Priorities

As discussed on the open thread, here's the running orders of the main BBC One news bulletins since Friday...

Friday News at One
1. 'Wagatha Christie' trial
2. Fatal stabbing of a nine-year-old girl in Lincolnshire

Friday News at Six
1. 'Wagatha Christie' trial
2. Calls for compensation in blood scandal
3. Fatal stabbing of a nine-year-old girl in Lincolnshire

Friday News at Ten
1. Commonwealth Games
2. Calls for compensation in blood scandal
3. 'Wagatha Christie' trial
4. Cost of living
5. Ukraine War
6. Fatal stabbing of a nine-year-old girl in Lincolnshire

Saturday 1pm Weekend News
1. Train strikes
2. Fatal stabbing of a nine-year-old girl in Lincolnshire

Saturday 5pm Weekend News
1. Train strikes
2. Fatal stabbing of a nine-year-old girl in Lincolnshire

Saturday 10pm Weekend News
1. England women's football final the next day
2. Fatal stabbing of a nine-year-old girl in Lincolnshire

Is the c-word highly controversial?

Costing some £5 million, the BBC's highly controversial News at Ten/News at Six studio revamp, aimed at attracting a younger audience, was the main topic on this week's Newswatch as viewers objected to the cost of it - especially as it was carried out at the same time as the BBC has been pleading poverty and making cuts.

By describing it as 'highly controversial' there, I was of course trying to make it look bad.

As regulars will know, I've long had a bee in my bonnet about the BBC's used of the c-word. 

Now, sometimes 'controversial' can be used to describe something that is indeed 'controversial' - i.e. with an air of objectivity - but it can also be used as a negative label to predispose an audience against something or someone - i.e. in a biased fashion.

This week, the man on the new highly controversial BBC curved catwalk himself, Huw Edwards, presented Wednesday's News at Ten and read out a bit about the government's Rwanda plan, saying that “the UK Government says it remains committed to its highly controversial plan of taking some migrants to Rwanda”. 

So not even merely 'controversial' but “highly controversial”. 

If he had said 'the UK Government says it remains committed to its plan of taking some migrants to Rwanda', would that have less impactful? 

It would certainly have told us the news, shorn of any suspicion that “highly controversial” was being used there to convey a partial point of view, that the Rwanda plan is a bad thing.

At least the BBC are consistent. Using TVEyes to look back to the News at Ten on the day the Rwanda deal was announced in April [the 14th], the newsreader that day - I'm assuming Huw - described it as “a highly controversial change to UK immigration policy”.

Am I right to have such a long-lived bee in my bonnet about this? Is it the BBC casting the Rwanda plan in a bad light through its use of a negative term?

A Look Back

As you've been recording on the open thread, it's been quite a few weeks for the BBC.

I

The one that puzzled me was the Antony Gormley story. Reeta Chakrabarti, with earnestness all over her face and eyebrows raised, read out this 'news' last Saturday evening:

One of Britain's most acclaimed artists, the sculptor Sir Antony Gormley, who created The Angel of the North, is to become a German citizen. Sir Antony said he was giving up his British passport because of the UK's decision leave the European Union. He described the move as "embarrassing" and says he has plans for new sculptures that reflect this view.

Three days later the BBC posted the following on its Corrections and Clarifications page:

BBC One, 4 June 2022, 10.30pm

We reported that the acclaimed British sculptor Sir Antony Gormley is to become a German citizen. We said he was giving up his British passport because of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union and that he had described the move as embarrassing and had plans for new sculptures that would reflect his view.

In fact Sir Antony Gormley is not giving up his British nationality and has asked us to make clear the circumstances behind his application for a German passport.

Sir Antony holds dual nationality as a result of having a German mother and has decided to apply for a German passport, which he will hold alongside his British one.

In a statement he says he remains a proud British citizen and is grateful for the extraordinary support he has received from so many people and institutions across the UK but he is also keen to retain his links with and continue to show his work in Europe.

We apologise for the mistake.

07/06/2022

How did this happen? As far as I can see, the BBC simply picked the story up from their Sunday house journal The Observer and misread it.  

Nowhere in the Observer article did Sir Antony say he was giving up his British passport [and I've checked the Wayback Machine to see if the Observer did say it but then changed it].

So were the BBC 'projecting', seeing what they wanted to see in the story rather than what it actually said?

It certainly looks like it.

II

Meanwhile, following a number of apologies for 'errors' made by the BBC's climate editor Justin Rowlatt - who's far clumsier than the departing Roger Harrabin - there's a new report out by Paul Homewood detailing a dozen corrections/apologies the BBC's had to make in recent years for false claims. 

Justin, who first rose to fame as Newsnight's 'Ethical Man', is now up to three strikes [BBC ECU rulings against him], though naturally he's not 'out' at the BBC:

In 2021 he falsely claimed that the offshore wind industry was now 'virtually subsidy free'.

