Sometimes I read a report and wonder why it is there. Nothing existential, just the non-sensical logic behind it. This morning the BBC headline runs ” Bush ‘is avoiding Iraq decisions'”- top billing for this story.
Let’s leave alone the fact that this headline immediately promotes a subjective, politicised point. Let’s question its very newsworthiness. Why is it there? Perhaps, I thought, because yesterday Bush was hailing Iraq progress and (as the BBC put it) freezing any “pull out” from Iraq. That’s newsworthy, really.
Yet what about today’s headline? Ah, well that’s the Democrat response. We’ve moved from reporting a decision arising from concrete events to the political strategy of one US party. Not cricket, BBC.
You can often tell the BBC position because they reiterate a certain rhetorical line in an article, underlining a particular soundbyte.
In this case, we first of all get the warm-up line from the Beeb, “But his opponents say the people want answers from this president, now.” (which certainly has a rhetorical ring to it inappropriate to a factual news item), and then the main event from Nancy Pelosi:
“”The president has taken us into a failed war, he’s taken us deeply into debt and that debt is taking us into recession,” she said. “We need some answers from the president.””
It’s like the run-up before the penalty kick.
What’s really funny though is the fact that the BBC headlines a story Bush “avoiding Iraq decisions”, when in fact he has just decided something- which was yesterday’s news. Today’s news is that he’s declined to follow-through with a decision that the Democrats wanted and want to intensify and speed up. This is rather more nuanced and requires the BBC’s special news skills (arising from its unique funding) to bring to our attention.
I just turned on the World Service and this was the top story. It was amazing to me how *blatantly* non-sensical it was. The story was all Democratic sound-bites (no Republican ones of course) about how Bush was avoiding a tough deciscion and leaving it to the next President. Well, a) He just made a tough decision. Not the one the Democrats or BBC wanted, but a tough and unpopular one and b) We elect Presidents to make tough decisions and no outgoing President has left the incoming one a perfect world.
I just read that story on the BBC website and was immediately inspired to Google “biased BBC” and lo and behold the first link brought me here to a post on exactly the same story.
The Beeb is just truly a joke now – it’s as if it’s been taken over by a bunch of indignant 6th formers.
It’s all very well to report the opinions of the presidential opposition, but when those comments are basically illogical and unfounded, to give an unchallenged headline platform to them is simply outrageous.
Nancy Pelosi’s remarks that the war has brought the US into recession are childishly disingenuous since the current financial crisis has nothing whatsoever to do with the war. To abuse the BBCs (undeserved) global perception as a “quality” news source in order to parrot unchallenged rhetoric and propaganda and for the Democrat party is simply inexcusable.
I also love the subtle way in which the BBC sloppily disguises the opinions of its overseas reporters as “news”, as in: “The BBC’s Kim Ghattas, in Washington, says that dissenting voices are now being heard among Republicans as well”….if her opinion is based on objective fact, then why not report those facts – why preface them with “such and such says…”?
The truth is that there have been Republican war dissenters from the start of the war, so to say that dissenting voices are “now” being heard among Republicans is just pure BBC spin. I can’t believe the low standards of journalism at the BBC these days.
The BBC World Service has become a joke. I caught only the tail end of an interview with Dan Rather, but it did sound like it was burnishing his victim credentials after his dismissed case, allowing him lots of time to attack Bush – I don’t know how much of ‘Rathergate’ was discussed, but I wouldn’t in any case look to radio (let alone TV) today to understand any of the issues. As for Kim Ghattas from Le-bah-nonn, she was hopeless as a Middle East correspondent (though not quite as bad as Awr-la Guerin), and I doubt she’ll do much better in DC.
If one accepts that this article is a balancing response to the earlier one reporting on GB’s speech (which I don’t) then there is still bias in the way that it is being presented.
This story is one of six headlined on the BBC home page whereas GB’s speech didn’t even make it to the front page of yesterday’s news page.
Clear unequivocal bias.
This story is a straight account of what Democrats are saying.
