Since our Friend of Biased BBC Paul Reynolds has been calling round lately it seems only fair to deal with one of his articles- ultimately comparing his powers of prognostication now, with those demonstrated in the past. Reynolds- one of the first to float the quagmire meme in the mainstream media- gives us his latest effort, showing that this week’s image, just like almost every week’s with the Beeb, is that of Bush running as fast as he can (on an apparent Iraq hampster wheel).
We find him saying that Bush’s failure or success will depend on whether he creates a ‘stable Iraq’. No- that may be the measure du jour- but the true measure is whether the threat Saddam signified- taken as a composite threat, geopolitically in his threat to Israel and significant stranglehold on oil reserves, through terrorism (see anti-Israel activities, but other tentacles too), via the distraction he represented from any other gathering threats, through his UN corruption, alongside his regional repressiveness and his hard-edged Islamofascism- has been blunted and deferred in its lethal path of collision with the West. It has, and so Bush cannot possibly be judged through any spurious definition of stability, a tormented concept endlessly susceptible to media speculation and UN-isation, and terribly open to the argument that Saddam did stability better than anyone.
Reynolds averrs that it’s an achievement that Iraq hasn’t disintegrated before now- while he insinuates that it might be heading that way. He talks about ‘the violence of an insurgency whose power was not predicted and never planned for.’ . Well, not predicted and planned for if you don’t count part five of my (organised in no particular way) composite argument for war- namely the Saddam Islamofascism part. Had ‘we’ not been batting away the beeb sponsored moonbats ‘we’ might have talked a little more about that one- might even have got round to a policy about it.
Reynolds finishes his straw man construction right at the end of his article when he asks ‘But will his (Bush’s) rush to come up with an “exit strategy” force him to abandon the aspiration to create a modern secular democracy out of the ashes of the Saddam dictatorship?’ (emboldenings mine)
Note how we’ve morphed from stability to ‘modern secular democracy’*, and that Bush is still rushing as fast as his little Texan legs can carry him to create the long awaited ‘exit strategy’. Such goal post shifting in the course of one article is a little mystifying (stability = secular democracy?), but not at all an unaccustomed experience for Reynolds’ readers.
As one can see from the comparison of then and now in these two Reynolds efforts- despite cosmetic goalpost shifting- little changes in the Reynolds’ analysis or expectations. I commented about it elsewhere- er, at length.
PS– maybe we could have a B-BBC poll about this little complimentary from the Beeb viewsroom. Should we recommend this article for the news or opinion section? Seems like they can’t decide (which also means, watch out for edits). To quote:
‘The president is facing mounting problems politically and in terms of public opinion, says the BBC’s defence and security correspondent, Rob Watson.
Opinion polls suggest more than 50% of Americans think Iraq is going badly.
Most also believe some or all US troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, according to the polls.
Our correspondent says there even signs of splits within the president’s Republican party, with at least one senior senator making that most damaging of all comparisons by likening Iraq to Vietnam. (imagine!!!- who’d do a thing like that)
Meanwhile the US anti-war movement has been reinvigorated by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq. (yup- the corpse twitches, so to speak)
Ms Sheehan’s supporters have been camped outside the president’s ranch at Crawford, Texas.
This is not a president who would be interrupting his summer holidays unless he thought his political future was really at stake, our correspondent says.’
(all additions, snide remarks and whatnot, mine. Er, or the Beeb’s)
Vital Update *
I see that- thanks to an intervention from Mr Reynolds himself- I need to acknowledge an error. A totally unintentional error where I mixed up the conclusion of a current Roger Hardy article you can find here, with the Paul Reynolds one I link to in the post above. Thus the mystery over the changing definition of success for Bush in Iraq was not the mystery I depicted it to be.It is Roger Hardy who goes for the ambitious ‘modern secular democracy’ as his measure for Bush, at the end of his article. I might add though that Paul Reynolds does propose a measure for Bush as being ‘Iraq as the democratic example which justified the war and the cost’– in addition to a ‘stable Iraq’. There are no shifting goalposts in the way that I described, however.
On the other hand, one can still argue that Reynolds’ notion of ‘Iraq the Model’ is only one side to the argument over Bush’s legacy- and does go well beyond a ‘stable’ Iraq, presenting a confusion of a sort- and that my case outlined above concerning the negative virtues of the Iraq invasion should at least be on the table when considering it.
There is much common ground between Hardy and Reynolds (indeed there are no contradictions between them, when viewed side by side), and I find it interesting that even down to imagery we can find a dovetailing of the BBC’s various analyses into one seamless whole. Given that that analysis removes from the table of discussion so much that might vindicate the President, the balance of the BBC’s coverage remains very much in question.
