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. But I must make time to draw your attention to the BBC’s Israeli-Palestian impartiality review.

the Panel invites written submissions from any individual who would like to comment on the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and will take account of these contributions as part of its process. You can write to the following address:

Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review

BBC Governance Unit
Room 211, 35 Marylebone High Street
London, W1U 4AA

Or send an email to israelipalestinian.review@bbc.co.uk

The closing date for receiving responses is 5pm, Friday 25th November 2005.

Well-reasoned, polite letters that give specific instances of bias are the ones most likely to do good.

Thanks to several bloggers and commenters who have pointed this out.

This is not an example of bias. But the BBC do like to display their multicultural virtues and awareness of diverse faiths.

So this cricket report is rather unfortunate.

“Flintoff capitalised two overs later, with a delivery typical of former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis, utilising reverse-swing to beat new batsman Mohammad Yousuf.”

New batsman, eh ? Most people would think 59 Tests, over 4,000 runs and 13 centuries made Mohammad Yousuf quite an experienced player. What could produce such an error ?

The clue lies in the Cricinfo link above, which includes the line “Also known as Yousuf Youhana“.

As Yousuf Youhana, he was the only Catholic batsman in the Pakistan squad until his recent and controversial conversion to Islam – an event reported by, among others, the BBC.

Here is a BBC account of excavations in Gaza.

These were the bones of the ancient Greek city of Antidon. And they were testimony to the extraordinary richness of Gaza’s past.

Not only the Greeks passed this way. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the Persians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Turks, the British and many others left their mark on Gaza.

Missing anyone?

Now I don’t pretend to know whether Israel should have disengaged from Gaza, but to write a piece on the history of that area and and talk as if Jews were never there is downright sinister. This article describes the history of Jews in Gaza.

Keep reading Alan Johnston’s BBC piece. Napoleon gets a mention, but you won’t find Judah, who “took Gaza with the coast threof” somewhat earlier in history (Judges 1:18). You won’t find Jews mentioned at all.

All you’ll find is this piece of BBC boilerplate:

In line with Israel’s plan to “disengage” [What are the scare quotes for? – NS] from the Gaza Strip, it abandoned the settlements that it had built here in breach of international law.

In case you forgot.

Hat tip: My Right Word.

Villepin “seemed to strike the right note” says the BBC. Suckups. Can anyone confirm the impression I got from a commenter that for a while the link text leading to this story actually said, minus the “seemed”, “Villepin strikes the right note”?

The American Expatriate analyses the evolution of the BBC’s coverage of Wilson’s trip to Niger. This post is extremely detailed and supplies copious links. [UPDATE: There’s a follow up post and the BBC’s Paul Reynolds says in the comments that he’s preparing a response.]

Scott Burgess both defends the BBC against an accusation of pro-American bias …

Yes, you heard. He then, ever impartial, criticises Sarah Montague for misrepresenting Jean-Marie Le Pen in a radio interview.

Hey, Natalie and I cross-posted- and I’d just like to note that, concerning Scott’s posting, we’re both right!

Nanny Beeb wipes Indie’s posterior.

I mention this story- largely (for us) concerning a BBC headline- not just because regular commenter PJF noticed it, as did I, obliquely, and not just because Scott Burgess, following his excellent analysis of a fallacy, included in his subsequent analysis the BBC, but because it’s typical of BBC newsgathering and presentation.

It explains a lot about the BBC when you consider that often it draws stories and inspiration from papers like the Independent (which I think a very appropriate title; after all, to be independent of reason is the only way to be truly independent). Scott shows how the Independent’s Italian job about phosphorous bombs is riddled with problems- and he shows how the BBC journalist who picked the story up had to cut out so much of the rotten apple an Italian moonbat complained that the BBC was covering for the US government!

The Beeb originally reported the story with the headline ‘”US ‘used chemical arms’ in Iraq”.’– music to the ears of every supporter of the Islamofascist resistance. Later they realised their (and surely the Indie’s) mistake and changed it to ‘”US ‘uses incendiary arms’ in Iraq”‘. Wow- incendiary, eh? Big news. It was that headline which I saw, and thought, ‘how odd’- and smelt the stealthy rat of an edit which I later found- thanks to PJF- had occurred.

The BBC journalist (who- read Scott- had to deal with the angry Italian moonbat) explained how the title was changed ‘after a little research’. Now, call me unmedialiterate, but I had this little idealistic impression that some ‘little’ research might be in order before accusing a nation of war crimes.

