Author Archives: Kerry B

The BBC should know better than to serve up dodgy opinion as news. These three pieces feature the ‘Florida voting disaster’ of the 2000 presidential elections. I wonder if the BBC, singing the tune of MSM, now looks to discredit the US electoral process altogether. The articles fail to note a few key facts:

The machinery of an anxious democracy

Florida: Getting out the vote

Carter fears Florida vote trouble

Compare them to this fact-based, allegation-free column by conservative political analyst John Fund and this one by John Lott and Brian Blase

Fact 1: ‘Voter intimidation’ allegedly occurred in a number of Florida counties, but nothing was conclusively proven. One would think that if there was evidence for voter intimidation or fraud, those adversely affected would have clearly proven their case by now. Why does the BBC fail to report this? [UPDATE: As john b notes in Comments, the 2nd BBC article notes (toward the end of the article) the statement of a Florida state election official that “not a single person had filed suit to say he or she had been wrongfully disenfranchised in 2000.” 28-09-04]

Fact 2: The Michael Moore mantra that “Bush stole the election” has no factual basis. Give us facts, not allegations. Several surveys by major media outlets determined that Al Gore lost fair and square. Why does the BBC fail to report this?

Fact 3: In Palm Beach County where so many elderly and minority voters were allegedly confused by a poorly designed “butterfly ballot” the election supervisor was/is a Democrat (as in 24 of 25 Florida counties [where the highest percentage of ballot spoilage occurred–Updated 28-09-04]. Why does the BBC fail to report this?

Fact 4: Democratic presidential candidate, Al Gore, had a bevy of lawyers primed to hit every county in Florida by the time polls closed to contest the legality of the high percentage of U.S. Military personnel who use Florida as their home address. There was a concerted effort on the part of the Gore team to disallow all military absentee ballots. Why does the BBC fail to report this?

Fact 5: Jimmy Carter, the former US President, may (or may not) be perceived as a fair arbiter of elections internationally but in the USA he is one of the most partisan figures in national politics. Read his speech from the DNC here. He has continually gone out of his way to snub and embarrass George Bush. Former presidents are normally very hesitant to demean a sitting president, but not Carter.

The BBC fails to balance Carter’s position with a view from the center if not the center-right.

UPDATE 28-09-04: For more on Carter and Florida 2000 see this Wall Street Journal editorial. While you’re thinking of Jimmuh, read Jane Galt’s (aka Megan McArdle)perspective on his glaring inconsistencies (via Instapundit).

Fact 6: No mention or allegation is made of the negative impact early TV projections seem to have made in suppressing voter turnout in the pro-Bush Florida panhandle. Conservative analyst John Fund estimates that Bush lost up to 30,000 votes given the rate of turnout earlier that day.

The BBC fails to report this too.

As with hurricanes in Florida, elections seem to bring out the “allegators” at the BBC. By now we’ve learned to live with them. Welcome to ‘Gatorland’!

So says The Blogfessor in The Australian. Glenn Reynolds calls attention to the power of “open-source journalism”. Here are the final graphs:

If there’s an analogy to this phenomenon, it’s probably the open-source software movement, which tends to produce far more reliable products via the same process of distributed criticism and relative freedom from groupthink. But I’m afraid that the internet’s threat to cocooned old-media organisations is far greater than the threat that Microsoft poses to Linux.

That’s because writing software is hard. Journalism — particularly journalism practised as it’s practised at CBS (or as the similarly humiliating Andrew Gilligan affair demonstrates, at the BBC) is easy. Those who have lived within the comfortable big-media cocoon have done so not because they possess unusual talents, but because they have had access to the tools for disseminating news and opinion, tools that were until recently so expensive that only a favoured few could use them. They had the megaphone; the rest of us did not.

Those days are over. Nowadays everyone has a megaphone and those with something interesting to say often discover that their megaphone can become very large, very fast. Meanwhile, those in the legacy media are discovering that their megaphones are shrinking as the result of journalistic self-abuse. With the tools now available to everyone, the biggest asset is credibility, something they have already squandered in the belief that no one would know the difference.

