‘Note to Biased BBC, you are getting under their skin. You will be pleased to know you are the recognised enemy.’
Well, funnily enough I feel the same way about them.
Guido Fawkes was at the opening night of some We Media thing which the BBC is hosting, and has observations to offer.
There are of course many reasons for not resisting the temptation to become an enemy of the BBC, but one among them is the routine bias– bias like this incident noticed by Ian Dale.
When the media critique a group or institution they tend to do so with a kind of coordination: the BBC becomes all uncoordinated when it comes to Nu-Labour scandals, as Stephen Pollard notes.
Recently I was looking into the worst local government corruption scandal of all time: the Donnygate affair. Searching the BBC produced no ‘Q & A’ article, and the article which reported the conviction of coucillor Peter Birks failed to mention that he was A LABOUR COUNCILLOR- which is rather unlike their approach to a rather less seriously indicted Conservative from the same town- article here. Donnygate was a Nu-Labour scandal (in the sense, especially, that Nu-Lab was a cunning laundering of Old Labour money- metaphorically speaking!!!) through and through, and yet commentary of what it implied about Nu-Labour strategy/culture, occurring as it did in the constituency of one- friend of John Prescott- Rosie Winterton, was not forthcoming.
Well, political winds blow where they will, but the BBC is shelter from the storm for a certain pink tinged political party.
Off topic
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4968402.stm
Note at the end of article
—
riots which broke out after a fire in a train claimed the lives of 59 Hindus.
—-
Actually a Muslim mob set train on fire which killed 59 Hindu pilgrims.
“Note to Biased BBC, you are getting under their skin.”
Well they get under my skin every time I turn on the Today programme.
Take the Thought for Today this morning. The Rev Giles Fraser begins by saying some American conservatives object to the US national anthem being sung in Spanish. Note that the pattern is now set – right wingers are generally bad, they oppose multiculturalism etc. Could he be setting the scene for us now move on to “Christian Fundamentalists” I wonder? Indeed I am not disappointed. We move smoothly on to religious scriptures – according to the good Rev many people object to the Bible being in other languages, with some people (right wingers, rednecks, fascist types etc) thinking that King James English is the only version allowed.
What a parody of the truth from someone who purports to be a representative of the Christian faith.
Indeed as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19 (this is in the Bible Rev Fraser, should you care to read it)”Therefore go and make disciples of all nations”. Also I note that Christians are not slow in translating the Bible into other lanuages, according to Wikipedia:-
“The Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world. Both Hebrew Scripture and the Christian Bible have been translated more times and into more languages (more than 2,100 languages) than any other book.”
So what is the point that the Rev Fraser is trying to make? That right wingers are bad? That right wing Christians are especially bad? Beats me. But I wish he would research his facts before he comes onto national radio spouting utter nonsense to back up his own woolly world view, and one completely in line with Beeboid psychology.
In a pincer movement immediately following the good Rev, we had St James of Smug trying to score points against a representative of the Catholic Church with regard to the Da Vinci Code and Opus Dei. St James is convinced that Opus Dei is a greater threat to mankind than Al Qaeda and, quite possibly, global warming, yet the pincer movement is stymied by the sensible responses of the interviewee.
Overall an honourable draw then:-
Thought for Today
Beeboid woolly worldview 1, Evil rightwingers 0
Da Vinci Code
Beeboid woolly worldview 0, Evil rightwingers 1 (after extra time)
Seriously, it is this simple in Beeboid thinking.
on “today” this morning , discussing the Mossaui trial in the U.S. , they interview to an imam of the Brighton mosque for his comments.
i’d even bother listening. i changed channels.
The BBC sponsored conference was a bit of an eye opener, but I don’t subscribe to your “Beeb is a nest of pinko commies” line.
Some of the Beebies asked me was I in league with you (presumably because you are covering the Nick Robbo / Guido dialogue).
But some things are a given in Beebworld, America – bad, Bush – bad, Blair – bad, Licence fee – good, Advertising – bad. Israel – bad.
To my mind Newsnight and the Daily Politics are anti-New Labour with some fervour, Newsnight in particular is almost pro-Cameron.
