Author Archives: DB

Nick Bryant And The "Prevailing Wisdom"

By | |
30 Comments

(Further to Robin’s observations)

Ever since Tony Abbott challenged Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of Australia’s Liberal Party at the end of last year the BBC’s Sydney correspondent Nick Bryant has, at almost every opportunity possible, dismissed the chances of the man he never fails to remind us is nicknamed the “Mad Monk”. From his smirking obsession with Abbott’s “budgie smugglers” to his quaint conviction that climate scepticism could lead to the dissolution of the Liberals, Bryant has reflected the sneering views of the Ozzie left.

When Abbott stood for Liberal leader Bryant said he lacked the “plausibility factor”. When Abbott defeated Turnbull, and immediately announced that he would oppose Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation, the BBC journalist responded:

In what is already being billed as “the climate-change election”, most observers predict a lop-sided majority for Labor, if not a landslide… By electing Mr Abbott, many commentators think that the Liberals have entered a sort of twilight zone – that they risk becoming a fringe party… By installing Mr Abbott, have the turkeys just voted for Christmas?

Bryant anticipated a snap election to coincide with the end of bushfire season which, he said, would allow the global warming message to be driven home with greater impact. When it became clear that his beloved Kevin Rudd didn’t have the nads to go to the country Bryant posted an update saying it was wiser to wait:

It’s a smart political strategy, for it will highlight and possibly deepen the fissures within Liberal ranks between those who think the party has no other choice but to support an ETS – John Howard proposed an ETS, after all – and the climate change sceptics and deniers. Labor is hoping that a weak Liberal party will be even be even more fragile by the time that parliament resumes. And, remember, that trigger can be pulled at any time the government wants.

Labor backed off a snap election not, as Bryant’s spin would have it, because they hoped to capitalise on Liberal Party “fissures” but because opposition to ETS had given sudden momentum to the Liberals under its new climate sceptic leader.

Undaunted, and still with his finger firmly on the political pulse, Bryant began 2010 with a list of predictions, top of which was this:

1 – The election: If history is our guide, Kevin Rudd will win this year’s federal election. After all, not since the great depression has an incumbent government been turfed out after just one term in office. Ever since he became leader of the Labor Party in December 2006, Kevin Rudd has enjoyed an unbroken run of high approval ratings, and it will surely take some unforeseen, game-changing event or scandal to put his government in jeopardy.

A month later Nick, along with the rest of the Rudd-supporting media, was in shock:

For this week the biggest, and most surprising, political headline came from a fresh opinion poll which showed the opposition coalition had pulled ahead of Labor for the first time in three years…The prevailing wisdom has always been that Kevin Rudd would win what is already being dubbed the climate change election – and win it handsomely. But in the month or so since Copenhagen, the prime minister has been largely silent on the question of climate change, and the opposition has filled the vacuum.

No worries though:

While there appears to have been a shift in the politics, there is by no means a sea change.

By June, following a succession of political missteps from Rudd and his party, often relating to green policies (fatalities from a mismanaged insulation project, dithering over further ETS legislation, a high profile battle with Australia’s successful mining sector over a proposed super-tax) polling showed that the Mad Monk had become more popular than the PM. Shortly afterwards the Labor Party toppled its leader.

In December 2009 Bryant had suggested (somewhat optimistically?) that the new Liberal leadership’s opposition to climate legislation could lead to the party’s fracture and demise; eight months later it was Labor that polled lower in a federal election than any governing party since the war.

Perhaps Bryant should get out a bit more and meet a wider cross-section of the great Australian public. Alternatively, he could try a change of career: Nick Bryant and the Prevailing Wisdom is quite a good name for a Prog Rock covers band.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Latest BBC Spin on Obama & the Mosque

By | | , ,
43 Comments

The concluding, take-this-away-as-your-final-thought, paragraphs of a BBC article on the reaction to Obama’s support for the Ground Zero mosque:

“It was a bold decision – Obama could have stayed out of what is ostensibly a local matter,” wrote polling analyst Nate Silver on the political website FiveThirtyEight.com.
“But a careful evaluation of the polls reveals it to be less politically risky than it might at first appear.”

