First off, please note I’m off on my hols. So don’t write to me for the next two weeks. I hope my colleagues will keep posting; but if they, too, are busy on other aspects of their lives I expect the world will carry on somehow.

• Matt comments:
  

  All of the way through the US Lobbyist scandal BBC Online have been presenting the matter as if it were only Republicans who had been in receipt of questionable largesse and laregly ignored the, admittedly lesser numbers, of Democrats also tainted. Their choice of headlines for these stories has been particularly biased and misleading.

  Now today they are reporting a story regarding the changing of Wikipedia entries which solely implicates Democrats on Capitol Hill without even vaguely making it clear that it was only the Democrats who have been doing this indeed the only Republican mentioned has had his entry changed in a perjorative manner by Democrats. This is a perfect example of the constant subtle anti conservative bias that dominates BBC Online: “Congress ‘made Wikipedia changes'”

• Context, context, context says the Pedant-General regarding the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Jyllands-Posten originally wanted to make a point about a climate of fear. BBC reporting is not doing its job when it leaves this context out.
• Mike Jericho compares the headlines on the beating of two Chinese activists, one an activist against corruption, the other against abortion.
• Disillusioned German writes: “Not sure if you were aware of that but the BBC are actually running banner ads for their News Website. I’ve taken the attached Flash Banner from the International Herald Tribune Europe website. I’ve also come across it on the Yahoo News Germany website.” He included a download, but I’m too ignorant to know how to post it. Personally, I’m not particularly bothered by this advertising, but in the old days the BBC used to boast of being above crude commercialism.
• Every now and then we like to include links to websites taking a different view to our own about BBC bias. I was asked, very politely, to link to this one. I must state frankly to the author that I would not usually link to a website with these views:
  

  How fair has the media been really to the Palestinian cause? I mean, you had a man by the name of Bob Elkins who was a Zionist, in the very least a strong Zionist sympathizer, and he was hired by the BBC to report during the crucial 67 and October wars, as well as just the everyday situation, and he was very very misleading
  The BBC is labeled as one of the more just TV stations, but always at some point they have had and they do have, Zionists controlling the programmes and the different points of views

  – But during the present controversy, it seemed appropriate, somehow, to make an exception. BTW, looking at the following and previous few posts on that blog I can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from. They do not all seem of a piece with the above.

• Susan comments on this BBC story:
  

  “Shooting kills priest in Turkey

  Yes, that’s right – a “shooting” killed the priest, according to al-Beeb. Said shooting just got up and done that poor man in all by its little self.

So goodbye for the next two weeks. One thing I won’t miss is the obligation to delete mindlessly anti-Islamic comments. I have typed approximately these words many times: this site tolerates debate about religion, including the religion of Islam. Tolerates, but does not encourage. We would prefer you discussed, critically or favourably, the British Broadcasting Corporation, since that it what this site is about. For now we choose not to operate a strict policy of restricting the subject to the BBC, a decision that may change. Sober criticism or defence of any religion or atheism is acceptable. Inflammatory comments are not.

“John”notes It’s My Story, 9 minutes in*:

“It’s My Story : The Vietnamese Buddha

Documentary about a Buddhist master returning to Vietnam for the first time since the war. Discussing the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves in protest at the Vietnam war the presenter drops in this staggering bit of amoral relativism:

‘I kind of think about what happened at 9/11 and I suppose I’m trying to figure out how that’s kind of different’

What kind of question is that to ask for anyone with any moral sense whatsoever?

Though I suppose both the Buddhist monks and the 9/11 hijackers committed suicide protesting the Imperialism of the evil Americans so it IS a tricky conundrum in the mind of a presenter impregnated with the BBC/Guardian/Independent worldview to say who’s better or worse.”

I suppose we should be thankful the presenter is at least aware that there may actually be a difference…

*Not double-checked by B-BBC

“disillusioned_german” complains to the BBC about The Christmas Resistance. Yesterday, this was hyperlinked from the news front page with the heading “Bah humbug!” (from memory – gone now).

Although every news organisation peddles these sorts of Christmas stories every year (in the US under the “War on Christmas” palaver, whereas in the UK and Australia it is more normally with an amused “human interest”/eccentricity angle), I think the broader point might be fair. Eid and Diwali etc etc never get subjected to this sort of questioning. When the BBC starts giving equal time to people like the brilliant Irshad Manji (BBC treatment here), who represents an important reforming strain in Islam (like The Times does with Salman Rushdie, for example), then pieces like this and the Whine about Christmas would be OK.*

*This is hardly some world service issue irrelevant to BBC UK programming – although Muslims only make up 3.1% of the E&W population, the issue is well covered by White City. (Then again, UK government institutions have always had a thing for romantic Arabism, and pro-Islam-ism may seep out from there).

