A little update to yesterday’s post. Here’s BBC Newcastle reporter Sarah Walton’s reply to BBC London News producer Jane Bradley on Saturday:
The love of lefty protest is no great shock, but I am a little surprised to discover that BBC journalists still hold Assange in such high regard. I guess it’s all part of displaying one’s radical cred.
Jane Bradley, producer at BBC London TV News, tweeting yesterday:
She’s your typical Guardian-reading BBC lefty, but don’t just take my word for it:
I notice that she groups the BBC journalists in with all the other lefties.
Also, check out Ros Ball from BBC Parliament. Gender politics is her thing. Likes – female Marxist historians on the BBC and mooncups. Dislikes – Tories and, er, Doris Day.
Whip crack-away!
More revealing tweets from a BBC journalist, this time BBC Home Affairs correspondent Matt Prodger:
The Tobin tax is a good idea because of those who oppose it:
An appearance by the Taxpayers’ Alliance on Radio 4 drew this response:
He doesn’t dislike all lobby groups, though:
Taxing the rich is a recurring theme in Prodger’s tweets:
(The above one links to lefty “tax justice” campaigner Richard Murphy. See Guido for more on him.)
He seems to have a bit of an agenda, wouldn’t you say?
Nothing at all at the BBC website about Guardian contributor Kia Abdullah’s crass and heartless twitter comments on the tragic death of three British students in a road accident in Thailand.
‘Is it really awful that I don’t feel any sympathy for anyone killed on a gap year?’
‘I actually smiled when I saw that they had double-barrelled surnames. Sociopath?’
All across the twitterverse and blogosphere within hours and hitting the dead tree press by Sunday even the Guardian had to do a nifty piece of sidestepping.
But the BBC obviously felt the story wasn’t worth covering.
I wonder why?
Hat-tip to John Horne Tooke in the comments for pointing us to the Twitter account of BBC journalist Jude Machin:
“Obamama”? Urrgh *shiver*.
OK, so she’s assigned to the 2012 Olympics and isn’t covering US politics (and quite clearly can’t be allowed to do so – right, Ms Boaden?) However, isn’t it interesting that every time a BBC hack expresses a political opinion on Twitter it always seems to come from one direction? Imagine a BBC journalist declaring his or her support for a Republican candidate on Twitter. It would mark them out as a freak. Career suicide. But announcing one’s love for Obama? Hey, no big deal, everyone at work’s cool with that.
The same sort of thing didn’t do Anita Anand’s career any harm, did it?
I was having a look at Katty Kay’s Twitter page, wondering if she had said anything about Sarah Palin lately. Not only is Palin on tour (as we know from Mark Mardell’s sneering the other day), but she said something yesterday about Paul Revere which raised a few eyebrows. It turns out Palin was actually correct and, as usual, a few Leftoid media dopes made fools of themselves laughing at her so-called ignorance.
Katty, the most hyper-partisan of all BBC employees working the US beat (yes, she’s worse than Mardell) now that Katie Connolly has done the honest thing and gone to work for a Democrat strategy group, didn’t say anything about Palin’s Revere remark, but still she did not disappoint anyone looking for her to reveal her personal political bias. Tweeting from her iPad, Katty sent her readers two links to hit pieces on Palin, both from the JournoList-infested Politico.
This Politico article is full of adjectives like “cartoon-ish”, “circus”, and “spectacle”. Oh, and the actual title is “Sarah Palin takes the media for a ride”. Katty editorialized that down to a sexist pejorative. Nice one, Katty. Notice also that the response from her reader makes it clear which side she’s on, as nobody would ask such a question if they thought Katty was either impartial or not far Left and a Palin hater. Katty does have form attacking Sarah Palin on air. The other tweet is equally amusing.
This Politico article is about how some in the GOP establishment aren’t pleased. Which is exactly what Palin’s supporters want, but of course Katty thinks it’s a bad sign for her. Partisan blindness. We can see where the Beeboids go to inform their opinions on US issues. The vicious atmosphere of Katty’s Twitter feed and her followers is again revealed in the reply. If Katty wasn’t openly partisan and anti-Palin, her reader wouldn’t feel free to make such a reply.
Further down on her Twitter page, Katty also retweets a Palin attack piece by none other than Andrew Sullivan (not going to give him a link – look him up if you want), notorious for his own version of a “birther” conspiracy (he still thinks Palin faked giving birth to Trig, while her daughter is the real mother). There is no greater hater of Sarah Palin than Sullivan, and Katty not only follows him but thinks his musings are important enough to share on her BBC-labeled Twitter account. This fact alone tells you all you need to know about Katty Kay.
If that’s not enough to get a scolding email from Helen Boaden, Katty also makes a tweet which combines her personal business interest – “Womenomics” – with her BBC profile.
This is clearly a violation of BBC protocol. Yet Katty often uses her position at the BBC as a platform to advocate for her personal pet issues (see here and here), including the women in business angle. It’s also worth reminding everyone that Katty’s partner in Womenomics is Claire Shipman, whose husband is the current White House Press Secretary.
There’s another tweet on the page about an article discussing how women are oppressed in oil-rich Muslim countries. It’s not US news, just something she’s personally interested in, and uses her BBC credentials as a platform to promote it. She even ironically tweets about “women who take a stand” having their morals questioned. That’s pretty rich coming from someone who called Sarah Palin a tease for doing just that.
Another overtly partisan BBC employee in the US who is not fit for purpose.
BBC News editor Rachel Kennedy has removed the tweet, highlighted here, in which she expressed hope that recent events would “do for” Sarah Palin (h/t John Horne Tooke). In case you missed it here’s the screengrab:
Kennedy will now be attending a “masterclass” by BBC Twitter tutor Sue Llewellyn (who was herself quite keen to associate Palin with the Tuscon shootings):
No doubt the licence payer will be picking up the tab.
DB’s post about the impartiality-busting tweets of left-wing BBC News Channel editor Rachel Kennedy, having first spread the message of BBC bias to Guido’s blog and to Melanie Phillips in the Spectator, now seems to have provoked a reaction from Helen Boaden.
Under the headline BBC Boss Tells Left-Wing News Staff “Stop Tweeting” Guido reports:
The Director of BBC News, Helen Boaden, has just sent out this chatty email
to all her staff today:Dear All,
We have had some occasions recently of BBC News staff using social networking sites to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly, these have been picked up by the wider web and used to discredit the BBC and its impartiality. We have Editorial Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet …which everyone should observe. We also have brains and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before rushing to communicate. Hx
(Guido , incidentally, has just tweeted Rachel:
Did you get Helen Boaden’s memo? @rachelkennedy84)
The Guardian speculates that an injudicious tweet from a BBC Breakfast reporter (Phil Lavelle) about the BBC’s funding of the Welsh-speaking channel S4C may well have provoked Ms Boaden’s action (probably “the future of the BBC” bit) though the the Guardian‘s Media Monkey seems to have missed the likeliest spark that lit the fuse – this website!
Do you think George Osborne is trying to “knacker the economy” and “ruin lives”? Do you love Green Party leader Caroline Lucas (despite her weird eyebrows)? Is leftie human rights lawyer and Labour peer Baroness Kennedy a hero of yours? Do you believe that the BBC Trust was wrong to criticise an inaccurate report by Jeremy Bowen? Do you think the rescue of the Chilean miners offered a good excuse to make a snarky comment about Margaret Thatcher, and the hunt for crazed murderer Raoul Moat was just the time to make a sick joke about Sky News presenter Kay Burley? If the answer to all those questions is yes, and you expressed it all on Twitter, then there’s a good chance you could be BBC TV news editor Rachel Kennedy (click image to enlarge):
Impartiality is in her genes, you know?
(They really do have a thing for Caroline Lucas, don’t they?)
Incidentally, if you want to be one of the cool kids on Twitter, having a little pop at Thatcher and/or Burley appears to be a fairly popular way of proving your right-on cred to other users. Even BBC political correspondent Chris Mason was at it last week:
Nicholas Jones, former BBC political correspondent, recounting a Royal Television Society event held in June:
Ceri Thomas said the political blogosphere had a resonance in Westminster but it did not have a great purchase outside Westminster. But the Today programme now realised the importance of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. ‘I get more story ideas from Twitter than from anywhere else… it has become the single most useful way to get information although that was not the case during the general election’.
Out: if it bleeds, it leads. In: if the luvvies tweet it, Today will repeat it.
Where once BBC editors would have to wait until the next dinner party to hear the bleeding-heart concerns of like-minded media types, now it’s all instant – news determined by the daily fancies of the right-on metropolitan echo chamber. Same as it ever was, only more so.
(Luckily for the Today programme Stephen Fry hasn’t expressed an opinion on the dropping of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.)