Finally, let me thank Paul Reynolds for stopping by and stooping to correct me openly, and apologise once more for my error. Thank you also for helping to shed even more light on the BBC’s analytical point of view by highlighting my error- I feel it is very helpful to everyone, but myself in particular.
paul reynolds
will the bbc apologise to lord wakeham for dragging in the enron affair during an interview on climate change?
paul reynolds
is there any chance that the house of lords committee’s report on climate change gets a fair hearing on the bbc
Richard, that will never happen. Discredited BBC journos, editors etc. are probably angling for jobs with Al-Jazeera et al if and when the Beeb is compelled to make cuts due to eventual loss of public money. They wouldn’t want to antagonise their fuure paymasters.
Al Atwan is indeed a disgrace.
paul reynolds
has philip hayton apologised to the israeli foreign ministry for his discourteous screaming at their official.(avi was the gentleman’s first name)this happened last year.an amazing moment.
mr hayton was a voluntary teacher in jordan some years ago.
Alibhai-Brown:
Week1 on Head2head: “I didn’t say that talking about immigration was racist”
[she was screaming it on Dateline London the month before]
Next week on the same programme: “it’s just racist” or something like that concerning the immigration debate.
Oh yes, apparently the “country” should be “grateful” to have her here not not the other way around.
Dreadful woman. Only beats Toynbee because of the latter’s haughty disapproval/intolerance-of-dissent general outlook on life.
AW,
If Polly Toynbee and her ilk are ever allowed any power, she allways reminds me of Diana Moon Glampers character from the story Harrison Bergeron (http://www.libertarianthought.com/texts/harrison.html)
Mr Reynolds:
“To Ritter: my position on the license fee is quite simple. It is up to British voters and the government to decide.”
“Whether the BBC,with public funds, can provide a worthy news service is the issue debated by this website and is, again, up to individuals to decide.”
I don’t recall ever being given the “right to decide” on the TV tax.
I may not agree with the way my compulsory local and national taxes are spent, but at least I have, in both cases, a vote and a voice. Paying the compulsory TV tax grants me no such privileges.
Please explain how I can exercise my “right to decide”.
Why can’t the BBC be funded by those who feel they need a ‘impartial’ and ‘fair’ government sponsored news and entertainment service? Most adults are grown up enough to choose their own news and entertainment, and its not right that they should be forced to pay for a non-essential service that only some people need.
Thank you Andrew Marr for this today. He’s on about politicians not being able to talk to people or use TV as a media but then goes on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4185248.stm
Extracts:
…Andrew Marr has criticised politicians for their “fundamental lack of professionalism” when it comes to communicating with voters
…..And he also blamed journalists for opinionating rather than reporting.
…..Marr went on to argue for newspapers to report politics in a more serious manner and pay attention to “some of the slightly more boring things”.
Newspaper circulation was dropping each year and people trusted journalists less.
“I think it requires leadership from editors and senior broadcasters to try and turn that around and back off the position where we are opinionated first, and come round to the facts later,” said Marr, who used to edit the Independent.
“If all newspapers are losing circulation, maybe it’s just worth trying to go back to some reporting, to see if that might be the reason – even if only one newspaper tried it, to see what happened.”
If the Politics Editor of the BBC says this then it really undermines anyone else protesting that the BBC do not opinionate…..
dave t
Yes, Marr has it exactly right. Cut the opinionating – ALL of it, not only the leftie stff, and stick to the facts. The NEWS. All the news, not jst the bits they allow throgh their filter.
That article on Iraq by Mr reynolds was an example in point. It was basically all opinionting. And it was on the BBC website – tucked away, who reads it anyway ?
Why should we be forced to pay for it all ? Especilly when it is biased ?
Mr Reynolds says the way the BBC is funded is a matter for Parliment, Government etc. True – but it is the BIAS at the BBC that throws the whole licence fee discussion into even sharper relief. A lot of people who would rb long with the licence fee becase it has always been there are now questioning it simply because they object to bias.
And that is the BBC’s huge mistake, its hubris. It is offending a lot of people who can readily afford the fee but now are arguing against the whole concept – or in my case, arguing for the BBC to be cut back sharply as a first step towards subscription support.
Talking about cutbacks, why do we need 2 BBC channels ? They can’t fill the schedules with worthewhile stuff, other channels provide most of the same stuff anyway.
