Monthly Archives: February 2007

Scott Burgess- in one of his usual perspicacious posts- notes a BBC Radio 4 beaut on the recent snow in Britain:

“The most obvious sign that snow had come was outside.”

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

reports BBC Views Online’s children’s CBBC Viewsround (or should that be ‘cbbc newsround’ in the dumbed down world of BBC News?), concluding with:

Important

When troops on the same side fire at each other, it’s known as friendly fire, or blue-on-blue.

Although accidents like this do happen in war, this is seen as very important because it could show the Americans aren’t being honest about what happened.

Well, paint me cynical, but that headline is extremely misleading, as if the attack in question was deliberately and intentionally targeted at the British troops. At best this is a case of extremely poor headline writing (perhaps CBBC means it’s written by children rather than intended for them). At worst it’s a case of deliberate and intentional spin by someone straining to paint the US and the Iraq war as negatively as possible. I think it’s clear from our experience of BBC news spin which of these is the more likely case.

Likewise, the concluding paragraph is a great example of malicious BBC news spinning. From my reading of this case, neither the US government nor the UK government have behaved honourably in dealing with this tragic incident, however, that is the nature of governments (and large institutions in general), rather than evidence of specific dishonesty solely on the part of the Americans as the BBC Viewsround journo suggests.

Hat tip to commenter pounce for the link.

The Rottweiler Puppy on the BBC, corporations and the environment, citing this BBC report.

“Really, this isn’t journalism. It’s caricature, demonisation.”

The BBC tread carefully around issues of race, culture and demographic change. So it’s not surprising that the report on Sir Keith Ajegbo’s ‘Diversity and Citizenship’ report reached sixteen revisions in four days.

The headline and the main thrust of the story itself is not an honest reflection of Sir Keith’s main findings and recommendations.

Schools in England should teach “core British values” alongside cultural diversity, a report says.

In fact the phrase ‘core British values’, used in quotation marks by the BBC, appears nowhere in the report (pdf). The document’s ‘vision’ is ‘for all schools to be actively engaged in nurturing in pupils the skills to participate in an active and inclusive democracy, appreciating and understanding difference’, a slightly more flexible and loosely-defined aim. Neither do the 23 recommendations of the report, headed “Education for Diversity”, include the word ‘British’ or anything about teaching British values. Instead we read that “all schools should be encouraged to audit their curriculum to establish what they currently teach that is meaningful for all pupils in relation to diversity and multiple identities“, or that “the QCA should work closely with awarding bodies to ensure, wherever possible, that education for diversity appears in syllabuses and exam questions” – a recommendation which I look forward to seeing implemented in Mathematics.

Among the background information in the report was that “the 2001 census shows that nearly 1 in 8 pupils are minority ethnic. By 2010 the proportion is expected to be around 1 in 5.”

This statistic was quoted by Education Minister Alan Johnson in version 1.

“By 2010 one in five pupils in our schools will be from an ethnic minority – this is a challenge but also an opportunity to instil a culture of understanding and tolerance at an early age.”

By version 7 this statistic had vanished.

Commenter DG writes:

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/8577/bbc1mt9.jpg

The above link is to a screenshot of a BBC Football webpage. Please do not view the image if you are offended by four-letter swear words.

Sport isn’t covered on B-BBC very often but, certainly in Scotland, the most frequent examples of BBC Bias are in this area, nearly all aimed at Rangers FC (the above being just the latest example).

The article concerns the recent transfer of Kevin Thomson from Hibernian to Rangers, and displays a picture of Thomson in his first outing for his new club. The issue is that the image’s filename contains his first and last names with a choice obscenity in between (which I doubt will be found on his birth certificate).

The obscenity was on the filename on that page for about 12 hours before being changed, but the original filepath is still valid!

Despite hundreds of complaints, no apology has so far been issued or disciplinary action confirmed.

The BBC in Scotland has a history of rank indiscipline as far as Rangers are concerned. Not only are they ultra-sensitive to the actions of Rangers and their (considered un-PC) supporters, they have consistently used the airwaves and website as a platform for snide digs and outright insults poorly disguised as humour.

I could also discuss the travesty of their many undertalented sports reporters setting themselves up as social commentators, but that’s for another post…

The BBC story is here.

UPDATE: The Sunday Mail has a story about this.

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

on our earlier coverage of Newsnight, (here, here, here and here, for example) Peter Barron’s mention of Biased BBC can also be seen online in How green should we be? on the BBC Editors blog. Further to the excerpt quoted by Natalie, Mr. Barron goes on to say:

But if Newsnight stands for anything it should certainly stand against group-think, so while the broad thrust of our coverage accepts the orthodox view, we are also open to dissenting opinions. Indeed, Justin Rowlatt’s latest film looks at how the production of food may be doing more damage to the environment than burning fossil fuels.

In this I tend to agree with him – Newsnight is indeed better than most BBC News programmes at covering current affairs from different viewpoints, in contrast to the strict dumbed-down political correctness of the main BBC News bulletins and BBC News 24. That is not to say that Newsnight is anywhere near perfect (see below!), but it’s certainly one of my favourite BBC News programmes. For those who missed it, it’s worth catching Friday’s show online for Justin Rowlatt’s film on food production – most thought provoking.

Whilst I’m handing out praise, I must also commend Andrew Neil and his teams on the Daily Politics and This Week as highlights of BBC current affairs coverage. Both are well worth viewing for Mr. Neil’s well-briefed no-nonsense approach to political interrogation (although I could do with a bit less of Diane Abbot and Michael Portillo on This Week).

P.S. Peter Barron has replied to my follow-up questions re. the Newsnight ‘cripple’ email “misjudgement” linked above. More on this later.

According to commenter “will”, Newsnight editor Peter Barron quotes this blog in his weekly email:

One of the consequences of ‘Paxman slams the BBC on climate hyprocrisy’ [Out of date link to original “This is London” article deleted] has been a prominent posting [link] on Biased BBC, a website devoted to pointing out what it sees as the politically-correct institutional group-think of much of the corporation’s output.

This time they weren’t accusing Jeremy of bias – they’ve elevated him to their role [sic] of honour for his honesty in saying: “People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”

Read more here.

Jeremy Paxman’s comments can be read here.

from Perry de Havilland at Samizdata:

“What particularly made me laugh was when the BBC voice over said “and the fact over one hundred governments have endorsed this report will add to its credibility.” So let me get this straight… the fact one hundred states which exercise political power over people have endorsed a report that will be used to justify imposing even more political control over people, and that makes this more credible? I wonder if the BBC would report a pro-tobacco report endorsed by tobacco companies the same way? What do you think?”