A baker's dozen

This won't come as a surprise to us, but The Mail on Sunday has carried out an "analysis" of the BBC's coverage of the Democratic Party primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire and found that 13 BBC correspondents covered them.

The paper's headline is: What cuts? The BBC has THIRTEEN reporters covering the US election trail... while back home, it's axing up to 450 jobs in £80m savings drive. 

The MoS points out that Emily Maitlis "jetted across the Atlantic at considerable expense" for a couple of Newsnights, despite the programme already having a US correspondent (David Grossman) involved in the coverage.

They also point out that Christian Fraser "flew out from London to join his Washington-based co-host Katty Kay in Iowa" for Beyond 100 Days.

The BBC, of course, says there's nothing wrong with this ridiculous wastefulness, adopting the 'it's not as bad as usual' defence:

The BBC has a huge amount of output across our news channels, bulletins, radio, online programming and podcasts. This election is being primarily covered by our US-based team… meaning we have sent far fewer London staff than we have ever done previously.

The Story of a Label

Of course, Nick Bryant wasn't the only BBC bod to brand President Trump's "go back...then come back" tweets as "racist". 

Here's Gary O'Donoghue on BBC One's News at Six on Friday:

But of course, Boris Johnson criticised those racist tweets earlier in the week...

And here's Mark Urban on Thursday's Newsnight:

After racist tweets suggesting four American congresswomen go home - three of them were born in the US - the President set his sights at a rally last night on the one who wasn't, Somali-born Ilhan Omar.  

And here's Ros Atkins on Thursday's Outside Source:

...57% of Republicans agreed with the sentiment in those racist tweets at the weekend that the Congresswomen should go back to the countries "from which they came".

 And here's David Willis on the BBC News Channel on Thursday: 

...there were chants at times of "send her back", which is an echo of those remarks, those racist remarks Donald Trump made on Twitter, and that is, of course, disconcerting.

And here's the newsreader on Thursday's The Briefing:

Some Democrats had been hoping to capitalise on the growing criticism of Mr Trump for his racist comments about four ethnic minority Congresswomen. 

And here's the newsreader on the BBC News Channel's overnight BBC World programme:

Mr Trump also returned to the four Congresswomen - the subject of his racist tweets earlier this week.

 And here's Katty Kay on Wednesday's Beyond 100 Days:

You're watching Beyond 100 Days. Democrats are about to vote on whether to impeach Donald Trump because of his racist tweets. 

Wednesday's Business Briefing saw Sally Bundock (of Tim Martin of Wetherspoons fame) reading the following headline (which appeared in the same terms on all the BBC's overnight news bulletins, several times each hour):

In Washington, the House of Representatives has voted to condemn President Trump's racist tweets. 

Ros was back in action on Tuesday's Outside Source:

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives is preparing to condemn his earlier racist tweets.

And here's Christian Fraser on Tuesday's Beyond 100 Days:

President Trump lashes out again at minority lawmakers as the House prepares to condemn his racist tweets. 

Sally was also on Tuesday's Business Briefing reading this (again echoing BBC newsreaders throughout that night on the BBC):

This is The Briefing, I'm Sally Bundock. Our top story: President Trump refuses to back down from his racist tweets attacking four American congresswomen of colour. 

The first instance I heard, as we're going back chronologically, was Emily Maitlis on Monday's Newsnight:

Someone's demob happy. And today, Theresa May called out Donald Trump's racist tweet as completely unacceptable. 

But Ros Atkins on Outside Source was doing it already earlier that evening:

President Trump is pushing back over criticisms of his racist remarks about Democrats. 

And Katty and Christian on Monday's Beyond 100 Days were leading the way:

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump's strongest allies on Capitol Hill, declined to condemn the President over his racist tweets.

And, of course, that evening's BBC One News at Six saw Nick Bryant kick it all off:

Donald Trump was at a 'Made in the USA' business event at the White House today, showcasing the kind of economic nationalism that has become a hallmark of his America First presidency. But it's his white nationalism that's caused the latest political storm, a racist Twitter attack aimed at four women of colour, three of whom were born in the USA. 

As far as I can see, that was the first instance of it. 

So, sometime on Monday evening, four BBC TV programmes - BBC News at Six, Beyond 100 Days, Outside Source and Newsnight - chose to nail their colours to the mast and brand Donald Trump's tweets "racist". 

Coincidence? A senior editorial decision? BBC Groupthink?

Whatever, the BBC is well and truly off the leash now, 'impartiality'-wise.

Has BBC Reality-Checker Chris Morris been caught out again? (Spoiler: Yes)

Chris Morris, or Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan?

Organisers say more than one million people joined the demonstration, which called on the Government to hold a second referendum.

   (Christian Fraser, Beyond 100 Days, BBC News Channel,       7.37 pm tonight)

So, according to 'the impartial fact checkers' Full Fact (who, to to put it mildly, weren't helpful to the Leave campaign during the EU referendum), "there almost certainly weren’t a million people on the People’s Vote march".

They put the number at "between 312,000 and 400,000". 

I grinned at the Guido Fawkes write-up of this as it goes on to say:

Not that it stopped the BBC’s risible “Reality Check Correspondent” Chris Morris from endorsing their claim of a million. 

Being Is the BBC biased? I needed quotes from Chris Morris to back that up.

And, yes, checking TV Eyes, there he was blabbing away - even today (at 3.17 pm and 5.51 pm on the BBC News Channel) - parroting that "they estimate there were a million people on the streets calling for another referendum" and "we had an estimated 1 million people outside this building on Saturday".

Guilty as charged then.

Yes, here's the BBC's chief reality-checker who doesn't always check the reality of things - especially when it seems to suit him not too.

I think they call that 'bias', don't they Chris?