as they present The Conspiracy Files this week on 9/11.
The Editor’s blog has some interesting comments that the BBC have left up:
Comment 44:
Anyone who has read and absorbed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” will know it is all part of their megalomaniacal plan to give us a one world government. They are using events like Sept 11th, July 7th in London (another government sponsored terror event) to fear us all into giving up our liberties! The sheep need to waken up and smell the coffee. The British are as bad as the US, they are run by the same group of Zionists. Blair and the cash for honours scandal? He was under growing pressure from it and BANG, a “plot” to behead a muslim soldier and an apparent pandemic of Bird Flu put that story firmly to bed. Waken up people! We had few problems with terrorists pre 9/11, now it seems the goverment on both sides of the atlantic are hell bent in creating this monster that is Islam against us when the whole concept was made up in one of their think tanks !
Apparently “Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the author has approved them”. The editor being Mike Rudin.
After reading these comments on the BBC blogs, I spent a couple of hours today visiting “truther” websites.
Wow!
If you feel your life lacks excitement – try Googling “911 Truth”
It’s certainly a crash course in certain areas of human psychology – but sadly not in GCSE science.
I learned a lot of new FACTS, including that a Boeing 757 is made from 500 tons of steel and that gravity causes buildings to collapse at a fixed speed (nothing to do with the heights,weights or structures involved).
I was amazed to see that in the UK alone there are at least twelve separate “truther” groups in towns as far apart as Totnes and Newcastle – all with reasonably well designed web sites often including registration facilities, blogs etc.
They host sizeable meetings with guest speakers (some from the US) and sometimes several hundred attendees.
It makes one wonder where the cash has come from to finance all this lunacy and who stands to benefit from it.
Andy:
Many take the simplistic view that if both left and right are annoyed by the BBC, then that constitutes a form of impartiality. Personally, I find that too easy and trite.
Maybe somebody who has been here longer than me can find it, but I believe the BBC itself tried to use the “we piss off the Israelis and the Palestinians and so we can’t be biased” line. I think people here agree with you that annoying both sides doesn’t mean much.
Yet, the BBC is clearly capable of being seen to play both for and against the ‘Anti-USA’/’corporate news hegemony’ agendas at the same time.
I think this is true and that it depends on your point of view. If the BBC is left wing and I’m centre-right then to me the BBC looks anti-US. To someone far-far-left like Galloway who is already very anti-US then it probably looks like part of the “[right-wing] corporate news hegemony”.
With something like the Israel/Palestine situation, a Palestinian might say that the BBC is pro-Israel because it doesn’t call for the destruction of Israel. An Israeli might say that the BBC is anti-Israel because it always paints Israel in a bad light. Despite both sides complaining, shouldn’t the BBC side with the Israeli’s much more sane criticism? Yet with the BBC’s moral relativism and love of anyone crying “victim” loudest, they seem to give equal if not more weight to the Palestinian’s complaint. Even if the BBC did become staunchly pro-Israel then that doesn’t mean that they have to stop reporting Israeli military cock ups or over reactions.
It is like the ridiculous “Neutral Point of View” thing at Wikipedia. You could flag their articles on the Nazis as not having a NPOV but that doesn’t make the articles wrong. At some point you have to look at the facts, grow a backbone, and declare: “I’m anti-Nazi.”
Foxgoose:
They host sizeable meetings with guest speakers (some from the US) and sometimes several hundred attendees.
I would guess that a lot of the attendees are Muslims.
I saw a documentary on Ch4 by an Indian DJ (from Radio 1 or Asian network or something) who wanted to investigate why Sikhs and Hindus are separating themselves from Muslims when they’d all been one happy group of “British Asians” in the wonderful multicultural Britain of the 90s.
In my experience, most 9/11 conspiracy believers are bedroom nerds and I have to admit that I’ve never met anyone in real life who knew the details behind the theories, nevermind believed them.
But this DJ guy was interviewing “disenfranchised” teenage Muslim males loitering on the streets who deeply believed the theories. In an effort to find more reasonable voices he managed to organise a dinner with a Muslim family. During the meal one of the daughters started going on about the usual lines of finding the passports, the terrorists were never on the passenger lists, etc.
