Author Archives: Natalie

Did you see all those BBC headlines about desertions from the army?

More than 1,000 members of the British military have deserted the armed forces since the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the BBC has discovered.

“Since” is such a useful word. It implies causation without actually stating it. The BBC are very fond of sincing.

When USS Neverdock had finished chewing up, grinding down and spitting out the remains of that desertions story there wasn’t enough left over to give dessert to a gnat. The key question was, you guessed it, how many deserted per year before the Iraq war, before the Twin Towers fell? Is the number up or down since then?

You guess. Because the BBC will leave you guessing.

I should have known. Back in March the US media ran a raft of stories about the numbers of desertions in the American army, sincing like mad. This is basically a rerun, a British cover version. Same headlines, same interviews with the deserters’ lawyers. Same profusion of anecdotal evidence and shortage of numerical. And the same subtle, deniable efforts to give an impression that, here as there, is the opposite of the truth.

UPDATE: The BBC story linked to is mutating by the hour. It says it was last updated five minutes ago, at 18.18 British Summer of Time. (Yes, BBC, we do have trained operatives observing your every move.) Wonder of wonders, the “Last Updated” field actually appears to tell the truth! The story now has lots of pretty MOD numbers that I don’t remember seeing before. The contrast between the (non) story the newly installed numbers tell and the crisis line taken by the original interviewees and featured quotes give the whole story an entertainingly chimerical air.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Drinking From Home has a screenshot of the original version. A middle version of the story had, I seem to recall, some figures near the end quoted by Don Touhig regarding the fairly constant proportion of soldiers who bunk off. These figures have now disappeared again.

The little discussion of the difference between going AWOL and desertion is also new. The original referred dramatically to numbers who had “evaded capture.” Made it sound like the French Resistance. In fact the typical unauthorised absence is not intended to be permanent, may well be unplanned – and in the case of commenter “pounce” was actually unintentional.

It’s all go at the BBC.

I was just decanting the milk-sodden leavings at the bottom of my offspring’s breakfast bowl onto Thursday’s Times prior to putting them in the bin when I noticed this:

Bush to get Mashed

By Adam Sherwin

THE BBC has persuaded the creator of the 1970s television series M*A*S*H to turn his fire on the Bush Administration.

“The BBC has persuaded … to turn his fire on the Bush Administration” It can only have been my shock at this unprecendented act on the part of our national broadcaster that caused me to emit a most unladylike snort.

President Hillary Clinton is in the White House, and George Bush is on trial for crimes against the American people …

By this time a second snort, that some misunderstood as laughter, had caused an errant Shreddie to entangle itself in my nasal membranes. In fact my distress was solely a result of my deep sympathy for members of the “reality based community,” as I believe they term themselves. Poor lambs. These recurring fantasies are a great comfort to them.

…in Abrogate, a one-off radio comedy written by Larry Gelbart. Radio 4 is rushing the “merciless” satire to air in tomorrow night’s Friday Play slot. Radio Times acclaimed the play, saying that “every line is a barbed swipe, a dazzling barb that hits home”.

Every single line! So there! With a write-up as jut-jawed as that we can safely assume that it was awful and the Radio Times knew it was awful.

Gelbart was the developer and chief writer on the M*A*S*H television series which ran from 1972 for 11 years.

Gelbart has grown angrier with age. Abrogate is set during an imaginary congressional hearing which is “sifting through the debris of the post-Bush regime to discover what, if anything, went right”.

UPDATE: Richy in comments says, “You’ve got to hand it to the BBC. The originality required for this kind of drama and the sheer fortitude necessary for battle against pre-existing stereotypes really does enforce upon you the value of public broadcasting.”

From the open comments thread above, this enlightening list from Ritter. His links work; for obscure Blogger/Haloscan/too-idle-to-type-them-out reasons, mine don’t. So if your life is incomplete wihout the BBC’s guidance on Lifestyle Detox, Parenting or Muslim Devotional Sounds, click on the link. As will be obvious, Ritter was replying to an earlier comment from Archduke.

Archduke – following on from your earlier post re BBC ‘actionnetwork’ – pick a subject, any subject, and the BBC can and does throw huge quantities of money at it. Some examples of the out-of-control BBC:

BBC Collective

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/

588,000 pages

http://www.google.com/search? hl=…G=Google+Search

BBC h2g2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/

2,330,000 pages

http://www.google.com/search?q=s…en&lr=&filter=0

BBC Teens

http://www.bbc.co.uk/teens/

14,900 pages

http://www.google.com/search? hl=…G=Google+Search

What the hell has this got to do with the BBC’s charter?