In 2022 he falsely claimed that the death toll from climate change is rising.

In 2022 he falsely claimed that the recent drought in Madagascar was 'the world's first climate-induced famine'.

I was particularly intrigued by the passages about the BBC's complaints process, including this concerning the false claim about the death toll rising:

A complaint to the BBC was fobbed off with the risible excuse that Panorama was referring to the cumulative death toll, which will obviously rise every year.

I wish I could say that was 'a nice try' by the BBC, but it's so disingenuous as to be anything but. 

As the press release accompanying the report notes, the BBC has a team of reality checkers, including a 'Climate Misinformation' section.  

Yet none of these teams of fact checkers noticed or addressed the long list of false news stories that were only corrected by the BBC after lengthy and protracted complaint procedures.

Those BBC reality checkers are very selective in the 'facts' they choose to 'check'. 

III

Worst of all was the BBC's editing of an online report to change a rape victim's words - replacing 'he' and 'him' with 'they' and 'them' in order not to offend the trans person accused of raping the woman - a truly staggering editorial intervention.

All Biased on the Easton Front

Alastair Stewart tweeted last night that “the only voices on BBC News tonight were opponents of #Rwanda”. 

BBC One's News at Ten certainly bore that out, with [a] a campaigner against the government's policy and [b] an illegal immigrant facing deportation being the two featured voices in Mark Easton's report. And the campaigner against the government's policy was the sole voice featured in the opening headlines too. 

Mark Easton's report itself was, as Charlie notes on the open thread, typical Mark Easton, using every trick in the book to reinforce the case that Priti Patel's Rwanda policy is wrong and illegal, with the arguments of government opponents dominating and government opponents being said to have 'pointed' things 'out' while people reacting favourably to the judge's ruling went severely underreported - as did what the judge actually said. 

The structure of the report says it all. It began with a 'talking head' - the campaigner against the government. Then came what the lawyer representing those trying to stop next week's flights said in criticism of the government. Then came what a barrister for the UN said in criticism of the government. Mark then added his own point to reinforce what the critic from the UN had said. The government's legal team then got a sentence-long summary of their position from Mark before turning to thee plight of the 'asylum seekers' and 'a Syrian' saying he has family here and that his future and his kids' futures will be 'destroyed' if he's sent to Rwanda. A final sentence - a characteristic Mark Easton move - then feigned impartially with a brief, even-handed summary of the present legal situation from both the Home Office and campaigners' perspectives. 

Why didn't he quote what the judge had ruled, given that the judge had some 'helpful' things to say from the government's perspective? Why didn't he quote Priti Patel's response, already reported elsewhere by that time? Why did he pile on the critics of the policy but exclude supporters of it?

The answer is surely that he was making the case against the government under the guise of impartial reporting, as ever.

The report has been re-broadcast throughout the night and was still showing on BBC Breakfast this morning.

It's to be hoped that many viewers can see through this though. Here, for example, is a tweet from someone who obviously watched Mark Easton's report on this morning's BBC Breakfast:

BBC news this morning with a report about boat migrants. Every clip they showed was with young children being carried into the UK. Who are they kidding? Everyone can see the boats being unloaded with men only. Women and children are few and far between.... 

That's a familiar complaint. 

Edits, fake news and BBC misreporting

That people on Twitter - especially anti-Brexit people - would put out and spread a 25-second clip 'showing' Boris Johnson looking isolated, a 'Billy-no-mates' at yesterday's EU/G7 summit despite longer videos of the event showing no such thing is, well, just typical of Twitter. Twitter partisans are not always noted for their fairness, or honesty. Where it becomes serious is when the BBC's main news bulletins spread this 'fake take' too.

Sarah Smith, the BBC's new North America editor, was one of the guilty parties yesterday.

On yesterday's BBC One News at Six, while a 6-second edit showed Boris 'standing alone' as others greeted each other, she said:

This show of solidarity is why President Biden's here. With the Nato chief and over 30 other world leaders to display the unity they believe is their strength. Although Boris Johnson looks remarkably isolated, even as the Kremlin crowned him the most active anti-Russian leader.

But she cannot take all the blame for this as that bulletin has editors, especially as they allowed her to broadcast the same brief misleading clip on the News at Ten too and say:

Boris Johnson looked a little isolated but remains in step with allies over Ukraine. Everybody wants peace, including the United Kingdom.

A lot of complaints seem to be going in to the BBC about this. And rightly so. 

Here's are two longer videos disproving Sarah Smith and the BBC's misinforming take:

President Biden Meets With NATO Allies In Brussels https://t.co/DeAEiJw9s4 pic.twitter.com/lYIQqJqIhh

— Forbes (@Forbes) March 24, 2022

Did the BBC back up misperceptions during the Covid pandemic?

