''Why do some horrors cause outrage and others do not?''

This is an important exchange about a horrific incident that took place on 24 July:

Benedict Spence, writer and commentator - I’m still staggered that the death of a woman who was set on fire in a street in England isn’t the biggest story in the country. 

Benedict Spence - Civilised people should be appalled and enraged by this primitive savagery in our midst. Everyone needs to know this happened. 

Ben Cobley, author of The Tribe - On the contrary, it is not in the least bit surprising.  

Stella Coppard - Cold blooded premeditated murder & it is almost hidden from mainstream news channels. Shame on them. The pain & horror this women suffered is unthinkable. NOTHING honourable about murder, downright malicious evil.

Lord Milton Damerel - I'm even more amazed that MPs such as Jess Phillips who've worked so hard to highlight violence toward women, don't seem interested. Of all the atrocities we've seen in the news this needs to be spoken of in Parliament.

And this is a telling question:

Emma Webb, The Free Speech Union - A Muslim woman from Bury has died after she was found on fire in the street. Three men in their 20s and 30s have been arrested. It’s barely been covered. Why do some horrors cause outrage and others do not?  

As far as I can see, searching via TVEyes, this story has received no coverage on BBC One or BBC Two's national news programmes and just two brief mentions on the BBC News Channel on 24 July at 7.14pm and 8.14pm. North West Tonight, the BBC local news programme hereabouts, also gave it two short mentions on 24 July, adding little but the ages of the victim and the three men arrested.

BBC Two's much praised lockdown educational output begins....with Greta

I was probably too sour the other day, and may have reacted in a knee-jerk fashion. (Or maybe not).

And it may very well be a wonderful thing that the BBC is broadcasting hours of extra educational programmes on CBeebies and BBC Two each day because of lockdown. (Or maybe not).

But...

...those tuning into BBC Two's Bitesize programmes today for secondary school children will have found the following at the start of the channel's two-hour educational package:

Since it's Science Week here at Bitesize Daily, our Big Read is Devika Jina's book, The Extraordinary Life of Greta Thunberg. 

Yesterday, we read about Greta's early childhood and how she first learned about climate change watching documentaries at school. 

In this extract, we get more insight into Greta's personal life and what makes her extraordinary. 

This isn't a parody. 

The sciences cover such a broad range, as does the science curriculum. Trust someone at BBC Two to place their favourite climate activist Greta front-and-centre of their opening week of educational programmes! 

And there was Professor Brian Cox to follow. (Things well and truly could only get better - it was his OK-ish The Planets series.)

I rather like Prof Cox, but he's long been the present BBC's idea of a 'hip-and-down-with-the-youngsters' scientist - despite being 52. He holds all the right views too.

You can just imagine the thinking at BBC Two as to what to choose for Week 1: 

(a) "Got to put out something about science. What can we put out? Something about climate change maybe? Ah, there's a book out about Greta Thunberg's extraordinary life. Good! Is there something on BBC Bitesize that? Yes. Should we put that out? Yes, that's a good idea. Let's do it." 

(b) "What else? Something from Brian Cox?".

Are we really DOOMED to accept trigger warnings for Dad's Army on BBC Two?

 

My Dad, now aged 89, loves Dad's Army. It's been his favourite programme for nigh on 50 years. It's one of his few remaining connections to the BBC - though I lessened that further a few years ago by buying him a boxed DVD set of the complete series.

And the BBC's been putting it out for decades, even now, on Saturday nights on BBC Two, simply because people still enjoy watching it, what with it being funny and well acted and beautifully written and consummately crafted and much, much better than most of the BBC's present comedy output.  

BBC Two broadcast the classic 1971 film tonight, with all the original gang. It's not in Dad's boxed set. 

And guess how the BBC continuity announcer announced it?

She said:

Welcome to Saturday night. I'm with you live into the wee hours on BBC Two. Now, with discriminatory language that some might find offensive, times of peril bring great men to the fore...

