was on the subject of BBC impartiality, or rather partiality.
The programme features notable contributions from two recent critics of the BBC’s partiality, Robin Aitken, author of Can We Trust The BBC?, Anthony Jay co-creator of Yes Minister, and author of Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer (PDF) published by the Centre for Policy Studies.
The programme also features contributions from Professor Adrian Monck
Department of Journalism and Publishing at City University in London, David Cox, billed as a ‘media commentator’ and Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News.
I’d like to put up a transcript of the programme, but haven’t had the time to go through it and type it up yet – there’s certainly plenty of meat and grist in the programme for us to chew over. There has been some discussion of this programme already on the current open comment thread.
You can hear the programme on the BBC’s listen again service.
Thank you to Anonanon for the spotting the programme.
The discussion between Aitken, Jay and Cox, was lively and reasonably balanced. However, Helen Boaden was allowed to get away with not being cross-questioned by the other contributors. She got a typically soft ride from the programme’s presenter which ran along these lines:
Presenter:
“Well what about xxx bias?”
Boaden:
“No that isn’t true”
Presenter:
“Well what about yyy bias?”
Boaden:
“No that isn’t true”
Presenter:
“Well what about zzz bias?”
Boaden:
“No that isn’t true”
An interviewer like Paxman would have torn her answers to shreds.
Hat’s off to the BBC for this, I found it an interesting programme.
One thing that did stand out for me was when Boaden was asked about immigration and she responded that they were late to the game.
If they just concentrated on reporting the news without fitting everything into some preordained agenda and just gave things as they were, they wouldn’t have encountered such a problem.
>One thing that did stand out for me was when Boaden was asked about immigration and she responded that they were late to the game.
This is just evasion. Nothing much will change in the future.
Nothing will change because the BBC is stuffed full of hand-wringing liberals who see it as their mission to “educate” the rest of us – and for us to pay for that priviledge with our licence fees.
Very interesting programme.
Left wondering why they had the clip from “yes minister” at the start. Not sure if its a good way to start any serious discussion by playing a comedy version of the discussion.
I would like to see this comedy approach applied to some of the BBC’s own pet ideas. Maybe a presenter wading through floods talking about global warming. Or a doco about the joys of multiculturalism kicking off with a street where nobody can communicate because no-one speaks the same language.
Or maybe not.
Some very good points raised.
I loved the bit where Helen Boaden mentioned banks making profits. “Profit” is a swear word at the BBC and actually making a profit from anything is sacrilege.
“And of course profits mean our pensions”. So profits can be good or even neutral, just so long as they have some other function that the man in the street could identify with.
I listened on “listen again”. The trailer for the next programme summed up the BBC “are we doing enough about global warming? Are some companies profiteering on the carbon schemes. File on 4 investigates….”
I thought Boaden was excellent – not least because she backed up pretty well everything I’ve been arguing here for the past twelve months.
Anyone care to nominate a less biased news provider?
So let me just get clear on your view then, JR. Do you think:
(1) The BBC does not in fact demonstrate any preference for left-wing, anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-multicultural, pro-asylum, pro-EU, pro-UN viewpoints? And that it does not display any double-standard when it comes to its treatment of Muslims compared to other religious groups?
Or:
(2) The BBC does demonstrate a preference for left-wing, etc., viewpoints, but this is almost always justified by the facts of the situation, because (to adapt a phrase) the facts of the life inevitably turn out to be left-wing?
Which is it? There aren’t really any other alternatives (only degrees on a spectrum). Either the BBC is to some degree left-wing, or it isn’t. And if it is, this is either justified (either wholly or in part), or it isn’t.
The problem with the BBC is that it is an unnecessary public-sector organization, which has to promote high-tax policies in order to ensure its own survival.
The rest of the BBC’s output is the usual leftist agenda — multi-culti, Euro-toady, terror-friendly…
Abolish the TV licence-tax and the problem will disappear, along with the BBC itself.
Reith
I disagree with you completely about Ms Boaden’s performance. It was superficial, avoided any “difficult” issues and came over as smug and self satisfied. The interviewer was overly chummy and Cox/Aitkin were not given the chance to cross question her.
When she said that the BBC were “late on the immigration debate” she volunteered no reason for the lateness. As we all know the lateness was caused by the institutional media-liberal bias of the BBC.
