Author Archives: Natalie

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

Yesterday I made a brief post at Samizdata to highlight a post from Drinking From Home concerning two pictures of a woman lamenting the destruction of her home by the Israelis. The pictures have different dates, and show different homes, but are pretty obviously same woman. What do I find when glancing at DFH this morning? That one of the pictures turns up on the BBC. And that was spotted by our regular commenter Dave t of the Cabarfeidh Pages. An anonymous commenter to DFH’s post says he/she may have found another Reuters picture of a third destroyed home with the same lady lamenting in front of it. It is difficult to be sure, but I think I can see the same scar on her left cheek and mark under her right eye. Small world, all these bloggers quoting each other in circles, all one’s homes getting busted up by the Israelis.

To be clear, I don’t particularly blame the BBC for using the picture (although it will be interesting to see if they continue using it given the attention it has received). Thousands of pictures come their way, they can’t check them all. I don’t even blame Reuters/AP that much, for the same reason – although I do think all the news agencies need to face the fact that their Arab stringers who actually go out and take the pictures have their own agenda and aren’t generally too scrupulous about how they advance it. However any time information from, say, the US, British or Israeli Army is relayed by the BBC we hear someone dolefully informing us that this information has a particular source and implying that we must bear that in mind when assessing it. Likewise if a report is made from a country with a repressive government we are told that the report was made under restrictions. Quite right too. But no such warnings come with photos or statements from people living in in places where the rule of Hamas or Hezbollah is at least as vicious, and the culture at least as steeped in propaganda, as that of most of the world’s open dictatorships.

ADDED LATER: Incidentally, the issue of photo-doctoring is becoming a story in itself. One of our commenters snapped a Google search of stories on the issue. Keep your eyes peeled for how and if the BBC reports it.

UPDATE: The picture is now gone from the BBC story DFH linked to. As usual the “last edited” field has not been changed; it still reads 14.07 BST Saturday. There is a discussion of photo-doctoring on the BBC’s The Editors blog here.

– an article by Tim Montgomerie in The Business. (Thanks to the several commenters who highlighted this story.)

Hat tip: Dumbjon, who pointed to this hilarious post from Rottweiler Puppy: Nikki, Warwickshire: Busy at the BBC.

The oft-quoted Nikki was quoted as saying, “Surely the lives of the innocent should take precedent” in her first few outings. Then for “Dozens killed in Lebanon air raid”, someone finally noticed and corrected it to “precedence”. Can’t have such a stalwart commenter looking illiterate, can we?

I have to defend the BBC against one of Rottypup’s claims. Nikki does not appear in “Olmert says fighting will go on.” So it’s only sixteen times, not seventeen.

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

I’m afraid this is a post that was meant to appear several days ago. I intended to press “publish” before we went away for a few days, but in the rush of packing it didn’t happen. Some elements may also have been mentioned in the 2,390,766 emails and comments I haven’t read; consider yourselves hat-tipped in spirit.

• Incoming email:
  

  Today programme, July 29th. The reporter, only asked British Muslims what they thought of the Lebanon crisis. NOBODY else. There were masses of e-mails complaining , Carolyn (?)Quinn admitted.

• Hat tip to James Hammett for alerting me to an article by James Taranto: BB “C” no evil. It’s about how the peculiarly ghastly murders committed by Samir Quantar were described by the BBC. Interestingly our commenters report that this story started off giving a non-sanitized account, and then was edited to blandness.
• That’s the reverse of the usual order of events, in which the story starts off bland and – possibly as an effect of scrutiny by blogs such as this one – gradually fills in some of the omitted details. The usual order appears to have been followed in the evolution of the Seattle murder.
• Kudos to the Mr Buchanan of the BBC World Service programme Newshour for this hard-hitting interview with a Hezbollah representative, as described by Bryan in comments.
• In this post for Samizdata, Paul Marks points out an all-too-typical error in an article for BBC History magazine on education in the nineteenth century.
• The way the Beeb dealt with the Mel Gibson affair wasn’t so much biased as panic-stricken. Nigel’s email was typical:
  

  Wearing your Biased BBC hat, I thought that you might be interested in two stories about Mel Gibson’s drink-driving incident, one from The Sunday Times (link) and one from BBC News (link).

  The BBC report seems to be missing something…

  The BBC did get round to mentioning what Gibbers actually said eventually, but one can only wonder exactly why they didn’t at first. Can’t have been that they thought “Mel Gibson got drunk” was the newsworthy part of the story. Can’t have been that they had a soft spot for the man; while they might have done while he was making anti-English movies, I doubt it extended to the maker of The Passion of the Christ. My best guess is that the BBC has got so used to playing down the anti-semitism of its favoured victim groups that they just did it out of habit.

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

We have received several comments and emails about the selective BBC reporting of the comments made by UN relief chief Jan Egeland.

“EUstoned” tells it well:

Egeland visits Beirut and expresses disgust at Israel’s actions there. BBC reports his comments thus:

‘UN appalled by Beirut devastation’

A couple of days later, Egeland expresses disgust at the actions of Hezbollah militants. The BBC buries his comments six paragraphs in and gives the story a misleadingly anodyne head:

‘UN launches Lebanese aid appeal’

Hello?

Another email making a similar point, from John who helps run CBC watch in Canada:

Natalie,

I was listening to the BBC world service news at the top of the hour and they told the story of the U.N. Humanitarian Chief accusing Israel of “disproportionate force.”

But neglected to tell this one: U.N. Chief Accuses Hezbollah of ‘Cowardly Blending’ Among Refugees

Even CBC told both stories.

Best,

John

Here’s Melanie Philips. And according to Stephen Pollard, yesterday Jan Egeland’s remarks about Hezbollah’s “cowardly blending” were only to be found in the 21st and 22nd paragraphs of a 24 paragraph report.

, with this difference: that the men who exercised it back then were at least men of taste and discrimination.” Theodore Dalrymple on Jonathan Ross’s interview with David Cameron.

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.