Author Archives: Craig

WHO HAS FINLO INVITED TO THE TEA PARTY?

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Just as another (very late on parade) epilogue to David P.’s superb coverage of the American midterm elections, BBC Online‘s post-U.S. midterm election coverage featured some ‘analysis’ by Finlo Rohrer, one of the BBC’s Washington contingent. It makes for a largely downbeat reading for both Tea Party supporters and Republicans alike. In partial explanation of that I want to concentrate on the article’s use of ‘independent experts’, typical of the BBC.

Four academics are called on to access the Tea Party’s impact.
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They are introduced like this:

“Prof Wendy Schiller, from Brown University.” (She is the chief analyst, and talks of the need for a good-looking, charismatic leader for the Tea Party. She predicts “conflict within the Republican Party.”)

“Jill Lepore, American historian, New Yorker writer and author of The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History.” (A quote from her predicting that the Tea Party could easily become hated is used as a block-quote. She also says the Tea Party movement is likely to be disappointed, however much they “loudly shoot down every measure”.)

“Kate Zernike, author of Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America.” (She says the Tea Party movement is “looking for pretty quick answers” and criticises their unwillingness to compromise.)

“Prof Jay Barth, of Hendrix College.” He comments on the Tea Party’s relationship with the Republican Party, seeing problems particularly for the latter.

Here’s what Finlo Rohrer of the BBC doesn’t tell his readers about his ‘independent experts’:

Prof Schiller, once of the liberal-leaning Brookings Institute, was an assistant to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (Democrat) and Governor Mario Cuomo (Democrat).

Jill Lepore is deeply hostile to the Tea Party movement, regarding it as “far-right” – as the blurb from her university website reveals:

This book tells the story of the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of the nation’s founding, including the battle waged by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians to “take back America.” Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a wry and bemused look at American history according to the far right. Along the way, she provides rare insight into the eighteenth-century struggle for independence–the real one, that is. Lepore traces the roots of the far right’s reactionary history to the bicentennial in the 1970s, when no one could agree on what story a divided nation should tell about its unruly beginnings. Behind the Tea Party’s Revolution, she argues, lies a nostalgic and even heartbreaking yearning for an imagined past–a time less troubled by ambiguity, strife, and uncertainty–a yearning for an America that never was. The Whites of Their Eyes reveals that the far right has embraced a narrative about America’s founding that is not only a fable but is also, finally, a variety of fundamentalism–anti-intellectual, antihistorical, and dangerously antipluralist.

Kate Zernike of the New York Times is a particular ‘favourite’ of this site’s American equivalent Newsbusters, who justifiably highlight “her obsession with rooting out alleged Tea Party racism”. She is one of the American journalists most hostile to the Tea Party. Finlo Rohrer would surely have known that.

As for Finlo’s final ‘independent expert’, Jay Barth “of Hendrix College”, all Finlo needed to do was pop Jay Barth into an internet service provider to find the first entry titled “Democrat Jay Barth for Senate 2010”. Defenders of the indefensible will surely find it hard to account for a BBC reporter failing to mention that his chosen academic wanted to run for Congress in THIS election for the Democrats (in Arkansas) and yet was his choice to be presented as if he were a non-partisan commentator on Tea Party-Republican Party relations.

So, four ‘experts’, all unfriendly to the Tea Party, as anyone with access to the internet could easily discover, and yet all invited to ‘analyse’ the Tea Party for a single BBC article – without any deeply relevant background information being provided.

Finlo Rohrer is clearly a worthy companion-in-bias for every-JournOLister’s friend Katie Connolly, Obama 2008 campaigner Matt Danzico, ex-Guardian Palin-mocker Daniel Nasaw, Iain MacKenzie and all the rest of the impartiality-adverse BBC Washington crew.

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TWITTER YE NOT!

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DB’s post about the impartiality-busting tweets of left-wing BBC News Channel editor Rachel Kennedy, having first spread the message of BBC bias to Guido’s blog and to Melanie Phillips in the Spectator, now seems to have provoked a reaction from Helen Boaden.

Under the headline BBC Boss Tells Left-Wing News Staff “Stop Tweeting” Guido reports:

The Director of BBC News, Helen Boaden, has just sent out this chatty email
to all her staff today:

Dear All,

We have had some occasions recently of BBC News staff using social networking sites to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly, these have been picked up by the wider web and used to discredit the BBC and its impartiality. We have Editorial Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet …which everyone should observe. We also have brains and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before rushing to communicate. Hx

(Guido , incidentally, has just tweeted Rachel:
Did you get Helen Boaden’s memo? @rachelkennedy84)

The Guardian speculates that an injudicious tweet from a BBC Breakfast reporter (Phil Lavelle) about the BBC’s funding of the Welsh-speaking channel S4C may well have provoked Ms Boaden’s action (probably “the future of the BBC” bit) though the the Guardian‘s Media Monkey seems to have missed the likeliest spark that lit the fuse – this website!

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LLAMAS HEART OBAMA

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Backing up DB’s revelations about Matt Danzico – one of the BBC’s new recruits to its heavily biased Washington outfit -, which showed that he’s a strong Democrat supporter who campaigned for Obama in 2008, here’s some footage which might suggest why the BBC’s coverage of American politics doesn’t seem entirely impartial (despite Helen Boaden).

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A TALE OF TWO INTERVIEWS

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B-BBC favourite Andrew Marr gave his fellow BBC interviewers a masterclass this morning in how to be biased.

He interviewed both the chancellor George Osborne and the new shadow chancellor Alan Johnson. Compare the introductions to each each interview and you will get a very good idea of what the actual interviews were like:

Johnson:

“Well from one legendary rocker to another. No, not quite. But though the new shadow chancellor is a rock n’ roll enthusiast from his early days and he’s said from time to time that politics is just a sideline, he’s risen pretty fast. Alan Johnson came through the trades union movement, declined to go for the Labour leadership and he was Ed Miliband’s surprise choice for the top economics job. He said he was rushing off to get his economics primer. Anyway, he’s read the economics primer now and he’s with me now. Welcome!”

Osborne (following straight on from the Johnson interview):

“So that is the case for the prosecution – that the cuts are too drastic, that they’re irresponsible, they’ll damage the recovery, and that they’re unfair on the poorest I suppose as well, erm..driven by ideological zeal even. Well, there is another line of attack emerging which says that they’re simply too ambitious and in practise they won’t achieve the kind of money that they’re intended too, that all the tough talk from John..George Osborne is indeed just talk. Well, the chancellor of the exchequer is here to respond to all of those things now. Welcome!”

You won’t be surprised that Andrew Marr was laughing and Alan Johnson grinning broadly at the former and that George Osborne wore a very strained expression as he listened to the latter (though he didn’t protest about it).

How the interviews ended is similarly revealing:

Johnson: “All right, for now, Alan Johnson. Thank you very much.”

Osborne: “Politicians always talk about what they’re going to spend money on, not what they’re going to cut! But thank you very much indeed chancellor. Over to Louise for the news headlines.”

Yes, the Johnson interview ended with smiles all round but the Osborne interview ended with Marr telling Osborne off and giving him no chance to respond.

The Alan Johnson interview as a whole was very soft, with just 6 interruptions, passing quickly over his lack of economic expertise. The George Osborne interview, however, was a tough one with 28 interruptions.

When Alan Johnson talked of this seeming to be an L-shaped recession with the economy dragging along the bottom, adding that we could face a Japanese-style ‘lost decade’, Marr chipped in supportively, “That’s the danger!”

The main danger for the Conservatives is that that keep allowing partisan BBC hacks like Andrew Marr to keep skewing the news agenda against them.

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