When the charges against the lacrosse team at Duke University were first laid the BBC covered it in this article by Daniel Lak.
The article correctly takes no explicit view about the truth or otherwise of the charge, as at that time investigations were still proceeding. A great deal of the article, in fact, is not about the details of the particular case at all. Rather it is “framing” – all about the race, gender and class issues that make it a big story. Fair enough. I hate to say this, but no broadcaster could cover all of the rape trials that take place in the world. The reason this one resonated was the contrast between the rich white frat boys and the poor black stripper, an unmarried mother. This wider interest is why we had the digressions into the history of North Carolina and into the current position of blacks in America.
In some relatively small ways the article was not quite as impartial as it should have been. For instance in this excerpt:
Civil rights activists, African studies professors, feminists, black community leaders and a lot of the stalwarts of the left that you find on any American campus have all lined up behind the victim and her claims.
Lacrosse team members and their parents, athletes past and present and various right-wing commentators in the US media hint darkly that the woman was either lying or had been assaulted before she came to the party.
-there should have been an “alleged” before the word “victim” and the picture of the stalwarts of the left lining up behind a victim is more positive than the “dark hints” ascribed to the right wing commentators. Still, the article does cite both white frat boys and black strippers as being the targets of “easy vilification.”
Now let’s move on to the account of the dropping of all charges against the Duke lacrosse players. (Hat tip: Terry Johnson) I thought more highly of this article than Mr Johnson did. It does make pretty clear that these men were innocent, unlike the pathetic grasping at straws (“We’ll never know what really happened that night”) I came across in some feminist websites. The facts are all there.
But it’s an unframed picture. There is little or nothing about the wider context that makes it a big story. The blogs and the media had as much to say about such issues as political correctness having overridden the presumption of innocence than they did about the individuals concerned. But with the BBC story, in contrast to the earlier one, it’s “just the facts ma’am, just the facts.” We hear that Nifong, the prosecutor, may be charged with witholding evidence – but not a word about why he seemed so madly determined to pursue the case long after the weaknesses in it had been exposed. (Winning an election and maximising his pension have been suggested.) Or why so much of the Duke academic community instantly assumed that their own students were guilty and went into candlelit vigil mode.
Justin Webb is quoted as saying “the charges had outraged many Americans, reminding them of the treatment of black people by privileged whites in years gone by.” I could not tell whether he meant that many Americans were shocked by what they believed to be a crime by arrogant white men against a poor black woman, reminding them of the way that white men could once rape black women with impunity – or whether he meant that many Americans saw the way that large sections of the university faculty and media acted as if the accused were already proven guilty by reason of race alone as reminiscent of the lynch law of the past but with the races reversed.
Neither of the two BBC articles I have cited has much wrong with it individually. Nor should the writer of either be specifically criticised in relation to the other – they were written quite separately.
My point is that the BBC has a strong but unconscious tendency to provide a frame for pictures upon which it wants the eye to linger and to dispense with a frame for pictures it finds unattractive.
Neither of the two BBC articles I have cited has much wrong with it individually. Nor should the writer of either be specifically criticised
Hey, things are looking up! Okay, so if the living, breathing, flesh-and-blood journalists who wrote the articles are not culpable………..is anyone at fault here…?
My point is that the BBC has a strong but unconscious tendency to provide a frame for pictures upon which it wants the eye to linger and to dispense with a frame for pictures it finds unattractive.
Darn. It’s that pesky ghost in the machine again.
….free-floating left-liberal ethos…..
miasmic corporate mindset…..
ugh. I wondered where all those meejah studies grads went. now we know.
John Reith, your usual position is to wisely tell us that, “The least likely explanation is that a cabal of Ceefax staff are engaged in a vast left-wing conspiracy with Terry McAuliffe and Hillary Clinton to smear Joe Lieberman as a cheese-eating surrender monkey.”
Last time, I responded, “Nor was it a conspiracy. You always say how the least likely option is a conspiracy – however often everyone agrees with you. No conspiracy. OK.
It was something in between, something that happens every day; the political equivalent of a Freudian slip.”
