Author Archives: Natalie

If I were asked to indicate the single most damning evidence of BBC bias and moral cowardice in recent years, I think I might pick the way the BBC reported the capture of Mohammed Abbas last April. In the course of the report they had to mention the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, that being the crime for which the Palestine Liberation Front, which Abbas led, was most well known. Watching the successive stealthy alterations to the BBC story was a bit like watching the movie Groundhog Day. Even under pressure from a wave of outraged emails prompted by links from Andrew Sullivan and Instapundit, it took the Beeb four tries to bring themselves to describe the crime in plain words. This post runs through the different versions:

From “died during” to “led to the death of” to “was killed” to “An elderly American tourist in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, was killed during the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, and his body thrown into the sea.”

Instapundit tracks the evolution of a BBC story on the murder of Leon Klinghoffer.

How much has the BBC learned since that apogee of the stealth edit? We had a chance to find out yesterday when Abbas died in US custody.

In this report, “Cruise ship hijacker dies in Iraq” it says, “He was convicted in absentia by an Italian court for the attack, in which wheelchair-bound American tourist Leon Klinghoffer was killed.” Well, let us be thankful for small mercies. True, with typical delicacy the BBC prefers the blandly passive “was killed” (which suggests a near-random combat death) to stating what actually happened, which is that Mr Klinghoffer was cold-bloodedly selected, shot in the head and then his corpse pitched overboard, wheelchair and all. But at least this time the BBC managed to avoid saying that he had “died” during the hijack as if he had had a heart attack or something.

Next up we have Abbas: Palestinian throwback by Paul Reynolds. On the good side it does say clearly that Klinghoffer was murdered. It also sneaks in the word “terrorist” (as part of the package “militant or terrorist”). In other places it is standard BBC-speak, carefully explaining that “Abu Abbas was from a time when the West Bank and Gaza were wholly under Israeli control and Palestinians could not carry out attacks inside Israel very easily” (the poor lambs) and bending over backwards to say that finding him in Iraq was no big deal. Heavens, he could have ended up anywhere. We also hear that Abbas’s faction was “quite daring.”

Finally, I do not know what Reynolds is talking about in this bit:

The Italians had let him go when US fighter planes forced down an Egyptian aircraft in which he was travelling after the hijack ended.

They were forced to make amends after widespread protests.

I know the outline of the crisis in relations between the US and Italy that followed the forcing down of the Egyptian aircraft. But what amends did the US make, to whom did it make them and who did the forcing?

A reader writes:

I found this article as I was surfing the BBC website. The BBC tells its readers that the right wing group Citizens United has started to launch attack ads portraying John Kerry as a liberal elitist from massachusetts. These attack ads started to run throughout the United States only on Monday. Clearly the BBC wants to give its readers the impression that poor little John Kerry, from good old liberal New England, is being attacked by vicious right-wing ideologues backed by Bush. I found it rather odd that the BBC never ran a story about the left leaning group MoveOn.org and their vicious attacks on Bush. Their ads have been running for quite sometome throughout the United States and have proven to be much more provocative. I remember one ad a few months ago in which they compared Bush to Hitler and the invasion of Iraq to Hitler’s conquest of Europe. The ad caused so much outrage that it was yanked pretty quickly. There are also many other attack ads that have been created by MoveOn.org and are running throughout the country. My point is that the BBC would happily mention an attack ad created by right leaning group Citizens United, but struggles to mention the ridiculous attack ads by MoveOn.org that are far worse. What’s even funnier is that CNN talked about the new ads by Citizens United as well, but they also mentioned MoveOn.org!

writes:

I’m not sure if

this sneer is evidence of bias, or not: maybe they just fell

for the line peddled to them by the radio company; but explaining why satellite radio in your car is catching on in America they say:

“Often in rural areas the only choices were country music, religious output, or crackle.”

I have no experience driving through rural areas but I doubt this is true.

I too have never driven through rural areas of America, so I can’t say of my own knowledge whether the BBC’s view of the pre-digital airwaves in rural areas is fair or not. I suspect it is something the writer is happy to believe. What do readers say?

Gavin writes:

…am gobsmacked to see that Newsnight Review has that well-known anti-Semite Tom Paulin on again this evening (Friday 5 March). I’ve given up complaining to the BBC myself, and so am relying on you to pass this on to the relevant blogs!

Just in case anyone had forgotten, Robert Kilroy-Silk made some comments about Arabs that combined home truths with some unlovable and boorish generalisations. In no way did he advocate violence. Nonetheless, the BBC professed itself utterly shocked and horrified, and Kilroy-Silk’s show was taken off the air. In contrast Tom Paulin called for Jewish settlers to be shot. Shot as in dead, sans phrases … and the BBC welcomes him back.