The DJ guy was pretty shocked that such a “normal” family could believe such things. Although he didn’t really come to any proper conclusions, I think it was obvious why Hindus and Sikhs are distancing themselves from Muslims. But where are Muslims hearing about the theories? Does anyone want to check some of those lovely Islamic book shops for “Loose Change”?
Some time on this thread – or previously – we speculated where all the pro-conspiracy theorists were appearing in the comments. I think some people thought this was a ploy by the BBC to undermine the credibility of the US govmt version of the days events.
Just noticed this on one of the conspiracy sites – prior to airing they were writing up how the show was going to be a “hit piece” on them, and then putting a direct call to action and link through to the editors blog comments submission form
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/160207bbcpressured.htm
GET ACTIVE: Populate the BBC’s Conspiracy Files blog and encourage the BBC to represent real investigative journalism and air the balanced version. Click here and leave your comments.
Martin:
I posted that link a couple of days ago, but it’s from Feb 16th and The Editors blog was filling up with crazies from the 14th so it can’t explain everything.
(Hi Martin – hope things are going well – the comments on The Editors really look like a hit piece to me)
FTP – “Maybe somebody who has been here longer than me can find it, but I believe the BBC itself tried to use the “we piss off the Israelis and the Palestinians and so we can’t be biased” line.”
It’s a lazy excuse whoever uses it.
Anyway, Bijan gives a good example of someone who looks at a few pieces and thinks that it is biased from one perspective. I’m sure there are others he can find.
Likewise, people coming at another issue from a different political perspective can find bias of a different kind. Just look at Medialens to get an idea of the volume of their concerns. Or the Conspiracy thread.
If there was systematic bias wouldnt it be the case that the bias was consistent? Surely Medialens would have nothing to say, and yet, boy do they.
If you look at the whole picture (and this requires you to be able to step outside of your own political perspective for a moment) it seems to me, that there isnt any real pattern to it.
It is much easier to explain through pressures of work, deadlines, poor writing skills and yes, sometimes journalistic laziness, rather than systemic bias.
I think, those of you that want an ‘unbiased bbc’ (as opposed to those that want ‘no bbc’ or ‘no license fee’ and will use any agenda that fits) would do better to approach the issue of what you perceive to be bias, from the point of standards and accuracy, rather than political perspective. Because one of these things is objective, and the other isn’t.
I think an approach that was along the lines of eg ‘Better standards of headline writing on News Online’ so you work towards eg more accurate headlines than ‘US Iran Attack Plans’ – which I agree is weak – would find more support within the BBC. And a much more constructive conversation.
From my perspective, which I admit is flawed and unlikely to convince people on this blog :), the reality of the situation is far more mundane and to do with writing and grammar and the amount of time in the day more than anything as interesting and sensational as systemic bias – from whichever angle.
Does it make this a less interesting blog? Is it something that people can be as enthusiastic about? I will let you be the judge of that.
One further question – do people think the ‘bias’ (from your perspective) in the BBC has got better or worse over the last, say, 2 years?
I should make it clear that these are my personal views and nothing whatsoever to do with the BBC 🙂
‘One further question – do people think the ‘bias’ (from your perspective) in the BBC has got better or worse over the last, say, 2 years?’
Me personally? Yes. My wife, who, in my view is uncomfortably liberal in outlook and who used to despair at my outbursts at the BBC has recently changed her opinion. She is now given to shaking her head when the more transparent examples of bias appear.
Likewise, people coming at another issue from a different political perspective can find bias of a different kind. Just look at Medialens to get an idea of the volume of their concerns. Or the Conspiracy thread.
There is only one type of bias and that is unfairly favoring one thing over another. Look at the Medialens site; it’s run by people who have written for The Independent, The Guardian, New Internationalist, etc. Just because Medialens may say that the BBC doesn’t favour left wing things enough does not mean that the BBC is not unfairly favouring left wing things at all.
Are you now saying that the conspiracy nuts may have a point? It is not bias or unfair favoritism for the BBC to look at the science and say “well, these conspiracy theories are stupid.” That’s what the BBC is meant to do.
If there was systematic bias wouldnt it be the case that the bias was consistent? Surely Medialens would have nothing to say, and yet, boy do they.
