Monthly Archives: November 2005

Hey, Natalie and I cross-posted- and I’d just like to note that, concerning Scott’s posting, we’re both right!

Nanny Beeb wipes Indie’s posterior.

I mention this story- largely (for us) concerning a BBC headline- not just because regular commenter PJF noticed it, as did I, obliquely, and not just because Scott Burgess, following his excellent analysis of a fallacy, included in his subsequent analysis the BBC, but because it’s typical of BBC newsgathering and presentation.

It explains a lot about the BBC when you consider that often it draws stories and inspiration from papers like the Independent (which I think a very appropriate title; after all, to be independent of reason is the only way to be truly independent). Scott shows how the Independent’s Italian job about phosphorous bombs is riddled with problems- and he shows how the BBC journalist who picked the story up had to cut out so much of the rotten apple an Italian moonbat complained that the BBC was covering for the US government!

The Beeb originally reported the story with the headline ‘”US ‘used chemical arms’ in Iraq”.’– music to the ears of every supporter of the Islamofascist resistance. Later they realised their (and surely the Indie’s) mistake and changed it to ‘”US ‘uses incendiary arms’ in Iraq”‘. Wow- incendiary, eh? Big news. It was that headline which I saw, and thought, ‘how odd’- and smelt the stealthy rat of an edit which I later found- thanks to PJF- had occurred.

The BBC journalist (who- read Scott- had to deal with the angry Italian moonbat) explained how the title was changed ‘after a little research’. Now, call me unmedialiterate, but I had this little idealistic impression that some ‘little’ research might be in order before accusing a nation of war crimes.

I think this story shows how completely wacko papers on the left like the Indie are given far too much respect by the BBC (in sharp contrast, say, to the leave alone treatment of Galloway when accused by the Telegraph). Attacking the US government in this way is pretty much an unlosable game (when was the last time they sued???), and the Independent does this as a matter of routine. In fact, the BBC journalist apologised to the moonbat for over-reliance on official sources. The truth is that they rarely bother to understand the official sources they’re given, and to build up the trust which might befit people from the same, or allied, nations- such is their ideologically driven contempt for them.

has a sequel to our earlier post about the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt – attacks which were reported on Al Qaeda sites before they made the BBC site.

It’s worth quoting in full:

Only last month, the port city of Alexandria saw some of the worst sectarian disturbances the country has ever seen.

This is from the BBC’s ‘Arab affairs analyst’ Magdi Abdelhadi, comenting on the Egyptian government’s attempts to rein in the Muslim Brotherhood’s inflammatory rhetoric (read it here).

Let’s run through those ‘sectarian disturbances’ again, shall we? As reported by… the BBC.

A Muslim man stabbed a Coptic Christian nun. Then a couple of days later 5000 Muslim extremists tried to storm a Coptic church, and in the course of pitched battles with the police three of them got themselves killed.

But I bet the nun was acting really disturbingly.

John Simpson makes understanding the BBC’s position (which has been mixed enough to create confusion) nice and clear. The BBC’s World Affairs editor says

‘Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, now seems to be playing politics with the situation by appealing to the most basic and resentful attitudes of conservative France.’

Simpson also blames the French system for its neglect of the immigrant ‘burbs, yet- correct me if I’m wrong, but- for most of the period he cites (30 years) it had leftist politicians like Mitterand in charge, and Chirac is hardly of the robust right. Now suddenly Sarkozy’s at fault (not a mention of France’s generous social welfare system, the French model etc), when he hasn’t even had a serious bite at the governing cherry. Just who is playing politics, mr Simpson? France, if it is a failure, is a leftist failure- the leftists who triumphed in 1968. Simpson is not trying to explain history but to cover it up, to whitewash. Nice Snow job, mr Simpson.

(of course, that’s not to mention the sly and unreasonable introduction of the Iraq conflict- the cause for all ills the BBC, bless ’em, can’t resist-, trying to head off the critique that Chirac’s Iraq policy has brought no domestic dividends- a very workable proposition, unlike the one that his criticisms of the US and UK have been ‘thoroughly borne out’)

This “personal view” by historian David Cannadine is a strange mishmash of an article. To start with, I’ve never heard of this “Guy Fawkes Day”. Bonfire Night is presumably what he means.

It is explicitly stated to be the personal view of the author, so it can be held to a somewhat less stringent standard of impartiality than the BBC’s main output. Somewhat. (Although see this comment by PaulC, who says that the BBC is fond of plausible deniability in its selection of experts.) Just how willing do you think the BBC would be to publish an appeal for prejudice against any other nation than the United States?

And the Americanised Halloween is sweeping all before it – a vivid reminder of just how powerfully American culture and American consumerism can be transported across the Atlantic.

