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Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance had the microphone pulled from him during a BBC debate a few days ago, as mentioned here by Ed Thomas on Feb 17 and Feb 19. You can listen here.

I watched BBC coverage of the awful bombings in Iraq. It was vivid and affecting. The viewer saw terrified crowds separating and re-forming – one minute arousing pity, when we saw a shot of market trolleys pushed into service to carry the wounded away or a glimpse of a man carrying a bloodied baby – and the next, horror, when a mob coalesced around an Iranian pilgrim and looked set to lynch him for what had happened.

These scenes were captured by BBC journalists and cameramen doing their job well, at some risk to themselves.

I noticed one thing. The reporter called the perpetrators “terrorists.” That is correct. It is a classic tactic of violent revolutionaries to spread terror, in the hope that where terror goes, violence and disorder will follow and give the revolutionaries their chance.

How distasteful to think that the reporter will probably be censured by his bosses for lack of ‘impartiality’ between those who slaughter worshippers at prayer and their victims.

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… don’t know what your position is on the whole Israel/Palestinian conflict, but anyway, this is a copy of a something I just sent to the BBC’s “feedback” section of their site. It’s regarding a factual inequality in TV reporting on the conflict.

Here is what Jon said to the BBC:

The last 2 nights (25 and 26 Feb, GMT+4) every BBC World News TV bulletin featured Orla Guerin’s reports from the West Bank of clashes between anti-wall protesters and Isreali troops. (By the way, checking the transcripts will show that both reports were inappropriately emotive and opinionated, and presented only the Palestinian point of view).

But today, 2 Isrealis in their car were shot dead by Palestinians

while travelling on the edge of the West Bank. I have yet to see a single TV report of this incident on BBC World, although it’s recorded on your website.

What makes the clashes between protesters and Israeli troops worthy of your TV news, and the fatal shooting of 2 Israelis in the same area, not worthy of your TV news?

Your own BBC World promo says “Demand a broader view”. Yes, a broader view would be nice. Or is this a case of “a little information going a long way”?

, but also on-message left-leaning anti-war media organisations think as one. And the time-lag here between a report in the Sunday papers and a report on the BBC was?… nil. Funny how when the same newspaper and others have reported the scandal of Iraqi-oil-for-peace-activists the BBC has waited, and waited, and waited, and then reported a scandal… in France. This is not to mention the fact that this dilemma was freely discussed at the time. In the light of this debate it would be extraordinary if the actual men who were to take the responsibility and the consequences of the fighting on the ground in Iraq had not sought absolute clarity from their political masters, who in turn sought it from the legal men. This looks grey and unnappetising, like old news reheated- and no more tasty now than it was then. The moral self-righteousness of the oil funded ‘stoppers’ and the even more self-righteous ‘If you’d only paid me I’d have made more noise’ types like Clare Short knows no bounds. The BBC is goading the British public to assauge its own injured pride. [BTW, this morning the BBC’s approach has been driven home to me by watching that pinnacle of the modern establishment, David Frost]. InstaUpdate: Indeed.

Recently I criticised the BBC for its coverage of Robert Mugabe’s birthday party– and I suggested that it was part of a trend. Others disagreed. My view is that very often the BBC acts as though they are a court of law- seeing their job to present the unfolding evidence of history fairly. The trouble is that that often means twisting material to fit arbitrary (though satisfying) lines of justice. It’s overreach. It also implies the introduction of the idea of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ into journalism. Now (to simplify), historically in Britain and the West the idea has been that people in the ‘Third World’ just don’t do things in the right way- so the BBC stands aloof from all that, and redresses the balance by being suspicious of Western politicians instead (keep in mind: the purpose of this post is to praise the Beeb). The main impact of this is felt in the language the BBC uses in its reports. Moral equivalence means that Ken Livingstone’s London congestion charge and Robert Mugabe’s land confiscation have been scrutinised in similar terms as ‘policies’. There is no way this can be good reporting.