I think the deeper issue is not that there is some lapidary, monolithic “Let’s attack whitey” stance in the BBC, but more that the “institutionalised multi-culturalism” is so pervasive that the “oh so clever” 20 year-old baby Beeboid just out of university who is assigned to write this Christmas dross lives in a world that can’t possibly contemplate that some might wonder why his cynicism over a Christian religious festival shouldn’t equally be applied to a festival celebrated by a religion whose adherents have more melanin in their skin than Pat Robertson.

On the issue of Islam, “the_camp_commandant” notes the confusion when two PC shibboleths collide. Same sex domestic partnerships in the UK are truly newsworthy. In coverage of the Belfast ceremonies, the BBC had quotations from Christians protesting about hellfire etc etc, and a Catholic cardinal about the Catholic view of the issue. I have never seen a quotation from an imam on Islam’s view. I wonder why?

USS Neverdock on more BB Blankety Blanks.

“Ritter” notes Christians accused of homophobia which seems to be a local news beat-up about police harrassment of two old people for breaching groupthink rules (this is becoming a pattern), while a perfunctory search about those executions of young gay men in Islamic Iran was pretty uninformative.

“Ritter” links to Ray Snoddy on the changing media landscape.

“Rob White” and “Lizzie” think Christmas after Katrina: Part One and Christmas after Katrina: Part two are worse respectively.

“Steve” notes 262 BBC Execs earn over £100,000.

“Rob White” looks forward to 2006:

“Starting on 4 January, 2006, Matt Frei will be writing a fortnightly diary from Washington for the BBC News website.”

“Roy” notes:

“Seems that Frei is joined by BBC’s Daniela Relph in Washington who provided this article on the renewal of the Patriot Act.

The American Expatriate explains that the BBC are calling the result after 90 minutes, when the match is going into extra time, with more support for Bush’s position than the BBC will credit.”

The Expat discussses BBC reporting on ID. To be fair, the US is an exremely complex country, where you can find whatever you are looking for (the cleverest people, the dumbest people, the fattest/most health-freaky people, the most Christian/most depraved people etc). However, a basic knowledge of the US system ought to cover things like federal/state/county/parish devolution of power and the consitutional structure. Why is it OK for the BBC and other PC lefties to generalise about the US, but not, for example, about Muslims or black people? Like Jews, the US and Americans are fast becoming the blank slate upon which the rest of the world unfairly, illogically and irrationally projects its own prejudices and nightmares.

“Rob Read” plays BB Blankety Blanks with this article about those postal workers – I wonder why the scare quotes:

‘Up to £5m was pilfered from 1,300 “mainly Jewish” residents in Golders Green, north London, alone.

Because of the large number of victims, both they and police initially feared the community was being “targeted because of religion”, but that concern was “misplaced”.’

The scare quotes are unnecessary and cause the cynical to assume something worse – replace “Jewish” with “black” or “Muslim” (mutatis mutandis).

Bloggers4Labour discuss that slave picture.

“Roy” links to criticism in The Guardian – is this a Menshevik vs Bolshevik spat or does The Guardian realise that it is in fact a free market operator harmed by the Beeb’s gross taxpayer subsidisation?

“Try almost anything innovative, indeed – and Auntie, lifting her skirts, is off and running in a flash.”

On the subject of editorialising agency copy, “Roy” asks us to compare and contrast CNN and BBC Online on Ethiopia vs Eritrea:

‘CNN credit the following stories to Reuters. The BBC give no such credit.

“An international commission has ruled that Eritrea violated international law with an attack on Ethiopia in 1998 that triggered a border war.

But the peace process has stalled since Ethiopia rejected a decision in 2003 to award the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea.” (CNN)

“Eritrea triggered the border war with Ethiopia when it attacked its neighbour in May 1998, an international commission in the Hague has ruled.

The war was ostensibly fought over the dusty town of Badme, which was awarded to Eritrea by another commission set up as part of the peace agreement.” (BBC)

So the BBC adds some local colour with “dusty”. Almost makes you think the BBC hack is there, wrapped in ethnic dress against the dust & heat.’

Well, that £2.8 billion has to be spent on something, doesn’t it?