BBC Celebdaq

http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/in…daq/ index.shtml

This however is where the BBC are pouring bucketloads of cash: Local content:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/whereilive/

Thinking of starting a small website about Jersey, your local area? Why bother, the BBC has it covered:

BBC Where I Live – Jersey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/

Local Radio, TV, the RAC and AA all provide Travel news, but oh no, the BBC has to do it as well – more bucketloads of cash poured here:

BBC Travel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/

400+ pages enough for you?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

BBC Climate Change

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/ hottopic…matechaos.shtml

The BBC loves spending cash on it’s pet subjects, f*ck the licence fee payer and the charter:

BBC Africa

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcafrica/i…ica/ index.shtml

That’s 42,000 pages on BBC Africa!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

Don’t forget ‘Africa Lives on the BBC’:

BBC Africa Lives on the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/africalives…ves/ index.shtml

700+ pages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

BBC Islam – One Life

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onel…ion/ islam.shtml

BBC Islam – Religion & Ethics

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/re…lam/ index.shtml

BBC Islam – World Service

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservic…ons/ islam.shtml

BBC In-depth – Islam Around the World

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/s…tml/ default.stm

BBC Islam – Devotional Sounds

http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwor…v_sounds_islam/

BBC Asian Network

http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/

BBC Create

http://www.bbc.co.uk/create/

BBC Holidays

http://www.bbc.co.uk/holiday/tv_…parture_lounge/

BBC First Aid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/firs…rst_aid_action/

BBC Lifestyle Detox

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifestyle/detox/

BBC Lifestyle A-Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifestyle/a…tyle/ atoz.shtml

BBC NHS (Sorry ‘Health’)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/

That’s 36,900 pages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=….uk%2Fhealth% 2F

or you can go here:

NHS Direct

http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/

BBC Inside Out

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/

that’s another 10,000+ pages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=…%2F&btnG=Search

BBC Keyskills

http://www.bbc.co.uk/keyskills/

BBC Mobile

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/web/…web/ index.shtml

BBC Parenting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/

Loadsamoney! – Fancy some of it? There are currently 91 jobs available at the BBC

Jobs at the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/jobs/

Archduke then came up with his own list of BBC local sites. He comments, “got a website idea for your local area? dont bother – the bbc will probably steal your idea anyway and you’ll have to close down.” And Ritter responds with “more in the fun game of picking a subject, any subject and discovering that the BBC can and has thrown lots of cash at it….”, followed by another list of bijoux BBC projects.

Certain items – notably H2G2 and Inside Out – were defended by other commenters. But it’s still a very big list of very small relevance to what the BBC was set up to do. The BBC has (and enforces) the right in law to demand funding via a licence fee from any British person wishing to own a television, irrespective of whether they make any use of BBC services. Was this very considerable power, unique in any modern democracy, really given them so they could run an exam revision site?

Further to this post of Andrew’s concerning a notorious BBC graphic, Ralph writes:

I thought you might be interested in the rather naff defence the BBC have sent me regarding the Ascent of Tory Man graphic during their local election coverage:

“As broadcasters we face a challenge in making politics accessible. We need fresh and creative ways of telling the political story. We’re sorry you found the comparison offensive – it was not meant to be. David Cameron did say himself he found the item a bit unfair on John Major and we were happy for him to state this on air.

The ascent of man example was one small part of three hours of coverage on the programme. We had live interviews with David Cameron and William Hague. We spoke three times to our correspondent at Conservative headquarters. The story of Conservative Party’s night was comprehensively told.”

The only real defence of the item is that they didn’t mean it to be offensive, and the rest is off topic spin as if giving Cameron a right to respond was a privilege.

Ralph

. Gavin Esler has the scoop!

There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble.

It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America.

Fortunately Mr Esler has found it down the back of his sofa. He dropped it there in the 1980s while having a little cry after the Sandinistas lost an election. And elections are the point here – as “Dumcisco” observes,

“Gavin Esler’s view that Nicaragua sums up what has been wrong with US policy for 20 years is simply ridiculous. What has happened is that democracy has replaced dictatorships”

What Mr Esler appears to mean by George Bush “losing” Latin America seems to be that, the US having in his administration consciously dropped the more “realist” traditional American policy that might be summed up by Roosevelt’s words, “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”, some elections are giving results that cause George Bush distress. Well, that’s democracy for you. There is considerable evidence, starting with his own words, that Dubya is rather a fan of democracy. Amazing as it may sound, it may even be the case that he he has noticed that sometimes the party you don’t like wins, and yet remains a fan anyway.

Concerning the same BBC article, Will found and commented on a nice little example of BBC terminology concerning the Peruvian left-wing presidential candidate, Mr Humala:

The presidential frontrunner is Ollanta Humala, a retired army commander who led a failed military uprising in October 2000 and who is now ahead in the opinion polls.

