Author Archives: Kerry B

Hugh Hewitt, LA-based blogger, professor of law and former NPR broadcaster, has just ‘endured’ two weeks of the Beeb.

I am just returned from two weeks in Europe, which meant having to watch CNN International, with its wall-to-wall anti-Bush anchoring, reading the International Herald Tribune –a New York Times lite– and of course enduring the BBC. I don’t know if the world hates us, but American and British media reporting to the English-speaking world living in Europe certainly do. The coverage is most distorted on the issue of the war, where anchors routinely set up questions that presume the failure of the war in Iraq and the collapse of support for the war in the United States. No bit of good news is allowed to stand unchallenged, even when its significance cannot be overstated. Like the arrival of a multi-ethnic, multi-regional representative government on its way to direct elections.

Case in point: This BBC interview with Sir Jeremy Greenstock. The Today Programme interviewer frames questions in the most negative way to reinforce the view that the new interim Iraqi government is failed from the start.

Frank Gardner, so-called ‘BBC security correspondent’ provides an ‘analysis‘

asking

Is US winning its war on terror? [emphasis added]

Much has happened in the past 12 months. Some of al-Qaeda’s leading lights have been caught and interrogated. Saddam Hussein is no longer in power in Baghdad. Numerous plots and attacks have been thwarted. And yet, depressingly, the so-called war on terror is still with us. [emphasis added]

If we were to look at this purely in terms of military gains the answer would be obvious. The US has swiftly toppled two governments it considered to be rogue regimes – first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. The Pentagon’s supremacy on the battlefield is unrivalled and unstoppable. Its troops are holding down a sort of peace in both countries.

But waging a war on terror is a complex business. In fact many in Britain are convinced that the regime of Saddam Hussein, brutal as it was, had little to do with terrorism per se. ….

I would suggest that those who are of Gardner’s view read former Clinton advisor and anti-terror expert Laurie Mylroie’s article as well as new documentary evidence showing a definite link between Iraq and al Qaeda. Why is the Beeb so determinedly disinterested in that sarin which has been confirmed?

Gardner continues with his ‘analysis’–

Since it was President Bush who declared the war on terror two years ago, let us look at the gains and losses from the perspective of his administration.

He goes on to conclude that evident military gains have been clouded by PR losses.

Mr Gardner has an historical affinity for this ‘so-called’ term (from 21 February)

I came here to see for myself how the Pentagon was fighting its so-called “war on terror”. [emphasis added]

Apparently, the BBC does not agree with the proposition that the ‘so-called war on terror’ is a reality. Could they simply acknowledge that whether Bush declared war on the terrorists after 9/11, terrorists had long ago declared war on the West? Or could it be too much of a stretch.

Christopher Hitchens wonders why there is such indifference to stories which disturb the anti-war group-think which the BBC articulates so effortlessly.

So a Sarin-infected device is exploded in Iraq, and across the border in Jordan the authorities say that nerve and gas weapons have been discovered for use against them by the followers of Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad well before the invasion. Where, one idly inquires, did these toys come from? No, it couldn’t be.…

What will it take for the BBC to be convinced that this is a real war?

UPDATE: Could it be that persuading the Beeb that we really are in a war violates their creed? What follows is a portion of The Liberals’ Creed by Robert Alt, now reporting from Iraq.

We believe that there were no WMDs.

We believe that finding sarin gas is 14th page news;

We believe that if the sarin gas is old, then it really isn’t a WMD we were looking for;

We believe that it wasn’t really sarin gas;

We believe that sarin gas isn’t necessarily a WMD.

We believe that there was no terrorist connection to, or threat from, Iraq.

We believe that members of Abu Nidal in Iraq would not have committed terrorist acts if we had not invaded;

We believe that al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would not have committed terrorist acts if we had not invaded;

We believe that Saddam’s terrorist training camp at Salman Pak—complete with a Boeing 707 plane used for hijacking drills—did not exist or posed no real threat;

We believe that it was merely a coincidence that the pharmaceutical factory bombed by President Clinton in Sudan was using al Qaeda funds and a uniquely Iraqi formula to produce VX gas;

We believe that we are responsible for bringing terror on ourselves.

