The Beebonline have so far (so far- it’s very early yet) been wise enough not to carry an article linking hurricane Katrina to global warning. Unfortunately BBC World were not so circumspect this morning. I saw one presenter saying to a US environmentalist (invited in apparently to advance the thesis in question) that there was a growing consensus in the US linking hurricane Katrina to global warming. This was not an implication, but a direct comment encouraging a thesis that Katrina was linked to global warming.
So, while many are concerned with doing the constructive things that might help the people on the Gulf coast, the Beeb take time to scour the hurricane newsscape for what it can do for one of their favourite themes.
I can imagine so many people will agree with them, yet again and again trendlines contradict the trend in reporting ever more vociferously and loudly the global warming-world disaster scenario. Here is another one, showing frequency and magnitude of hurricanes hitting the US mainland in the last century and more. (via Instapundit).
The context of the BBC’s alliance with greenish NGOs gives me a chance to link this priceless article from Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic. When you’re at a loss to describe the kind of thing (the socialist mentality which is hard to identify, hard to pin down) that repels you about the Beeb, just run your eyes over lines like these:
‘Illiberal ideas are becoming to be formulated, spread and preached under the name of ideologies or “isms”, which have – at least formally and nominally – nothing in common with the old-styled, explicit socialism. These ideas are, however, in many respects similar to it. There is always a limiting (or constraining) of human freedom, there is always ambitious social engineering, there is always an immodest “enforcement of a good” by those who are anointed (T. Sowell) on others against their will, there is always the crowding out of standard democratic methods by alternative political procedures, and there is always the feeling of superiority of intellectuals and of their ambitions.
I have in mind environmentalism (with its Earth First, not Freedom First principle), radical humanrightism (based – as de Jasay precisely argues – on not distinguishing rights and rightism), ideology of “civic society” (or communitarism), which is nothing less than one version of post-Marxist collectivism which wants privileges for organized groups, and in consequence, a refeudalization of society. I also have in mind multiculturalism, feminism, apolitical technocratism (based on the resentment against politics and politicians), internationalism (and especially its European variant called Europeanism) and a rapidly growing phenomenon I call NGOism.’
It would be hard to give a better summary of the BBC’s mentality- but anyway, do read the rest (also via the prof.).
Is the Beeb going to blame bird-loving environmental extremists for the carnage in the Gulf states?
Maybe unfair but perhaps a motivation to stay behind was the chance to loot?
Susan
Paul Reynolds has gone from this (IMO snide remark):
The Mayor of New Orleans made a good call in advising an evacuation of the city in advance. But what help did the city give to those who could not get into their SUVs and head north?
To this:
The Mayor of New Orleans made a good call in ordering an evacuation of the city in advance. He offered public transport. But not everyone listens. So not everyone left.
We know that Paul Reynolds is one for convention and etiquette. We know that because he came here and told us we should not post anonymously. We should declare who we are when we give our opinions, declares Paul Reynolds. In that case Paul Reynolds can come back and tell us why he (I assume ‘he’ because it’s his piece) stealth edited that piece.
Paul – that’s bad form old boy. If you can’t get it right first time then mark your change or don’t try at all. Going back and changing what you have previously written without declaring to the world that you didn’t quite get it right is deceitful. While you’re at it, please do tell us what motivated you to use the term ‘SUV’ in the original piece. What image were you trying to conjur? Why ‘SUV’ and not ‘car’ or ‘vehicle’?
To Susan:
you are right to notice a differnce. It was felt that my original reference to SUV’s, while true for some, did not apply to all, so a change was made.
By the way, why this phrase “stealth/sneak edit”? This site often calls for an edit then, if one is made, compains about it. Online articles are often updated. You should welcome that.
with regards
Paul Reynolds
News Online
OT to Denise W…
I’m so glad you see the South the way it really is. Hollywood is much to blame for the stereotypes. Nearly every film I’ve ever seen that’s supposed to take place in the South portrays us as either a bunch of religious fanatic wackos, wealthy white racists, poor white and uneducated or poor black and oppressed.
