The BBC is always rigorous in its work when it comes to certain subjects….Israel, George Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and undermining the Tory Party…it is also well known for attacking ‘America’ itself, its values and customs, its legal system and health care, its gung ho attitude to life.
Here is an ex-pat American, who has now fled back to America (presumably because he knew one day Justin Webb would be back here) who has noticed the BBC’s curious attitude:
So, to sum up, for the year 2005 the BBC covered the executions of 5 specific individuals (and clemency grant of 1) with 21 articles, and touched on the death penalty in the US more generally in an additional 7 pieces. This, in a year in which 60 convicted criminals were executed throughout all of the US. Even if we ignore the BBC’s Tookie Williams campaign and count all of its 11 articles on him as one, the BBC still averagied more than an article a month about the US death penalty.
The BBC also repeatedly reminded its readers that the US ranked 4th behind leader China in total number of executions for the year 2004, a fact which presents us with an interesting comparison.
A definitive figure on the number of executions in China for the year 2005 could not be found, but Amnesty International estimates that the figure was “at least 3,400”. How many articles do you suppose can be found on the BBC website specifically about executions in China? TAE did a google search on the BBC’s site for “china execution [month] 2005”. The relevant results were:
January – none
February – none
March – none
April – none
May – none
June – none
July – none
August – none
September
UN envoy cautions China on human rights (with a specific mention of executions).
China top court gets power to review death sentences.
October
– none
November – none
December – none
So, 3,400 executions in China merits only 2 stories on the death penalty in general, and zero stories on any specific execution, while 60 executions in the US merits 7 stories in general and 21 stories about specific executions. Or, put another way, executions in the US, which total only 1.76% the number of executions in China, get 1,400% of the amount of coverage given to executions in China. And the 1,000th execution in the US since 1976 is, for the BBC, a “landmark” and “milestone” requiring 3 stories, while the 1,000th (and 2,000th, and 3,000th) execution in China since January 1 last year passes by entirely unremarked upon.
Just what is it about US executions that so attracts the attention of the BBC?
Many of the BBC profess a liking for the Chinese way of doing things…Andrew Marr, Richard Black, and John Humphrys who told us the Chinese invasion of Tibet brought great progress to the country as the new Chinese built rail road encroached ever more upon the Tibetans bringing with it a swarm of Chinese settlers…no problem with these settlers….unlike the Jewish ones elsewhere!
The Sunday Times reveals the traumas that the Chinese have brought to Tibet.
‘Hide, Wait, Run’
‘The girls hugged the ground as the soldiers scanned the forests and mountain foothills, their torchlights bobbing in the distance. The girls, aged 12 and 10, were running for their lives and their story is far from unique….with thousands of other child refugees from Tibet they trek to India in search of a new life away from the persecution they receive in ‘China’ (ie Tibet).’
Marr did an interview with the Dalai Lama who has been in exile for 50 years but failed to ask why he was in exile or ask what is happening in Tibet….or why Tibetans are burning themselves to death…Marr said they must be ‘desperate’ but no clue as to why.
The BBC’s lack of interest in events in Tibet is all the more surprising considering its concentration on Israeli affairs which is remarkable, as is the BBC’s implicit condemnation of Israeli actions, remarkable because whilst several thousand people have been killed in the conflict their numbers pale into insignificance beside those of the Congo where over 5 million have died due to conflcit in 10 years, or the 1 million killed in Tibet since the Chinese invasion, or the 40,000 who have been killed in the Turkish/PKK conflict over 10 years in which hundreds of Kurdish villages have been wiped out.
Only recently the Turks launched a two week offensive against the PKK ‘terrorists’ as the BBC like to call them…..but we heard hardly a peep (compared to what it puts out in Israeli coverage) out of the BBC despite over 100 people being killed. Where is the constant stream of reports coming out of Turkey from Jeremy Bowen claiming these attacks are ‘disproportionate, murderous and probably war crimes’ as he has with Israeli assaults on ‘terrorists’…where is Orla Guerin claiming ‘this is Turkish terrorism, this is the Kurd’s 9/11’?