“Rob Read” links to Matt Frei’s US That was the year that was – you’d never guess that most of the oppressed people in the world want to live there, would you?

If readers find any BBC Online articles snidely commenting on an ayatollah for wrapping his head – “mediaeval-style”- in cotton, please let us know.

Are national flags “really that meaningful“? (probably not in Islington)

Wait for this to be amended:

“Police said they suspected animal rights extremists broke down the fence enclosing the boar at the farm at West Anstey in north Devon.” (emphasis added)

Not even a scare quote – aren’t they “activists”? I note that the metadata (?) for the same article has “activists“:

“Up to 100 wild boar are released from a farm in north Devon by suspected animal rights activists.”

In BBCLand, Palestinian Christians are victims of Israel’s “curfews, closures and the newly-built West Bank barrier” – no mention of persecution of Christians in Palestine by other (pdf) sorts of people (pdf), except for these two throwaway lines:

“A few Christians speak privately of harassment, Muslims seizing Christian land and the fear of speaking out against radical groups.

But many others say they live like brothers with their Muslim neighbours, sharing the struggle against Israeli occupation…

The episode was reportedly a dispute over unpaid salaries within Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah party.

But a few Christian onlookers were quick to interpret it as a Muslim-driven plan to sabotage Christmas in Bethlehem.”

It couldn’t be persecution that is driving Christian exile – in a shameful echo of anti-Semitism, they are leaving because they are selfish:

“Although the dire economic situation has affected Christians and Muslims alike, emigration from Bethlehem is higher among Christians, who are helped by higher levels of education and better contacts in Western countries.”

To be fair, I wouldn’t want to be a female reporter of the state propaganda organ of a white-imperialist-infidel-atheist-Zionist-crusading-power in Palestine (hey, I wouldn’t want to be the gay guy that I am there either, regardless of skin colour, religion or employer), and at best Ms Sharp’s news contacts would dry up if she started reporting evenhandedly, and at worst, she would probably be kidnapped and murdered. Stockholm Syndrome/capture theory in tyrannies is nothing new, and it is a wider problem that needs to be addressed in consuming any media output.

“Eamonn” notes in The Independent (15 December 2005):

“Sir: Greg Dyke’s article (Media, 12 December) does not reflect the Chief Rabbi’s views on the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East.

At the meeting with a BBC management group to which Mr Dyke refers, the Chief Rabbi argued that there was in his view a failure to provide viewers with an Israeli perspective on events in the Middle East. He urged the Director General to commission a documentary that would do this by contextualising these events. He followed up this request by letter. He repeated his concerns when he addressed a subsequent gathering of BBC producers, at their request, several months later.

The Chief Rabbi shares the concerns held by the Jewish community about the BBC’s Middle East coverage, and is constantly reminded of these on his frequent visits to communities both in the UK and abroad.

ZAKI COOPER
HEAD OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS OFFICE OF THE CHIEF RABBI LONDON N12″

“Ritter” notes Suicide bomber play to tour:

“The play also explores the true definition of the son’s name, Jihad – often interpreted as meaning Holy War, but actually denoting the battle to overcome internal conflict.”

This is not attributed to anyone so we are entitled to take it as the BBC editorial line. Jihad has a range of meanings, one of which certainly is “holy war“* so the words “often interpreted as meaning …, but actually denoting” are fraudulently misleading.

*Not just wikipedia – see here and here.

USS Neverdock on Simpson’s sleight of hand.

“Rob” plays BB Blankety-Blanks – can you guess the missing words? He spies a word beginning with “M” (or “I”?).

The front page of BBC Leicester has two articles on Christmas – Will it snow? (really just a headline for a hyperlink to the weather page) and Leicester’s White Christmas (photos 6 and 7 are about as close to Christianity as you get – cf the Eid photoessay, which features Islam heavily, as well as smiling people and cute kids – at least there are two smiling Christmas people in Leicester, since the rest of the Christmas photo essay would lead you to believe the place is a deserted, if picturesque, snowfield).

Click to the Faith page, and hardly a word on Christmas:

Celebrating Eid

Ghetto Gospel – a plug for a gangsta rapper that mentions “God” but fails to mention Jesus or Christianity

A Divali celebration

A Hindu festival of dance

Dealing with Death (which actually involves a Christian, but one who is coping with something awful of course, rather than “dancing” or “celebrating”, unlike Leicester’s Muslims and Hindus it would seem)

A “multi-faith calendar” – “PLEASE NOTE: The below calendar will be removed at the end of 2005 and replaced early in 2006 with an improved multifaith calendar.”

