Is that justice?

One of my old beefs on this blog was that the BBC kept failing to identify left-wing activists as left-wing activists and would keep presenting them merely as if they were disinterested academics.

I was reminded of that by a report on the BBC website today headlined Is it becoming harder for international firms to avoid tax? 

Three people are cited in Jamie Robertson and Lucy Hooker's piece. 

Two are on one side, one is on the other. 

The one on his own, the pro-business one, is James Watson from Business Europe.

The BBC reporters introduce him by saying that he's from "the lobby group" Business Europe. So we know from that that he's a lobbyist. 

The two on the other side - the anti-corporate side - are Prof Richard Murphy and Prof Sol Picciotto. 

Prof Murphy is introduced as "professor of international political economy at London's City University" and Prof Picciotto is introduced as "emeritus professor at Lancaster University Law School", thus leading readers to assume they are disinterested academics.

Now (as you'll probably know - though many don't) Richard Murphy is better known for being an activist with the Tax Justice Network. 

Look up Sol Picciotto, however, and it turns out that he's also been a senior advisor to the Tax Justice Network. (Small world!)

And the Tax Justice Network are a left-wing campaign group.

The BBC, however, failed to point out either Prof Murphy or Prof Picciotto's close links to the Tax Justice Network here...

...whilst, at the same time, describing Mr Watson (the one man who disagrees with them in the report) as being from a "lobby group".

That doesn't seem quite right, does it?