It took me living outside of the South to realise just how much less racist we are down South than they are in the rest of the country. In my boot camp, those of us who got along best with people from other ethnic backgrounds tended to be Southern, and any of the outright racist ruckuses that occurred usually involved Californians (sorry Susan) or New Yorkers. Us Southerners knew how to tolerate people better.
To “Pete”.
Somebody e-mailed me in fact (I have now an e-mail address for my pieces –you can use it too; it’s at the end of the article) and I reconsidered. After discussions in the office, we decided to change it. I agreed with the change. It’s an example of how we do try to respond to readers. There is no secret. And since you raise the issue of anonymity, I would still prefer to know who I am talking to!
As for the use of the phrase/word SUV’s, this was a reflection of the fact that TV pictures did show a great many of them! But the fact also was that it did not apply to everyone.
with regards
Paul Reynolds
BBC Online
Mr Reynolds writes often about the UN.
But not a word yet about John Bolton’s counter-proposals on UN reform. The situation there has caused Kofi Annan to curtail his hols – but evidently not enogh for the BBC to point up the critical debate that is going on right now.
Crunch time at the UN – but silence from the BBC ?
Maybe a story about the UN rushing in their SUVs to help coordinate the Louisiana relief efforts would help ? (horselaughs off)
Paul,
By the way, why this phrase “stealth/sneak edit”? This site often calls for an edit then, if one is made, compains about it. Online articles are often updated. You should welcome that.
Because the changes aren’t owned up to. This site does own up to the changes it makes. But the BBC online doesn’t.
Important distinction, don’t you think?
To Susan:
You will find that all news services update/correct/change their stories as they go along, responding to new information, better information, correcting figures etc. They do not usually mark these changes.
This site is a place of opinion.
Important distinction.
To “John in London”: don’t worry. The UN reforms and Mr Bolton will have their day.
with regards
Paul Reynolds
BBC Online
I think Paul R and the BBC are a little ignorant of evolved online conventions.
1/ As the point you are making is important, not the person making it the name (handle/moniker) is only there so you can direct your response and follow the back and forth of the argument.
2/ It’s considered very BAD form to change something you wrote substantially, without pointing this out and explaining it. Normally the complete audit trail of an article is displayed. Why? It’s due to the fact that HTML is a linking system and when you link, you tend to want to reference what you HOPE will be a constant. So when we create a link to a BBC article showing something and you stealth change it, you lose trust.
The other reason is that changes to articles often reveal changes-of-mind in the writer, which is an important event in open online debates.
So to sum up, “barging” in here demanding to see some ID and also breezing over some rather fundamental netiquette errors, just reinforces why the BBC keeps losing trust.
Paul, both this site and BBC News are sites of opinion. Only one of them should be. Take your news and sell it to those who want it.
“The Mayor of New Orleans made a good call in ordering an evacuation of the city in advance. He offered public transport. But not everyone listens. So not everyone left.”
Soooo…the mayor offered public transport did he? So much for ‘the poor were abandoned’ trope. It would seem the poor simply refused to go.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
is live blogging from NO. Horrific.
“The people in the city are shooting at the police. They’re upset that they’re not getting help quickly enough. The fireman keep calling because they’re under fire. He doesn’t understand why the people are shooting at the rescuers. Here it is 5 days ago the Mayor said get out of town and nobody went and now they’re pissed.”
PR responding to new information, better information, correcting figures etc.
But the reference to SUVs in the original text was included only as a snide piece of anti-Americanism, the “better information” that transport had been available before the storm does not excuse the original wording.
If I promised to provide impartial news and quality entertainment to someone in return for a yearly fee, and that person came and said he wasn’t satisfied with what I provided and wanted to end the arrangement, I’d like to think I would accept his decision with good grace and refrain from hectoring him about how fair and good my products were. i know for certain I’d never stoop so low as to demand continued payment with menaces.
Biased BBC: Friend of the poor.
Time was, the BBC was our main source of overseas news.
These days I find it pathetically shallow and repetitive, even when it sticks to just reporting facts. Which is seldom.
These days there are plenty of alternative sources of overseas news, especially on the internet. Why rely on half-baked nd mostly second–hand news coverage on New Orleans, for example, when there are DIRECT and far richer sources just a click away.
