I just don’t like inauthenticity. That’s where it begins. I was dutifully reading the latest BBC report from the frontlines of the battle for gay rights when I noticed something not-quite-right about their article.
There was a picture of two black “men holding hands”- as the photo was labelled- above a caption mentioning that “Homosexuality is illegal in Ghana”, and I thought, so what? Doesn’t mean they’re gay or anything.
No, but it means they are gay to us, that is to say, us Westerners.
I knew from experience of Kenya that men there often hold hands and are just being friendly and respectful. I wondered if it was different in Ghana. It isn’t. It’s also the case in South Africa.
So the picture is meaningless in the Ghanaian context, and meaningless to Southern Africa generally. It’s actually being culturally insulting; after all, as the last link points out, “Confident of who they are, and caring deeply about the people who are around them, African men use their bodies, nonsexually, to express closeness and joy. I must admit that as I walked through the township with my hand being held by a male elder, surprisingly I did not feel foreign.” (yes, I know- how twee)
I have to say that I know there is another side to this “joy” of masculinity, which is that if a man holds hand with a woman she is generally deemed a prostitute.
But still, the BBC misrepresent wilfully a basic cultural fact- for effect, it would seem. I say wilful, because as John Simpson has recently boasted, “Nowadays the BBC is the world’s biggest international broadcaster, leaving rivals like CNN, Fox or Al-Jazeera behind, both in terms of its bureaux and correspondents and its vast worldwide audiences.”
So how is this exposing bias at the BBC?
“But still, the BBC misrepresent wilully a basic cultural fact”
How exactly do you know that they are wilfully misrepresenting anything?
Well, as I explained, Mister Minit, I count it wilful because John Simpson has raised my expectations- with a screed typical of the Beeb’s self-puffery- of their global reach, such that ignorance of this genuinely basic cultural fact is inconceivable. Therefore I am left with only the ‘wilful’ option.
Ed,
I held hands with many Iraqis, as I organised the elections for the UN in Northern Iraq last year.
I am neither homosexual or arab.
I am however worried that Glaswegian fireman are having PC rammed down their throats and have been extreemely concerned about a non tolerant Islam for many years.
Their bias is scary to me to be honest.
ed
Your points are good….but I can’t quite see where the BBC is at fault.
Did they make a TV programme that failed to grasp the cultural significance/insignificance of hand holding?
Or was it an important radio documentary that got it all wrong?
You aren’t…..surely….pegging this whole post on a picture caption on a story from the most remote African section of the international bit of the BBC website…..are you?
Actually Ed,
Patrick is right, we’ve surely got better issues to comment about.
Get a life Ed and take the critisism on the chin, move on
Next…
No, he has a point. Bias starts with laziness, and in this case the BBC was lazy enough to assume that two men holding hands are gay. They didn’t put any cultural context on the image despite trying to bring a foreign culture in to it. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s an example of how the BBC’s laziness affects even the smallest things they do, and they assume that their view is always the only view to boot.
archonix,
valid point, at least at this blog we try to give all sides of the argument.
By the way, I used to work with the beeb and your right, it’s the small subtle things that they get away with, day after day which is perverted.
archonix
I suspect you have it the wrong way round.
I doubt the BBC started with the picture of 2 africans holding hands – and then built a story round it.
In fact, from the context, they obviously didn’t.
So the illustration was simply summoned from the digital image version of central casting.
Gimme a picture that says ‘Gay’ and ‘African’.
Plink. Plop.
And Bob’s your uncle.
Archronix (of course) is close to my thinking on this. I did state quite clearly this was a small example in the heading. I think it’s important not to get too bogged down in the latest big news story, and to have variety.
I think this blog exists, as it were, not to chase ambulances (no offence to Laban above, there are valid BBC bias questions there, too!), but to point out BBC bias. I’ve come to the conclusion this blog isn’t like others- it can’t decide what the biggest issues are in the world at the moment and just follow them; it has to take BBC bias where it finds it. That is best done where you personally know this is bias and can demonstrate it.
So what is bias? I’d call it the imposition of an ideological agenda on the news. I believe the above post is an interesting example of that, since the photo was chosen with a view to pushing a modern western agenda irrespective of the Ghanaian culture which it was ostensibly reporting (it doesn’t actually matter that the photo was from a photo bank and not taken by the BBC, that would be a red herring). Do I expect the BBC to step aside from crude Western generalising? Obviously I do, since the BBC are always pointing out their international credentials, and many people seem awed by them.
It is a small point, but actually if I take up the Ghanaian side of things, offensively ignorant on the BBC’s part. The BBC won’t have a flood, or even a trickle, of Ghanaian complaints. The people will not be geared that way. That’s one good reason for mentioning it. Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells is well geared up for that sort of thing, and to an extent the BBC listen to him and flatter him, but other people are not so organised. They may not pay the license fee, but the BBC draws a lot of kudos from being “on the side” of the underdog, whom they with their “wealth” of experience are able to research, identify, and broadcast on. They frequently fail, but the failures are not pointed out- sadly- and the BBC carry on regardless thanks to their state subsidy.
I think the point is that the BBC claim they are this wonderfully impartial and insightful broadcaster, but they don’t give a monkeys about even the most basic facts about the cultures they report on if it doesn’t hurt them not to and it fits into their ideological framework.
That’s just one way of looking at it, and there are surely others. I find it an interesting perspective from which to view the BBC mentality.
