Author Archives: Ed Thomas

. I was interested when I noticed (thanks to a commenter) that the BBC and Human Rights Watch are reunited once again, because the BBC, HRW and we at BBBC go back a bit. Anyway, in their latest well-timed offering (HUTTON’s nearly upon us) they ask ‘why George Bush and Tony Blair did not try remove Saddam Hussein much earlier’, part of a finger wagging theme that the war must not be retrospectively justified on humanitarian grounds. This struck me as a bit disingenuous really, not to say stupid (unless they got confused and meant Bush senior?), because although W. scarcely had time before Sept 11th 2001 struck, Clinton along with the CIA wanted to in the 90’s, and he aspired to intervene militarily to remove Saddam.

Basically this kind of non-story is given high profile because HRW and the BBC habitually get into bed together, and of course the sceptical slant against the war is now essential to the BBC’s coverage of anything. Oh, and did I mention HUTTON? It does, however, show HRW ready and willing to pour cold water on the emergence of the very values they espouse. I quote:

‘the scope of the Iraq Government’s killing in March 2003, was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention.’

Update. Jeff Jarvis has more: ‘This is a tainted, political move by Human Rights Watch… the organisation would rather fight Bush than defend the human rights of the Iraqi people’. Kinda like the BBC, really.

that the BBC saw fit to go direct to the public with their account of the David Kelly affair and the Hutton enquiry in a 90 minute docu-drama on BBC1 last week. Hutton watchers and commentators, perhaps initially taken aback by the audacity, are coming up to speed on the issue. Anthony Cox at Black Triangle has been focusing on some interesting points, and put me onto an excellent article by Dennis Boyles in NRO that goes some way to exploring the political manoeuvring that surrounds the Hutton Enquiry. In spite of the simple moral that Boyles extracts from this very British mess for any impatient US readers, it’s complicated, if fascinating- and totally worthwhile.

Almost as good though much shorter is this piece by the mercurial Gerald Kaufman in the Times, flagged up by Anthony as a critique of that docu-drama- a programme that I for one hope will become infamous as a blatant attempt to flex media muscle in the face of democratic and judicial legitimacy. Incidentally, flexing media muscle seems to me to have been the driving force behind the BBC’s news coverage for a long time now, and the coverage of the war in Iraq, as well as the Kelly affair, might well become the case study of that phenomenon for future historians. If they can get away with events like Wednesday night, I certainly wouldn’t say that the BBC is losing in its arm wrestles with Government. There’s one cheeky parallel here I’d like to finish by making, between dictators and the BBC: democratic politicians come and go, but the BBC and dictators go on forever. Now I can’t think why I should have been drawn to think along those lines.

A Daily Telegraph reader writes:

Re: Humble pie hard to swallow

Date: 24 January 2004
Sir – The BBC deserved to see its audience share fall away during the Panorama special, which amounted to a no-holds-barred internal examination of the role of the corporation (and others) in the matter that is the subject of the Hutton inquiry.

It was both disingenuous and discourteous to broadcast this piece, no matter how much humble pie and some would say well-timed self-criticism it included, only a week before Lord Hutton is due to report.

If a multi-million-pound independent inquiry has taken place, surely the BBC needs to be neither defiant nor apologetic in advance of Lord Hutton’s findings and must have strayed perilously close to impinging on his unfettered jurisdiction.

Had the Government proposed a prime ministerial broadcast of even a few minutes in the same vein in advance of the Hutton report, there would have been widespread outrage, and rightly so.

The BBC has further undermined its reputation by once again perceiving itself in some way to be above or outside the conventions that attach to the inquiry.

Ultimately, the corporation will have only itself to blame should it find its supposed impartiality further questioned – as well as the issue of whether it should continue to have unique financial and editorial status in its present form – after this ill-timed, ill-advised and heavy-handed pre-emptive strike.

From:

Simon Coulter, Fuengirola, Spain

, writing illuminatingly at Tech CentralStation, high-mindedness, prejudice and inaccuracy go hand in hand at the BBC.