Will asks,

Would that be a coup if carried out by nasty right wing military types?

Many of the comments on Mr Esler’s post are similar to those made by Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas, the author of this post on Off Topic (a blog dealing with Latin American affairs). He writes:

The BBC on Latin America: Peru and Venezuela
Yesterday, the BBC started a series of reports about what they call “one of the world’s most under-reported big stories”. They are referring to Latin Ameica’s shift to the left. Yesterday’s report was about the forthcoming Peruvian elections -read Ollanta Humala- and Chavez. You can see the report here (about 1hr. long).

However, I must say I was dissapointed with the report. The report’s hypothesis is very simplistic: the root of the current political situation in Latin America is the US’s war on terrorism. Because of the war on terrorism, the US has neglected its backyard and is about to lose it. The report goes on to say that the US has undermined more than 40 Latin American governments and, basically, is the cause of widespread poverty in the region.

And

Also, besides Puerto Rico, all countries in the region are independent, which means that their success or failure does not depend on the US. So, the current situation cannot be fully attributed to what the US does or does not do. The root of Latin America’s political situation -to the extent things can be generalized- lies in the countries themselves. Widespread corruption, weak institutions, decades of interventionist and populist dictatorships/governments and lack of incentives to private investment did the trick.

Ironically, one of the effects of Esler’s blather about George W Bush having “lost” Latin America is to give the impression that Esler thinks Latin America was Bush’s to lose. Bush himself doesn’t seem to think so. Let us hope Elser catches up.

First, an apology for absence. Some work took rather longer than I had anticipated and I had to drop the blogging for the week. Here are some emails and posts that caught my eye.

• A commenter writes simply “terrible article” and sends a link to this. It’s called “Israeli poll deepens Palestinian gloom.” I didn’t think much of it, either. Throughout the Palestinians are presented as seekers after peace cruelly thwarted by Mr Olmert and his new Kadima government. For instance,
  

  The Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, clearly suspects that genuine negotiations may not be on the Israeli agenda.

  I call this technique Bias by Assumed Telepathy.

  Of Hamas, the article says,

  It considers not only the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza as occupied Palestinian territory – but the whole of Israel too.

  Nearly there, BBC, and congrats for bringing yourselves to say that much. In fact if one goes to the Hamas Charter you can learn about the aims of Hamas as described by Hamas:

  Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.

  I think it’s safe to presume that the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, subscribes to the Charter of his own organisation, belief in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all. The BBC as usual did not see fit to mention this fundamental context when it quoted Mr Meshaal as saying that:

  “The Zionist position,” he said, “be it that of Kadima or others, is one that buries the peace process, negates its existence and does not give it a chance.”

  Incidentally, the linking headline for this story was “From Bad to Worse.”

• Here is a relatively new media bias blog, Newsround, dealing with the BBC children’s news programme of the same name. The masthead says,
  

  BBC Newsround is biased and patronising and non-inclusive, particularly about lgbt issues and homophobia. For over two years I’ve made suggestions to try to get them to improve it, without any success so far.

  I expect there are a range of opinions among both commenters and B-BBC posters on how or whether Newsround should treat these issues, but that variety of opinion is no obstacle to my adding Newsround to our links on the sidebar to the right.

• A few days ago someone emailed me thus:
  

  The last few days in Denmark have been a bit of a media feeding frenzy regarding comments by one of the Danish imams who went on the tour of the middle east to whip up the cartoon furore. Caught on a secret camera suggesting bombing a moderate muslim politician who has formed a group of moderate muslims to distance themselves from the rabid imams and their followers, the imam first denied doing it then said it was a joke (having seen it on tv there’s a small smile on his face but no laughter and no criticism from any others).

  You can read more on it here: Agora

  Suffice it to say the BBC have totally ignored the story.

  Since that email was written, the story has had a line or two from the BBC, here. A line or two. And the story was mentioned as having been covered by the Danish press in this European Press review.

Guess what! The latest Have Your Say features Francis Fukuyama!

“Has Iraq fatally damaged US foreign policy?”

• Stephen Pollard points out a bit of BBC stealth editing – from very biased to just biased. This BBC story by Alan Johnston originally said:
  

  Hamas has largely been respecting a ceasefire, despite frequent Israeli army provocations, for more than a year, and it is unlikely to go back on the offensive now.

  Someone complained. Now it says:

  Hamas has largely been respecting a ceasefire, despite what it sees as frequent Israeli army provocations, for more than a year, and it is unlikely to go back on the offensive now.

  The only thing that surprised me that was Stephen Pollard thought this was a new tactic.

• Mike writes:
  

  The BBC’s coverage of the fact that Mick Gault has broken the all-time medal record for a brit at the games is hidden down the commonwealth games page in the shooting section:

  link.