There is nothing biased about it.
The problem with a lot of people on this blog is that they cannot bear seeing the views of those they disagree with being reported.
And when they do, they seem to confuse reports of people’s views with some non-existent ‘BBC view’.
The BBC has a duty to report all sides of a controversy. And it does.
John Reith,
Of course the BBC should report even when it is views I disagree with.
However the BBC has to report fairly.
Reporting false or misleading sides is not a necessity.
I will also say perhaps controversially that the BBC does NOT have a duty to report all sides of a controversy, at least not in the way you suggest, if that were true you would report Nazi Death Camp Commanders, Slave Ship Captains, Leaders Of Child Pornography Rings and the like as though their views have full validity.
If you disagree and this duty is true why is there no publication of the Mohammed cartoons, why is Fitna not being shown on the BBC, why is the Balen Report not published?
Or is it a duty to report all sides but only when the BBC say so?
JR- why did you bother to expand your point? Why not just write, “no, I disagree”? It would save on time and ad-hominem verbiage.
John Reith,
“The problem with a lot of people on this blog is that they cannot bear seeing the views of those they disagree with being reported.”
My problem is that I cannot bear the same tired cliches peddled by the usual left-wing losers and the indignity of having to pay for it.
They do it all the time: narrow viewpoints from self-righteous, PC, eco-friendly, Bush-hating bores and windbags. If they would remember to peddle a range of views from time to time things wouldn’t be so depressing.
Forget bias for the time being, the BBC has become just plain DULL.
It needs an antidote to the usual liberal buffoonery to keep it fresh and enterprising.
“The president has taken us into a failed war”
This really is the unprincipled exception in action. Why did the war fail Ms Pelosi? Is it because Bushitler is eeevil or is it because the inherant impossibility of democratising an ethnically fragmented Muslim country?
That last sentence… is HATE SPEECH.
Liberalism is self defeating.
Gog | 11.04.08 – 10:27 am
If they would remember to peddle a range of views from time to time things wouldn’t be so depressing.
I think you’ll find the Bush administration gets at least as much – if not much, much more – coverage than Democrat congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi do.
If you’re fed up with left wing platitudes from politicians, take it up with the voters in the US who elected a Democrat Congress or those in UK who have elected Labour three times on the trot. It wasn’t the BBC who put them there.
No it was the voters – but the Beeboids broke out the champagne.
John Reith writes that “the BBC has a duty to report all sides of a controversy. And it does.”
Not being one of this virulent right-wingers who see the Beeb’s evil finger in every Leftist pie in the universe, can I just say to John that the BBC has failed, time and again, to ‘report all sides of a controversy’. Indeed, very little of what BBC News now broadcasts is actually reporting at all. What it is, more often than not, is pure speculation.
In the light of that, why can’t these state-sponsored ‘journalists’ actually come up with speculation that stimulates the general public about the great events of our time?
Only you can answer that John. In the meantime, the bloggers do it better…
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/04/about-more-than-just-iraq.html
JR
“I think you’ll find the Bush administration gets at least as much – if not much, much more – coverage than Democrat congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi do.”
You’re probably right, but I meant the type of coverage not the sheer quantity, much of it likely to be negative.
“If you’re fed up with left wing platitudes from politicians, take it up with the voters in the US who elected a Democrat Congress or those in UK who have elected Labour three times on the trot. It wasn’t the BBC who put them there.”
I’m fed up with mediocre television, not with who is in power in the US or at home. You think Tony Blair / Gordon Brown are left wing?
But JR, why was this small story highlighted on the BBC home page? One politician disagreeing with another is hardly ground breaking news.
Could it be because the BBC news rooms agree with the points made?
Peregrine | 11.04.08 – 12:45 pm
Could it be because the BBC news rooms agree with the points made?
No.
If you were to infer BBC approval for every view featured on the front page, you’d be claiming BBC support for a host of often mutually exclusive views.
The BBC has a duty to report all sides of a controversy. And it does.