The BBC can’t claim that they have no access to Turkey as they do with other hard to reach, or hard to work freely in, countries. Turkish tanks gets a free pass, but the Jewish ones do not.
And INBBC seems to be embedded with, and uncritical of the Turkish military supporting the Sunni opposition in Syria-
“Syria crisis: Turkey training rebels, says FSA fighter”
By Richard Galpin,
BBC News, Adana, Turkey.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19124810
Are these hacks subconscious racists, reasoning that you can’t expect any better of “wogs”, but that Yanks should know better?
That’s exactly what it is.
Correct, Ian. It’s what George Bush called “the soft racism of lowered expectations”. We see that a lot from the Beeboids.
“the PKK ‘terrorists’ as the BBC like to call them…”
Thought the BBC had a policy never to call terrorists ‘terrorists’, always to call them ‘militants’ instead.
Have you a link that shows them calling the PKK ‘terrorists’ Alan? If you have the BBC will have a lot of answering to do.
A link to Humphyrs saying that about Tibet would be useful too. That is something no BBC presenter should be allowed to get away with.
‘….the EU, US and Britain consider the PKK a terrorist organisation….and the bomb that went off recently is a stark reminder of why ……I ask how do they justify killing for political ends….they said they wanted peace and indeed made an offer….an offer qualified with a threat.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10703204
No link for Tibet, from ‘Today’ couple of years ago….maybe before Beijing Olympics?
I’m sure they’ll use the excuse of ‘our special relationship’ to explain so many articles on the US…of course the same special relationship they tell us all year every year is diminishing, isn’t anything special, what is it? etc
Every Friday in Saudi Arabia in the central square in Riyhad and other cities, there are executions in public, beheading, the criminal system has not changed for centuries. No figures available.
And why are no figures available? Because those controlling what we are told (the MSM and governments) don’t want to upset the Saudis by telling the truth.
Do you remember the furore over the programme “Death of a Princess”? The British Government of the day had to prostrate themselves in abject humiliation and apologise for the BBC (for once) telling the truth.
and i do hope they were wearing their burkhas at the time
Wasn’t it ITV?
Yes it was but the Government and BBC had to promise that they would do no more programmes that could be construed as negative to the bloodthirsty Saudi regime. And to be fair the BBC have honoured that commitment ever since, and extending it to the whole Muslim world.
Sorry I misread your post. You could be right, but I thought it was BBC. ITV would make more sense in the fact it was shown at all.
However, the programme makers and government were forced to grovel to the Saudis. And my point that the BBC has never been truly negative against the Saudis since, even though they would have had plenty of grounds for being so still remains true.
Why 2005? Why not Google executions china (or Saudi) BBC. Oh dear there are lots of 2012 BBC stories. Biased BBC surely isn’t posting biased articles!
There is no remit on Biased-BBC to be unbiased. However, there is on the BBC and one which they ignore more blatantly day by day.
Any bias on this site is tempered by the allowing of contrary opinion (yours for example) whereas it is stamped on heavily at the supposedly-unbiased BBC.
Just Googled china executions bbc:
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=china+executions+bbc&oq=executions+China+BBC&gs_l=hp.1.0.0i8i30.1636.6539.0.8619.20.20.0.0.0.0.234.1947.16j3j1.20.0.les%3Beaqth..0.0…1.ebYNfVYfz8c&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=8171fb77536c4765&biw=1066&bih=587
Of the 5 (FIVE) items two are about TV show interviews before executions, one is about them ending the death penalty for 13 crimes (no figures in these reports), one is about the death penalty and has lots of info, and one is about the appeal to China to halt the execution of a 53-year-old British man from London…his name? Akmal Shaikh.
so on the first page of 11 or 12 links we have ONE that fits the bill, does this count as “lots”?
It’s 2005 because the article being quoted was written in January 2006. As Span Ows has shown, nothing much seems to have changed.
Broadcast or website? Big difference. I for one look for balance on BBC radio and television (as I never use their website for news) and it just ain’t there.
