Fake News again

There is a certain amount of crossover between ITBB and Biased-BBC, and as you can see we were urged to cover the CNN Fake News story that Biased-BBC is featuring here. Pleased to oblige.

Notorious bad-girl Katie Hopkins has raised the matter with the BBC, as allegedly the BBC aired a clip from the staged footage during one of their news bulletins. (I missed it and it’s unavailable on iPlayer.) Katie is keen to know who provided the props.

The BBC is always jumping the gun - not checking the veracity of an item - when it suits the narrative (not so much when they’re oh so carefully (Martine Croxall) avoiding any premature and potentially libellous naming of the religion of peace in connection with an unfolding terrorist atrocity) but manipulated sound-bite type stuff is more at home on ‘BBC Trending’.

Anyway, footage of a London-based CNN anchor named Becky Anderson staging (or inventing) a feel-good news item has gawn viral. Or is she merely doing what TV journos do?

The film in question shows director Becky and her crew assembling a few hijab wearing women in front of the cameras, with ready-made placards and flowers. Does this prove that much of the news we get is stage-managed? Is the whole thing one gigantic, agenda-driven  fake?

You’ve all heard the story (maybe you haven’t) of a conversation between strangers sitting next to each other on a flight. A war had broken out in the vicinity of their departure. The two passengers sipped wine and chatted about where they had been and why. “I’m a producer from TV news” said the man, “covering the war.” “Then why,” said the other man, “are you flying away from the action, rather than towards it?”  “It’s fine” said the man. “I’ve got my crew there. They know what footage I want. I’m going home.”

Is that relevant?

The first question that occurred to me when I read about this peculiar CNN incident was: who on earth filmed this pantomime and why? (You can’t help wondering, can you?) It seems it was “Mark”.

CNN creating the narrative #FakeNews pic.twitter.com/nwxizDhTED

— Mark (@markantro) June 4, 2017

We all know that the camera never lies. It’s not the camera’s fault if the cameraman makes one or two adjustments to suit.  Faking /  tweaking / air-brushing; we’re all up to it - faking stuff - these days. You know the type of thing. The camera pans out to reveal that the “crowd” wasn’t a crowd after all. The edit changes the narrative. Pallywood as an art form; the art of hoodwink.

But the funniest thing of all is that in the end, if "Twitchy.com" is correct - and I haven’t verified it - the final bit of film is a massive let-down. It’s just a pointless rant by a somewhat unprepossessing, rather charmless woman, which is unlikely to have any influence on anyone whatsoever. If the BBC was hoodwinked by Becky Anderson's stage-managed ensemble, more fool them.

My message to the #LondonBridge attackers: You are a handful of twisted fools hell-bent on taking lives https://t.co/0v17H67El1

— Becky Anderson (@BeckyCNN) June 4, 2017

Do tell me if I've got it all wrong. Seriously.

Just thought I'd share...

I agree with Chris...

chrisH

April 30, 2016 at 11:02 am

I`ve been going to Tolpuddle now for many years as an ex-Lefty who finds out quite a lot about what they`ll be up to in the coming year.
When I first started going , there would always be a Christian Socialist group down from the East Midlands with their Methodist tracts, on the main route to the festival-good natured arguments alright, how do you square Communism with Christianity…Marx or Methodism etc? But they`d been coming for years, were good union activist types, often retiring soon.
There would also always be a Friends of Israel group with the Israeli flag in the field nearby-manned usually by Jewish Socialists who would not be religious, but were proud of the Socialist Kibbutzim aspect of Zionism as they had fought long and hard for…ex Cable Street types, but plenty Labour friends too, who`d stayed on kibbutzes, who liked the socialist egalitarian activities of that communal, international brotherhood idea that flowered in Israel after 1948.
In short, Judeo-Christian values made up not the Labour DNA..but were the double helix that much else could be related to.
Again, in the case of Israel: some open hostility from the Gulag grannies and Stalin suckups-with increasingly nasty PLO types with the rise of Yasser Arafat, and (I`m sad to say) the Rock Against Racism/Anti-Nazi League types who saw a chance to wave the PLO flag, flog a few crap olives-and blame Jews in the USA for pretty much all their inadequacies and weirdities.
Have not seen a Christian presence now since 2006, and the Israel flag went before that.
Now the monoculture is wishy washy Jesus creeps who hide behind the cream teas…whilst the likes of Bob Crow(PBUH) can mug around like Buster Bloodvessel and shout down those of us(i.e me and a few brave souls)who scorn King Billy Bragg in public…the brownshirts get very upset,and the boozing hours in the hot sun come to the boil…usually on their fat tattooed necks, mind!
My point-to hear the BBC News tell me that Corbyn will “conduct an independent enquiry” is lies and bollox….a “clear the streets and put out the red tape” idea as used at Falkirk, mid-Staffs and the like.
Unless they`re Friends of Israel-they are ALL anti-Semites, they blame Israel and the Jews for everything that the USA can`t be pinned for.
Muslims will say what they still fear to say-but , as we now see, Corbyns election has given them permission to come out from under their stones…and so a few Jewesses/gays can be killed sometime soon with them.
They want the Muslim vote and this will bring the votes in-they can only agree with Islam over Israel in the open, so they make hay with their anti-Semitism.
Naz Shah was one of their “enquiry members on the PREVIOUS ongoing independent enquiry” until she self-detonated on Thursday.
So piss off Beeb-one of the few things that nearly all Labours liars and Corbyns c*nts CAN agree on is the fact they don`t like Jews, and Israel needs tipping into the sea without their water wings.
What ELSE unites the Left and Islam, terrorism with victim grooming of the camel stool?
Watch last nights Newsnight to see how academic anti-Semitism works-some “self identifying Palestinian” from a Sunni-funded Yuni in the west country slivers and weaves over Maitless fair questionning…an anti-Semite who is(as ever) the victim of Israel-and when the current “hoo-haa” is over, she`ll be up to her usual taqqiyya stuff…the BBC seem to seek her opinion, the Saudis will fund it, and she`ll be the victim.
As for all those Israelis getting stabbed every week?…anybody ELSE heard the BBC mention them? I`ve not.
AND watch for this one-the number of times that Israel gets collaterally smeared in the course of this storm (as in, Israels pretty crap and needs to be condemned for NEARLY everything that Ken and Jeremy say, if not actually get put back on trains to Drancy or Westerbork) is doing enormous damage-anti-Israeli tropes get lobbed in with every discussion, and it`s becoming a constant given of a backdrop-which will make the next stage of Muslim takeover of Labour even MORE of a struggle to fight.