To me it does seem mostly consistent. Maybe not in frequency but definitely in the angle it comes from.
If you look at the whole picture (and this requires you to be able to step outside of your own political perspective for a moment) it seems to me, that there isnt any real pattern to it.
If you can say that then I would have to say that your thinking must lay somewhere within the BBC’s range. Maybe I’m actually far-right and the BBC is the centre, or maybe I am actually centre and the BBC is left. But all the BBC does is look a foot around itself and say “we’re the centre!” If they looked further, outside of their media circles, outside of London, maybe they will find that the public goes a lot further towards the right than they think (or maybe it goes left). But they won’t even try.
It is much easier to explain through pressures of work, deadlines, poor writing skills and yes, sometimes journalistic laziness, rather than systemic bias.
You wouldn’t get away with that in most jobs though would you? You wouldn’t even get away with it at school.
I don’t think that most people here believe that there’s any kind of written agenda at the BBC. I think that Andrew Marr’s quote from the Daily Mail on the front page of this site sums up most opinions best.
If the BBC employs a bunch of left wing young people who attend pro-Hezbollah rallies at the weekend, then when it’s 5:25PM and they just need their last story finished they will get lazy and start chucking in things they heard at that rally instead of checking what the Israeli’s are saying. It’s thousands of small instances like this that I believe creates the bias that the BBC has.
I think an approach that was along the lines of eg ‘Better standards of headline writing on News Online’ so you work towards eg more accurate headlines than ‘US Iran Attack Plans’ – which I agree is weak – would find more support within the BBC. And a much more constructive conversation.
Personally, I think that the BBC have got themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to headlines because of the design of the site.
The site is still only 800px wide, so many headlines are displayed on each page (I like that though), some stories must have up to 3 different headlines to be displayed in different places and above all the headlines are all so short. The BBC’s use of quotes is a clever way to get more specific headlines in very few words but it often leads to them being totally misleading (and silly in the scitech articles).
Being a nerd engineer type, I rather deplore their sacrificing functionality for style. My solution to the headlines problem would be to first redesign the site.
One further question – do people think the ‘bias’ (from your perspective) in the BBC has got better or worse over the last, say, 2 years?
I can only really say in relation to the web site (I can only pick up Radio 2, do I get a partial refund?) but I haven’t really been looking at/for bias long enough to say. However, the comments section got a lot worse a while back but is now actually becoming better than it was to begin with.
In terms of the actual quality of the site; typos, mislabelled maps, etc, then it has got a lot worse. Another 2 years and I think they’ll manage to misspell “BBC” itself. I get the feeling that for the website they’ve been hiring people on their computer skills rather than journalistic/literacy/general skills.
Didn’t the website break off from the main news department a couple of years back? I think that would be the start of the downfall of the quality.
I think part of the problem with this site is that it’s called “Biased BBC” and not something more general like “Criticising the BBC”. We can point out something that is a genuine mistake rather than bias, but if the author were to come here they might think “hey I’m not biased and I’m not changing my article,” but the mistake is still a mistake. When this happens hundreds or thousands of times, then you start to get a BBC that appears biased even if it is unintentionally.
FTP – when you get specific about the design of the site, it is my opinion based on working there for five years, that you are getting much closer to the kind of thing that is the heart of the ‘problem’ (For those license-fee payers who it is a problem).
The explanation for these things is much simpler and human than you migth imagine.
Specific things like limited crawler length on News 24 captions and very limited amount of time to get ‘breaking news’ on air create something that with the balance of hindsight is best described as something that could have been done better. But it gets perceived as ‘bias’.
I have said on another thread the BBC is very much like any other workplace, and the reasons that things go wrong are invariably down to simple human reasons, just like anywhere else I have worked.
The approach you have suggested at the end of your post seems constructive. When the things that happen due to everyday constraints are removed, only then do I think you will really be able to examine the output for genuine ‘bias’.
However, a few things I can’t let go:
Young BBC staff attending Hezbollah rallies at the weekend – give me a break. They do what anyone else does at the weekend. Its all very normal (in a middle class metropolitan kind of way). I guess it suits this forum/blog’s agenda to *imagine* that that is what goes on, but the reality is very typical.
