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Had an interesting time using Google News recently. An hour or two ago I saw an article about Rowan Williams, the Arch-Bish of somewhere, who was quoted saying that Hezbullah was using Lebanese as a human shield. This was accompanied by numerous links reinforcing the fact. Reuters provided the lead article, I think. I also saw this.

Later, trawling the BBC I came across a more than slightly different emphasis:

“Bishop slams UK over Middle East

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has joined calls for the UK to press for a ceasefire in the Middle East.”

I went back to the Google page and found the emphasis had changed, with the BBC and the Guardian in the vanguard. Now the newsmen were queueing up to condemn the UK for failing to pressure Israel (of course they were mainly just lifting the reports from the Beeb and Reuters, but guess what, the BBC were winning). Examining the time sequence, it seemed the BBC were pivotal in the change of emphasis, and looking at the article the people of Britain will be thoroughly ignorant of the balancing factor in Williams’ speech- there is no mention of the Hezbullah-human shield condemnation. Williams may be a kook, and Reuters may deserve the prefix “al-“, while Google in my view merit no prizes, but the BBC is the swaggering transnational bully that conforms its reportage to the latest axis of UN-French speak.

Update:I still have the original BBC article open on my computer even as the stealth edit has kicked in- radically. Luckily I quoted the intro [ edit: change of headline spins it very differently]. Anyone who can offer screen captures or Google caches and/or give me and others some simple instructions as to how to obtain them will have performed a service.

By now every two-bit media organisation has repeated the BBC mantra. Most current BBC readers will now conclude (unwittingly) that the BBC is adopting a balanced line compared to them whereas in fact much of the media, especially the British local media, has simply been following their BBC ‘leader’. This is classic BBC- spread a radical agenda and then stealth edit their way out of the blame. The question is begged as to why the BBC ran a story for such a short time before changing it radically. They neutered the Reuters line, and then modified their own. Surely they are not responding to a changing news situation but are gerrymandering the headlines for the coming 24 hours.

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.

As part of the discussion of this post an anonymous commenter said the following:

So what U.S. party was Gary Condit a member of?

Chandra Levy: Accusation and denial

Hmm, no clues there. How about this page?

Condit passes lie detector test

No joy there either. Strange. How about this page?

Condit battles resignation calls

Why, no. He mustn’t be in any party. Well, let’s see what this page says – Stephen Sackur will surely enlighten us:

Levy soap opera puts press in lather

Why Stephen, you’ve not put the party affiliation. Pressure of space I’m sure.

Well, let’s try Kevin Anderson:

Mystery overwhelms US airwaves

Nope, no joy there either.

This one maybe:

Condit launches ‘PR offensive’

Er, no – nothing either.

Well, Mr Condit is mentioned here…

Levy police question park attacker

…But still no clue which party he belongs to.

Nor here:

Profile: From small town to big city

Sigh – can you imagine the BBC reporting a scandal involving a GOP Congressman with this number of stories and not mentioning his political ties?

The original comment had just URLs; I have given the titles of the BBC stories.

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.

In the previous post I mentioned Israelis killed by suicide bombers in pizza parlours. The crime I had in mind was the massacre at the Sbarro pizza restaurant on August 9 2001. One of the victims was a 15 year old girl called Malka Chana Roth, nicknamed “Malki”.

Malki’s parents have a blog called This Ongoing War.

Many commenters and other blogs have already pointed out this post: A Word About the BBC

I was listening to the ten o’clock news with half an ear and I caught Jeremy Bowen saying something like if Israel can’t prove that bombing the bridges in Lebanon was justified “then it’s a war crime.”

I don’t get it, BBC. So what if it is. Why do you care?

Note, I’m not asking why you, the readers of this site, might care – or you, the BBC audience, or you the Lebanese or you the Israelis or you the Palestinians or you the world. You all might have many and different opinions on whether it’s a war crime in law, or whether it’s a war crime in the sight of God – but I’m not asking you.

I’m talking to you, the British Broadcasting Corporation. When Hamas and then Hizbollah attacked Israel you never troubled to tell us the legal status of the acts. When suicide bombers killed Israelis at pizza parlours and bar mitzvahs you never gave us any of this war crime schtick, although attacks targeted at non-combatants are the epitome of a war crime. “Terrorist” is a term with meaning in international law, yet when bombers murdered your own countrymen in London a year ago you were so anxious to avoid being judgemental that you had someone go through what your reporters had written in the heat and pity of the moment, carefully replacing the word “terrorist” with the word “bomber.”

(God, what a shameful job. While they were still scrubbing the blood off the streets and the rails, some hack was scrubbing out any suggestion that the killers might have been bad people. Was it a junior hack under orders or a senior hack doing his own dirty work? Or were you all sent slinking back to your desks each to expunge his own words? I’d really like to know, but whichever it was you were anxious to avoid any talk of “crimes” then.)

“Bomber” not “terrorist”: by your own account your only job is to describe projectiles hitting meat. So what’s up now, with your “war crimes” and your “Israel kills Lebanese civilians”? You don’t need these fancy legal concepts, as if it mattered to you whether they were civilians or not. By your own stated standards moral distinctions between killings are “a barrier rather than an aid to understanding.”

I just don’t get it.

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.

Anonymous asked,

“So which party was the defendant in this case…

Ex-council chief ‘abused boy, 13’

… a member of?”

“Socialism is Necrotizing” responded,

“anonymous, they sure didn`t forget to mention the party affiliation in these cases:

Councillor jailed for sex abuse

Council leader resigns

Sex crime councillor is expelled

Councillor jailed for indecent assault

Ex-Tory official jailed for rape

Tory mayor arrested over sex claim

BBC protecting its beloved Labour Party………Nah!”

Here’s another, found by me. To be fair, this article about the same case didn’t mention that the guy was a Conservative. I remember hearing about this one on the radio and thinking, oh he’ll be Labour or Lib Dem since they didn’t mention a party and being quite surprised that he was actually a Tory. I think a memo went round. My impression is that the tendency of the BBC to mention the party if a politician who goes off the rails is right wing and not mention it if left wing has diminished.

“The tendency has diminished”: what very faint praise that is.

UPDATE: Commenter “PJF” has told me that since a reasonable challenge has been mounted in the comments, I have to flag it up. Quite so. The BBC’s “John Reith” and an anonymous commenter have posted and discussed counter-examples. Let battle be joined.

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.