Now, I don't think we should passively tolerate this kind of thing from the BBC. 

It is a highly conscious decision by the BBC to appease a small but very loud and absurdly influential minority of unreasonable people by placing such silly 'woke'-appeasing statements in front of classic BBC programmes that have been broadcast for decades and have offended next to no one. 

(Radio 4 Extra is full of such 'trigger warnings').

By doing so, the BBC has taken sides in a matter of passionate public controversy, and it's not an impartial decision. 

Such 'warnings' are daft and divisive, and the BBC should stop them. 

One for Tim Davie? Time, Tim, to show them the cold steel? They won't like it up 'em, but you might help to reconnect the BBC to its core public if you do.

BBC comedy

Good grief, this looks excruciating, but the BBC seems to be very proud of it:

🥋🇷🇺 Britain's newest chat show host - please welcome Vladimir Putin to @BBCTwo pilot #TonightWithVladimirPutin: https://t.co/DVY8uVOWSM pic.twitter.com/ifgw0s0kWB

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) May 21, 2019

Comments definitely could be going better. 

Mark Seddon of the FT has tweeted:

Pity the poor BBC reporters in Russia who are going to have all sorts of shit thrown at them because of this morbidly unfunny garbage. 

More hardline activity from the BBC

A quick update on the use of the word 'hardline' by BBC reporters and presenters.

A TV Eyes scan of BBC One, BBC Two and the BBC News Channel from the 1st December till now reveals 4 uses of 'hardline conservative', 11 uses of 'hardline Brexiteers', 2 uses of 'hardline Hindus' and 2 uses of 'hardline' in connection with Frances's Yellow vests.

The BBC reporters and presenters responsible (besides BBC newsreaders) are David Willis, Alex Forsyth, Rob Watson, Jon Pienaar (frequently), Emily Maitlis and Hugh Schofield. 

So: conservatives, Brexiteers, Hindus and Yellow vests. 

There was a use of 'hardline Remainers' but it was by a BBC guest. Naturally. 

The first time we did an extended survey of this there were, of course, lots more 'hardline Brexiteers' (and variations thereon), but also uses referring to President Trump's immigration policies, a Second World War era Japanese governor, Germany's right-wing interior minister, "hardline tax-cutting conservatives" in the US, the right-wing Austrian government for its stance on immigration, the populist Italian and conservative Hungarian governments for their stance on immigration, European governments in general who oppose mass immigration, the conservative CSU in Germany (for opposing Mrs Merkel over immigration), a right-wing politician in Turkey (Meral Akşener), "hardline clerics" opposed to women drivers in Saudi Arabia, and Italy's Matteo Salvini.

I'm still seeing a pattern here. Aren't you?

A hardline take on the BBC's use of language

The word 'swullocking', I've just learned, is "a near-perfect old dialect word that describes a sweltering, sultry, and all-round sudiferous (sweat-inducing) day"

It's certainly been a swullocking day in Morecambe today. The bay is looking like the Bay of Naples and it's so hot here that a volcano has just this very afternoon sprung up over the sea on the Furness Peninsula and within minutes erupted and buried Barrow. (Our thoughts and prayers, etc). 

Another word that's been on my mind recently is 'hardline'.

As you know, 'hardline' means "advocating or involving a rigidly uncompromising course of action". Its synonyms include:

uncompromising, strict, diehard, extreme, tough, inflexible, immoderate, intransigent, intractable, unyielding, undeviating, unwavering, single-minded and not giving an inch (etc)

It can be a neutral word, but most people don't tend to use it neutrally. They tend to use it negatively, about others. You rarely find it used as a term of praise. 

The BBC has been putting it to quite a bit of use in recent days, especially to describe certain UK politicians. (Can you guess in advance which ones?) 

