Author Archives: Natalie

Andrew Zalotocky writes:

What did you think of “The Christmas Invasion”? It didn’t seem overtly political, which makes me wonder why the BBC web site had that story promoting it as such beforehand. I can think of three plausible explanations:

1) The “peace message” story was a heavy-handed attempt to ensure that the audience got the right message

2) It was the loose cannons at BBC Online giving it their own special spin

3) It was a deliberate attempt to generate publicity through controversy

If it was option 3, we have to ask:

a) Does that mean that critics of the BBC were taken in by a PR scam?

b) If so, was it specifically targeted at them?

c) If so, was it also an attempt to undermine their credibility by getting them fulminating at a programme that would turn out to be innocuous?

I’d be interested to hear your take on this.

So far I have only seen twenty minutes of it. A younger member of the household who had not enjoyed “The Empty Child” expressed a definite desire not to see it and not to be alone while not seeing it. Never let it be said that only having seen a third of an episode of Dr Who is enough to stop me talking about it, though. Based on my knowledge of the individuals and organisations concerned my provisional answers to your questions are (1) yes, (2) yes, (3) yes, (a) yes, (b) no, (c) no.

I’d guess that Andrew Rilestone would not usually be politically sympathetic to this blog, but given that I agree with nearly everything he writes about Narnia, I’m willing to trust him when he writes about Dr Who.

Many of the 45 minute episodes have felt rushed: at 60 minutes, “The Christmas Invasion” felt developed and well-balanced. The story made a great deal of sense, although it suffered from a few examples of R.T.Ds trademarked lazy plotting — there seemed to be no story-internal reason for the killer Santa’s or killer Christmas tree — they were in the story simply because they seemed like a good idea at the time. (The idea that the Doctor is literally revived by a cup of tea was amusing, but had no rational justification.) The papers, bless them, fixated on the idea that the story had a strong anti-war message, but compared with the in-your-face satire of “World War III” last year, it was almost imperceptible.

The papers had some reason for their fixation: Russell Davies’s own words. (And I was told that an issue of Radio Times a month or so back had David Tennant saying something about how he was a socialist because of King Lear, possibly quoting Shaw. Anyone got a copy?) So media folk are pinkoes. Important bulletin about sylvanian ursine habits follows. It doesn’t stop (although it may distract) them from producing good TV. The actors and scriptwriters, I mean; let’s leave the poor bears some privacy.

In the first few seconds of his reincarnation at the end of last season I was embarrassed by Tennant’s goofiness. Him working his jaw and mumbling about his teeth looked less like a Time Lord than like an old geezer unhappy with his dentures. Rilestone argues that Tennant’s childish moments are of a piece with the jelly babies, a foil to his moments of omnicompetent world saving skill, and represent a return to the True Path of Who, cleverly placed after Ecclestone’s “off-the-wall re-invention” had blown away the cobwebs.

My two longest previous Who screeds are here, and here. Click the (0)’s to read the comments. Yes, I know. Complain to Haloscan, not me.

Not many posts while I was away, I see. I suspect that, with the honourable exception of Laban, the Biased BBC shock-jocks were unable to post due to a prior commitment to getting some serious hung-over layabouting done. Never mind, other bloggers took up the slack:

• Read Adloyada on one award the BBC won’t be boasting about – namely an ironic award from Honest Reporting.com.
  

  Readers provided a full laundry list of complaints and we found the most effective way to condense the biggest offenses was in a simple list form. The examples of bias from the year past indicates a pattern of naiveté, dishonesty, forcing facts conform to a narrow worldview and, arguably, a desire to inappropriately influence events-all paid for by British television viewers through the TV License Fee, which costs the typical household £126.50 per year.

  But don’t take my word for it, or Adloyada’s. Rather, follow the numerous links provided.

• The American Expatriate posts about BBC coverage of the NSA monitoring issue:
  

  From TAE’s count, the NSA wiretap issue has been addressed or mentioned in nine different BBC online articles since the story broke on December 16. In seven of those nine articles, the BBC gives voice, often extensively, to the view that Bush’s authorization of the NSA monitoring program is at least questionable, if not plainly illegal. However, in only one article is anyone besides Bush himself or someone from his administration presented as defending the authorization as legal and within his constitutional powers. And that mention, frankly, was a tepid, passing reference.

