Recently some of us linked to a comprehensive study of the BBC’s institutional hostility to Israel and its biased reporting of the I/P conflict. It mentions much of what we’ve been highlighting here for yonks, and includes a systematic analysis of emotive partisan terms and references. They submitted it to the BBC, and awaited a response. So far all that has materialised is a rejection, conveyed indirectly, via the Jewish Chronicle.
The BBC is impartial, so it ignores pressure groups.
“It’s not uncommon to hear these sorts of findings from pressure groups but our role is to provide independent reporting and analysis of all perspectives of a story, so our audiences can make sense of what’s going on themselves.
The independent panel set up by our board of governors found no deliberate or systematic bias in the BBC coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”
By labelling every individual and organisation that supports Israel a pressure group, the BBC absolves itself from having to look into any complaints about its reporting, or anything at all that happens to be brought up in Israel’s defence.
It doesn’t, however, consider the pro Palestinian, anti-Israel NGOs that shelter under the protection of Human Rights or charitable status pressure groups, no matter how partisan they obviously are.
If audiences are to be expected to make sense of anything, they must be given the whole story. But the BBC thinks of one side as independent reporting and the other as propaganda.
A response to another separate complaint contained the following:
“We’re committed to honest, unbiased reporting and are determined to remain free from influence by outside parties, whether political or lobbyists. Our Corporation’s Charter and Agreement allows us independence from political pressure and the licence fee gives us independence from advertising, shareholder or other commercial interests. Impartiality forms the cornerstone of BBC News and Current Affairs and we’ve nothing to gain by weighting our coverage in political terms or by allowing influence from any other outside body.”
…but maybe much to lose from not allowing influence from other outside bodies?
I suspect they really believe all of the above. If they don’t, they really really want to. They believe in their own righteousness, even when it means turning reason on its head.
From the BBC’s perspective, Israel has been delegitimised, (mainly by the BBC itself), till it’s a given that it’s just plain wrong.
Heinz meanz beanz, and Impartiality meanz Israel is wrong.
Pressure groups are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this
i expect the waffen beeboids in the television centre Führerbunker to release the Balen report post haste then
Don’t hold your breath on the Balen report. You could try writing to Hague.
UNRWA Secretary-General violates his own policiesWas it John Ging who is an ex-BBC empoyee, or is it his spokesman?
This writer doesn’t seem to think much of John Ging!
The BBC doesn’t submit to pressure groups? We all know that’s an outright lie. Roger Harrabin changed an article after being pressured by environmental Jo Abbess. And their entire compliance culture exists due to pressure from activist and rights groups.
I can’t see how throwing journalistic standards out of the window on Israel coverage can be anything but intentinoal.
The BBC doesn’t react to pressure groups, except when they consist of Arabs jumping up an down in fury over an unfortunate BBC journalist telling a rare truth – i.e. naming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I think it took the BBC a matter of days to come up with an abject and unreserved apology over that one.
<!–[if !supportEmptyParas]–> <!–[endif]–>
And it took them two years to half-accept a complaint that Jeremy Bowen made a biased observation against Israel.
On April 16th, BBC “journalist” Sarah Bell wrote a PR piece for her friend Susan Kramer, LibDem MP for Richmond Park, this in the month before the election, when BBC writers are obliged to be scrupulously impartial – as if they could ever grasp what that means. She praised Clegg’s performance in the TV debate, found six LibDem supporters and none for the Conservatives and inserted a disparaging mention of Conservative Zac Goldsmith re his tax issues.
Having (incredibly) received a reply to my complaint of April 17th to the “Complaints” website, five days after I sent it, I went back to the article to find it had been stealth edited with the headline changed and a box inserted quoting a Conservative supporter. Pity I didn’t take a screen shot of the original – and also of the stealthy version, because most of that one has now been flushed down the loo, with this message inserted in its place:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8626338.stm
Editor’s note 3 May:
The original version of this story included a series of ‘vox pops’ quotes from a small random selection of local voters. The quotes were an anecdotal snapshot rather than a statistical study, but overall they didn’t provide a broad or balanced range of views and as a result we have removed them from this page and changed the headline. We revisited Richmond for a subsequent report two days later to seek a broader range of views, and you can read this report here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8628650.stm
The BBC will only ever do something about its bias when its back is to the wall. And the ducking and diving and dishonesty are, as always, incomparable. They can’t bring themselves to come out and admit that Sarah Bell was cheerleading for her LibDem pal, in contravention of her general obligations as a journalist and her more specific obligations in the month before the election.