Just looking at BBC Breakfast on Saturday morning (with help from TV Eyes), the BBC presenters and reporters used the term 'hardline' about Mrs May's Brexiteer cabinet members at least eight times, including such phrases as "hardline critics of the European Union in her cabinet". 

And Uncle Mark Mardell, whilst telling us a tale today, gave us a particularly fine example on this afternoon's The World This Weekend (also concerning Mrs May's Chequers cabinet meeting):

The seven hardline Brexit ministers knew they were in a minority in the oak-panelled room.

Checking TV Eyes again, the other BBC TV uses of the term 'hardline' this past week involve President Trump's immigration policies, a Second World War era Japanese governor, Germany's right-wing interior minister, and - again - Brexiteers (BBC political correspondent Alex Forsyth using the term "hardline Brexiteers" on Friday's BBC Breakfast).

Is there a pattern emerging there? 

Possibly. 

So let's go back to June where there are 118 TV Eyes results for 'hardline'. Are there any Remainers described as 'hardline' by BBC reporters? Any left-wingers? Any pro-mass immigration people? Any EU officials?

Well, put simply: no. 

Working my way through them all, it's lots and lots more uses (throughout the month) of "hardline Brexiteers", that wartime Japanese governor again (a repeated programme), Trump's immigration policies (again and again and again and again referred to as "hardline by the BBC - when they aren't being called "controversial" that is!), "hardline tax-cutting conservatives" in the US, the right-wing Austrian government for its stance on immigration, the populist Italian and conservative Hungarian governments for their stance on immigration, European governments in general who oppose mass immigration, the conservative CSU in Germany (for opposing Mrs Merkel over immigration), a right-wing politician in Turkey (Meral Akşener), "hardline clerics" opposed to women drivers in Saudi Arabia, and Italy's Matteo Salvini. And that's it.

Yes, there's definitely a pattern there, isn't there? Opponents of mass immigration, right-wingers and people who want Brexit to mean Brexit are the people the BBC chooses to call 'hardline'. 

Do you think they're using the word in a neutral sense when so doing? I don't.

Stuffing

People can be very mean about the BBC. You hear them complain that it's end-to-end cookery programmes on the BBC most days. That's rubbish, of course. I'm just watching the end of The Prince and Me on BBC Two, and that's not a cookery programme. It's a romantic comedy. Plus I'm betting the BBC has a wonderful variety of programmes for me, even if I stick to this one BBC channel. OK. Let's click on the onscreen guide and see what's coming up. Oh, well yes, the next programme at 9.15 is The Big Family Cooking Showdown. Oh, and that's followed at 10.15 by Saturday Kitchen Best Bits. But that's just two programmes. You must judge the BBC over time! Oh, and then it's Mary Berry's Absolute Christmas Favourites at 11.45 and The Hairy Bikers Home for Christmas at 12.20 and Alex Polizzi's Perfect Christmas at 1.20. Good grief, it's only Christmas Eve! By 2.20, when Alex Polizzi's Perfect Christmas ends, I'll already be sick of food and starting my diet.

New broom at BBC Two

BBC Two has a new controller (and not a fat one). She's called Kim Shillinglaw.

She worked for the Guardian (specifically Observer Films) before moving to ITV and Channel 4, finally joining the BBC in 2006, where she helped develop Horrible Histories. She worked in BBC News, including Newsnight. She then became the head of science and natural history in 2009, overseeing the rise of Brian Cox. 

According to the Guardian, Kim's achievements have been to put more science programmes into the BBC's schedules and more female experts and presenters on screen.

She shares BBC director of television Danny Cohen's concerns about the lack of women of TV comedy shows, once tweeting "Why are only women on Mock the Week compilations laughing cutaways? They never get to speak. Surely not because not funny?" 

Her husband, Steve Condie, also worked for the BBC as a history development executive. He also worked on Newsnight. He left the BBC in 2012, and now works for Oxford Scientific Films.

Her hobby is collecting animal bones. 

Just thought you'd like to know.