There was a case for BBC 2 in the 1960s. But not now, except for maybe periods such as Wimbledon. BBC 2 should be cut back at least to evenings-only, and BBC3 and BBC4 should be ditched entirely, or rolled into BBC 2.
Ditch most of BBC Online, it provides very little that is not provided elsewhere. Ditch most of the BBC publishing. (Why ythe hell is the BBC running bookshops !!!) Ditch local radio. Hack through the huge excess staffing – it is like Fleet Street used to be, gross overmanning compared with the lean staffing at the new channels. (eg compare the staff levels at Channel 4 with the BBC, let alone services like Sky News.)
The BBC could quickly be halved in size without any appreciable loss to us all. And the licence fee target should therefore be £50.
Sounds crazy ? I don’t think so. In 1982 I floated the idea of selling BT nd was told it was crazy. Really ? Thatcher adopted the idea in 3 months, there was a White Paper on BT privtisation by June 1982. Now look at wht we have – genuine competition, the BT monopoly cut right back. Far lower prices in real terms, far more variety of services – instantly.
The BBC is NOT a permanent feature of the landscape, at least not in its present form and its present funding.
They think and behave as if we owe them a living. Not for much longer.
Jil: Hurrah! *self waves banner saying ‘Cut the slack at the Beeb*
Hope this doesn’t double post as Haloscan crashed last time.
Biased BBC, American Expat and my blog, USS Neverdock are listed in Wikipedia in the criticism section under the BBC entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=BBC&curid=4347&diff=21868026&oldid=21846071#Criticisms
But look how they portray us.
The URL http://www.biased-bbc.blog.com is home to a blog dedicated to reporting perceived BBC bias, and others (e.g., http://theamericanexpatinuk.blogspot.com and http://www.ussneverdock.blogspot.com) lead to blogs purporting bias at the BBC and other mainstream media organizations.
“Perceived BBC bias” and “Purporting bias”?
The 2 top stories at the Indy are the fight looming t the UN between John Bolton and Kofi’s plans, and the stabbing of the Brit in Isrel.
Still no mention of either at the BBC Online main pages.
Who wrote all that bloated BBC entry nywy ? How much did all that cost ? And how much to keep it up to date. Another fulltime BBC job – by the time one person writes it and many others spend time checking it ?
I visited the BBC Wikipedia entry a few weeks back. And altered the main section to read “The BBC has a deepseated bias against America and especially the Republicans, against Israel, against business and capitalism (it exists on a tax on all British TV viewers) , and against “conservative” ideas and beliefs. It frequently scorns Christianity but avoids criticism of Islam and gives a platform to known Islamist extremists and terrorism-supporters.”
Or words to that effect. The change was soon edited out by an unknown hand at the BBC – but maybe we could start a guerilla movement on this ? That Wikipedia entry is just another example of the BBC preaching at us, telling us how wonderful it is. Arrogance.
Is this like that wotchacallit PlusDoubleUntrueGoodSpeak stuff where the establishment edit or amend anything including wiki that does not show them in a good light or follow policy? (just like the Guardian’s correction pages…)
To think we pay someone at the Beeb to do what Winston Smith used to do all the time in “1984” ….
Littlejohn! Yoohoo Mr Littlejohn! I’ve something for youuuu! You can’t make it up – honest!
dave t
All I know is that I inserted a couple of sentences – because the whole damn entry was so SMUG ! Anyone can edit at Wiki. Then I logged off the site, logged straight back on and the edits I had made were still there.
But they were not there a couple of days later. I think Wikipedia has a mechanism to alert people to changes.
dave t
Try it for yourself. Make them do some work for a change LOL
Paul Reynolds Head of BBC online wrote:
“In my experiecne, the BBC and other media outlets simply reflect what is going on in society.
….
At the moment, it is undeniable that there is anti-Americanism around. That is hardly rocket science. The cause of this is nothing to do with the BBC. We are witnessing the same historical phenomenom as we have seen before.”
Well Mr Reynolds all the people I work with, and my girlfriend don’t hate Americans, they don’t always agree with everything they do but they don’t hate them. Every one of them though hates muslims. So, Mr Reynolds, why is this part of the views of the British Public that the BBC never likes to reflect.
DAW: Because we are the “leetle peeple” and unless we live in Islington and eat bruschettia….(insert own stereotype of chattering classes here). If the BBC/Guardian et al only recruit via the Guardian is it any wonder they all come from the same media studies course at the same college having attended the same public schools and have the same ‘climate change bad – when’s the service due on the Range Rover darling?’ attitude….