BBC people that I spoke to were not lefties (one described himself as a libertarian) and they too thought Today is arrogant and leftie.
“and they too thought Today is arrogant and leftie.”
good god – there is some hope so.
interesting poll findings:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2006-05-03T025959Z_01_L02149566_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-SURVEY.xml&src=050306_0855_FEATURES_live_event:_we_media_forum
“Asked to name the news source they most trusted, without any prompting, 59 percent of Egyptians said Al Jazeera, 52 percent of Brazilians said Rede Globo, 32 percent of Britons said the BBC, 22 percent of Germans said ARD and 11 percent of Americans said Fox News, each leading their respective nations.”
only 32%…
Guido Fawkes,
The BBC allways attack Zanu-Labour from the left.
32% too high.
OFF TOPIC:
apologies for the newbie mongness…
but is there an actual RSS feed for this site (I can’t see a link to it on the site; I can only find the Atom one through Google – doesn’t work in Firefox)
Thx in advance
Matt
Dumbcisco
You took me to task on another thread regarding the independent panel’s report on BBC coverage of Israel/Palestine, telling me that I was ‘wrong’ and that I should ‘read the report’. Oops Dumbcisco, Messenger Boy’s post was a cut and paste directly from the report. No paraphrase, no interpretation, no editing. Verbatim. Now YOU read it:
http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/rev_israelipalestinian.html
And why the silence on this blog about two of the panel’s main findings: that there is no consistent bias in BBC coverage and that if anyone has cause to grumble, it’s the Palestinians.
Are you going to argue the panel was rigged? If so, are you also going to allege that the independent research the panel commissioned from Loughborough University was rigged?
And while you’re at it, please explain how come Loughborough’s findings uncannily echo a study two years ago by the Glasgow Media Group. Is EVERYBODY biased/wrong? Or could it be you?
Congratulations to biased BBC for getting under the red tinged skin of the beeboids. Good post Eamonn – I also endured today’s ‘Thought’ with the all too frequent annoyance of being dished up prejudice in the name of ‘God’. Then we had the Brixton Imam provided a good dose of taqiyaa – ‘we’re all moderates around here – the extremists have been driven out’, but at five to nine Anthony Browne managed to get in a few excellent points about how extreme the ‘moderates’ are – as exemplified by the Muslim Council of Britain.
The 10 o’clock news bulletin gave the wonderfully informative announcment that Ehud Olmert has formed his new coalition government with “some other parties” – without mentioning what the parties are. Presumably this is because they are predominantly left leaning (Labour and the pensioners)and the beeb doesn’t want to make Israel sound moderate. You can imagine how the news would have been written if the coalition had been with Likud. Then they got in their usual punch line about how the Israelis are going to set their borders “with or without the agreement of the Palestinians” – so it’s back to the ‘evil Israeli’ message now that al beeb has officially been told they have a pro Israeli bias!
I don’t suppose many on this site read Al Grauniad, so here are a couple of letters from today’s edition that touch on what John Reith is saying.
The BBC’s Middle East coverage has had important effects on public understanding (BBC’s coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict ‘misleading’, May 3) In our study – Bad News from Israel – three years ago we found that there was a strong emphasis on Israeli casualties in TV reports, even though deaths on the Palestinian side were much higher. In a large audience sample from 2002, just 35% knew that the Palestinians had significantly more casualties than the Israelis, while 43% believed either that there were more Israeli casualties or that the figures were the same for each side.
We showed how such reporting could strongly influence attitudes, leading, for example, to the belief that Palestinians were instigating violence while the Israelis “responded”. Now the new report from the BBC and the research it commissioned from Loughborough University has found the same pattern for news about casualties, this time concluding that national news programmes reported six times as many Israeli as Palestinian fatalities (a more extreme ratio than we found). The question is: why has this situation been allowed to continue and what will the BBC now do to offer a better informed coverage.
