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This article states that 25% of people surveyed by the ITC thought that, among others, BBC1 was biased towards the US/UK. Funnily enough, page 27 of the report seems to imply that 21% thought the BBC was biased against the UK/US and biased towards the anti-war lobby (total – for some reason the pro-US camp is a single answer whereas the anti-US camp for want of a better word is broken up into ‘specialties’). I have not really looked at the maths in detail but it seems to add up to more than 100%. I do note that the BBC has spun this report to its own benefit. Readers may find the answer to the funny maths in the report so please comment.

Does Rob Watson have insider knowledge on how the next US presidential election will turn out for Bush? In his giddy report of President Bush’s meeting with the California governor-elect Watson states the following:

Apparently, in his Terminator days, Mr Schwarzenegger had campaigned for the president’s father – also of course a one-time president (emphasis added).

Watson also seems a little confused on Bush’s current state of being.

There was even a little appeal from the actor-turned-governor for any useful advice from the president on how to run a big state – remember Mr Bush was himself a former governor of Texas (emphasis added).

I think he still is.

UPDATE: As one of our excellent commentators notes, a stealth edit has been performed on the first item. It now reads:

Apparently, in his Terminator days, Mr Schwarzenegger had campaigned for the president’s father – himself once a president, of course.

Getting rid of the license fee would put quite a few stealth editors on the street it would seem.

[an altered headline]

They’re at it again. Today’s dish of the day is lightly boiled American General with a garnish of Rumsfeld. There’s also a touch of sauce, rendered piquant by irony. They hope you’ll enjoy the dish, which has been placed initially on the main menu to ensure that plenty of customers get to try it.

The irony? Ah, bien sur! It’s a secret blend of bitterness that yesterday they had to change their article about Mahathir so ignominiously. Now we find the Malaysians (being given the floor by the BBC) saying that we misunderstood. We did not. Incidentally, this is the same article they posted yesterday, just ‘updated’. Bon chance then that the BBC had a “comparable” fresh titbit about an American general to offset the ‘bigot’ accusations that no doubt have flown at them.

Notice the artistic arrangement of the dish though- our eyes do influence our taste buds you know. ‘Donald Rumsfeld has declined to criticise’. Never mind that this was a General off duty in a private (churches are self-selecting) gathering, caught on poor quality video tape using the language of religion in an arena where the nuances are respected and understood, where ‘Satan’s kingdom’ is a theological concept. The implied parallel with Mahathir speaking at a international forum, addressing the 1 billion plus Muslim world and heads of state, with the watching world, and trying to make a coherent case for racial genocide, is absolutely risible. The General’s comments should not have reached the news at all. Mahathir’s should have been front page at the top- and slated comprehensively. (BTW- forgive the use of French- no offence to them is intentional).

picked by the BBC to profile in order to given an impression of daily life in Iraq. Or was she? Darren Kaplan dug a little deeper. (Via Instapundit.)

. As Ed Thomas prophesied in the posting below, the headline to Mahathir’s anti-semitic rant story on BBCi has now been altered. Norman Geras couldn’t help but notice some plasticity on this one too.

[Nb.- since this post, editing has begun to the story. Kofi Annan, for instance, makes an appearance, and his contribution is very interesting. Imagine the report without this and you are close(r) to the original. No doubt this process will continue, but I’m sure my comments won’t be assauged by further edits. Watch out for a headline change- that really would be news. [1.17pm UK. Here’s the latest- bye, bye, ‘Top Stories’- hello ‘Asia/Pacific’. That’s only taken a matter of hours, 3 since the ‘last updated’ record, so they are recognising their mistakes- too late.]]

Jews Rule the World- Mahathir

This is how the sub-headline runs on the main page of the BBC website. I find it shocking, and an example of how the BBC indulges certain groups with free publicity when their cause and reputation does not deserve it.

Meanwhile, the news item it advertises fails to critique the attitude at all. I may not be a fan of opinions expressed in the news sections, but this kind of story is crying out for them, formally marked out for the reader. Where are all the correspondents (a la Arnie, see below) telling us of the faultlines and reputation of this man? Well, as Natalie Solent reported here on Sept 4th (see archive), he happens to be one the respected ‘experts’ that the BBC makes use of from time to time (and no doubt the relationship is reciprocal).

Not only is the news item uncritical, it is also uninformative. What’s the OIC? Where is the ‘meeting’ or whatever it is taking place? What’s its track record- when begun etc?