Show me any 40+ year old manager in any industry who is not depressed by the writing skills of those arriving from college…
I think if this blog were called ‘Why I am pissed off about paying my license fee and what I think you should do about it’ or something like that but catchier 🙂 than that might more accurately state the issue and open doors.
Young BBC staff attending Hezbollah rallies at the weekend – give me a break. They do what anyone else does at the weekend. Its all very normal (in a middle class metropolitan kind of way). I guess it suits this forum/blog’s agenda to *imagine* that that is what goes on, but the reality is very typical.
The Hezbollah rallies thing was an exaggeration but “middle class metropolitan” is still an issue. Where are they going to get alternative views on something like fox hunting? (And when Rod Liddle voiced an alternative view he got kicked out of his job.) Where are they going to hear views about how socialist policies really affect lots of poor people?
The explanation for these things is much simpler and human than you migth imagine.
The explanation for many things brought up here is because some people here like to nitpick anything. But how does it explain things such as the usual left wing suspects that turn up on almost any panel show on the BBC? Is that just a string of mistakes that have gone unnoticed for years?
It’s not that I want the BBC to turn into Fox News, I find that channel too … American. Rock music and loud arguments is not how the British do the news. But I would really like to actually hear some alternative views on the BBC. I doubt it’d fit into 24 hours but I’d quite like to hear every view and I trust most people are sensible enough to discard the crazy ones.
Andy Tedd,
….the BBC is very much like any other workplace, and the reasons that things go wrong are invariably down to simple human reasons….
And the shop owner down the road from me has a habit of giving people the wrong change.
Funny thing is, he never gives them too much change.
The pervasive bias of BBC staff has nothing to do with simple human error. It’s been hammered into them since childhood.
Bryan – what is that factual basis for your statement? How many ‘Beeboids’ do you know? Have they told of their childhood experiences? (as a youth my father used to beat me with a copy of Socialist Worker if I so much looked at a picture of my beloved Thatch)
Or is it just conjecture?
And, are Mike Rudin’s films not a case of ‘too much change’?
Or does ‘never’ mean something else on planet biased?
FTP:
The Hezbollah rallies thing was an exaggeration but “middle class metropolitan” is still an issue. Where are they going to get alternative views on something like fox hunting? (And when Rod Liddle voiced an alternative view he got kicked out of his job.) Where are they going to hear views about how socialist policies really affect lots of poor people?
FTP | 20.02.07 – 6:17 pm | #
There’s a world of difference between fact and exaggeration.
However, you make a good point here.
I would consider myself ‘country-literate’ relative to the mass of BBC staff at large in that I used to live in the country, go fly-fishing and have shot wild animals (matters which if you believe Peter Aitken I would not have been able to freely share, oh, except I was). But do I understand the life of a farm worker? I would not pretend to do so.
Obviously there are a number of regional ‘rural affairs’ correspondents, but here I think there is maybe a case to be made. Not so much of ‘bias’ as not in touch.
Just a thought.
PS Liddle, when faced with a choice about writing for the papers or working for the beeb, as with many other political corrs and presenters writing columns, made the choice to leave.
His rant about the Countryside Alliance was one of the triggers for this but its not totally clearcut – and are you sure you meant that was an ‘alternative’ viewpoint?
I would consider myself ‘country-literate’ relative to the mass of BBC staff at large in that I used to live in the country, go fly-fishing and have shot wild animals (matters which if you believe Peter Aitken I would not have been able to freely share, oh, except I was).
I believe you on this and in my experience even staunch vegetarians don’t really care if you like to go hunting every now and then.
But when they come round with the RSPCA bucket they often skip over me because I’m an evil animal killer. Even though I have probably owned more pets than them, probably taken in more strays and animals from shelters, and probably even like animals in general more than them.
Not so much of ‘bias’ as not in touch.
I think you’re still hung up on the idea that we believe that there’s a top down left wing agenda at the BBC. Whether it’s on purpose or not, the result is still bias.