I think this story shows how completely wacko papers on the left like the Indie are given far too much respect by the BBC (in sharp contrast, say, to the leave alone treatment of Galloway when accused by the Telegraph). Attacking the US government in this way is pretty much an unlosable game (when was the last time they sued???), and the Independent does this as a matter of routine. In fact, the BBC journalist apologised to the moonbat for over-reliance on official sources. The truth is that they rarely bother to understand the official sources they’re given, and to build up the trust which might befit people from the same, or allied, nations- such is their ideologically driven contempt for them.

has a sequel to our earlier post about the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt – attacks which were reported on Al Qaeda sites before they made the BBC site.

It’s worth quoting in full:

Only last month, the port city of Alexandria saw some of the worst sectarian disturbances the country has ever seen.

This is from the BBC’s ‘Arab affairs analyst’ Magdi Abdelhadi, comenting on the Egyptian government’s attempts to rein in the Muslim Brotherhood’s inflammatory rhetoric (read it here).

Let’s run through those ‘sectarian disturbances’ again, shall we? As reported by… the BBC.

A Muslim man stabbed a Coptic Christian nun. Then a couple of days later 5000 Muslim extremists tried to storm a Coptic church, and in the course of pitched battles with the police three of them got themselves killed.

But I bet the nun was acting really disturbingly.

John Simpson makes understanding the BBC’s position (which has been mixed enough to create confusion) nice and clear. The BBC’s World Affairs editor says

‘Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, now seems to be playing politics with the situation by appealing to the most basic and resentful attitudes of conservative France.’

Simpson also blames the French system for its neglect of the immigrant ‘burbs, yet- correct me if I’m wrong, but- for most of the period he cites (30 years) it had leftist politicians like Mitterand in charge, and Chirac is hardly of the robust right. Now suddenly Sarkozy’s at fault (not a mention of France’s generous social welfare system, the French model etc), when he hasn’t even had a serious bite at the governing cherry. Just who is playing politics, mr Simpson? France, if it is a failure, is a leftist failure- the leftists who triumphed in 1968. Simpson is not trying to explain history but to cover it up, to whitewash. Nice Snow job, mr Simpson.

(of course, that’s not to mention the sly and unreasonable introduction of the Iraq conflict- the cause for all ills the BBC, bless ’em, can’t resist-, trying to head off the critique that Chirac’s Iraq policy has brought no domestic dividends- a very workable proposition, unlike the one that his criticisms of the US and UK have been ‘thoroughly borne out’)

This “personal view” by historian David Cannadine is a strange mishmash of an article. To start with, I’ve never heard of this “Guy Fawkes Day”. Bonfire Night is presumably what he means.

It is explicitly stated to be the personal view of the author, so it can be held to a somewhat less stringent standard of impartiality than the BBC’s main output. Somewhat. (Although see this comment by PaulC, who says that the BBC is fond of plausible deniability in its selection of experts.) Just how willing do you think the BBC would be to publish an appeal for prejudice against any other nation than the United States?

And the Americanised Halloween is sweeping all before it – a vivid reminder of just how powerfully American culture and American consumerism can be transported across the Atlantic.

But here, perhaps, is an opportunity for the revival of 5 November. For those who wish to protest at the ever increasing Americanisation of our world might take up Bonfire Night as their cause.

Huh? I, too, would like to see Bonfire Night revived – but Cannadine’s argument that this traditional British festival should be revived because too much attention is being given to American ways of celebrating another festival the week before is just a near-random excuse for anti-Americanism.

The BBC and other media outlets gave a good deal of attention to the Islamic festival of Eid-al-Fitr that took place this year on November 4. Yet the BBC would not publish an article containing a call for people to take up Bonfire Night in protest at increasing Islamisation. Even if the BBC would publish a serious “personal view” article by someone arguing that increasing Islamisation was either undesirable or happening at all, which I doubt it would, it would never even consider allowing a someone writing in that context to advocate pointless needling for the sake of it. (“Making faces at Uncle Sam”)

But how comparable are the two? At this point I started off on a breakdown of the respective risks to public order of whipping up anti-Muslim and anti-American sentiment. Then I decided to omit it on grounds of space. Summary: immediate risk higher for anti-Muslim prejudice, long term risk higher for anti-American, and the risk is non-trivial in both cases. Yet we – even I, who make quite a point of complaining about it – have got so used to anti-Americanism that I scarcely notice it any more. Don’t judge Cannadine too harshly: not all of us can step clear of the prejudices of our class and era.

