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.Reading Kerry’s post on David Frum I found what I felt to be a ‘money’ quote. Here ’tis:

‘How can you do a program that purports to study why British people are so hostile to President Bush – without taking note of the state broadcaster’s role in creating and magnifying that hostility? ‘

In other words, the Beeb foregrounds the debates we have in society. Now, hear this:

‘Ms. Doucete, who refers to homicide bombers as “honor” killers, believes “her job is to translate” rather than simply report the news, because “Israel is led by a Prime Minister who believes that it is not Israel’s policy that is wrong, just that they have to explain it better.” ‘

– David Bedein in FPM

Well, it sounds very much to me like a case of playing at being judge and jury. Thanks very much to Barry Rab for both these snippets, who like so many BBBC commenters recognises when something stinks.

. As a commenter in the below thread also notes, the Beeb’s journalists are logging their responses to the Bushes’ visit. It was (and still might be later on) a delightful selection of half-baked preconceived ideas disappointed, with dashes of wishful thinking thrown in. Until, that is, it was radically stealth-pruned back (these days, stealth editing isn’t enough- stealth-pruning under cover of darkness is the thing). For instance, maybe Jules Botfield was right and Mr Bush’s rooms had windows thin enough to have him lying awake hearing the ‘peace’ protesters in their hundreds outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. Then again, Jules, maybe not. I bet he and his ‘lump in the bed’ slept in a nice peaceful four-poster. This morning, after 8 0’clock, she records that there are four protesters, yes, four. Lazy bones protesters! Just can’t get the nihilists these days.

Meanwhile, I’ve commented before on Paul Reynolds’ sense of history, but the first paragraph here takes the biscuit. Still, if you’re not satisfied by chortling through that (A serious point through the article would be the lack of balance in reporting Bush’s Middle East comments. I heard the speech and it was very negative towards corrupt Palestinian leadership.), take a look at this attempt to maintain cultural ‘balance’ at a time when Bush is looking disturbingly as though his values are received quite amicably in this country. Senior EU commission officials really must be high calibre individuals methinks (ahem)- I suppose we should ask Medact for the answer to that (see Tuesday post). Just one little rocket propelled grenade I’d like to bring to this Europartying article: ‘Kosovo’. It’s all rather reminiscent of the botched visits, meals and activities one engages in when one has unwelcome guests. You end up doing the most awkward things to be seen to please them or failing that to avoid them altogether.

Update. For some reason you can still access part of the old log – which is good! Why they need to chop it up unless they’re scared of self-contradiction is beyond me.

Update2. As portrayed in the movies that were Bin Laden’s staple youthful diet, ‘it was quiet- too quiet’. Very tragically, the terrorists know how to stage a public relations event- by attacking Britain’s interests in Turkey. One more reason why we need a serious, broad-based and competitive media in the UK.

Update3. The ‘radical pruning’ was just a moment of reorganisation. Anyone who’s watched Beebonline tactics knows you must be on your toes. Closer to the present, and Trafalgar Square is ‘nearly full’, march organisers will be ‘very happy’ at numbers in the ‘tens of thousands’ (so is that 2 or 3 tens? Joke). Dominic Cascani helpfully interprets for us.

Bias at point blank range as reported by former Bush speechwriter David Frum.

Before the three of us got to business, “Newsnight” broadcast an introductory video clip. It was that clip that was my perfect moment of news slanting.

(Thanks to commenter Barry Rab.)

It is now 5 [actually 6] days on and still no BBC coverage on what should be a major story alleging, as it does, a longstanding Saddam-Osama link. As for the press, the lockstep we see up ’til now is impressive. Where is the BBC on this? As Jack Shafer writes (for a non-Murdoch outlet by the way!):

Everybody knows how the press loves to herd itself into a snarling pack to chase the story of the day. But less noticed is the press’s propensity to half-close its lids, lick its paws, and contemplate its hairballs when confronted with events or revelations that contradict its prejudices….

Help me! Many a reporter has hitched a ride onto Page One with the leak of intelligence much rawer than the stuff in Feith’s memo. You can bet the farm that if a mainstream publication had gotten the Feith memo first, it would have used it immediately—perhaps as a hook to re-examine the ongoing war between the Pentagon and CIA about how to interpret intelligence. Likewise, you’d be wise to bet your wife’s farm that had a similar memo arguing no Saddam-Osama connection been leaked to the press, it would have generated 100 times the news interest as the Hayes story.