More pop rubbish – “What have Coldplay, U2, Athlete, Tupac and Good Charlotte got to do with faith? Al Rogers from Loughborough looks at religious messages in pop songs.”

In case you hadn’t read enough from the faith page, there is a whole sub-site on Asian Life, as well.

Now just where did that grinch go?

Who was the typical attendee? Here are some pictures of the crowd and their banners. Note the preponderance of “Free Palestine” signs. (And the ones saying, “Victory to the Iraqi Resistance!”) However the BBC quotes an ex-soldier and a lady from CND.

(Via Rottweiler Puppy – read his comments – and House of Dumb)

UPDATE: Following Rottweiler Puppy’s links, I see that the BBC ran not one but two picture-series illustrating the demo. (I don’t remember them doing that for the ten times bigger Countryside Alliance march.) This series of ten pictures consists of: (1) Side view of the crowd, (2) Man with lots of badges, (3) Lady with sign saying “Make Tea not War”, (4) Crowd shot from front, centred on a Trade Union banner, (5) Two ex-soldiers carrying symbolic model coffin – note the caption states as bald fact that 100,000 people have been killed by the war, a highly controversial claim, (6) Peace choir, (7) Coffin guys again, (8) Hippy with quirky sign, (9) “Women say no to war” sign carried, not surprisingly, by women, and finally (10) a shot from the speech platform where Messrs Benn and Galloway graced the multitudes.

This series of eight pictures shows (1) Mum & kid, (2) guy with sign saying “End occupation now”, (3) old lady, (4) the “make tea, not war” lady again, (5) gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, (6) family with dog, (7) a young Asian girl in Western dress, bareheaded, (8) Andrew Murray of the Stop The War Coalition. (And of the British Communist Party; not that you’d get any hint of that from the BBC.)

A splendid collection of lovable British eccentrics, eh? The BBC quotes a mother of two daughters who says their father is out there and who thinks it is nice that her girls can be around “people who care.” The Guardian says that, ‘Protesters sang: “George Bush, Uncle Sam, Iraq will be your Vietnam.”‘ Caringly, no doubt, but it is odd what a different tone the Guardian takes talking to the faithful compared to the BBC talking to a general audience.

Notably absent are crowd shots taken from such a distance that you can read a wide selection of banners, though picture (4) does show one “Free Palestine”. Compare them again to the pictures linked to earlier. I am told, though I do not know this from my own knowledge, that the green flags with Arabic writing are Hamas flags.

The BBC, somewhat defensively, mentions that the placards carried by the protesters were pre-printed. I must say at once that I recall from my own days attending CND and Anti-Nazi League marches that the distribution of banners may not accurately represent the distribution of opinion. That said, the banners do represent the people that the marchers are willing to be seen with.

All but one of these eighteen pictures focused on white people. Other reports of the march suggested that among the crowd there was quite a high percentage of non-white people, overwhelmingly Muslims. Many have enthused about the way Muslims have been brought into politics by this very issue. The Muslim Association of Britain, along with CND and the Stop the War Coalition, was one of the three organisations that organised the march. I fully support the right of people of all races, all religions and all opinions to peacefully demonstrate. But it is striking that the BBC, an organisation that usually goes out of its way to illustrate racial and religious diversity, should under-represent minorities and Muslims in traditional dress in its pictoral record of the demonstration.

– A month ago I asked What’s the difference between an interview and a sketch?, highlighting a lavish News Online puff-piece for George Galloway (“Sir, I salute your courage, your indefatiguability” etc. etc.). A few days later I noted here on BBBC that the continued highlighting of the Galloway ‘feature’ on News Online was well past due for a change.

And, by sheer coincidence, even though the Galloway puff-piece had been featured on News Online’s Politics page for the best part of three weeks, within half-an-hour of my post, it was gone, as if by magic!

Well, fellow BBBC aficionadoes, it has happened again – another piece of leftie-propaganda masquerading as news has become stuck on a News Online index page for longer than is seemly.

The ‘stuck’ article is the specious World ‘wants Kerry as president’, last updated 09SEP04, (allegedly!), featured on the News Online > World > Americas page, where there is a Vote USA 2004 headline summary, which then links to the main Vote USA 2004 page. This ‘stuck’ article has been featured in the Vote USA 2004 headline summary on the Americas page for more than a fortnight – it’s so old now that it no longer even appears on the main Vote USA 2004 page (where it also enjoyed an extended appearance).

