Author Archives: Hugh

Setting the record straight

The BBC Editor’s blog is flagging up a Radio 4 Feedback piece on its blogs that helps clarify their status. It’s only five minutes long, but the key segment has this from presenter Louise Adamson:

Some would say the whole point of a blog is that it should be controversial, outspoken, off the cuff and frequently partisan. So how does that fit with the principles of BBC journalism?

“Badly” is the correct answer, as is daily apparent, but she has the features editor of the BBC’s news website Giles Wilson on instead:

It is quite a challenge so the thing we explain to our bloggers, and thankfully they’ve all got it, is that they shouldn’t misunderstand the apparent informal atmosphere of a blog to let their commitment to impartiality drop. They’ve got to be conversational but they’ve still got to speak in a BBC voice and follow the BBC guidelines on impartiality. Later on he remarks: We don’t think of blog content as being any different to any other news content.

I hope that clears things up.

Good for a laugh

James Forsyth has a short post at the Spectator’s Coffee House on the Beeb’s odd decision to keep its business editor Robert Peston off Have I Got News For You. The killer paragraph, though, relates to Peston’s reports last week on Osborne:

What makes this decision all the more absurd is that the BBC is happy for Peston to report on George Osborne and the Deripaska affair without mentioning that Osborne’s office is supporting a Serious Fraud Office investigation into who Peston’s sources have been on various recent stories. The BBC should be able to work out which of these is a genuine editorial issue.

I’m probably not alone in wondering, though, whether this wasn’t precisely why Peston was kept off. I certainly think Hislop would have had some fun with it…

Weekend reading

A slightly different take on the recession from Mark Easton:

It must be the perverse part of my nature, but when asked to go somewhere that illustrated the looming recession, I chose the place analysts had identified as the most immune to the downturn, he begins.

I’d agree: it must be the perverse part of his nature – the same part he votes with. So, instead of a piece that looks at the pain the recession is already causing, we get a run down of Labour’s fantastic achievements over the last ten years.

New Labour’s anthem from the mid-90s promised “Things Can Only Get Better”. And Corby has been living that dream. It still is – riding the wave of consumerism that has transformed Britain, he gushes. He also manages to find someone who shares his enthusiasm for recessions.

“[T]his might help to save us,” reckons Frank Black. More alert readers will know that this must be nonsense, though. Because if the piece tells us anything it’s surely that only Gordon can save us.

Free speech, BBC style

For those who consider the BBC arrogant and aloof, Justin Webb has deigned to take on the critics:

To Duhbuh and others who complain about coverage of Sarah Palin, I would say the party must take responsibility for not having the confidence to let her be herself. The interviews have been awful: that’s not media bias, it’s incompetence, hers to an extent but the party’s for letting it happen.

But what did Duhbuh actually say? Unfortunately, right now I can’t tell you. I can tell you, though, that the comment below rightly takes him to task for providing yet another link to the Huffington Post.

Another boring story

It’s not a good day for Peter Mandelson. Well, at least it isn’t if you read the paper – any paper. Mandy admits tycoon meetings, says the Sun; Mandelson back under the miscroscope, says the Guardian; while the Mail is a little more wordy with Mandelson admits he has known Russian oligarch years longer than he previously acknowledged; the Telegraph, though, is worst of all: Mandelson admits public were misled, it says. It’s no better elsewhere: Pressure rises on Mandelson, says the Press Association; and ITV goes with something similar: Pressure mounts on Mandelson. So, what of the BBC? Well, there doesn’t seem to be quite the same level of enthusiasm. Instead it opts for the fairly innocuous Mandelson met with tycoon in 2004. Even that, though is an improvement on its earlier draft which had Mandelson clarifies tycoon meetings.

Understandably, the BBC’s Nick Robinson has so far resisted the urge to blog on such a dull-sounding story. Nor has Robert Peston, despite there being an obvious business angle this time. Well, it is the weekend, after all.

Just because he always does it…

doesn’t mean it’s not worth pointing out how far Justin Webb’s blog goes in ignoring the BBC’s obligations on impartiality. If the rules really do permit the Beeb’s North American Editor to suggest that Palin would be the number one choice (after McCain) to lead America for those that hate the country, what’s the point of them?

After the Beeb’s efforts to keep the Osborne story going for as long as possible, it seems fitting that the accusations of bias against it don’t seem to dying off quickly, despite the protests by both Steve Mawhinney and Nick Robinson.

The integrity of the BBC is coming under question for the way it has treated the case of the Russian billionaire and his British contacts. Hundreds of viewers are complaining of unbalanced reporting — and with good reason, begins The Sun’s leader on it today, while the Mail records that Robert Peston has been inundated with complaints over his ‘biased’ coverage of Mr Osborne’s dealings with Mr Deripaska. More than 100 viewers have accused him of ‘twisting’ facts and questioned why the corporation’s business editor should be reporting on the story.

Even the Telegraph’s chief leader writer has been prompted to comment on his blog (The BBC defends its hounding of George Osborne). He’s not convinced by Mawhinney’s explanation either:

[T]he idea of the Shadow Chancellor committing a crime is really big potatoes and would warrant the lashings of coverage devoted to it by the BBC. Just one problem. Soliciting a donation is not a crime, or a wrong-doing if it comes to that… A call to the Electoral Commission would have ascertained that. Why didn’t the BBC make that call? Perhaps they did – and that’s even more worrying.

All that, and it’s Friday, with the weekend ahead! Have a good one.

The Beeb’s editor of political news, Steve Mawhinney, has posted on the Editor’s Blog to defend the coverage of Osborne. There has, as he puts it, been a particular accusation from some complainants [read “almost all”] that we did too much on the allegations against George Osborne and not enough on those against Lord Mandelson.

You won’t be surprised by what follows, which sticks closely to the Editors Blog template: “There have been some suggestions that the BBC [insert criticism or straw man here]. I disagree because [insert excuse here (optional)].”

What is remarkable, though, is how weak this excuse is, resting as it does on two entirely false propositions: First, that there was a specific allegation of wrongdoing – indeed possible law-breaking against Osborne. That’s not true. It was pretty clear from the get go that whatever his other failings, Osborne had not broken the law.

Also, as Casisus notes, he seems to invent an entirely new allegation – that Osborne talked about ways to secretly channel that donation to the party. At their worst the allegations never suggested this. It seems extraordinary that the Beeb’s political editor defends the corporation against accusations of over-egging the Osborne story by going further than any in doing the same thing himself. Needless to say, from the comments it doesn’t look like he’s winning many people over.