But here, perhaps, is an opportunity for the revival of 5 November. For those who wish to protest at the ever increasing Americanisation of our world might take up Bonfire Night as their cause.

Huh? I, too, would like to see Bonfire Night revived – but Cannadine’s argument that this traditional British festival should be revived because too much attention is being given to American ways of celebrating another festival the week before is just a near-random excuse for anti-Americanism.

The BBC and other media outlets gave a good deal of attention to the Islamic festival of Eid-al-Fitr that took place this year on November 4. Yet the BBC would not publish an article containing a call for people to take up Bonfire Night in protest at increasing Islamisation. Even if the BBC would publish a serious “personal view” article by someone arguing that increasing Islamisation was either undesirable or happening at all, which I doubt it would, it would never even consider allowing a someone writing in that context to advocate pointless needling for the sake of it. (“Making faces at Uncle Sam”)

But how comparable are the two? At this point I started off on a breakdown of the respective risks to public order of whipping up anti-Muslim and anti-American sentiment. Then I decided to omit it on grounds of space. Summary: immediate risk higher for anti-Muslim prejudice, long term risk higher for anti-American, and the risk is non-trivial in both cases. Yet we – even I, who make quite a point of complaining about it – have got so used to anti-Americanism that I scarcely notice it any more. Don’t judge Cannadine too harshly: not all of us can step clear of the prejudices of our class and era.

It’s a pity. Cannadine does describe the positive historical reasons for wanting to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ failure, albeit far more half-heartedly than he speaks of his sterile wish to “make faces at Uncle Sam”. Also he makes some good points about the real reason Bonfire Night has been downvalued: not trick-or-treating a few days earlier but endless safety nannyism. First they said that you were an irresponsible parent if you dared let off bangers in your own back garden and that all would be well if you went to a public display, then they made public displays more and more burdensome to run by means of firework restrictions and insurance premiums. Oh, and, as Cannadine himself says, another reason for the downgrading of Bonfire Night is that Britain is “now a multi-faith society.” At this point my more sharp-tongued relatives might point out that there is no “now” about it; the Catholics have been in Britain somewhat longer than the Protestants, actually. Blimey, just when the Irish component of Catholicism in Britain had finally just about let its historical grievances become history, along comes the victim culture to tell ’em to get resenting again. Cannadine seems half in this and half out of this: he wants Guys to be burned in every back yard again – yet he says:

It’s possible to be a Catholic Briton and admire Nelson; it’s hard to be a Catholic Briton without wincing at the sight of an effigy of Guy Fawkes going up in flames. I’m not a Catholic, but I do rather sympathise.

Well, my parents were devout Catholics of Irish descent and throughout my childhood our family always burnt a Guy come November 5, as did the families of my equally Catholic schoolfriends. Why? Because Guy Fawkes was a terrorist. That’s not just what I say now, it’s what we said then.

Happy Bonfire Night.

. Here, shorn of the odd rude word, is commenter Ritter’s view on this BBC story by Hugh Schofield: Sarkozy’s tough talk misses mark

His analysis is summarized thus: Sarkozy is a right winger. Therefore he is wrong or in Hugh’s words “out of kilter” with public opinion. Chirac & de Villepin are to the left of Sarkozy. Therefore they have got it right.

Hugh’s analysis is contradictory. He asserts that, even if the majority of the French public support Sarkozy’s line on the Paris riots, actually they don’t really because deep down, they are socialists!

“Even if a majority believe hardline measures to be necessary to quell the disturbances, most French also have hot-wired [He means hard-wired. Hot-wired is what criminals do to make stolen cars go. Sounds like a Freudian slip – NS] into them a deep sense of social justice.

They expect a certain tone from their leaders – one that recognises there may be an “issue” at stake, and “underlying causes” to be tackled. They actually quite like the “langue de bois”. “

Really?

Not that Hugh knows what the facts are regading what the public think, as he doesn’t reference any recent polls on French public opinion to support his ‘analysis’. And actual ‘facts’ like that could spoil his story. This isn’t any actual analysis going on here. This is a news ‘event’ being passed through the painfully predictable BBC ‘world-view’ prism [left wing = good, right wing = bad]. Sadly this passes for ‘analysis’ at the BBC.

Hugh ends his analysis on a confident note:

“So for once, Mr Sarkozy finds that his tough-talking is out of kilter with the national mood, which urgently wants a return to quiet and knows that the best way of getting it is if the government makes the right kind of gestures.

That’s it, I’m off down the bookies to put money on Sarkozy being the next French President……

is posting away merrily. Like it says on the can, this blog is by an American expatriate, and he is particularly strong on American affairs.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back is not the pamphlet of that name written by Lenin but a careful critique of an amended piece by the BBC’s Paul Reynolds on the Wilson / Plame / Libby affair. Scott Callahan argues that the amendments were not improvements.