Harry de Quetteville, special correspondent at The Telegraph, has a report on one epidemiologist's view of how we reacted to Covid. 

Of relevance to this blog, Prof Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh has some things to say about the BBC's role during the pandemic. 

See what you think:

Yet the Government decided that telling half the population that they were at extremely low risk would dilute adherence to the harsh rules it was imposing, and instead ramped up the threat warnings. “We are all at risk,” noted Michael Gove in March 2020. “The virus does not discriminate.” But it did then, and it does now.

“I heard [the official] argument caricatured as: everyone died, but at least no one was saved unfairly,” notes Woolhouse. Policy became a form of epidemiological communism, with imposed equality, even if it was equality of misery. “BBC News backed up this misperception by regularly reporting rare tragedies involving low-risk individuals as if they were the norm,” notes Woolhouse.

When in April 2020, for example, BBC cameras were allowed into an ICU at University College Hospital in London, the first patient interview for News at Ten was Imran Hamid. “I didn’t take this seriously enough,” said Imran, as the sombre voiceover intoned: “Imran is just 37…” Strategies that challenged this universalist dogma by emphasising the protection of the vulnerable were dismissed. “It became a mantra that protecting the vulnerable was actually unethical. Unethical! I mean how on earth did we find ourselves saying that?”

I hear you're a racist now, Mr Coyle

The suspension of Labour MP Neil Coyle yesterday is receiving the kind of low-key BBC reporting we'd expect. 

The story appeared on BBC One's News at One and News at Six but not on BBC One's News at Ten. On both News at One and News at Six it was treated as a minor story, getting just 18 seconds on each bulletin.

 

The News at One version lacked detail:

The Labour MP Neil Coyle has had the party whip suspended, following allegations that he made racist comments to a journalist on the Parliamentary estate. Mr Coyle said he was "very sorry" for his "insensitive comments", which politics reporter Henry Dyer said made him feel uncomfortable in his place of work.

And the News at Six barely added much more:

The Labour MP Neil Coyle has been suspended from the party following allegations he made racially insensitive remark in a bar in the House of Commons. Mr Coyle says he's very sorry for his insensitive comments, which were reported in a formal complaint by a journalist who's of British-Chinese heritage. 

This morning's BBC Breakfast has been giving it 24 seconds:

The MP Neil Coyle has been suspended by the Labour Party after allegations he made racist comments in a House of Commons bar. The member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark has apologised for what he called his "insensitive behaviour" when talking to a political journalist of British-Chinese heritage. Mr Coyle said he wants to "re-prove" his Labour values and be readmitted to the party in due course.

Another interesting aspect of the reporting of this story is how the BBC has sensitively avoided mentioning, or even hinting at, the "racial stereotype" Mr Coyle is said to have used - Sax Romer's Chinese supervillain Dr. Fu Manchu. Other broadcasters mentioned it. 

And the BBC's online report went through 6½ hours and seven edits before finally getting the name of Mr Dyer's employer correct. 

For trivia fans, here's Wikipedia's list of who's play Fu Manchu in film. It's an intriguing list:

Harry Agar Lyons, Warner Oland, Boris Karloff, Lou Marcelle, Henry Brandon, John Carradine, Glen Gordon, Christopher Lee, Peter Sellers and Nicolas Cage.

A Saturday Selection

I've been a bit out-of-action recently, but here are a few things I noted down this week:

I

Never mind Partygate. Sue Gray and Dame Dick need to investigate the Foreign Office for blowing lots of licence fee payers' money on a sparkling farewell party for departing BBC North America editor Jon Sopel. 

That's reported by Steerpike at the Spectator. 

You'll find beneath his piece this comment from former Harry's Place regular Lamia which will doubtless strike a chord with many of us:

Sopel spent the four years of Donald Trump's presidency Tweeting his disapproval of Trump and his Tweets, helping keep the humble folk of Broadcasting House and North London in a permanent state of gratified superior outrage. Once Joe Biden got into power, Sopel and the BBC simply lost interest in reporting about the US President, except what flavour of ice cream he likes. Sopel is a worthless journalist, let alone a journalist for a supposedly impartial broadcaster, because his personal and political biases have infected and dictated everything he reports (and everything he doesn't report about). Not only should he not be the BBC's political editor - if the BBC had any standards (yes, we know it doesn't...) then he would have been sacked years ago. So obviously he's a shoe-in as BBC political editor.

II

Rod Liddle probably ought to hang up his satirical spurs because BBC reality is outpacing him faster than the winner of the Kentucky Derby. A Guardian exclusive reports that the BBC is preparing to broadcast a new take on Dickens's Oliver Twist that will “make a conscious effort” to put food poverty “to the fore” and echo footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to reduce child hunger. Very BBC.

