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Back To The Old Assumptions. This anti-US story seems a much more natural expression of the BBC’s judgement on world affairs. In the ‘good news Guantanamo Bay’ story below, the reader was expected to be surprised to hear that a young detainee was not bitter over his treatment. The assumption was that the reader would naturally believe that the US is treating inmates badly, with just the odd ray of sunlight being a story like that teenager’s. In the story I link to above there are as many overt and covert anti-Americanisms as I’ve come across- frighteningly so for what is really an online offshoot of a BBCWorld Service series (presented by Jonathan Marcus).

I offer just a sample. The piece begins

‘Mike Haverty has the sort of job most small boys dream of. He is president of his own railway.‘,

which is a familiar ‘boys with globalising toys’ sort of approach. It goes on to say,

‘The US is clearly seen by many as the villain of the piece.’,

and then

‘Big US agro-business is intent on spreading its products around the world, with the simple mantra of “what is good for the US consumer is good for the rest of us as well.” ‘

In between such proclamations, we get a non-stop stream of interviews almost wholly concentrating on opponents and ‘victims’ of US policy, combined with the odd apparently ‘human touch’,

‘But when I met Bill Wylie on his small farm in Kansas, he did not look much like a villain.’,

to which my response was ‘well, why should he, and isn’t the very concept ridiculous in the specific trade context? And which empire was it that presided over such real ‘disasters’ as the potato famine? And wasn’t Mexico (especially rural Mexico) really, really poor before Nafta- or was there a golden era I missed somewhere? And where’s the balance, the other point of view, in this entire article?’ (btw, I should point out I’m British, despite the number of times I write accusing the Beeb of anti-American positions. To me, that’s a reflection on them, and the priorities they make in their reporting). One other aside- according to Marcus, US policy has been so self-centred for so long, even Bill Clinton wasn’t entirely fair. That bad, huh?

The Happiest Days of Your Life. Kudos to the BBC for reporting this tale of happy days at Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps they might consider rethinking the kneejerk headline slot that’s been given to groups of professional worriers like Human Rights Watch? Among other lovely ‘think again’ passages:

‘You might think he (detainee’s father) would be angry with the Americans. Actually he thinks they have done Naqibullah a favour. ‘

Tuesday Update. Melanie Phillips expresses my feelings on the ‘categorically untrue’ affair.Sunday Update: Read Mark Steyn on The Lop-Sided Take. So there are two rounds of scandal-mongering taking place as Kerry and Bush begin to square up to each other. One is well known from the last election, the other is becoming well known. How this process is handled by the BBC is very important: each word in a report about the Kerry ‘whatsit’ must be measured, and of course journalists themselves are sparring over the way this ‘whatsit’ finds its way into the public mind. The report I saved yesterday on the BBC website is very different to the one I found this morning.

Firstly, what’s the case for ignoring the Kerry ‘whatsit’? As Vodkapundit illustrates, it’s important to stay cool. Firstly I suppose that not enough information has been revealed to prove the central allegation true. Secondly that many of the sources are clearly politically interested ones. Thirdly you may not think sex is that important in deciding who is fit to govern. Fourthly the alleged source of the allegation, Wesley Clark, has just offered his wholehearted endorsement of Kerry, and you may say that proves that the story is poorly founded, if the source can’t be relied on to reiterate the allegation(s).

But while the BBC devoted only a few lines to the Kerry ‘whatsit’ as part of a report in which the major foci were General Clark’s endorsement and alleged Republican dirty tricks, they gave a whole report to the continuing rumpus over President Bush’s alleged poor Vietnam war service record. Never mind the fact that this is old news. Never mind that it was covered during the last campaign. Never mind that the parties prolonging the affair are clearly politically motivated, never mind the fact that the records support Bush against accusations of major wrong-doing, never mind the fact that whatever behaviour Bush might be accused of, it happened not just over one year (like Kerry’s ‘whatsit’) but over thirty years ago. Never mind the facts, in fact, lets run a story against President Bush and be hush-hush over the Kerry ‘whatsit’.

, it is safest to have your say as a comment. Writing to me is always a gamble: will I lose your email, misattribute it or merely ignore it? Here, belatedly, are some that slipped through:

From Stan Brin:

I am an American journalist specializing in media criticism. Two questions:

1. Does anyone in Britain know how horrid the nightly

North American BBC television broadcast is? Pure

propaganda, paid for by the British taxpayer.

2. A few years ago. BBC and the American PBS teamed

up to produce an account of the Arab-Israeli wars

called “The 50 Year War.”