I’ve no doubt some think this is mountain and molehill territory. I don’t think so because it’s a basic error which shows agenda trumping reporting. There can be no culture of factuality where there is a culture of agenda- the two are in conflict. By design or by accident the latter is what the BBC offers.
Maybe the picture is cropped from a larger one showing two extremely well dressed men drinking cocktails in a club whilst Girls Aloud play a set in the background?
I actually agree that it’s pretty poor that a ‘global’ broadcaster which sneers at American introvertedness should show such ignorance, but I’m quite excited by the prospect of how the B-BBC commentariat are going to get from Ghanaian sexuality to the usual rants on Israel/Lebanon/Palestine/Jew haters. Surely you haven’t defeated them Ed??
Actually, there is a serious point here. The BBC is one of the main boosters of multiculturalism, but it seems unable to address other cultures as anything other than British culture but with better cooking. Of course, two African men holding hands have to be gay.
This same ignorance distorts all their coverage, including that of a certain well-known peaceful religion. They can’t report accuratly on Islam becuase they don’t understand it in the first place.
“So the illustration was simply summoned from the digital image version of central casting.”
That was kind of my point. They ran a story about homosexuality in ghana and then added a picture that, in the context, makes absolutely no sense. In fact wouldn’t be surprised if homosexual men in ghana treat holding hands with other gay man the same way heteros treat holding hands with women.
I agree that this is not just a “molehill”, although it’s the sort of thing that would have gone unnoticed and unremarked were it not for this website.
There are at least two big things wrong with the BBC: one, that they operate not impartially but to an agenda (or series of agendas), and two, that many of the staff, including senior employees, are very very ignorant people, who often seem to know nothing but the norms and beliefs of upper-middle-class London. Whether the picture referred to is more indicative of BBC ignorance or BBC bias, I can’t decide. There are elements of both in it.
One of the BBC’s agendas is certainly the “gay agenda”, but, on the other hand, the BBC is also quite stunningly ignorant of all other cultures but that of upper-middle-class London at the present moment. Other times and places are different, BBC!
As a matter of interest, in one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes and Watson, after having been stuck indoors all day because of bad weather, go for an evening walk about the streets of London “arm in arm”, and from the way this is written, there was obviously nothing odd or unusual about this at the time (and nor is it simply Conan Doyle being “naive”, as the scene was selected for illustration by the original artist). Something else: In the city in the north of England where I grew up, it was very common – almost the norm, really – for men to address other men in conversation as “love”. There was nothing ironic, or “funny” (and certainly nothing sexual) about this; it was just a normal way of speaking. You’d hear it particularly from bus conductors, barmen, shop assistants etc, but might hear it from any man to any other man, and wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
For the BBC picture editor (or whoever it is) to assume that two African blokes snapped whilst holding hands must therefore automatically be presumed to be “gay”, is simply incredible.
How do you know the photo isn’t of two BBC staff members who posed for the photo because there weren’t any ‘Ghana,/Gay’ stockshots in the Getty library?
There’s certainly a sense of less than full-hearted committment to the shot….like straight people pretending to be gay? , isn’t there?
A picture equals a thousand words, as the saying goes, but not necessarily the truth. The hand holding seems innocent enough but it is no more true than the bombed ambulance picture . It’s a slippery slope between the two.
If the BBC is what John Simpson claims then surely your right wing ranting is not working ?
For bias compare the reaction of the “leftie” UK press to Israel kidnapping palestinians all the time and the faux outrage that greeted the abduction of a soldier.
Troll off to your Unbiased BBC Onan
The BBC is a POLITICAL PARTY – it has an agenda, it has a propaganda department. If you had a checklist of issues you could state the BBC poistion on them with 99% certainty.
This morning BBC World Service told a listening world that an American woman was able to read CBS News on her very own …………….now this was a report from the BBC in London about US domestic News broadcasts on a channel with falling audiences.
Why does anyone in the world care whether a woman reads the News on CBS on her own ? and why is it for BBC to report this rather than VOA ?
I would tend to agree that looking for active bias in this report is probably hopeful.
The BBC likes to boast that it employs 8000 journalists. The National Union of Journalists, itself, only has 35,000 members who “cover the whole range of editorial work • staff and freelance, writers and reporters, editors and sub-editors, photographers and illustrators, working in broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, books, on the internet and in public relations.” so maybe that gives an inkling of the quality of most BBC journalists. If we were talking restaurant staff, think MacDonalds. OK, the Beeb does have it’s renowned reporters but the grunt work get’s done by kids not long finishing media studies degrees who’s total experience of the great wide world is a gap year backpacking trip to Thailand.
If you’re looking for bias, you’ll find it – but often it reflects nothing more than the attitudes of those who aspire to be the next Justin Webb or Vanessa Feltz
“I think the point is that the BBC claim they are this wonderfully impartial and insightful broadcaster, but they don’t give a monkeys about even the most basic facts about the cultures they report on if it doesn’t hurt them not to and it fits into their ideological framework.”
I hope that you’re not basing those assetions entirely on this one article. To make these sort of claims requires a lot more examples of “[not giving] a monkeys about even the most basic facts about the cultures they report on if … it fits into their ideological framework”. If you have such examples then I’d be very interested to see them.
MisterMinit- no, I’m basing it on my long term experience, exemplified in a specific incident, but you’re more than welcome to trawl the archives and I’m sure you’ll come across many others.