Blithering Bunny you missed at least one more option – that the BBC is over-whelmingly pro-establishment in its views ie supportive of the government, US foreign policy, no different from the corporate news media blah blah etc etc
This view is argued just as coherently on the web as the ‘one’ found on this board.
For every Melanie Phillips there is a John Pilger, for every B-BBC there is a Media Lens, and regrettably, for every idiot there is a hillhunt.
>Blithering Bunny you missed at least one more option – that the BBC is over-whelmingly pro-establishment in its views ie supportive of the government, US foreign policy, no different from the corporate news media blah blah etc etc
That would come under option (1) then.
Blithering Bunny 07.08.07 – 6:17 pm
The BBC does not …demonstrate any preference for left-wing, anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-multicultural, pro-asylum, pro-EU… viewpoints…
Correct.
it does not display any double-standard when it comes to its treatment of Muslims compared to other religious groups…
Correct.
You’ll note that I left out any mention of ‘pro-UN’. I think that idea needs some unpacking. Britain and the US were instrumental in creating the UN and both sit on its security council. I’m aware that there may be a ‘pro-UN’/’anti-UN’ distinction among small rural militias in the US who believe the UN is the instrument for bringing about George Bush (the elder)’s vision of a New World Order by ferrying troops about in black helicopters……..but does it play outside Cranksville?
Blithering Bunny – that is not the same as point 1, not demonstrating a preference for the left etc (ie impartiality) is not the same as being pro-establishment (partiality).
So you skipped the logic classes at Uni then, Sarah-Jane?
Claim (1) did not say that the BBC was impartial, just that it did not favour the left, which is consistent with it either being impartial or favouring the right.
Obviously I didn’t really have in mind the latter option, but it comes under (1) nonetheless.
For every Melanie Phillips there is a John Pilger, for every B-BBC there is a Media Lens, and regrettably, for every idiot there is a hillhunt.
Sarah-Jane | 08.08.07 – 8:48 pm
This is an argument often made by the BBC and its apologists. But the fact that there are blinkered people who feel that the BBC is “establishment” simply because it doesn’t lean quite far enough for their liking to the idiocy of the far left says nothing about where the BBC does in fact stand, but speaks volumes about the said idiocy of said far left.
Try an experiment: send Justin Webb to Iran to report on a religiously-observant rural community there and see whether he represents it as brimful of dumb hicks blindly following God and country – as Webb has not been able to resist singling out and portraying similar samples of Americans.
Try another one. Send a bunch of BBC hacks to Iran after one of its frequent earthquakes and see whether they pump out scathing reports about Ahmedinejad’s inability to provide immediate and effective rescue services and accuse him of discrimination against Iranians. Remember Katrina? Remember anything at all about the BBC’s coverage of America?
The BBC simply would not report on the Iranian terror regime or the Iranian people as it reports on America. Not only that, it would not even cross what’s left of the BBC’s collective mind to report on it in that fashion. This is bias of extraordinary proportions.
I’m talking here, in case you hadn’t got my drift, of the rush to judgement, the snide innuendo, the subtle and not-so-subtle put downs, the superior nudge-nudge, wink-wink observations, the sneers.
This attitude the BBC reserves for its pet hates, chief among them America, Israel and Christianity. Evidence? Have a look at some of the World Service’s coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war, for a start:
…another government adviser boasted that the Israeli information campaign had been a well-oiled machine.
Kassams are pinpricks on the ankles of the Israeli giant; Katyushas are poisoned arrows that drive him mad.
Israeli warships lurking over the western horizon and Israeli missiles lurching towards Beirut.
Israeli war crimes.
– this last repeated over and over by Middle East “editor” Jeremy Bowen who began his chant when the smoke from the first Israeli air strikes had barely cleared.
More evidence? Read this site, for a start. I mean, actually read it. Wake up, people. The BBC is blinded by its bias.
Obviously I didn’t really have in mind the latter option, but it comes under (1) nonetheless.
Blithering Bunny | Homepage | 10.08.07 – 12:07 am | #
So I was able to read the subtext rather than the text then 🙂
Bryan – you dismiss articulate coherent voices as ‘idiocy’. They would point to a similar body of evidence, and due to more informed tactics, a greater track record of change. What do you think they might say about your own views?
Do you read any of the alternative point of view? Are you interested in how they operate or how they come to their conclusions? Because they are no more or less idiotic than the more intelligent commentators here. They just have a different point of view.
Bryan – you dismiss articulate coherent voices as ‘idiocy’. They would point to a similar body of evidence, and due to more informed tactics, a greater track record of change.
