a.k.a. John Hawkins of Right Wing News writes:
What’s not OK is that the BBC’s World Have Your Say radio program does something that is very annoying and also, in my opinion, a little dishonest. They have guests on and then they have what sound like callers, who are actually ALSO unidentified guests booked on the show.
They have done this to me (and for that matter, other bloggers) before — asked me to be a guest on their show and then announced me as “John from North Carolina,” as if I had just called in to the show.
(Via House of Dumb.)
That’s just not on, whether it’s done for invited blogger callers from the Right, as in this case, or from the Left, as I suspect is more common. (We have several instances recorded on this blog of Joe Activist being passed off as Joe Public.) A few years ago the BBC might have had the excuse that no one knew what a “blog” was, but those days are gone.
On 28/04 they had a World Have Your Say consisting of a debate between two Palestinians and two Israelis, with a mediator. Azzam Tamimi introduced himself as a writer originally from Hebron, Palestine. In fact, Tamimi is the director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London and a propagandist for Hamas terrorists. He has been on the BBC frequently, on shows like Have Your Say and Hardtalk where he was demolished by Tim Sebastian, who got him into a corner whence he was forced to admit that he would become a suicide bomber, if he could. (Yeah, right.) So to present this creature as just an ordinary sort of guy is dishonest of the BBC, especially as the other participants revealed their professional details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/whys/
Quite an interesting debate. Link will probably still be good over the weekend.
I should know better be now I know, but I’m listening to this mornings Today programme. I stayed up late last night watching the coverage of the local elections, while chatting on Guido Fawkes So I was up late this morning at at 7.35. During that time there was no mention at all of the LE’s and I had to wait until 8am before they could bear to mention Labour’s woes.
Then on comes Harriet Harman getting another soft ride from John Humphreys, once again just gettting a chance to spout meaningless waffle without any effective questioning. Comapre and contrast with his lambasting of Cameron during the week.
Poor old BBC, the presenters can’t seem to keep their disappointment out of their voices.
In the past few years I talked twice on World HYS without ever calling into the show. It was the Beeb that had contacted me, a few days in advance. The first time it was on grounds of a compalint letter on a related subject. The second time it followed the HYS feedback form, which I had filled. In both cases they had a long chat with me on the phone a good few days before the show, and then called me during the show. I was presented as the next caller, Anat from Israel.
I am no activist and no blogger. I am actually public. Still, it was they who called me, not the other way around.
During the war, POWs in German camps were mostly fed a diet of propaganda news telling them how well the Nazis were doing, which the POWs generally discounted.
But as the Allies made increasing gains, and won more victories, the POWs knew that if even the Germans were reporting these, it must be true.
And so it is with the BBC – if even they are reporting Conservative gains, it must be true.
Miv, even the BBC would not make up actual numbers of seats in Glamorgan and names of won councils – of course it must be true 😉
Priceless:
Mr Geoff ‘My snout is firmly in the trough and I’ll waste tax-payers’ money by jetting all over the place, you pathetic serfs’ Hoon said: “There’s no crisis. This isn’t something that’s going to affect the fundamental stability of the government.”
ROFLMAOWMP.
As the editor of WHYS, let me answer some of these allegations. Firstly, if you go to our blog you will see how the programme works – we ask a question (suggested by the audience) , post a debate and when people respond we ask them if they’d like to appear on the programme itself. We of course “fix” other guests and our policy is to say that on air. Sometimes we don’t and that’s not on but it’s usually because of the pace of the programme rather than wilful obfuscation. We can be clearer about this, and will be, but you can appreciate that if we say before each congtributer “on the line is Dave in Malibu, a blogger who responded to our online debate, so we called him back and asked him to take part, he agreed and his blog is at dave’smalibu.com and anyway Dave, what’s your point ?”
Our blog does make the procedure clear- but for listeners only we’ll be even clearer.
“on the line is Dave in Malibu, a blogger who responded to our online debate, so we called him back and asked him to take part, he agreed and his blog is at dave’smalibu.com and anyway Dave, what’s your point ?”
yeah…a bit like Palestinian being too long a word for a headline
Quite, Mel.
Watching BBC World News this evening here in the Philippines, I was not surprised to hear the BBC misquoting the UN Secretary General on Gaza. The BBC turned his statement on the need for the Palestinians to curb terrorism into the need to curb “militants”. Straight forward manipulation by the BBC
keith,
You must be mistaken! Nick Reynolds assures us that it never happens.
Come in, Nick: any more lying spin on this? Or the guts to address the BBC lies I have highlighted?
mark sandell | Homepage | 02.05.08 – 10:44 am,
Thanks for popping in. Perhaps you could comment on Azzam Tamimi being allowed to pass himself off as an ordinary individual on WHYS, as I pointed out at the top of this thread? Looks to me like you felt it was OK for Tamimi to mislead your audience by initially hiding his agenda. Tamimi is Hamas through and through. Why does the BBC continually bow to these terrorist apologists?
keith | 02.05.08 – 12:07 pm
Biodegradable | 02.05.08 – 12:44 pm
Here’s what Nick Reynolds had to say about fiddling with the ‘T’ word:
If a BBC report directly quotes someone who uses the word “terrorist” then the word should not be changed. But if this is turned into reported speech i.e. not in quotation marks, then it becomes “the BBC’s voice” and so there’s a case that perhaps it should be changed to something more neutral or more accurate.