  This was it:

  To balance this off, Reynolds mentions that “Acting House Republican Majority leader Roy Blunt said he was “personally comfortable” with what he knew of the programme.” This single sentence represents the entirety of the BBC’s coverage of any non-administration official defense of the president’s actions. Even this rather miniscule mention sets Reynolds apart from his BBC colleagues.

  Plenty of people are indeed concerned – but to report this story without mentioning President Clinton’s very similar use of his powers and without mentioning that a large body of opinion outside the administration, not to mention a large chunk of the US public, has expressed support of the present President’s policy is to tell only half the story. No surprise which half the BBC chooses to tell.

  Again, copious links are provided.

• Jim Miller (inspired, he says, by a comment here) asks why Bill Thompson, writing for the BBC, thinks it’s a “shame” that significant “second-generation internet plays” (this appears to mean innovations) come from the US. I suppose Thompson could be thinking it’s a shame that they come from one place rather than all over the world. The next sentence supports that idea. But that’s not what he said, and when we are obliged by law to pay people to write for us it is not unreasonable to ask that they be capable of expressing themselves without appearing to take gratuitous swipes at foreigners.

posts about her experience of blogging for the Beeb.

Talking of Oliver Kamm, he has posted on the Newsnight “Allies on Trial” show. The writer and broadcaster William Shawcross, having declined to participate, wrote to Mr Kamm, who continues the story thus:

William explained that, while he would be happy to be part of an investigation or discussion, he would not take part in a form of entertainment. I am glad to set down his reasoning, with his permission.

Newsnight has done important work in reporting many areas of the war in Iraq and the war on Islamist terror more widely. A ‘courtroom’ pastiche is a fashionable but frivolous conceit that detracts from that record of excellent and courageous reporting in Iraq by Mark Urban and other correspondents. The allegations about “rendition” need a thorough investigation and merit the closest attention of Newsnight, but a ‘trial’ will do nothing in that regard. The name of the programme and the choice of counsel and witnesses suggest a spectacle more than an analysis. It is especially unfortunate that the ‘trial’ should be scheduled when a British hostage is threatened with death by real criminals in Iraq, and on the eve of the most important election that Iraq (and perhaps any Arab country) has ever had. One has to assume that the timing is deliberate; its effect will be to detract from the sacrifice of British and other forces in Iraq, and belittle the heroism of the Iraqi people in seeking to create a civil society in a nation ravaged by tyranny.

Kamm writes that he is “frequently a defender of the BBC against allegations – which I think are mistaken and miss the real criticism of its approach – of political bias.” You will not be too suprised to learn that I disagree. But the points he and Shawcross make about this programme hit the mark.

Adloyada had her first stint as a guest blogger for Today yesterday, where the subject for discussion was whether the media runs Britain.

Oliver Kamm has discussed – and dismissed – the idea that “money” runs Britain, and Tim Ireland says it ain’t the EU either.

Kudos to the Beeb for this initiative, and for being ready to ask bloggers who were critics of the organisation. And before anyone says, “Ah but never in a million years would they ask…” actually, they did. But I didn’t. I suggested my estimable colleagues here, some of whom live in reach of London, but the nice Beeb researcher said they sort of wanted a female.

“Nearly a millionon your site meter! Can the millionth visitor post a screeny?” – Rob Read, in the comments to the previous post.

Case A: thugs attack en masse at a beach in Portugal. The race of the attackers was not mentioned by the BBC, although the prim way that the story says that the municipal authorities believed that

“the youngsters came from poorer suburbs of the capital”

made me guess that they were not white before Tim Worstall, who lives in Portugal, confirmed it. The fact that they were black was the aspect of the story everyone in Portugal, where race relations are generally good, was talking about. In failing to report it the BBC were failing to tell the story properly.

Case B: thugs attack en masse at a beach in Sydney. In the BBC story the race of attackers and victims appears in the very first line:

“Thousands of young white men have converged on Cronulla Beach in Sydney, Australia, and attacked people of Arabic and Mediterranean background.”

Why does this difference in reporting matter? If, as I maintain, race should make no difference to our condemnation of criminal violence, why is is it a big deal that the BBC mentions race in one case and not in another?

