Who’s Complaining?

Some months ago, we commented on an item on The London Breakfast Show, hosted by Wossy’s brother Paul and an actress called JoAnne Good.
They were interviewing Michael White, political editor of the Guardian.

In synch with both the rag he represents and its conjoined twin the BBC, this man bears considerable hostility to Israel. Both news organs are renowned for their anti-Zionist position, but the BBC alone is constrained by an inconvenient obligation to appear impartial.

These incompatible phenomena (hatred of Israel and the obligation to appear impartial) might condemn the BBC to a lifetime struggle, viz. maintaining an increasingly fragile charade that compels them to wriggle and contort in a doomed attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.

But by designating Israel automatically guilty (on all counts, at all times,) they shift the entire middle ground, readjusting it till it’s accepted that all and sundry are steadfastly opposed to Israel. This allows partiality to masquerade as impartiality, solves the problem of irreconcilable anomalies and upholds the BBC Charter, all in one fell swoop.

Because of the BBC’s own shortcomings, namely their lack of rigor in tackling the complexities of the Israel Palestine conflict, BBC reporters probably rely on romantic Lawrence of Arabia type fantasies or instinctive suspicion of Jews to influence the decision over which side to regard as the goodie, and which the baddie.
Then all they have to do is swallow and regurgitate the Palestinian narrative, lock stock and fiction.

Michael White’s words on December 14th 2009 obviously met with the approval of the interviewing duo, because their chorus of mmmms in agreement floated audibly across the airwaves.

“In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.”

Some listeners found this highly offensive, and were persistent enough to engage with the complaints procedure, whereupon an unfortunate BBC employee named Andrew Bell was tasked to respond. It appears he set about adapting the regulation one-size-fits-all reply to suit the occasion. He conceded that the terminology was “not as exact as it might be,” but added that since Michael White’s meaning was clear to Andrew Bell, ( that Israel murders people willy-nilly if they “don’t like their political style,”) he decided that all awkward, contrary and pedantic Moaning Minnies could ‘away and bile their heeds’ to borrow a phrase from north of the border.

While the BBC Trust, or the BBC Itself are the sole adjudicators,
complaining about the BBC seems as useless, as Mitnaged on CiFWatch puts it, as shouting down a well.

However, this has just popped into my inbox. Honest Reporting has concluded that complaining to the BBC is still worth it!
“All complaints are logged, and there is no better way to make the BBC aware of your concerns.”

I often wonder if anyone from the BBC still glances at this website.