Monthly Archives: August 2007

Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

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.

, published in The Spectator, is about Alan Johnston, a BBC reporter who was kidnapped in Gaza until released, with the aid of Hamas, or so the media, including the BBC, have portrayed events.

Phillips outlines the web of interconnected groups. factions and individuals surrounding the kidnap of Johnston, pointing out:

But since Johnston was so close to Hamas it is naive to think that Dagmoush would have kidnapped him without receiving at least tacit approval from his powerful patron. And although Hamas said immediately it knew who was holding him, it did nothing for many weeks — although its closeness to the Army of Islam enabled it to stop them killing him.

It was Hamas which had everything to gain from the ordeal of Alan Johnston, its friend whom the BBC was about to transfer out of Gaza anyway — and its strategy has worked brilliantly. Not only did it open communication with Britain, but the idea of negotiating with Hamas is now gaining traction fast on both sides of the Atlantic.

Leading up to her stark and striking conclusion Phillips notes that:

Since Johnston’s release, the BBC seems to have turned itself into a vehicle for Hamas propaganda. Alastair Crooke has been given airtime granted to no other lobbyist, in interviews and one-off programmes giving him unprecedented opportunity to push his views.

This is the BBC whose other Gaza reporter Fayed abu Shamala reportedly told a Hamas rally in 2001 that the BBC was

‘waging the campaign of resistance/terror against Israel shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people’; and whose Middle East bureau editor, Simon Wilson, has acknowledged that he met Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus to discuss Johnston’s fate — meetings about which the Foreign Office was closely consulted.

Do read the rest – see links above. Damian Thompson of the Daily Telegraph has also blogged about Phillips article, Was Alan Johnston a ‘friend’ of Hamas?.

Thank you to Edna for spotting spotting this first.

as an ‘execution’, longtime Biased BBC reader Dave T pointed out that this (ab)use of the word ‘execute’ is contrary to the BBC’s own BBC News Styleguide (PDF), where, if Robin turns to page 69, Troublesome words, he will find:

Execute means to put to death after a legal process.
Terrorists or criminals do not execute people, they
murder them.

I’ve yet to hear from Robin or any other Beeboid in defence of Robin’s poor choice of description. Come on guys, we know you’re out there!

In ten days time we will remember the partition of the subcontinent into Pakistan and India 60 years ago, followed later by the [later] breakaway of Bangladesh.

To mark this there are several programmes on radio and TV. I declare an interest – I was in army intelligence in Bombay in the days leading up to the end of the Raj – I left on the Georgic, the last ship to leave British India.

Already the remarks by presenters are slanted to suggest that it was the wicked British who partitioned India. Legally this is true – but the fact is that Mountbatten absolutely did not want partition, and along with Nehru and Gandhi fought hard to preserve that great country as one.

Another programme is to dwell on Muhammad Ali Jinnah ‘and his vision’. Jinnah was not originally in favour of partition; he was a completely westernised gentleman in his tailored English suits. He was threatened by the Muslim League, who promised violence if they did not get an Islamic state. In an attempt to keep India whole, Gandhi and Nehru said that Jinnah could be at the top of the new government but Jinnah was trapped by the Islamist militants.

The consequence was upwards of 2 millions slaughtered; 300,000 killed later in the nascent Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) by West Pakistan (now Pakistan) forces, who used widespread rape as a weapon of suppression. And the death a few months later of Jinnah himself – can anyone doubt that he died crushed by the awful consequences of his surrender to the fanatics?

And consider what India might have become if it had stayed united – instead there were two wars, continual fighting over Kashmir, the degradation of Bangladesh, the tottering state of Pakistan and borders armed like an iron curtain dividing areas, such as the Punjab, which for centuries had been one. What a cost to satisfy the greed for power by the Islamists.

But will this history be presented in these programmes, or will the British as usual be cast as villains?

Bernard is right to ask this question – there is likely to be a great deal of glossing over of the trauma of the partition of India. For those of us born since then, knowledge of the partition of India into three pieces – what is now India and the then Pakistan (in two pieces, West and East, hundreds of miles apart, destined to fall apart from the get go), is limited to the historically aware – and on current evidence such historical awareness seems to pass much of the youth-obsessed BBC (and other broadcasters) by, never mind their tendency to revisionism when it suits them.

