Author Archives: Craig

NOT SO EVAN-HANDED

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Getting back into the swing of things, I thought I’d monitor the New Channel’s coverage of the AV referendum campaign on Tuesday. On that day at least (I can’t vouch for any of the others), it seemed scrupulously balanced – balanced number of guests, exactly the same length of interview (well three seconds difference!) for the pro- and anti- spokespersonages, appropriate questions to each side, same number of interruptions, and the BBC even kept quoting an opinion poll showing a significant ‘No’ lead. I wasn’t expecting any of that, but it shows the BBC can do it.

Unfortunately, they often fail to do it – as Evan Davis demonstrated this morning.

Here, staged before an audience at the South Bank Centre (who sounded even less representative than a Question Time audience), Evan hosted a debate between Jonathan Bartley of the Yes campaign and Stephen Parkinson of the No campaign. Evan did much more than host it though. He actively joined in the debate, almost entirely on the side of the Yes campaign. It was effectively two against one.

The interruptions flew at Mr Parkinson, often only seconds (one time just a second) after he had begun to speak. So did the questions. All but one of the questions asked/points made by Evan Davis came from a stance opposed to the No campaign. Transcribing Evan Davis’s words should make the extent of the bias clear:

Questions/comments put to Stephen Parkinson (No to AV):

1 Stephen, you’re against AV. Can we just talk about fairness because it seems like..you keep saying the winner under AV loses which means, you know, the system’s unfair but if the winner loses it’s because the majority of voters don’t want that person to win, they want another candidate instead.

2 The crucial thing is whether you view it as an election where people have one vote and then a few people get another vote and another vote and another vote or whether you view it as a sequence of elections which very cleverly are concocted to be held on one ballot paper, isn’t it Stephen?

3 (interrupting) Well it IS a sequence of elections, it’s a sequence of counts and the person who puts their first preference and that’s not knocked out gets their first preference counted again.

4 (interrupting) And some get their first preference counted twice!

5 (interrupting) But it uses something similar. Most systems, even the American presidential election, uses something where you wangle the candidates down to a run-off between two effectively, or some sort of run-off, they do it on the X Factor, they do it on Big Brother, they do it in the American presidential election with the use of primaries, isn’t that what everybody does?

6 (interrupting) But I mean that’s just true. It’s not going to make a difference in most seats of the UK, is it? I mean that’s just telling you it doesn’t matter which way we go..

7 One issue that has come up is the issue of whether people understand AV. Can I just ask the audience here if you think you understand AV and what it entails? And how many say you don’t understand it, it’s too complicated? So again about 98% of people understand it. That has been a bit of your campaign hasn’t it Stephen, a little bit of scaring people with the complexity of it all?

Questions/points put to Jonathan Bartley (Yes to AV):

1 Jonathan?

2 Jonathan, let me put this to you. Does it not encourage the candidate who is the most banal and least offensive to always win and you end up with a government that is sort of the lowest common denominator?

Not very even-handed, is it?

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HOBSON’S CHOICE

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If you use the BBC News website’s ‘Search’ function, as many do, you’ll find that broad categories have a right-hand section where BBC editors recommend sites ‘elsewhere on the web’ for readers to investigate. Some of these (usually links to newspapers or news agencies) are regularly updated. Others are much more permanent choices, staying up for several months. The three examples below have been the editor’s choice for over half a year now (at the very least). Do they provide BBC Online readers with a fair spread of opinion? Hardly.

Type in ‘Climate Change’ and the two other sites permanently linked to are:
The Met Office
Greenpeace International

Type in ‘Wind Farms’ and the permanent Editor’s Choices are:
Renewable UK
“Renewable UK, formerly the British Wind Energy Association, the professional body for the UK’s wind and marine industries, providing news, links and downloadable resources”
Yes2Wind
“Learn about the Yes2Wind campaign to use wind energy to tackle global warming”
(Incidentally, there is also a No2Wind website, which the BBC chooses not to link to).

Finally, type in ‘European Union’ and the only other site on the web permanently linked to is:
Europa
(the official website of the European Union)

P.S. Happy Easter!

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COJO SAYS THE ECHR STILL HAS ITS MOJO

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The BBC’s former European Affairs correspondent William Horsley ceased being a BBC correspondent in 2007 but still continues to write for BBC Online as an analyst. (He was on ‘Broadcasting House’ this morning, reading his own essay denouncing the Japanese political class. I’m not exaggerating!)

Here he is, writing (at the BBC’s invitation) on their College of Journalism blog last month:

UK media blind with indignation at Strasbourg court

Some extracts will give you a flavour:

Our politicians have set a shrill tone and made some misleading attacks on the supposed mission creep of the Strasbourg court…

Those cries of foul have been amplified in the media. The result is that a hot-and-bothered strand of UK popular opinion is encouraged to believe in a conspiracy of foreigners to force Britons, against their better judgment, to protect criminals over the interests of law-abiding citizens. The ECHR is imperfect – as any court or judiciary may be – but the picture is wildly out of kilter with reality.

How has this hostile caricature of the Strasbourg court as a sort of predatory enemy of British interests emerged in the media?

It is the envy of people in large parts of the world…

What particularly struck me was this passage:

…the record shows that mandatory rulings from the court have helped Britain to improve its patchy human rights record on issues where political or popular opinion had seemed implacably opposed to change.