I write this not as a believer in the Saddam-Osama love child or as a non-believer. My mind remains open to argument and to data both raw and refined. Hayes’ piece piques my curiosity, and it should pique yours. If it’s true that Saddam and Osama’s people danced together—if just for an evening or two—that undermines the liberal critique that Bush rashly folded Iraq into his “war on terror.” And if it’s true, isn’t that a story? Or, conversely, if Feith’s shards of information direct us to the conclusion that his people stacked the intel to justify a bogus war, isn’t that a story, too? Where is the snooping, prying, nosy press that I’ve heard so much about?

Where is the BBC, supposed leader of this pack? Or is it just part of the herd after all? As James Taranto observes, the fact that the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate has asked for an investigation of the leak though the Defense Department has tried to discount it, ought to count for something.

UPDATE: Stephen Hayes now has a compelling response to the Defense Department’s attempts to knock this story down. What will it take to interest the BBC?

Earlier on this evening I was watching Channel Five’s early evening news. They were doing an item on the changes that have been made to the UK’s directory enquiry service. Time after time they said things like “…things got worse after deregulation” and “Has deregulation been a disaster?” etc.

Only one problem.

It wasn’t deregulated.

Precisely the opposite in fact.

What happened was that BT (the UK’s largest phone operator) was forced by the regulator to make its database of phone numbers available to its competitors. Forced ie regulated.

. A few days ago Andy Whittles and I were e-debating a scarifying BBConline report on an Iraqi health warning by British medical charity Medact. We decided we hadn’t got enough to go on, though I later discovered that one of Medact’s leading funders was the European Commission (ahem). A sparkling Mark Steyn’s not so shy in denouncing them, the protesters-to-be, and by association with the uncritical article noted above, the BBC:

Given that they’ve now revised their figures downwards by 98 per cent, it would be nice to think the protesters might reduce their budget for gallons of Dulux Mesopotamian Burgundy Gloss by a commensurate amount. The rest of us should pelt Medact with rotten tomatoes symbolising all the blood that wasn’t spilt.’

reported here. The BBC seems ever willing to indulge the loony left, be it Red Ken or “antiimperialista” “militants” raising funds for the Iraqi “resistance”. Via InstaPundit

. It’s difficult to predict just how bad the BBC coverage of Bush’s visit to the UK will be. The trouble is that they have a lot of room for manoeuvre given the range of groups that might be evident in the anti-Bush, anti-war protests. I’ve already indicated one problem- there are those who don’t like Bush (for example anti-death penalty people) and there are those who don’t like the war. There are also those who don’t like people rocking the boat (for instance certain overweight Conservatives), and angry europhiles who didn’t like the contretemps with the French (sometimes overweight Conservatives too). There are ‘colourful characters’ like Galloway (still under a legal cloud) and Tony Benn who have Baathed together and so are quite close in some regards, and oddbods like Clare Short desperate to be accepted again as a ‘darling’ of the Left. With this range of delicious options-and I’ve offered just a sprinkling-(who will typically be ideal commentators on the fringe of things rather than marching) to choose from, the BBC’s coverage will probably be uncontroversially lurid at times. Mark Steyn sets a realistic , maybe even pessimistic, tone. By the end of it all Bush will no doubt feel like saying, ‘I’m a celebrity too, get me out of here’.

Update. Early sniper fire from David Loyne on BBC lunchtime News: Apparently the controversy over Bush’s visit is because ‘Nobody expected the War to go as badly as it has’. Which War? Badly for the British? Currently? Whose expectations? Surely he can’t mean the ’20 days to Baghdad’ War?

to cover this.

UPDATE: It’s 19 November and still not a sniff from the Beeb on this. It’s as clear an example in recent memory of committing bias by omission. Conflicted? What’s to be conficted about if you just ignore it?

More from renowned BBBC correspondent Winston Churchill. Here’s the ‘latest’ courtesy of Andrew Sullivan:

‘Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran, favored continuing the BBC monopoly. When he questioned Churchill about it, the great man exploded. “For eleven years they kept me off the air. They prevented me from expressing views which have proved to be right. Their behavior has been tyrannical. They are honeycombed with Socialists – probably with Communists.” ‘

Update.

I didn’t notice Kerry’s update, so I suggest you use Kerry’s link direct to the point in question- it’s worth going just for the ‘anti-Bush hysteria’ post above the Churchill one. Fortunately Churchill merits the repetition. I think the ‘views which have proved to be right’ is most telling. I’ve often been asked if my perception of bias is simply reflecting the fact that the BBC contradicts my political standpoint. My point is that there’s more at stake than politics, there are views which might prove to be right.