom?
(Ex-)Met commissioner John Stevens, incidentally, is clearly a fool. His daft policies and dafter beliefs did precisely nothing to improve Londoners’ lives (I’ve posted on him before on my site).
john b
I am still laughing at the fatuous defence of Amnesty International at your “site”. And your kneejerk defence of Kerry’s release of SOME of his records ignores the fact that nothing has been released about the medal incidents which were the main point of the Swiftees claims. Kerry has still not disproved their claims that he repeatedly lied about his role.
You appear to have a visceral hatred of the Repubs, if not America in general. In one of your posts you even recommend the assassination of a US Congressman. Now that really is extreme. So any dissembling that you are some sort of moderate is rubbish.
The BBC also have a track record with for misrepresenting the case about white farmers. Many of who didn’t take black land under apartheid but purchased it when Mugabe encouraged them to do so.
The BBC have been corrected on this a number of times, but refused to acknowledge the faxes sent to them by Farmers organisations in Zimbabwe.
OT
Another example of how the leading broadcasting organisation of one of America’s “allies” can drive its own agenda against US policy :
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=nr&id=666.
As usual – pushing opinion rather than news ?
JiL –
I’ve not heard “fatuous” to mean “accurate” before; that’s an interesting new usage to be aware of. And you’re lying about Kerry: this is the full release that the Swifties demanded, even if they’re changing their story now he’s done it.
And sure, I react viscerally to the extreme-right. Sorry: when kids are jailed for 40 years without parole for inducing a miscarriage because they can’t get a medical termination, I react viscerally. I do want to harm the bastards who think that’s a good way for a legal system to behave. That’s not extremism on my part, it’s humanity.
Even so, the assassination comment is tongue-in-cheek, in line with my published assassination policy. I’m aware some people don’t understand sarcasm or ‘jokes’; it’s my New Year’s resolution to avoid mocking them too much for that.
BTW, the Canadian study you quote seems to have a massive flaw: it assumes that criticisms of the US’s behaviour in terms of Iraq and terrorism are *necessarily* unfounded. It doesn’t consider anything resembling the truth – rather, it assumes that a good broadcaster would be 50% approving and 50% disapproving all the time.
This is obviously rubbish: imagine a study that said “The CBC’s television news coverage of paedophiles is consistently marked by emotional criticism, rather than a rational consideration of paedophiles’ actions based on Canadian national interests”.
If the authors wanted to be taken seriously, they’d need to demonstrate the Canadian media criticisms of Iraq and TWOT were unjustified. I can kinda see why they glossed over it instead, actually…
john b
Your weasel words about your recommendation that a US Congressman shoulod be assassinated cut no ice. And the “assassination policy” stuff you linked to is puerile. The fact remains that you called for the assassination of a US Congressman.
Yo clearly balance – as you say, you react viscerally. Your own blog discredits any suggestion that you are reasonable.
Re the Canadian broadcasters, you miss the point as usual. We simply don’t want nserting their views, positive or negative. And you have NIL cause to deny they were predominantly negative.
On the Swiftees, you clearly don’t know what they have been saying this week. They say Kerry has still failed to answer charges of lying about the medal incidents. If you think everything on Kerry has been released you are sadly out of touch.
Denial seems to be your forte. If you don’t like accusations of lying or bias – you simply deny them.
In today’s crazy world, calling for the assassination of someone whose views you dislike, is truly bizarre. And by any measure, EXTREMIST language. Yo bwill no doubt joke away about this, but it is there for all to see.
>For the record, I’m economically centre-ish (free up trade, cut regulation, but keep taxation at medium levels to fund the welfare state and public transport) and socially liberal.
Oh John, you do take away the mystery when you come out with these matter-of-fact descriptions. Like a dashing Scarlet Pimpernel who turns out to be Barry Bumstead from down the blacksmith’s shop.
johnb isn’t a moderate… I’m pretty sure he lives on Highgate Cemetry next to the grave of our old buddy Karl Marx. I wonder why you’re even on here, you socialist moron.
