Two out, one back in

Another of our old BBC favourites, retired BBC veteran Hugh Sykes, took to Twitter the other day in light of the BBC's Ukraine coverage to take a potshot at Jon Sopel and Emily Maitlis:

Hugh Sykes: I bet the recent Big Name defections from the BBC are regretting their decision to go dosh-and-podcast - they are nowhere near the front line now: out of sight, out of mind.

David M. Beneš: Oh they’ll soon be back, like KK.

Hugh Sykes: No one is indispensable.

I was also thinking about Maits and Soapless today in light of all the chat hereabouts about how The New York Times has just conceded that The New York Post got it right in 2020 when reporting the Hunter 'Son of Joe' Biden laptop story - a possible major scandal with strong implications for the ethical standing of the present US president, especially in light of the Ukraine crisis. 

This was, notoriously, something that landed The New York Post - a famous US newspaper - with a two-week Twitter ban for its now-shown-to-be-accurate journalism in the run-up to the 2020 US election. 

It's the sort of thing the BBC's disinformation unit and Ros's Radio 4 Media Show should look into and John Simpson should object to. 

Where Jon and Emily come into this is that they did an Americast podcast for the BBC at the time [which Arthur T got me to listen to] where they 'covered' the story. 

'Covered', in inverted commas, is the word. They 'covered' it, but Emily Maitlis in particular - then in her pomp at the BBC - was openly derisive about the story, sarcastically mocking the fact that they were covering it at all. Her and Sopes and The Zurch used every trick of language in the book to show how little they thought of the story. It was all a distraction by The Donald apparently.

On listening back today the word 'covered' took on other connotations: Unconsciously or consciously, they were 'covering' for Joe Biden as he fought for office with President Trump, blowing the same bubbles that their US counterparts were blowing from their echo chamber to help make this story blow away.

Anyhow, they're now LBC's business. Rob Burley, bless him, will probably end up having to defend them on Twitter. For his sake only, I hope they're not a walking disaster for LBC's ratings.

Meanwhile, as David M. Beneš tweeted above, KK - Katty Kay - is back at the BBC. 

She was formerly the face of the BBC in America but left last year to join a left-wing US media outlet that closed shortly afterwards following fraud allegations. 

The BBC has kindly taken her back on as a 'US special correspondent'. 

Kindly for her, though not necessarily for BBC licence fee payers.  

She's now back on the Beeb defending the Biden administration as if she'd never left and back doing the BBC's claim of impartiality harm again.

Despite Hugh, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel's departure was a blessing for the BBC in impartiality terms. Rescuing Katty Kay - the kind of partisan BBC journalist who also moans about the influence of 'the Jewish lobby' - isn't a good idea for the publicly-paid corporation in that respect.

Will the BBC's John Simpson be watching Nigel and Donald on GB News tonight?

I've a free evening tonight, so I might watch GB News at 7pm when Nigel Farage interviews Donald Trump for a whole two hours. 

As you'd expect, certain BBC types aren't feeling particularly unemotional or impartial about it.

 

Within the last hour, the BBC's impartial World Affairs Editor John Simpson - someone who will never in a millennium of Mondays wish GB News well, or ever think a single pleasant thought about either Nigel Farage or Donald Trump - has taken to Twitter to sneer:

Before the hype that will no doubt follow Nigel Farage's interview with Donald Trump on GB News in some sections of the press, a quick reminder of the latest BARB viewing figures: BBC News 149,200. Sky 72,500. GBN 17,500.

Will he be watching though? 

BBC Trending...and Not Trending

It's quite a staggering thing, when you stand back and think about it, that the leading lights of BBC Trending [many of whom are now involved with the BBC's Disinformation Unit] expended so much time and energy over the past few years exploring every nook and cranny of crazy right-wing social media-promoted conspiracy theories like QAnon, vigorously debunking them as they went, whilst simultaneously failing to explore probably the most powerful, influential and disruptive conspiracy theory of recent times - the claims in the fraudulent Steele Dossier that Putin's Russia held blackmail leverage over Donald Trump. 