Because – and I make no apologies for repeating my line from the coverage of the Lozells riots – one of the major spurs to mob violence is rumour. And rumour flourishes where people believe that they are not being told the whole truth. In cases of racially charged violence people are correct to believe that the British Broadcasting Corporation and culturally similar organisations like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are often not telling the whole truth.

While flicking through various websites a few days ago I came across this post from Romeo Mike, an Australian blogger. Having seen it, the riots were not such a surprise to me. The author describes the incident that was the flashpoint for the riots: the beating up of two white lifeguards by immigrants of Lebanese origin. He quotes the Australian Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph article says:

Surf Lifesaving Sydney rescue services manager Stephen Leahy said it was common for Middle Eastern men from western Sydney to taunt Cronulla surf lifesavers by stealing their equipment, making idle threats and kicking balls at them.

Some regular Cronulla beachgoers said that the behaviour of Middle Eastern groups was so offensive, they opted to travel to other beaches instead.

The BBC report linked to earlier did allude to this history. I shouldn’t laugh at such a time, but I couldn’t help being amused to see the BBC’s latest “youngsters from poorer suburbs” euphemism for “non-white thugs” popping up again:

“[Cronulla beach] is often visited by young people from the poorer suburbs of western and southern Sydney.

Area residents accuse the visitors of being disrespectful and of sometimes intimidating other beach-goers. ”

In the days following the attack on the lifeguards, white thugs, fully as vicious as their Lebanese-origin equivalents, passed around inflammatory text messages and emails and set a time and place to take revenge on any Arabic-looking person unfortunate enough to stray into their path. It is a grim fact that the blogosphere motto popularised by Instapundit, “A pack, not a herd” can apply to the bad as well as to the good.

I think it is significant that Romeo Mike, writing on December 6 before these riots happened, says that with the exception of the Australian Telegraph, the Australian media had either been silent about the simmering problems or had downplayed the race angle. The ABC had not mentioned the beating of the lifeguards at all.

The Australian and British Broadcasting Corporations have much in common. Both need to become aware that the small risk to public order involved in reporting the races involved in racially charged crimes in all cases, not just those conforming to their worldview, is much outweighed by the large risk to public order involved in allowing a news vacuum to form around sensitive incidents. Into that vacuum rumour and paranoia will inevitably flow.

Most race riots have an alleged inter-racial attack as the flashpoint. Where the allegation is untrue – for instance the alleged multiple rape that started the Birmingham riots, for which no evidence has ever been found – then it is the duty of the media to quell the rumours. It can only do this effectively if it is trusted and it can only be trusted if it has built up a record of trustworthy behaviour. Where the allegation is true then it is the duty of the media to calm the situation by making it clear that the police are making every effort to bring the criminals to justice. If the media don’t do this then lawless elements will fill the gap themselves, with their sort of “reports” and their sort of “justice.”

(Tim Blair has more on the Sydney violence.)

UPDATE: I see these riots have already been discussed extensively in the comments to the previous post. Commenter Susan pointed out that in this story, “Second night of riots hits Sydney”, the BBC reporting has the same imbalance as before. It seems that, in revenge for the events in Cronulla on Sunday, people of Lebanese origin have gone into that and neighbouring suburbs and thrown bricks. The BBC does not report the race of the perpetrators. However, in the same story, it does manage to remind us, twice, that “thousands of young white men” were behind Sunday’s riots. Susan writes, “Notice how MinTruth doesn’t give any racial or ethnic identifier for the thugs currently destroying cars and throwing bricks in Mabroubra and Brighton-le-Sands (Sydney suburbs). That’s your infaliable Orwellian clue to the actual ethnic identity of the thugs.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: In deference to the good point made by commenter PJF, I should amend the above to say that it is the duty of the media to report that the police are making every effort to bring the criminals to justice so long as the police are, in fact, making every effort. PC though the PCs are these days, I think they generally do make strenuous efforts when it comes to serious crimes. The point I was trying to make was that media silence is dangerous.

