Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
John Reith,
I fail to see how your point is made countering Alan’s contention that Wolf Blitzer’s views on the Middle East are “veiled.” You list Blitzer’s prior journalistic experience with Israeli papers as the sole basis of your argument that his views are “not veiled”? How does that work exactly? He used to work for Israeli papers THEREFORE he must be biased? Unless in your mind anyone who ever worked for an Israeli paper must inherently be biased your logic appears to be faulty. If I knew nothing about you and read this I would only be able to conclude that you are biased against Israel, or at least against journalists working for Israeli papers. The bias is reinforced by the very next admission you make that, by contrast, Sanjay Gupta’s political views “aren’t made apparent on the air.” By singling him out you de-facto are accusing Blitzer of bias solely based on the fact that he wrote for those “nefarious” Israeli papers. Not very convincing Reith.
John Reith,
You convey the sense that that “nefarious Blitzer” was “disguising” his name for “nefarious” purposes when reporting for those Israeli papers, using the name “Ze’ev”. Did you know that “Ze’ev” means “Wolf”? Alan made the point well–can you tell Blitzer’s political views when watching his interviews? If you can’t, then your angry charges about Blitzer, guilt by association with what–Israeli newspapers?–carry a whiff of something darker and more ominous.
John Reith,
The above comment is with respect to your response to deegee at 1:57 p.m., 9 Jan. ’08.
John Reith–
So the Jerusalem Post is a “House Organ”, not an independent newspaper, and any reporter who works for it can’t possibly be impartial? Bret Stephens, formerly of the Post, is now writing for the Wall Street Journal. Is that newspaper unreliable as a source because this man once wrote for the Jerusalem Post? Would you consider Ha’aretz to be the only reliable, unbiased paper in Israel? If so, then you are betraying your political leanings and as a representative of the BBC, the BBC’s as well, since the BBC itself has on occasion referred to Ha’aretz as a left-leaning paper.
John Reith,
By the way John, Ashraf Khalil, the Middle East correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, used to write for a paper in that bastion of press freedom, Cairo, Egypt. Will you automatically discount everything he’s written for the L.A. Times as being biased because of where he worked before? Do you consider yourself a better judge in that regard than the editorial staff of the L.A. Times?
John Reith,
I wouldn’t know for sure, but it is quite possible that Wolf Blitzer’s pseudonym for “Blitzer”, which was “Barak”, may have been simply a hebraicized version of the name, done with some license. “Barak” means “lightning” in Hebrew, which has somewhat the connotation associated with “blitz.” Together with “Ze’ev” meaning “Wolf” in Hebrew, the disdain with which you refer to the man writing under “various names” doesn’t seem quite as justified.
After Israel, President George W. Bush of the US of A will visit Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain. Now I’m not sure what passport control is like in these countries but I know that Saudi Arabia will not allow anyone entry with an Israeli stamp in his passport.
Obviously the eminent George W. did not have to queue at Ben Gurion Airport and get his passport stamped but he’s going to be travelling around the Middle East with traces of Israeli soil on the soles of his shoes. Perhaps the Saudis will require him to step into the equivalent of a cattle dip as he gets off the plane before he can place his soiled infidel shoes on holy Arab ground.
And what if George W. wants to visit the holy city of Mecca, where no infidel may set foot, and marvel at the site of the Hajj? How will his Saudi hosts deal with this request from the president of the greatest country on earth?
Now this is a rich field of inquiry for the intrepid journalists of the BBC. We expect from them nothing less than a deep analysis of Saudi Arabia’s apartheid system and a comparison of that system with that of South Africa. We expect them to engineer and publicise protests worldwide over Saudi Arabian policy and energetically promote sanctions and sporting boycotts against the country.
Surely anything less would be hyocrisy on the part of the BBC?
…..not at all surprising. The woeful Clare Bolderson managed an entire report on The World Tonight and failed also to mention any Republicans. Most of the piece was devoted to an aged woman known as Miss D (as I recall) who was a Democrat to the core and ended by saying “anything is better than what we have now!”.
………at which point Bolderson appeared (this is radio) to come over all smug with the satisfaction of a job well done.
All on my money. Brilliant.