Here’s john b the moderate (from today’s Daily Ablution):
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2005/06/bad_day_for_imm.html#comments
“the implication that Blair would be happy to employ the “tactic” of killing thousands of civilians with hijacked planes”
That is, indeed, a scandalous implication. It’s well known that he would only use the RAF to bomb civilians.
Surely one of them sarcastic ‘jokes’ that extreme right-wing people don’t understand.
No, I actually live a good 45 minutes’ walk from Highgate Cemetry, which sadly impairs my ability to wank over my communist mentor’s grave.
And I frequent B-BBC because it often posts interesting articles that provoke intelligent debates, and often does the opposite. I’m frequenting this thread, however, broadly for the same reasons that teenage thugs start fights with special school kids.
john b
Get a life. Get a proper job. Then you may not feel you have to run a teenage website that regularly recommends assassinations.
“That said, it is apparently still possible to get reports, banned or not. Let the BBC website put the Zimbabwean tragedy in the center of their crosshairs once more.”
– Kerry Buttram, who lives in America, and hence is not able to view most of the output of the BBC. Sorry Kerry, how can you give an objective account of the perceived ‘failures’ of the BBC when you can’t even see the vast majority of its output?
Yes, it is possible to get reports out. If you want to run the risk of getting arrested and facing up to two years in prison. That’s in a Zimbabwean prison.
Ask yourself this question: would YOU be prepared to run that risk? Of course you wouldn’t. Now do you see how unreasonable it is for you to be setting the bar so high for the BBC?
BBC Online is only a tiny part of the BBC’s total output, which includes investigative journalism in the form of Newsnight and Panorama, which have had many programmes and reports into Zimbabwe. See Panorama reports:
Mugabe: The Price of Silence
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/1865514.stm
Five days in May
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/2963318.stm
Secrets of the Camps
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3479353.stm
… plus see all the links on the right hand side of those aforementioned pages.
So, risking prison terms in squalid jails in Zimbabwe and defying a ban on BBC journalists BECAUSE they criticise the Zimbabwean regime, the BBC has managed to bring us three 1h-1h30-long documentaries within the last three years. Pretty impressive, and no other British broadcaster (or American one that I know of) has come anywhere close to the BBC in terms of coverage of Zimbabwe. (ITV, Five and SKY being too interested in the latest celebrity “sex scandal” or hairdo, and Channel 4 simply not having large enough a budget.)
Criticise them all you want (I’m sure you’ll continue to), but the BBC provides by far the best investigative journalism of any broadcaster in the UK.
(Your ridiculous comments system has decided arbitrarily that my comments contained too many links, which is why I’ve flattened some of them)
OT
The UN has now appointed slave-owning Saudi Arabia to the international Labour Organisation. I expect we will get lots of lampooning on this from the usual-suspects among BBC “comedians” like Sandi and Jeremy.
Not.
Next time i post here i`ll post as Mark G, i see that another Mark has posted just above with lots of web links, just to avoid confusion.
sorry!
Look! The first item on the BBC’s One O’Clock News! (Available on the BBC’s website until around 6PM BST)
Also on the front page of BBC News Online.
I don’t think anyone with any sense could see either of those reports as positive in any way. Hardly “letting a bloodthirsty dictator off the hook”…
mark b, you said: “Kerry Buttram, who lives in America, and hence is not able to view most of the output of the BBC. Sorry Kerry, how can you give an objective account of the perceived ‘failures’ of the BBC when you can’t even see the vast majority of its output?
Yes, it is possible to get reports out. If you want to run the risk of getting arrested and facing up to two years in prison. That’s in a Zimbabwean prison.
Ask yourself this question: would YOU be prepared to run that risk? Of course you wouldn’t. Now do you see how unreasonable it is for you to be setting the bar so high for the BBC?….