I’d also complained at the same time to Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, and the quick response came from the News website, without naming the sender (funny, I didn’t know the News website had the ability to evaluate mail and compose and send replies without human intervention) and including my submission to the Complaints website but not to Herrmann.
Part 2:
So let’s see how this works:
Fri. April 16th: Sarah Bell’s article published on the BBC News website.
Sat. April 17th: I complain to the BBC Complaints website and to Steve Herrmann, editor of the News website.
Sun. April 18th: I receive “Out of office” automated reply from Steve Herrmann’s office, but strange that it arrives almost 24 hours later.
Thurs. April 22nd: I receive a reply from the News website. Article meanwhile stealth edited.
Mon. May 3rd: Most of offending article removed, Sarah Bell’s name removed and message inserted by unnamed “editor,” presumably
Steve Herrmann, while date stamp of 16th April remains unchanged.
Thurs. May 6th: I e-mail Herrmann again, stating that I had only received an automated reply to the first mail sent. (At this stage I thought the written reply had come from the Complaints website, not the News website.) I politely tell him that it is evident the BBC is covering its tracks by removing most of the Bell article, point out that the LibDems may well have lost by a greater margin in Richmond Park had she not written that article and urge him to do something about the left wing bias rife throughout the BBC.
Sat. May 8th: No “Out of office” automated reply to my mail till now. I guess that’s because he flushed it down the loo.
Dunno if Google cache can trace the articles, or how to access it to find out, but would like to take this further. Dunno how much I can do about it though as a non-Brit.
TooTrue
Excellent expose of BBC dishonesty. The BBC really is the pits.
Well done in your efforts – this tale was an real corker of an example of bias in BBC reporting. Stealth-editing the web article doesn’t help much, and wasn’t the whole thing broadcast ? If so – where is any correction nof the broadcast, that is where the real damage was done ?
Too True, did you notice as well how botched Brian Wheeler’s ‘damage limitation piece a couple of days later was as well? He wrote:
“A few days ago my colleague Sarah Bell travelled to the Lib Dem marginal seat of Richmond in South London, where she found widespread enthusiasm for the party, in the wake of the televised debate.”
But Sarah Bell’s headline was:
“Richmond’s voters not swayed by debate”.
We were clearly meant to believe that her voxpop was 6/6 for her friend Susan Kramer because she was such a fantastic candidate.
As you mentioned, on 3rd May the BBC did a huge cover-up job on her piece instead of simply withdrawing it and taking the measures necessary to deal with her gross professional misconduct and that of the sub-editor who cleared her piece for publication. Part of the text of Sarah Bell’s original piece is here.
I sent a complaint to Zac Goldsmith against the BBC for Sarah Bell’s piece (and copied the complaint to the BBC). He said he wasn’t going to pursue a complaint with the BBC because coming from a PPC it “can look like whingeing”. Now he is an MP I have written to him again suggesting now he has been elected it wouldn’t look like whingeing but be a service to British democracy.
Well done. So Steve Herrmann is the one responsible for the blatant daily electioneering on the news website which I among others raised in comments on this blog. Day after day after day, it was Brown, Brown, Brown.
And this in the thick of an election campaign! I am still in shock at the barefaced cheek of it.
Who is responsible for standards and the quality of the website and the work of Steve Herrmann? I know Helen Boaden is in charge of News overall. It doesn’t say much for her.
The independent panel set up by our board of governors…
They are so pickled in their bias they don’t even know what they are saying anymore.
This is an interesting site, but replacing left wing propaganda with right wing propaganda does not seem to be the solution.
What we need is information and reasoned arguments. At the moment the political sphere is lacking in both. The Conservatives and the Tory press are just as happy to peddle the half truths and disinformation that you critisize the BBC for.
This is a very tedious post from Andrew Burnett.
The Institutionally Leftist BBC is a poll tax funded £3.5 billion media monster that has a stranglehold on establishment thought.
And you post this lamebrained muttering?
How about this andy…
1. The BBC is NOT SUPPOSED to “peddle half truths and disinformation”. Political parties and private newspapers are quite entitled to belive what they frackin’ want to, and to express that opinion. One person’s “half-truths” is another person’s facts.
2. I decide whether to give my money to the “tory” press. The government gets to decide that I MUST give my money to the BBC. Do you note ANY difference there. Or is it all the same to you?
3. This website and most of the people who post here happen to think the BBC sucks. Also that it is biased towards collectivism, socialiam, and a million other weird crapola that leftists worship.
