Antisemitism on Oxford Street - Another Update

So it wasn't just Harry Farley on the BBC News website. I've found via TVEyes Thursday's BBC London report on the incident on Oxford Street [18:40, BBC One]. BBC reporter Guy Lynn said:

The Metropolitan Police are treating this as an alleged hate crime and I should say though that we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs about Muslim people which does come from the bus. It is not clear at the moment from the person that said that what role that may have played in this incident.

So from that, it's evidently far from being just a couple of BBC reporters who got this so badly wrong, It's ''we at BBC London'' who watched the footage, misheard and misinterpreted the footage, and then used it in the BBC's television and online coverage. 

You can imagine the scene: They watch the footage in a BBC London studio. Someone thinks they heard a particular phrase that casts a bad light on the Jewish people on the bus and others are persuaded that they can hear it too. They don't double-check and triple-check with experts before broadcasting it and others just take their word for it, and it spreads from BBC tv to the BBC News website. Then, for some reason, BBC reporters use the plural ''slurs'' both online and on tv - something they later have to row back on, at least online, given that it was palpably untrue. 

So what now? A lot of people are absolutely furious at the BBC, and I'm sure they won't let the BBC off the hook over this.

P.S. Someone on Twitter made a point that struck me too, writing ''The inclusion of the Jewish witness is worse as the unqualified BBC's assertion next to her denial makes it seem like she is being dishonest.''

This was that passage:

Guy Lynn, BBC: We spoke to someone who was on the bus. 

Tamara Cohen: Pretty scared for myself. The way that it was escalating, I didn't want there to be any violence but obviously we weren't in that mindset which is why we got on the bus and we were starting to leave and then the people that were mocking us, they got close to the bus and started hitting the bus, they starting shouting out rude slurs. It was escalating pretty quickly. 

Guy Lynn, BBC: The Metropolitan Police are treating this as an alleged hate crime and I should say though that we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs about Muslim people which does come from the bus.

'So Knife Crime is so prevalent it’s not worth a mention?'

Norman Brennan [''London Police Officer ret 2009 after 31yrs; A leading campaigner on police protection & Media commentator on Gun/Knife crime & the affects of Homicide''] tweeted this yesterday:

Well folks, this morning in London a Stabbing on a Bus left a man fighting for life & two others stabbed but satisfactory! Tonight’s London BBC news? Not a Murmur; headlines? it's Covid through to a Dennis the Menace story; So Knife Crime is so prevalent it’s not worth a mention?

Wielding the hatchet

A tweet a couple of days ago...

...led me to find that report (via TV Eyes).

It was on BBC London's early evening local news programme and was by their political editor Tim Donovan.

So was it a biased hatchet job or not?

Well, I'd say it was. But here's a transcript for you to judge: 

Tim Donovan: The mayoralty was never enough, as we found out halfway through his second term. He wanted to leave City Hall and get back to Parliament. But now eyeing a bigger prize was this in his campaign video rather a rosy recall of London life under Boris?

He definitely wanted to be seen as a crime-buster, but total recorded crime was actually 14% not 20% lower at the end of his mayoralty, marked in red here. Homicides did come down, as he said, but all violent crime, having fallen initially, started going up in the middle of his mayoralty, again marked in the red, and kept on rising. Boris Johnson also cut the police numbers by nearly 2000, reluctant to follow Ken Livingstone in raising council tax to pay for more.

His penchant was for big monuments and physical legacies. The hire bikes which may forever be known by his first name were panned initially as a bad deal for the taxpayer. Then there was this vision of the green oasis across the river, £50 million spent on a bridge that never happened. Question still being asked. The cable car across the Thames is making a profit for the operators, while this treasured sculpture in the Olympic Park has now been turned into a slide to pay the bills.

What also slid under a Tory mayor and a Tory Chancellor was state investment in transport. The grant from government went down from 1.9 billion to half a billion in just four years, while Johnson put up fares year after year above inflation. Cycling was his signature policy, bringing in segregated highways and riding out a difficult period when deaths and injuries soared. He pressed the button which officially got Crossrail construction under way. But then there was the new routemaster bus. Stylish, nostalgic but expensive, plagued by mechanical problems, and yes, very hot. And what about when he closed all those station ticket offices?