The BBC cannot go with Tibet one because China will ratchet up the controls the BBC agreed to to get their garbage in to that blighted place and this is the real prob the signature on the final death sentence for Tibet was a certain D . Milliband !
http://www.freetibet.org/campaigns/urgent-action-5
Wouldn’t be good for them to hurt their next favoured leader !
I wonder if the BBC would support the Tibetans if they launched a “Tibetan Spring” campaign, as they did the “Arab Spring” nightmare.
My guess is that they wouldn’t because they will worship China as long as it remains nominally Socialist.
The Beeboids do support the Tibetan cause wholeheartedly. It’s just that, as Mat explained, their hands are tied because of management’s expansion dreams and lust for filthy lucre.
Anyone paying attention to the BBC’s hand-wringing before the Beijing Olympics will remember how the coverage of bruised Tibetans suddenly dried up after the BBC caved so China would unblock the website and start allowing them access to Chinese audiences again. Most of the time, though, the BBC’s Chinese language website is blocked, and their broadcasts subject to interference over the airwaves.
The BBC is always trying to figure out ways to gain access to that revenue (they claim it’s so they can “inform” the Chinese public with honest news reporting, and “spread influence”), and making too much noise about things like human rights doesn’t help. After all, the BBC is very, very concerned that Russia and China are spending money on their own news services to broadcast their own perspectives. So the BBC must do it as well. Priorities, you see.
Demon,if there is no remit for Biased BBC to be itself unbiased then it defeats the purpose. Must be objective to be creditable
Concern Troll is Concerned.
Smart remark.
Dumb conclusion.
Let’s go back to the reason why the BBC loves to highlight US executions and not those from Islamic or oriental dictatorships. Is it because the BBC has no easy access and there are no posh hotels in those difficult parts of the world or is it fear. Or could it be simply that they (and you) love to appease bullies with big weapons? There has to be a reason and the BBC do not wish to explain it so what is the answer?
Your rational and reasoned answer will be welcomed with respect.
Otherwise copulate away.
“if there is no remit for Biased BBC to be itself unbiased then it defeats the purpose.”
Biased BBC is an open forum. People come here to express their views about the balance (or otherwise) of the BBC. It is up to you to make up your own mind about the validity (or otherwise) of the points made.
In my experience people on the Left generally think the BBC is almost as good as the Guardian, and people on the Right generally think it is almost always Stalinist crap. Draw your own conclusions.
The real disgrace is that the USA is on any list with China, Iran and Saudi. Medieval barbarism has no place in a modern state. So picking up figures to find a bias when none exists seems to have lost sight of the real issue that the BBC and all media should continually condemn countries that execute prisoners.
” So picking up figures to find a bias when none exists ”
You ‘aving a laff?
JAH, are you saying that China, Iran and Saudi Arabia are Medieval barbarian States? 😮
Don’t let your BBC chums catching you making such racist implications or the police may become involved.
Good to note you are opposed to capital punishment.
Being for or against capital punishment isn’t the point. It’s the BBC’s differing treatment of the same subject depending on the country involved which is the point.
Good guess, but you couldn’t have worked that out from what I wrote. I am against in the main as mistakes have been made in the past, but my views on Capital Punishment are a little more nuanced than just saying “For” or “Against”. I do feel that there are some people whose crimes are so terrible that they need to be removed, so long as guilt is unquestionable: How about Breivik? Or Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Castro, Mengele etc.?
“Good?” What, good enough to get past Jah’s thoughtcrime censorship rules – which pretend to be anti-bias rules?
Sometimes capital punishment is good (like in the States), sometimes it’s bad (like some, but not all, Chinese executions).
I suspect the difference in reporting is more to do with rational cowardice than issues of principle, even mistaken principle.
The BBC can write just about anything they want in the US. They can interview just about anyone they want. In China they can’t. While the British BBC journalists might only be refused re-entry the Chinese they speak to and the Chinese who help them (translators, fixers, journalists, drivers, etc.) may be arrested or worse.
I suspect that happens in many countries not just China.
The BBC was silent for years on the genocide of Christians in Sudan, by the Islamofascist Arab regime in Khartoum.