We believe that the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib is widespread and is probably the tip of the iceberg;

We believe that Abu Ghraib proves that the America’s occupation is no different than Saddam’s tyranny;

We believe that any attempt to suggest that there is a moral difference between a regime which systematically killed 300,000 people and tortured countless others and a regime which punished the acts of Abu Ghraib is illegitimate.

Yes, it seems like a BBC statement of faith– rarely articulated but never abandoned. (Hat Tip No Left Turns)

The Belmont Club has some help for the Beeb and other media outlets. It is hard to determine if some reportage is deliberate bias or lack of careful analysis or human laziness.

Although the news media functions as the civilian intelligence system, collecting raw data, processing it and distributing it to the public, for historical reasons it lacks many of the features which professional intelligence systems have evolved over the years: namely a system of grading information by reliability and existence of analytic cell whose function is to follow the developments and update the results.

Except in the case of individual news threads, like Faramarzi’s, whose content has evolved, the reportage as a whole resembles a palimpsest, a word used to describe a sheet of parchment which has been overwritten many times by different symbols until finally the newer cannot be distinguished from the older. We are collectively no nearer to definitively finding out the truth about the “wedding party” than we are to discovering anything definite about the Oil for Food scandal, WMD stockpiles in Iraq, the anthrax letters or what the deal was in Fallujah.

Based on this story with this headline,

Iraqis bury victims of US strike

the BBC has yet to do anything but cut and paste other reports which lead to the inevitable anti-American conclusion.

Via email: BBBC reader, Andrew, fisks BBC coverage of all things Green.

Monday (17MAY04) evening’s BBC Ten O’Clock News covered the launch of the Green Party’s European election campaign. The presenter, Huw Edwards, mentions the Green Party’s ‘alternative’ policies on the environment, transport and energy, and states that “Greens said people would also be drawn by their opposition to the war in Iraq”.

We then cut to a filmed item by Sue Littlemore, Political Correspondent. Starting off with a bus that “runs on recycled chip fat… But they’re not just talking about the environment. Top of the agenda”, according to Littlemore, is Iraq. Cut to Caroline Lucas, Green Party Principal Speaker: “illegal war on Iraq”, “not only wrong, but utterly counter-productive”etc.

Littlemore then continues “The Greens no longer want to be seen as a single issue party. They emphasize they have policies across the board”. She then mentions the Greens have “unveiled a new slogan, ‘Real progress’. So, what does that mean?” she asks. Cut to Jenny Jones of the Green Party: “Real progress would be to have a public transport system where people wouldn’t actually have to use their cars unless they really needed to. Real progress would mean having our economy based around the needs of everybody in the economy and just not the few richest people”. (So that means precisely what, Jenny? asks everyone except the inquisitive Littlemore).

Littlemore then wraps up the piece with “The Green ambition is to return six MEPs. They’ve got two now, but the total number of British MEPs has been cut, so that will make their goal much harder to achieve. The Greens are campaigning on issues like pollution and transport, and having opposed the Iraq war before, during and after they’re clearly determined to target the anti-war vote”(as are the BBC, it seems). (Those plucky old Greens – let’s massage our expectations a little, shall we?)

There are a number of questions that a BBC-taxpayer might legitimately ask about this soft and fluffy coverage of a left of centre political party – those nice, cuddly Greens – but readers of this blog won’t be surprised at the BBC’s softball, easy on the eye coverage of the Greens rather than the sort of probing inquisition that they deserve (along with all others who seek political power).

No, the real question here, in a story about the European elections, a story about the range and breadth of Green Party policies, is why, on a major news bulletin, the BBC reporter omits to mention a significant Green Party Europe policy – their opposition to Britain joining the Euro!

You might respond that this is only a small policy, not really noteworthy. However, other news sources covering the same story, the launch of the Green’s Euro-election campaign, do manage to cover it properly and fully. Take for instance, this BBC News Online story – the third section is headed ‘Anti euro‘, and includes the following “[The Green Party] is campaigning on a platform of opposing the euro, which Dr Lucas says is a ‘fundamentally anti-democratic project’. She says it takes power away from national governments and gives it to the European Central Bank. Dr Lucas is also opposed to the EU constitution, although the issue has yet to be debated by the party as a whole”.

So what’s with the Ten O’Clock News’ lame coverage of the Greens and their European policies? Conspiracy, cock-up or just lazy incompetence? Whatever it is, it’s disgraceful that we have to buy this stuff whether we want to or not.