It’s true though that this ideological tendency is not the only force at work. The Beeb has a craftsman’s commitment to journalism, and its own ethos of humanism. Hence this article from the award-winning Hilary Andersson includes much that rings true. The video accompanying the article contains the magic words

“For almost a quarter of a century Robert Mugabe has been prepared to use violence to hold on to power”

Here’s responsibility placed where it genuinely rests, and the whole article revolves around demonstrating that Mugabe is at the epicentre of Zimbabwe’s ordeal, actively fomenting trouble with brutal youth training camps:

The Zimbabwean government says the camps are job training centres, but those who have escaped say they are part of a brutal plan to keep Mugabe in power.

The only trouble I have is that this is from a Panorama programme (Panorama: Secrets of the Camps will be broadcast on BBC One on Sunday, 29 February 2004 at 2215 GMT ) and therefore a major blip in their coverage. This qualm is intensified by the sense that it is being billed as revelatory, when common sense combined with observation could tell us that Mugabe was relying on gangs of primed thugs to maintain himself in power- not exactly the point of the documentary, but not inconsistent with it. Will we be back to ‘cabinet reshuffles’, ‘corruption crackdowns’, ‘policies’ and ‘land reform programmes’, and farm invasion violence that just may have a relationship to Mugabe’s regime, when the dust dies down? Will we be hearing about more ‘vintage’ Mugabe from the BBC? I’m not suggesting they like him, but that there is a complacency in the reporting of an extraordinary situation. If journalism can’t be interested enough in Zimbabwe to describe it with detailed, scrutinising care and a bit of anger at what others suffer, then no part of Africa will benefit from the interest of the Western media.

: the BBC finds more uses for licence-payer’s money by antagonising God and atheists in mind-numbing global television mallarkey. This excellent article in the Guardian rips it into such very fine shreds you won’t even feel tempted to see how bad it is and boost the viewing figures.

can be enhanced by reading the opinions of those you strongly disagree with. That’s why I looked into the Today Programme website to see what I could glean from their extended feature about Jenny Tonge (the LibDem former front-bencher who lost her job after demonstrating her ’empathy’ for suicide bombers, and then visited Israelis and Palestinians at the invitation of the Today Programme- producing an article on the main BBC website). Despite appearing to listen carefully, Tonge had a serious case of mental lock-jaw when it came to appreciating clear explanations of the position of ordinary Israeli citizens. I found the text of her diary for the Today Programme and discovered that the World Website ‘Viewpoint’ looked to have altered a number of things that she said, perhaps to make them more acceptable to the range of viewers that would come to read it. This is one of the worst examples:

‘Some of the rantings have truth in them, but it is all so negative’– Tonge about Israeli citizens’ opinions, in the ‘diary’ on the Today Website.

‘Some of the Israeli arguments had truth in them, but it was all so negative.’ – Tonge on the BBC Website.

So the BBC, and possibly Tonge herself, feel it is equivalent to exchange ‘rantings’ with ‘arguments’? The next time I read or hear on the BBC of President Bush, say, being ‘forced’ to ‘defend’ the ‘argument’ for war in Iraq, I will have to bear it in mind that that they could mean, say, ‘desperately’ ‘resorts’ to ‘ranting’.

. Nicholas Vance skewers Orla and Fergal. Plus… how Irish kebabs should be free or paid for voluntarily- a plan for reform at the BBC. Plus… will the Tories always get it wrong?

writes:

If you ever needed confirmation that the media has a clear editorial policy regarding what they want you to focus on and what they want you to ignore, check out today’s Israel news. Last night, BBC News had a full report on the Hague hearing regarding the legality of the separation barrier, but did not even mention that 8 people had been killed and 60 wounded in a Jerusalem suicide bombing that very day. One can only imagine the connections and commentary that would be made were 8 Palestinians killed and 60 wounded on the day before they presented evidence at the Hague against Israel. And certainly one would think that it would be germane to connect the bombing story to the barrier story, since the former is Israel’s stated reason for the latter. Yet, as you will see on their website, there is nary a word about the bombing, although four separate stories discuss the barrier proceedings.

These two reports- one from the BBC and one from the Telegraph– have different ways of describing a change in the TV rights’ ownership of the University Boat Race. Reminds me of one or two of my breakups in fact. One thing’s sure: the Boat Race was an audience drawing event that has been a fixture in the sporting calendar in this country for many years, and the BBC will no longer be involved after 2004.