Although I really hate to say this on the week that the BBC bosses will announce job losses in news and current affairs (why don’t they merge BBC3 and BBC4 instead of cutting the very heart of what the BBC should be about?), there was yet another example of massive over-staffing today.
When Chris Huhne launched his Lib Dem leadership bid, our cameraman took the trouble to count the number of BBC people present.
There were TWELVE of them
Sky and ITN had three each.
Nuff said.
Via Guido.
– the usual mush of dumbed down right-on BBC output. Highlights included, in no particular order:
And, while I remember, one snippet from Monday’s Ten O’Clock News, with Fiona Bruce informing us that, yes, a ship going from Britain to Japan via the Panama canal sails “14,000 miles”, whilst going via the Northwest Passage (clear for the first time, natch) it could “save two weeks”. Aaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh! Useless as ever.
Update: Re. Jean Charles de Menezes: the BBC could say “Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian mistakenly shot by…”, which is just as accurate and informative, but a lot less emotive than Fiona Bruce et al repeatedly intoning “Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian shot by…”. None of this of course is, in any way, a justification for his killing – far from it. See the comments for more than enough discussion of this subject.
Catching up on some summer posts that I didn’t quite finish at the time, there was an interesting article in Private Eye no. 1191, 17-30 Aug. 2007, giving “the full story of Channel 4, the CPS and the lies told by West Midlands Police” about the recent to-do over Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque programme broadcast in January.
Although Undercover Mosque was a Channel 4 programme it is pertinent to Biased BBC on at least two counts:
Firstly, that the BBC seems unwilling and unable to make undercover hidden camera programmes about anything that doesn’t fit the BBC’s definition of ‘bad’ (e.g. supermarkets, private security contractors, the police, the BNP etc.) – not that these aren’t worthy of investigation, but there are many other organisations and groups that also need to have their private deeds exposed to the glare of public scrutiny too (see the second part of this post, BBC Newspeak: Four legs good, two legs bad, for a few suggestions from a couple of years back Beeboids);
Secondly, the complete indifference of BBC News and BBC Views Online to the original broadcast of this programme. As with the first point, undercover programmes (including those from Channel 4) that the BBC approves of are covered, whereas those that aren’t approved don’t get covered. Undercover Mosque was barely mentioned by the BBC until August, when BBC Views Online opined C4 ‘distorted’ mosque programme, cheerily reporting criticism of the programme – the very criticism that Private Eye completely demolishes:
Playing silly burkas
The silliest of all this summer’s silly season stories broke last Wednesday, when the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service issued a joint press release attacking Undercover Mosque, a Dispatches programme broadcast in January by Channel 4.
The film showed preachers at various “moderate” British mosques – notably the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham – delivering wild rants against kuffaar (non-muslims). “We hate the people of kufr, we hate the kuffaar”, Abu Usamah of Green Lane mosque declared, adding that although he didn’t agree with terrorists “at the same time they’re closer to me than those criminals of the kufr… He’s better than a million George Bushes, Osama bin Laden, he’s better than a thousand Tony Blair’s because he’s a muslim”. Murtaza Khan, a teacher from Essex who preaches at many UK mosques, denounced non-muslims as “filthy” and “accursed”.
Last week’s press release quoted Bethan David, a lawyer from the CPS, who alleged that the film “completely distorted what the speakers were saying”by quoting them out of context. It revealed that Inspector Knacker, a.k.a. Anil Patani MBA, Assistant Chief Constable (Security and Cohesion) for the West Midlands force – is now making a formal complaint to Ofcom that the programme was unfair and misleading.
Had Patani bothered to check the [Ofcom] website beforehand he’d have realised that, under the legislation governing Ofcom, complaints about unfairness can come only from “the person affected”, i.e. someone who has been personally traduced in a programme or by someone offically authorised by that person to act for them. Since the West Midlands Police fits neither category, the “formal complaint”looks like a non-starter. It appears to be little more than a silly season publicity stunt – though quite an effective one, as it was duly and widely reported the next day by newspapers hungry for more tales of TV fakery.
The Eye asked the West Midlands Police why they hadn’t read the rules before lodging the complaint. A spokesman told us that they had “liaised”with Ofcom in advance and been assured that they were following the correct procedures. But is this true?
“No”, said an Ofcom spokesman. Ofcom saw the press release a mere ten minutes before it was issued. Did you “liaise” with the police? “We certainly didn’t”.
The police also told the Eyethat the formal complaint to Ofcom came jointly from themselves and the CPS. Again, this turns out to be untrue. But the confusion is understandable, since Bethan David of the CPS certainly aided and abetted the stunt.
Did the police or CPS discuss their criticism of the film with C4 before issuing the press release? No. (As one bemused C4 executive observed: “This isn’t what a proper police force does. It’s the sort of thing Alastair Campbell does”).
Even more surprisingly, neither Patani nor David has produced one shred of evidence – in the press release, or in simultaneous letters to C4 and Ofcom – to back up their serious allegations.
Even the Eye wouldn’t accuse a film-maker of “completely distorting”the truth without giving chapter and verse – and we’re not an official branch of the criminal justice system. So could the CPS please cite some examples of of complete distortion that support Bethan David’s defamatory attack on the film-makers’ integrity?
“No”, a CPS spokesman told us. “We don’t go into that level of detail”. Or indeed any detail at all. The same goes for the West Midlands Police.
But Knacker may eventually have to justify wasting public money on this media stunt when he could have been tackling real criminals. He and Bethan David may also find themselves having to defend their unsubstantiated allegations in a court of law: Channel 4 and HardCash Productions, the company behind the film, are considering suing the police and CPS for libel.
To their credit, BBC Newsnight did a great piece along these lines last week (one of several great Newsnight pieces recently – perhaps there’s hope yet), revealing, if I recall correctly, that West Midlands Police have spent £14,000 of taxpayers money on this investigation excluding staff costs, and that the investigation was started after they received precisely zero complaints from the public. I’ll try to find it and Youtube it later. You can view the original Undercover Mosque programme via Google Video.
courtesy of Youtube, here are excerpts from last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News and Sky News at Ten programmes, their respective headlines and their coverage of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the UN climate change panel:
BBC Ten O’Clock News headlines, followed by Al Gore, lead story.
Sky News at Ten headlines, cutting to Al Gore, the third story.
Unfortunately I don’t have time just now to transcribe both sets of headlines and reports and write up a comparison – leaving an opportunity for a spot of DIY, and perhaps collaborative, comparing and contrasting in the comments. Have fun.
Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
according to Guardian blogger and media commentator Roy Greenslade, blogging about a new broadcast monitoring service called Newswatch that:
has emerged from a research body founded in 1999 that famously carried out an analysis of the BBC’s coverage of the European Union and found it unduly biased in favour of the EU.
…and undertakes to:
use a range of robust analytical tools to study the British broadcast media. Our methodology is firmly based on established academic principles utilising core quantitative and qualitative research techniques.
An interesting approach indeed, because there are lots of different types of bias, ranging from the obvious to the subtle (but nonetheless insidious) that is much harder to pin down and expose, particularly where the BBC doesn’t realise it is being biased (institutional bias anyone?).
One of the problems with keeping tabs on the BBC is that there is just so much of it – the BBC news factory churns out upwards of forty-eight hours worth of stuff every day – far beyond the ability of any individual, or even a group like Biased BBC, to keep track of, which often leads to complaints about bias being brushed aside with the smug reassurance that:
If only you’d listened to everything on that topic you’d find there’s nothing to worry about…
Sound familiar? Enter Newswatch!
Newswatch spent fourteen weeks prior to the European Council meeting in June monitoring Radio 4’s Today programme for balance in their coverage of the run up to the EU reform treaty (i.e. the revised EU constitution after the application of spin) – a daunting task involving minute by minute analysis of over 240 hours of material.
You’d expect that Today, a daily three-hour long flagship BBC news programme, would provide comprehensive coverage of a topic as important as the EU reform treaty – they probably even think they did – but reading the summary version of Newswatch’s first report (the full report apparently contains over eighty pages of analysis) it turns out that Today’s coverage of the EU Reform Treaty was far from comprehensive, and that what coverage there was was biased, unimaginative and plain sloppy.
Some highlights from the Newswatch summary:
There’s more good stuff in the Newswatch summary report, and I expect a great deal more in the full report. It will be interesting to see how this rigorous approach to analysing the BBC’s output develops, and how well the BBC and other news outlets report the findings of such meticulous analysis of our national broadcaster’s flagship radio programme.
on the BBC Editors Blog to recent criticism here and elsewhere of Andrew Marr’s “the election is off” interview of Gordon Brown last Saturday.
What Barney labels the ‘fourth charge’, that Marr and the BBC were used by Brown and co. as part of their spin operation, comes closest to my own view, that Marr and the BBC were used by the Brownies as the least painful (as distinct from painless) way of getting their bad news out – with the issue being that of Barney’s ‘first charge’, whether or not the BBC should have participated in such a journalistic ‘scoop’ or ‘abuse’ (depending on your point of view). Unsurprisingly Barney is in the ‘scoop’ camp.
There are a number of interesting comments worth reading, for and against, on Barney’s post too.
Thank you to Biased BBC reader Ritter for the link.
at the end of Stephen Fry’s second HIV & Me programme on Tuesday viewers were directed to a new BBC website, G.I. Jonny (caution: not safe for work or children), “a viral information campaign produced by the BBC to raise awareness about HIV in the UK”, aimed at 16-24 year olds, running from October 1st until World AIDS day on December 1st 2007.
Advising people about the risks of HIV and AIDS and how to protect themselves is reasonable enough, but the G.I. Jonny site, designed to appeal to youngsters, and indeed children, is crass and tasteless and open to all without any age advisories or warnings about the site content.
Clicking on the appealing ‘Sketch Show’ link from the home page loads a page that immediately starts to play “the first of several specially commissioned comedy sketches available for download” featuring:
…action-figure Jonny using his ‘protector shield’ to deflect the foam from Captain Bareback’s crotch cannon, laying his foe low with his powerful fisting action, and spying the Commando Bandits through his magic brass eye.
…complete with graphic action-figure animation and a loud voice over (at full volume until you turn it down) blaring rapid-fire sexual innuendo.
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Good old BBC. Naturally, were it not for the unique way the BBC is funded and the absence of advertisers with a reputation to maintain, this sort of explicit rubbish wouldn’t see the light of day.
More details in Metro, BBC’s sex video is branded filthy.
Hat tip to my Biased BBC colleague Laban Tall for the Metro link.
. A previously unseen document found in a skip outside Narrowcasting House gives a unique insight into the years of dedicated training that have gone in to producing some of the Corporation’s brightest stars.
Comrades Jim & John: well known Radio 4 Toady presenters
An excerpt from the full Handbook of the BBC’s Young Pioneers:
“After years of training, John and Jim are finally allowed to run Toady – the most important radio propaganda broadcast.
Jim is so enthusiastic about The Party he sometimes says “we” – meaning him, The Party and all right-minded folk everywhere. But of course he’s a trained BBC Pioneer so he’s never biased.
John thinks it would be good if The Party took more money from everyone so that everything in the country could be perfect. The Party agrees and helps John to make lots of money for himself in return.”
We the undeserving proletarian masses offer our grateful thanks to Comrades Jim, John, Sarah, Carolyn & Ed for their heroic struggle in the service of the People’s Democratic Committee for State Broadcasting and IndoctrinEducation (The BBC-CCCP). We salute you!
Update (11.30pm): Further pages in the Handbook of the BBC’s Young Pioneers have come to light, including Comrade Paxochev and capitalist running-dog-eat-dog smears about Comrade Commissar Mark Thompson.