FINAL UPDATE: The “Second night of riots” story has since been stealth edited to include a paragraph saying “Some of the violence appeared to have been carried out by youths of Middle Eastern appearance, raising speculation it was a retaliation for Sunday’s unrest.” There have been similar interpolations in other BBC stories about the riots, as Toby points out in his post of 15 December. These changes are a good thing, but they should be done openly. Perhaps the BBC was influenced by blogs, or by the fact that Tim O’Neill’s comment on this forum (“surely the BBC should be actually reporting what is happening, not picking and choosing”) was recommended by so many people.

. I can’t get used to these newfangled polls where it is positively encouraged to vote every day. You can vote for this blog as Best UK blog in the 2005 Weblog Awards. You can even vote for other blogs if you feel so inclined, although if you do one of¹ our fleet of dreaded Biased BBC detector vans will drive past your house in a menacing manner. It’s a Ford Transit. Driver’s name is Alf.²

¹”One of” as in “all of”.

² He’s actually delivering free newspapers to a warehouse in Worthing but kindly agreed to help out by keeping an eye out for anyone who might have voted the wrong way. Thanks, Alf.

Peter Cunningham writes: “The following article on BBC online “US abortion rights in the balance?” ends with the sentence “And for many women with unwanted pregnancies in that southern state, little would change.” It is interesting that the author choose not to use the equivalent, “And for many unborn babies in California, little would change – they would continue to be killed.”

Ritter pointed out this Newswatch article on the higher coverage of the white-on-black murder of Anthony Walker compared to the coverage of the black-on-white murder of Richard Whelan, the asian-on-white murder of Christopher Yates, or various other killings. Ritter writes, “I agree with the editors laying out of the facts in terms of how these horrific murders are covered by the BBC. I don’t agree with his conclusion though. One horrific murder is not much more newsworthy than another simply because it is classed as ‘racist’. But at the BBC, this fact is all important.”

Another correspondent pointed out this story: Gaza gang seizes lion in zoo raid. She writes, “This is an item about how a “mafia-style gang” may be holding a lion-cub and two ‘Arabic-speaking parrots’ – fine as far as it goes. She adds:

But please note the following:

“The BBC’s Alan Johnston in Gaza says human abductions in the Gaza Strip usually end with the victim being freed quite quickly and unharmed”.

There is something soooooooo nauseatingly mild and reassuring about this. It’s saying, well there are kidnappings, but absolutely no need to condemn or worry about them because, don’t you see, nothing happens to the victim, it’s quite lot of fun really for them, takes them out of their boring routine.

Where is the condemnation of such a horrible crime against humans, and awful for animals too?

There have been a number of kidnappings in Gaza, which is in a state of chaos and lawlessness since the israeli withdrawal. Often the kidnap victims are foreign aid workers and journalists. I just wonder if Alan Johnston and the BBC are worried he could become such a victim if he doesn’t say the right things on the BBC website to appease potential kidnappers.

So we are forced to pay for such appeasement through our licence fee.

As usual, could correspondents note that I will quote their names if and as they appear in the text of the email, or, if taken from a comment, using the form of their names that they have filled in the comments box. Let me know if your name has been quoted when you would prefer it was not, or omitted when you would prefer to have it quoted. Do not rely on my memory!

became Archbishop of York on November 30. This report by the BBC’s Religious Affairs Correspondent, Robert Pigott, describes his enthronement. It touches on his political views:

“He denounced the war in Iraq and demonstrated against it. He criticised racism in the police after being stopped and searched eight times during six years as a bishop in London.

“He said of the Church itself that it was socially glued together by a monochrome – white – culture.”

A correspondent notes that this article is striking for its “selection for attention of its [the BBC’s] own favourite litany of left-wing issues … and the complete ignoring of his clear, on-the-record, outspoken and thoroughly newsworthy concern for British tradition and identity.”

The BBC had reported the new Archbishop’s concern for British and English identity, in this report from November 22:

Multiculturalism has left the English embarrassed about celebrating their true national identity, Britain’s first black archbishop has said. Dr John Sentamu, who will be enthroned as Archbishop of York next week, said a failure to rediscover English culture would fuel greater political extremism.

“England is the culture I have lived in, I have loved,” the Ugandan-born cleric told The Times newspaper.

He called for the English to properly mark St George’s Day on 23 April.

– but it was tucked away in BBC North Yorkshire.