Swearing on the fucking Beeb

Over on Biased BBC, DB has unearthed more incontinent Tweets from one of the BBC’s foulest.

A new member of the Radio 4 News Quiz team has been announced. Someone called Elis James. Elis wears his heart on his sleeve, but his views, like other adolescent BBC employees, are his own.

(Have you noticed that the BBC’s headlines always seem to be about sport? Look on the sidebar of this blog) We pay for this.

Elis James likes football, booze, and the Labour Party. 

 “This country is fucked”.

We have given that cunt Cameron a mandate to be even more of a psycho , for the next five years. Oh Christ.

— Elis James (@elisjames) May 8, 2015

I'm starting to shit myself now. Not another five years of these cunts, please

— Elis James (@elisjames) May 7, 2015

I’m not prudish about swearing. I do it all the time. However, when Billy Connolly gave up trying to get a laugh by telling funny jokes and fell back on simply uttering ‘fuck’, it was the kiss of death for Connolly. 

Did anyone see Rory Bremner last night?   Did anyone find any of it funny? What about the bit at the very end, with ‘the Queen’ swearing? Embarrassingly and gratuitously  unfunny. 

Blimey. Poor Bremner.

Bringing back memories

As DB notes at Biased BBC, the BBC's tweeter-in-chief at the Pegida and anti-Pegida rallies has been Hannah Bayman. You can judge the nature of her tweeting today here (complete with re-tweets of Yvonne Ridley).

DB takes us old hands down memory lane to the days of Natalie at Biased BBC, and this post featuring Hannah Bayman, which you might be interested to read in full:

Happy memories for all concerned!

Andrew

  By Natalie | April 13, 2004 | 

writes:

One story prominently featured over the Easter holiday weekend was the leftie march to Aldermaston, including various puff-pieces in advance (i.e. advertising for fellow-travellers).

Monday’s ‘News front page’ featured two links to stories about this relative non-event. The same story is highlighted a day later on the UK news page:

Joy as nuclear marchers hit base

Deep joy indeed. The story, by Hannah Bayman, features interviews with various protestors, Giulia Giglioggi, 11-year old Leela Levitt (from Southampton “pleading with parents Malcolm and Latha”, Daniel Franceschini and Reverend Hazel Barkham.

Knowing the BBC’s rigourous and honest approach, I did a little Googling for these people.

Giulia Giglioggi returns nothing. Google helpfully suggests “Giulia Gigliotti”, from Southampton, who it turns out is a major organiser of such protests (inc. a letter in the Grauniad signed ‘Giulia Gigliotti, Nuclear Information Service’) – all omitted (or simply unseen) by our scrupulous BBC inquisitor. (‘Nuclear Information Service’ turns out to be www.nukeinfo.co.uk – also based in Southampton).

Reverend Hazel Barkham (Google alternative ‘Barking’!) is also, unsurprisingly, a prominent anti-nuclear activist, popping up around the web and around the world.

So, how could our rigourous BBC reporter omit to mention the prominence of these anti-nuclear organisers whilst writing such a happy, nay joyous, report of this traditional outing?