There are lots of good sites on the web describing these fascinating and horrific events. Googling for ‘Partition of India’ leads to links such as Partition of India on Wikipedia and this graphic BBC picture gallery of photos by Margaret Bourke-White. Wikipedia also has an article on the Bangladesh Liberation War that serves as a useful starting point on the break-up of West and East Pakistan into modern day Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Please let us know in the comments or by email to biasedbbc@gmail.com of any shoddy or partial anniversary coverage that you see or hear.

, near the end, Jeremy Paxman announced:

Well, that’s all from Newsnight tonight. Before we go, a correction to our markets, the Dow Jones was actually, aw, this is bad, up this evening, not down as we reported. How do we manage to get it so wrong so frequently on the markets?

Well, I don’t know Jeremy, but I could hazard a guess or three! Then:

It was the 100th anniversary today though of the foundation of the Boy Scouts though.

D’oh! It’s just the Scouts these days Jeremy – girls are members too you know! (And what was with that second ‘though’? or was it a “D’oh!”?).

There are now said to be 28-million of them, all as Baden-Powell promised, smiling and whistling under all circumstances. There are 40,000 of them camped out at Brownsea Island in Dorset.

D’oh! There are 40,000 of them camped out at the World Scout Jamboree 2007 in Hylands Park, Chelmsford in Essex, with 300 lucky Scouts participating in the Brownsea camp re-enactment on Brownsea Island in Dorset…

Goodnight.

Well, at least you got that right Jeremy. Well, the night part anyway.

We then cut to film of Peter Duncan, the Chief Scout, hand raised in Scout salute, saying, as the titles roll (as is the way on hip-and-happening Newsnight these days):

Join with me, in saying, “On my honour, I promise that I will do my best…”

…then Parum-pum-pum-pum he’s silenced and the Newsnight theme starts at full blast – omitting the rest of the Scout Promise as the film and end credits continue to roll.

Now, the Scout Promise is:

On My Honour, I promise that I will do my best

To do my duty to God and to the Queen,

To help other people

And to keep the Scout Law

…which is sufficiently short that Newsnight could have included it in full within their end-title sequence, yet, in common with other BBC news coverage that I saw, they chopped it off after ‘do my best’.

It’s enough to make one wonder if the BBC has a problem with the concepts of doing one’s duty to God and to the Queen, helping other people and keeping the Scout Law (which is equally straightforward and eloquent). Surely not.

A wiggle-woggle to Chuffer for spotting the first Scout promise abridgement.

by Nick Higham about an ITV documentary about the death of terminally-ill Malcolm Pointon. Here’s a transcript of Nick Higham’s report:

An ITV press statement implied the end of the film showed the point of Malcolm’s death. Newspaper coverage reflected that, so did interviews with Malcolm’s widow. One of those interviews, on Radio 4’s Today programme, prompted this email from a listener:

We then cut to a mock up of an email from Graham Pointon, with Higham reading:

“Malcolm was my brother and although I was not with him when he died… I know that Paul Watson was not there either, having left on the Monday before saying that he had enough material and would now leave the family in peace. Many of the papers are saying this film breaks the last TV taboo, but it is not true.”

I wonder what was said in the bit indicated by the ellipsis (…) – perhaps one of our resident Beeboids can help with that detail. Higham continues:

The Pointons were filmed several times. These pictures are from a BBC Panorama. Today, Malcolm’s widow said there’d been no intention to deceive.

Cut to Barbara Pointon, saying:

“I’m too honest to say that we faked the death, we didn’t. You saw Malcolm’s last semi-conscious moments”.

Malcolm’s widow said “there’d been no intention to deceive” did she Nick? It sounded to me like she said that Malcolm’s death was not faked – not that there was any deception, intentional or otherwise. Higham continues:

Last month, Michael Grade, ITV’s Chairman, promised a zero tolerance approach to programme makers who deliberately mislead. Today, he launched a formal inquiry into what happened.

Among other things, ITV’s inquiry will want to establish whether the programme itself is ambiguous about what it shows, why ITV’s publicity was misleading and why the programme makers didn’t come forward sooner to explain exactly what it was they’d filmed.