Like the local newspaper, the TimesPicayune, for example. Just straight on–the-spot reporting, far fuller details. Not grinding ny antiBush axe, not saying it was all down to global warming, not re-gurgitating tired cliches that fit the BBC worldview.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/
The BBC – “Friend of the poor” like socialists that leech off them, that want to control them and keep them subjugated, that always know better ?
Yep, that fits the BBC.
Is that you Margaret?
In the light of comments from Mr Read about etiquette (and he is right that I care for it), I have tried to work out a compromise.
I cannot indicate every change or update. This would be impossible for example in updating casualty figures which usually change.
But I have decided that where I change a piece of mine in some reasonably important way (and there will have to be the Man on the Clapham omnibus test for what is reasonable)I will indicate this by adding in an “update”.
This will help readers see where something I said originally might have been added to, amended in some significant way or just plain updated.
This I think you will understand will not apply tp pieces which are well past their sell-by date. They will just form part of the archive on a particular event.
with regards
Paul Reynolds
BBC Online.
Thanks jgm – no bets,8) I prefer to give the man a chance. But judging by the issues raised by many here that go ‘ignored’ because of the difficulty in answering, without confirming what we already know, in a way silence is golden 😉
Denise – yw
Just a reminder to those who still haven’t signed the anti BBC bias petition to eventually be sent to Tony Blair – WE NEED AS MANY SIGNATURES AS WE CAN GET – so please sign and get your mates to do the same. http://www.petitiononline.com/bbbc/petition.html
An excellent piece, as usual, by Melanie Phillips on a point picked up elsewhere on this site, concerning a completely distorted BBC article about relations between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. Note the title
The British Bias Corporation
I would spell it Corruperation.
Quite apart from the appalling bias, that article is by a guy described as “BB News website Jerursalem correspondent”. What on erth is that ? Someone employed to re?
Doesn’t the BBC have enough biased reporters in Jerusalem already ?
on a different subject does anyone remember the campaign the ft ran against the candidature of paul wolfowitz for the world bank?
it seemed fairly brutal and persistent.worth of the beeb who ran a similar campaign.
both the ft and the bbc have quite forgotten the existence of paul wolfowitz.i have a feeling he is a very good chairman of the world bank.
surely this fellow paul is jesting
i mean, to suggest that a stealth-edit (and at the risk of sounding biased let me say i agree with the characterization) of a snarky (more bias on my part?) opinion in a news article is equivalent to a factual update…can he really believe that?
Perhaps the factual update was that PR is no longer Leftwing/Anti-Bush and did a volte-face as a result?
Paul. A factual update? Lets be frank about this, a gratuitously snide remark was removed from your news item. ie biased
We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that whatever Paul says is irrelevant to the real battle to get rid of the licence fee. Even if Paul and his colleagues produced what every single Brit considered to be unbiased news I’d still hate the licince fee. I resent having to buy BBC TV just because I want to watch any TV at all. I’m not forced to pay for beef before I’m allowed to buy lamb. That would be ridiculous. The quality of either meat would not make it any less ridiculous. The fact that the BBC produces dodgy news and hours of drivel is useful to the anti-licence campaign, but it isn’t esential to it.
Paul,
Thank you for changing your policy re: updates.
I trust you will also balance your Sydney Blumenthal quote with the updated information that most cuts in federal flood control program for the Gulf actually occurred under Clinton? Mr. EU Rota has given you the dates of the articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune that you can verify for yourself. Surely the Beeb with all of its vast taxpayer-funded revenue can afford a Lexis-Nexus account?
Leave Paul alone. He’s as incapable of being truly impartial as anyone else. That’s what makes the BBC so ludicrous.
Matt Frei on News at 10 from New Orleans making sure that the fact that most of the victims are black is not lost on viewers. The BBC making sure that the anti-Bush message is propagated by the device of a traumatised survivor sounding off about Bush in a suspiciously long segment.
Gil
Followed by Newsnight blaming problems on relief on Bush. No one seems to blame any of the problems of relief in New Orleans on the violence of the looters who chose to stay behind.