This crazy Democratic Party-inspired conspiracy theory was actually believed in, given credence by and promoted by whole swathes of the mainstream media, including the BBC - despite it being, quite literally, 'fake news'. 

This is what happens though when bias runs deep in a media organisation. 

The disinformation in this case came from 'their own side', so they weren't inclined to disbelieve it. And as a result they missed it and failed at their job. 

And we mustn't forget that ''these are the people in media who believe they should have the power to decree what is True and False, and censor you from expressing your views and beliefs on the ground that they have declared it to be Fake or Disinformation.''

BBC bias and reverse ferrets

Bias by News Agenda Choice and Bias by News Prioritising are top of the shop on THE BBC's OFFICIAL FESTIVE FIFTY BIAS TECHNIQUES with good reason. 

The first is 'the biggie' - 'If we don’t report it, it’s not news' - but the second is often its partner-in-crime: 'Sometimes we can’t avoid reporting something but we can certainly give it very low priority. It only needs to appear for a nanosecond for us to be able to say that we have done our journalistic duty'.

I was reminded of that by how the BBC has been reporting the latest dramatic development in the story of the Steele dossier [an early high-profile element of the fake Trump-Russia collusion story]: the arrest and indictment this week of Igor Danchenko - a key source for the dodgy dossier - for allegedly lying to the FBI about his connections with the Democratic Party [his main source being a senior Hillary Clinton ally]. 

I've used TVEyes and scanned BBC One, BBC Two and the BBC News Channel. Both BBC One and BBC Two haven't reported it at all. 

Let's not forgot that the Steele dossier [which included the infamous claims about Donald Trump, a Moscow hotel, prostitutes and 'golden showers'] led BBC One's News at Six back on 11 January 2017, with then-BBC foreign correspondent Paul Wood lending it credence. 

[Mr Wood even went on to write a Spectator piece in early 2018 headlined In defence of Christopher Steele and a piece last year [12 August 2020] headlined Was the ‘pee tape’ a lie all along? where he still attempts to stick up for Mr Steele's dossier].

Now, however, it's apparently not worth reporting.

That's Bias by News Agenda Choice. 'If we don’t report it, it’s not news'

Now for Bias by News Prioritising - 'Sometimes we can’t avoid reporting something but we can certainly give it very low priority. It only needs to appear for a nanosecond for us to be able to say that we have done our journalistic duty': 

This is a classic. The BBC News Channel did cover the story. They reported it just once, at 9.15pm on 4 November, and their coverage lasted all of 22 seconds. And that was it for the BBC News Channel too.

And: blink and you'll have missed it [as I did], but the BBC News website covered the story too. You won't find their report now unless you actively search for it because it's nowhere on the site's main pages [Home, World, United States and Canada], though it doubtless had its 'nanosecond' in the sun.

The BBC website report itself is striking for its sheer chutzpah:

A Russian analyst who worked on a dossier that made unsubstantiated claims linking Donald Trump to the Kremlin has been arrested in the US.

The Department of Justice charged Igor Danchenko, 43, with lying to the FBI.

He was detained as part of an inquiry into the origins of baseless claims that Mr Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.

The so-called Steele Dossier was used by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on a top Trump aide.

The document was held up by Democrats to paint Mr Trump as a Russian puppet, a narrative amplified in a feedback loop by most US media for much of the president's four years in office.

I believe that's called a 'reverse ferret'. 

------------

P.S. Now, here's another conspiracy theory for you - and it's unfolding as I'm writing this piece. 

A few minutes ago I went back into that second Paul Wood Spectator piece mentioned above - Was the ‘pee tape’ a lie all along? -  and the timestamp had changed to today's date...

Then the piece vanished...

And now it's back again with the original date...

 

I'm wondering: Has Paul Wood just sneaked back in and stealth-edited it?

Choosing the best guest

As I now get my news from many places, the remarkable tale of General Mark Milley apparently going behind President Trump's back to directly reassure the Chinese communist regime both before and after the 2020 US election is a story I've kept my eye on. 

It's not one that's interested the BBC News Channel much though. I can find only one discussion about it, when Christian Fraser interviewed an American security expert about it on 15 September at 9.30pm.