Professor Greg Philo
Glasgow University Media Group
* As a Palestinian, the BBC does indeed look unsympathetic most of the time. I look forward to the BBC no longer being afraid to call Palestinian terrorism terrorism, as well as being bold enough to describe targeted assassinations as Israeli executions without trial that inevitably kill civilian bystanders; the Israeli army as occupation forces; settlements as illegal Israeli colonies; and the security barrier as Israeli land theft condemned as illegal by the international court of justice. And if the BBC is really plucky, perhaps it will start describing those Palestinian acts of terrorism as retaliations to Israeli persecution.
Ala Khazendar
Pasadena, California , USA
Call me a cynic but have you noticed the alleged perjury of a Tory warrented being covered in the ‘England’ section while the failed appeals of two convicted Labour criminals only got into the South Yorkshire section.
I wonder what the ‘Tories are evil’ story is that they’ll launch mid council election.
archduke
you have to take that 32% in context. What the report says is this….
“Asked to name the news source they most trusted, without any prompting, 59 percent of Egyptians said Al Jazeera, 52 percent of Brazilians said Rede Globo, 32 percent of Britons said the BBC, 22 percent of Germans said ARD and 11 percent of Americans said Fox News, each leading their respective nations.
The most trusted news brands globally were the BBC, Britain’s publicly funded broadcaster, and CNN, which is owned by the world’s biggest media conglomerate, Time Warner Inc..”
I know something about this poll – as I was one of the public actually asked – first time it’s ever happened to me….
what I found weird was being asked ‘who do you trust?’ and having to decide between the government, the media and others….no room for qualification. There was also a somewhat loaded-seeming question on blogs.
“but is there an actual RSS feed for this site ”
blogspot.com only offers ATOM feeds.
FAO John (Reith),
I haven’t had a chance to read the report yet, but will do so when I get the chance. I am looking forward to doing so.
“And while you’re at it, please explain how come Loughborough’s findings uncannily echo a study two years ago by the Glasgow Media Group. Is EVERYBODY biased/wrong? Or could it be you?”
John Reith.
The Glasgow media group. That bastion of “balanced” thought and analysis.
Here is their main man, Greg Philo, showing his true colours in “Socialist Review”:-
“The government puts a lot of pressure on journalists and the broadcasting institutions to support what they term “our side”,’ says Greg Philo, a professor in media studies at the University of Glasgow. And he goes on, ‘We saw this very clearly in the Falklands War, where the BBC were criticised for being unpatriotic. Yet by the end of the war almost the whole of the media were criticising the way in which the government had handled its information policy. This is because they were putting out stories that were completely untrue. So, for example, they said there would be no D-Day style landing in the Falklands–and a few days later they did exactly that. They put this story out to deceive the Argentinians, but all of the papers and the BBC regarded it as unacceptable because of the damage it did to their own credibility. They said that they couldn’t be seen so clearly to be government stooges.’
The military learnt an important lesson from the Falklands War–that one of the best ways to ensure you get the right stories out was to control the movement of journalists. Greg Philo recalls, ‘The Americans were rather admiring about what happened during the Falklands War, and were interested in organising news management in what they would see as a more productive way. The American military blamed the media for having lost the Vietnam War, so when they saw what the British had been able to do during the Falklands War they instigated a whole number of changes. The main change was to control the movement of journalists. When the US invaded Grenada they actually stopped anyone going in for three days. Then the Americans went into Panama and they put the journalists in a hotel, who were extremely limited in what they were able to do. When they got to the Gulf War the whole system had been refined again into what became known as the “pool system”, where journalists were accredited, and put in the pool. If you were not given accreditation then you were not treated as a proper journalist and were not given information by the authorities. If you are out of the pool you are on your own, and are likely to be deported. Journalists that stay outside the pool, like Robert Fisk, have the constant threat of being deported hanging over them.'”
Very balanced.
So, John Reith, forgive us if we feel that such “authoritative” accounts of pro-Israeli bias by people like Philo are taken with a pinch of salt.
Eamon
So Greg Philo’s a Leftie. What’s new? (Not all that unusual in a country with a Labour government.) But this report isn’t by Greg Philo, but an independent panel chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas.