III

The BBC is celebrating what they call “a hundred years of our BBC” and they've released a two-minute campaign video - in response to Nadine Dorries - about how the “BBC belongs to all of us”. As you'd expect,  the last word - “every one of us” - goes to Sir David Attenborough and the whole party political broadcast on behalf of the BBC ends with the caption, “This is our BBC.”

The estimable Lance Forman responded:

If the BBC belongs to me - Please can they release the Balen Report which examined anti-Israel bias at the BBC. The BBC have spent circa £500,000 to keep this covered up. With antisemitism rampant there is a public interest in releasing this. Transparency belongs to us all!

IV

The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson pompously gives us “a reminder”:

Just a quick constitutional reminder for the BBC’s 100th anniversary: it belongs to the people of the UK. It doesn’t belong to the government. And, contrary to what the current Culture Secretary seems to think, it isn’t state-funded.

It may not be, but it still drags thousands of reluctant viewers through the courts.

V

As Paul Homewood notes, BBC Future has a piece by some white woke guy called Jeremy Williams headlined Climate change divides along racial lines. Could tackling it help address longstanding injustices? The pasty-faced gentleman in question has a book out too, Climate Change is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice, thereby evidently making him absolutely irresistible to the BBC. I'm not sure I was even aware of BBC Future. The BBC has no many tentacles it's hard to keep track.

VI(a)

I see some people on Twitter have been complaining that BBC One's main new bulletins gave mere seconds to the jailing of former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham for paedophilia last night. Indeed, News at Six gave the story 17 seconds and News at Ten gave the story 13 seconds. It beggars belief.

VI(b)

It remains a telling fact that Newsnight has still never covered the Barry Gardiner/Chinese Communist Party influence story or that their policy editor Lewis Goodall, despite being a hyperactive Twitterer, has never tweeted about it either - despite the CCP's influence on the UK being one of the biggest new stories out there. I put it down to bias. 

VII

Wagner's Ring cycle lasts 17 hours and runs for over four days. In it the bronzed Valkyrie Brünnhilde disobeys the Director-General of the gods Wotan, ensconced in Valhalla House. The weak Wotan, despite Brünnhilde's flagrant disregard of Valhalla editorial guidelines, merely slaps her wrist by giving her a talking-to and then sentences her to a good night's sleep on a luxury bed surrounded by fire. The dragon-slaying idiot Siegfried awakens her with a kiss and an embittered, self-righteous Brünnhilde then - after various twists and turns - mounts her mighty steed Grane and, immolating herself in the process too, brings about the fiery destruction of Valhalla House and the godly board. Similarly long-lasting is the BBC's Monologue cycle. In this saga the bronzed Emily Maitlis disobeys pasty-faced chief god of the BBC Tim Davie. Tim Davie weakly slaps her wrist by mildly saying she might, possibly, not have been quite entirely right - and then does nothing more. She disobeys him again. And again. And again. Always playing throughout to her main audience, her fellow Valkyries on Twitter. The Trump-slaying Jon Sopel awakens her with a kiss and she mounts her mighty stallion Twitter and disobeys Tim Davie yet again. So what happens next? Well, if my tortuous Wagner analogy runs on, Emily's biased behaviour will help precipitate BBCdämmerung, The Twilight of the BBC, as Tim Davie sits forlorn in Broadcasting House as everything around him goes up in flames and, amid floodwaters, the Thamesmaidens swim in to take back the BBC licence fee. So is Tim Davie ever going to do something about her? She's making a mockery of 'BBC impartiality' and sneering at her BBC bosses, but I doubt he'll do anything. He doesn't seem the type to tackle BBC bias full on. As BBC TV sitcom Valkyrie Mrs Slocombe was wont to say, he's ''weak as water''. 

VIII

BBC disinformation reporter Marianna Spring has been busy promoting a new 10-part podcast series “investigating the human cost of pandemic conspiracies online in one town, who believes them - and why” for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. She “will share more details soon!” This drew a sarcastic reply from Peter Hitchens: “Looking forward to this, Marianna Spring. Obviously this is the most urgent lack in BBC coverage of the last two years. But will a mere ten episodes be enough?”

IX

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale followed UK PM Boris Johnson to a press conference in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president and provoked criticism in some quarters for “making the UK look like a joke” by asking Boris about Partygate rather than Russia-Ukraine. I suspect that as extraterrestrials first emerge from their twenty-mile-long mothership to make contact with humanity for the first time BBC types will be there at the front of the press pack asking about the Sue Gray report. 

Scottish invaders outflank BBC One's 'News at Ten'

My ancestral stamping ground of Carlisle featured in the first report of last night's BBC One News at Ten. 

It's a fascinating place to visit with some wonderful historic buildings, ranging from The Citadel, built in 1541 by Henry VIII and standing at the southern entrance to the city centre right next to the glorious early Victorian railway station, up to the Norman castle resting on the northern outskirts of the city and built some 450 years earlier by William Rufus.