The American security expert fully backed General Milley's actions and repeatedly went on the attack about Donald Trump, so I smelt a rat and looked him up on Wikipedia. And Wikipedia - unlike the BBC - was very informative about his background:

Miles Taylor is an American former government official in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, best known for his previously anonymous criticisms of Donald Trump.

In 2018, after being appointed DHS deputy chief of staff, Taylor wrote The New York Times op-ed "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration" under the pen-name "Anonymous", which drew widespread attention for its criticism of Trump. In 2019, he published the book A Warning, later revealing himself to be "Anonymous" in October 2020 while campaigning against Donald Trump's reelection. 

In August 2020, while on leave of absence from his work at Google, he produced an ad for Republican Voters Against Trump, denouncing Trump and endorsing Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Taylor was the first former Trump administration officials who endorsed Joe Biden.

Hm, the BBC certainly know how to select their guests.

It's a shame they can't give us a little context though about where that guest is 'coming from', especially if it's relevant - as it surely was here.

Different president, different reporting

  

Even since the Biden administration's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan climaxed in the deaths of 13 US marines and some 200 others at Kabul airport at the hands of Islamic State's Afghan offshoot and the US quickly retaliated, claiming to have successfully struck two ISIS-K targets, doubts have been expressed about those targets. Were they really terrorists? 

We'll probably never know if those killed in the first, surprisingly swift strike were really senior IS commanders, as was claimed at the time, or were merely low-level IS members, or just unlucky locals killed by mistake, because the US has refused to provide any details. It happened out in the Afghan countryside, far from journalists' eyes.

The doubts about the second ''righteous strike'' [Mark Milley, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] surfaced straightaway. I saw photos of the children killed in the attack within hours and some media organisations were on the case straightaway too saying that an innocent family had been hit, not IS-KP terrorists. From the first hours it looked to me as if the US had struck the wrong people. But the bullish Biden administration/Pentagon officials stuck to their line that it was IS terrorists on their way to attack the airport again who had been vaporised. Finally, the US has now admitted that they did indeed strike the wrong target. They actually hit an aid worker and a translator and another ally, and seven children. What the US military thought were weapons were actually water bottles.

Watching BBC News at Ten's brief coverage of the US admission last night and reading the BBC News website's report on the story, featuring 'analysis' from Barbara Plett-Usher, I was struck by how little they were tying the Biden administration to the story. It's as if they were downplaying the Biden administration's responsibility. No mention of Mark Milley. Just a passing somewhat positive reference in the online piece to Joe Biden.  [''The last US soldier left Afghanistan on 31 August - the deadline President Joe Biden had set for the US withdrawal.'']. And quotes from the US Defence Secretary being added to the online piece 9 hours later.

I think blog favourite Adrian Hilton sums it up well:

Adrian Hilton: If this appalling tragedy had occurred under Donald Trump, I'm sure UK media (esp. BBC News and Channel 4 News) would have apportioned blame directly at his feet, and given it hours of negative coverage. But under Joe Biden it's excusable; not newsworthy...'collateral damage'.

To put it another way: Just imagine what would have happened if Donald Trump had carried out the strikes, and seven children had been killed in a botched response to a terror attack which killed 13 Americans as a result of bottlenecking caused by the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul airport, accompanied by images of people falling from the wheel wells of aeroplanes. 

It speaks of biased reporting. 

And scanning the BBC's TV channels today for 'Biden', he's only being mentioned in connection with a pro-Trump/pro-Capitol protesters rally coming up this weekend and the French withdrawing their ambassadors to the US and Australia over Aukus.

Update - Nomia Iqbal's report on the BBC News Channel this morning ended by focusing on ''the US military'', not the Biden administration:

This awful mistake further dents the US military's reputation, that has already been damaged by its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Guess who John Simpson blames?

Bad News Day

 

After Donald Trump's acquittal by the US Senate tonight, I saw a tweet saying "Cue: wailing and gnashing of teeth at the BBC". 

We critics of the BBC often predict such BBC behaviour, but Newsnight's off-the-leash twitterers are making such predictions come true. In spades.