He did finally help generate a solution to Battersea Power Station, but housing became a genuine crisis in the capital. Investment from a Labour government helped him build 54,000 affordable homes in his first term but in his second that fell to 40,000, as Tory led austerity really started to bite. Together, he and the Chancellor George Osborne shifted the focus and meaning of affordability towards ownership and higher rents. That meant homes for social rent, what we'd always known as council housing, just well, fell through the floor, with record showing only three such homes were started across the whole of London the year he left.

If he ends up at this property [10 Downing Street], he'll have the full machinery of the state behind him, making unlikely a repeat of the judgments and the chaos, really, that saw him lose six top advisers in his first year at City Hall. He often of course seemed to be able to bounce back and on the Olympics lucked out on a perfect stage for his talents. Now we know he is making his record in London a big selling point. Often untroubled by detail, he delegated much to the team around him. He was the Tory who could and did win in Labour leaning London, but did he let down the Remain-leaning capital? Many think it's unlikely he would win here now.

A helpful question

BBC One's London local news this afternoon reported on Sadiq Khan's attendance at a memorial ceremony for the Bataclan massacre in Paris today and BBC reporter Karl Mercer interviewed the Mayor. 

How's this for 'message placement' courtesy of the BBC?:

Sadiq Khan: I'm here to pay my respects but also to show solidarity. London and Paris have many links. Last year we suffered four terrorist attacks and 14 people lost their lives. It's really important we show solidarity to our French friends.
Karl Mercer: And there's been much cooperation over those three years, particularly in the field of counter-terror, something you're worried will change come March?
Sadiq Khan: One of the things that many Londoners may not realise is that because we're members of the EU our police and security service have a huge amount of cooperation with our colleagues - European Arrest Warrant, being members of Europol, being able the EU passenger name records. On a daily basis our police and security services check DNA records, fingerprints, wanted lists. The UK Borders Agency checks  the watchlists of most of those coming into our country. If there's somebody who leaves London and they've committed a crime we can get them extradited really quickly. And my worry is if it appears to be the case that we leave the EU with no deal, as seems very likely, what will happen on March 30th? There'll be no deal whatsoever. What I'm saying to our government is that bearing in mind there's a possibility now, a real possibility of no deal, work now on a separate security arrangement so on March 30th our police and security services can still work with the EU.

And that was that.

*******

Update: The evening London news bulletin on BBC One tonight returned to this, with the BBC presenter saying:

Three years to the day after the Bataclan terror attack in Paris which killed many dozens of people - the Mayor of London has been to the ceremony to remember those who died. He was joined by survivors and relatives of Londoners who were killed - and he used the occasion to raise concerns over how security in London might be affected after Brexit.

It featured another short interview with Major Khan, where he said much the same as above. Was he again prompted by Karl Mercer of the BBC?

Whether he was or not, two French politicians featured in his report backing up Sadiq's views and no contrary views were aired. 

Then things got 'very BBC'...

A BBC-on-BBC interview immediately afterwards, between the presenter and a second BBC reporter, London News 'Brexit reporter' Mark Ashdown, began by basically reinforcing Sadiq Khan's points, rather breathlessly. 

Watching it, I thought 'Gawd, this is biased', and then, after thinking that, came the coup de grâce from Mark Ashdown. It almost took my breath away. He actually said:

And the Mayor's right. If all this falls apart, we have no deal, we risk losing all that. Life could become more difficult.

 "And the Mayor's right"??? Really, BBC???

(Is Mark any relation to Paddy?)

Has the BBC fact-checked this?

Someone - namely Manchester Uni's Prof. Louis Appleby - has been fact-checking the BBC again and found it wanting.

Here's an illuminating Twitter thread to explain all:

