“We’ve received a number of calls and messages …”
… complaining about the liberal, Guardian nature of this debate”.
Radio Four’s You and Yours discusses inequalities of wealth – with Polly Toynbee, Camila Batmanghelidjh and I think some chap from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The consensus ? More government spending.
may, as Damien Thompson pointed out, tread warily when it comes to investigating radical Islamists, leaving that sort of thing to Channel Four.
But you can’t fault them when it comes to keeping tabs on the SS Historical Re-enactment Menace. Nothing like a finely honed sense of priorities.
It surely can’t be long before the Second Battle Group turn up in an episode of Casualty.
The Today programme’s love affair with the counterculture continues. Sarah Montague interviews the widow of Neal Cassady (aka “Dean Moriarty”) on the 50th anniversary of Kerouac’s “On The Road“, the hippie handbook written in the Beat Age.
“It must have been quite a life to be part of this amazing gang” she gushed.
Carolyn Cassady seemed less starry-eyed.
“Well, it was hard for Neal to see Jack drinking himself to death, because his own (Cassady’s) father was a wino, and it was hard for Jack to see Neal killing himself with drugs.“
Even Neal Cassady was more in touch with reality.
“Twenty years of fast living–there’s just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don’t do what I have done.”
I’m not sure if the impeccably middle class Ms Montague would have found the gang quite so amazing at close quarters.
Next week on the Today programme : “Why are levels of drug abuse and sexually transmitted infections rising ?“
former BBC producer Antony Jay remembers those brave anti-establishment days :
“For nine years (1955-1964) I was part of this media liberal consensus. For six of those nine years I was working on Tonight, a nightly BBC current affairs television programme. My stint coincided almost exactly with Macmillan’s premiership, and I do not think my ex-colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters. But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority.”
Thanks to commenter itsalltoomuch.
UPDATE – production company RDF attempt to put the ticking parcel back on Peter Fincham’s lap. Does this imply that BBC staff edited the tape ?
The independent production company at the heart of the row over the royal photoshoot accused the BBC last night of ignoring repeated requests to show it the controversial footage before it was made public. Sources at RDF, which filmed the monarch sitting for Annie Leibovitz as part of A Year with the Queen, say it asked to see the promotional tape “several times” before it was shown to journalists. The apparent failure of the BBC to respond will increase pressure on Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC1 … The BBC described RDF’s requests to see the footage as “low key” and “noninsistent”.
I wonder how the BBC would cover a story where a BNP activist was arrested on a charge of murdering his Asian next door neighbour.
Like this ?
Blogger Mick Hartley spots the contradiction in this BBC story.
(and it must just be one of those amazing coincidences that the Guardian is covering the same subject)
I’m sure I speak for all of BBBC when I say we’re very pleased about the release of Alan Johnston.
Let’s now hope :
a) the BBC resist the temptation to give Hamas any more free PR than the facts and the story require.
b) a couple more stories are devoted to the FIVE Brits kidnapped in Iraq a month ago.
It’s been a long-established BBC tradition that where a foreign national commits crimes in the UK, his nationality and immigration status should be downplayed or ignored entirely in their news reporting.
Hence we see the Algerian illegal immigrant transformed into a man from ‘Shepherds Bush‘, the Moroccan drug dealer (obsessed with beheadings and al-Quaeda videos) who becomes a man ‘from Lisson Grove, north-west London‘ (with no notable habits), the Somali ‘of Small Heath, Birmingham’, the Nigerian nationals and illegal immigrants who become ‘South Londoners’ (see next paragraph for the links).
There’s one notable exception to this rule – if the foreign national is American the BBC goes to town on the story. Even if he’s a naturalised British citizen he’ll always be American to BBC news.
Yet BBC coverage of the latest UK terrorist attacks is going out of its way to emphasise the ‘non-Britishness’ of the attackers.
None of the suspects involved in the Glasgow attack and the foiled London car bombings are British in origin.
“British in origin” ? It’s the “in origin” bit that gets me. Only a year or two back a politician using language like that would be getting the John Humphrys treatment on the Today programme. Are they channelling Norman Tebbit here, or Nick Griffin ?
‘Terrorist’ suspects ‘not Scots’ : Mr MacAskill said the suspects were not “born or bred” here but had lived in Scotland for a “period of time”.
The BBC has learned those arrested are believed to be of varying Middle Eastern nationalities.
According to his father Jamil, he obtained a medical degree in Jordan in 2004 and came to the UK in the same year to gain a specialisation in neurology. Dr Abdulla is said to have qualified in Baghdad in 2004 and first registered as a doctor in the UK in 2006.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing if the BBC are straight with the licence payers when it comes to reporting the nationality and immigration status of alleged or convicted criminals. It’s just such a departure from previous practice. Have some major decisions been taken in editorial conference, or are they following the SNP “they’re not Scots” lead instinctively, like pilot fish keeping up with a shark ?
UPDATE – “the men, who are not believed to be of Scottish origin“
“Iraqi Bilal Abdullah will be taken to Paddington Green police station … Dr Mohammed Asha, 26, who was brought up in Jordan“
We all know the BBC’s corporate view of the Great Satan America, but I think this is going beyond rhetoric.
“Politicians reacted in disbelief to the revelation that for over two hours yesterday, the BBC News website carried a request for people in Iraq to report on troop movements. The request was removed from the website after it sparked furious protests that the corporation was endangering the lives of British servicemen and women.