Emily Maitlis's Twitter feed in particular is wall-to-wall wailing and teeth-gnashing at the moment. She's seriously not happy with Senator Mitch McConnell. (If ever he agrees to be interviewed by her he should seriously consider wearing body armour from now on). 

And her Newsnight colleague Lewis Goodall is spitting the dummy too. He's positively aghast. All his monocles have plopped into his champagne glass in one go today.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. 

The Beauties - BBC Bias à propos US Politics

 

A Guest Post by Arthur T 

I have made the point recently that the BBC’s news gathering and broadcast is more biased in the US than in the UK. From top to bottom, the BBC have allowed their dislike of President Trump to pervade every pore of news reporting as they seek to ridicule him. Jon Sopel just couldn’t wait to label his nemesis ‘loser’ as the BBC declared Biden victorious in the November 3rd Presidential Election. 

The above screenshot from the other day has replaced the US Election feature on the BBC News website US and Canada pages. What caught my eye was the Sopel and Maitlis Americast: Review of 2020. I thought ITBBCB? might review Sopel and Maitlis’s podcasts, one in particular: 'Hunter Biden’s Laptop, Why the media isn’t covering a story Trump wants them to’, a podcast from 21st October - just two weeks before polling day. Craig has very kindly made a transcript:

Jon Sopel: Let's go onto the topic of conversation that Donald Trump would love to be talking about. It's a complicated story, but it seems that someone got hold of a laptop allegedly containing emails written by Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden's laptop, which apparently he had taken in for service. He had forgotten about it. Owner of the shop looks at it, thinks 'Oh, those are interesting emails', sees if the FBI are interested, they're not, and it ends up in the hands of Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and in the hands of Steve Bannon, former campaign director at the last election. And they have touted it around. They have tried to give it to Fox News. Fox weren't interested. Then it ends up being published by The New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper. And the suggestion, I think, at the most is there may have been a meeting organised between Hunter Biden, who was then a director of this Ukrainian energy company Burisma and his father Joe Biden, then the vice-president, to meet a couple of the executives. But it is a screenshot that has been taken. And the reason a lot of people are very suspicious about this is that no one's actually examined the hard drive to see whether the screenshot has been doctored in any way. And so that it why a lot of news organisations have been treating this story with suspicion. It ain't Hillary Clinton's email investigation of four years ago when the FBI announced two weeks before polling that they are investigating her. This is a laptop that has kind of washed up and, you know, it looks like...it may all be genuine but it looks like it's dirty tricks as well. 

Emily Maitlis: But the interesting thing is, you said that Fox News wouldn't cover the story but Fox & Friends, the chat show, did talk to the President about this because this is fertile ground, as Sopes said, for him and they said, "What are you going to do?", and he said, "I think we ought to get the Attorney-General William Barr and ask him to investigate". Now that is an extraordinary step, you know. Just think about that in sort of political overreach terms. You're actually going to get the Attorney-General to investigate Hunter Biden,...

Jon Sopel: For corruption.

Emily Maitlis: ...your opponent's son, for corruption. Let's not forget, the last time Donald Trump asked somebody to investigate Hunter Biden for corruption it was the Ukrainian government, and it got him into the impeachment scenario. So this is something that you kind of, you know...it does sort of make you think it's a whole different league of playing politics. And really the cards are on Bill Barr, who has not shown himself to have an enormous spine in standing up to this president, and to see how far he will go in playing this game.

Jon Sopel: Well, I thought there was a fascinating moment where Donald Trump is on the tarmac, he's about to go off to one of his rallies, he's about to board the plane, and Jeff Mason, who's a very well respected agency reporter who covers the White House beat, asks the President about the allegations and calling for a corruption investigation and this is what Donald Trump said: 

Jeff Mason: Your campaign strategy seems to be to call Biden a criminal. Why is that?

Donald Trump: He is a criminal. He's a criminal. He got caught. Read his laptop. And you know who is a criminal here? You're a criminal for not reporting it. You are a criminal for not reporting it. Let me tell you something, Joe Biden is a criminal and he's been a criminal for a long time, and you're a criminal and the media for not reporting it.