Sir Q was a career civil servant. Home Office, NI Office, Cabinet Office. Last job was head of Constitution Secretariat. Most of his big jobs were under John Major. Left about 2 years after the current lot got in. Altogether a different proposition from comrade Philo.
Relentless Bush/Republican bashing on R5 “Upallnight”, last night. Presenter Rhod Sharp seems to be given a free hand to pursue his political hobbyhorses.
Lengthy interview with Michael Stibbins of the Federation of American Scientists – he claimed that the body was non-partisan, but he personally was in a lefty rage against Bush etc.
He associated Bush with intelligent design.
He claimed Bush was creating the image of science producing “monkey boys” – a conclusion he reached from 4 words in the SOTU speech (“Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms; creating or implanting embryos for experiments; creating human-animal hybrids; and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.)
He claimed that all scientific opinion supported the positition that man was responsible for the most significant part of climate change. (He obviously hadn’t noticed the recent comments of distinguished Canadian & other disenting scientists).
All this was delivered with encouragement rather than even devil’s advocate opposition by the BBCoid.
We then had an interview with the governor of Montana (Democrat- but not stated). The subject was supposed to be the anti-free speech laws that existed in WW1 (Montana having a large number of German immigrants). But guess where the conversation went.
Later an regular Australian guest to talk about science – back to Bush & climate change.
Patrick – For insightful comment on the BBCs ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ report try reading Adloyada.
http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/
From the excellent Adloyada, referred to by Oscar above:-
“However, a closer reading of the report and of the accompanying research on which it partially based its conclusions shows that some of the most egregious core assumptions of the Beeb remain untouched. Perhaps that’s hardly surprising when you consider that the report is by the BBC on itself, and that its independent panel was nominated and serviced by … the BBC.”
“I hope to return to discussion of other similarly gross obsfuscations in the report, particularly in the way it’s used what is in fact a highly tendentious and methodologically dubious piece of content research to seek to demonstrate that its present reporting is loaded in favour of Israel and against the Palestinians.”
Quite.
Eamon
The point is that Adloyada is wrong. It wasn’t a report ‘by the BBC on itself’. It was a report commissioned by the governors, made up of independent non-BBC members who, in turn, commissioned independent research from a university department, a commercial market research company and some expert witnesses (one an Israeli). The panel called witnesses and received written submissions and made a trip to Israel and the occupied territories. The chairman was a former senior civil servant. It couldn’t be LESS a ‘BBC reporting on itself’ process.
But did the BBC nominate the members?
Eamonn
I don’t know who nominated the members. the usual form with panels of enquiry of this sort is that the chairman is ‘invited’ and once he’s signed-up he has a say (formal or informal) on who else is brought on board. The chairman will have been picked by the governors…..who are themselves appointed by the government and are ‘real people’ with real lives and jobs away from the BBC. Their staus is similar to the trustees of a charity. Here’s that independent panel in full:
Chair: Sir Quentin Thomas CB • former civil servant in the Home Office, Cabinet
Office and Northern Ireland Office; President, British Board of Film Classification
Others:
§ Lord Eames – Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland
§ Stewart Purvis – former Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive, ITN;
Professor of Television Journalism, City University
§ Philip Stephens • Associate Editor and Columnist, Financial Times
§ Dr Elizabeth Vallance JP – former Head, Dept of Politics, Queen Mary
College, University of London; Member, Chair of Council, Institute of
Education; Committee on Standards in Public Life; Author.
So – a former civil servant, a bishop, an ex-ITN guy turned professor of journalism, an FT man, a politics don….. not the sort of people who’d roll over and allow themselves to be nobbled.
“But did the BBC nominate the members?”
yes they did. it says so on page 3 of the report. in fact , its the very first sentence.
“We were appointed by the Governors..”
so there you go. the bbc reporting on itself.
O/T: Found this sentence slipped into an article about a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad:
Insurgents are waging a campaign of violence to drive US troops out of Iraq and topple the US-backed government.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4971526.stm
“US-backed” is an emotive phrase which hints towards interference and puppetry.
Why can’t they bring themselves to say “democratically elected government”? Or even just “newly elected government”?
“Insurgents are waging a campaign of violence to drive US troops out of Iraq and topple the US-backed government.”