In Just the cold, hard facts he describes the way in which a couple of BBC types will start off with a remark of the unfalsifiable “it is widely believed” type, toss it to and fro between them for a minute and come out with an “expert” consensus. He also slams Justin Webb’s “Banana Republic” quip, which has also been mentioned here by commenter “Big Mouth”.

And in Small but Important he nails down an error I keep seeing in BBC reporting of American legal matters. The only thing wrong with the post is that Scott Callahan apologises for it as sounding pedantic. It is nothing of the sort. The separability of the two questions of whether a law is good and whether it is constitutional is itself a crucial point. The BBC blurs the two issues for the same reasons that the Democrats (or more accurately those with the “unconstrained vision” in Thomas Sowell’s terminology) do. The distinction comes up again and again. The degree to which it is observed or ignored has vast practical effects on how America is changed by changes in its law.

As Vladimir Ilyich put it:

When a prolonged, stubborn and heated struggle is in progress, there usually begin to emerge after a time the central and fundamental points at issue, upon the decision of which the ultimate outcome of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.

, so little time- to chronicle it that is.

Take this article about Sharon. Well, no, it’s not about Sharon actually as it’s about his first name, ‘Ariel’, and how it’s been discouraged as a child’s name by a group of online Rabbis. Excuse me- is that news? It’s anti-Sharon (though mainly from the Beeb’s pov, not necessarily the Rabbis), for sure, but it seems so ridiculous to try to squeeze news in this fashion, when there’s endless Islamonutism out there waiting for the BBC’s attention. Imagine the intray of Islamo-nuts instances, and then consider how the whiff of anti-Sharon Jewish wackos brings the BBC’s instant interest.

Here’s just one random example of recent Islamofascist tendancies which seems to have escaped BBC news online, and let’s face they’re not thin on the ground. Yet what really grates is the sense that the BBC is just sucking up to its vast audience of muslims, hoping perhaps to avoid the brick through its journalistic windows. It didn’t protect Gardner, but that seems to have had little effect.

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Before I start, I’ve changed the text at the sidebar dealing with telling this blog about examples of bias from “aagh, don’t email me, I can’t cope” which is basically what it’s said for the last few months to the slightly more optimistic:

You can send it to the Letters Editor at nataliesolent AT aol DOT COM, and it is at least possible that I will not lose it or ignore it. A generally better option is to post it as a comment, even to an unrelated post, preceded if appropriate by the words “Off topic”.

While I was away “Captain Bill” pointed out a story about the recent referendum in Brazil on whether it should be legal to buy guns. He wrote:

Saw your post on the defeat of the UN-suggested total gun ban, just after I read:

Personal security dominates Brazil poll

“…And yet the Brazilian people have voted in a referendum to reject a proposal to ban the sale of firearms.

So what happened? To outsiders, this referendum looked like a no-brainer.

In a country where one person is killed with a gun every 15 minutes, surely the public would vote in favour of an outright ban on gun sales?

Wrong. By a resounding 64% to 36%, Brazilians decided to keep the gun shops open. …”

Seems to me as if the writer is more of a (biased) no-brainer than the citizens of Brazil. Was this supposed to be a news item?

In defence of the writer, Steve Kingstone, he did give a reasonable summary of the actual arguments of those who supported the right to own guns in the paragraph headed “Black market.” This is an improvement on previous attempts by the BBC to cover the issue of guns, which tended to diagnose the alleged psychological problems of supporters of gun rights rather than engage with what they actually thought. (See here, for example, although I was pleasantly surprised by this a few weeks later.)

Nonetheless the rather superior tone taken by Mr Kingstone with his talk of “no-brainers” is not justified. He does not know “outsiders” in general share his opinions.

And although it is a little harsh to single out Mr Kingstone, his piece says nearly all the things BBC reports always do say when the Beeb thinks the wrong side has won a vote.

• The winning bad guys’ campaign was “slick” (i.e. the ad-men bamboozled the rustics).
• The losing good guys’ campaign was “lacklustre” (i.e. the people would have been persuaded if only the messenger had been worthy).
• What voters really wanted to do was give the ruling party a scare (they weren’t actually saying what the vote seemed to say).

I’m not saying that these factors were not there in the Brazilian gun referendum. Such factors often are very influential. But you can all amuse yourselves by looking back over… hmm, various recent votes on European issues would do, and spotting how important these themes suddenly become when the vote goes awry from the Beeb point of view.

And most of the time, if the bad guys’ campaign happens to spend more than their opponents you can bet you’ll hear it described as “well-funded”. Conversely, if the side of virtue (as defined by the Beeb) triumphs, then the money spent is not usually an issue. Mr Kingstone is not guilty on this count, as he did say that the Yes campaign was “heavy in celebrity razzamatazz, and light in penetrating argument.”