Hmmmmmmmm, makes me wonder what these tactics are. Isn’t there just the tiniest possibility that it has little to do with tactics and much to do with the BBC’s own institutional leftie bias that makes it amenable to change under pressure from Medialens?.
I admit you got me curious about Medialens so I popped in there again (I’d had a look at it briefly in the past) to see what all the fuss is about. I went through some of the articles and had a look at the Message Board and Forums. A couple of them wrote to BBC editor Alistair Burnett about the Lancet figures on Iraqi deaths and in his apologetic replies he basically agreed that the Lancet was holier-than-thou and untouchable and the BBC was only indicating that the Lancet figures had been questioned by Western leaders. (Burnett has a thing about Western leaders.)
Anyone who has followed this story even superficially knows that the Lancet figures were in fact questioned and roundly criticized by other researchers. Why did Burnett not mention that fact in his responses? The Burnett-Medialens chat really just proves my point: here was a comfy little exchange between two sides in a left-wing comfort zone. I have also written numerous polite e-mails to BBC staff (if this is what you mean by ‘tactics’.) I have never even had the courtesy of a standard response, leave alone an actual reply. I have sent detailed, formal complaints about BBC content using the ‘Complaints’ page and, except for one occasion long ago, simply been ignored.
Now I must admonish you Sarah-Jane for regarding Medialens in a good light and as simply representing the other side of the coin. I’ll provide more evidence as to why I disagree with you in the 2nd half of this post.
Here’s a post on the ‘Message Board’
http://www.medialens.org/board/
BBC News at Ten “Hammas which has called for the destruction of Israel”
In a preamble to a biased report on “inside Gaza” broadcast on News at Ten, the news presenter claimed that Gaza is controlled by Hammas “Which has called for the destruction of Israel” No mention of Israeli attacks on Gaza, indiscriminate shelling, low level flights by Israeli Jets, cutting off of essential supplies, kidnapping of Hammas politicians, snipers, shootings and other Israeli incursions. The BBC report implied that Gaza’s plight is due to the policies of Hamas…not Israel which was hardly mentioned.
And here are some responses:
You missed out the undercover Israeli death squads which came to light recently.
Death squads only come into it if it is “them” not us, like the Iraqi Insurgency that suddenly mutated into Death Squads last year. Israel are one of us so can’t possibly have death squads!
I personally would like to take this opportunity to call for the destruction of Israel. In fact, I think it should be wiped off the map.
Hamas was also labelled “what many consider a terrorist organisation”. Same could be said for the IDF, but would the BBC say that?
The responses included a link to a Youtube propaganda video titled “Occupation 101”.
More from the “Message Board”:
Rivals pay Hamas force by mistake
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6938291.stm My email
concerning the linked story: I really have had enough of either the bias by omission or bias by inference that the BBC continues to show with regard to its reporting of Palestine. In the above news article there is no mention that Hamas was democratically elected in 2006 in elections judged fair. It is also unfair to make statements about Hamas renouncing violence without mentioning that Israel, the far more violent partner in this region, refuses to renounce violence either. It is also unfair to mention that Hamas does not recongise Israel, when firstly it arguable does, and secondly Isreal continues to deny the very existence of a Palestinian state let alone recognise one.
This guy pounces on one of the few innocuous, neutral articles on Hamas that the BBC has written (it generally supports Hamas) and reads an anti-Hamas bias into it. And what’s this business of Hamas arguable (sic) recognising Israel. The destruction of Israel is in Hamas’ Charter. And Israel does not deny the very existence of a Palestinian state. Israel has agreed to its formation, for goodness sake. (I wanted to say something a little stronger there but I can’t on the chaste pages of this blog.) Where do these people get their information on the conflict?
It’s one thing to have a left-wing point of view, but when you have to indulge in wishful thinking and deny facts and invent others to suit it, then the debate stops dead right there.
Realising that the Forums and Message Board could represent a lower order of intellect than the articles, I had a look at some of the latter and I just found the same old uneducated bias, albeit wrapped in a neater package. Sarah-Jane, I’m afraid you are going to have to point to something a bit better than Medialens if you want to make comparisons with this blog.
Sarah-Jane:
“So I was able to read the subtext rather than the text then”.
So you missed the class on what subtext is as well then? 🙂
The way that Helen Boaden was not properly interviewed was the most important thing about the programme.