So, you guess, a real sense of the President's mood that he thought that they had gold dust. Interestingly, this occurred last week. That's when the story broke in The New York Post. And it was the night of the duelling townhalls, where we did the podcast afterwards, and Donald Trump didn't mention it once, as if to suggest that Donald Trump didn't really believe quite what was being reported. But here you have the White House correspondent for Reuters being accused of being a criminal because he obviously has doubts about the veracity of the story of this laptop and how it came to be in the hands of Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon.

Emily Maitlis: The Zurch, do you think that if it was flipped more papers would be picking this up? If it was a story about Trump would more papers be more inclined to be latching onto this? I mean, that's obviously his allegation in that clip, so maybe we should, you know, air it and we should analyse it?

Anthony Zurcher: Giuliani definitely shopped it around before he ended up with  The New York Post. And I think there were some legitimate concerns, as you mentioned, from even outlets like Fox News about where this laptop came from and the story behind it. Obviously, back in 2016 The New York Times had no problems and media outlets had no problems poring over the hacked emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign team and reporting on them. So in that case it was flipped and we saw what happened. I think maybe this time around there's a little more reluctance on the part of mainstream outlets to run with things that are of questionable sourcing. And there are a couple of things, as you pointed out, in these emails - if they are legitimate - that raise some questions. The one about the Ukrainian businessman thanking Hunter Biden for the opportunity to meet Hunter Biden's father. Of course, that could just have been a handshake at a public event. The Biden campaign has denied that there is anything on the official schedule for it. And then there was another one, a 2017 email where a Chinese associate was paying money to Hunter Biden's company and a business associate of Hunter Biden's said that $10m was going to be set aside, given to Hunter Biden for The Big Guy. And Fox News said that The Big Guy was Joe Biden. So the question is: Did Joe Biden get any money from that business deal? But then again, you know, Donald Trump has clear business dealings with China, we've learned from the The New York Times a bank account in China, so I don't know if the attacks that we see from the Trump side are going to be able to strike home here. It will come up in the debate though, I'm sure of it. 

Jon Sopel: Oh, I'm sure. The debate is going to dominated. I would think that Donald Trump is going to go on and on about this, because that way it will have to be picked up by network news bulletins in a way that the allegations haven't been hitherto. Donald Trump's calculation will be, look, if I talk about the border wall or I talk about whatever it happens to be it's not going to get much purchase. If I want the subject to be Hunter Biden, Burisma, corruption, his father, the best way to do that is, you know, saturate bombing the debate with these allegations. And I think the Biden campaign will be thinking long and hard about what the response should be in the debate to all of that. Does he get drawn into this debate or does he try and make a brief statement and move on? It's tricky. Tricky for Biden.

Anthony Zurcher; And I want to drive home the point, right now there's no evidence that Joe Biden did anything untoward, either in his dealings with Ukraine or in his dealings with China. Although I think it's clear that - it's something we knew before but we know again if we take this laptop at face value - it's clear that Hunter Biden was capitalising on his connections to power and his last name in order to sign business deals, which, unfortunately, in Washington is kind of an age-old tradition, and it is certainly not limited just to Hunter Biden.   

Emily Maitlis: I think you could probably say it's really inclusive of the Administration itself, could you?

Anthony Zurcher: Yeah. I think that's safe to say. Yes. 

The tone throughout is to make light of the laptop story - passing it off as unimportant. Zurcher in particular asserts that ‘there's no evidence that Joe Biden did anything untoward, either in his dealings with Ukraine or in his dealings with China.’ He offers no supporting evidence for this point of view, and neither does he offer any evidence for his claim ‘in Washington is kind of an age-old tradition, and it is certainly not limited just to Hunter Biden.’

Emily Maitlis: I think you could probably say it's really inclusive of the Administration itself, could you?

Anthony Zurcher: Yeah. I think that's safe to say. Yes.

In two short sentences he absolves Biden of blame and accuses POTUS of corruption. That’s BBC bias pure and simple, coupled with a loathing for President Trump. As we know, Zurcher, Sopel and Bryant get nowhere near the White House. Most broadcasts are from the pavements of DC far enough away to know only what they are fed through US MSM channels. 