John Reith | 11.04.08 – 10:06 am |
Except of course global warming, where we hear only one side. Hence the deafening silence regarding the Manhattan conference of scientists which declared that global warming is not a global crisis.
Or perhaps it isn’t a controversy as the science is settled.
Roland Deschain | 11.04.08 – 1:20 pm
Did you see Nigel Lawson on Newsnight last week putting forward the climate sceptics’ position? Or did I just dream it?
No, I didn’t see Nigel Lawson actually, as I was away. And I accept that I should have said usually hear only one side. However an interview on the relative backwaters of Newsnight hardly compensates for the continual drip, drip of Global Warming propaganda which emanates from the mainstream news programmes.
Was he interviewed on his own, as most warmists appear to be? Or was there someone from the opposing point of view on at the same time?
No. There were two left wing losers (Paxo and some other pleb)
Paxo said to Lawson “what qualified him to talk about the science of climate change”. Probably more than Roger (no balls) Harrabin with his degree in English. Last time I looked a University degree in English didn’t cover Chemistry or Physice.
The reason why the Manhattan conference didn’t get reported might well have been that Jo Abbess didn’t think it fitted with the “emerging truth”. She vets Harrabin’s stuff to make sure he keeps on message, it seems.
libertus | 11.04.08 – 6:16 am |
All you need to know is that the current Executive Producer of BBC World News America is the same guy who was in charge of CBS News when Rather was fouling his nest with those bogus Bush National Guard memos.
John Reith | 11.04.08 – 1:48 pm |
Did you see Nigel Lawson on Newsnight last week putting forward the climate sceptics’ position? Or did I just dream it?
Oh, yes, some of us saw that. As Martin pointed out here, Paxman asked Lawson what he knew about “climate science”. Pointing out that Lawson is not a scientist is basically supposed to remove him from consideration as a serious voice on the subject. And in any case, Lawson is more heretical about how to deal with climate change, not necessarily whether or not man is doing it and how badly.
I also heard him the next evening being interviewed along with Prof. Hulme on “Night Waves” on Radio 3. Lawson’s first words to Isabel Hilton were an apologia for his having an opinion on climate change even though he’s not a scientist. Ms. Hilton was also for some strange reason more confrontational than these late night chats tend to be. Perhaps she was still feeling the emotional effects of Oliver Knussen’s stirring account of Britten’s anti-war ‘Sinfonia da Requiem’, which had just ended. My full comment here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/2207648461326138138/#393370
The BBC lets them on, sure, but treats them like the heretics they are. Penitenziagite!
John Reith: the point is, these quite predictable party political comments by Democrats weren’t even reported by news outlets in AMERICA – I checked CBS News, MSNBC, ABC News – none of them friends of Bush – and nothing!
So why did the BBC make this their page one story and trumpet it as lead story on the World Service? There was no ‘balance’ either – no opposite view cited. It was just Bush-bashing.
David Preiser (USA) | 11.04.08 – 4:46 pm
Paxo’s job and house-style is to ask tough questions.
You think Paxo goes along with the AGW catastrophist crowd? Really?
How about his ‘abandoned all pretence at impartiality’ remark?
libertus | 11.04.08 – 6:23 pm
I checked CBS News, MSNBC, ABC News – none of them friends of Bush – and nothing!
That list just shows your false preconceptions about the BBC.
You should have checked Fox, who (like the BBC) did report it.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/article/pelosi-president-doesnt-change-leave-failed-war-policy-doorstep-new-president_557737_1.html
John Reith | 11.04.08 – 6:37 pm |
Yes, I am aware of the quote on the sidebar. That doesn’t mean he agrees with Lord Lawson’s particular take on the situation. I would even suggest that Paxman is probably more annoyed at the quasi-religious behavior he sees in some of his colleagues (possibly a few feathers ruffled at editorial meetings?) rather than being a heretic himself.