As if the British troops dont exist.
Sorry for double post, again. BTW archduke I’ve complained about that sentence, for all the good it will do.
What is ‘independent’? For example, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) – are their investiagtions independent of the Police?
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/
The IPCC’s job is to make sure that complaints against the police are dealt with effectively.
It is a new Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), funded by the Home Office, but by law entirely independent of the police, interest groups and political parties and whose decisions on cases are free from government involvement.
ok, sounds quite independent to me – now, what about the BBC Governors who commission ‘investigations’ into BBC broadcasts? are they ‘independent’ of the BBC?
BBC Governors
http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/about/what.html
As Governors of the BBC, our main role is to ensure that the BBC remains independent of political or commercial interference and is run solely in the interests of viewers and listeners.
So, the main role of the BBC Governors is to protect the BBC from the world at large, be it Government, licence fee payers, whatever. Are they independent body ? – I don’t see it.
Archduke
For the record, do you doubt the integrity of the men and women on the independent panel whose report was commissioned by the governors?
Do you doubt the integrity of the governors?
Do you doubt that the research commissioned by the panel from a university and other sources was competently and professionally conducted?
Are they all stooges? Yes or No?
…sorry that should have been ‘men and woman’.
Ritter
If you had chosen to put in bold ‘run solely in the interests of viewers and listeners’, then you would have seen how the licence fee payer is served, not frustrated, by the governors.
“Do you doubt the integrity of the governors?”
i have no comment to make on their integrity or otherwise.
The fact is that the BBC appointed them to investigate themselves.
It is , therefore , the BBC reporting on itself.
“run solely in the interests of viewers and listeners”
who determines what those “interests” are?
the BBC.
The problem is of course that the types nominated and appointed to such bodies are absolutely typical of the sort the Today programme etc gets on to tell us all what we should be doing, what we should be thinking on the issues of the day. Believe me, I hear them all the time on Radio 4. Yet they rarely reflect what the majority think. Of course they are people of integrity, it’s just that their worlview reflects that of the BBC, which is solidly grounded in the Guardian/Independent editorial column worldview. How many academics do you know that are sympathetic to Israel? And how many churchmen? And how many TV editors? And how many former civil servants? See?
Archduke
The governors may determine what those interests are, but they don’t do it in a vacuum. They themselves are accountable. The DCMS, a select committee of MPs and other media are not shy about making representations. No reason why you should be either. They’re very keen you should have your say too. This is a democracy. And the BBC does have a charter….which imposes most of the big obligations from the off.
yet more sloppy “climate change” reporting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4969772.stm
headline:
“Clear human impact on climate”
then in the article:
“However, scientists involved in the report say better data is badly needed. ”
in other words, the scientists are saying “we dont know”
BBC Business section leading story is BOE leaving borrowing rate at 4.5%.
2 subsidiary links are provided from the lead story, both negative.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/default.stm
One is a link to “Surprise fall in UK manufacturing” dating from 5 April. It seems that the BBC have buried their more recent story, 3 May
The UK manufacturing sector enjoyed a strong upturn in fortunes during April, according to a survey of managers.
The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) said its Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 54.1 in April, the highest level for 17 months.
Growth in manufacturing output hit its highest level since November 2004, the survey found, and new orders also grew thanks to a pick-up in domestic demand
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4964438.stm
Just to back up what Eamonn and Archduke are saying about what might be termed ‘great and good’ syndrome. In fact there are academics who (quietly) support Israel and churchmen too.(Anglicans for Israel have an excellent website by the way). Trouble is they would never be represented on ‘independent’ panels selected by BBC Governors. If you want a career in say the arts or higher education there are clear red lines that you dare not cross if you are ambitious. You dare not openly support the war in Iraq or Israel or the tories or the republicans, and so on, if you want to get the prestige jobs and sit on the prestige committees. Believe me I’ve spent my working life in the kind of circles where reading anything other than the Guardian or Independent is heresy. I’ve heard people being turned down for jobs on the grounds that they are perceived to be conservative. This is how the public sector operates – and the BBC are in the forefront of this culture.