James Delingpole in TCW and now Josh Glancy The Times’ Washington Reporter have finally broken ranks and admit to believing that the laptop story was by no means trivial, but in fact crucially important.

John Simpson forgets Morocco

As mentioned by Sisyphus on the open thread, the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson was as factually slipshod as ever yesterday. 

His disapproving take on Donald Trump's foreign policy allowed the President just "one foreign policy success": "getting two Gulf states plus Sudan to recognise Israel". 

John Simpson had obviously forgotten Morocco. 

Incidentally, I wonder if the way he names the two presidents here will be a foretaste of things to come? 

"Donald Trump" - 3

"Joe Biden" - 5

"Trump" - 3

"Biden" - 0

Anyhow, here's a transcript:

*******

Joe Biden: America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Once again at the head of the table. 

John Simpson: Now that Joe Biden is about to take over the White House and Donald Trump's moving out, governments right around the world are heaving sighs of relief. I'm not actually walking into the real Oval Office! This is an exact replica in a Norfolk film studio much used by Hollywood movies. But when Joe Biden sits at that desk for the first time, he's going to be taking charge of a country whose standing in the world hasn't been as low as this in decades. Right around the world there are fences to be mended and alliances to be built up again. 

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador toe the UN nominee: America is back. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back. 

John Simpson: That means taking the lead in NATO again after four years of complaints about other members plus threats to cut America's contributions. And another major priority, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, which Donald Trump said damaged American interests. Joe Biden hopes to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran, which Trump tried to kill off. Iran, the big European countries and Britain are all enthusiastic. Trump's one foreign policy success was getting two Gulf states plus Sudan to recognise Israel. Trump sided strongly with the Israelis and cut aid to the Palestinians. How easy will it be for Joe Biden to be able to change this? Even more important for him is how he'll approach Russia. The Russians meddled in the 2016 US election and seems to have hacked into some of America's most fundamental secrets. 

Anthony Gardner, former US Ambassador to the EU: There's a lot of unfinished business with Russia. I think together with the UK and Europe we'll have to again sit down and decide what kind of serious signals do we send to Russia that its behaviour must indeed change. We have at max four years, probably two years, to really do things together with our allies. 

John Simpson: And there is the most complex problem of all, China. What should Joe Biden's approach be? 

Senator Chris Coons, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: Work with China. Compete with them in a persistent and forceful and effective way. Be prepared in the event there is conflict, but always be willing to cooperate with China on some critical issues that are right before us like combating global climate change, dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. 

John Simpson: At 78, time isn't exactly on Joe Biden's side. But for the outside world, he has one huge advantage. He isn't Donald Trump.

Is the BBC underreporting major peace deals in the Middle East and the Balkans simply out of their hatred for Donald Trump?

 

On an earlier thread rockylives posted a comment which well and truly hit the target: 

The downplaying of the peace developments in the Middle East by the BBC is unconscionable. 

Obviously we know why. They have created an ill-informed groupthink that sees everything as "Israel bad, Palestinians good." 

Add to that the role played by Donald Trump (another who can do nothing right in the eyes of the BBC) and you can see why the Corporation wants to play it down. 

But they should be deeply ashamed of themselves.  These are some of the most significant developments in international relations since the fall of Saddam and the collapse of Iraq, which huge implications for the wider world. 

How dare they say with straight faces that their journalism is impartial? 

My sentiments exactly.

In recent weeks we've had:

• The historic Israel-Bahrain peace deal
• The historic Israel-UAE peace deal
• The historic Serbia-Kosovo agreement
• Muslim-majority Kosovo's recognition of Israel

These are the most historic developments in terms of peace in the Middle East and the Balkans for many, many years, and - fingers crossed - could be truly transformative in terms of peace. Yet the BBC has barely reported any of them. 

Why? 

Well, you could obviously put it down partly to the BBC's ingrained disinclination to report anything positive about Israel, though that doesn't explain the underreporting of the Serbia-Kosovo agreement. 

And you could also put it down to the BBC's increasingly narrow, insular focus as far as its world news output for a UK audience goes (obviously excepting internal US matters, about which it remains obsessed.)