Dan,
Thanks for the link. I guess the non-handicapped in that story will be the genetically enhanced nomenklatura and in-house think-tanks.
Compare and contrast (Didn’t PaulR say that to me?):
Unbiased Sky:
LONDON LEFT STRESSED
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1342185,00.html
Any mention of a race element to the story? Nope. Now read BBC version of same story…..
Biased BBC
Bombings ‘severely stressed’ 31%
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4183712.stm
“Almost a third of Londoners overall but nearly two-thirds of Muslims suffered substantial stress following the 7 July bombings in the city, researchers say.
Muslims may have suffered more because of fears of reprisals, they said.
Dr Greenberg said Muslims might have been more vulnerable to stress because of concern about the consequences of the bombings, such as possible reprisals from those who blamed the Islamic community in general.”
Of course, muslims are the real victims….aren’t they? If you only get your news from Al-BBC output, that would have to be your conclusion.
Never miss a chance to play the race card do they? Are the dead victims ‘stressed’?. Oh I forgot, they can’t be ‘stressed’ cause they are dead. What about the victim’s families – they a bit stressed? I forgot, victims relatives and loved ones are not important. Unless they are muslim. Or an illegal immigrant.
Where are all these reprisals then? In one part of the UK Prots burn Catholics out of their homes and vice versa. Meanwhile still waiting to see all these reprisals against the Muslims and please don’t include the name calling….go to http://www.ummah.com and see the insults being hurled about there on the discussion boards towards non-Muslims. Hey I’m a kaffir! Isn’t that what the nutty Afrikaaners used to call their servants? No wonder Livingston et al are linking Nelson Mandela to the Muslims. Him a kaffir but good kaffir, all us lettle peeple are bad kaffirs!
I love Paul Reynolds piece on the last days of ‘Londonistan’ because if you check the BBC news archives Londonistan appears only to have arrived AFTER the 7/7 bombings… indeed since 9/11 there has been very little on London’s Islamic extremists at all.
From what I can tell there has been a piece on ‘Little Algiers’ and a small piece on London being ‘linked’ to the Spanish bombings and that’s about it.
Still better luck next time BBC
Count me in as far as detesting muslims is concerned. I personally am convinced that the so-called peaceful muslims are actually a majority, not the insignificant minority they are always portrayed as in the MSM, especially the Beeb.
What political future is at stake? It is not as if President Bush can run again for reelection.
To Ed: No I have not regretted even slightly coming to this site! I was glad as a point of detail to correct something you had misread!
More generally, I have found the exchanges to be very worthwhile. I think that blogs are very important strands in the rope of public opinion. I am not naive enough to believe that I will change the minds of some of your more regular contributors but at least I have put over a contrary point of view. I have tried to put forward the argument that while there are certainly mistakes, errors etc on the BBC, overall there is no conspiracy of bias nor any “world view”. The BBC reports society’s views and, as I said in one contribution, during the seventies we were accused of being rightwing and before that of being pro Israel. No doubt one day the pendulum will swing again.
To Marc; I still think that the examples you offer on conspiracy would not stand up in a court. You quote for example Paul Adams. This was from an internal e-mail during the Iraq war. He was doing his duty by correcting assumptions and language. That happens all the time, especially in time of war. War is a fog, as you as a former professional will know. You cannot now use that message to characterise the whole of the current output. There are daily, hourly, minutely (is that a word?) discussions about what words to use. To sustain a charge of bias and a conspiracy to defraud the license payer, you would need to come forward with evidence of more consistent pattern I think.
On a more personal note, you accused me a day or so ago of “cheering for the terrorists” in Iraq. This is an unsustainable accusation. No reasonable person, no “man on the Clapham omnibus” as we say, would agree with that. It is based on the propositon I put forward that President Bush has a race on his hands to stabilise Iraq before his presidency ends. What he manages to do will affect his legacy. There is nothing controversial about that. It is pretty obvious. The White House is well aware of it. I note that the same day, the Daily Telegrpah had a huge headline predicting civil war in Iraq. No doubt if I had said that, I would be beheaded in the Tower!
To those who have raised all kinds of points and complaints about BBC output, I am going to have to say, as I said to Scott The Amercian Patriate who asked me about the use of words in one story, that I can really only deal with what I have written myself or occasionally with something I have direct knowledge of.
with regards
Paul Reynolds
World Affairs correspondent
BBC News Online.
Consistent pattern? Your own structures found an institutional bias towards promoting the EU did they not?
Most people don’t want to become part of a country called Europe. I don’t see that being “reflected”.