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| Emma Jane |
You won't be surprised to hear that this morning's Broadcasting House on Radio 4 also dwelt on the migration crisis in Calais.
The opening report from Emma Jane Kirby interestingly juxtaposed two contrasting yet complementary points of view from the French inhabitants of Calais - (1) a restaurateur whose business has been severely hit by the crisis (with far fewer English customers and no Italians) and (2) a couple who love the migrants as if they were family - one of whom (the woman) gives the migrants foot massages.
The foot-massaging couple, who had oddly baby-like names - Nana and Dom Dom - will have either struck listeners as adorably well-meaning or nigh-on certifiable.
The curious thing was that, though the love Nana and Dom Dom felt for the migrants wasn't shared by the unfortunate restaurant owner, the latter was surprisingly complimentary about the migrants too, stressing that they are no danger and quite nice.
He seemed keener...or Emma Jane seemed keener, whichever...to suggest that the British media was over-egging the danger...
...though he did, in rather embarrassed fashion (according to Emma), add that the Australian way of dealing with things might be a bit harsh, but....(and that was left hanging in the air like a thrown boomerang paused on a YouTube video).
Was this biased?
Why did I come away, on first thoughts, thinking that the migrants were not so dangerous as I originally thought?
Why, on reflection, did I then distrust those first thoughts - and the BBC reporter?
And why, on writing this post, did I apparently conclude [as it appears I've done after all] that I was being led by the hand by Emma Jane in the very direction that the BBC seems to want its audience to be led?
You are, of course, free to listen and decide for yourself.
FROM A PREVIOUS BBC NEWS REPORT (by Darius Barzagan, whose career possibly stopped right there).
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31008193
But although they are all in the same metaphorical boat, the migrant communities do not always get along. There have been fist-fights and even mini-riots, so the feeding station is constantly monitored by squads of armed French police.
Crimes committed by migrants against the local population are also rising.
"Crime has exploded in the last three months. Violence, theft, rape attempts - it exists and it goes up. Theft from vehicles, from shops," says a police union spokesman.
"When they walk around town in groups of 10 or 20 in the evening, if you come across them when you are alone with your kids, of course you don't feel safe at all."
That name rang a bell.
DeleteCuriously, in the light of the passage you quoted, that very same article was one I royally slagged off for being pro-immigration. (As did B-BBC). I didn't register that particular passage at the time. (As Hugh Sykes might say, go figure!)
http://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-huddled-masses-besieging-fortress.html
http://biasedbbc.org/blog/2015/02/01/my-neighbour-my-enemy/
Yes, and Darius Bazargan himself commented on your article that he "didn't think it was biased in favour of migrants at all". He may not have set out to appear pro-immigration, but his portraits of Osman, Mustafa etc couldn't help but plead their case.
DeleteQuite. You can have bias within a narrative or you can have the structural bias of which narrative is chosen.
DeleteThere is structural bias in interviewing the more articulate in English (and generally pleasant) would be migrants, and asking about their hopes and fears - rather than say, asking about their values e.g. do they wish to see Sharia law in the UK, do they think gays should be killed, or do they think women should be treated equally. Or, you might interview people in London who think they are being deprived of life opportunities: work, housing and ability to live within one's own culture.
Rhetorical question: Why aren't the Beeboids asking government officials in France, Italy, etc. how they can be so cruel and inhuman as to refuse asylum to these angelic migrants?
ReplyDeleteMerely an observation, but as generalities are being dealt in, I have noticed an awful lot of such pieces do seem to be fronted by hideously blonde double barreled Emma-somethings.
ReplyDeleteAnd hence are often predictable to the point of parody.
Danny Cohen needs to up his game.
More seriously, this topic has really highlighted the control all media seek to exert via their text, video and image editorial, and the filters through which they are squeezing quarts into pint pots.
On twitter this morning I noted two posts that arrived on the same issue; one from the Times and one from the Guardian.
Oddly the latter's pic had several mid-twenties in hoodies smashing down a fence, whilst the former had somehow cropped a cute collection of women and kids alongside another image of black-clad riot police anywhere but confronting those doctors and engineers not swarming or anything.