That would be the same Nate Silver who admitted recently his participation in Journolist, the controversial exclusive email list for Democrat-supporting hacks:

Almost always, I made exactly the points in these discussions that I made on FiveThirtyEight. Sometimes, I used the phrasing “we” when participating in these discussions, which I would not ordinarily use on the blog. I’ve disclosed from the first day of FiveThirtyEight’s existence that I’m usually a Democratic voter, and Journolist’s membership consisted of mostly Democrats, so this seemed fairly natural.

The anonymous BBC journalist’s description of a “polling analyst” from a “political website” doesn’t really do justice, does it? One of the new intake, perhaps, or just an old BBC hand? Same difference either way, I guess.

Hat tips to commenters David Preiser and Craig, the latter adding this:

That article’s use of polling evidence leaves a lot to be desired too:  
 
“While polling suggests a majority of Americans oppose plans to build the mosque, a Fox News poll released on Friday suggested 61% supported the developer’s right to build the mosque.”  
 
That poll comes in two parts, and the second part (the one the BBC quotes) needs to be seen in context:  
 
36. A group of Muslims plans to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center a few blocks from the site of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Do you think it is appropriate to build a mosque and Islamic center near ground zero, or do you think it would be wrong to do so?  
      30% Appropriate  
      64% Wrong  
 
37. Regardless of whether you think it is appropriate to build a mosque near ground zero, do you think the Muslim group has the right to build a mosque there, or don’t they have that right?  
      61% Yes, they have the right  
      34% No, they don’t have the right  
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/081310_MosquePoll.pdf

All in all, quite a tendentious piece of Obama back-covering. Still, what’s new?

Update 20.00. I think we have our answer as to which BBC journalist is trying hard to spin this story in Obama’s favour – former Newsweek political correspondent (and Twitter follower of Nate Silver) Katie Connolly.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

"Blah Blah Climate Change Blah Blah"

By | | ,
4 Comments

As has been pointed out in the open thread this morning’s edition of Today went pretty big on a Cambridge academic planning to study the language and culture of the Inughuit. By using the magic words “climate change” and “global warming”, not only has Dr Stephen Leonard secured funding for a year-long gig in Greenland, he also earned himself a couple of slots on Radio 4’s flagship news programme talking to both James Naughtie and science correspondent Victoria Gill (@1hr 07.25). Gill’s segment reminded me of something:

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

New Blood

By | | , ,
17 Comments

Kiera Feldman, the BBC’s new recruit from left-wing activist radio, isn’t the only recent addition to the Corporation’s staff in America.

Matt Danzico began his job as a US BBC interactive journalist in April. His current job description:

Write, shoot, edit, and produce text and multimedia stories for the BBC News website. Conduct research and interviews with individuals on topics ranging from media and culture to science and technology.

Here are some of Danzico’s tweets (click image to enlarge):


Another April starter was Daniel Nasaw, online journalist for the BBC’s Washington bureau. Prior to taking up his new role Nasaw spent a couple of years reporting about America for The Guardian, whose worldview he still touts:


Here he is writing about a Newsweek cover which showed Sarah Palin in cycling shorts last November:

Let’s focus our attention not on her legs but on her far-right political ideology, her baseless attacks on Obama, her attacks on women’s reproductive rights and her effort to purge moderates from the Republican party.

Hmm, no agenda there then.

My message to the news media: We are under enough fire as it is. Don’t let’s make our job even harder by giving Palin and her millions of supporters a legitimate grievance.

Let’s see where that measures: Yes, quite.

Partisan reporting from the US? We ain’t seen nothing yet, apparently.