“Down to Earth” is how the BBC describes Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State, Nigeria, who has made his name by blocking polio vaccination in his jurisdiction, on the grounds that the vaccine is a Western plot to make Nigerian Muslim women infertile. As Robert Hinkley, in whose “Sporadic Chronicle” I found this story, points out, the BBC story is written in a way that displays an astonishing degree of acceptance of and respect for an attitude that is already killing and crippling people in Kano and far beyond. I could get started on the contrast between the BBC’s flattery of Muslim conspiracy mongers such as Mahathir (this blog, passim) or Governor Shekarau and its scorn for US Christian fundamentalists who are little lambs in comparison, but that comes second to asking what the hell the BBC thinks it is doing? The one halfway believable justification most of these progressive world bureaucracies that the BBC so loves can offer for their bloated tranzi existences is that they eliminated smallpox and are on the way to eliminating polio and other diseases. But not, it seems, at the price of the BBC telling its Nigerian audience something it does not want to hear.

The BBC story ends with these words:

But Mr Shekarau says that any agency or government contesting the results of the findings of his scientists must bring their own scientists to work alongside his trusted team.

In the end, the team should come up with a joint result.

If his scientists are proved wrong, then and only then will he give in.

So far this has not happened.

To that Robert Hinkley responds:

“At which point the reader may feel inclined to ask “who are his ‘trusted scientists’ which the article mentions three times, and what is their evidence?” but is left uninformed. Come on, BBC, all you’ve done with that article is reprint the Governor’s official press release. That is the starting point from which they should start asking questions and… dare I suggest… do some actual journalism.

Mr Hinkley is still too gentle. When the BBC is urging us all to pay the TV licence fee with a happy smile or to demand that our MPs renew its Charter unchanged, the organisation makes much of its role as a scourge of the mighty and a light of reason. Just look at this example of pandering to obscurantism and conspiracy-mongering to see how they perform that role in practice. Re-read the conclusion of the BBC story with the eyes of a resident of Kano who has heard the views of his governor and now turns to the BBC to get the facts. If his scientists are proved wrong, then and only then will he give in. So far this has not happened. That can be read, and certainly will be read by many, to mean “so far his scientists have not been proved wrong.”

It was and is the plain duty of the BBC (trusted all over the world as it never tires of telling us) to state that the conspiracy theory is not true. It failed in that duty.

ADDED MARCH 4TH: For more about the Nigerian polio vaccine story, see here. The links and discussion refer more to the story itself rather than the BBC presentation of it, so I didn’t think they were appropriate for Biased BBC.

posted to wrong blog. Easily done if you have two blogs on Blogger. Then on hasty second thoughts I deleted the whole thing. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much, just me being wrong about US politics.

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance had the microphone pulled from him during a BBC debate a few days ago, as mentioned here by Ed Thomas on Feb 17 and Feb 19. You can listen here.

I watched BBC coverage of the awful bombings in Iraq. It was vivid and affecting. The viewer saw terrified crowds separating and re-forming – one minute arousing pity, when we saw a shot of market trolleys pushed into service to carry the wounded away or a glimpse of a man carrying a bloodied baby – and the next, horror, when a mob coalesced around an Iranian pilgrim and looked set to lynch him for what had happened.

These scenes were captured by BBC journalists and cameramen doing their job well, at some risk to themselves.

I noticed one thing. The reporter called the perpetrators “terrorists.” That is correct. It is a classic tactic of violent revolutionaries to spread terror, in the hope that where terror goes, violence and disorder will follow and give the revolutionaries their chance.

How distasteful to think that the reporter will probably be censured by his bosses for lack of ‘impartiality’ between those who slaughter worshippers at prayer and their victims.

:

… don’t know what your position is on the whole Israel/Palestinian conflict, but anyway, this is a copy of a something I just sent to the BBC’s “feedback” section of their site. It’s regarding a factual inequality in TV reporting on the conflict.

Here is what Jon said to the BBC:

The last 2 nights (25 and 26 Feb, GMT+4) every BBC World News TV bulletin featured Orla Guerin’s reports from the West Bank of clashes between anti-wall protesters and Isreali troops. (By the way, checking the transcripts will show that both reports were inappropriately emotive and opinionated, and presented only the Palestinian point of view).

But today, 2 Isrealis in their car were shot dead by Palestinians

while travelling on the edge of the West Bank. I have yet to see a single TV report of this incident on BBC World, although it’s recorded on your website.

What makes the clashes between protesters and Israeli troops worthy of your TV news, and the fatal shooting of 2 Israelis in the same area, not worthy of your TV news?

Your own BBC World promo says “Demand a broader view”. Yes, a broader view would be nice. Or is this a case of “a little information going a long way”?

writes:

If you ever needed confirmation that the media has a clear editorial policy regarding what they want you to focus on and what they want you to ignore, check out today’s Israel news. Last night, BBC News had a full report on the Hague hearing regarding the legality of the separation barrier, but did not even mention that 8 people had been killed and 60 wounded in a Jerusalem suicide bombing that very day. One can only imagine the connections and commentary that would be made were 8 Palestinians killed and 60 wounded on the day before they presented evidence at the Hague against Israel. And certainly one would think that it would be germane to connect the bombing story to the barrier story, since the former is Israel’s stated reason for the latter. Yet, as you will see on their website, there is nary a word about the bombing, although four separate stories discuss the barrier proceedings.