I interviewed the producer the PBS version of the

documentary. He called the BBC version a damned lie.

I am curious about the BBC version, never having seen it.

Although PBS often caters to the Arabs, their version of

“50 Years War” is the finest, most balanced story of its

kind I have ever seen.

It would be useful to compare the two, somehow. Any idea

how that could be done?

Stan Brin

John W. Matthews is a regular correspondent to Geitner Simmond’s Regions of Mind blog. He provided us with the following two links:

Reporting from London

But not a word was said about where [BBC reporter] Andrew Gilligan was and what his reaction to the report was. Nor was there any discussion of his future with the BBC. I didn’t even hear a mention of where he was, although a friend latter told me a BBC radio report early in the morning had said he was going to Broadcasting House.

There was no reporting on the reactions of BBC editors and news execs. mentioned in the report.

Yes, it’s tough to report on colleagues, but this is the organization that prides itself on “asking the awkward questions of anyone.” (“We know it only been a hour since your son was murdered, but can you tell viewers whether you think the police are doing enough to find his killer?”)

and

More from London

Any news organization would have difficulty seeing itself described as Hutton described the BBC. However, the report was especially problematic for the BBC for two reasons.

First, at the time of Hutton’s selection and in the weeks leading up to the report’s release, the BBC repeatedly and fulsomely praised him. He was an “extremely well-respectd judge” with a reputation for “thoroughness and fairness.”

And no one, the BBC often said, could question the courage of Lord Hutton to stand up to any kind of pressure. As a judge in Northern Ireland during the worst of the terrorism, he presided openly over trials of terrorists in situations where it was too dangerous to impanel a jury. A judicial colleague was the victim of an assination attempt. Hutton and his wife had to send their two young daughters out of Northern Ireland when it became known they might be targets of kidnappers. But he stayed and administered justice.

Now, how do you attack the report of a judge you’ve been describing like that? The BBC, after many hours, found a way: use surrogates…

The BBC did praise Hutton fulsomely in the run up to the Report. As Mr Matthews says, the BBC was quite sure until the last moment that Hutton would come down against Blair.

While I’m here at the keyboard… it’s not a reader’s letter, but read Mark Steyn: “The BBC takes the rap.”

“Does the BBC really need six million more enemies at this time, six million more people who think BBC self-regulation has failed, and the licence fee is no longer justifiable?” asks the author of this surprising Thought for Today.

They seem to think they do. They seem really quite proud of Popetown.

Just in case anyone misses the point: I support freedom of speech for the vilest messages, for stuff far worse than this tawdry effort. My objection is to being forced to pay for rubbish like this, to having it go out under my country’s name, and to being constantly told I should be proud of it.

I also object to blatant double standards. Quoting Clifford Longley’s Thought for the Day again:

We can surely all agree that the BBC would be too ashamed to carry a programme that ridiculed Jewish leaders like this, and too scared to ridicule Muslim leaders.

But supercilious metropolitan attitudes regard Catholics as fair game, and ridicule as an appropriate weapon to spread ill-feeling against them.

Perhaps now would be a good time to re-read the BBC’s statement of values:

The BBC exists to enrich people’s lives with great programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain. Its vision is to be the most creative, trusted organisation in the world.

It provides a wide range of distinctive programmes and services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias. They include television, radio, national, local, childrens’, educational, language and other services for key interest groups.

BBC services are hugely popular and used by over 90% of the UK population every week. The BBC also runs orchestras, actively develops new talent and supports training and production skills for the British broadcasting, music, drama and film industries.

The BBC is financed by a TV licence paid by households. It does not have to serve the interests of advertisers, or produce a return for shareholders. This means it can concentrate on providing high quality programmes and services for everyone, many of which would not otherwise be supported by subscription or advertising.

BBC values

The BBC has signed up to these values:

• Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest
  

• Audiences are at the heart of everything we do
  

• We take pride in delivering quality and value for money
  

• Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation
  

• We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best
  

• We are one BBC: great things happen when we work together

Twelve Governors regulate the BBC, upholding standards and defending it from political and commercial pressures. They set its objectives and report on its performance in their Annual Report to licence payers and Parliament.

Anyone know if the line about “Trust is the foundation of the BBC” was put in pre- or post- Mr Gilligan’s little early morning escapade? And anyone know the music to “We are one BBC: great things happen when we work together”? What is it, some remix of something the New Seekers did in 1972?

UPDATE: Reader Alan comments:

“Or for that matter would we ever see a cartoon about the BBC? “…A satirical and bizarre take on the world of personal politics, sex and fame set in a fictional version of one of the most revered and mysterious corporations in the world…”

There has been an unexpected applicant for an important position at the BBC.