But surely the vital connection between all of the above is that Donald Trump's presidency has played a key part in brokering them, and there's a strong case to be made that Donald Trump has been the most successful US peacemaker president in decades.

How many BBC reporters can you imagine wanted to report that?

Here's the charge then: 

Especially with the US presidential election being just two months away, the BBC simply can't bring themselves to give any credit whatsoever to Donald Trump for being a successful peacemaker. Therefore, they're underreporting these historic developments out of their antipathy for Donald Trump. 

If true, how petty and partisan would that be! 

(Answer: Very.)

*******

P.S. If you're wondering where the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is in all this, well, he has had nothing to say about the Israel-Bahrain peace deal, even on Twitter. 

He's been busy 'liking' stuff about cooking today though and was retweeting an attack on the UK government for being mean to the EU over Brexit yesterday, so he's around and about and active on other fronts. So why so quiet on this?

Not a parody

 

Breaking news from Sky News this morning...

Initial comments could be going better:

• Wow. Top level journalism from Sly News.
• She's holding down her dress in the wind. She later holds his hand. Stop promoting something that's nothing.
• Stooping to new levels...
• What the heck is wrong with you guys?
• Do not repost this! Once is enough!

Naturally, they did repost it. 

The case for Israel - 'the deal of the century'

I’ve been scouring the internet in search of material with sufficient credibility to counterbalance the BBC’s default hostility to Trump’s ‘deal of the century’.

If the BBC wasn’t so overtly negative about it I wouldn’t need to do that.  

The trouble is that the political and academic left’s distortion of the facts surrounding the establishment of Israel has infected a generation of people - from cradle to grave, as the saying goes. I’m sorry to say that it reminds me of the advice given to the fella who asked the Irishman for directions. “If I were you I wouldn’t start from here.” The starting point - the default premise - is all wrong.

From well-meaning patriots who defend to the death Britain’s conduct (the counterpart of that blanket (but heartfelt) condemnation of all Zionists as “Israel firsters”), to the less well-meaning folk who claim somewhat resentfully that Britain went to war to “save the Jews”, the skewing of some of Britain’s less honourable history means we’re ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ and can’t properly evaluate Trump’s plan with the objectivity it deserves.

Rather than jumping to the - dare I say - superficial conclusion that much of the MSM has jumped to, which is that the plan swindles the Palestinians out of something while giving Israel everything, I sought out various opinions from better-informed voices than mine, and I conclude that the MSM has lost sight of the objective, namely bringing about a better outcome for the Palestinian people and a safer one for the Jews of Israel.

They have forgotten or have disregarded the fact that the Palestinians were never going to be happy. Their religiously-based stance is that the Middle East is and must always be ‘Islamic’.  The very existence of Israel is an abomination to them and they’ll cut off their noses to spite their faces till the rest of the Arab world is finally driven to the point of abandoning them altogether.

Two very disappointing articles in The Times by Catherine Philp make me regret subscribing to that particular newspaper. The only redeeming feature (of having a subscription) is that I get access to the online comments section, which to a certain extent redresses the balance. 

(Apart from the odd gem, like today’s piece by Giles Coren, (£) which boils down to the realisation that no-one really gives a stuff about other person's opinions - be they ignorant or otherwise - because the only opinion we care about is our own, and that is despite the likelihood that our opinions are (consciously or unconsciously) simply the regurgitated opinions of others.  Several commenters have consequently noted the futility of even their own comments, and I hereby confess that my own observations are largely regurgitated; accordingly, I am fully aware of the futility of expressing them.) 

So, if you’re still with me, on 28th January 2020 Catherine Philp wrote an opinion piece in The Times (£) titled: Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif? Venerated in both religions.

In it she set out a potted résumé of “the axis around which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict revolves” Thankfully, she was taken to task below the line. For example, she chose the verb ‘seized’ to describe Israel’s defensive practices, while she used the passive verb  ‘held’ for Jordan’s aggressive takeover of East Jerusalem. The entirety of her piece was patently anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian and, but for the comments, one would have to despair. 

“Typical Philp. Omits to mention it was the Arabs who started the wars in 1947-8 and 1967.
And that Jews and Christians welcome people of other faiths to their holy sites, it's only Muslims who ban them with violence and threats of violence. 