It’s a pity. Cannadine does describe the positive historical reasons for wanting to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ failure, albeit far more half-heartedly than he speaks of his sterile wish to “make faces at Uncle Sam”. Also he makes some good points about the real reason Bonfire Night has been downvalued: not trick-or-treating a few days earlier but endless safety nannyism. First they said that you were an irresponsible parent if you dared let off bangers in your own back garden and that all would be well if you went to a public display, then they made public displays more and more burdensome to run by means of firework restrictions and insurance premiums. Oh, and, as Cannadine himself says, another reason for the downgrading of Bonfire Night is that Britain is “now a multi-faith society.” At this point my more sharp-tongued relatives might point out that there is no “now” about it; the Catholics have been in Britain somewhat longer than the Protestants, actually. Blimey, just when the Irish component of Catholicism in Britain had finally just about let its historical grievances become history, along comes the victim culture to tell ’em to get resenting again. Cannadine seems half in this and half out of this: he wants Guys to be burned in every back yard again – yet he says:

It’s possible to be a Catholic Briton and admire Nelson; it’s hard to be a Catholic Briton without wincing at the sight of an effigy of Guy Fawkes going up in flames. I’m not a Catholic, but I do rather sympathise.

Well, my parents were devout Catholics of Irish descent and throughout my childhood our family always burnt a Guy come November 5, as did the families of my equally Catholic schoolfriends. Why? Because Guy Fawkes was a terrorist. That’s not just what I say now, it’s what we said then.

Happy Bonfire Night.

. Here, shorn of the odd rude word, is commenter Ritter’s view on this BBC story by Hugh Schofield: Sarkozy’s tough talk misses mark

His analysis is summarized thus: Sarkozy is a right winger. Therefore he is wrong or in Hugh’s words “out of kilter” with public opinion. Chirac & de Villepin are to the left of Sarkozy. Therefore they have got it right.

Hugh’s analysis is contradictory. He asserts that, even if the majority of the French public support Sarkozy’s line on the Paris riots, actually they don’t really because deep down, they are socialists!

“Even if a majority believe hardline measures to be necessary to quell the disturbances, most French also have hot-wired [He means hard-wired. Hot-wired is what criminals do to make stolen cars go. Sounds like a Freudian slip – NS] into them a deep sense of social justice.

They expect a certain tone from their leaders – one that recognises there may be an “issue” at stake, and “underlying causes” to be tackled. They actually quite like the “langue de bois”. “

Really?

Not that Hugh knows what the facts are regading what the public think, as he doesn’t reference any recent polls on French public opinion to support his ‘analysis’. And actual ‘facts’ like that could spoil his story. This isn’t any actual analysis going on here. This is a news ‘event’ being passed through the painfully predictable BBC ‘world-view’ prism [left wing = good, right wing = bad]. Sadly this passes for ‘analysis’ at the BBC.

Hugh ends his analysis on a confident note:

“So for once, Mr Sarkozy finds that his tough-talking is out of kilter with the national mood, which urgently wants a return to quiet and knows that the best way of getting it is if the government makes the right kind of gestures.

That’s it, I’m off down the bookies to put money on Sarkozy being the next French President……

is posting away merrily. Like it says on the can, this blog is by an American expatriate, and he is particularly strong on American affairs.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back is not the pamphlet of that name written by Lenin but a careful critique of an amended piece by the BBC’s Paul Reynolds on the Wilson / Plame / Libby affair. Scott Callahan argues that the amendments were not improvements.

In Just the cold, hard facts he describes the way in which a couple of BBC types will start off with a remark of the unfalsifiable “it is widely believed” type, toss it to and fro between them for a minute and come out with an “expert” consensus. He also slams Justin Webb’s “Banana Republic” quip, which has also been mentioned here by commenter “Big Mouth”.

And in Small but Important he nails down an error I keep seeing in BBC reporting of American legal matters. The only thing wrong with the post is that Scott Callahan apologises for it as sounding pedantic. It is nothing of the sort. The separability of the two questions of whether a law is good and whether it is constitutional is itself a crucial point. The BBC blurs the two issues for the same reasons that the Democrats (or more accurately those with the “unconstrained vision” in Thomas Sowell’s terminology) do. The distinction comes up again and again. The degree to which it is observed or ignored has vast practical effects on how America is changed by changes in its law.

As Vladimir Ilyich put it:

When a prolonged, stubborn and heated struggle is in progress, there usually begin to emerge after a time the central and fundamental points at issue, upon the decision of which the ultimate outcome of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.