Tweet, tweet

Meanwhile, our old blogging friend DB is still out there in the badlands of Twitter, binoculars at the ready, watching BBC twitterers going about their daily activities and faithfully recording their Twitter deposits (for science's sake). 

It certainly is a bit rum for a senior BBC reporter to derisively tweet snowflake symbols to someone else: 

And as I follow Mike's Twitter feed I know it's far from the first time that he's tweeted derisively to and/or about the alt-right like this. It's a real habit of his, and - as DB says - it really is pretty much all one way. Maybe his alt-right targets deserve it but, nevertheless, it still makes him look like an activist rather than a scrupulously impartial BBC reporter.

And, of course, the never-knowingly-non-derisive Anthony Zurcher has been in action too. Here he is following up on a CNN tweet:

Yes, there's the BBC man saying that President Trump's language - using "animals" to describe a violent gang - "edges towards the language of genocide". 

But, as DB replied to him:

And, of course, Anthony Z wasn't the only BBC reporter pouncing on this. Here's the BBC's senior foreign affairs reporter, their World Affairs Editor, John Simpson sending forth an ever-so-impartial retweet:

The thing about this is that all three senior BBC reporters - Mike Wendling, Anthony Zurcher and John Simpson - have been known to reflect their Twitter views in their 'proper' BBC reports (though I must add that Mike Wendling was impeccable on his Radio 4 documentary last year - as we noted at the time). They don't always hang up their 'coats of one opinionated colour' at the BBC office door. 

And they are meant, as per BBC guidelines, to maintain the impression of BBC impartiality on social media too, so there's even less excuse for this kind of thing (especially given how many people read their tweets).

Update: Justin Webb has an interesting article in The Times about 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' in the media. He could be talking about many of his BBC colleagues.