Not likely. No, it seems that the BBC is sworn to spare us the good news.

Speculation, rather than news, is the true business of the Beeb. Think of it– Greg Dyke is gone, Gilligan has vanished, Morgan had to be pulled kicking and screaming from his office. But still it’s–

Blair ‘not ready to stand down’

Here’s a suggestion from Jeff Jarvis. He even mentions the BBC!

If I were in charge of a bureau of reporters in Iraq — are you listening NY Times, Washington Post, FoxNews, NBC, CBS, ABC, Reuters, BBC? — I would assign one reporter, just one, to the rebuilding beat….I see no reporters covering the rest of life in Iraq.

That’s a cryin’ shame.

a BBC ‘world affairs correspondent’ or an ordinary Iraqi who is telling what the media seems quite hesitant to share?

Do you believe the BBC’s media partner in the Arab world, al-Jazeera? Some things are just unbelievable–as Andrew Sullivan observes.

“His killers shouted “Allah is great” before holding what appeared to be a head up to the camera.” What appeared to be his head? Who do they think Zarqawi is: Penn or Teller?

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

B-BBC commenter Rob Read, and others, have noticed that BBC reporting can be selective on which stories it highlights. Why is the BBC so quick to note the endorsement of John Kerry by Warren Buffet but unable to find space for the damaging story from Kerry’s fellow Swift Boat veterans who find him unfit for office. The Beeb is happy enough to report on Air America, a liberal alternative to conservative talk radio (which pretty much owns the medium at this point). Could the BBC find the resources to update their articles of 1 April to note that the fledgling network has had, shall we say, major funding issues? Why does the BBC have so little to tell us about the latest developments on the UN Oil-For-Food scandal and current stonewalling by Kofi and Co? Why does this highly-funded media monopoly sit on the WMD story coming from Jordan over a couple of weeks when some 20 tonnes of chemicals were intercepted by authorities? Where, as Rob mentioned, are BBC stories on the opposition to al-Sadr?

Why, with all the public monies at its disposal, is the Beeb being so economical with these stories unless it is that they are simply less appealing to the palate of media elites?

says Nick. Denis Boyles gets a few licks in at the America-hating European press. Among several examples of media bias he refers to a Harper’s magazine article penned by the BBC’s Nicholas Fraser.

That leaves the rest of the magazine to annoy and pester — including, in the current issue, a piece by Nicholas Fraser. Fraser, who works for the BBC, defends the BBC. The article isn’t online — they’re practically giving the magazine away by mail, for crying out loud — but Harper’s + BBC = you know the story: We get a lede so over-upholstered in digressions that you could jump out of a fifth-story window, land on it, and walk away unharmed, and a side order of big-huge stats (BBC annual income: $6.5 billion, 28,000 employees, 82 years old, etc.). But then the predictable spiral: a novel dig at Lord Hutton’s report (“whitewash”), slams at Fox (“moronically celebratory”) and at CNN (“not…immune to the spirit of jingo”), with the amiable old Beeb shambling “along in the middle ground.” This leads to an anecdote using al Jazeera as a model of journalistic integrity, followed by an interesting question: “Who would…believe that a tax, the non-payment of which is punishable by a jail sentence, is the best way of subsidizing public liberties?” The answer: Guys who work for the BBC and write really long articles about it for Harper’s — that’s my guess. “The BBC is the last bastion of intelligent speech and therefore of mass intelligence,” writes Fraser.

Example of said intelligent speech: “The growing contempt or indifference with which most media are regarded is the truest symptom of the growing malaise of democracy in our time.” Exercise: Which word should be replaced by the word “journalism” in the preceding sentence?

Ummm, let me guess.

from this headline

Kerry queries Bush on Vietnam

that the story is really about John Kerry’s truth-twisting, charmless weakness as a candidate that’s putting his campaign in the ditch. It was the ABC network which dug up the 30 year tape giving Mr Kerry problems, not Karl Rove. But, I’m sure the BBC is above being partisan. There must be a reasonable explanation.

UPDATE: There are left-leaning news outlets reporting John Kerry’s flip-flops (BBC excepted). C’mon, even the Village Voice is criticising Kerry.

whether the press is doing its job. It was occasioned by Bush’s handling of the White House press corps at his recent Q & A. The discussion centers on American media but fits the Beeb perfectly.