Nor is this phenomenon likely to be limited to the US. The Gilligan affair, and the attitudes and behaviours it exposed, has seriously wounded the credibility of the BBC, and there seems no reason to think that other broadcasters across the world, whether state-affiliated or merely oligopolistic, are likely to do any better. As always happens when the comfortable are afflicted by competition, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth at this phenomenon. But given the performance of these dinosaurs over recent decades, there seems little reason to mourn the change.

Open-source journalism trumps big media dinosaurs. Now who could’ve imagined that a few years back?

is unfolding at another media outlet (as this blog has noted here and here), the once respected CBS News. Andrew Sullivan explains how the curtain of ‘big media’ has been yanked by the many Totos of the blogosphere.

I have a feeling that the biggest news of last week had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the media. We are in the middle of an insurgency against the occupation of the airwaves by that amorphous group called–in blogspeak–MSM, or mainstream media. And the latest direct hit has exploded in the illustrious offices of Dan Rather and CBS News.

Sullivan notes the kneejerk defensiveness of a media not used to having its facts under scrutiny, especially by rank amateurs!

What’s riveting has been the reaction of CBS. Like Howell Raines and the directors of the BBC before him, Dan Rather seems to believe that journalism is some kind of caste profession, a calling that no amateur blogger can aspire to….

Blogging’s comparative advantage has nothing to do with the alleged superior skills of bloggers or their higher intelligence, quicker wit, or more fabulous physiques. The blogosphere is a media improvement because the sheer number of blogs, and the speed of response, make errors hard to sustain for very long. The collective mind is also a corrective mind. Transparency is all. And the essence of journalistic trust is not simply the ability to get things right and to present views or ideas or facts clearly and entertainingly. It is also the capacity to admit error, suck it up, and correct what you’ve gotten wrong. Take it from me. I’ve both corrected and been corrected. When you screw up, it hurts. But in the long run, it’s a good hurt, because it takes you down a peg or two and reminds you what you’re supposed to be doing in the first place. Any journalist who starts mistaking himself for an oracle needs to be reminded who he is from time to time.

CBS News has failed on all these counts. It did shoddy reporting and then self-interestedly dug in against an avalanche of evidence against it. Rather can blather all he wants about the political motivation of some in the blogosphere–but what matters is not bias but accuracy. His attitude, moreover, has bordered on the contemptuous; and the blogosphere has chewed him up and spat him out. He has acted as if journalism is a privilege rather than a process; as if his long career makes his critics illegitimate; as if his good motives can make up for bad material. The original mistake was not a firable offense. But the digging in surely is. It seems to me that when a news anchor presents false information and then tries to cover up and deny his errors, he has ceased to be a journalist. I’d like to say that Dan Rather needs to resign from his profession. But, judging from the last few days, he already has.

It seems like we’ve been here before.

This is what the BBC says Cheney said about Kerry the other day.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said a vote for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry could make a terror attack on the US more likely.

Julian Sanchez, though not fond of Cheney, corrects the record for the sloppy (or deliberately misleading) Beeb. First, the full quote by Cheney:

Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we’ll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we’re not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.

Sanchez’ observation:

Most of the reports either omit the rest of the quotation entirely, or append it elsewhere, as though they weren’t part of one long, multi-clause sentence. As I read this, he’s not saying the danger is that if we elect Kerry, then the danger is that we’ll be attacked. He’s saying that if we elect Kerry and we’re attacked, then the danger is that we’ll treat it as a criminal act rather than an act of war. And in context, it’s actually pretty transparent that this is what Cheney intended. So transparent once you look at the full transcript, in fact, that I wonder whether some of the misreading isn’t deliberate, either as a partisan tactic or an attempt to generate a news story.

Not too flattering for the Beeb either way.

Note: I failed to note that I first saw the Sanchez article at Instapundit. My apologies to the Blogfessor for this oversight!

