Category Archives: Uncategorized

of Instapundit fame has up a column in the Guardian that makes some good points and links to this blog. (A good point in itself, we always think.) Here’s a quote:

Those of you across the Atlantic may wish to take a lesson from this. As the BBC’s atrocious handling of the Gilligan affair – and, indeed, its war coverage generally – illustrates, media bias is hardly limited to the United States. In fact, it’s probably stronger elsewhere, and less noted, because there are fewer alternatives. Most countries have nothing like American-style talk radio, for example, because it poses far too great a threat to elites to be permitted. Still, British blogs like Samizdata, Biased BBC, Harry’s Place and Normblog are providing alternative voices. Since I don’t think that elite media have done a very good job during the decades of their dominance, I look forward to seeing alternative media make a difference around the world.

Hannah Bayman, a BBC journalist, well known to longstanding BBBC readers, has her own blog at bayman.blogspot.com. Hannah’s posts are usually quite banal, but yesterday’s post, reproduced here in full, offers an interesting glimpse into the thoughts and objectivity of a doubtless up and coming BBC journalist:

Only hours to go before the Land of the Free starts to vote and I already have butterflies in my stomach.

My mother emigrated from the US to Britain in 1966 when she was 21, after falling in love with Harold Wilson and The Beatles. My brother and I are both joint passport holders and the three of us registered to vote for the first time especially for this election.

I registered at my uncle’s house in Philadelphia, PA, and have since found out that Pennyslvania is one of the key three swing states, with Ohio and Florida.

But who knows if the vote I posted for Kerry and Edwards last week will even be counted.

Another close family member has voted for Nader. With most polls I’ve seen so far putting Bush 49%, Kerry 48% and Nader at 1%, I’m struggling to see this as anything but a vote for Bush.

Yeah, yeah, Kerry and Bush are both baddies if you’re a left-wing purist, but they are the only two horses in the race.

There is only one question in this election: do you want Bush in or out of the White House?

Let’s hope the US chooses a candidate who stands for international relationships, abortion rights, medical research, secular values and taxes on the richest…

…instead of a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp.

Fingers crossed polling is fair as possible. If, as predicted, there is not enough time for everyone to vote in some precincts, or many find themselves wrongly barred from voting lists, there could be serious unrest.

So who are you rooting for? Or if you have a vote, which way is it going?

I wonder how typical Hannah’s opinion of George Bush (“a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp”) is among BBC journalists? And given Hannah’s opinion of Bush, is it appropriate for her (or anyone with similar views) to report on anything to do with Bush or matters relating to the US or US policy without at least declaring their opinion up front? Can one hold such strong views and yet remain impartial and objective?

Moreover, given that Hannah was born (if I recall correctly from her past comments here), brought up and educated in Britain and continues to live and pay taxes here, it surprises me that she feels it appropriate to cast a vote in the US election, even if it is legal for her to do so under US law (if the situation were reversed I don’t think she could legally vote in the UK) – and I doubt very much that Hannah will desist from voting in the next UK general election either.

Remember, to paraphrase Rageh Omaar, it’s not your BBC, it’s their BBC!

Update: A couple of excerpts from Hannah’s follow-up posts, first, this charming effort:

So it is all about Ohio, the third of the swing states. NBC and Fox have already called Ohio for the chimp, but I think I will wait for my colleagues at BBC News Online (remember Fahrenheit 9/11).

Ah yes, better to wait for a reliable news outlet Hannah. And the tear-jerking:

I was woken first thing by two pessimistic texts from a colleague working the early shift at BBC Telly Centre, saying it would take a miracle for a Kerry victory

Oh to have a fly-on-the-wall webcam inside the BBC’s Newsrooms this morning!

P.S. While we’re on the subject of leftie journalists, if you will indulge me a little, congratulations must go to The Guardian for their splendid Operation Clark County – in 2000, according to The Grauniad, the good people of Clark County voted for Al Gore by a margin of 1% (~324 votes). Following the combined letter-writing efforts of Guardian readers I’m pleased to report that Clark County voted for Bush this time, by a margin of 2.4% (1,622 votes, by my reckoning). To paraphrase another newspaper in another election, it was The Guardian wot won it!

Seems OK. As so often when the BBC is concentrating it is pretty good, it’s the off-the-cuff remarks that let it down. I haven’t seen enough to make any better assessment than that. More interesting by far than the TV was this real-time vote counting thingy that clocked up the votes as Bush took Florida. This similar doodad for Ohio says that Bush is likely to take that state, too – and hence the US.

