"The so-called British Broadcasting Corporation"

Over at The Spectator, Isabel Hardman castigates politicians for "trying to boss the BBC around" over the issue of what to call Islamic State.

Now, she's undoubtedly correct that there's a lot of deflection going on here from hapless UK politicians, As she says,

...while language is powerful, this sort of thing is what people who are supposed to be powerful end up talking about when they feel powerless, when an issue feels just too big to take hold of at once.

 ...but her main concern is that the letter from 120 MPs calling for IS to be re-branded as 'Daesh' is "an attempt by politicians to tell journalists what to do", and that's wrong:

...the point is that politicians should not be trying to dictate what journalists write or say. That’s not how it works.

[I note, being The Spectator perhaps, that Isabel 'forgets' to criticise the PM for his similar intervention in the debate]. 

Here's how her piece concludes:

Will they ‘actually achieve something’ that helps the people in the countries being ravaged by Isis, or just ‘achieve’ a ‘victory for common sense’ that means they can pat themselves on the back, toddle off home, and think that today they really made a difference, without even having to get their heads around what they’d like to see from the UK government in terms of whether action against Isis in Syria could make a difference, what the limits of that action would be, and what the legal basis for doing so when President Assad doesn’t look likely to ask the UK to join the strikes in the country? They did discuss these questions in this afternoon’s debate, but it was on the subject of Isil/Isis/Daesh/IS/They Who Must Not Be Named that MPs seemed to grow the most aerated, and a number started their interventions with the issue of the name, before moving onto other issues. They are free to use whichever name they want, but then so are journalists free to use the terms their organisation has settled on without politicians bossing them around. That’s the annoying thing about democracy.

Now, there's a good deal of sense in Isabel Hardman's piece but - even though I strongly disagree with the PM and those MPs over this (and strongly distrust their motives too) - I'd just like to put on record my feeling that another "annoying thing about democracy" is that democratically-elected politicians do have the right to make their views known about what they see as poor reporting - including poor BBC reporting. 

If they were to try to legislate to force the BBC to call Islamic State "the so-called Islamic State" or "Da'esh", then that would be abhorrent and deeply undemocratic and barricades would have to be manned, but if they are just having their say (even if it's en masse) - criticising the BBC - then why, in a democracy, shouldn't they have a right to say it? 

Why do journalists - including those at the BBC and Spectator - think that they shouldn't be criticised by politicians? Because such criticism compromises their journalistic independence? 

Well, as we saw the other day, Tony Hall of the BBC sent those 120 MPs (including Boris and Eck) packing. Any journalistic organisation can either reject or ignore such criticism if it disagrees with it. That's how it works.

Or does it?

Here's a comment posted below Isabel Hardman's piece that gives an alternative take on what happened this week, which I thought I'd share with you.

If nothing else, it shows just how rum this strange row has been:

The Masked Marvel • 20 hours ago 

Perhaps the BBC is wrong to continue to call the terror group ‘so-called Islamic State’ or ‘Islamic State group’, but that is a matter for the BBC, and those who consume the BBC’s output, the licence-fee payers. 

Perhaps? It is wrong. It is dishonest, and is a deliberate attempt to control public thought. That's a matter for everyone, and it's rather disgraceful to deny what's going on. The worst part of it all is that the BBC were already doing it before Cameron popped his head in, and are now not only able to pretend they haven't been referring to the 'so-called Islamic State' all along, but get a prized opportunity to appear to stand up to the Government and declare their editorial independence. Even Ms. Hardman has bought into the charade, believing this to be a case of politicians attempting to influence journalists, when in reality it's the other way round. 

The whole thing is a farce, and it is collusion. The BBC have already been working overtime to declare that whatever is going on over there is unIslamic. Anyone who denies is this is lying or deliberately avoiding the facts. The latest pathetic performance we've had to witness is a series of BBC personalities shedding crocodile tears for the cameras over the lost family of innocent lambs who have been victimised by online groomers and decided that to be proper Muslims they had to leave Bradford and join ISIS. To say they did it for religious reasons is an unapproved thought, and so is squashed. 

Now here comes David Cameron to declare that it's wrong for the BBC to do what they haven't been doing, and to encourage them along the path they've already taken. Now they can go the full Orwell and deny outright that the Islamic State - which people are deliberately choosing to join because of the name - is what it says on the tin. Complete denial of reality. This was collusion between the Prime Minister and the state broadcaster to push a thought control agenda, and no mistake. Both have the same Social Cohesion goal of trying to convince the public that it's nothing to do with the true Islam. One needed a public platform to do it (again), and the platform was happy to provide itself for a mission on which it was already dedicated. 

The only remaining question is, who set this up? Did this come from No. 10 or was it a BBC idea? The only thing about which one can be certain is that we won't learn about it from Ms. Hardman. 

From now on, everyone should refer to it as 'the so-called British Broadcasting Corporation'.