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Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

on our earlier coverage of Newsnight, (here, here, here and here, for example) Peter Barron’s mention of Biased BBC can also be seen online in How green should we be? on the BBC Editors blog. Further to the excerpt quoted by Natalie, Mr. Barron goes on to say:

But if Newsnight stands for anything it should certainly stand against group-think, so while the broad thrust of our coverage accepts the orthodox view, we are also open to dissenting opinions. Indeed, Justin Rowlatt’s latest film looks at how the production of food may be doing more damage to the environment than burning fossil fuels.

In this I tend to agree with him – Newsnight is indeed better than most BBC News programmes at covering current affairs from different viewpoints, in contrast to the strict dumbed-down political correctness of the main BBC News bulletins and BBC News 24. That is not to say that Newsnight is anywhere near perfect (see below!), but it’s certainly one of my favourite BBC News programmes. For those who missed it, it’s worth catching Friday’s show online for Justin Rowlatt’s film on food production – most thought provoking.

Whilst I’m handing out praise, I must also commend Andrew Neil and his teams on the Daily Politics and This Week as highlights of BBC current affairs coverage. Both are well worth viewing for Mr. Neil’s well-briefed no-nonsense approach to political interrogation (although I could do with a bit less of Diane Abbot and Michael Portillo on This Week).

P.S. Peter Barron has replied to my follow-up questions re. the Newsnight ‘cripple’ email “misjudgement” linked above. More on this later.

According to commenter “will”, Newsnight editor Peter Barron quotes this blog in his weekly email:

One of the consequences of ‘Paxman slams the BBC on climate hyprocrisy’ [Out of date link to original “This is London” article deleted] has been a prominent posting [link] on Biased BBC, a website devoted to pointing out what it sees as the politically-correct institutional group-think of much of the corporation’s output.

This time they weren’t accusing Jeremy of bias – they’ve elevated him to their role [sic] of honour for his honesty in saying: “People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”

Read more here.

Jeremy Paxman’s comments can be read here.

from Perry de Havilland at Samizdata:

“What particularly made me laugh was when the BBC voice over said “and the fact over one hundred governments have endorsed this report will add to its credibility.” So let me get this straight… the fact one hundred states which exercise political power over people have endorsed a report that will be used to justify imposing even more political control over people, and that makes this more credible? I wonder if the BBC would report a pro-tobacco report endorsed by tobacco companies the same way? What do you think?”

said Rizzo the rat, as he was used to clean a window.

Heard on Radio 4 this evening at 7.20pm (quoted from memory):

“Hamas can now claim to speak for the majority of Palestinians. This means an end to the conflict is inconceivable without their involvement.”

The BBC’s unquenchable belief that conflicts invariably end by mutual agreement is kind of sweet really. Don’t take this as an endorsement of any particular course of action, but just as a matter of historical interest, I can think of quite a few conflicts that have ended without the involvement of one party. Or at least, where the involvement of one party was involuntary, and abrubtly terminated.

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

:

Now, let’s see… violent politicised Islamists are out to kidnap and kill a soldier from what they see as an occupying army…

So if it was Hamas or Islamic Jihad out to get an Israeli soldier, we could rely on the BBC to refer to “militants” “seizing” a soldier.

For example, way back last July we had:

      Cpl Gilad Shalit was seized by Palestinian militants

      in an attack on an Israeli border post on Sunday

Do read the rest. Personally, I haven’t seen enough references to terror on the BBC with regard to this deranged nutter plot, but it does indeed highlight the BBC’s double-standards elsewhere, including their long troubling description of the kidnapping and disappearance of Israeli soldiers by armed invaders as them being ‘captured’ by ‘militants’.

There was similar evidence of BBC hypocrisy over the kidnap and evil murder of Ken Bigley and his two American colleagues. On the BBC the murder of Bigley was generally reported as murder, whereas the murders of the two Americans were generally reported as ‘killings’.

writes Jason Deans in yesterday’s MediaGrauniad, reporting on an article by Jeremy Paxman in the BBC’s internal magazine Ariel (known satirically inside and outside the Corporation as Pravda!). Some excerpts:

Jeremy Paxman has accused the BBC of hypocrisy over climate change, saying it takes a “high moral tone” in its reporting of the issue while at the same time pursuing environmentally irresponsible policies…

“I have neither the learning nor the experience to know whether the doomsayers are right about the human causes of climate change. But I am willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is the consequence of our own behaviour,” Paxman said, writing in this week’s edition of in-house BBC magazine Ariel.

“I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago. But it strikes me as very odd indeed that an organisation which affects such a high moral tone cannot be more environmentally responsible,” he added.

Emphasis added above, and:

He added that when he asked Yogesh Chauhan, the BBC’s chief advisor, corporate responsibility, why the corporation did not practice what it preaches in its climate change coverage, the reply was: “The biggest impact we can make is through our programmes”.

“The problem is that no one has yet worked out how to generate electricity by hand
wringing,” Paxman added.

Do read the whole thing. It looks like Jeremy is very much sold on the idea of man made global warming, and, more significantly, that he recognises and acknowledges the BBC’s lack of impartiality in pursuing and promoting that agenda.

It’d be really great if Jeremy and the rest of the BBC would recognise that, to paraphrase Jeremy, there are also “people who know a lot more than [the BBC] do [who] may be right when they claim that it is [not, or substantially not, a] consequence of our own behaviour”.

The greatest service the BBC can do for mankind in this debate to actually ensure that there is a full and proper debate and a full and ongoing exploration of all the issues from all rational viewpoints, rather than their current, virtually unchallenged, wholesale promotion of the views of a) those involved in the climate change industry; and, b) those with a political axe to grind (e.g. sundry anti-capitalist greens, wishy-washy lefties etc.).

As for piddling away the licence fee on ‘offsetting’, in itself a controversial ‘solution’ to the alleged problem, if the BBC feels it needs to address the problem, it’d be better just to minimise their carbon footprint, rather than waste tellytaxpayers money as a way of salving their troubled consciences.

Update: More on Paxo in The Times. (Is that how you spell ‘moron’? 🙂

P.S. For his honesty Jeremy has gained a coveted spot on our sidebar!

Hat tip for the links to commenters dmatr & will.

Ben Brown, BBC News 24 headlines at 9pm:

“Nine men are in custody in connection with an alleged plot to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and film his execution”

Note to all BBC journalists (and some at Sky News too):

‘Execution’ implies a legal or judicially sanctioned killing. You cannot be charged with conspiracy to ‘execute’ someone. These people are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to murder (along with conspiracy to kidnap and torture).

Update:I was pleased to see at the end of the BBC 10 O’Clock News and at the beginning of Newsnight that Fiona Bruce and Jeremy Paxman, respectively, used the word ‘murder’ in their headlines. It’s a shame about all the other journalists who’re too biased or, more likely, too ignorant to realise that ‘execution’ is not a synonym for ‘murder’.

Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.