The BBC seemed slow to mention developing results within crucial states although millions followed the count via Drudge or by clicking on the state concerned on the BBC’s own map. To be fair, the other channels – even Fox (on the internet) – were just as cautious, and after the too-early call for Gore in 2000 maybe better safe than sorry.

ADDED LATER: Any hopes I might have had of posting the above in the wee small hours and reporting on the news as it happens were dashed by the fact that several million other Blogger users were trying to do the same.

Blithering Bunny points out some politically parochial comments by Peter Jay, former Economics Editor of the BBC. Can he really think that “…there are for all practical purposes no conservative ‘have-nots.'”? Or that “Conservatism is not and can never be a philosophy”? Given Jay’s eminence I would have thought better of him. The title of his review, which I stole for this post, would apply to its writer.

I’m trying to work out if the fact that Jay used to be married to a Prime Minister’s daughter who is now Baroness Jay is relevant. Actually, that is a fib. I’m really trying to work out something funny but not too mean to say about it – and failing.

starting with the usual preamble about Bush and Kerry being “neck and neck” and the election being “too close to call”. This may be true, but most of the polls I’ve seen have Bush leading consistently by a point or two or three. Whilst this is certainly within the margin of error, I can’t help thinking that were the position reversed the BBC would be reminding us at each Bulletin that ‘Kerry is just ahead’ and ‘leading the race’ rather than pushing the “neck and neck” line so desperately.

Among the BBC Ten O’Clock News (WMV, 256Kbps) election coverage was this live exchange (starts 5’45” into the bulletin) between Huw Edwards in Washington and Matt Frei in Florida:

Huw Edwards: Well now let’s get the latest word from both campaigns tonight. Matt is in Florida and Gavin [Hewitt] is in New Hampshire. I’ll talk to you first Matt. Erm, What is the message that President Bush is now focusing on in these last forty-eight-hours?

Matt Frei: Vote, vote, vote and please vote for me, and do it even if you’re a discerning Democrat or an Independent, not just the conservative base of the Republican Party. That’s really what he’s been saying the last few days. I went to a rally this morning and people don’t really listen to what he’s got to say any more, they just listen to that plea, go and vote. Two interesting details here – tomorrow, the President will go to six states in one day, the final swing. And, as we speak, Dick Cheney, erm, who’s not in the best of health, er, at the best of times, is travelling eight hours to Hawaii to be there for one and a half hours to persuade people in a place that wasn’t even a swing state until last week. Conclusion: they are trying to get hold of every single vote they can. Outwardly they’re very confident. Inwardly they’re worried.

Huw Edwards: Well, I was going to ask you about the inward feelings, the private feelings Matt, um, what are they telling you about the patterns of voting that they’re likely to see on Tuesday and which areas concern them most?

Matt Frei: Take this queue that’s dwindling behind me now. This has been a queue that’s been here all day long. People have waited for five or six hours. They have never seen a turn out like this before. This doesn’t bode terribly well for Tuesday to be honest, because one senior election official told us he doesn’t think they can actually accomodate all the voters without opening the polls later, so this is potentially a huge nightmare of recounted ballots, of disputes. There are thousands of lawyers in Florida as well as in Ohio and many other states who are waiting to pounce on this election if there is, if the election result is within the margin of litigation, and that’s about two percent in each state. So don’t expect to see what you saw last time, four years ago, which was a simple recount, if it is that close expect to see something much worse.

Huw Edwards: Gavin, let me turn to you in New Hampshire. We heard Matt there say that privately the Bush team might be worried. What’s the Kerry team telling you tonight?

That was their exchange in its entirety – nothing added, nothing left out. Leaving aside Frei’s failure to answer the second question (instead waffling on about queues and the likelihood of the lawyers – other than Kerry and Edwards – winning the presidential election), the interesting point for me (and this blog) was Frei’s bit about Cheney, “who’s not in the best of health, er, at the best of times” – as if he’d be standing for Vice President if his health wasn’t likely to last another four years, “travelling eight hours to Hawaii” – as if he’s going by rowing boat rather than by campaign jet, and how this is then spun into Frei’s conclusion that “Inwardly they’re worried”, repeated by Edwards “We heard Matt there say that privately the Bush team might be worried”.

Among the spin about Cheney’s health and the apparent gruelling sacrifice of his journey to Hawaii, Frei is right that Hawaii “wasn’t even a swing state until last week”. What Frei did not tell us is that the reason Hawaii wasn’t regarded as a swing state until last week was that it was seen by both campaigns as being a sure-fire Democrat win, and therefore not much worth bothering about. This is confirmed by the BBC’s own US Elections Map – where Hawaii is described as “one of the safest states in the US for the Democrats and John Kerry should easily carry the state’s four electoral votes” and where 2000’s vote is recorded as 55.8% Gore, 37.5% Bush!