Another spot of Googling, this time for ‘Hannah Bayman’, reveals a number of interesting Hannah Bayman coincidences:

- Revolutionary Communists “Rock around the Blockade at Guantanamo” (in April 2000 no less), inc. Hannah Bayman “I am really interested in the Pioneers and the UJC (Union of Young Communists)” (Link);

- “Operation Desert Rescue – 9.6m children in danger” – list of supporters includes “Hannah Bayman, Southampton, BBC journalist” (Link);

- Socialist Worker 26Apr03 letters page – an angry rant about Iraqi freedom, from Hannah Bayman, Southampton (Link);

- Globalise Resistance “free Nicola and Richard” petition – signed by Hannah Bayman, freelance journalist (Link);

- The Observer 21Jul02 letters page – Hannah Bayman of London N1 writes “People across the world have marched against Israel’s war in Palestine, including 80,000 in London in May, largely ignored by the mainstream British press. In September thousands more are expected to rally in London against the threat of a bloody war in Iraq. In November thousands of activists will converge in Florence for the European Social Forum, a weekend of demonstrations and debate on the future of the anti-capitalist movement.” (Link)

It seems I’m not alone in doubting the objectivity of Ms. Bayman – Robert Hinkley has posted details of his dealings with her here and here. Note also the picture here which is remarkably like the BBC picture here.

For those with long memories, I wonder if the Chris Blake in the first picture is the same as the one interviewed by Hannah for the BBC here. If so, Hannah seems to have a remarkably intimate interviewing technique – too intimate one might think to ensure the impartiality and objectivity that a Beeb-taxpayer might expect from the “World’s premier news broadcaster”, as they term themselves.

Just to be clear, BBC reporters, like everyone else, are entitled to their personal opinions. However, in the interests of transparency, when a reporter interviews a personal acquaintance (in this case Chris Blake, aformer comrade on a political magazine “Resist”), it is, at best, a discourtesy to his or her readers not to mention it.

(From the Biased BBC archive)

Pause for Thought

Alan at Biased BBC has written a couple of thoughtful posts, perhaps prompted by our discussion about Steve Rosenberg's Today report on Russian attitudes to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I very much appreciate them, especially their tone - which was much better judged than mine. (Sorry Alan.)

I think we're still going to have to agree to disagree over that particular Steve Rosenberg report, but Alan's point about how BBC journalists can become too close to the subjects they are supposed to  be reporting on (with careful, clear-eyed dispassion) is a well-made one and one that made me think. (Hence this post).

It is certainly a potential risk that having spent so much of his life in Russia among the Russians Steve Rosenberg might have imbibed some of their way of thinking (perhaps without even realising it) and is now reflecting that way of thinking back without sufficiently engaging his professional cynicism. I'll have to listen back to other Steve Rosenberg reports to form a judgement about that.

Still, by citing Jon Donnison and Jeremy Bowen as examples of reporters who have become too close to the subjects they are supposed to be reporting, Alan has proved the possibility of his point by showing it as an actuality. Jon Donnison, especially, seems to identity so closely with the Palestinians that he has come very close to open pro-Palestinian activism. (That doesn't seem to have happened with the Ozzies yet, about whom he seems, if anything, to be excessively cynical). 

Lyse Doucet's commitment to the idea that BBC reporters have to show compassion in their reporting (though I can see why she thinks it's desirable) probably brings that risk even closer. Place an emotion like compassion at the heart of your reporting and you risk toppling into emotive sob-stories and shroud-waving. 

Alan also discusses the Media Lens critique of BBC reporting, conceding certain of their points and disagreeing with them over other of their points. 

It's an important argument for blogs like ours to contend with because the Media Lens perspective has become ever louder in recent years. 

The days when it was only the political Right which objected to BBC bias have gone. Polling evidence from a year ago suggested that as many people think the BBC has a pro-establishment/pro-government bias as believe it to be pro-Left. Social media is full of people accusing the BBC of being a tool of state propaganda.

Media Lens used to be the exception that proved the rule among BBC-bias-related blogs. It was the left-wing, anti-Israel one-off among a sea of right-wing and/or pro-Israeli ones. Now there are loads of them out there. You may not have come across them but I can assure you they're out there. We've had some interesting comments here at Is the BBC biased? from people who think in that kind of way, some of whom run such blogs. 

It's a perspective that puzzled me when it first impinged upon my consciousness. The idea that the BBC acts like an arm of British foreign policy was one I'd not really considered. In my teens the BBC's perspective on issues like Falklands War, the Reagan administration's military campaigns (and our support for them), the British government's policy towards South Africa, etc, appeared (to me) to be less than supportive - to put it mildly. The BBC didn't seem overly supportive of the First Gulf War either. Or of our ally, Israel. 

And when I first came across Biased BBC it was in the wake of the Iraq War - the example Media Lens cites as being a prime example of BBC pro-state bias. I didn't find the BBC to be pro-that-war at all (as Media Lens and those who think like them believe it was). Hugh Sykes' reporting, Orla and Fergal, John Humphrys' questions on Today, the proven dislike of many BBC reporters for Bush, the Blair government v BBC battle culminating in the Hutton report and the resignation of Greg Dyke - those are just some of the things I remember, and they aren't (to me) evidence of the BBC being propagandists for the Iraq War. 