Either way, his pointing to Lawson’s lack of scientific qualifications must have resonated, as not only did Lawson go to great length to re-define his worthiness around this weakness on ‘Night Waves’, but the BBC made sure to have on an actual climate scientist who they assumed would stick to the gospel. Oops. Isabel Hilton’s behavior was more confrontational than necessary, and it was clear that both what Lawson had to say, as well as some of what Prof. Hulme said, were at odds with her beliefs. And she went about the interview accordingly.
John Reith: yes, buried deep down in ‘Fox Business’. I bet you had to search for that. The story isn’t in ANY headline report.
You have just proved my point. The story was of no interest to most Americans. Only the BBC animus against Bush explains their headlining.
David Preiser (USA) | 11.04.08 – 7:27 pm
So stylistic issues aside – what you’re saying is that Lord Lawson was able twice in one week to expound views that this blog likes to pretend are never voiced on the BBC.
Well, clearly they are.
libertus | 11.04.08 – 7:39 pm
The story was of no interest to most Americans.
Contrary to your assertion that no-one else covered it, the Reid/Pelosi remarks – made at a joint press conference – are contained in hundreds of stories across America.
Here are a few.
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080411/NATION/290356998/1002
Washington Post
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/10/AR2008041001972.html
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/04/11/bush_orders_halt_to_troop_withdrawals/
ABC blogs
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/reid-pelosi-fir.html
US News and World Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080411.htm
John Reith | 11.04.08 – 7:47 pm |
So stylistic issues aside – what you’re saying is that Lord Lawson was able twice in one week to expound views that this blog likes to pretend are never voiced on the BBC.
He’s an ex-Chancellor and he has a book out. That’s why he’s on twice in one week. Unfortunately, he puts forth some rather heretical views in the book, and the BBC wanted to make sure nobody took him too seriously. Expound? Hardly. That’s more what happens when someone with accepted viewpoints gets on. It’s not like Lawson was on ‘Book of the Week’, going on at length, unchallenged. They even tried a to stitch him up on ‘Night Waves’, but Prof. Hulme didn’t cooperate.
But there is a key element here which I have not emphasized, but will do now. Lawson isn’t really denying that the Climate is Changing. If I understood him correctly, his main heresies are these:
He says that mankind is not doomed, doomed, doomed, contrary to a main tenet of the modern religion of AGW. He says that mankind has adapted through lots of different climates, and that we will adapt again in different ways. He speaks out against the doomsayers, and must be branded a heretic.
He advocates against the neo-Marxist legislation and overreaching “green” policies which are central to the AGW believers’ plans. Rather than legislating us all back to subsistence farmers, he suggests we might find other ways to cope and adapt. Double heresy.
Lawson isn’t a climate change skeptic in the usual sense, really. To continue the religion analogy, he’s not an infidel, but is more of a heretic. He acknowledges climate change, but denies the larger dream of the AGW-ites. That makes Isabel Hilton’s treatment of him even more amusing. And so I can’t really give the BBC that much credit for having him on as a climate change skeptic, or a proponent of the kind of views that people on this blog want aired more often. Some of what he was saying on ‘Night Waves’ was kind of loopy, even. That kind of stuff is not what we’re talking about.
“In this case, we first of all get the warm-up line from the Beeb, “But his opponents say the people want answers from this president, now.”
Whatever happened to Congressional Oversight,Pelosi is top dog there,you know,the Legislative branch of government.Is the multi-millionairess House Speaker saying she doesn’t know what the f**k is going on?
“John Reith” proves my point. In almost all the stories he links to, Pelosi’s and Reid’s political complaint is made – if mentioned at all – towards the end, almost as an addendum to the *actual point about Bush retaining the current troop levels. THAT was the story – the BBC neophyt who wrote this turned it into a party political attack on Bush.
Some of the links are mere transcripts of blogs – hardly news, let alone headlines.
Sorry, John – you lose that one.
libertus | 11.04.08 – 9:51 pm
It’s an old Reithian trick: put a bunch of links up and it looks impressive – until someone takes the trouble to find out about the content of the linked articles.
