Roundup

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  • Government manipulation of the Beeb in Northern Ireland? Slugger O’Toole reports on a case of “vigorous counter-briefing of the BBC from a very senior government figure.”
  • I was hacked off that this article on the red poppy/white poppy controversy describes Ekklesia as merely “a Christian lobby group”. That may be why some of the comments in the associated Have Your Say slag off “the Christians” or “the Church” for sticking their noses in, when the Church as a whole said no such thing. Ekklesia is a left wing (or as it describes itself, “progressive”) Christian lobby group. Whenever a right-wing Christian lobby group says something controversial its right-wingness is shouted from the rooftops. The BBC’s article conforms to a trend whereby left-wing bodies are described in neutral terms unlike their counterparts on the right.
  • Nep Nederlander and The Policeman’s Blog both discuss experiences of being filmed by a BBC crew. Nep Nederlander’s rancher friends felt they’d been shafted; the various responses to the Coppersblog post told tales of both good and bad treatment. Hat tip to “1327” for the latter link.

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    5 Responses to Roundup

    1. Lee Moore says:
      November 10, 2006 at 4:54 pm

      I read the same article, and noted the absence of any “left-wing” designation. However I am ambivalent about this labelling business. It was obvious from what Ekklesia were saying that they are howlingly left wing, so shouldn’t the BBC let them speak for themselves ? Even calling them “progressive” involves accepting them at their own word, which I am sure would be reasonable in this case, but certainly isn’t reasonable in the case of many pressure groups which describe themselves as independent or non aligned. (Both expressions almost invariably mean “left-wing” by the way.)

      The only good reason for politically labelling people or groups is to let readers know whether they have a dog in the race, where that isn’t clear from what they are saying. Obviously the BBC applies this rule asymmetrically to left and right wing groups, as we would all expect. But I don’t think a broadcaster endeavouring to be unbiased should be too eager to spray around labels – they should let the reader/viewer apply his/her own labels, except where pressure groups are sailing under false colours, or where the fact that their “research” is unlikely to be straight is not otherwise apparent.

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    2. Lee Moore says:
      November 10, 2006 at 5:03 pm

      I should have added that the labelling problem is much more acute with individuals than it is with pressure groups. It’s usually pretty easy to see where a particular presure group is coming from.

      It is harder to know what baggage the individuals quoted in BBC stories are carrying. Passers by, eye witnesses, experts all turn up and give their two pennyworth. Most of the time with experts you can track ’em down with google, and they turn usually turn out to have progressive “form.”

      And even with eyewitnesses, you can sometimes find that they’re activists.

      There’s a lefty site called – I think – sourcewatch or something like that which tries to identify members of the great right wing conspiracy who turn up in media reports. Somebody ought to try the same idea for the much larger task of identifying lefties who turn up in media stories.

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    3. PJ says:
      November 10, 2006 at 6:20 pm

      It’s strange that the BBC chooses the term ‘progressive’ for the group.
      I would have thought that if you were looking for a group to hang the ‘progressive’ label on some of the evangelist churches would have deserved it more. After all they’re the ones that are progressing somewhere – ie. increasing their membership almost exponentially and have real political clout in the US and elsewhere.
      I would have thought ‘so last century’ would have been more appropriate.

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    4. Lee Moore says:
      November 10, 2006 at 6:30 pm

      PJ – “progressive” is Ekklesia’s self description, not one used by the BBC.

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    5. Rick says:
      November 11, 2006 at 4:20 pm

      Go read Ekklesia and The Workshop which is its real basis – they are all into “gender issues”, working with asylum-seekers, Islamophobia and homophobia…………………this is a trendy Left outfit that has its New wave Non-Scriptural “Christianity” as a “Anything Goes” Liberalism

      In short it is Gnostic Crap

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