Democrats Slam ‘go it alone’ Bush.

Umm, for a start, why did the BBC website give this top headline billing, many hours after Bush’s speech? At the same time yesterday evening on CNN, the headline was ‘Bush: ‘Stay The Course’ ‘- which may be hinting that Bush is a beleaguered President, but is not influencing the political momentum much either way. Meanwhile, the Democratic response was given a subheading at CNN, ABC, and CBS, and on alternative British sites the Bush speech itself was a subheadline. My understanding is that the State of the Union Address is the President of the United States’ big moment, when he gets the opportunity to be heard and to make his assessment of the, uh, state of things in the Union. Yes, the opposing side get an official chance to respond, but that’s secondary, not of equal billing. Just what did the Democrats do that was so exceptional as to overturn this? It was Glenn Reynolds who said ‘Bush looks better now that the Democratic reply is on’, but obviously the Beeb didn’t agree.

The second thing is that, although it may seem unfair to reasonably well informed people for the Democrats to attack ‘go it alone Bush’, on reading the BBC site we don’t find that bit of the Address where he himself listed many of the thirty-five countries that have sent troops to Iraq. This is suspicious, partly because the multilateral thrust of Bush’s comments have been described by conservatives as the strongest part of it, and the Democrats are thus naturally trying to take away whatever gloss they can. This ‘money’ quote in particular is noticeable by its absence:

‘There is a difference… between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few.’

The BBC, by not reporting that emphasis and instead headlining the Democrat attack on ‘isolation’, give the Democrats a chance to score points unopposed- kind of a reverse of State of Union logic- in spite of the actual record of Bush’s speech. A related issue is that the ‘Key Point’ page the BBC devotes to Bush’s speech is clearly a ‘Most Boring Key Points’ page, with colour and specificity drained out. Since the BBC has a history of describing Bush as isolated over Iraq, and has frequently ‘forgotten’ the range of countries assisting the US militarily, at this point the Democrat’s strategy and the BBC’s editorial slant coincide to negate the impression that George Bush’s policy on the War on Terror is reasonable or sustainable. Biased old BBC. For any US readers or Bush sympathisers who would like a British antidote to this particular anti-Bush slant, Alice Bachini is a pick-me-up from point 1 on.

We’re doomed anyway. Pass me that burger.

: Those pesky unilateralists.

. The BBC’s relativistic ‘impartiality’ explores the new depths available when you accomodate the Al Jazeera perspective, with this report of the Taleban’s drugs policy. We all know what sensitive and sensible civil administrators the Taleban were, so thank goodness the BBC have The Noble British Academic to rely on for this insightful appraisal. It does seem a bit coy, however, not to explain what having your face ‘blackened’ involved, and what ‘eradication’ implied; what it might be like to be ‘paraded through the streets’ or what an Afghan prison was like under the Taleban. Apparently we must just swallow our ‘neo-con’ pride and learn from their success. Draconian measures (intimidation and terror, for instance) when implemented vigorously, increase the authority of the authorities- wow, I am surprised to hear that. The fact that they worked at ‘local levels’ suggests that what was going on was little better than vigilante behaviour- ok for the Afghans, it is implied, but not for us.

, the BuzzMachine’s been a fine place for scrutinising and debating the BBC. Thanks, Jeff.

for Beebwatcher of the week, then Scott Burgess would have won it on the basis of recent postings. He put together a pretty much purple patch of posts, giving the Beeb (and us) the special honour of sharing in his Daily Ablutions. So go and wash your ears out with this excellent addition to the Blogosphere, if you haven’t already followed Glenn Reynold’s recent tip that is. There’s plenty about the Kilroy-Silk affair, and a few nice lines on Andrew ‘ninety percent right’ Gilligan. This is my favourite post, where you will find out how the BBC [Licensers] are making unusual use of condoms, among other things. I look forward to other intimate ablutionary revelations about the Beeb from Scott in the future.