And what of more recent conflicts? Did the BBC support the government over the Libyan intervention? Did the BBC back the government's push for intervention in Syria? Is the BBC supporting the government's reluctance to give in to MPs' demands to recognise 'Palestine'? Is the BBC backing the government's opposition to President Putin's actions in Ukraine? Is the BBC supporting the government's military action against Islamic State? Does the BBC back the government over EU renegotiation? Media Lens types think 'yes' to all of those. I would give qualified 'yeses' to some, clear 'noes' to others, and a couple of 'maybes'/'don't knows'. 

This view that the BBC has a pro-establishment bias may be fairly widely held but those same polls from a year ago showed far less support for the idea that the BBC is right-wing. In the past Media Lens tended to go after the BBC, Guardian and Independent so hard because it saw them as liberal media outlets betraying the Left by being much less left-wing - and 'truthful' - than Media Lens. Only recently has there been a sudden upsurge in claims of right-wing bias at the BBC, from the likes of far-left academic/campaigners at Cardiff University and Owen Jones (and Robert Peston). And Twitter has now taken such claims up en masse (see my previous post for fresh evidence of that). What with the anti-Israel brigade and the pro-SNP battalions massing their tanks on the BBC's lawns, the ranks of the unjustified protestors against the BBC are swelling. 

Media Lens thinks the BBC suffers from groupthink. Like Alan, that's the point at which I agree with them. 

The groupthink in question (in my opinion) is precisely where Media Lens used to (still does?) locate it - in the same area (roughly) as the Guardian and the Independent: socially liberal, economically centrist, pro-EU, pro-immigration, obsessively 'politically correct', vaguely anti-war, pro-urgency on global warming, unsympathetic to Israel, horribly fascinated by UKIP, ultra-fearful of offending Muslim sensibilities (though not especially bothered about offending other religious sensibilities), etc, etc, etc. 

The problem remains the way the BBC has recruited its staff over many, many years. Radical surgery is needed to change that, and the BBC isn't into that when it comes to itself.

Well, that's my thoughts on the matter. If you care. 

How many children?

I’ve been quiet recently because people on other websites have tackled specific instances of unfair reporting more assiduously than I have been able to.

BBC Watch in particular regularly highlights errors and thoughtless statements made by interviewers and reporters, which are apt to compound misunderstandings and confuse the public in the name of clarification and impartiality. 

Yolande Knell and Jeremy Bowen have been particularly unhelpful recently. Knell is in Gaza to “tell your story” like Alan Johnston before her, but that shouldn’t mean spouting untrue propaganda such as the mistaken claim that shortages of vital supplies, particularly of medicine and food, are due to Israel’s malevolence. Israel doesn’t block medicine or food - such shortages are due to the way Hamas and the PA mismanage their affairs.

Elder of Ziyon is always a rich source of information about Israel and the surrounding region, the site is continually updated. Israelly cool the same. 

David Vance is usually sharp on matters concerning Israel and Palestine but Biased BBC is exasperatingly slow to load these days. 

Several people have detected a shift in the media’s presentation of the current escalation in violence between Israel and Gaza. Suddenly news reports are adding certain phrases into and onto their pieces. Hints that indicate that they have at last grasped the fact that Hamas is the architect of its own (the people’s) misfortune. “If you stop sending rockets into Israel from Gaza, all this would stop” they seem to be saying - sometimes they actually are saying it. I thought Kevin Connolly seemed a lot fairer than he used to be, and quite a bit fatter.

An edition of Hardtalk with Zeinab Badawi and Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan was unusual. Zeinab is hardly known for impartiality where the I/P conflict is concerned. Her tone of voice when speaking to Israeli spokespersons has been notably disdainful and harsh, but  the questions she put to Hamdan were reasonable, even if she let him get away with handfuls of fanciful and disingenuous remarks. “Why doesn’t Hamas stop sending rockets into Israel? was her opening gambit. Hamdan, with the kind of face you just long to punch, answered thus: “well the question I believe, is supposed to be why the Isra-elis stop the attack against the Palestinians? (Yes he did leave out “don’t” but we’ll put that down to language problems)

He kept prefacing his outrageous fantasies with “everybody knows,” which, of course is the diametric opposite of reality, and so much so that it was comical. Towards the end, after asserting that two of the three murdered Israeli teens were soldiers in the IDF,  he accused PM Netanyahu of orchestrating their kidnap and killing to provide an excuse for the Israelis to attack Gaza.  

Harry’s Place is the site for nuanced discussion, it’s like the Moral Maze on speed. You get criticism of Israel within an umbrella of loyalty and affection. Under present circumstances it’s almost too public  an arena for airing personal dirty linen. There’s currently a must-read post by Marc Goldberg, one of Israel’s many angst-ridden citizens who is normally wracked with a mixture of empathy for his enemy and loyalty to his country. The reality of the current crisis has had a temporarily galvanising effect on him, and his piece entitled “Hamas is this the best you can do?” clearly articulates the frustrating questions that trouble and mystify those who see Hamas for what it is. He speaks for a wide spectrum of Israel-supporters, uniting people who may not agree on much else.