Update 19.45. In the comments Craig points out that another of the BBC’s April intake (so much for reining in spending) was former Newsweek political correspondent Katie Connolly (Twitter account here). Things may be bleak for journalists in America but at least left-wing hacks know that there’s always the chance of a job at the BBC where they can pursue their agendas protected from the horrors of the free market.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Matey Feldman

By | |
9 Comments

In a previous post Sue highlighted Robert Spencer’s dealings with Kiera Feldman, the seemingly friendly “freelance” journalist who failed initially to mention that her enquiries regarding opposition to the Ground Zero mosque were in fact on behalf of the BBC.

Spencer is right to be suspicious of Feldman’s intentions. She has also reported for Beyond The Pale, a programme which airs on the left-leaning Pacifica Radio Network:

BEYOND THE PALE is the only Jewish program on radio or television devoted to bringing a left perspective to political and cultural debates. As we all emerge so happily from underneath the soul-crushing weight of these last vicious eight years, it’s important to remember how critical our voices are under a more liberal administration- an administration we can push on from the left and hold to the high ideals it claims. What a relief that these ideals are not fundamentalist, war-mongering, free-market mania.

Unsurprisingly, the programme’s website declares support for the building of the Ground Zero mosque.

In one of her Beyond the Pale broadcasts Feldman visited a Manhattan nightclub where a pro-Israeli group called Fuel For Truth was holding a terrorist awareness event. The piece drips with contempt both for the organisers and Israel:

Fuel For Truth has been hosting events like Arm Yourself for the last seven years. Yet, surveying the cultural front, the group doesn’t seem to have been successful in bringing its brand of hip militarism to the Jewish mainstream. Still, as Israeli missiles fall on Gaza and calls continue for an attack on Iran, the overall Jewish political atmosphere looks more like a Fuel For Truth rally than ever.

Feldman has also contributed to Mondoweiss, a pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist Jewish website. For Feldman Israel means “settlement construction, human rights abuses, or war crimes”, born from “the original sin of Palestinian displacement” and sustained by “Israeli apartheid”.

Some of those involved in organising opposition to the Ground Zero mosque are also outspoken supporters of Israel. In her approaches to Robert Spencer, Kiera Feldman let it be known that her original intention was to concentrate on one of those opponents, Pamela Geller, but her BBC editor told her to widen the scope of her reporting. No news organisation with serious claims to impartiality would give this (or any other) assignment to someone with Feldman’s prejudices and political beliefs. Then again, this is the BBC we’re talking about.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

"Lib Lab please"

By | |
40 Comments

Hello all, good to be back (not that any of you noticed I was gone, you feckers).

Do you recall that time of political limbo following the general election when the make-up of the next government was still undecided? We all had opinions…

I mention this only because “maxiec” happens to be a producer on Radio 5 Live’s Breakfast show.

God forbid should anybody suggest that the BBC isn’t impartial.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Stones Thrown In R5L Glass House

By | |
21 Comments

I see Richard Bacon is trying to whip up some anger among his Twitter followers over the fact that most of the new cabinet are privately educated white men. That would be the same Richard Bacon – white male – who went to Worksop College (current fees £5,015 – £7,400 per term). His boss at Radio Five Live – Adrian Van Klaveren, white male – was also educated at an independent school (Bristol Grammar), as were the following white male Five Live presenters – Nicky Campbell (Edinburgh Academy), Peter Allen (Brentwood), Stephen Nolan (Royal Belfast Academical Institution), Chris Addison (Manchester Grammar), Andy Zaltzman (Tonbridge), John Inverdale (Clifton College), Simon Mayo (Solihull), and Mark Kermode (Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School). There’s probably more, but you get the idea.

And the BBC’s online article “Why has Eton produced so many prime ministers?” quotes Old Etonian Nick Fraser, author of the book “The Importance of Being Eton”. Strangely, there’s no mention of Mr Fraser’s day job – editor of the BBC’s Storyville documentary series.

Update. Just remembered another one – Radio Five Live’s racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght went to Eton.

Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.