Of course the BBC never reported on the efficiency of the US response to the tsunami – so they can’t remember that it is America that always comes to the rescue in world disasters.
http://justawoman2005.blogspot.com/2005/08/no-other-america.html
Absolutely. Tonight’s Newsnight is an absolute disgrace. They are throwing everything they can at Bush. Not a word about the armed looters shooting at rescuers.
Tonight’s Newsnight was its drearily partisan self – every bit as bad as Gil and JohninLondon say. How Paul Reynolds can mount his repeated defences of the BBC when programmes as blatantly polemical as this are broadcast night after night is quite beyond me.
The strategy was clear: make it look as if only black Americans were suffering and that Bush was sitting on his hands, doing nothing.
It was a disgrace.
Indeed Newsnight was a disgrace, and on both of their main reports. Firstly, the filmed testament of the suicide bomber bewailing “bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my brothers etc.” in Iraq. NB apparently he wasn’t referring to Saddam who REALLY did do these things (but that’s OK with the BBC). This was seamlessly blended with Ken Clarke (the BBC’s candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party) denouncing the invasion of Iraq. Surely it may be inferred that to oppose the invasion of Iraq is to support the dictatorship of Saddam, a point never put?
The second report dealt with the New Orleans flooding, and Bush really copped it here. Thankfully, I have seen some of the preceding posts otherwise I might have believed some of the BBC’s BS on this important matter.
I’m glad Allan@Aberdeen raised the point about the BBC’s candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party.
Having been stuck in a car rather too often over the past few days, I’ve had to endure repeated doses of “good old Ken – almost human for a Tory” from various R4 news programmes.
It’s hard to decide whether they are promoting his campaign because they know his victory would effectively finish the Party (which it would), to absolutely silence the Right, or because he is an irredeemable Europhile.
Perhaps it’s a case of ‘all of the above’?
Either way, it’s so nakedly transparent that it is actually laughable.
About the most disingenuous example on tonights news about the floods was when the studio hostess asks their reporter in the US “What are the thoughts of the average person about the events going on?” You just know that he’s going to say something negative about Bush, and the Iraq war, and sure enough – out it spews.
Why should this presenter think this reporter could possibly know, and why should this reporter claim to know?
Paul Reynolds and any other BBCzoid lurking, you should be ashamed of what you people are trying to pass off as NEWS. You dont report it – you make it, and what you make sucks.
All this argument about examples of BBC bias will get us nowhere. The BBC thrive on such stuff by constantly trying to argue that they are fair. Whether they are fair or not is just not the point. In a free country we shouldn’t be forced to pay for any publications, be they on paper or electronically broadcast. To argue that this or that program is unfair implies that should the BBC tax would be fair if we agreed that the BBC’s output was unbiased.
It’s interesting that al-Beeb quotes liberally from New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin but have not shown him in any of the pictures or video footage. Is it possible that al-Beeb does not want its viewers to know that Mayor Nagin is a person of the pigmented persuasion?
After all that wouldn’t quite jibe with the “racist white Southerners leaving poor blacks to die” meme it seems determined to spread.
F*ckwits.
P.Reynolds
How can you live with yourself working as an enhusiastic apologist for the broadcast equivalent of Pravda?
if the BBC hates the Conservatives why would they “back” the only potential leader with a snowman’s chance in hell of becoming PM?Cockney
Perhaps another clue ,in addition to those posted above, would be from Clarkes interview on CH4 news. He was asked if there was too much immigration to the UK .After trying to dodge the question the interviewer asked him again. The answer “NO”. So there’s another reason why Clarke is the beebs favourite -a million immigrants every 5 yrs(+ illegals of course!)is fine, which is identical to Nu Labours view and the beebs.
I didn’t see any of the BBC coverage of Clark today(lucky me!).Did they , like CH4 , put Clarke on the spot about his open door immigration policy?
Susan: Yes, probably not… and they will probably not show the (African American) mayor of Detroit pledging hotel rooms and other spaces to be used by the victims of the disaster. The BBC don’t want people to know that there are actually black people who can make it big in the US (provided they’re motivated enough). They’d probably complain about the fact that there’s no muslim mayor of a major US city yet.
Simon: “Whether they are fair or not is just not the point. In a free country we shouldn’t be forced to pay for any publications, be they on paper or electronically broadcast.”
Well said Simon.