And now you’re complaining that there isn’t enough blaming going on.
Goodness what a capacious memory you have. Or is this a demo of that updated Blogger search-monster that somehow swallowed Bryan’s beloved archive?
Any which way • glad we’re agreed that it – if indeed it exists • isn’t deliberate.
The problem though with the charge of ‘unconscious bias’ is that it’s a bit like the insistence of the trick-cyclists in the Rosenhan ‘THUD’ experiment that one of the symptoms of insanity is claiming to be sane. No way out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
Political equivalent of a Freudian slip, huh?
Mmm. I’ll sleep on it.
I vaguely remembered the comment and Haloscan search works fine.
I do see the problem about disproving or indeed proving bias that is largely unconscious and institutional. But I think I can think of a way out. Someone should set up a website and invite bloggers and commenters to point out and discuss possible examples of bias that may be small in themselves but eventually add up to a definite trend.
Do you think that might work?
I do see the problem about disproving or indeed proving bias that is largely unconscious and institutional. But I think I can think of a way out. Someone should set up a website and invite bloggers and commenters to point out and discuss possible examples of bias that may be small in themselves but eventually add up to a definite trend.
Do you think that might work?
Natalie Solent | Homepage | 17.04.07 – 6:53 pm
She shoots… she scores!
Natalie Solent writes:
“I do see the problem about disproving or indeed proving bias that is largely unconscious and institutional. But I think I can think of a way out. Someone should set up a website and invite bloggers and commenters to point out and discuss possible examples of bias that may be small in themselves but eventually add up to a definite trend.
Do you think that might work?”
Game, set and match to Ms Solent.
the race issue is important, because of the reversal. The gang rape of white women by black youths has become so common, not only in the USA, but in areas of London, that it barely even makes the news now.
Goodness what a capacious memory you have. Or is this a demo of that updated Blogger search-monster that somehow swallowed Bryan’s beloved archive?
John Reith | 17.04.07 – 6:32 pm
No need to be snide, old chap. I’m not that well-acquainted with the Monthly Archives. In fact, I last delved into it in December when it was proudly positioned on the sidebar. It’s still there, sans monthly links, so I was wondering how one accesses it. That’s all.
Also, you’re a fine one to be talking about “beloved archives”. I seem to remember you are most beloved of digging up mouldy old BBC articles (from a time when the BBC was a little less into appeasement mode than it is now) to try to prove a point in debates on current bias.
Gman,
That is absolute unmitigated bullshit. Gang rape of white women by black males in London is extremely rare. Like much of the other extreme violent crime perpetrated in London it’s usually black on black.
In April 2005 Olufemi Ijebuode, a Nigerian, was stopped by Dorset Police and arrested. Subsequently, a month after the incident, he made the mandatory complaint against police for ‘racial abuse’.
In March 2006 the case against Ijebuode was dropped after the district judge refused to allow the prosecution an adjournment, as the arresting officer was unavailable to give his evidence.
From personal experience I can tell you that a regular tactic employed by the defence is to keep seeking last minute adjournments for spurious reasons. The result is that prosecution witnesses will turn up on a number of occasions only to be informed that case will not proceed on that day. It becomes a nightmare if you have a case involving a number of witnesses. The day will come when one or more of the prosecution witnesses are unable to attend. The defence will then, more often than not, successfully seek to have the case dropped. In this instance it seems that the arresting officer was on annual leave at the time of the case.
After the discontinuance of the case Ijebuode provided a video copy of his arrest to Channel 4 News.
I remember at the time that Channel 4 proceeded, without any corroborating or independent evidence, to portray this a ‘racist’ police story. I recall that the BBC chose to follow suit. The BBC website reported in the same vein, again with no independent or corroborating evidence.
On the 11th April 2007 the IPPC announced that Ijebuode’s allegations were without foundation, the police car video and a number of independent witnesses flatly contradicting Ijebuode’s version of events.
That night Channel 4 news ran the story which included an unprecedented apology from Jon Snow for remarks he had made the previous year. Presumably this was to counter any possible slander claims against him by the police concerned.