HI andrew, welcome to the site, and thanks for your input, but we are not intrested in party political politics here
what bothers us is the state broadcaster, Al Beeb, is uber left wing, when it should be neutral, unbiased and apolitical in its reporting of what it considers news
everyone here has their own pet hate about Al beeb, my pet hate is its nazi party style promotion of the global warming, but my main concern is if ppl dont pay their telly tax, they get sent to jail
Andrew,
I’m glad you found this site interesting. We welcome new voices. I’m not sure if your comment is addressing something specific that you’ve read here, or if it’s just a general observation, but I must point out that we call for both sides of the story to be presented fairly and with equal emphasis under the obligations in the BBC’s charter.
It might be that you assume that supporting Israel is a prerogative of the right wing, I couldn’t tell.
The Conservatives and the Tory press have, of course, no obligation to be impartial, whereas, if you didn’t know before reading this site, you will know now, the BBC has.
Hi AB, newspapers are not only allowed to be biased but most of them are open about their bias. For a very long time now the subversives who have got control of the BBC have abused its once well earnt reputation for impartiality for propaganda purposes. The difference between a news channel like Fox and the BBC now, is that while Fox is open about its political bias, the BBC lies through its back teeth about it.
The BBC isn’t a political party. That’s the rather important difference. A political party can produce all the propaganda it likes. That’s the nature of a political party.
The BBC is a news organisation. It is supposed to inform us. It is supposed to be impartial. That’s all I want of it (to the best of its ability – I do not expect it to be perfect.)
I expect to see and hear a range of politicians and political views on the BBC but not to hear and see constant BBC propaganda for a particular party or set of views or selected special groups.
Radio 4 keeps plugging an upcoming prog on the US prison in Afghanistan – will obviously be a long bleat about uncorroborated claims by Taliban and Al-Q supporters about “torture”. She was also given the first slot on From Our Own Correspondent this morning.
Her accent grated – just like other BBC harpies like Orla and Lyse Doucet.
So I googled her name. Sure enough – another foreigner being given the BRITISH Broadcasting Corp as a platform for her leftie views.
And she has serious form as the BBC’s former reporter from Jerusalem and as a critic of George Bush :
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/EuropeanMedia.html
(an excellent article – track down to the heading “So Vile…..” for Andersson’s florid style of anti-Israel reporting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/the_team/newsid_7750000/7750817.stm
Thanks Grant and John Anderson. Good point about the broadcasting. I don’t have access to BBC TV but I imagine it was also pushing the LibDems.
Caught a broadcast on the Internet of Jeremy Paxman “intervewing” Zac Goldsmth after he’d won Richmond Park.
I’m delighted that he won it. The pickled-in-bias BBC had Jeremy Paxman, with a smirk on his face, asking Goldsmith the question,
“How much of your own money did you spend on your campaign?”
“It’s not about money,” Goldsmith replied, pointing out that he had a team of volunteers and besides, Kramer had spent more on her campaign.
Good response. He came across as natural and genuinely concerned about issues. Quite atypical for a politician:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/england/8667041.stm
I live in Zac’s constituency – I don’t like him, but Susan Kramer and her people are notorious for running rumour-mongering campaigns.
From what I’ve seen of ZG I like him a lot, as much as I dont share much of his green politics.
Maybe as a constituent JA you can write to him urging him to pursue a complaint against Sarah Bell and the BBC for publishing her blatantly biased piece? If you copy a complaint to him against the BBC to its Chief Political Adviser Eric Bailey ( ric.bailey@bbc.co.uk ) and maybe sarah.bell@bbc.co.uk as well then it’ll be logged with them as having been made.
The one thing the BBC is supposed to be biased FOR is the United Kingdom.
That’s the best joke I’ve heard all week !
🙂
“Biased Broadcasting Corporation?”
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000557557&fid=1724
Illuminating article about Trevor Asserson.
The question is, why don’t British Jews support him? The answer is that they are equally likely to have been influenced by the BBC’s anti Israel agenda as anyone else. Why wouldn’t they? Not all of them study the subject intensively. Most are assimilated and have the same ambitions and aspirations as the average Brit. Jews are traditionally left wing, and their views are the exact same as any other left wingers. They watch the BBC, they trust that it’s impartial. The one difference being that over Israel they feel guilt
If there really was an issue with dual loyalty things might be different. A bit of dual loyalty is called for. After all, when the chips are down, who you gonna call?