Here's an aerial view of it:

So I spotted a mistake during that report on last night's BBC One news bulletin:

Huw Edwards: No new restrictions have been introduced in England for New Year's Eve, but in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there are stricter rules in place for hospitality venues and indoor gatherings. People in Scotland and Wales have travelled to England to celebrate the New Year, while Boris Johnson has urged anyone attending parties to take a Covid test beforehand. Our correspondent Olivia Richwald reports now from Carlisle in Cumbria which is just eight miles from the the border with Scotland. 

Olivia Richwald: New Year's Eve in the border city. Carlisle Castle was once used to keep the Scots out. Now it welcomes them as they arrive in the centre. And earlier today many Scots made the trip south.

The accompanying image was of the Citadel, not the Castle: 

So, yes, Olivia - despite the potted history lesson she laid on for BBC viewers - got the Citadel, which greets visiting Scots (and others), mixed up with Carlisle Castle, which doesn't.

Talking of potted histories, if you're into quizzes you might want to remember this: Carlisle Castle was the last English fortress to undergo a siege. It happened during the Jacobite Rising of 1745–6. 

And that, dear reader, is what I thought I'd start 2022 by telling you.

The BBC understands

I was reading some criticism of the BBC's reporting of Lord Frost's resignation from the government and checked out how BBC One's late evening bulletin reported the Mail on Sunday's scoop. In their main headlines, the BBC said:

The BBC understands the Brexit minister Lord Frost has resigned from the Cabinet. It's believed Lord Frost, who's led negotiations with the EU, stood down over the political direction of Boris Johnson's Government.

The BBC ''understood'' it through reading it in the Mail on Sunday.  

They are quite shameless.

Also, via BBC reporter Damian Grammaticas, we got the return of an old favourite - the BBC's favoured use of ''hardline'' to describe Brexit supporters in the Conservative Party:  

He helped Mr Johnson win the backing of hardline Brexit supporters in his party, advocating a tough approach to Brussels.

Says hardline BBC reporter Damian Grammaticas.

The world is changing fast

While watching yesterday's BBC One News at Six, Patrick O'Flynn took to Twitter to make a point that from the response clearly echoed with a lot of people:

Have we become so desensitised to knife crime that the murder of a 12-year-old girl by other children doesn't even lead the news?

The story of the murder of Ava White in Liverpool and the arrest of four boys - one aged 13, two aged 14 and one aged 15 - on suspicion of murder was reported 12 minutes into the bulletin.

My first thought was to remember the murder of Jamie Bulger and how that haunted our memories for many years. Events of this kind were so rare they shocked the nation and the media dwelt on them at length. Now, with rare exceptions, they just seem to pass by.

 

Indeed, by the time BBC One's News at Ten was broadcast yesterday the story had fallen even further away from being a main story, being reported 24 minutes into the bulletin.

Update 14:20: The murder of Ava White is still a top story on the Sky News, ITV News and GB News websites. It's nowhere to be seen though on the BBC News website home page. 

Update 15:50: The story is back on the BBC News website home page. A new article appeared an hour ago headlined Ava White: Police release image of van after girl stabbed to death. 'The occupants are in no way suspected of being involved in Ava's death'', according to the police. 

Were the BBC shamed into making it headline news again?

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

  

The BBC's home editor Mark Easton has an advocate's way with statistics. 

On Wednesday's News at Ten he made this statement:

There aren't more asylum seekers asking for sanctuary in Britain.

By Thursday's News at Ten - which began with the statement “Boatloads of desperation continue to wash up on Kent's beaches. Only a fraction of asylum seekers in Europe choose the UK” - Mark Easton added this, almost in passing:

Figures released today indicate asylum applications at their highest level for six years, at 37,000.

And there's a canny bit of jiggery-pokery here. The Times reports the same figures and says:

Asylum claims are higher than the number recorded at the peak of the 2015-16 European migration crisis at the height of the Syrian civil war, when applications hit 36,546.

That asylum claims are comparable or even slightly higher than they were in 2015 - at the very height of the European migrant crisis - is quite something.

It's all about how you frame it obviously. The Times's headline couldn't be further from Mark Easton's 'frame': 

Asylum claims at highest level for 20 years as Channel crossings surge

I'm intrigued though about what was going on throughout 2001. 🤔 Ah, yes.

Mind Your Language

This happened in the House of Commons yesterday:

Brendan O'Hara, SNP: Last night I tuned in to the BBC 10 o'clock news to get the latest on this terrible disaster, and I was absolutely appalled when a presenter informed me that around 30 migrants had drowned. Migrants don't drown. People drown. Men, women and children drown. So will the Secretary of State join me in asking the BBC News editorial team and any other news outlet thinking of using that term to reflect on their use of such dehumanising language and afford these poor people the respect that they deserve? 