UPDATE: Commenter David Field disagrees with my take on this, and I take his point. Deacon over at Power Line does too, differing with his fellow blogger, The Big Trunk, on this one. The blogger who first noticed this, Patterico, is sticking to his guns …that the AP (which the BBC often apes) got it wrong. Hugh Hewitt takes it the way the AP/BBC did. I am more inclined to agree with David Field on this.

UPDATE 2: Cheney ‘splains himself here. As ‘W’ would say, you gotta take him for his word.

but not much. A BBC Online visitor unfamiliar with B-BBC and the blogoshere could (with the exception of precious few big media outlets) be forgiven for thinking this controversy is breaking news. The NY Times (registration required) has just done a hit piece on the Swift Boat Vets. (Will the Beeb follow?) The BBC has been forced, at least, to acknowledge that Swift Boat Vets who fought alongside Kerry, but don’t support his presidential bid and accuse him of falsehood, do exist. The story, at least online, is played as a typical election-year controversy between Democrats and Republicans. Still no attempt to investigate the facts of the book behind the ad and the 264 Swift Boat Veterans who have publicly signed on to its basis in fact. (Kerry is backed by 13 Swift Boat Vets.)

Note to the BBC: You are obligated (both morally and under the terms of your charter) to investigate and report this story just like you did with the ‘Bush was AWOL’ hype you were so quick to recycle from that paragon of investigative journalism, Michael Moore. Hugh Hewitt has done you the service of compiling a list of questions for John Kerry (and if not him, his campaign). And, by the way, though we’re all probably tired of hearing about Vietnam, Kerry’s insistance on making it the centrepiece of his campaign has given you no credible option but to check this out. This assumes, of course, that you really are the serious news organisation you claim to be. Or is your credibility beyond repair?

UPDATE: My, oh my, it’s bright out here. The Beeb has finally acknowledged a story that would not go away. Maybe pro-Kerry stories are preferred but Kerry’s determination to make his 4 months in Vietnam his campaign theme leaves the BBC little option. Besides, the Swift Boat vets’ book is now # 1 on Amazon and a second ad attacking Kerry’s anti-war efforts has just come out. Kind of hard to ignore.

this picture on the BBC site (or on The World’s Rudest Home Videos). But I wonder if this is what the Beeb meant by ‘standing ovation’ for John Kerry? Here’s the accompanying caption:

War veterans Jere Hill, middle, from Warham, Mass., and Robert Gibson, right, from Lexington, Ky., stand with their backs turned during Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news – web sites)’s speech at the 105th Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004. Man in foreground is unidentified. Kerry received a polite if not overwhelmingly positive reaction from the VFW. But there was a clear divide, with scores of veterans sittings with their arms folded while others clapped. (AP Photo/David Kohl)

Hat Tip: The Kerry Spot and B-BBC commenter PJF.

UPDATE: Interestingly, I just came across this as well. It doesn’t quite fit the BBC version of the event.

CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

Sen. John Kerry is said by several advance staffers to have been visibly upset at the reception he received at the VFW convention on Wednesday in Cincinnati. “He was upset after the speech, visibly upset when he was out of public view,” says a Kerry adviser, confirming the story.Kerry was greeted by polite applause in the large auditorium, with many VFW members sitting with their arms crossed and not applauding at all. A few VFW members stood in the rear of the room with their backs turned to the dais.

Kerry appeared thrown by the reception, giving a flat, sometimes-meandering speech that was intended to be a strong rebuttal of President Bush’s announced troop pullback in Europe and Korea. Two things apparently changed Kerry’s aggressive stance. First, before going onstage, Kerry was informed that NATO officials in Brussels had essentially backed the Bush proposal as being sound and in line with NATO’s own troop deployment plans. Second, according to an advance staffer, the candidate had been told that he would be received at the very least warmly, based on feedback the campaign had received from VFW officials.

“He’s not used to not getting a warm reception,” says the advance staffer. “He can handle the Bush hooligans we get, but when he’s told he’ll be greeted well, he expects that to be the case.” Apparently Terry Kerry’s money can’t buy the candidate that kind of love.