What has changed is that polls are showing Hawaii may be within reach of the Bush campaign – hence Cheney’s campaign trip there. And yet Frei spins this apparent good news for the Bush campaign as being a sign of their desperation. Give us a break! If the Bush campaign is as worried as Frei claims then surely they’d be shoring up their position in larger, closer, more accessible states with more electoral college votes, rather than going the extra mile(s) to snatch, to coin a phrase, “one of the safest states in the US for the Democrats”!

Norm couldn’t help but notice. (via Instapundit)

UPDATE: (8 Nov) Barbara Plett’s tears continue to draw attention and remind the public of previous BBC bias. (via Drudge)

is a most amusing BBC related post on Laban Tall’s blog just now – do read it. In passing, Laban also links to another excellent Guardian bashorama by Scott Burgess on his excellent Daily Ablution blog. Bashing the Guardian might be like shooting fish in a barrel – but Scott pulls off a seemingly endless variety of witty fish skewering trick shots time after time.

Meanwhile, back at the ever reliable and carefully fact-checked BBC News Online, we are informed that the removal of the wreck of the Tricolor, which sank in the English Channel in December 2002, has been completed. According to News Online, at least for the best part of the last 12 hours since the article was last updated at 17:21 on Wednesday:

Since the accident, Dover Coastguard had been broadcasting regular warnings to passing ships alerting them to the Tricolor.

“We have been broadcasting every 40 minutes for the last 20 years, so it’s one less thing to worry about,” a Dover coastguard said.

How prescient of the coastguard!

. Ok, he was describing the BBC as ‘hideously white’, which is intended to be unflattering to a corporation I hate seeing flattered, but somehow I think Gregory and I have different universes in mind when we criticise the BBC. (thanks to Max for the link)

Try rolling round your mouth that commonly heard phrase, ‘hideously black’, or ‘hideously brown’, and you’ll get an idea of the kind of man who is still a regular in the BBC pages, a ‘Hutton celebrity’ for BBC hacks- and of course you’ll get an idea about that famous BBC impartiality, too.

Trash your country and live. Now I get it…the BBC is only trying to survive.

NEW YORK — BBC World Service and Global News director Richard Sambrook on Tuesday took the U.S. news nets to task on their own turf for “wrapping themselves in the flag” and not asking the tough questions about the Bush administration’s reasons for going to war in Iraq.

Sambrook, speaking at Columbia U.’s Graduate School of Journalism, warned that such perceived partisanship of the news media may be playing a part in exposing journalists covering Iraq and other trouble spots around the globe to danger. “Journalists are now at a greater risk than they have ever been before. Where once their neutrality was widely recognized and respected, today they are targeted and sought out, seen as high-profile representatives of their countries or cultures,” Sambrook said.

Question for Richard: Why, then, didn’t it go well for your reporter in Saudi?

(via Drudge)

will provide election commentary for BBC World with a special Question Time. What a shock. (via OpinionJournal)

UPDATE: The panel will have (from left to right by my reckoning) Michael Moore, Sidney Blumenthal, Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, David Frum, Richard Littlejohn. As an ACLU official in one of the most disputed pieces of elctoral real estate in Florida, Rodriguez-Taseff can probably be trusted to keep to the ‘Bush-stole-the-election’ script.

UPDATE post-Question Time: I managed to watch it via the web and found it to be fairly moderated. This is where the Beeb had a less obliging audience for fielding its questions. If anything, the audience was more supportive of Bush than Kerry and quite ready to give Moore the jeers he richly deserves. For his part, Moore did not disappoint with his usual joker persona, his unserious demeanor, his unsubstantiated and baseless allegations combined with a thinly disguised contempt for his fellow countrymen (Brits are much more intelligent,etc.). He really was an easy target for Frum, Littlejohn and the audience. Blumenthal had to be challenged to stick to the question and came off (in my biased opinion) looking a bit off balance. He was roundly booed at least once. Rodriguez-Taseff was pretty even-handed in pronouncing ‘a plague on [the politicians] houses’ for failing to reform the voting system. Littlejohn did a decent job of bringing a British Conservative perspective to the debate. My concerns about the BBC’s use of Moore were unfounded. He has become a self-discrediting propagandist if ever there was one, good for the villain’s role, hissing and dissing.