Priti Patel, Home Secretary: Even during the Afghan operations and Op Pitting I heard a lot of language that quite frankly seemed to be inappropriate around people who were fleeing. So yes, I will.

I refer the honourable lady to Melanie Phillips:  “Pass the smelling salts: the BBC is right. Why is the Home Secretary endorsing an attack on objectivity?”

As Melanie say, Brendan O'Hara's argument is “tendentious” and “absured” - a “manipulative piece of verbal mischief”. Migrants' is “a neutral and objective term” - “the one term that accurately covers all these different categories of people making these unlawful Channel crossings”. He's seeking to “reframe” the mass illegal crossings of the English Channel as “a decontextualised humanitarian challenge which no-one with a heart could possibly resist. And he is requiring the BBC to assist him in doing so.”

 

As for Priti Patel's reply, Melanie writes:

So because she heard inappropriate language about Afghans, the Home Secretary is going to complain to the BBC for its use of wholly appropriate language to describe a different group of people in a different situation?

She continues:

Why is Priti Patel endorsing this attack on BBC objectivity — the very quality which the BBC is usually rightly accused of lacking? Why is she thus giving implicit succour to those who exploit the accelerating crisis in the English Channel — a crisis which she and Boris Johnson have failed to resolve — to denigrate those who wish to uphold the integrity of their country’s borders and the rule of law?

The BBC is often very wrong, but on this occasion it is absolutely right. When a Conservative Home Secretary takes up a position to the left of the BBC, something has gone very badly awry with British politics.

Indeed. 

Transcript: NEWS AT TEN, 19 November 2021 - The Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

 

Jury member: We the jury find the defendant Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty. 

Newsreader: Cleared of murder - American teenager Kyle Rittenhouse - who shot dead two people last year during protests against racial injustice. 

Newsreader: An American teenager who shot dead two people during protests against racial injustice in Wisconsin last year has been found not guilty of murder in a trial that polarised opinion in the United States. Kyle Rittenhouse argued that he had feared for his life and acted in self-defence. Prosecutors said he had behaved like an armed vigilante. The case has provoked a heated debate about gun ownership. Our correspondent Nomia Iqbal reports now from the city of Kenosha.

Judge: The defendant will rise, face the jury and harken to its verdicts. 

Nomia Iqbal: A dangerous vigilante, or someone acting in self-defence? After 26 hours, the jury decided Kyle Rittenhouse's fate. 

Jury member: We the jury find the defendant Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty. 

Nomia Iqbal: The 12 men and women of the jury accepted the teenager's claim that he killed out of fear for his safety. 

Man outside court: Somehow, some way, those 12 jurors found that he was innocent. 

Nomia Iqbal: Outside court, the political divisions this case has caused were clear. 

White man outside court: You attack me, I have the right to defend myself. That's what Kyle was on trial for, and that's what Kyle has now been acquitted of. OK, so you telling me that two guys come up to you and accost you, you can't defend yourself? That's what was on trial today. 

Black man outside court: There is no way in a land of law where a person can shoot three people, kill two of them and be acquitted. There's just no way. 

Nomia Iqbal: The shooting happened against the backdrop of nationwide protests over racism and police brutality, following the murder of George Floyd. In Kenosha, another black man, named Jacob Blake, had been shot by police seven times and on the third night of riots Kyle Rittenhouse entered the city. He said he came to provide security. 

Kyle Rittenhouse: If there's somebody hurt, I'm running into harm's way. That's why I have my rifle because I have to protect myself obviously.

Nomia Iqbal: In a series of confrontations, he shot dead Joseph Rosenbaum, who had chased after him into this car park. He then killed another man, who ran after Rittenhouse, thinking he was an active shooter. A third man survived. Police later arrested the teenager and charged him with murder. At his trial, there were tears, challenges,... 

Thomas Binger, prosecutor: When you point the gun at someone else, that's going to make them feel like they are about to die, right? That's what you wanted him to feel. 

Kyle Rittenhouse: No! 

Nomia Iqbal: ...shouting by the judge... 

Judge: Don't get brazen with me! 

Nomia Iqbal: ...and a controversial defence by his team in regards to the shooting of Jacob Blake. 

Mark Richards, defence lawyer: Other people in this community have shot somebody seven times and it has been found to be OK. My client did it four times in three quarters of a second to protect his life from Mr Rosenbaum. I'm sorry, but that's what happened. 

Nomia Iqbal: This case has become a big flash point on gun rights. Some see Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero, for others he is a reckless teenager and a symbol of a gun culture out of control.

Newsreader: Nomia is in Kenosha live for us tonight. This is a case that's been gripping America really. What's been the reaction tonight to this verdict? 