The film-maker Paul Watson blames ITV for the confusion, and says he’s being made a scapegoat.

Cut to Paul Watson, saying:

“I’m filming a dying process. What I’m not filming, and never claimed to have filmed, and others seem to have done on my behalf, is that you’re getting the last moments of a man’s dying gasp”.

Cut to that picture of the Queen arriving for the Annie Leibovitz photo shoot, with Higham enunciating that:

Of course, we’ve been here before, when the BBC’s documentary on the Queen was also accused of misleading viewers in pursuit of publicity.

But that of course is where you are wrong Nick! Perhaps ITV’s press people have hyped up the difference between Malcolm’s “last semi-conscious moments” and the occurence of his death, perhaps it is the press who have interpreted the film that way – but, and here’s the difference between this ITV documentary and the BBC’s faked footage – Malcolm’s death is true, it actually happened.

The story told by the ITV documentary (and let’s be realistic here, documentaries are a form of (hopefully) true story telling) is true – that is what happened, which is quite different from the BBC’s faked documentary footage – the Queen did NOT storm out of the photo shoot in the way that Peter Fincham, Controller of BBC1, said that she did.

There is a world of difference between these two situations – in one, press officers and press appear to have over-egged the pudding, to no great harm. In the other, the Controller of BBC1, no less, showed faked footage purporting to show the Queen storming out of a photo shoot, and then took until the next day to issue an apology once the damage to the Queen’s reputation had been done. You’ve only got to look at comments around the web to see that many people still believe that the story was that the Queen stormed out of a photo shoot, rather than the truth, that the BBC’s documentary makers had faked it!

It’s very convenient for the BBC (“we’re all just as bad”) that you failed to spot that difference and report it to your tellytax customers Nick.

of twenty-three South Koreans, with reporter Robin Denselow opening with:

Close-up footage of dumped body (that wouldn’t be shown in this detail if the victim was British):

“Another death in Afghanistan. The body a South Korean information technology worker who’d volunteered to join a Christian church group hoping to be involved in missionary and aid work was discovered yesterday morning.

Cut to Al-Jazeera film of frightened kidnap victims:

He was the second of the group of twenty-three kidnapped Koreans to be executed by the Taliban, who threatened further killings if their demands for the release of prisoners hadn’t been met by this morning.

Cut to intrusive footage of distraught and distressed Korean relatives:

The kidnapped group includes eighteen women and their plight has led to emotional scenes across South Korea”.

Note the word ‘executed’. In what sense, Robin, was the word ‘executed’ better than the word ‘murdered’ would have been in your report?

The man was kidnapped, held to ransom, shot dead and dumped in a ditch. It was a murder pure and simple. To describe it as an ‘execution’ is to give the murdering scum perpetrators an air of legitimacy that is entirely inappropriate and a disservice to humanity.

Please do feel free to post your reasoning in the comment box on this thread, or, if you prefer, by email to biasedbbc@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

P.S. Just for good measure, Denselow’s report was followed up by Jeremy Paxman interviewing well known Taliban kidnap expert and muslim convert Yvonne Ridley, complete with fetching headscarf, who added little to public knowledge other than to demonstrate that Polyfilla is a viable alternative to the niqab.

Strangely, Paxman introduced Ridley as “a British journalist who was captured and held by the Taliban for eleven days in 2001”, omitting to mention Ridley’s prominence in ‘Respect‘, the George Galloway/SWP front party. For some reason, I have a nagging feeling that were Ridley a member of a similarly extreme right-wing party that her affiliation would have merited a mention on Newsnight.

Five years of monitoring, recording and publicising the biases, inaccuracies, omissions, foibles, stupidity, waste and arrogance of the BBC, and, just occasionally, some of the BBC’s good points too.

There have been more than 2,100 blog posts from the Biased BBC team, over 83,000 comments from our readers, more than 350,000 views of our Youtube clips and nearly 2,000,000 visits to Biased BBC – not bad for a small team of bloggers with little free time and zero budget!

On behalf of all of us who write for Biased BBC, thank you for reading the blog, thank you for caring about the BBC, and thank you for making Biased BBC an ongoing blogging success.

Here’s to all of us, and here’s to the next five years of Biased BBC!
(Somehow, I doubt the BBC will become bias-free in that time).