And John Reith – having an Israeli as a witness is, in itself, meaningless. Israel is just as beset by this syndrome as everywhere else in Western culture. Who was their Israeli witness – what was their politics? Can we read their testimony?
Until the Governors are elected by License Fee holders (or even better subscribers), instead of being political appointees I WILL doubt their independence.
Oscar,
That’s why shrinking the extortion funded sector is so vital for the country.
“Until the Governors are elected by License Fee holders”
its not rocket science to stick up a shortlist on the BBC website , asking viewers to vote.
the technology is there to do that – but the “governors” dont trust the great unwashed plebs.
Oscar et al
Yes you can read what the Israeli had to say. It’s in the appendices.
What seems to be happening here is that this blog is subtly moving from saying that the BBC is biased to saying that the whole of public life is both biased and rigged. The fact is, of course, that many card carrying Conservatives DO get appointments in public service. telegraph readers too. You may recall that the deputy chairman of the BBC at the time of the Hutton inquiry was a former Tory chief whip. (Lord Hutton, by the way, was appointed by ex-Blair flatmate Charlie Falconer – did that make him any the less independent?)
BBC governors used to be appointed by the prime minister. Now there is an independent public appointments commission. The governors look shortly to be replaced by a Trust – even more independent and whose make-up will be significantly less susceptible to political horse-trading.
All this is, in any case, a diversion. A cheap use of the cheap tu quoque debating technique. The plain facts are that this blog has long maintained that the BBC’s coverage has been systematically biased against Israel. An independent enquiry has commissioned independent evidence that it is not. The numbers have been crunched and the numbers show that Biased-BBC has been consistently untruthful in its assertions that the BBC underplays or makes light of Israeli casualties of Islamist terrorists and suicide bombers. The published facts show that, in fact, the average Israeli casualty has received something like SIX TIMES as much BBC coverage than his/her Palestinian counterpart. (Not something the BBC should be complacent about).
Even if you are nuts enough to believe that the independent panel were stooges, that the BBC governors are playing politics….even if you are dumbcisco enough to believe that…..it still doesn’t get you off the hook of the EVIDENCE. Unless you are saying that 2 universities, a polling organization and a string of independent experts are all part of the same conspiracy to whitewash the BBC, then face up to it: you were wrong.
YOU (among others) complained that the BBC was consistently biased AGAINST Israel. The BBC took you seriously enough to commission an investigation. The panel has reported – citing evidence, which it has published. The evidence proves you were WRONG.
Yes an independent panel with unprejudiced views
Lord Eames – allround acceptable face of Anglicanism in N Ireland – big fan of Rowan “don’t mention Darfur” Williams: what do we gather from this: prima facie he is part of the bien pensant establishment (anti Democratic Unionist, not so anti Sinn Fein/IRA?, “let’s understand the Islamic terrorists before we condemn” etc etc)
Stuart Purvis – ex head of Channel 4 news – remember this is the one fronted by Jon Snow: if we’re talking bias this is as worthy of a blog all its own as the BBC. BTW, this from http://www.knightayton.co.uk/frameset.html?http://www.knightayton.co.uk/stewart_purvis.html “In his first 12 months since retiring from ITN he has appeared as a media commentator on BBC One, BBC News 24, Radios 4 and 5, BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio, ITV News, Channel Four News and Five News.” Wouldn’t you say he’s part of the problem rather than the solution?
Philip Stephens – another bien pensant member of the liberal (in US terms) establishment, big fan of EU: again the pleas for understanding of Arab grievances, “justice” in the Middle east etc etc cf this article in the FT on 7 July 2005 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/07d66288-ef12-11d9-8b10-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=46d6f5a8-d260-11d8-b661-00000e2511c8.html
Elizabeth Vallance – biog here http://www.public-standards.gov.uk/about_us/members_and_remuneration/index.asp#EV another member of the great and good. Heads the Institute of “Education” which has been the engine room for the machine which has devastated education in the UK since the 60s.