But according to accounts last night, a story on a major operation by US and Iraqi troops against al-Qa’eda somewhere north of Baghdad contained an extraordinary request for information about the movement of troops. Last night the BBC confirmed the wording of the request was: “Are you in Iraq? Have you seen any troop movements? If you have any information you would like to share with the BBC, you can do so using the form below.”
The BBC confirmed last night that this form of words had appeared on the website from “late morning” until early afternoon.”
The request was more likely to endanger the lives of US and Iraqi forces, being appended to this piece on the Diyala province offensive north of Baghdad.
Thanks to the glories of Revisionista, we can see that the request for troop information was there from revision 3 at 09.30 GMT up to revision 10 at 13.40 GMT – more than four hours.
The squaddies at ARRSE aren’t best pleased.
“Did you realise the BBC are now helping insurgents in northern Iraq with their intel ??”
I do hope if the BBC are going to request this sort of info that all their staff are security cleared. One wouldn’t like to think of such information falling into the wrong hands. Alternatively, could they try a radical new departure and request information on the movements of “militants” and “insurgents” ? And what would they say if Al-Jazeera asked their viewers to report on the movements of BBC staff in Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan ?
Hat-tips to Max, Heron and David in the comments (via Tim Blair).
UPDATE – I think this is what’s called disingenuous.
“However, yesterday we used the phrase “have you seen any troop movements” in this request for information. The Telegraph and some others wrongly interpreted this as an attempt on our part to seek out military detail.”
What on earth could give that impression ? How could anyone think that asking about troop movements is an attempt to seek out military detail ?
“We phrased it badly, and as soon as we realised what we had done – a couple of hours – we removed the form.”
Four hours and 10 minutes according to Revisionista. Is Vicky Taylor not even capable of putting the corporate hand up honestly over the timing, is Revisionista wrong, or has she been inaccurately briefed ? Alas, I can’t ask her, because I’m banned from commenting – at least that’s how I translate “you are not allowed to comment”.
And off topic, but kudos to Nick Reynolds for his continuing ‘mission to explain’ and David Gregory for his contributions to an interesting discussion on the reporting of climate change in the comments to this post.
Times – “Bias at the Beeb – Official“
There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you – that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West. The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded with something equally blindingly obvious. It said that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Almost anyone in Britain could have told the BBC that for free, but maybe it’s better to have it in an official report.
Even taking into account the small but insistent internal voice pointing out that the Times is part of the Great Satan Murdoch’s media empire, there’s not much to disagree with there.
” … what emerges from the report is a picture of an organisation with a liberal, anti-American bias and an almost teenage fascination with fashionable causes … the BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club.”
Telegraph – “BBC report finds bias within corporation”
The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded. The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased – and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.
After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial. But it says coverage of Live 8, the 2005 anti-poverty concerts organised by rock star campaigners Bob Geldof and Bono and writer Richard Curtis, failed to properly debate the issues raised. Instead, at a time when the corporation was renegotiating its charter with the government, it allowed itself to effectively become a promotional tool for Live 8, which was strongly supported by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Geldof, Bono and Curtis were attempting to pressure world leaders at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, which was taking place at the same time, to help reduce poverty in developing countries under the banner ‘Make Poverty History’.
Mr Blair said the campaign was a “mighty achievement”. The huge Live 8 concerts across the world were its culmination and the BBC cleared its schedules to show them, with coverage on BBC One, Two and Three and Radio One and Two. Around the same time it also screened a specially-written episode of Curtis’s popular sitcom The Vicar of Dibley that featured a minute long Make Poverty History video and saw characters urged to support it. And it aired another Curtis drama, The Girl in the Café, in which Bill Nighy falls in love with an anti-poverty campaigner – even giving Gordon Brown an advance copy. The BBC also ran a week long Africa special featuring a series of documentaries by Geldof and a day celebrating the National Health Service, prompting Sky News political editor Adam Boulton to tell a House of Lords select committee it was in danger of peddling government propaganda.
The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.
(En passant, the BBCs uncritical coverage of the millionaires Geldof, Bono and Curtis illustrates neatly a feature of modern philanthropy. In Victorian times a rich man with a conscience would put his hands in his own pockets to fund a worthy cause – a tradition which continues in America (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett) to this day. Across the water the favoured option of a charitably inclined multimillionaire is to get poorer people to fund your favourite causes via higher taxation – while in some cases avoiding such taxes yourself.)
Strangely the Observer headlines its report “Vicar of Dibley accused of breaking BBC guidelines“. Can’t imagine why. But they also have BBC insider Richard Tait’s view of the report.
UPDATE 18/06 – Commenter Richy is clairvoyant !
“If overly critical then surely the it’ll be placed in the “england” section or the “entertainment” section.”
“Entertainment” it is !
You can find the report here. Plenty of pdfs to get through. The “impartiality monitoring group” doesn’t look like a diverse cross-section of British political opinion to me – you do wonder what political perspectives the man who “co-founded the Democracy Coalition for Children and Young
People” or Kat Fletcher bring to the party.
More coverage at Times (also under Entertainment), Telegraph, Mail, more Sunday Times. Oh, and apologies for calling a BBC Trustee a BBC ‘insider’. Cultural misunderstanding … via commenter JBH, the Michael Crick anecdote about BBC execs all being Guardian readers. Sounds too good to be true – Mr Crick seems to have a puckish sense of humour. But I’m sure it “illustrates a wider truth”, as Dan Rather and Piers Morgan would say.
