, this response by the editor of Panorama to complaints by the Muslim Council of Britain was correctly described by Melanie Phillips as “detailed and utterly robust.”
The Panorama programme concerned was A Question of Leadership shown on 21 August. I was away at that time so I didn’t see it. I wish I had.
found in this edition of (D)HYS: “Should Turkey join the EU?”
Here’s the original comment:
Of course Turkey should be allowed to join if they have met the conditions of membership. Why Turkey want to join is a mystery though, the EU is a non-democratic dinosaur created to satisfy France and Germany’s dreams of power.
Chris, UK
An edited version of this comment was one of those chosen to appear in a grey box as a featured quote. Here’s what it said:
Of course Turkey should be allowed to join if they have met the conditions of membership.
Chris, UK
(For what it’s worth, my own opinion on this issue matches that of a Turkish commenter called Arda: “Do you really believe that EU will last that long? I am doubtful.”)
In a post of that title simple57uk brings together several BBC reports of events in the New Orleans Superdome. He quotes extensively and compares earlier and later reports.
People evacuated to the Superdome had to spend days in squalor made worse by acts of intimidation and an atmosphere of incipient violence. Dreadful rumours telling of multiple murders and rapes must have seemed very plausible to them. However members of the press corps, who did not have the excuse of having undergone sleepless nights and frightening days, should not have let sympathy triumph over careful checking. Simple writes:
Looking back at the BBC article, hindsight clearly reveals a rumour-driven story-telling style of reporting
Of course the BBC was far from unique in that respect.
The NPR ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, criticises BBC coverage of Katrina.
I am sure that the BBC is not inventing these interviews. But the effect is that it sounds less like reporting than like caricature. Public radio listeners likely understand what is going on — that BBC cultural assumptions about the United States remain mired in a reflex European opposition to American foreign policy. But what comes through the radio sounds mean-spirited and not particularly helpful; it probably evokes knowing glances and smirks among editors and producers back in London.
There is more right than wrong in the BBC’s coverage. But when it comes to portraying certain American cultural expressions, the BBC seems to have a tin ear.
(Via Instapundit – same link as below.)
with my esteemed colleague Andrew’s harsh description [CORRECTION: Andrew has pointed out that the description was Stephen Pollard’s rather than his own] of this piece by Justin Webb as “drivel”. On the contrary, it is rather clever. Look at this:
Rita and Katrina have both been events of massive force, sweeping away an awful lot, but Katrina – because of the ghastly failure of the authorities to prepare and to rescue those at risk – is thought by some to have done more than physical damage.
Bill Clinton is among many eminent Americans who wonder whether Katrina’s biggest impact might be psychological, political.
Students are invited to discuss the following, with special attention to what was not said: (1) “The authorities” (2) “Thought by some”(3) The citation of Bill Clinton as an eminent American who thought the impact of Katrina would be “psychological, political.” (Bonus points for candidates who raise other relevant statements by Mr Clinton.)
Now look at this:
Will the American social and economic system – which creates the wealth that pays for billionaires’ private jets, and the poverty which does not allow for a bus fare out of New Orleans – be addressed?
It has been tinkered with before of course, sometimes as a result of natural disasters. There were for instance plenty of buses on hand for this week’s Rita evacuation.
The first sentence might seem odd coming from a graduate in Economics, until you remember that Mr Webb got his degree from the LSE – sorry, couldn’t resist that – and has spent his entire working life at the BBC. What I meant to admire was the way these two paragraphs talked about buses without talking about the wrong sort of buses.
More blogging on this story from:
Andrew Sullivan– a partial defence which makes several fair points.
Many of Mr Webb’s pieces do admit his own propensity to prejudice, and that is a start. At the start of an article he often throws out a bit of red meat on a string to the chattering classes (“The real question – putting it baldly – is whether there is going to be a revolution”, “America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry … I have done my bit to paint that picture…”) and then draws it back at the end. It is good that he tends to draw back in the end, but it would be even better if he didn’t pander to his readers’ prejudices in the first place.
(Hat tip: Kerry B and others)
UPDATE: Take a look at this commentfrom Jim Miller, too. America, rightly or wrongly, spends a great deal on welfare. It isn’t the devil-take-the-hindmost society portrayed here.
That is the maxim followed by whoever wrote this article. It prompted this post from Squander Two, who says:
The level of duty on diesel is a fact, not an opinion. It is published every year in the Budget, and the BBC report on it then. All they need do to get the facts of the matter is to check their own archives. But they don’t. Instead, they report the claims, the opinions, of two lobby groups, without then telling us whether those opinions are right or wrong. This isn’t a discussion about the nature of the soul or something. It’s a real, easily discoverable fact, but the BBC seem unable to tell us what it is.