Is it that hard for the BBC to reflect its on-air reporting on its website? (By the way, I am not totally cut off from the Beeb here in the USA. I do listen to BBC reports via NPR and watch BBC America.) My contributions to this blog, however, interact mainly with website content which, I agree, does not represent its total output. So? I think the criticism of Zimbabwe on the website stands. I’m glad to see the coverage (which you noted above http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4075064.stm) in today’s post. Good! Thanks for your comments.
Kerry,
I still think you’re being unfair, even if you are only talking about the Online version.
Of course the Online version represents the rest of the BBC’s news output, but my point is that it’s only a small amount of the total news content provided daily by the BBC, which is why the statement “Why is the Beeb letting a bloodthirsty dictator off the hook?” is very misleading. Asides from the Online service, which I’ll go into in a second, there’s also the 24-hour Radio Five Live and BBC News 24 channels, countless current affairs programmes on TV on BBC One and Two and on Radio Four.
Regarding the Online version – Type in “Zimbabwe Mugabe” to the BBC News search field at the top and you’ll get (at the last count) 1,338 search results. That’s fairly substantial.
The BBC is obviously not going to have exactly the same content on its website. However, if you look back at the BBC Panorama programmes which certainly are on the website, they have a considerable amount of detail in there on the atrocities and human rights violations that are occuring daily in Zimbabwe. No other news broadcaster’s website comes close.
Have a look, for instance, at the Fox News website, which I presumptuously would assume to be your daily source of TV news (correct me if I’m wrong). No mention whatsoever of the current situation in Zimbabwe. Their last story with those keywords was on the 1st June; BBC News Online have produced at least six stories on this subject since then. Fox News don’t even have a section exclusively for World news, even though they do have one for Health news!
I think you really are being very unfair in saying that the BBC is “letting a bloodthirsty dictator off the hook”. It isn’t at all, just see those search results I linked to above. Again, as I said, in terms of content, no other broadcaster comes close. And I think you would be hard pressed to find anything on the BBC News website remotely decipherable as giving sympathy to the Mugabe regime.
Mark B,
We’ve all seen an improper and unfair use of headlines by the Beeb and many other media outlets. Far be it from me to claim infallibility. In my opinion, the coverage on this topic on the BBC website let Mugabe off far too easily. This can be done as much by failing to report news as it happens.
If this were a “Beeb v Fox” website, I’d be happy to compare the two with you. Having lived outside the USA for the past 18 years (until last year), my acquaintance with Fox is relatively recent. My experience with the Beeb, far longer. That’s why it pains me to see a BBC which, while covering international news better than any other, is a big disappointment with its more recent tendency to inject the editorial page into many of its stories.
Thanks for your constructive criticism. I do make it my aim to be fair.
mark b
The problem is not so much one of how often the BBC has mentioned Zimbabwe within any timescale, but is their reporting fair, accurate and proportionate to what is happening there.
It seems that Mugabe has reached new moral depths in the last week but I’d say most people haven’t heard the word ‘Zimbabwe’ mentioned once on news reports.
The MSM certainly feasted well over Abu Ghraib, but is has given the rest of us a marker. We have noted that months of blanket coverage are given over to an inmate having a pair of knickers put on his head. When a black, left-wing dictator and former darling of anti-imperialists everywhere commits actual atrocities the BBC should at least have the shame to pretend to hide its bias and make an effort.
Kerry,
Firstly, thanks for the maturity that you have shown in responding to my comments. Unfortunately on the Internet too many people too often resort to mudslinging and name-calling, so thanks for that.
I accept that you aim to be fair. However, I would argue that you haven’t been at all fair in this post. I have provided you with a wealth of evidence showing that the BBC News website certainly is not letting Mugabe off lightly. That is not a subjective conclusion; it is a normative statement. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, you must surely accept that the BBC have not let Mugabe off lightly. There are no articles that I know of on the BBC website (feel free to point any my way) which give credence to this claim.
Further, the massive range of news stories that I linked to on the BBC News website, coupled with this story about the current unrest (today!) in Zimbabwe, shows that your argument that it is equally “failing to report news as it happens”, is factually incorrect. It remains the case that the BBC does, frequently, report news stories from Zimbabwe as they happen.