“You are the Palestinian tragedy. You are the killers of your own people. You are the ones who are unable to create anything and for all your talk are barely even capable of destroying. Since the time you seized control of Gaza you have managed to do absolutely nothing to help your own citizens. Your disastrous management of Gaza has seen a blockade imposed upon you and poverty rivaling the worst slums on the planet. Your use of media and children’s camps to indoctrinate your own populace into hatred of the Jew at all costs has succeeded only in sickening right thinking people all over the world.You have insisted upon putting every means at your disposal towards attacking Israel when what you should have done was leave Israel well enough alone and concentrate on building up Gaza. But you knew that and you chose not to anyway.”

The principles in this kind of war could be likened to a football match - not that I know anything about football, or could care less. But there are two important factors each side has to attend to. Attack and defence. 

Israel devotes considerable resources to both. Hamas devotes what resources it has entirely to attack. 

For defence Hamas relies entirely on Israel’s reluctance to harm non-combatants. It exploits Israel’s preventative warnings, which give Hamas just enough time to assemble all available human shields to protect prospective targets, performing a collective act of deterrence.

That shows two things. One, that Hamas recognises Israel’s reluctance to harm non-combatants even though the rest of the world prefers to sneer at that claim, and two, it clearly shows that Hamas values the lives of its own civilian supporters even less than Israel does.

On Today this morning there were the inevitable ‘balanced’ reports, one from Israel, the other from a Palestinian. In the intro, James Naughtie included the BBC’s favourite ‘emote mantra‘  -  “In Israel no one has died” .  He also used an odd phrase  about mothers / babies / children who have been killed  “These people may well take a view of Israel which you don’t approve of ” , which I’d say rather makes light of the widely-held Palestinian view that Israel should be eliminated, but still.  

An Israeli spokesman, Yaacov Peri MK, was speaking from a wind-tunnel which seemed to be underwater. On my bedside radio it was borderline unlistenable, but it sounds more or less okay now. (Could they have cleaned it up before it was uploaded to “listen again?”)   

In the studio, though, was that rogue Manuel Hassassian, about whom I’ve written before. He made many questionable assertions, which I thought could have been more robustly challenged. “Mr. Peri is an occupier.” he asserted. “People are living in Gaza with no medicine, no food supplies in an area totally sealed” said he. “Israel is occupying the Palestinians” “Killing indiscriminately, as you have said” and so on.

James Naughtie apparently accepts that Gaza is so highly populated that Hamas is forced to launch rockets amongst civilians. Someone should show him how to use Google Earth. Surely the BBC knows about Google Earth?

The BBC seems to be left with the one and only remaining and persistent argument against Israel. The amount of Palestinian civilians that have been killed. The more babies children and women they can call upon the better. 

I saw Ron Proser being grilled on al Jazeera, after his speech at the UN the other day. 

The female interviewer tried to do a Jeremy Paxman by repeatedly asking him to state what she thought was a killer question. “How many children has Israel killed? “she asked, over and over again. That was the one and only weapon in the media’s propaganda war; a last resort. A trump card. But it’s one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Because of course war is terrible. The more babies, women and children are killed, all the more reason for Hamas to stop firing at Israel. 

Head of Newsroom tells BBC staff: "Don't do anything stupid!"

This is now...

The upshot of DB's latest fine work in highlighting bias at the BBC through the tweets of BBC journalist - the Jasmine Lawrence affair, taken up by Guido Fawkes, the Daily Mail and the Huff Post - is that the Head of the BBC Newsroom, Mary Hockaday, has now sent an e-mail to BBC staff warning them "Don't do anything stupid!" on social media.

The Guardian quotes her saying the following:

Social media is now a vital part of our work, allowing us to get our journalism to new audiences, connect with people, and gather news as it happens.

But the guidance is clear when it comes to personal activity: 'As a BBC member of staff – and especially as someone who works in News – there are particular considerations to bear in mind. They can all be summarised as: 'Don't do anything stupid.'

"I'd also specifically draw your attention to the following section: 'You shouldn't state your political preferences or say anything that compromises your impartiality. Don't sound off about things in an openly partisan way. Don't be seduced by the informality of social media into bringing the BBC into disrepute.'

Anti-UKIP BBC editor Jasmine Lawrence, who broke that guidance, subsequently deleted her Twitter account and was taken of the BBC's election coverage. The BBC have also apparently launched an investigation in the affair.

This isn't DB's first scoop by any means. In fact, one of his earlier scoops foreshadows this one to quite a remarkable extent.

Please cast your minds back to October 2010 [ah, I remember it well!] and you find DB busting another BBC editor, Rachel Kennedy, for politically-loaded tweets [an anti-Mrs Thatcher tweet especially]. 

...and that was then

Again Guido Fawkes took up DB's scoop, and the story spread to the Spectator. Then, again, and just as swiftly as this time, the Head of BBC News at the time, Helen Boaden, sent out an e-mail to her staff:

Dear All,

We have had some occasions recently of BBC News staff using social networking sites to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly, these have been picked up by the wider web and used to discredit the BBC and its impartiality. We have Editorial Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet …which everyone should observe. We also have brains and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before rushing to communicate. Hx

The chatty tone of that e-mail obviously didn't hit home hard enough. BBC News staff kept on using social networking sites "to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy" in the following years - the evidence for which can be found in DB and David Preiser's massive In Their Own Tweets archive over at Biased BBC - and now Helen B's successor has had to tell them off all over again. 

Maybe Mary Hockaday's more schoolmarmish tone will hit home harder. Or maybe not.

I rather suspect that DB will have many more scoops, thanks to the 'rush to communicate' without 'brains' or 'judgement' of so many incautious BBC tweeters. 

Who to believe?

Dropping in on the blog Biased BBC, as is my way, I was struck by David Vance's characteristically pithy post entitled ALL MEN ARE RAPIST?, which highlights a BBC report about violence against women across Europe.

The BBC report begins:

About a third of all women in the EU have experienced either physical or sexual violence since the age of 15, according to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

That corresponds to 62 million women, the survey says.

The figures in the EU's survey are absolutely staggering (if true), finding that one in 10 women has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 15, and that one in 20 has been raped, that 22% of women have suffered from physical or sexual violence by a partner, and around 18% of women say they have been the victims of stalking since the age of 15, and that 55% say they have been sexually harassed, often in the workplace.

I have to say that my immediate thought was that an e-mail should be sent to Radio 4's More or Less to check these results out. 

They sound utterly unbelievable, don't they? 

Have 44% of British women really suffered from some form of physical or sexual violence? It really seems hard to believe that it's so high a figure for something so serious, doesn't it?

So, is there something wrong with the way the survey was carried out? How did it define its terms? Or is there something wrong instead with the way the media has reported the survey? 

Or, God forbid, could it actually be true?

I myself know quite a few women who have been seriously physically abused, and even a member of my own family has been stalked, so the incidence of such crimes should never be underplayed or taken lightly...

...but these figures are truly extraordinary, and I'm finding them hard to accept at face value.

The BBC report, by Bethany Bell, simply parrots what the survey says, without question. 

I'd be very interested to read what statisticians make of the survey. Does it stand up? And, if so, how does it stand up? 

David Vance regards the survey on which the report is based as "manipulated nonsense from the EU" [pro-EU bias] before wondering "if the BBC comrades might explore which ..ahem..communities within this apocalyptic zone of rape and abuse contribute most towards such violence?"

...by which he means Muslims (as his regular readers quickly spotted).

As there are 19 million (or so) Muslims in the EU, they can't (logically) contribute "most" towards that 62 million figure (especially as around half of those Muslims will be women), so I'm afraid to say that I'm as sceptical about David's take on this as I am about that of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (in fact, more so - if truth be told!) but...

...what on earth should we make of this story? 

Begging the Question...Is the BBC biased?

Alan at Biased BBC observes that the BBC, throughout the day, has been emphasising on all its news bulletins [in that word-for-word way the BBC goes in for when reporting such stories] that Moazzam Begg, the former Guardian/BBC-friendly Guantanamo detainee who just has been charged with 'terror offences' relating to Syria, "was never charged with any offence" before:

Why emphasise that?

Why is that relevant to this?  Surely of more relevance is that the US thought he was guilty of exactly the same offences he has been charged with now. He admitted attending terrorist training camps pre-9/11…but the BBC doesn’t find that relevant here.

The BBC has been accused before of being overly sympathetic towards Moazzam Begg (and his CAGE organisation), as any readers of blogs like Biased BBC will be all too aware.  

All I can add to to Alan's point is that I read the straight-down-the-line Sky News report on this story before reading the BBC News website's take. 

Sky News's very simply describes the day's events and then just as simply sets them in context. It's neither pro-Mo or anti-Mo. 

The BBC's piece, in contrast, is keen to report the protests against Big Mo's arrest. It then mentions midway [as Alan says] that "He was never charged with any offence", and then ends by reasserting [for added emphasis] that he's "never previously been charged with an offence" [just in case we didn't get the message first time round?]

Sky News mentions that Mo Begg was "detained [by the Americans] on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda". BBC News, in contrast, omits that highly relevant fact [or at least it does as of 18:30 GMT on Saturday evening]. 

There's another difference in the way the two organisations describe CAGE that needs mentioning too. 

Sky News says that it's a group "which campaigns "against the War on Terror"" while the BBC describes it, far more congenially, as a group "which helps the families of people who have been detained", which sounds more positive, much nicer.

Those are definite differences in tone and substance.

They hardly help dispel the suggestion that the BBC is behaving in a biased manner towards Moazzam Begg.

Reflexes 'n' reflections

As Sue's in a reflective mood tonight (and inventing much better titles than me)...

It was quite amusing in the early days of "Is" that the website that the website for Radio 4's Sunday had not one but two links to our site. 

They used to have a 'buzz' section, picking up on posts about the programme from across the intercyberwebosphere. Our two links stayed there for months.

That felt weird at the time. Admittedly, one of the two posts they linked to was broadly (but not completely) complimentary to them, but the other - the one about their bias on the subject of welfare - most certainly wasn't, and I thought it was much to their credit that they featured those links so prominently.

Quite a few Radio 4 websites had such a feature back then, thought most of them seem to have vanished. Sunday's was one of those that vanished, so there have been no links to "Is" from them for over a year now. 

That said, given that I've become much more hardline towards them though over time, they probably wouldn't have linked to us now even if they did still feature a 'buzz' section!

This raises an obvious question: How many people at the BBC read blogs about BBC bias?

Well, some obviously do, as I continue to dine out on the fact that we got a good-humoured mention on BBC Correspondents Look Ahead at the very end of 2012, after they'd checked out a post that painstakingly detailed (and mocked) their almost entirely wrong predictions for 2012 on the preceding year's edition of the programme. (I was an "unkind blogger"). 

There's not been much visible sign of active BBC interaction with this blog since though. 

Still, that doesn't mean they aren't reading us, and taking note.

That sort of thing is hard to judge though. It takes us into the realms of speculation - and memory.

In its early days, the Biased BBC blog attracted a number of comments from BBC folk, some using pseudonyms (like John Reith and Sarah Jane), some posting under their own names (like Nick Reynolds and Dr David Gregory-Kumar). Such comments have dried up over the last six years ago (with even Dr David dropping away) but, like with "Is", Biased BBC can only assume that BBC employees still read them. 

Commenters at Biased BBC occasionally spot changes in BBC online reports that suggest that the slatings those reports have received at Biased BBC have been picked up on, and acted on - clandestinely. 

If I were a BBC employee, I'd certainly read Biased BBC, and if I worked at Radio 4's Sunday, I'd read "Is". It's the sensible thing for them to do, even if they feel little but contempt for us. 

We are, after all, weather vanes, and they'd be wise to watch us whirl in the wind - or, to put it less poetically, they should know what their critics are thinking. [As it's free for them (no paywalls at either "Is" or Biased BBC), why wouldn't they (even if just for a laugh)?]

And here's where a blogger about BBC bias risks getting into dangerous territory - the territory Captain Mainwaring kept warning Corporal Jones about - "the realms of fantasy".

What if the makers of Radio 4's A Point of View read our post about their programme's blatant left-liberal bias?

Personally, I think it was a damning, banged-to-rights kind of post - the kind of thing a passing BBC employee who works on A Point of View might well have stumbled across while browsing the internet, googling the programme they work for. 

It listed all the contributors to the programme for the previous three years, all either firmly left-wing or left-leaning or politically centrist, with not a single right-winger in sight. 

Well, a mere nine months (:-) later, Radio 4 finally invited a right-winger to present A Point of View - the conservative philosopher Roger Scruton. Proof they'd read "Is" and taken note?

Well, even if not, it's still good to see that Prof. Scruton has been given a second bite at the cherry, beginning a new run this very week - a wonderful, nuanced piece reflecting an Englishman's take on the Scottish independence debate. (Curiously, the link I've provided clips off the end of Roger Scruton's talk, for some very strange reason).

Still, he remains the only right-winger in the A Point of View village. (Four years of programmes, only one right-winger.) So, if you're reading, BBC folk working on A Point of View, please let's have more. You still remain blatantly biased towards the Left, and need to redress the balance. 

The other 'realms of fantasy, Jones' thing that preys on my mind is a comment I put on a particularly enjoyable - and well-read - thread on Biased BBC in August 2011. It listed every UK-focused correspondent on Dateline London who worked for a British newspaper and came up with watertight evidence that reporters from the Guardian and Independent out-totalled those from the rest of the press by a significant margin, backing up my (time-worn) case that Dateline London is BBC bias incarnate. 

What made the hairs on my neck slightly stand on end is that six days after I posted that comment, Dateline London broke from its long-term cycle of going weeks without a right-winger and then inviting either Janet Daley or Ann Leslie to appear [something I kept mocking] and invited a new right-winger, Tim Montgomerie of Conservative.Home. Could there possibly be a link? 

I've posted about Dateline London ever since, and those hairs-on-the-neck moments have re-occurred since [albeit not so strongly], most recently today when, after last week's big-but-evidence-backed whinge on the subject, entitled Left, left, left, we got a totally untypical Dateline panel - and a new right-winger to the programme. (Today's panel consisted of Annette Dittert from German TV [impartial-yet-oddly-left-leaning-like-a-stereotypical-BBC-reporter], straight-down-the-middle-towards-slightly-liberal U.S. reporter Henry Chu of the L.A. Times, BBC correspondent Dmitry Shishkin and....(drum roll)....Iain Martin of the Telegraph, our right-wing new arrival - and well done Iain.)

Were they shamed into that by "Is"? ("Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe".)

The realms of fantasy, Jones? Or do some people at the BBC watch blogs like this like biased hawks?

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins"...

ah but..."Shantih, shantih, shantih". (Google it if you don't know it.)

MSBBC

As this is the year of Newsnight at Is (well, at least until I get sick of watching it), let's continue where we left off with last night's Newsnight. 

After Ed Balls's big-boned face had filled our TV screens (and accursed be he who invented Widescreen), it was onto the BBC's Katty Kay for a State of the Union report on Barack Obama's record. 

Katty is the entirely natural face of the BBC in the U.S.A., being the anchor of BBC World News America. Commenters on right-leaning American blogs seem to hate her bias but love her English accent and her alliterative name. Katty Kay. Katty Kay. Katty Kay.

As fans of David Preiser at Biased BBC (like me) will know, Katty is the business partner of Claire Shipman, the wife of Jay Carney, President Obama's official spokesman. (Has any other BBC reporter ever had such high-powered connections as Katty Kay?)

Katty talked to Chris Cillizza of The Fix, an influential reporter with the liberal Washington Post reporter and political analyst on the left-leaning counterpart to Fox News, MSNBC. She also talked to Robert Gibbs, someone very close to Barack Obama from the very start of his political career - and, coincidentally, another of MSNBC's top pundits. Next came MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell. 

Hmm, is a pattern emerging here?

Well, as Katty herself often guests on MSNBC (sometimes alongside Chris and Andrea), this seemed quite an intimate MSNBC circle...

...and it got even more intimate as, amusingly, Katty's report contained a clip of Katty asking her business partner's husband, Jay Carney, a question at a White House press conference - and it was as lifeless an exchange as any between two people pretending not to know each other could possibly be!

Still, we did get to hear from someone from the U.S. Republican camp - Michael Steele, former Sofa of the Republican National Convention. He launched into a highly critical assault on President Obama...er...he launched into a highly critical assault on the record of the U.S. Republican Party. 

Curiously, Michael Steele is now an MSNBC political analyst. The intimate circle is now complete!

Bingo!

Presented this way, this may sound like a case of extreme BBC bias, but Katty's report was surprisingly downbeat about Barack Obama's presidency. 

Yes, she may have said that the Republicans are in an even worse place, but I can't imagine Jay Carney being entirely comfortable with it. It chronicled many of B.O.'s failures. 

..unless, that is, it was part of what our Katty called the White House's 'reboot strategy'. 

Barack and Jay's White House certainly does seem to be engaging in a 'reboot strategy'. Call me David Preiser, but this report could easily be seem as part of it. 

Or, counterfactually, could it instead be called 'conspiratorial cogitation' which conversely counters the claim that Katty Kay could be colluding with Carney in a computer-comparison-connoting connivance to reboot Obama...and also (Jay...Kay)...to boost both alliteration and assonance as well? (One for Span Ows there).

Still, there followed a studio discussion which had a balance of guests: Jon Favreau, Director of Speechwriting for President Obama, 2008-13 (and, yes, that was exactly how Newsnight captioned him) and Leslie Sanchez, "Author and republican strategist" (as Newsnight's caption put it - and, yes, a 'sic' is needed after 'republican'). Both were suitably partisan.

Israel’s Spoilsports

Christiane Amanpour likes to call Israeli politician Naftali Bennett “Mr. No” because he’s against making a bad deal with Iran.  He makes the case for Israel on CNN to (somewhat unnecessary) theatrical effect with the aid of an ancient artefact, which he took out of the country illegally.

"This coin, which says "Freedom of Zion" in Hebrew, was used by Jews 2,000 years ago in the state of Israel, in what you call occupied. One cannot occupy his own home." 

says he.

Mr Bennet is by no means the only Israeli who the BBC sees as a spoilsport for not wanting to hug an Ayatollah. 

On Biased BBC, David Vance  cites an early-morning report on Today R4 (38 mins in) by Kim Ghattas (odd that someone from Northern Ireland thinks Kim Ghattas’s accent could be Irish) which presents the Israelis as though they’re guilty of spoiling everyone else’s party. (how annoying is it that the Today programme no longer has items individually listenable to on the website) 

“Netanyahu was presented as intransigent and US jewish people seeking to influence opinion were presented as unhelpful lobbyists!”

John Anderson in a comment links to this, and I’m about to link to this:

I do miss Mel’s articles when she wrote on the Spectator, with comments facility. Never mind. This article was worth waiting for - and here she links to the Jerusalem Post.

Why is the BBC and, for that matter, much of the western press so determined to ignore these openly stated declarations of intent? They’re news, aren’t they?