Why is it, given that there’s only room for six headlines in the Vote USA 2004 headline summary (and two of those are Key election battlegrounds and Issues-at-a-glance) that the ‘stuck’ article has remained there all this time? Why, especially when there has been so much else going on in the US election campaign (Rathergate anyone?) over the last fortnight? Why does the ‘stuck’ story have so much appeal to the compilers of News Online that it remains on prolonged display?

As last time with the Galloway article, in the interests of thoroughness, I’ve looked at the timestamps on all of the other articles linked to from the Americas page. At lunchtime today (exactly fourteen days since the Kerry article was last updated) there were thirty-two linked articles. Of those, eight were dated 23SEP04, seventeen were dated 22SEP04, four were dated 21SEP04. There were three other articles, dated 13SEP04, 15SEP04 and 18SEP04, respectively, plus the World ‘wants Kerry as president’ article, dated 09SEP04 – much the oldest, as you can see.

Of the other three ‘long lived’ articles, all of them are arguably negative towards Bush’s America – being about, respectively, opposition to the Patriot Act, Religion & Politics in America and the Democrats unwillingness to face Ralph Nader at the polls in Florida (the only one of these veteran articles that still appears on the main Vote USA 2004 page).

This is one of those cases of BBC News Online bias where it’s not necessarily what they’re saying that’s biased – the bias here is the lengthy and favoured prominence given to articles that are in tune with the political views and aspirations of the News Online staff – those who decide what is news and what is in the archive. It’s not big, and it’s not clever, although it is harder to spot and thus easier for them to get away with.

On Monday 12JUL04, much of the BBC’s UK news featured parts of a story headlined on BBC News Online as ‘Shocking’ racism in jobs market.

Five Live’s Ian Shoesmith was interviewed on BBC1’s lightweight Breakfast programme. The story was also on BBC News Online, BBC One O’Clock News, and as a lead item on the BBC London news at lunchtime, 6.30pm and 10.30pm.

Watching and reading the various takes, it boils down to:

1) six fictitious candidates, three male, three female, two with traditional British names (Jenny Hughes and John Andrews), two with African names (Abu Olasemi and Yinka Olatunde) and two with Asian names (Fatima Khan and Nasser Hanif).

2) applications from each of the six in response to adverts for a job at each of fifty companies (“Many… well known… jobs covered a range of fields”), thirty-one of them based in London.

3) the CVs were of “the same standard of qualifications and experience but… were presented differently”.

4) of all the applications (100 for each pair of names), the traditional British named pair were offered 23 interviews, the African named pair 13 interviews and the Asian named pair 9 interviews.

5) Shoesmith followed up with five of the fifty employers, three of whom responded in an unspecified way, one of whom “disputed the findings”, claiming to have offered interviews to “one or two” of the non-traditional British named candidates, but this was disregarded because “we had to go on what we received”.

Example conclusions drawn from the above are:

– Shoesmith was “‘surprised by the sheer extent’ of religious and racial discrimination it uncovered”;

– Brendan Barber of the TUC said “Statistics as shocking as these suggest that many people recruiting for the private sector firms are harbouring inherently racist views. Public sector bodies have to prove they are doing all they can to eliminate race discrimination”;

– Professor Muhammad Anwar of Warwick University said “the survey was proof of a recent rise in anti-Muslim feeling”.

From the information provided (the above summary really is all of the detail that can be discerned), there are a number of flaws with, and omissions from, the survey, the accompanying news reports and the rentaquote conclusions drawn from it, including:

– the survey sample was very small – just fifty jobs, with six applications for each, meaning that small errors (e.g. missing post) one way or the other have a large effect on the apparent outcome;

– the success rate of all the applications is poor – it would be much more significant if, say, one pair had a 60-70% hit rate in contrast to the other groups – it doesn’t say much for the standard of the fictional applications in general;

– the CVs were of “the same standard of qualifications and experience but… were presented differently” – no examples are provided. When sifting job applications presentation is often the first consideration – poorly written, poorly spelled and poorly laid out CVs can be quickly rejected, so unless the survey applications were genuinely alike in every respect, it is likely this will have affected the outcome;

– beyond the details above, nothing is said about the nature of the jobs, the types of companies, their sizes or locations;

– we don’t know the backgrounds of the people processing the applications or the methods used to decide between one application or another. Maybe they read them. Maybe they cut the pile in two. Maybe they picked the first twenty for interview. Who knows? Certainly not the BBC with their lack of rigorous follow-ups (and why limit follow ups to just five employers anyway?);