Well, for any of this information we have to go the the ‘see also: quick guide section’. This means that Mahathir’s original message is undiluted by context- which seems to me to be bad reporting, especially in this kind of inflammatory story. As far as I can see, Mahathir in ‘his own words’, or a laughably uncritical ‘profile’ are the only places to gather information. In the profile he is described as ‘essentially pragmatic’- high praise from a journalist. Imagine ‘Rumsfeld- in his own words’, or described as ‘essentially pragmatic’. Actually, that’s unimaginable on the BBC website. Even to have me talk of equivalence between them is absurd. The BBC seems to think that Mahathir (the racist, homophobic, pragmatic etc) is a ‘colourful’ old boy, while Rumsfeld is a ‘loose cannon’.

The BBC’s use of these ‘quick guides’ and factfiles is disingenuous. Andrew Sullivan (see Kerry Buttram’s post below) tracks an instance of this in the reporting of the successful (so far) separation of conjoined Egyptian twins in Dallas, Texas, earlier this week.

In summary: I am appalled by the undiluted headline, and the uncritical reporting combined with the factual vacuum. I am alarmed by the connection fostered by the BBC to this man Mahathir, and the lack of a general critique- I mean preachy, finger wagging tone they usually use on US politicians- on the site of this man’s racist and militaristic creed. I consider that in reporting such an item in this way, the BBC is nailing its own anti-Jewish colours to the mast.

This piece on the growing recognition of the need for Thatcherite reforms in Germany, prompted one of our correspondents, John Perry, to ask if the BBC or Labour MP Gisela Stuart knew their German history. The story says:

“Ms Stuart suggested that the liberal economic policies pursued in the 1960s by chancellor Ludwig Erhard might be one solution”

As our correspondent observes, Erhard’s reforms did indeed trigger the “German economic miracle”.

IN 1948.

This from The Freeman, journal of the Advocates for Self-Government:

Erhard plowed ahead. He knew his history: more than 2,000 years of price and wage controls have always resulted in economic chaos. Not only do price and wage controls destroy incentives, Erhard pointed out, but they almost always transfer wealth from hard-working, patriotic citizens into the hands of cynics, bureaucrats, and those favored by the government […] Taking the country by surprise, Erhard went on the air on a Sunday night in June 1948 […] most of Germany’s wage and price controls would be dropped. First, controls would end on a wide range of consumer goods. Within six months, controls on food would be dropped. […] Almost immediately, the German economy sprang to life. The unemployed went back to work, food reappeared on store shelves, and the legendary productivity of the German people was unleashed. Within two years, industrial

output trebled. By the early 1960s, Germany was the third greatest economic power in the world.

Since the 1960s, Germany has turned away from Erhard’s free market policies. Many German young people missed the significance of Erhard’s reforms […] After achieving wealth and leisure time by pursuing free market policies, a new generation of social engineers has devised schemes to divide the wealth, disregarding how that wealth was created. Intellectuals provided moral support for the move toward socialism, even though the very leisure they used to undermine capitalism was itself the result of capitalism. The process is still going on.

Mr Perry writes:

Is it beyond the ability of the BBC to get its facts right? The entire thrust of German policy since the 60s has been towards a corporate state. Far from introducing “liberal” policies, the German state has been destroying the engine of wealth creation, piece by piece, for over 40 years.

I must add something on my own account. I initially misunderstood this story because I thought the BBC were using “liberal” in the way they usually use it, i.e. socialist. I was wrong. They were, for once, using it to mean what it meant for generations before the word was stolen by those who wanted to co-opt its positive connotations for policies that were the very opposite of what classical liberals advocated. Let us hope that this is the start of a great BBC campaign to restore the word to its original meaning. – NS

UPDATE: Having checked that there was no objection I have now updated this post to include our correspondent’s name. Please note that our general policy is go by the way you sign yourself in the body of the email. We will err on the side of caution with unsigned emails – even if the “Details” field does indicate the name.

Amazingly this story fails to mention where the Egyptian twins received their life-extending surgery, though a small hint of the location is dropped in the medical history window. It’s hard to imagine this is a mere oversight since the article later makes much of an “Italy success” to separate conjoined twins. Other national references mentioned in the story include: Egypt, Greece, a “French news agency”, “Guatamalan twins”, “Iranians”, Singapore. This must come under some BBC directive filed under “Don’t mention it if you catch the Great Satan doing good”. Via Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE: I just had a look at the article in question today (15 October) and am happy to report that a stealth edit has left us with a new, one sentence paragraph (fourth from the top) as follows.

The boys’ successful surgery was performed at the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, USA.

UPDATE 2: Andrew Sullivan posts an actual response from the Beeb (scroll up) after a generous helping of emails on the subject. And yes, as a Yank, it does strike me as strange whenever I hear BBC newsreaders or read a website referring to “Dallas USA” , etc. It just ain’t the way we talk folks. Note another BBC-related item on Sullivan’s site just below ‘Ed Asner’.