Lurker in a Burqua | 09.01.08 – 11:57 am
Bryan/Ryan the headline on both the News homepage and the World section of BBC NEws Online is ‘Clinton and McCain win US Primary’.
What is your problem exactly – beyond only seeing that part of the world that suits your mindset?
Sarah-Jane | 09.01.08 – 11:19 am
Sarah-Jane, check out the comment I pasted in from Lurker and these
Raggamuffin | 09.01.08 – 11:58 am
Richard | 09.01.08 – 12:19 pm
chris h | 09.01.08 – 12:31 pm
D Burbage | 09.01.08 – 12:46 pm
Peter | 09.01.08 – 1:16 pm
for a start.
My problem, exactly, is that the BBC has gone beyond mere bias here. It is actively and consciously promoting the Democrats at the expense of the Republicans and not even trying to hide it. The BBC has become completely shameless.
Whats this cricket whingeing about. Slagging off the Aussies is the first ‘British’ thing that the British Bradcasting Corporation has done for ages.
Bryan: The problem is to clear these sort of points up someone independent needs to do a proper survey. When I checked the last accusation that 5 Live was “ignoring the Republicans” I found a huge instruction in the running order saying (I paraphrase) “Focusing on Democrats in this hit, Republicans in the next hour. It is important we trail ahead to this!” So as I pointed out, yes the posters was right there was a large chunk about the Democrats but it was followed by a reminder to stay tuned for a similar chunk about the Republicans. Turns out the posters was so “disgusted” they turned off before this happened (and it would appear missed a similar message at the start)
Personally I think Simon Mayo has been really interesting, and I always listen with half an ear for accusations of imbalance as well. Amusingly I’ve hit several large Republican chunks when out and about (John Bolton was good value the other day), but checking the running order shows it has indeed been well balanced. Iain Dale agrees it’s been pretty good too; http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2008/01/in-praise-of-simon-mayo.html#links
More generally here if posters feel the MSM is more interested in Clinton and Obaama (and that’s all the MSM including the BBC) well they may well have a point. Journalists are attracted by new, shiny, potentials. It’s our magpie brains and in terms of narrative “Who will be the first woman/black man in the White House?” is more interesting to many journos than “Who will be the 44th white man?”
“The press sail far closer to with wind wrt contempt than the bbc does because it sells papers, again this is not the BBC’s bias but theirs.
Cue: but we are not forced to pay for them etc etc
Sarah-Jane | 09.01.08 – 8:03 pm”
Yes we are not forced to pay for them, it actually sounds like you are getting the message (at last), time to cross the floor of the house away from the dark side.
The ONLY way for the BBC to survive is for it to grab the technological, moral and commercial realities and realise that next time round there will be little (‘core only’) or no licence fee.
The only possibilities are fundamental change or total demise – its up to you BBC.
David Gregory…..Please read this very carefully!I came upon this site a few months back with the opinion that the BBC,as a national institution,was unbiased and uncorrupted.Today,I stand convinced that it is.Now here is where you come in.If it wasn’t for yours and John Reith’s posts I would have gone on my way (still convinced of the beeb’s impartiality).But your constant excuses,handwringing,propaganda and your arrogance when you tend to pick and choose which questions to answer,has converted me to a BBC hater of the highest order.
So,from me (and no doubt thousands of others),WELL DONE!
JeffD: Well technically I guess you are a Reith and David Gregory hater of the highest order. Sorry to hear that. What in my last post though was arrogant, or handwringing or propaganda? It was an answer to an accusation of bias that when I looked into it didn’t stand up. Plus a little bit of insight into the limited thought processes of most journalists.
B-BBC is at its best when it’s right. But if any senior managers at the BBC are reading some of these posts and they can see with a simple check of the running order (as I did) they are wrong it diminishes the point the website is trying to make.
David Gregory (BBC):
When I checked the last accusation that 5 Live was “ignoring the Republicans” I found a huge instruction in the running order saying (I paraphrase) “Focusing on Democrats in this hit, Republicans in the next hour.
Sorry David I can not let you get away with that.
It may well say that in the running order but the two pieces were not balanced.
Sorry chaps, I have had time to blog since.