  I get the feeling that had it been any other sport, it would have been a headline.

  The story itself is also interesting – Have a look here: link.

  And at the through link “shooting guide” here: link.

  Even in the “want to get involved?” section there is no mention that pistol shooting is banned in the UK.

  I personally feel that the fact that pistol shooting is effectively banned (although I believe that Mick uses a UK-legal “long arm” free pistol) is relevant to the story, since it enhances his achievement. Yet the BBC leaves this out. It could just be that the journalist is utterly unaware of the situation, which is quite likely.

• Steve_Mac spotted the surprising title of this BBC discussion forum:

  Should religious converts be punished?

  Gosh, BBC, that’s a tricky one. Pros and cons either way, what?

  Whenever the World Service wants to touch the Foreign Office for twenty or thirty mill to set up a new Arabic service, the organisation claims that it is all justified by the fact that the BBC is an ideal medium to carry democratic and liberal values to the Arab world.

  From this it looks like any spreading of values is going the other way.

A reader called Dina writes:

Hi, I just wondered if anyone else watched the programme on BBC2 on Friday 17th March about called “The Family that Walks on All Fours”?

I watched this expecting it to be a scientific documentary about the curious anomaly of a rural Turkish family who have several mentally handicapped children who walk on all fours, like monkeys. The programme started well. About half way through, one of the scientists interviewed the Imam at the local village Mosque who was afraid that the programme might hint at Darwinian evolution in explaining the childrens symptoms. The programme went on sympathetically to explain that the idea of evolution is generally anathema in Turkey as an Islamic country, especially in rural areas and the Imam thought that to allow a Western programme to make the connection could invoke the wrath of an Al Qaeda attack on the village. The programme then went on to emphasise that hostility to the idea of evolution is not exclusive to Islamic countries and then, in classic BBC style, the programme switched to show an American Evangelical Church discussing the bible. At this point I changed the channel. I thought I was watching a genuine scientific documentary, but I should have known that the BBC needs to insert a political (especially anti-American) angle into such a programme. I try not to watch the BBC as much as possible as I cannot stomach the boring and predictable PC, anti-American drivel that is their stapel diet. Anyway, I just wondered if anyone had seen this and agrees with me?

Just be grateful they didn’t find some reason to show a clip of Gitmo.

• Clive Davis, Times columnist and blogger wrote this article for the Washington Times: “Public service broadcasting, some honesty from the left?” (Hat tip: Rachel and USS Neverdock.)
• Melanie Phillips discusses a Newsnight programme that had some schlockhorror relevations about secret collusion between the Israelis and the British in, er, the 1960s. (Hat tip: Archduke.) This article in the New Statesman is by the producer of the programme, so I assume it is a fair representation of it. Both programme and article claim that a Jewish civil servant called Michael Michaels, now deceased, helped the Israelis get plutonium without telling Tony Benn. Much play is made of Michaels’ middle name being “Israel”.

  I don’t know enough to offer an opinion as to the historical truth of these claims. Melanie Phillips offers credible reasons to doubt them. All I can say is that even if every allegation made in the programme is true, half a lifetime has gone by and the Israelis haven’t nuked anyone yet. Care to bet that the same would be true of the Iranians?

  But I digress. The question before us is BBC bias. After terrorist attacks by Muslims the BBC has been at pains to encourage non-Muslims not to stigmatise Muslims generally. Here is one example, one of many that could have been chosen. It is only fair not to blame all members of a group for the crimes of some members. So why is the treatment of allegations of Jewish “dual loyalty” so much less sensitive? Melanie Phillips quotes some lines from the programme:

  ‘Well his middle name was Israel’, Kelly replied. ‘You think there was an element of dual loyalties here?’ pressed Crick. ‘Yes’, said Kelly.

  I can’t imagine the BBC being willing to broadcast equivalent dialogue about someone whose middle name was Mohammed. After the capture of one undoubted criminal whose last name was Muhammad the BBC was scrupulous to a fault in refraining from speculation that his race and religion might have provided some part of his motive. Again, this is only one example among many that could have been chosen.

• House of Dumb says that BBC coverage of the tenth anniversary of the Dunblane massacre “offers us an answer to the age old riddle: what’s the difference between ‘campaigners’ and ‘lobbyists’ ? Answer: the side of the issue they’re on.”

  I’m kicking myself for not spotting that one myself, as I read the same article. I guess I have read so many articles using the same terminology that it slid straight past me.

  I tended to agree with – in fact I might go further than – one specific criticism of the post offered in the final paragraph of the comment by JohnM. But DumbJon is a blogger, not a public body charged with a duty of impartiality.