Here’s a piece on recent website coverage of the so-called revamping of US Iraq policy. The website provides the most detailed and broad range of BBC coverage available anywhere, and must surely be important in shaping international opinion through the internet. The newsgathering it employs must also be very important for co-ordinating all branches of the BBC- terrestrial TV, radio, digital and cable.

Another Salvo in the War: Vendettas to Pursue

The BBC is not paying attention to reports that it is having a bad war. In fact, it is particularly keen to emphasise that the war isn’t over until the fat lady is free to sing in a UN sponsored concert tour of Tikrit, Fallujah and the Baathist triangle compeered by Rageh Omar. Until then, or until Bush is re-elected to their chagrin, they will not budge an inch or give a budge in their implacable war on Dubya’s terrorism.

It might surprise some people that the Beeb has run a series of reports capitalising on Donald Rumsfeld’s perceived ‘snub’ by Condoleeza Rice. There are no fewer than four correspondent pieces dealing with this ‘hot issue’ in Washington, Colorado and Iraq, which Rumsfeld portrayed as a routine memo. You’d almost think the Beeb didn’t like Rummie.

This week’s Iraq centrefold (well, it’s fairly sexy anyway) appears to be Nick Child’s report, ‘Has Rumsfeld been demoted?’. Since this would imply a loss of rank, and Rummie hasn’t been removed from his post, the answer is obviously ‘no’- end of story as billed. This article is one of those ‘rent a gob’ pieces, where the big blows are dealt by an ‘expert’, in this case prime bruiser being William Hartung of the grandly titled ‘World Policy Institute’, author of ‘Power Trip: US Foreign policy After September 11th’and guest on the subject of ‘America Attacked: Alternatives to War’ for a Washington Post online debate on 20th September 2001. Sounds friendly to Rummie. Actually, on investigation, he sounds like Rummie’s biggest enemy: who better to share the moment of Rumsfeld’s ‘decline’ with? Did they even need to rent this gob?

Surprisingly, ‘Mr Hartung… said that, not before time, President Bush was putting Mr Rumsfeld in his place’. He was ‘a loose cannon’… who ‘believes he can get away with it because he’s an elder statesman’… and ‘says these things in a jovial fashion’ . Another, more moderate, ‘expert’, talked in terms of a gentle decline. The combined effect of one vaguely (though arguably) moderate voice and one enemy of Rumsfeld? I’d say the Beeb’s attitude towards Rumsfeld, exemplified by David Dimbleby’s comment in a televised interview six months ago, is pretty consistent, and Hartung is a useful chap to knock the nails in the coffin:

‘DD: Are you saying things the rest of the administration won’t speak out about? Are you part of the problem of the United States getting the kind of backing that it needs?

DR: Well, I doubt it.’ (March 04 2003)

I think we need to ask the BBC: ‘Are you part of the problem of the United States getting the kind of backing that it needs?’ They are the story, everybody, as they have said about Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor.

BTW, the other dispatches are almost as bad- each suggestive rather than factual, with the same half truths and insinuations found in this one. Look- here, here and here.

The Saturday 11th October edition of ‘Talking Politics’ (Radio 4), hosted by Sheena McDonald, was a model of BBC P.C. bias.

Let me say at the start that I have nothing against opinion programmes, so long as there is diversity in the kind of opinions offered, and opinion pieces are clearly sign posted as such. Talking Politics is not sign posted as an op-ed piece.

The programme was on the subject of women in politics (Westminster politics). A group of like-minded labour politicians and left-wing writers gathered together to discuss what is wrong with politics. Naturally, it is awful, and it’s those pesky men.

If I tell you that one of the contributors has written a book called ‘Why do women vote Conservative?’ you’ll understand the thrust of the programme. The assertions that ‘Affirmative Action’ was a good thing was hardly challenged – in fact we need more of it. That ‘Affirmative Action’ could also be called ‘State-Sponsored Discrimination’ was not discussed, nor was the irony that such policies fell foul of anti-discrimination law discussed either.

For me, the most remarkable thing about this programme (aside from the presenter’s lack of professionalism) was the fact that the ‘T’ word (Thatcher) was not mentioned. Love her or hate her, I believe she ranks with Clem Atlee as the most successful post-war PM, at least in terms of changing society. She is a woman (and a mother) but of course would have no truck with a bunch of lefties like these, and so is not worthy of mention.

As a final word on this poor programme, getting a group of like minded individuals together to discuss a political topic makes for poor radio.