…or those in UK who have elected Labour three times on the trot. It wasn’t the BBC who put them there.
John Reith | 11.04.08 – 11:18 am
Dunno about that one. I doubt that the constant lefty propaganda from the BBC had absolutely no effect on the voters. No doubt the champagne drinkers in ’97 were celebrating a job well done.
Anyone who has followed American domestic politics knows that “losing the Iraq war” has been the lynch pin of Democrat electoral policy.Why wasn’t Paxo’s house style applied to Pelosi? What happened to the “says”,”so called” “alleged” that the BBC trots out for perceived right wing statements?
Unlike al-BBc hack “Reith”, those of us who aren’t paid by the Korporation can quite clearly see the bias in the Bush story.It reads as a puff piece for the Democrats and note the graph of US military deaths at the bottom of the piece just so we’re reminded of Al-BBC’s
view of Iraq as a blood-soaked “quagmire”.
libertus | 11.04.08 – 9:51 pm
So let’s just get your argument straight.
What you’re saying is that when President Bush makes a statement (which the BBC reports) and when the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives call a press conference to respond to the President, the ‘unbiased’ thing for the BBC to do is to ignore the Congressional leaders and suppress what they say; and to report what they say is evidence of ‘bias’.
Wow. What a weird idea of impartiality.
I’d have thought the impartial thing to do would be to report both the views of President and Congress.
“What you’re saying is that when President Bush makes a statement (which the BBC reports) and when the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives call a press conference to respond to the President, the ‘unbiased’ thing for the BBC to do is to ignore the Congressional leaders and suppress what they say; and to report what they say is evidence of ‘bias’.”
It is somewhat naive of the BBC to report at face value what the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives say.After all they are the Law Makers,they oversee the Administrative Branch.The BBC does not question the statement that they don’t know what is happening? Where is the Paxovian house style of aggressive questioning?
BBC quoted:
“But his opponents say the people want answers from this president, now”
Where was the great BBC questioner firing back..
Bush gave answers and detailed where we stand and what is going to happen over the next few months. That Pelosi is too stupid to understand or it wasn’t the answer she wanted is not his problem.
And though the BBC hates it and will not report it…the Americans are behind him as the polls show. Except for the diehard leftist, the disapproval with the war had more do to with us not appearing to be fighting to win.
I hope Reith isn’t any type of reporter at the BBC or he would most certainly know that the change in Congress in 2006 was a result of a host of Democrats running in conservative areas to the right of their Republican opponents, especially on immigration.
It is a lie that it was some sort of mandate on the war. All the most vocal anti-war candidate got their clocks cleaned. Look at Lamont in Connecticutt.
I hope Reith isn’t any type of reporter at the BBC.
LogicalUS | 12.04.08 – 4:37 am
Unfortunately he is. And apparently quite a senior one.
Peter | 12.04.08 – 12:38 am
It is somewhat naive of the BBC to report at face value what the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives say.
No, it’s not naïve. It’s called straight news reporting.
The BBC does not question the statement that they don’t know what is happening? Where is the Paxovian house style of aggressive questioning?
On TV • in interviews on current affairs programmes and studio discussions. On the radio • in the same kinds of format.
From time to time its found in by-lined analysis pieces by correspondents on the website.
It certainly doesn’t belong in news reports.
John Reith | 12.04.08 – 12:27 am:
I’d have thought the impartial thing to do would be to report both the views of President and Congress.
Yeah, right. You’re a posturing liar John Reith, and there’s a case study that proves it.
This case study is, of course, the BBC’s reporting of the political controversy, which, according to the BBC, “helped bring down the last Conservative government”: the so-called “Neil Hamilton cash for questions affair.”