I am taking a break from being enraged with the BBC today. I would like to feed the writer of this article a nut.
, Tony Blair said the BBC’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina was “full of hatred of America.”
Tony Blair wasn’t the only critic. This article from the Financial Times says:
Bill Clinton, the former US president, and Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation, also criticised the tone of the BBC’s coverage during a seminar on the media at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York.
Sir Howard Stringer is also a former head of CBS news.
Mr Clinton said the corporation’s coverage had been “stacked up” to criticise the federal government’s slow response.
Even if we add a pinch of salt to the views of Mr Murdoch, a commercial rival to the BBC, here we have the Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the former Democratic President of the United States, not to mention the former head of a media organisation that has itself been heavily criticised for liberal bias, all criticising the BBC. They may have spoken more freely because they were at a semi-private gathering.
obsession with Bush to new extremes. Yes, the BBC has reported that the president once needed to pee. (Hat tip: Susan)
Stop the presses! In another blow for media credibility, “Susan” a reader of “bloggs”, has thrown a googly to demonstrate that his handwriting’s not like that.
I await the retraction from the BBC. (“Correction: Bush Did Not Need To Urinate After All.”)
Some may suspect that the whole thing was a Karl Rove put-up job to make the BBC look silly. After all, just how likely is it that some amateur could detect and disprove the so-called hoax in a mere six minutes, when trained professionals had taken it at face value?
Honest Reporting has a roundup of coverage of the synagogues burnt by the Palestinian mob in Gaza. It features an old B-BBC standby, Orla Guerin, who wants you to understand. She says,
“Israel stole thirty-eight years from them; today, many were ready to take back anything they could.”
Watch the video clip.
Hat tip: Teddy Bear and others. That reminds me of something I meant to say ages ago, but I got snowed under and forgot. Check out Teddy Bear’s useful Discussion Board on BBC Bias. I am adding it to the links column. It is very well organised, and easily searchable if you want to find a particular story.
Rob writes:
There is an interview with Kofi Annan on the BBC website. The interview is conducted by Lyse Doucet. Not an entirely surprising line of questioning by a BBC “reporter”.
I’m afraid I couldn’t be bothered to write a transcript of Annan’s replies. I think the questions speak for themselves.
Q1) Let us start with the crisis in the US state of Louisiana. Has the aftermath of this crisis shocked you?
Q2) As you say, you offered it [assistance]early on, but they accepted it only recently.
Q3) They have been criticised for being too slow to respond. Did that exacerbate the crisis?
Q4) Kofi Annan, in a few days time, what has been described as the largest ever gathering of world leaders will start in New York. You have described it as nothing less than “a mandate and a vision to change the world”. Are you angry that the US is now trying to highjack it?
Q5) So you worked on it for about a year. A team has been working on it for about 6 months. Weeks ago 750 amendments come from the US ambassador John Bolten.
Q6) Is there a risk of failure?
Q7) Can you fight poverty if, as the United States demands you remove the target for countries to give 0.7% of their national product?
Q8 When John Bolton came to the UN you told me he had to operate in a spirit of give and take. He didn’t take your advice, did he?
Q9) Do you suspect that those critics you mention may be behind the timing of the next independent report for the oil for food program coming this week?
Q10) Are you braced for devastating criticism on Wednesday when the Bolton report is published?
Q11) For you, this comes at a time when you need the strongest hand possible. Critical summit beginning on reform and for your critics the oil for food is the single of human incompetence, efficiency and corruption [sic].
Q12) And sadly for you there is a personal dimension for you. The leaks suggest that you will be personally cleared of any wrong doing, but your son Kojo will again be in the spot light for trading on his father’s name.
I was not quite sure where Rob’s transcript came from. [UPDATE 15 SEP: Rob writes to say he did the transcript himself.] In one or two cases Rob’s transcript, which looks as if it might have been taken from computer-generated subtitles, differs from the presumably final version on the link. For instance, there are differences between his wording for Q11 and the wording on the website:
Q: But for you, it comes at a time when you need the strongest hand possible: a critical summit beginning on reform. And for your critics, the oil-for-food is the symbol of UN incompetence, inefficiency and corruption.
There are also one or two questions not included on Rob’s list – for instance the one about Make Poverty History. However these minor differences do not diminish his point. Lyse Doucet’s questioning is gentle to the point of sycophancy. Half of it is just feeding Annan lines of defence. And do you possibly think that Doucet might have a bit of a thing about the US?
Remember this next time you hear the BBC praise itself for “speaking truth to power.”