1. Tragedy of young life lost but BBC London News ran it under headline that teenage suicide rate in London is 4x higher than rest of country, repeated in story. In fact, rate in London is lower. Astounding piece of misinformation.
2. How did this alarming claim, which must have been seen by countless people inc teenagers themselves (there is concern that stories like this can be self-fulfilling) come about? Answer shows how media can misuse stats & feed off each other.
3. First it's worth stressing that suicide in <20s has been going up in last few years, a tragic situation. But that's all the more reason to have accurate figures & responsible reporting. Press sometimes seem to be competing for latest "mental health epidemic" headline.
4. Story started in May when ONS published response to an FOI request about number of teenage suicides in borough of Brent, whole of London & nationally. Request was for 3 financial years (that's unusual), starting with 2013-14 . …
5. As a result The Independent ran story of London suicides up from 14 to 29, calling it a "107% rise", >4x higher than 24% nationally. Figs for Brent were too small to mention but local charity that made FOI request was quoted, calling findings "shocking".
6. But what's wrong with that? It is a 107% rise. Here are 3 tips on making most of stats: 1. Choose low baseline that makes any subsequent rise look far bigger 2. Go for short time periods or risk ruining a dramatic trend 3. Don't worry about small nos, they give you big %s.
7. In their story BBC London News added a twist, misquoting The Independent's claim that the *rise* in London was 4x higher than nationally, a dubious distortion in itself, saying that the *rate* in London was 4x higher, which would have been astonishing if true.
8. Then there were 2 other things that anyone in the field could have told them: 1 quote rates, not numbers - rates are adjusted for population size. 2 ONS suicide figs are based on date of registration, not date of death, & when nos are small, that can matter.
9. So what is happening to teenage suicide in London? 1. Far from being 4x higher than nationally, rate is not higher at all, in fact slightly lower. 2. But in common with teenage suicide across Eng & despite fluctuations, it has gone up. That's the story.
10. And the moral? 1. Dramatic claims based on population data like suicide stats are likely to be wrong. 2. Media stories feed off each other - bogus figs keep coming back - so worth getting it right 1st time. 3. And even if the country is tired of experts, they can be helpful.

But this just in from Prof. Appleby:

Credit to reporter on this who contacted me yesterday & has removed “4x higher” line from online story. So often these errors go uncorrected.

Unfortunately, I'm re-watching the BBC video report at the very moment and though the headline no longer mentions the offending statistic the report itself still does, saying "Teenage suicides are four times higher in London than the rest of the country". The error, it appears, has only been partially corrected.

"But with Brexit looming..."

BBC One's London News tonight had a report on female Spanish scientists living and working in London. Naturally, BBC reporter Sarah Harris posed this very 'BBC' question: "But with Brexit looming, will these talented female researchers move on again?"

Why can't BBC reporters see Brexit as anything other than some kind of menacing iceberg destined to bring us all to grief?

"Look, who drove me to jihad? Nigel Farage"

Nick Booth's Conservative Woman article Nigel Farage responsible for jihadi brides? No, it’s another leftie fantasy promoted by the BBC is well worth a read. 

It focuses on an interview that BBC Radio London chose to broadcast last week - on Remembrance Sunday of all days.

The interviewee was satirist/playwright Henry Naylor of BBC Two's Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections fame (the 'Parsons' in question being Andy Parsons, the comedian best known for his catchphrase 'OH MY GOD, THE DAILY MAIL!!!'). 

Mr Naylor has written a play called Echoes which draws parallels between "smart" young Victorian women who headed out to British India to get married and "smart" jihadi brides going off to marry the likes of Jihadi John (though it may be rather too late for the latter to marry Jihadi John himself now, given that - it seems - our American cousins have sent him to receive his 72 raisins, inshallah).

Both sets of young women felt/feel themselves to be without prospects in Britain, according to Henry Naylor. In Victorian England you had two choices, said our Henery: "to be a governess or the Queen, that was basically the two options". Both sets of women were/are "very intelligent" and both wanted/want to "do something with their society". 

Please read Nick's take to get the full flavour of this 'BBC comedy'-stamped idiocy (though the live interview described by Henry Naylor did happen) and then, if you're feeling especially masochistic, please also listen to the BBC London interview itself to hear a couple of BBC presenters - Harriet Scott and Tim Arthur - cheerily waving through every single preposterous/controversial statement without the slightest demur.

All I will add to Nick's piece is to quote a part of that BBC London interview's closing moments, which sum the whole thing up: 

Henry Naylor: In fact it's very sympathetic. I mean, one of the opening scenes is about our jihadi brides saying, "Look, who drove me to jihad? Nigel Farage. You know, here I am...here are 4 million people who are effectively voting for this chap who are making it very difficult. You know, there are 4 million people on the streets of Britain who are anti-immigration, who are making disparaging comments about Muslims". So it's actually very sympathetic from that point of view.  

Tim Arthur (BBC): Sounds fascinating. Sounds amazing.  

Now that really is beyond satire.