Update (Friday): More newly discovered information has appeared…
Click the link for full version. Thank you to Bob and another reader for the original link.
a leader article in the Daily Telegraph, Winds of competition:
Not entirely unlike the Royal Mail farrago is the crisis that looms at the BBC. Again, a public sector organisation faces threats of strike action from its unions that could weaken the future of the entire enterprise. But in this case, the decisions of the management seem to be dictated by an irrational bureaucratic mindset.
The corporation has set its face against closing down the little-watched digital channels BBC3 and BBC4, preferring to cut the most distinguished of the BBC’s core services: news and current affairs, and factual programming. To attack the most publicly esteemed areas of its production — rather than admit defeat in its failed experimental ventures — reveals a bizarre system of priorities that takes no account of the logic of market forces. But neither the BBC nor Royal Mail exists in a non-competitive vacuum any longer. They will need disciplined realism if they are to survive among the choices that new technologies offer.
My own view is that there’s a lot of managerial girth at the BBC that should be addressed first – almost two years ago Media Guardian reported Surge in BBC’s top earners, with the news that, at that time, 262 BBC staff took home more than £100,000 per annum as salary – more than 1% of those on the corporation’s payroll, not to mention the large numbers of highly paid individuals hovering below £100,000pa. Needless to say, the BBC defended itself at the time with this old chestnut:
The BBC said that it needs to pay big salaries to attract the best staff and also attributed much of the rise to inflation.
– the same specious argument that was put forward to justify the utterly ridiculous sum of £18m over three years paid to Jonathan Ross. If he can get that much from ITV or anyone else then good luck to him. There are plenty of talented people who’d be honoured to replace Woss for a fraction of that amount.
BBC Three probably should go – the few good bits can easily find new homes, the rest, mostly race-to-the-bottom dross (I love the C-word anyone?) that does nothing for our nation deserves to disappear – certainly from the tellytaxpayer teat. BBC Four should probably stay – it is much closer to the BBC’s public service remit (and is half the cost of BBC Three).
Today’s Daily Mail covers this story at greater length, BBC News and Top Gear face cuts as corporation is forced to axe 3,000 staff:
BBC insiders are mystified that their bosses appear to be targeting areas which are the cornerstone of the corporation’s public service remit.
John Humphrys, among others, has said Mr Thompson should kill off less popular services such as BBC3, rather than slash news and current affairs.
But the BBC seems determined to hold on to the controversial channel, which costs licence fee payers £116million a year.
BBC3, aimed at younger audiences, spends almost £180,000 an hour on its programmes, double what BBC1 spends.
Yet it gets just two per cent of viewers or a tenth of BBC1’s figures.
The channel has also been criticised for lurid programme titles like F*** Off I’m a Hairy Woman and Sex Talk With Mum and Dad.
The Mail also quotes Conservative MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, accusing Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, of contradicting his previous statements about wanting to protect quality programming: “He is cutting jobs in the precise areas where there is the greatest need for public service content and where the BBC’s strength lies. They are doing precisely what Mark Thompson said they would not do”.
I have no sympathy for the BBC’s pleas of poverty – a guaranteed £3.5 billion pounds annual income is a lavish amount for any broadcaster, but it is ridiculous that the BBC’s management are threatening genuine public service aspects of the BBC whilst busily expanding the BBC in all sorts of non-core areas, producing all sorts of tosh that could and should be produced more economically by commercial broadcasters.
It’s unusual for Biased BBC to defend (some parts of) the BBC, but it looks as if we’re set to end up with the worst of both worlds – more ratings chasing dross and less quality public service broadcasting – and this from Mark Thompson, who as chief executive of Channel 4 described the BBC as “basking in a Jacuzzi of spare public cash“, claiming that he would produce a stronger BBC that “spent less on process and more on content”.
See also yesterday’s ongoing complaint and comments about the selectivity of what counts as BBC in the news on the BBC Editors Blog.