You see, John Reith, as you well know, there’s another side to this controversy that the BBC has steadfastly failed to report; and, moreover, which the BBC has steadfastly refused to investigate despite its enormous resources: the story unearthed by freelance journalist Malcolm Keith-Hill and me. As you know, our investigation finds in Hamilton’s favour and finds that he was the victim of a criminal cover-up perpetrated by The Guardian (i.e. the BBC’s favourite newspaper) in cahoots with the erratic and vengeful Fayed • a cover-up that successfully perverted the official parliamentary inquiry into the affair.
Aspects of our research can be found on my website guardianlies.com and in my book Trial by Conspiracy.
Now then, John Reith, in its coverage of the Diana Inquest, the BBC has reported how Fayed’s former bodyguards Ben Murrel, Kes Wingfield, and Trevor Reece all testified as to how Fayed tried to force them to lie to support his wild allegations of murder by MI5/MI6/Prince Philip/Mossad etc. The BBC has also reported how the Paris Ritz employees were ordered to falsely testify that Henri Paul did not imbibe alcoholic drinks in the Ritz bar; and the BBC has also reported how Fayed’s security chief John MacNamara admitted lying to this effect on U.S. network television.
As you will know from my previous posts and from the recent high-profile article in the Daily Mail by Tom Utley, the whole case against Hamilton actually consists of the oral testimony of three of Fayed’s close and long-serving office staff who emerged in September 1996, two years after the Guardian’s original cash for questions article, claiming to have paid Hamilton cash in envelopes.
From the evidence we conclude that these three employees were coerced to shore up the Guardian’s defence.
A few weeks ago the political blogger Iain Dale published his top 75 political books. Would you believe he listed mine at No.63 and said of it:
Boyd-Hunt’s painstaking research alleges there was a media conspiracy against Neil Hamilton and that he was innocent of the charges Fayed made against him.
So, clearly then, there’s another side to this affair. Given that the BBC supposedly prides itself on “telling both sides of the story,” and given that the Hamilton affair inflicted enormous damage to the democratic function of this country, do you not agree that the BBC’s steadfast failure to accede to my many written and spoken requests to examine the evidence we’ve collated constitutes irrefutable proof that the BBC is not an impartial broadcaster at all, but rather a leftwing propagandist organisation with no respect for facts, or the truth, which is actually stuffed to the rafters with bigots?
That is, bigots just like you?
.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 12.04.08 – 11:21 am
JBH – as I’ve said in this forum before, I have no problem with the BBC re-opening the books on Hamilton.
Fayed does indeed have a poor track record on telling the truth.
If you yourself didn’t have your own track record of always overstating your case (sometimes to the extent of defamation), I’d support your own involvement.
But you do.
Sorry John, won’t wash. I’ve asked you to nominate BBC journalists to assess our research many times previously, even to the point of offering a sizeable donation to charity should you succeed in doing so. However you parried my offers repeadly and then, as now, found some weasel reason not to do so.
As for my use of defamatory language, well, I merely say it how it is. The fact is, you treat members of your own political tribe, the liberal-left, quite differently to those of your opponents – even to the point of denying airtime to evidence that proves the innocence of a member of the opposing tribe to charges levelled by a newspaper that represents your own.
That, me old China, is BIGOTRY.
As this thread has a U.S. theme, perhaps it wouldn’t be out of order to invite any U.S. visitors who haven’t checked out my two reports for Accuracy In Media on the BBC’s inherent leftistism. For anyone who’s interested, they are:
British Media Invade the U.S.
and
“Impartial News” With a British Accent?
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 12.04.08 – 12:36 pm
Oh I see. You just popped in for a spot of self-advertisement.
I’ll get my coat…
“No, it’s not naïve. It’s called straight news reporting.”
Yes naive was too kind,disingenuous too mild,bent as a corkscrew is more apt.
It is the dog that didn’t bark,it never does when promoting a political point of view.
There are,however,many instances of opinion being inserted into news programmes by the BBC.
You know that the BBC selects what it regards as newsworthy and what it feels should be covered up.
“Oh I see. You just popped in for a spot of self-advertisement”
– I see that you are too scared, or too stupid, or too bent, to answer the actual substantive points made by J.? What a loser.