5 live drive 7th January. Still on the BBC – I player
First lot with Simon Mayo at 17:20 was all Democrat. Obama he is really really nice. No I mean it. He is great.
Hillary, we perhaps if there is a fault Obama is promising too much and Hillary is trying to be more. realistic.
Republicans did not mentioned. Not a sausage.
continued…
Second lot • the all Republican section,
It is all there on the BBC Iplayer for Monday 7th Jan in 5 live Drive 02:16.
Introduced by Peter Allen as
“So let’s first call the Republicans”
Kevin Connelly on John McCain
“quite an interesting guy”
“..former Navy fighter pilot much decorated , 23 combat missions , he was shot down , badly injured , prisoner of war for a very long time. He has a very high profile in America on that KIND of issue…” Kevin Connelly’s emphasis
“…listen to this, this is his pitch for the Presidency, it is all about how he is the guy who knows how to deal with international affairs…”
Cut to recording of McCain stuttering to say he two missions are to improve trust and confidence in government and to face and beat back radical Islamic extremism.
Connelly goes on
“…just to round him out a bit for for you. John McCain is well over 70 and I saw an interview with him on American telly over the weekend where he was talking about how much he loved ABBA and how much he gets ripped by his wife for it. So that’s put a bit of flesh on the bones there.”
Peter Allen laughing “Yeah, an liitle bit of youth left in him…”
Connelly on Mitt Romney
“….an interesting guy….”
“….he is colossally wealthy and has put quite a lot of his own money into the campaign, most of the obviously other candidate raise money for their campaign, Mitt Romney has done a bit of that but has a lot of money too….”
“….he looks very Presidential as we said last week, but he is struggling to can of persuade people has got charisma. ”
“….for all the amazing amount of money has has expended on this campaign so far…”
Then we get to chat about Hillary and her tears and Obama.
In summary
John McCain…..famous for being for a 40 year of war / POW record. Old git who likes ABBA which his wife (and Peter Allen) find that funny.
Mitt Romney ….colossally wealthy, funding himself , spending huge amounts and no charisma
Obama Isn’t he nice. Every one is trying to be him.
Hillary putting on the water works to try and emote like Obama.
Greggers is a decent sort of a cove,at least he has to guts to post under his own name,unlike the disembodied voice of Lord Wraith.
This however I would love to see as a piece to camera,”constant excuses,handwringing,propaganda and your arrogance”,it would be fascinating,not enough to move to Birmingham,buy a television and submit to the television tax,but fascinating none the less.
Perhaps he could put it on YouTube?
David Gregory…..You just don’t get it do you?It is impossible for you to see through that opaque veil that surrounds you or to engage in enlightening conversation.In your answers you plead ignorance or innocence and you do it robotically and with impunity.Although you,yourself don’t fall to the levels of sarcasm that Reith does your answers are so contrived they are beyond belief!It brings to mind an of’quoted phrase from World War 2 (that’s the war the beeb were on our side).”We were only following orders.”
Now I run a successful business and if I were to recieve just a fraction of the poor feedback that the beeb does I would really have to go back to the drawing board!I would also feel that I had badly let down my customers.There would be no excuses,no flannel.There would be lots of sackings though.
JeffD,
That is the beauty of the BBC license fee,there are no customers.
It was an answer to an accusation of bias that when I looked into it didn’t stand up.
David Gregory (BBC) | 10.01.08 – 1:04 pm
It didn’t stand up because you didn’t take the blinkers off before you looked at it. I wasn’t talking about 5 Live (which LurkingBlackhat has just revealed to be insidiously biased) but about the World Service. Now if you can show me how that coverage was balanced I will concede that you have a point.
You have made a couple of very basic errors here. You have assumed that equal air time means impartiality. You have just been shown that it doesn’t. And you have failed to answer my point – which was that the Republicans barely featured on the World Service in the past few days. No doubt if I’d listened to the little it did have to say about them I would have found the same snide comments and sly innuendo that LurkingBlackhat has revealed from 5 Live.
The point is really ridiculously simple. From British Labour to Australian Labor to American Democrats, the BBC is not even trying to hide its wholehearted support. And here you are trying to tell us that it is impartial? Please, David, give us a break.