…if not the story. As Natalie, Ed, Andrew and B-BBC commenters have noticed, bias by omission is an ingrained habit in Beebdom. For example, in this story on Bush and McCain, the BBC manages omit a developing story whilst misrepresenting the Republican party.

He [John McCain] called a Republican campaign ad criticising Mr Kerry’s military service “dishonest and dishonourable” and urged the White House to condemn it.

To begin with, the ad in question was neither produced nor funded by the Republican party but by a group of Vietnam War Swift Boat Veterans who have just published a book rebutting key aspects of John Kerry’s version of his Vietnam experience. Though McCain seems to have rejected their version of events out of hand, a careful examination of the Swift Boat Vets’ account (registration required) seems far from a simple bashing of Kerry. The BBC remains studiously uncurious about this story. Recall that there was plenty of coverage of George Bush’s military records, even to the recent mention of the Bush National Guard records mysteriously being ‘found’, as the BBC put it. No, if the story diverges too far from the script, the Beeb simply omits the unpleasant facts and bears down on earthshaking issues involving Donald Duck or Koko.

Hat Tips: Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, and Power Line.

…if you’re the Beeb.

Reactions to 9/11 report

Of the nine statements on the 9-11 Report, one is by George Bush. All but one of the others is in some way critical of the Bush administration or a well-known Bush critic. With the exception of George W Bush and Senator Pat Roberts, every elected official quoted in this piece is rabidly anti-Bush. How is this in any way fair since the failed oversight of the US Congress –more than the Clinton or Bush administrations– receives scathing criticism.

The unanimous final report of the Sept. 11 commission will sharply criticize Congress for failing in its role as overall watchdog over the nation’s intelligence agencies and will call for wholesale changes in the way lawmakers oversee intelligence agencies and the Homeland Security Department, lawmakers and others briefed on the panel’s findings said Wednesday. (New York Times)

What’s the meaning of ‘fair’ anyway?

UPDATE:

Laban Tall got a shock as he caught the Beeb’s “PM” programme being fair.

This article is either laughable in its gullibility (at taking Berger for a truthteller) or despicable (for enabling him to lie). How did former National Security Advisor (for President Clinton), Samuel Berger, “inadvertently” remove said documents from the US Senate 9-11 archives? Whether they managed to find their way into his socks, it must have been, no doubt, an accident. Here is blogger Hugh Hewitt‘s take on this:

This isn’t just the possibly criminal action of one man, it is the conduct of the senior White House foreign policy official from the Clinton era, and the action of a confidant and advisor to John Kerry. Had Rice been the one caught tampering with the records of the Bush Administration relating to terrorism, Rice would already have been forced by a baying press to resign, and Bush would be threatened with a Watergate-style meltdown. But it is a pro-Kerry media, so watch for Berger’s attempted cover-up to get its own cover-up.

To the credit of the BBC, they do end the article with this note:

Mr Berger served as President Clinton’s national security adviser from 1997 to 2001 and is currently advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Maybe a scandal surrounding a former Clinton Administration official is not that newsworthy, except that, like Joe Wilson, Berger is a John Kerry advisor.

UPDATE: He has resigned from the Kerry Campaign.

when dealing with the Great Satan. Here’s how the teaser reads:

Manila’s Catch 22

The Philippine choice between saving a life and angering the US

The question of how this will encourage further terror is lost on the Beeb.

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo was faced with an awkward choice – to save the life of a Filipino held hostage in Iraq or support the United States by keeping Philippine soldiers there. It was a tough decision for Mrs Arroyo, just weeks after she won a new term in office. By withdrawing all 51 peacekeepers, she scored political points at home. Now she must wait to see the extent of the fallout with Washington.

…as if pleasing the US is all that matters. Toward the end of the article, the implications of this cave-in are mentioned. Why not do so from the start? Because ‘big, bad bully America’ is the favorite tune at the Beeb.

USS Neverdock has given this one a thorough look. (Thanks to B-BBC commenter, Dave.)