Wednesday 11 January 2017

Fake or Fortune? with Fiona Bruce



Of course, the main story on tonight's BBC One News at Six concerned Donald Trump, those lurid allegations and the President-elect's press conference.

It dominated the early stages of the bulletin.

Having been at work today I've missed most of the action on this story but have gathered, from quickly reading around, that many news organisations chose not to take the golden opportunity provided by Buzzfeed to spray the gory details of the unverified story all over their news-sheets and that Mr Trump, at his news conference, paid tribute to much of the media for behaving so 'responsibly'.

I also gathered that CNN and the BBC were explicitly not included in that praise from President-elect Trump, with him calling "Fake news!" to a CNN reporter and saying, "BBC News, that's another beauty!", when the BBC's Ian Pannell introduced himself.  

It's intriguing that the incoming US president regards the BBC in such a bad light.

Ian Pannell's 'cheeky' question (following that dig from the President-elect) can be fairly summarised as 'If the false story turns out to be true will you resign?'

That won't, I suspect, have changed Mr Trump's mind about the BBC.

And tonight's BBC One News at Six included a remarkable piece from the BBC's Paul Wood, in which Mr Wood lent considerable credibility to those lurid claims.

Revealingly, Fiona Bruce introduced Mr Wood by saying that he's been following the allegations "for some months". 

Despite the odd not-exactly-fulsome caveat - such as saying that Mr Trump was "literally correct when he says this is unsubstantiated" - Paul Wood made it pretty clear that he thinks the evidence of blackmail tapes is strong because his sources have told him that "there's more than one tape; there was audio as well as video; it was on more than one date and in more than one place...". "An in addition to that", he said, there's not just the MI6 officer but also "a retired spy" and "the head of an East European intelligence agency" saying much the same thing.


Now, if - as per Ian Pannell's question to Donald Trump - it does turn out that this sensational shower of blackmail allegations is true after all, then the BBC will be up there with Buzzfeed and CNN in providing true news. 

If, however, it doesn't turn out to be true (and can be shown not be be true), then the BBC will be well and truly up to its neck in fake news -  though, naturally, guilty of purveying that fake news with all manner of unconvincing distancing nudges and winks (BBC impartiality of course). 

And if, as an unverified and maybe unverifiable story, the story remains unverified, then the BBC will be firmly in an extremely grey area between true news and fake news (where it seems to be now, to be fair).

Well, those are my initial impressions. They may well be wrong.

P.S. Anyone who has seen footage of the CNN-Trump incident will have spotted that the BBC News at Six edited the incident in such a way that it looked as if Trump was saying that the CNN reporter was being rude to him, whereas Trump was calling him rude for talking over a female reporter. 

The BBC would doubtless defend themselves by saying that they had no malicious intentions and by citing the demands of time - even though (a) the impression I suggested would be left in unsuspecting viewer's minds surely would have been left there by that editing and (b) the missing bit lasted barely seconds and could easily have been included.

P.P.S. There's much more from the BBC's Paul Wood tonight at The Spectator. He's sticking to his line.

20 comments:

  1. How does one blackmail someone over public information? We know now, they can't hold it over him. It seems a contradictory claim.

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  2. PS: I don't remember a Beeboid ever asking Hillary Clinton if she would resign if (insert proven scandal story here) turned out to be true.

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    1. Bemused and sickened by BBC anti-Trump bias. Interviewing one left wing commentator after another on BBC News to speculate excitedly about the un-proven dossier with no real balance at all. Same on Radio 4 this morning. It is quite obvious that anyone with right wing or centrist views would never be employed by the BBC. They couldn't function there and would be probably bullied out of the organisation. The fact that our national and heavily funded news organisation is so unashamedly biased towards the left is very chilling.

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    2. I entirely agree, Carol. It is a mystery to me that Andrew Neil keeps his job at the BBC with his atypical lack of bias. He gives them all a hard but fair grilling - well, except for sneery Kevin McGuire, which is odd.

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  3. "Let's assume you're a wife beater..." seems even more reprehensible than "When did you last beat your wife"

    Opens up a whole new line in questioning..."Mr Corbyn, let's assume you're a secret racist xenophobe, would that explain your more nuanced approach to migration..."

    "Diane Abbott, let's assume you gorge on a Milk Tray every night, does that affect your views on obesity and health."

    "Boris Johnson let's assume you're a mass murderer working your way through teh upper echelons of British politics by poisoning your rivals, does that explain why you appear so ambitious"

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  4. Just on observation - Democrats store state secrets on personal email server and get hacked by champion of freedom website wikileaks. Champion of freedom website is at best run by a man fleeing allegations of rape, however at worst it is probably secretly run by the Russian Secret service.

    None of this bothers the liberal left, however another website publishes something it acknowledges is a lie, world implodes, and original bad news story for Democrats can be safely ignored.

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    1. Assange is probably more of a useful idiot than a Russian agent. But I agree the hypocrisy is staggering about how WikiLeaks was the heroic champion of speaking truth to power until it compromised the illiberal Left.

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  5. A few more;

    1) He's been following the story for months, and yet they didn't throw this particular kitchen sink during the election campaign? Pull the other one.

    2) I'm more inclined to believe the Russian did leak this fake news to their opposite numbers - purely as a false flag so they could say look comrade "fake news".

    3) it's all bollocks!

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    1. I heard they told Paul Wood they had a tape of Lord McAlpine as well....

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  6. He was having a go at Buzzfeed when a voice said something along the lines of if you're attacking us, at least give us a question. I presume that voice was from Buzzfeed and that it was the same person whom he told to stop being rude. Where does CNN come into it?

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    1. All the media reports say it was Jim Acosta of CNN who protested about his organisation being attacked and was told to stop being rude. BuzzFeed got attacked by Trump elsewhere in his press conference.

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/11/trump-attacks-cnn-buzzfeed-at-press-conference

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    2. Yes I see they are all saying it was CNN. You don't get all clear a view of who's speaking from the pack.

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    3. There's a split-screen video of it here from CNN showing it was Jim Acosta of CNN, followed by an interview with the man himself.

      https://twitter.com/OutFrontCNN/status/819337346533490688

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    4. Maybe a change of name from 'Anonymous' to 'source' could see this regain its legs?

      Nick Robinson could then make it BBC main news.

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    5. Thanks for the link, Craig.

      Do I detect a sharp whiff of cynicism about the BBC hereabouts...hmm.

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  7. BBC running footage through the edit suite to suit?

    Shocked I tell you... Shocked!

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  8. Trump has clearly been following 'ITBBCB?' - a couple of contributors have mooted the alluring possibility of May &/or Trump forcing the Beeb into reluctant impartiality by depriving it of recognition & interviews - hence status. See comments on 'Like a Cup of Cold Sick,', 7th & 8th Jan.

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  9. There have been other instances of the BBC running stories that they just couldnt resist cos it suited their agenda - and which turned out to be largely fake.
    But for the life of me I cant remember the specifics. Anyone? Was one of them about the Palin emails?

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    1. The Pollard Report is an interesting read, despite him 'forgetting' a few key aspects.

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