. An absolute must-read as Gerard Baker of the Financial Times, writing in the Weekly Standard, surveys the state of the BBC:

‘The sheer scale of the BBC means that “the truth as seen by the BBC” is what gets believed. Aunty is simply too big and too powerful for the modern media era. The BBC is, in fact, a curious vestige of pre-Margaret Thatcher Britain: a massive public monopoly, a Soviet-like bureaucracy accountable to no one. If you own a TV, your almost $200 a year goes into the BBC’s coffers–irrespective of whether you watch it–and, yes, the BBC will prosecute you if you fail to pay up.’

Now I am going to put it to good, if belated use: a few days ago Dave Holroyd wrote:

BBC America’s 6.00 PM EST (their only evening news report) news coverage of Gavyn Davies resignation was a peach! First selections from Hutton’s summary (3 minutes), then Campbell’s press conference (2 minutes), then the resignation speech (4 minutes) and finally a six minute segment about international reaction to the Hutton reports findings. The BBC America news anchor interviewed two people live: Andrew Wilkie, an ex member of the Australian intelligence service who resigned in protest over the Iraq war and Guillaume Parmentier, head of the French Center on the US, at the French Institute for International Relations. Wilkie predictably presented the case that no WMD meant Hutton was wrong, and Parmentier gave the French government party line. Balanced reporting from the BBC as ever. The show’s produced in the US, Parmentier was in Washington – but no American reaction!

The previous evening, the BBC America 6.00 PM ‘News’ included a 4 minute live interview with a no name professor of history at the American University (based in Washington DC, a third rate liberal arts college). The anchor asked if the lack of WMD’s was a scandal in the US. Answer: not yet, but there might be a scandal if various people (republican congressmen, independents etc.) decided that it was a scandal. The message: it should be a scandal in the US, but wasn’t, so by reporting that it should be, the BBC hoped it might be. Wishful reporting at best. But is it news?

Natalie: I posted this as a comment on one of the posts at Biased BBC. I think you guys need to cover what the Corporation’s up to here in the US. BBC America’s a cable/satellite channel with one 30 minute evening news program.

Please note the last paragraph. So far as I can see the BBC in the US serves as a “legitimator” of the liberal consensus of the American media; an ostensibly impartial outside witness who appears to provide independent support for their view of the world. I don’t think that vast numbers watch it but it is influential.

, but the little caption in a grey box on the main BBC news page linking to this story used to say something like “American troops in Iraq: giving out sweets by day, kicking in doors by night.” I’m not complaining about the story itself, but that caption somewhat gave the impression that the door-kicking was mere vandalism that the soldiers indulged in under cover of darkness. Actually the story says that doors are kicked down as part of military action, not indiscipline.

I’d put it down to chance or my own misreading, but these slightly “off” captions so often seem to mislead in the same direction.

ADDED LATER: Here’s another example of weird and misleading link text, spotted by Brian O’Connell. His example is almost a platonic BBC text, involving the misuse of quote marks, stealth editing and being plain wrong.

…it also demonstrates that the BBC does not get their ironical, dubious, so-some-mentally-ill-people-believe quotes from actual quotes, because there is no such quote in the article. Nor anything close. The headlines, scare quotes and all, come from headline writers whose choice of what to ironically quote represents their own views of what’s ironic, or dubious.

This is somewhat off our usual beat, and I am the last person to come to for for an opinion on computer stuff – but here’s an email I received, which I shall reproduce for reader interest.

Hi.

I’d like to draw your attention to a remarkably ill-conceived article on the current “MyDoom” virus at

this link.

Almost every paragraph contains either errors or gross distortions of fact, and the presentation of personal opinion as fact. Not to mention

an extremely one-sided view of SCO’s lawsuit against IBM.

Some facts:

The MyDoom virus has nothing to do with Linux. It is a Windows virus that exploits the general lack of security on Windows machines. It is true that it is designed to launch a denial of service attack on SCO (in version “A” of the virus) or Microsoft (in the less-common version “B”), but its main function is to turn the victim’s computer into an “open relay” to be used for sending spam. In fact, this seems to be the purpose behind a number of recent and widespread Windows viruses.

SCO, despite all its bluster, and despite court deadlines, has so far

presented no evidence whatsoever that backs up its claims. Two supposed examples that became public were quickly shown to be code that SCO had no claims to.

A discussion of the article is taking place on Slashdot right now.

Regards,

Andrew Maizels

(Pixy Misa of Ambient Irony)