At the time I remember the BBC in full hue and cry, obviously lining up another Rodney King farrago. I did not see anything on the night of The 11th April from BBC news, or Newsnight on the matter.
The BBC Website did however run this;
Police cleared of ‘racist’ arrest
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/6544405.stm
Normally, if the BBC website has several entries on a story, the BBC will link the entries. In this instance you can see that this is not the case.
It seems that the BBC have felt it necessary to expunge their previous entries on the story. The presumption must be that the BBC have consciously done this to avoid any possible libel actions on the part of the police.
In the meanwhile, Olufemi Ijebuode has his own website and, obligingly, has posted the findings and recommendations of the investigation into his allegations, entitled ‘The anatomy of a cover-up’.
It also casts light on his character and demeanour in a previous situation at Heathrow airport. Pity the BBC couldn’t find that out first rather than, as usual in stories like this, running off at the mouth.
http://olufemiijebuode.blogspot.com/
Robbiekeane | 18.04.07 – 10:22 am |
Are you saying it doesn’t happen?
This is not as uncommon as you think
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4447108.stm
Natalie Solent
Someone should set up a website and invite bloggers and commenters to point out and discuss possible examples of bias that may be small in themselves but eventually add up to a definite trend. Do you think that might work?
An intriguing notion, but frankly, I’m sceptical.
The danger with this sort of enterprise is that it risks being hi-jacked by yahoos.
Before you can say Jack Robinson, the measured, dispassionate voice of the founders would be displaced by raucous ranting.
The kind of conspiracy-theorizing that you so wisely disavow would become the quotidian norm.
Shrill partisans of various causes would soon outnumber the open-minded.
An unpleasant pack mentality would quickly become evident. Outsiders might from time to time venture a different perspective, but they’ll be rare birds. Most would scuttle off after a few bruising-encounters with the more uncouth natives.
Afore long, the denizens of this narrow little world would be simply confirming one another’s prejudices. Worse still, they’d be caught up in a dysfunctional feedback loop, believing and, in turn, regurgitating one another’s little fibs and propaganda ploys.
Much would depend, of course, on small things like nomenclature. Anything too prescriptive • suggesting, for instance, that the verdict has been returned before the evidence is collected – would hasten the project’s collapse into the vortex I describe.
Still, if you’re confident you could exercise the moral leadership required to keep such a project on track, you should give it a go.
Why John Reith, you’ve just described the last Islington dinner party I attended!
John Reith | 18.04.07 – 11:58 am |
Wow, and I thought we were disparaging about the BBC. as for An unpleasant pack mentality, well you’re spot on there.
By the way I have a humungous great spade in my shed which I use for shovelling snow. You’re free to borrow it any time you wish cosidering your propensity to keep digging whilst in a hole.
John Reith to Natalie
“Still, if you’re confident you could exercise the moral leadership required to keep such a project on track, you should give it a go.”
And if you’re not, Natalie, if you feel that it might fall prey to a monolithic culture with attitudes so reflexive that it simply can’t open itself to an the possibility of being wrong, then make sure you don’t fund it by public subscription!
Fran | 18.04.07 – 12:51 pm |
a monolithic culture with attitudes so reflexive that it simply can’t open itself to an the possibility of being wrong
Mark Byford Deputy DG:
This year the BBC has introduced a major reform programme in the way that it handles editorial complaints…
The BBC now begins with the presumption the licence payer is right. After all, the licence payers are the public that fund and own the BBC here in the UK…
We have now made it much easier for them to know how to make complaints about BBC programmes and services….We now publish all errors, clarifications and corrections promptly on the BBC’s website…
We now set out for all complainants the actions that the BBC is taking to correct an error and, hopefully, minimise the risk of it recurring……..
..We recognise that the BBC will be a stronger organisation for openly recognising where it is wrong and taking clear steps to put things right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4570000/newsid_4575500/4575515.stm
John Reith 1:17 pm
Quoting Mark Byford Deputy DG:
‘The BBC now begins with the presumption the licence payer is right. After all, the licence payers are the public that fund and own the BBC here in the UK… ‘
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
(…wipes tears from eyes)
Have you ever tried to complain to the BBC?
