Author Archives: Andrew

, shown on BBC2 last Thursday, was one of a surfeit of humorous end-of-year review shows, this one being notable for its pimping of the official BBC world view. Described in the BBC’s own listings as “a light-hearted romp through the 50 Winners and Losers of 2004 from the world of entertainment”, the programme, presented by Dermot O’Leary, was mostly amusing, but, unsurprisingly, they managed to slip in a few special ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ too:

Loser 21: The Hutton Report – what a surprise! – the report that heavily criticised the BBC for its shoddy reporting methods and standards comes in for an undefended broadside from, er, the unbiased, impartial BBC (again). The commentary speciously juxtaposed the Hutton Report with “six months later, the admission that the intelligence on Iraqi weapons was wrong”, but of course, that wasn’t what the Hutton report was about – it was about “the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. David Kelly”, a BBC source who committed suicide after being surreptitiously exposed by then BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan (surely a 2004 loser himself). Moreover, the “the intelligence was wrong” view conveniently ignores established facts about Iraqi WMD programmes and capabilities, as well as the distinct possibility that Iraqi WMD were smuggled abroad.

Unsurprisingly, one of the ‘talking head’ non-entities commenting on this item was, yes, Greg Dyke, that well known “hideously white“ multi-millionaire man-of-the-people – who, speaking about Lord Hutton, said “I mean, here’s a man who’s done some pretty significant things in his life, and he’ll be remembered for this ludicrous report”. Ah yes, it’s not as if the People’s Greg has an axe to grind about this, is it?

Then, defending Piers Morgan, sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing clearly fake photos depicting alleged British Army abuse of an Iraqi, we had Miranda Sawyer, a leftie journalist, getting her mug on the box again, describing a retired senior military officer (who had the temerity to call for Morgan’s resignation) as “that silly man”.

Loser 18: Robert Kilroy-Silk – mentioning his ‘sacking’ from the BBC over his widely publicised Daily Express article, omitting to point out the settlement with the BBC whereby RSK’s production company continues to work for the BBC (thus still paying RSK, without RSK having to appear on the box himself!), which then led into a comment from Arthur Smith, a leftie comedian: “I mean UKIP, what a bloody joke they are”.

Winner 14: Jesus Christ – showing a clip from Mel Gibson’s blockbuster film, The Passion of the Christ, leading into a not very subtle double-backhander “Yes, Jesus triumphed, and he also propelled George W. Bush back into the White House”.

For good measure we were also told that it was “a dreadful year for vermin – they were told they could no longer go fox-hunting”, followed up with a bogus comparison of fox-hunting with burglary. Well comrades, property is theft, after all!

A “lighthearted romp” through the winners and losers of “the world of entertainment” indeed – and quite typical of the BBC that they should use themselves as a platform for settling scores and furthering their own world view, without any meaningful rebuttal from those who beg to differ. How about commissioning two shows next year – one made by lefties (as this one, by BBC Manchester), and another by non-lefties, where the satirical targets are lefties, leftie shibboleths, the BBC, the EU, the Labour Party and so on – so that non-leftie telly-taxpayers, of whom there are tens of millions, have their views reflected in the BBC’s output too.

* – the ever astute Michael Gove had an interesting opinion piece in The Times last week. Here’s a chunk to whet your appetite:

The leftish bias in Radio 4’s content manifests itself subtly, yet insistently. Voices from the far Left such as Linda Smith and Jeremy Hardy are introduced on the News Quiz, or given their own shows, in a way which gives no clue to their political shading. The station treats them as though they were souls with no mission save laughter, like Humphrey Lyttleton or Nicholas Parsons, but the humour of Smith, Hardy and others such as Mark Steel is deployed for a particular polemical and political purpose.

There are other ways in which the BBC shows that it is the heartbeat of the Left. Commissioning decisions are made, any one of which is unexceptionable, but which cumulatively re-inforce a particular perspective. Commentators from the Left, such as Jonathan Freedland or Andrew Rawnsley, are given presenting roles which lend them the BBC’s mantle of objectivity. While few would wish to deny that they are talented broadcasters, no equivalent role is given to conservative voices. With the exception of The Week at Westminster, commentators from the Right generally appear as guests, their views clearly signposted as partial, their positions rarely dignified with the authoritative status which their equivalents on the Left enjoy through occupying the presenter’s chair. The impression is thus established that the left-wing take is the naturally objective view, the right-wing perspective a tolerated anomaly.

There is nothing deliberate about this process. It is simply the case that a world view predominates, which means that the default option, the reaction which will prevail unless challenged, is left-wing. One could sense it very powerfully in the coverage of the American election. British voices supportive of President Bush were very rarely heard, apparent reverses for his policies in Iraq were lavishly covered, and disappointment was audible when news of his victory was established.

Gove mentions that the BBC is “organising a conference early next year at which some voices critical of ideological bias will have the chance to put their case” and that “The corporation has also commissioned its own study into partiality in its coverage of the Middle East, by a senior executive, Malcolm Balen.”. He goes on to say:

But openness has so far not extended to publishing his work. It is a pity that an organisation that uses our money to hold others to account is only fitfully accountable itself. Let us hope that that changes. Radio 4 itself has a new Controller, Mark Damazer, a cool and cerebral figure, and someone certainly capable of appreciating how bias need not be crude to be damaging.

Do read it all*! You might also enjoy some of Michael Gove’s other work – links at the bottom of the page.

* registration sometimes required – see www.bugmenot.com if need be.

– B-BBC commenter PJF notes the BBC’s treatment of the New Year messages from each of the UK’s three main political parties. PJF points out that Charles Kennedy’s Liberal Democrat Party new year message is reported, complete with fluffy quotes, but omitting the full text of the message for those interested in reading beyond what the BBC sees fit to selectively quote. The full text of CK’s speech is on the Lib-Dem website – unsurprisingly it’s poorly typed, wishy-washy and vague, veering amusingly from first person to third and back again – no wonder the BBC lefties haven’t reproduced it in full!

Tony Blair’s Labour Party new year message is also reported, this time with a link to the full text. Note how Blair’s report is helpfully led by the BBC with some spin on immigration and crime – perceived key issues for Labour’s election plans.

Likewise Michael Howard’s Conservative Party new year message is reported, with a link to the full text – but, crucially, the author of this BBC report has sought, obtained and concluded his or her report with a piece of biased slapstick knockabout opponent comment, as follows:

‘Should apologise’

But Labour spokesman Mr Kemp said: “It would be more appropriate for this message to come out on 1 April, not 1 January.”

“Let us never forget that when Michael Howard was in government Britain suffered mass unemployment, 15% interest rates, record home repossessions, and the introduction of the poll tax.

“With Labour Britain is working. Rather than alluding to false promises Michael Howard should be starting 2005 with an apology to the British people for the misery that the government, of which he was a member, inflicted upon the country.

It’s not even a comment on what Howard says in his message – it’s just straight political pantomime knocking copy from laugh-a-minute leftie bruiser Fraser Kemp, complete with the April 1st jibe repeated in a box-quote. Neither the Kennedy nor the Blair message conclude with opponent’s reactions – so why is Howard’s message singled out for this biased, partial treatment, oh unbiased, impartial BBC?

Another example of the BBC’s biased reporting on this issue is that for much of yesterday BBC News Online’s Front Page politics sub-head featured as its one and only headline Choose hope over fear – Kennedy – this in spite of the fact that on the Politics page itself the lead stories were:

1. Blair speaks of tsunami ‘horror’ – this was one of the front page lead stories;

2. Labour dismissed ID cards in 1974 – expensive and ineffective, apparently – this later replaced the Kennedy blather as lead story;

3. Right to information becomes law
   

All of which are clearly bigger political stories than Kennedy’s ‘hope over fear’ piffle. Yet it’s Kennedy that gets his name and photo on the BBC Views Online Front Page. What a surprise.

Are the BBC Views Online lefties so stupid that they can’t discern the overt bias in their presentation of these stories? or do they think that telly-taxpayers are too stupid to notice or care? Look out BBC! It’s behind you! (licence fees that is) – roll on subscription based charging… and viewers voting with their wallets.

– BBC1’s late evening news programme last night covered the Indian Ocean earthquake tragedy extensively, including efforts to raise funds, supplies and assistance for those affected.

There was an interesting, arguably characteristic, contrast in the coverage of fund-raising efforts – in Ben Brown’s report on Kofi Annan and Colin Powell speaking at the UN (broadcast live on Sky News earlier), the clip of Colin Powell was cut as short as possible, completely omitting his mention of the substantial level of personal American donations (in addition to government donations), summed up by Brown with the line that “America is paying its share”.

Meanwhile, in related coverage of UK fundraising efforts, we had a cafe owner donating his day’s coffee takings to the disaster relief fund (getting a year’s worth of free publicity on the BBC in return!), followed by film of Muslim worshippers walking past a collection bucket in their mosque, voiced over by the reporter as “Muslims in Hendon are donating whatever money they can”.

I’m sure that Muslims in Hendon, along with all right minded people everywhere, are indeed donating whatever they can – but why downplay the efforts of one group (Americans – donating ‘their share’) whilst spinning the efforts of another (Muslims – ‘all they can’) who, it seems, from BBC News Online’s own coverage, along with others, are collecting funds outwith the nationally organised Disasters Emergency Committee. Of all the faith based collections listed on BBC News Online, I wonder how many, if indeed any of them, are focusing their help on those people and areas that share their particular faith? Perhaps there’s an interesting story there for enquiring journalists.

Another point that seems to escape most journalists is that, for all the collective feel-good about record public donations, the sum collected so far is still quite short of even a paltry pound per head. As usual, it’s probably a minority of people making reasonable donations, whilst the majority can’t be bothered or don’t get around to it or assume that the government has done it for them or whatever. So, if you haven’t made even a small personal donation yet, please do visit the DEC site linked above – it’s easy and quick to donate online. Even if it’s just the cost of your next take-away meal or a round of drinks you’ll still have done a lot more than most people have.

Oh dear, oh dear. On the evening and throughout the night of Tuesday December 28th/29th, two days after the tragedy of an enormous natural disaster in the Indian Ocean, can you guess what important world-changing news made the 3rd lead story on the UK edition of the BBC News Online home page?

Extended Indian Ocean tragedy coverage? No.

Indian Ocean fundraising efforts perhaps? No.

Row over escaped prisoner figures maybe? No.

Give up? Yes, it was the death of American leftie writer Susan Sontag (“widely regarded as one of America’s leading intellectuals”), barely known in the UK, and most likely hardly a household name in the US either.

Exacerbating the warped prominence given to this relative non-event in world affairs, there was an additional front page picture feature linking to a special [Don’t] Have Your Say page – Send us your tributes to the late critic Susan Sontag.

Note the gushing invitation to Send us your tributes – as if that’s all there could be for this supposed cultural icon – rather than, for instance, a more measured line like Send us your reaction to news of Ronald Reagan’s death. Note also how no overt mention is made of Sontag’s extensive left-wing credentials – something that would doubtless be spelled out were she writing from a right-wing viewpoint.

By the next morning all of this was banished from the News Online front page – perhaps the Sontag coverage was the action of a leftie-cub-journo-trainee who’d drawn the Christmas holiday night shift short straw, but who lacked the nous to realise that the death of a left-wing icon, whilst doubtless heartfelt to such a BBC minion, is really not headline news. At least not outside of the BBC Newsroom.

BBC News Online – reporting all the news that’s important. To them.

BBC News 24’s Straight Talk programme (presumably so-named to contrast with the BBC’s normal kind of talk) this weekend follows the usual format of a presenter, James Landale, and three journalists, Jackie Ashley of The Guardian, George Pascoe-Watson of The Sun and Michael Brown of The Independent, discussing current topics (although with Bonking Blunkett on the agenda this week, current affairs might be more apt).

Both of this week’s topics, Bonking Blunkett and Gordon Brown’s pre-Budget report, were introduced with packaged pieces by the BBC’s Political Editor, Andrew Marr. On-screen captions inform us who each of the journalists are, including “Jackie Ashley, The Guardian”. Strangely though, neither the presenter nor Ms. Ashley spare a second, either at the beginning or during the programme, to inform us that Jackie Ashley is actually Mrs. Andrew Marr.

Her responses aren’t so much an issue in themselves (predictable though they are), but surely the integrity of the BBC demands that we, its compulsory Tellytax-paying customers, are informed of the family connection between Mr. & Mrs. Marr in order that we may bear this in mind whilst considering Mrs. Marr’s opinion on the stories covered by her husband’s reports on the programme – after all, Michael Brown saw fit to mention his own brush with scandal some years ago (in the context of the Blunkett discussion) and even The Guardian is honest enough to be transparent about the connection between Ashley & Marr.

that “people should be allowed to use what force is necessary and they should be allowed to do so without any risk of prosecution” have provoked one of the BBC’s regular [Don’t] Have Your Say topics.

Curiously, this topic, about which there is such strong public sentiment in favour of removing burglars so-called ‘rights’, has prompted only ten comments printed online. Even more curiously, the first three of these comments that supposedly ‘reflect the balance of opinion we have received so far’ are all against Sir John, for instance – “could spiral out of control”, “potentially very dangerous”, “daft and irresponsible” and so on. The last seven comments support Sir John’s views, and are, I believe, much more representative of typical British opinion.

Even if 30% of the comments received were agin Sir John’s views, are we really to believe that they were the first 30% of commenters? If not, how come the BBC’s list of comments have been ordered that way?

Update: This article refers to the BBC page timestamped 13:29 GMT. A new version, timestamped 16:02 GMT, has just been published. It now leads with eight new comments (two against, six for), somewhat redressing the balance. Perhaps there’s been a staff changeover.

at least if you rely on BBC News you will. The biggest British media/entertainment story of the day (and probably of the week, if not the month) was very briefly mentioned on the Six O’Clock News this evening (no footage, just a very, very brief sentence), and not at all on the Ten O’Clock News.

Bhopal hoax hits BBC is the front page headline on The Times website – along with an accompanying article Yes Men duo score their biggest hit with Bhopal hoax. BBC Is Hoaxed Over ‘Bhopal Aid Fund’ is the front page headline on the normally quite sparse Sky News website.

And what of our old unbiased, impartial, ever professional friends at BBC News Online? Front page? No. Entertainment page? No. Ah, but let no one say it is not there! Well yes, if you know where to look that is.

Scroll aaaaalllllll the waaaaaaaay down to the bottom of News Online’s home page, and there, buried right at the bottom, are inconspicuous links labelled Newswatch and Notes and corrections.

If you happen to scroll all the way down and then click on the discreet Newswatch link you get to see, finally, a link to News Online’s own coverage of this story – BBC caught out in Bhopal hoax.

If you happen to click on the other link, Notes and corrections, though, you don’t even get that – you get an almost identical page, but this time with a story spinning excuses for the BBC’s lamentably timid coverage of Bonking Blunkett’s Express Immigration Service (a story that, incidentally, makes no reference to the BBC’s somewhat different approach to covering the story of Bonking Boris).

And if you do happen to find the link to the BBC’s impartial, unbiased, objective coverage of this story, what do you find? Ah yes, it was an “elaborate deception”, an “elaborate hoax”. “Timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary” – funny that – who’d a thought it – pull a stunt like that on the 20th anniversary! How elaborate!

The BBC then goes on to explain that:

Excerpts from the interview were also carried on news bulletins on Radio 2, Radio 4 and Radio Five Live.

The BBC has apologised to Dow and to viewers who may have been misled.

Have you seen or heard any BBC apologies for this Ra^thergate style cock-up (journalists falling for stories that they want to believe)? I haven’t, and I doubt many of the other compulsory BBC Tellytax customers have heard much of this supposed apology either. As with all the best scandals, the initial ‘crime’ is never quite as bad as the cover up afterwards. The BBC still has a lot to learn about impartiality and objectivity.

As for the BBC’s much vaunted Newswatch, it looks as if, rather than the Tellytax-payers champion it purports to be, that it’s more of, shall we say, a good place to bury bad news.

Update: Powerline’s post on this refers to the Washington Post:

The broadcaster said in a written statement that it had been contacted by a man who “during a series of phone calls, claimed that there would be a significant announcement to be made on behalf of the Dow Chemical company.”

“He gave no further detail until the live interview, broadcast from the BBC’s Paris bureau this morning,” the BBC said.

Oh, how elaborate a deception indeed!

Harking back to my post last week about the BBC’s ignorant/biased coverage of the foreign nationals detained at Belmarsh (arguably for their own safety, in preference to forcibly deporting them to their home countries) BBC News 24 were at it again today with an interview with Barry Hugill of Liberty* that was shown several times, complete with a small strap line reading “UN panel criticises UK detention policy” and a large flashing strap line reading “Torture report”.

Yet again no mention was made of the right of these individuals to leave the UK whenever they wish for any other country that will take them (or even that some of them have already done so). The interviewer did ask “What are we supposed to do with foreign terrorist suspects?” – a half-hearted question that was all too readily elided by Hugill. The questions should be:

1) Do we have a right to deport people from our country?
a) Yes; b) No.
2) What do we do if we wish to deport someone whose home country has a dodgy human rights record?
a) Look after them; b) Send them home anyway.

– for that is the nub of the issue – it’s got little to do with detention without trial, and everything to do with foreigners who are effectively undeportable because we don’t want to force them to go home even though they’re no longer welcome here.

Why can’t or won’t the BBC cover this story properly?

* a few years ago a relative of mine who worked in a small hospital took a call from the local branch of the National Council for Civil Liberties (as Liberty then was) – the NCCL caller was concerned about a colleague who was unwell but who didn’t want to go to hospital – the question was “how can we force him to go?” 🙂

there was breaking news of a new Fathers4Justice protest at Buckingham Palace. Sky News covered the protest and the removal of the protestor with a split screen – the left picture and the sound covered Charles Kennedy in the Commons, whilst the right picture showed events at Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile, BBC News 24 stuck rigidly with Charles Kennedy. Was it beyond the ability of News 24 to cover the end of the F4J protest? Couldn’t figure out how to split the screen? Didn’t have enough film crews or satellite trucks? (not likely, given all the lame ‘going live’ reports these days). Or was it an editorial decision? Curious telly-taxpayers would like to know…