Examples are the judgements banning corporal punishment; and those requiring changes to the control order regime set up by the Blair government, as well as sweeping stop and search powers for the police.

Thank goodness for the ECHR for allowing a judicial elite to dismiss “political or popular opinion”!

Who would have thought a former BBC European Affairs correspondent was so firmly in the ‘anti-populist’ pro-European camp?

On of the few comments on the CoJo blog says, “I think the BBC should stay out of politics and refrain from inviting its friends to put the BBC point of view.”

Sounds right to me.

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POURING OIL ON THE FLAMES

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This was such an important post from Pounce on the Open Thread that it deserved a main post all of its own. Thank you Pounce.

Questions are currently being asked about why a British designer is anti-Semitic and how did he become so polarised. Well with News articles like this from the bBC it isn’t hard in which to find fault with the Jews:
Row over Israel gas reserve tax

The above link takes you to a video link where Iranian ‘Mohammad Manzarpour’ who used to be a Human Resources manager in Tehran opines over how Israel has changed its tax system towards oil companies from one of tax breaks to one of paying Tax (to around 50%) on their profits. Yet while the title states American companies they interview..Jewish companies. (That’s because only 1 American Oil company (Noble) is involved in the drilling of Oil.)

Now I’m all for diversity but come on bBC get somebody whom I can bloody understand. Call me ugly, call me a bigot but the fact remains I want to hear somebody speaking English which I can understand. Instead you allow somebody who sounds like a window licker to air a very biased report about how bad Israel is for upping its tax on Oil companies which isn’t how the same tax rate taken against US Oil companies elsewhere are reported:
Venezuela
Bolivia
UK
Funny how the champions of liberty in those countries can do likewise and the bBC doesn’t bat an eyelid.

Then there’s the clip in the end where the allegation is made that actually the new gas fields found off Israel actually belong to Lebanon and that Israel (backed up by showing a picture of an Israeli gunboat) is prepared to back up its theft of oil by force. Where actually the Oil fields if looked at on a map are well away from Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey who have all stated it belongs to them. But ref that Israel claim about going to war in which to protect its claim what the bBC doesn’t state is it was made in reply to this statement from Hezb-allah:
Hezbollah’s Executive Council head Hashem Safieddine said the militant Islamist group would not allow Israel to pillage what it considers Lebanese natural gas, Haaretz reported. “Lebanon’s need for the resistance has doubled today in light of Israeli threats to steal Lebanon’s oil wealth.”

And here another snippet Mohammed of the bBC doesn’t want you to know:
“Maps from Noble Energy show Leviathan within Israel’s waters. An official with Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services, which is surveying gas fields in Lebanese waters, told The Associated Press that from Noble’s reports there is no reason to think Leviathan extends into Lebanon”
Yet again another non story from the bBC in which to slate how Israel is taxing Oil firms, on that note when was the last time you saw the bBC champion BP, Shell or even Exxon? But when they are sparing against Israel they can only be victims.

And we all wonder why the British are becoming polarised against Jews. Years of character assassination from the bBC has ensured that Jews can only be evil while in the mirror universe they inhabit Islam is promoted as a religion of peace.

Just to add a couple of things about Mohammad Manzarpour of the BBC Persian service. His Facebook account shows that he “likes” Che Guevara. More significantly, he also added his name to an anti-war petition, along with Galloway, Benn, Pinter et al, protesting about possible US/UK action against Iran.

(On the company he worked for as a Human Resources manager, Atieh Bahar Consulting, this article from the Progressive American-Iranian Committee alleges very close links to the Iranian regime).

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A DAY IN THE LIFE

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Reviewing a day’s output (6.00am-10.00pm) of the BBC News Channel might perhaps give another perspective on the endemic problem of BBC bias. In the comments field below you will find a detailed run-through of the channel’s coverage of one particular story on Monday of this week and how that compares to their treatment of a seemingly similar story on the following day. Then a number of other stories featured as part of Monday’s rolling news coverage will be examined more briefly. Does it all add up to a damning indictment?

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BEYOND BELIEF

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Following Five Guys Named Mohammed, broadcast over 5 days at the start of the year, last night Radio 4 gave us Young, Muslim and Black:

Dotun Adebayo looks at why Islam is providing an attractive religious alternative to Christianity for Black Britons seeking answers.

Next Monday you can tune in for It’s My Story: The Imam of Peace:

Nadene Ghouri profiles the work of John Butt, an English Muslim convert who became an imam and is trying to spread a message of peace and tolerance across Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And Face the Facts on 27th Jan will be devoted to the issue of “whether sections of the British press are increasing tensions within communities by publishing negative stories about Muslims.”

Across the first four weeks of 2011, no programmes or series on BBC Radio 4 will have been wholly devoted to any of the other non-Christian religious communities of the U.K. Yes, Hindus, Jews, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists have all gone uncatered for by the allegedly diversity-loving BBC. Only Islam seems to interest the channel’s programme makers.

Though nowhere near as obsessive, even its regular religious affairs programme Beyond Belief is guilty of weighting its discussions with an excess of Muslims. Each programme has a trio of guests. There have been 27 programmes since the start of 2010. Here’s how the religious identity of the believing non-Christians breaks down in terms of number of guests:

Muslims – 15
Jews – 9
Hindus – 2
Sikhs – 2
Buddhists – 1
Jains – 1

Or
Muslims = 15
All the rest = 15

Is that fair, BBC?

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