– the BBC ascribes attributes to the three pairs of names – White, Black-African and Muslim. Leaving aside that there are many Black and Asian Britons with traditional British names, I cannot, in spite of being well read and living in Greater London, distinguish people’s religious backgrounds from their names, except in a few obvious cases (e.g. a Mohammed is almost certainly a Muslim, a Patrick O’Flaherty is most likely Catholic etc.), so it seems a big stretch to conclude that these employers rejected someone on the grounds of religion (e.g. Muslim) rather than simply ethnicity (e.g. Asian), if indeed racism played a part;

This is all very troubling. Racism does exist in the UK, in (but not throughout) all groups and communities, white, black, Asian, etc. But this ‘survey’ (some reports even called it an ‘undercover investigation’) does not merit the conclusions drawn from it. At best it suggests there is a case for a proper study of such issues, perhaps a Panorama style investigation. But not the shock, horror headlines that have been used so glibly already.

A proper investigation should include:

– a much larger sample with a wider variety of candidate names (i.e. names with obvious religious connections, names from different parts of the UK, continental names, names from different classes (e.g. how does Wayne Smith fare compared with Tarquin Fortescue for different types of jobs), etc.;

– proper follow-ups with all employers to ascertain their backgrounds, selection methods and reasoning;

– distinction between employers – to ascertain the extent of racism among white/black/Asian/Muslim/etc. employers when it comes to employing people apparently from other groups – racism isn’t limited to white people;

– analysis of the differences between the private-sector and the public-sector (given that the former are often very small businesses, the latter much larger more bureaucratic organisations, where stats would be more meaningful);

Until then it’s wrong for a small item on a small radio station to become the inspiration for a great deal of “employers are racist” headlines across a wide variety of major BBC broadcasts.

Addendum (for B-BBC scare-quote aficionados):

The first News Online version, timestamped 11.22BST, began:

A BBC survey showing applicants from ethnic minorities still face widespread discrimination in the job market has prompted calls for tougher regulation.

CVs from six fictitious candidates – who were given “white”, black African or Muslim names – were sent to 50 employers in the BBC Radio Five Live survey.

White candidates were much more likely to be given an interview than similarly qualified black or Asian people.

The second version, timestamped 14:46BST, begins:

A union boss is calling for tougher regulation after a BBC survey showed ethnic minority applicants still face major discrimination in the jobs market

CVs from six fictitious candidates – who were given traditionally white, black African or Muslim names – were sent to 50 firms by Radio Five Live.

White “candidates” were far more likely to be given an interview than similarly qualified black or Asian “names”.

Note the aimless scare-quote merry-go-round and how the level of journo-spin ratchets up from cub-journo to junior-journo as the day progressed!

– it’s like the normal missionary position, except you approach it from the left.

When the corporation that spent a reported £2M on Popetown (an everyday story about corrupt Catholic cardinals and a mad Pope ) and the presenter Gavin Esler (author and presenter of The New Jerusalem, a hymn to the welfare state in Britain) decide to discuss the subject of Christian missionaries, the outcome is decidedly predictable.

So it was during yesterdays edition of ‘Four Corners’ on Radio 4 (sadly not available online) – one of a large number of cheap ‘talking head’ programmes that typify the Radio 4 schedule. Hosted by Esler, one of the subjects was the decline of Christian belief in Britain contrasting with the strength of Christian belief overseas. This is a subject worthy of discussion.

The focus of discussion was primarily on the work of Christian missionaries overseas, where Christianity is a growing religion. To discuss this with Esler, they had a researcher and a Muslim cleric (I’m sorry I did not get the names – no pen to hand at the time). Needless to say, Christian missionaries are generally a Bad Thing because…

– They sell Christian beliefs on the basis of ‘this religion gets you a better job, and a nicer car’

– You can be as greedy as you want with these Christian beliefs

– They don’t respect local customs

– Christianity is the religion of computers and progress (presumably opposed to Islam)

The researcher and cleric did not bring differing points of view – just the opposite, they kept falling over themselves to say ‘how right you are with that point’.

So, what was wrong with this programme? Simply this – it’s one-sidedness. It would have been nice to hear from some of the recently converted – maybe from Africa or China. Many Africans I’ve met have had a compelling Christian belief. It would have been nice to hear from organisations involved in missionary work, such as the Catholic church. Most importantly, just some other point of view other than the BBC view – this was a good example of an inward-looking BBC talking to itself.

[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).