Nomia Iqbal:: Well, the reaction has been division. This case has pulled together some of the most explosive issues in America, the right to bear arms, protest, racial injustice. There were civil rights protesters outside the courthouse who said if Kyle Rittenhouse had been a black teenager and had shot at three white people the police would have behaved very differently that night. The National Guard is on standby just in case there is any violence. President Biden has reacted. He has said that the verdict will leave many Americans feeling very angry and concerned, including himself, but he has urged people to respect the verdict. Kyle Rittenhouse has reacted. He has said he is remorseful and wants to get on with his life. For others it may not be so easy. The family of one of the men shot dead that night has said that this not guilty verdict sends a dangerous message that any armed civilians can show up in any town and justify shooting people. So this political divide that we know exists in America on gun control, and gun ownership, has, tonight, got even deeper. 

Newsreader: Thank you very much indeed.

The sentencing of a sitting MP doesn't get a mention on 'News at Ten' or 'Newsnight'. Why?

Am I missing something? Owen Paterson led BBC One's News at Ten and BBC Two's Newsnight last night, but former Labour MP Claudia Webbe being convicted of threatening her partner’s former girlfriend with acid [and of threatening to send naked pictures of her to her daughters] and being given a 10-week suspended sentence didn't even get a mention. Why?

Not talking about Sir David Amess

I was watching a fascinating YouTube video the other day - an UnHerd interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali about how 'wokeness is a gift to Islamism. It began with presenter Freddie Sayers recalling the murder of Sir David Amess MP on 15 October before saying:

Have you noticed how it's barely talked about already? It seems strange that after such a momentous event it would be passed over so quickly. Now part of it is to do with the suspect, Ali Harbi Ali, having been charged so the media outlets are understandably wary about interfering with an ongoing court process. But, if we're honest, there's also a wariness to say what this really appears to be, which is an incident of Islamist terrorism on our shores.

Checking TVEyes, The last time any of BBC One's main news bulletins mentioned David Amess's name was on Thursday 28 October's-News at Ten - a very brief mention near the end of the bulletin - and the previous occasion was almost a week earlier on Friday 22 October's News at Ten.

 

BBC London's local news programmes have mentioned the late MP's dog being named Westminster dog of the year, but the main time they focused on his murder recently was on Sunday 31 October's Politics London where they discussed how 'the Somali community is suffering the fallout from the murder of Sir David Davis', how his murder has been 'a trigger event' that's 'instilled fear in the Somali community' - the familiar 'backlash' angle, a very BBC angle.

The contrast with the media's behaviour after the murder of Jo Cox is striking.

Different president, different reporting

  

Even since the Biden administration's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan climaxed in the deaths of 13 US marines and some 200 others at Kabul airport at the hands of Islamic State's Afghan offshoot and the US quickly retaliated, claiming to have successfully struck two ISIS-K targets, doubts have been expressed about those targets. Were they really terrorists? 

We'll probably never know if those killed in the first, surprisingly swift strike were really senior IS commanders, as was claimed at the time, or were merely low-level IS members, or just unlucky locals killed by mistake, because the US has refused to provide any details. It happened out in the Afghan countryside, far from journalists' eyes.

The doubts about the second ''righteous strike'' [Mark Milley, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] surfaced straightaway. I saw photos of the children killed in the attack within hours and some media organisations were on the case straightaway too saying that an innocent family had been hit, not IS-KP terrorists. From the first hours it looked to me as if the US had struck the wrong people. But the bullish Biden administration/Pentagon officials stuck to their line that it was IS terrorists on their way to attack the airport again who had been vaporised. Finally, the US has now admitted that they did indeed strike the wrong target. They actually hit an aid worker and a translator and another ally, and seven children. What the US military thought were weapons were actually water bottles.

Watching BBC News at Ten's brief coverage of the US admission last night and reading the BBC News website's report on the story, featuring 'analysis' from Barbara Plett-Usher, I was struck by how little they were tying the Biden administration to the story. It's as if they were downplaying the Biden administration's responsibility. No mention of Mark Milley. Just a passing somewhat positive reference in the online piece to Joe Biden.  [''The last US soldier left Afghanistan on 31 August - the deadline President Joe Biden had set for the US withdrawal.'']. And quotes from the US Defence Secretary being added to the online piece 9 hours later.

I think blog favourite Adrian Hilton sums it up well:

Adrian Hilton: If this appalling tragedy had occurred under Donald Trump, I'm sure UK media (esp. BBC News and Channel 4 News) would have apportioned blame directly at his feet, and given it hours of negative coverage. But under Joe Biden it's excusable; not newsworthy...'collateral damage'.

To put it another way: Just imagine what would have happened if Donald Trump had carried out the strikes, and seven children had been killed in a botched response to a terror attack which killed 13 Americans as a result of bottlenecking caused by the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul airport, accompanied by images of people falling from the wheel wells of aeroplanes. 