I’ve mailed the BBC a couple of times, usually about typos in articles and such.
I’ve stopped doing it now after I mailed them about this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6113418.stm
It was this bit that I didn’t agree with:
Yet none of this means the SAX-40 will necessarily be built. Ever since the Boeing 707 first flew in 1957 and ushered in the commercial jet age, airliners have changed very little in their basic appearance.
Airliners still consist of a tube-like fuselage, with two swept-back wings and engines slung underneath.
I pointed out that the DH Comet was the plane that is considered to have ushered in the commecial jet age.
I got a snotty email back saying that it didn’t count because it wasn’t ‘commercially sucessful’. Which is kind of like arguing that the Wright brothers don’t count cos the “Wright Flyer” wasn’t a commercial success.
And to make sure that everyone knew that their version of history was correct, the story was later edited to include this paragraph:
(The world’s first – but commercially unsuccessful – passenger jet aircraft, the DeHavilland Comet, had the engines integrated in its wing).
Oh well, that’s alright then.
Presumably they hadn’t read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/2/newsid_2480000/2480339.stm
Or this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2141162.stm
Or any of these: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jet+age+comet
So, why bother complaining about stuff that might be subjective or opinion-based, when they can’t agree on simple facts?
Mark Byford Deputy DG:
This year the BBC has introduced a major reform programme in the way that it handles editorial complaints…
John Reith | 18.04.07 – 1:17 pm
I’m still waiting for a reply to the complaint I lodged last week about Al-Beeb constantly stating that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped “in Gaza”.
Perhaps this “major reform” consists of ignoring complaints for ever, rather than only until such time as they are no longer relevant.
BioD
I’m still waiting for a reply to the complaint I lodged last week about Al-Beeb constantly stating that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped “in Gaza”.
Well, I hope you don’t have to wait much longer.
Clearly wrong.
Which numbskull said that?
Has the appropriate correction been made?
Possibly the same numbskull who claimed that hundreds of thousands attended a rally in Iraq for Fatty Boy (living in Iran) Sadr…..meanwhile even the NY Times and AP said there was less than 10,000… and the PHOTOS in the US CENTCOM article your boy quoted also show far less than the claimed figures….
John Reith:
The report in question was about the upcoming meeting between Olmert and Abbas. The report at the same URL, after the meeting had taken place, made no reference to Shilat. It’s not the first time and I’m sure won’t be the last.
Here is my complaint:
Your report states:
“They were set to discuss security and humanitarian matters, and the fate of an Israeli soldier captured in Gaza.”
The soldier was NOT captured in Gaza. He was captured on Israeli soil by terrorists who tunneled under the border.
Your continuing use of such misleading statements only serve to cast Israel in the role of agressor and the “Palestinians” as passive victims.
Please make the necessary correction.
newssniffer.co.uk is giving errors at the moment but I think this URL should show the original version:
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/37326/diff/1/2
Over the last couple of years I went to the effort of complaining to the BBC several times.
I think I recall that every time I received a holding response stating that someone would get back to me.
Funny thing is, no-one ever did.
What’s more any attempt I now make to add a comment on the (D)HYS ‘mysteriously’ fails to be published before the thread is closed.
The last time I complained it was more than once about the appalling link to the despicable ‘elders of zion protocols’ that was left on the (D)HYS.
I never did get replies to those and it took an incredibly long time to get it removed.
Now I consider it a waste of my valuable time bothering to complain.
Can JR or some other beeboid convince me otherwise?
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/37326/diff/1/2 is now working.
go here too http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/37326/diff/0/1 and note that from Sun Apr 15 11:10:10 BST 2007 until Sun Apr 15 14:40:15 BST 2007 it read They were set to discuss security and humanitarian matters, and the fate of an Israeli soldier captured in Gaza.
My complaint was lodged at approximately 14:00 BST
Which numbskull said that?
Has the appropriate correction been made?
John Reith | 18.04.07 – 4:49 pm
The BBC has been saying Gilad Shalit was “captured in Gaza” ever since he was kidnapped in Israel and taken to Gaza.
The website and the World Service are riddled with “captured in Gaza”.
I don’t have the link right now but there was one fairly recent instance that I recall of the BBC stating something a little closer to the truth.
Don’t you know that your colleagues, whether they are “numbskulls” or not, are historical revisionists? And they are really keen. They start editing out inconvenient facts barely hours after the fact.
The website and the World Service are riddled with “captured in Gaza”
and the BBC search engine is utter crap!
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=ns&q=%22captured%20in%20Gaza%22&recipe=all&scope=all&edition=i
this is better:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22captured+in+Gaza%22,+site:news.bbc.co.uk&hl=en&filter=0
TPO | 18.04.07 – 12:27 pm |
By the way I have a humungous great spade in my shed which I use for shovelling snow. You’re free to borrow it any time you wish cosidering your propensity to keep digging whilst in a hole.
oh…i thought you were offering it to him for shoveling (isn’t that what shovels are for? ) considering his propensity for – ahem – shoveling something else…
Yeah, the BBC search engine is so old, rusty and damaged that it cannot be overhauled. It needs to be scrapped – along with the body.
Nice thread and Hat tip to Ms Solient 🙂
JR:
Prey tell why am I ‘banned’ from commenting on SYM* and why have I never had a response to my enquiry regarding the ‘vetting’ of talking heads-especially one interview with ‘eyewitness’ in Baalbek last year?
It seems make a complaint and like your hero’s in the DDR you use the complaint against them.
You only have to look at ‘Points of View’ advert for Al Beeb to show how ‘seriously’ you jokers take ‘customer satifaction’.
*SYM-Shut Your Mouth
On “Framed and Unframed pictures” comment thread, John Reith informs us that in 2005 Mark Byford Deputy DG of the BBC stated:
“This year the BBC has introduced a major reform programme in the way that it handles editorial complaints…
The BBC now begins with the presumption the licence payer is right. After all, the licence payers are the public that fund and own the BBC here in the UK… ”
Fine words, JR. But what’s the reality behind them?
I suspect that I’ve made several more complaints to the BBC since May 2005 than you have. My experience has been quite the opposite to the one Byford anticipated.
I’ve encountered instances of incompetence – the complaint failing to be sent to the correct member of staff.
Dismissal – every concern I raised at the initial stage was dismissed out of hand by the programme makers and I’ve had to go to the ECU when I’ve felt that an issue was so serious that it needed to be taken further.
Ignorance – in the now notorious affair of the ‘Protocols post’, the young woman I spoke to in Editorial Complaints didn’t know what ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ was.
Arrogance – the documentary evidence which I sent to support one complaint last year (later upheld) was not checked out by the Programme’s Editor, who simply assumed that their Jerusalem correspondent (a) knew what she was talking about or (b) wouldn’t knowingly allow misleading information to enter her news item.
And as for the results of complaints being made available to the publis promptly – rubbish!
It was 3 months before the findings of my complaint were published on the website.
In fact the BBC has a POLICY of publishing the findings of enquiries in a different medium from those in which they were disseminated rather than issuing corrections to the audience which was misled. So audiences have no way of knowing that a complaint has even been made about a programme, let alone upheld!
Byford’s high-sounding words, therefore, turn out to be hot air.
He might be quite sincere, of course, in his wish to make the BBC more accountable. But the reality on the ground is different.
A bit like the British Mandate in Palestine, really. All the high falutin talk, all the resolutions from the League of Nations about facilitating a home for the Jewish People in a small part of Palestine were made in San Remo as the nations in the Middle East were being formed.
http://www.jewishnetwork.com/w/ j…522_sanremo.asp
But all the resolutions, all the talk, couldn’t stop some British die hard anti-semites from obstructing and trying to thwart the changes that world leaders had decreed ….
Thus it is with the BBC.
Byford can spout all he likes. But at the editorial desks – it’s business as usual.