And further – It is the proper role of all of the media (BBC included – even when privatised) to “watch over”, and be “a check” on, government. It is not the proper role of media (the fourth estate) to be a part of the government (i.e. a part of the State apparatus – as the BBC is); and further the media should not be significantly beholden to government.
Paul Reynolds: “It is noticeable on television that those left behind or stayed behind appear to be poor African-Americans.”
Yes, it appears to me that about two-thirds of the people who stayed behind are African Americans.
However, if you are going to go out of your way to point this out, it might be helpful to ALSO point out that about two-thirds of the population of New Orleans was African American BEFORE the disaster. African Americans have been about 67% of the local population there for nearly a century.
So the ratio of about two-thirds of the poor who stayed behind being African Americans is absolutely appropriate for local conditions.
Susan wrote: It’s interesting that al-Beeb quotes liberally from New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin but have not shown him in any of the pictures or video footage.
Yes, and they also seem to want to hide the party affiliation of Louisiana’s Governor Kathleen Blanco.
Paul,
This was probably already addressed above but I’ll say it again. Buses were supposed to take people who didn’t have cars to shelter. It’s not the government’s fault if people refuse to take the bus out. Another thing. Rescue workers found an uninjured family of four in their home, which was totally destroyed all around them. They were lucky to even be alive. But when the rescue workers tryed to get the family out of their now dangerous home, they refused to leave it! And the reason for New Orleans not being prepared for this disaster had nothing to do with Iraq or Bush. Instead, it was because they had been so lucky all these years never to suffer such a tragedy that they probably thought it would never happen to them.
Also, on the subject of Mayors and such, it should be known that not only is the Mayor of Atlanta black but also a woman.
As for Katrina, I work for an insurance company that insured many of those homes, so my work is cut out for me. I’m wondering if any of them had flood insurance. Fortunately, the company I work for, according to my boss, will have plenty of money to help out without putting the company out too much.
More trashing of the USA on the Today Programme again.
Hooray Humphries asks in voice of amazement “It’s astonishing that the most powerful nation in the world can’t handle a rescue operation.”
A US senator telling us all that the majority of people left were “poor Black Americans” with no mention of the demography of New Orleans.
Claim that the mayor of New Orleans gave an order to evacuate without providing the means to do so.
The attempt to move people from the sports centre to a centre in Texas has been stopped because some thug shot at rescue workers. This, naturally, is not the fault of the hoodlum, but the government … etc etc
And on and on.
Switched off before they openly trashed President Bush again. Grrr.
But the worst item on Today was Sidney Blumenthal’s rant on the “cuts” in levee defences. He really is a snake. As David Frum pointed out, the number of dead is not known and people are still dying yet Blumenthal is attemting a smear job on GWB. It should have been pointed out that the BBC is happy to be the vehicle.
(Dont) Have Your Say http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4206896.stm is showing a disturbing amount of non beeb views.
I am waiting to see how long it is removed from the front page….
Fran “Hooray Humphries asks in voice of amazement “It’s astonishing that the most powerful nation in the world can’t handle a rescue operation.””
Well isn’t it amazing? Are you happy with the progress of the relief operation?
Someone here noted Jonathan Charles’s propaganda piece on Iraq where he compared it to Vietnam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4202186.stm
I’ve now corrected the “story” and you can read it here:
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/09/iraq-bbc-clueless-in-iraq-still.html
If anyone else has corrected the story for Charles, let me know and I’ll add a link to my post.
Snippet:
“But is it an accurate comparision? Charles doesn’t bother to even address that issue. I guess you could compare the two except that in this case, we’ve captured Hanoi, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong leadership, liberated the whole country, free and fair elections have been held, the people are in the process of drafting a constitution and the US death rate is about 10% of what Vietnam was.”
And Charles goes on to claim that US troop morale is low, citing one un-named captain as his source. One wonders how Charles can explain this then:
Every one of the Army’s 10 divisions — its key combat organizations — has exceeded its re-enlistment goal for the year to date. Those with the most intense experience in Iraq have the best rates. The 1st Cavalry Division is at 136 percent of its target, the 3rd Infantry Division at 117 percent.
Charles is another fine example of BBC propaganda at its best.