It speaks of biased reporting. 

And scanning the BBC's TV channels today for 'Biden', he's only being mentioned in connection with a pro-Trump/pro-Capitol protesters rally coming up this weekend and the French withdrawing their ambassadors to the US and Australia over Aukus.

Update - Nomia Iqbal's report on the BBC News Channel this morning ended by focusing on ''the US military'', not the Biden administration:

This awful mistake further dents the US military's reputation, that has already been damaged by its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Partly Upheld

 

At the height of the BLM protests last year the BBC's News at Ten broadcast a report about the Bengal Famine that proved highly controversial, especially regarding accusations against Winston Churchill.

Our view, as expressed at the time, ran as follows:

Both last Monday's Today programme and last Monday's BBC One News at Ten featured reports by BBC journalist Yogita Limaye, and she clearly felt no obligation whatsoever to show fairness and impartiality. 

Her pieces were nothing more than concerted efforts to brand Winston Churchill a racist and hold him responsible for the 1943 Bengal Famine.

It generally aroused concerns that the activist foxes were taking over the chicken coop. 

Well, the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit has finally got round to ruling on complaints about this report - and by 'finally' I mean it's taken over 13 months to resolve - and it's partly exonerated Yogita Limaye's piece. But only partly. And what it upholds is that in the ECU’s judgement...:

...more exploration of alternative views of Churchill’s actions and motives in relation to the Bengal famine was required to meet the standard of impartiality appropriate to a report in a news bulletin of this kind. This aspect of the complaint was upheld

Or to put it another way, it wasn't fair and it wasn't impartial.

Blackpool Council complains about Mark Easton pushing a narrative

Misery on the sea-front

This in intriguing. 

This morning we posted a transcript of Mark Easton's News at Ten report from Blackpool without being aware that Blackpool Council had denounced it - and the BBC - in no uncertain terms earlier in the week.

(It was also broadcast on the BBC's News at Six and on the BBC News Channel).

There are some serious allegations against the BBC here:

The Leader of Blackpool Council has condemned the BBC for its “wholly misleading” coverage of COVID-related death rates in Blackpool. 

The corporation broadcast reports on its main news channels suggesting that Blackpool had one of the highest death rates in the country, but did not take into account local factors such as age of the population, which distorts comparisons with other areas. 

Although these “standardised” rates, which take those factors into account, were provided to the BBC team, demonstrating that Blackpool had relatively low rates compared to other parts of the North West, they chose not to use them. 

Cllr Lynn Williams said: “We are dismayed by the BBC’s coverage. It was very apparent from the get-go that they had a particular narrative in mind and did not want to engage with anyone who might cast doubt on that narrative. We offered to put forward our Director of Public Health to give the programme team the right context but again they chose not to accept. 

“The end result was a wholly misleading report, without any real purpose and was an affront to all of those people who are working so hard to protect vulnerable people in Blackpool from the impact of the pandemic. As a resident of Blackpool, I am tired of this sort of lazy journalism that repeatedly misrepresents the town. 

“Whilst the BBC might argue that the broadcast was about Lancashire in general, it was very clearly rooted in Blackpool, creating a false impression about the resort and its response to COVID. It is somewhat ironic that a news item that purported to be about inequality was in itself so unfair and unbalanced.” 

Dr Arif Rajpura, Director of Public Health for Blackpool Council, added: “We went to considerable lengths to try to explain to the BBC journalist that the statistics it was so intent on using were out of context. Had they used the recognised Age Standardised rates of death due to COVID, the figures show Blackpool at 199 compared to a North West average of 207. 

“Using a different set of statistics to support a pre-ordained narrative is irresponsible and can only alarm people and undermine those who are working tirelessly in the community. 

“Had the BBC wanted to portray a more balanced picture, it could also have pointed to Blackpool having the lowest infection rates across the whole of Lancashire, currently standing at 280 per 100,000 of the population compared to 423 for the North West and 403 for England respectively, or to the speed at which we have rolled out one of the UK’s biggest vaccination hubs at the Winter Gardens. Sadly, that was not part of the agenda.”

Ouch!

That was posted on 27 January, a day after Mark Easton's report. Wonder if the BBC has responded yet?

*******

That old Mark Easton favourite - the person on the mobility scooter (with Blackpool Tower in the distance). There was another one later.

For ease of comparison, here's that transcript again:

Recurrent themes

 

Going back to Tuesday...

One conspicuous feature of the BBC's reporting of the moment when UK deaths from/with Covid-19 passed the 100,000 mark was how its high-profiel reporters managed to make it 'about' their pet subjects. 

On BBC One's News at Ten, for example, Mark Easton made it about his perennial theme: how unequal the UK is. 

And, over on Newsnight the same night, Lewis Goodall made it about his perennial theme: how bad the Government is. 

Here are the transcripts: