Cartoon eyes, a BBC sandwich-stealing scandal and Trump on the couch

This week's All in the Mind marked the programme's 30th anniversary. The dulcet tones of the late Anthony Clare were heard again before its current presenter Claudia Hammond told us how she got involved in the programme. And it can be a very interesting programme, where you learn things like this: 

That if you draw some eyes on something and give people a sense that they are being watched they're less likely to behave badly and more likely to behave well. I think I already knew that, but I certainly didn't know that some hospitals put a couple of cartoon eyes on hand sanitisers as people are more likely to use them than if they haven't got any eyes on. And then Claudia noted that packed lunches were being stolen from fridges at the BBC, so she drew eyes on the paper bags she kept her sandwiches in and no one ever stole them again. (Note for any passing Daily Mail journalists, there may be a story about a sandwich-stealing scandal at the BBC. And you're welcome to it if you want to 'scoop' it!). 

And then it was onto a feature about whether politeness or incivility works best for politicians, and I bet you'll guess who was the almost exclusive focus of this segment? Yep. Except for one mention of ' basket of deplorables' (unattributed), it was the Donald in the dock, or on the psychiatrist's couch, all the way.

The psychologist behind the research, Dr Jeremy Frimer, said he'd actually cried on hearing that Donald Trump had been elected because of his incivility as he feared the Donald's election marked the end of a culture. He's found, however, that politeness pays. Nearly everyone - except a tiny fringe - dislikes President Trump's insulting tweets and name-calling and his popularity with his voters exists despite not because of his incivility, and he'd gain another 2% in the polls if he cut it out. Or so says Dr Frimer.

Happy anniversary, All in the Mind! (he says, politely). 

Faith, hope and charity

The BBC aired a programme that seems critical of Islam, then for balance, they aired  an episode of Health Check, a BBC World service programme fronted by Claudia Hammond  featuring a charity that was supposedly set up to comfort parents whose babies or children had died. All well and good, you’d think, a much-needed service, like the Samaritans, Childline or the NHS Direct.(I jest) A support group, then.

But this is not just any old support group. It’s an M for Muslim  Support group. Why was there a need for such a specialised service? 

It’s because “Muslims” (mustn’t tar them all with the same brush) tend to disapprove of expressing grief at the loss of a child, and the charity ‘Children of Jannah’ exists for an unusual purpose. Giving Muslims (careful of that brush) permission to do so. That’s it. It’s a charity for giving bereaved parents permission to grieve.

If, say, a Christian, a Buddhist or perhaps an Atheist strongly believed in the afterlife, not figuratively; literally, and say they sincerely believed that all deceased babies and children were actually residing in heaven, not just residing, but living and breathing in bodily physical reality up above - frolicking under the watchful eye of a prophet by the name of Abraham. (peace and blessings be upon him)  

Suppose, in spite of believing that death is transient and impermanent (because on the day of judgement we will all be reunited with our loved ones) your Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or indeed your Atheist had authored a self-help book, whose purpose was to give bereaved parents permission to ‘express’ grief, and to assure them that doing so is neither offensive nor disrespectful to Allah or any God of their choice. If a representative from any one of those groups said all that to you, would you give a pitying smile and sidle away as soon as possible? Or give them a spot or two on T.V.?

I mean if you happened to be a commissioning editor, or a producer or whoever gets to choose what to air and who to ignore. Would you offer them a platform on the BBC to proclaim what you must surely feel to be utter claptrap? Not on your Nellie, probably.  Not unless they were Muslim. Even so, I hope you’d point them in the direction of the Islam Channel and usher them gently off the premises. 

But you didn’t. Instead you featured this book and this charity on Health Check and you gave it a spot on BBC World news, with Claudia again and a presenter called Lucy Hockings. I put it to you that you did this because Hafizah Ismail was a headscarf-wearing devout Muslim who intersperses her conversation with blessings and smatterings of Arabic.  During both these items the presenters managed to treat the book, the charity and Hafizah Ismail, death-denial and all, with staggeringly incongruous reverence.

However, they studiously ignored the *afterlife* talk, which periodically broke through like an embarrassing smell in a lift. Each time Ms Ismail chipped in with ‘peace and blessings’  the presenters talked to each other right over the headscarf, frantically pretending Children of Jannah was a common or garden public service, like the Citizens Advice Bureau. Not once did either of them turn a hair at the brutality and inhumanity of a culture which suppresses grief in the name of hocus pocus. The bigger  the elephant in the room, the more Hammond and Hockings soldiered on. Next, they’re probably promoting the Mao Zedong handbook of self expression.

Passing the buck?

And the much-coveted Richard Littlejohn Award for Doing Something You Couldn't Make Up goes to... 

...(drumroll)...

...(sound of an envelope being opened)...

...the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU).

Here's something from the ECU's wildly popular Corrections and Clarifications website:

Health Check, World Service, 4 October 2012: Finding by the Editorial Complaints Unit

Complaint

A listener complained that an item on the situation of people with kidney failure in Gaza gave the misleading impression that medical supplies and equipment were subject to the Israeli blockade, and that the item was misleading in other respects.

Outcome

In most respects the item was not misleading.  However, the sentence “The blockade of Gaza for example has led to shortages of medicines and medical equipment” gave the impression that the Israeli blockade covered medical supplies, which is not the case.

Partly upheld

Further action

In future, when commissioning reports from freelance reporters abroad, Healthcheck will ensure they take advice from the local BBC bureau before finalising the item.

As BBC Watch's Hadar points out, the programme is still available to listen to...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00yhny3 (beginning at 12:20)

...yet no acknowledgement of the correction and clarification has been appended to its webpage.

What stood out for me though was something Hadar noted, almost in passing:

Of course, all commissioned output is supposed to comply with BBC editorial standards and so the failure to do so in this case can only be attributed to BBC staff, rather than to the freelance reporter who made the programme – especially as the sentence highlighted in the ECU decision above was actually said by the programme’s presenter Claudia Hammond. 

Isn't that remarkable? 

The 'correction and clarification' from the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit gives its readers to understand that a freelancer was responsible for the sentence in the programme which the ECU found to be in breech of its standards, whereas it was actually the BBC presenter who made the offending comment during her introduction to the freelancer's report. 

Did they make a simple mistake here, or did they do it deliberately - to try to pass the buck away from the BBC?

Either way, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the BBC's ECU, does it?

So that's a 'correction and clarification' which itself needs a 'correction and clarification'. 

You couldn't make it up.