In other words, it’s OK to distort people’s words and lie about what they’ve actually said as long as it is in the BBC’s own “voice.”
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/9138270933166543556/#395115
It’s a fix, I tell you, a fix! Mind you, I don’t know what the Beeb means by “fix” and how that differs from mere fix, sans inverted commas. Well, considering the Beeb’s special relationship with words (see under t…and m…), it’s anyone’s guess. Do they get them in a back room beforehand and menace them with screenings of Big Brother? Or wave a few bundles of money (our money, natch)under their noses while winking and grinning maniacally “You do right and I’ll see you all right. Know wot I mean?”
(Later in the back room: “Mwahaahaaa. Stitched up a few mugs good and proper, I did, fixed ’em pretty good, yeah…Good prog.. Should help me bonus along very nicely.Yeessssssss.”)
PS: “Blogger Dave” mustt take up all of…er…two or three seconds, maximum, to say.
mark sandell | Homepage | 02.05.08 – 10:44 am |
Surely it would have been succinct enough to say “and we asked Blogger Dave from NC to call in”, or “we rang Anat in Israel to hear her side”. But no, that never occurred to you guys, did it? You’re not thinking all the way through the ramifications of your corner-cutting because you are too focused on the performance of the on-air talent.
Still, now you know that people feel you are misrepresenting things, so hopefully you’ll think about a slight adjustment.
This is laziness and shoddiness, not bias. The only part of the original post that refers to bias is pure speculation.
Alex, do stop making an arse of yourself – or at least tell us which post you are talking about when making an arse of yourself.
Azzam Tammimi was described on air as “Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought and author of a history of Hamas, called Unwritten Chapters.” – hardly an ordinary person.
I was exaggerating to make a point Dave, and i’ve already said we’ll adjust.
The original one from John Hawkins.
mark sandell | Homepage | 02.05.08 – 6:23 pm
I have listened to the programme again on the podcast. Here’s what happened:
At the begining of the programme Tamimi introduced himself, as I said, as a writer originally from Hebron, Palestine. Nothing else. Now here’s what I missed: halfway through the programme just before crossing to the news, Ros mentioned that Tamimi was the Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought. Right after the news, the guests introduce themselves again, and Tamimi reiterates the bit about the writer from Hebron.
If you can point out where it was mentioned on the show that Tamimi is the author of a history of Hamas, called Unwritten Chapters, I’ll eat my keyboard.
Now I have gone onto the WHYS website and can find no mention there of Tamimi’s actual status (or that of the other guests):
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/on-air-israelis-and-palestinians/
Now mark sandell, there are only two possibilities here. Either you are deliberately misleading us that the bit about him having written a history of Hamas was in fact mentioned, or it was edited out before the show was broadcast while you were unaware of the edit.
Which is it?
Incidentally, just to give people a taste of the kind of terrorist supporters the BBC feels appropriate to continually invite onto its shows, here a bit of dialogue with the reprehensible Tamimi:
Ros atkins: Dr. Tamimi, do you accept that Israel has the right to exist?
Tamimi: No I don’t.
Israeli: Well, there you go. How do you think I feel when you say that?
Tamimi: I don’t care what you feel… I care that Israel was created on my land, my people were dispossessed.
For people with strong stomachs, here’s Tamimi on Youtube talking, Nazi-like, about eradicating a cancer (Israel presumably) from the body of humanity – of which he is such a fine example.
er… the link would help:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Azzam+Tamimi&btnG=Google+Search
Right at the end, he says If they don’t want peace, we have another language, and we have every right to use that language.
As if the terrorist swine Tamimi is trying to whip into a frenzy haven’t already used their “language” for decades against innocent Israeli men, women and children.
Well argued Bryan. I’ve just had too much of the Hamas-terrorist-loving BBC over so many years.
Thanks for that John Gentle. Yes, there is no doubt that the BBC has thrown its considerable weight behind Hamas.
Just to clarify in response to the person from the BBC responding earlier…
They contacted me, not vice-versa, and asked me to be a guest on their show. Then they did not announce on the air that I was a blogger or a guest.
Moreover, the excuse about “not having time” is bogus because I’ve done the show at least 3 times that I remember and the 2nd time that they asked me, I told them I wouldn’t do the show unless they mentioned my name and blog, and they did so on the air that time. Had I realized they weren’t going to do it on the air the last time, I wouldn’t have bothered going on the show.
Besides, what’s the difference between saying “John in North Carolina” and “John Hawkins from rightwingnews.com”? Is there any reason not to do that other than to give listeners the idea that the people on the line are just callers as opposed to guests? There’s none that I can see and none that was explained by the previous comment from the person at the BBC.
John Hawkins | Homepage | 03.05.08 – 8:03 am |
Mark Sandell has twice said what happened to you was wrong and he’d ‘adjust’ (i.e. see it doesn’t happen in future).
Seems fair enough – though I guess a personal apology to you would be in order.
Mark Sandell has twice said what happened to you was wrong and he’d ‘adjust’ (i.e. see it doesn’t happen in future).
Anonymous | 03.05.08 – 11:30 pm |
I am delighted to find BBC people coming on to reply under their own names. Should be encouraged.
Yeah, but mark sandell wont acknowledge that there was obfuscation going on with WHYS hiding Tamimi’s terrorist affiliation from the audience.
Or perhaps the BBC was simply refusing to advertise Tamimi’s book on Hamas for him?
Yeah, right.