If I ran a magazine about programming languages I would be biased against Java because I just haven’t used it enough to talk about it. I could feign knowledge of it and write an article to try and balance things but it just wouldn’t be in depth enough despite my best intentions. I’d have to hire a Java expert but even that wouldn’t stop me from ignoring Java in other general articles (say if I went to 5 hour lecture that devoted 1 hour to Java, how could I report on that part of it even if I was the most qualified person for the other 4 hours?).
I doubt a news corporation would think about putting a business editor on a short article about NHS funding. So when whoever got the job writes the article they can only really include things which they understand, and if the staff is left leaning that’s probably “more money.” If a Tory went into some 10 minute speech on business stuff then I’d only understand the Lib Dem man saying “more money” too. Making the business editor cover it in the weekly long column hardly fixes it either because more people have probably read the short articles (if it’s been a week long affair then there will surely be more than 1 short article). One solution is to give everyone lessons in all aspects of economics, which is impossible really (and people who are good at business would probably prefer to use that knowledge to make lots of money, not be a journalist). But the BBC is too stubborn to publicly admit that it has any kind of problem, even if there is no cure.
His rant about the Countryside Alliance was one of the triggers for this but its not totally clearcut
Should it have been a trigger at all though?
Andy Tedd,
OK, I was a little overstated for effect. And at times I’ve patted the BBC on the back over (rare) articles that are balanced and fair. I just don’t buy the ‘human error’ bit. Bias is a separate issue altogether and it is rife throughout the BBC. The only question is, to what degree this bias is conscious or simply learned, knee-jerk reactions to whatever sets the BBC’s collective knee jerking.
Whether or not Mike Rudin’s documentary departed from the usual BBC fare is difficult for me to tell since I don’t have access to it. Judging from comments here and elsewhere, it probably did, though not radically.
I don’t see this great range of opinion that you and Reith and others assure me exists in the BBC. Output that departs from BBC groupthink is very rare indeed.
FTP One of my bugbears when I was at the BBC is that is not very good at apologising, even when the evidence of cockup is there for all to see. I’m not quite sure what the root cause of the defensiveness is, but it is real. Many of the troops on the ground feel this (until they are the subject of the criticism of course).
As a case in point, check out The Editor’s blog. This really should be a great help to people who want to understand better why the BBC makes the decisions it does, which they may interpret as bias, in any direction. Yet few editors are (yet) willing to admit to mistakes, Jamie Donald (The Politics Show) and Kevin Marsh (College of Journalism, formerly Today) being notable exceptions.
Although there may be a marked reluctance to admit to mistakes, clues are often there of a recognition of the need to change direction or tighten up the act.
A good one is an appointment of a high profile Editor in an area where previously there wasn’t one or perhaps a disgruntled incumbent who left. Maybe there was a Governor’s report on a related matter? Perhaps a high profile training initiative?
Having been very involved in the latter I will say again, many of the problems are reading, riting, rithmatic kind of things. Across all areas.
The grudging (if any) response to a complaint, the “loose use of language”, the concentration on only the good things to the exception of the whole picture. These things are what I believe create the perception of ‘bias’, rather than an unwitting left-leaning groupthink.
Some specifics:
I notice the issue of NHS funding (Search results for NHS Funding here: http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=d&q=nhs+funding&go=Search a broad chuch of comment there does it back up your hypothesis?) comes up but morphs into concerns about journalism with numbers and business.
I know Michael Blastland (More or Less) and Robert Peston (BBC Business Editor) are working closely with the College of Journalism to help improve the last two. Peston in particular (I think) is excellent news for the BBC in terms of addressing concerns or perceptions of anti-business bias.
There is an error in the post above, Jamie Donald is Editor of The Daily Politics.
Bryan – which do you want – impartiality or opinion? If you want straight down the line, old-fashioned impartiality then you will not see the range of opinions of the people who make the programme.
If you want opinion, read a paper.
The best the BBC can provide is ‘impartiality with attitude’ an exmple of which would be the Mike Rudkin programme (is this not available on the website?). While it cannot textually say ‘these people are idiots’ it can present the evidence in such a way that there is no other conclusion. Oh, other than the BBC is part of the right wing corporate news hegemony 🙂
Hi Andy,
I’ve been reading your thread and to an extent I agree,but I think there are deeper issues than “editorial laziness.”
Have you read Benjamine R Barber’s “Jihad v McWorld”?