Quentin Thomas – incredibly safe pair of hands – ex civil servant, retirement as head of British Board of Film Censors
All the above are safe appointees for the BBC governors. They were NEVER going to rock any BBC boat. Even so, I suspect even the BBC were surprised that, in an excess of enthusiasm, they found that the BBC’s output favoured Israel. Meanwhile, we have the report, but we do not have the raw data on which the report was b(i)ased.
Umbongo
You are being very selective. Stewart Purvis was/is ‘News International Visiting Professor’ at Oxford. Does that make him Murdoch’s man?
Elizabeth Vallance is a ma
“The published facts show that, in fact, the average Israeli casualty has received something like SIX TIMES as much BBC coverage than his/her Palestinian counterpart.”
That is not what we complain about. How many times on here have you found posts about that?
It is how the stories are presented, sometimes with tears (thanks Barbara), the lack of context, the starting assumption that suicide bombings can be equated with IDF operations, the misrepresentation of history (e.g. the wilful misuse of Resolution 242).
If you do want to play the numbers game, chew on this. Rachel Corrie has plenty of coverage on the BBC news site:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2856433.stm
or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4455549.stm
or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4359325.stm
or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4354097.stm
or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3025016.stm
But where is Rachel Thaler’s (who?)story? After all, she was a British citizen, unlike Corrie. Perhaps we have to look elsewhere? Ah yes:-
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Memorial/2002/1/Rachel+Thaler.htm
Or compare the BBC coverage of two British men killed in Israel/Palestinian Territories in recent times. One is Tom Hurndall, shot by the IDF. A search of the BBC news site records for “Hurndall” records 32 stories about him. A search for Shmuel Mett (who?), stabbed by a Palestinian, records only 2 hits. Both British. Why the difference in coverage? We can all play the numbers game.
Anonymous
The points I am trying to make are:
1. Every one of the persons selected by the BBC is a paid-up member of the current establishment. The current establishment is left/liberal leaning with all that implies: particularly relevant in this case are being wishy-washy when it comes to Islamic terrorism, not great fans of Israel and, probably, not tough on crime or the causes of crime. If you’d told me beforehand who comprised this panel I could have told you what what this lot would decide and written the report into the bargain. Could not the BBC have chosen just one non-L/L figure eg Lord Tebbit or Simon Heffer
2. No I don’t think SP is Murdoch’s man: he’s his own man. The piece of evidence I could obtain in 30 seconds was his running of Channel 4 News which – as I said – requires a “biased” blog of its own and is very much the twin of BBC news programming.
3. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say about EV “Elizabeth Vallance is a ma” unless it’s the obvious which isn’t entirely relevant.
“Could not the BBC have chosen just one non-L/L figure eg Lord Tebbit or Simon Heffer”
Along with Daily Mail, Daily Express and Sun readers, Tebbit and Heffer are regarded by the BBC as figures of fun. So, no chance.
Which reminds me, on the Now Show last week
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/nowshow.shtml
the presenters clearly implied that Daily Mail and Daily Express readers are
1. Stupid (by saying the papers need to be coloured in)
2. Fascists (by saying that the readers may vote for the BNP)
Laugh? I nearly burst me sides!
Does anyone find their brand of comedy (Americans stupid, Bush stupid and evil, Mrs Thatcher stupid and very evil, Galloway canny and plucky etc) funny, apart from Rory Bremner and Michael Moore groupies? And why do these types always get prominent slots on the BBC?
Umbongo
You are still throwing mud at the members of the panel and ignoring the EVIDENCE. Even if this report had gone out in the name of the Three Stooges, the hard data would still stand.
I am amazed that you think that people with impressive CVs and track records (Establishment or not) are likely to go out of their way to whitewash the BBC. What would be in it for them?
I am even more amazed that you think that the chairman of the BBC would go out of his way to recruit anti-Israel panel members. Grade is after all a scion of one of the most prominent Jewish families in Britain. It all seems like a nutty conspiracy theory to me.
I too was puzzled by the Elizabeth Vallance is a ‘ma’. Mother? I’ve checked her out…and she is a magistrate. Perhaps that’s it. She’s also been a director of HMV and Norwich Union. Sounds like a pretty balanced public sector/private sector background.