“Jerusalem was just another site for Islam until the Israelis captured it in 1967. Suddenly for propaganda reasons it became important. Because in some fable Mohammed visited it on a flying donkey …”

interjected one commenter.

“Jerusalem was an undivided city until Jordan captured East Jerusalem in 1948.
Israel didn't seize West Jerusalem in 1948. It had just survived an invasion by 5 Arab armies. Jordan managed to divide the city for the first time by seizing East Jerusalem and building a wall to separate east and west.”

and:

“Actually, it was Transjordan that invaded and then occupied the so-called West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1948. It then annexed them, changed its name to Jordan and denied Jews any access to their holy sites in the Old City all without a single word of protest or condemnation from the UN, the UK or, indeed, any other country in the world. Israel captured and re-occupied the Old City after having been attacked by Jordan in 1967. The re-occupation of the East Jerusalem and the West Bank is therefore not, contrary to popular opinion, illegal in any way.”

and a couple more:

“During its long history, Jerusalem has been attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, besieged 23 times, and destroyed twice. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world. 

And:

“There are a number of important inaccuracies in this article. UN resolution 181 which in effect established the state of Israel decided the City of Jerusalem in which Jews lived and had lived for thousands of year would become an ‘international city ‘ cut off from the rest of Israel with one single means of access, that might well have been the situation today had 5 Arab armies not invaded the new state with the stated intent of driving the Jews into the sea. As a direct result of this war, the Jordanians obtained control of East Jerusalem, the old city of Jerusalem, forcibly driving out the Jews they did not kill, and vandalising 57 synagogues and religious institutions totally destroying 12 of them, some hundreds of years old. The Israelis were left in control of west Jerusalem. This state of affairs continued until the 6-day war in 1967 when Israel retained control of its Holy sites in the old city gradually rebuilding them and destroying no churches or Mosq

Also:

"Given that it was the holiest site for Jews for a couple of thousand years before Islam was even created, there shouldn't be any doubt over who has the greater claim.

So at least the readership is willing to fight back. Next, today’s effort.

Abu Dis: inside the ‘future capital of Palestine’  (£) 

Again, Ms Philp has taken the same anti-Israel approach. (Biased, right down to the emotive illustration.) She believes that Trump is fobbing the Palestinians off with a dud. The suggested new Palestinian capital, Abu Dis, is “an impoverished urban ghetto on a hillside outside Jerusalem,” and no substitute for East Jerusalem, and does not meet Palestinian ‘demands’.

Once again the readership comes to the recuse:

“Reading this article one would never know that the reason Israel is in the West Bank is because it was attacked by Jordan in 1967 as part of the Arab plan to annihilate the country. Best forget that though, it doesn’t fit in with the general narrative.

and:

“Year on year, for many years, any detail that favours Israel has carefully been brushed out of the historical record. Because no one concomitantly challenged this  exercise in manipulation, sheer lies now dominate.

and

“The villagers of Zubeidat settled there "in 1948" , and they came "under occupation in 1967 when Israel seized the West Bank, driving out the Jordanians." 

Since they settled in an area which Jordan invaded in 1948, they must have lived under Jordanian occupation from 1948 until 1967, when Israel drove the Jordanians out. So why omit the word 'occupation' in relation to Jordan, and use it only in relation to Israel? It seems that even terminology is craftily deployed -- but only when Israel is in the frame. 

and

“You fail to mention why the wall was erected. Palestinian terrorists came from East Jerusalem and were in the habit of putting bombs on busses, in bars and otherwise randomly attacking in what is and must remain one of the world's premier sites for tourism and prayer. Now the wall is up with airport type security these attacks have fallen dramatically. They are reaping what they sowed.

and

“It is not Palestinian Land. In 1945 it was in the British mandate as it had been within the Ottoman Empire. It had all been Israel so in 1947 it went to the UN who decided to create a new Israeli State by a two-thirds majority. The Arabs did not accept it and went to war. Following an armistice, Jordan and Egypt’s took control of the disputed areas until they again acted aggressively towards Israel who took control but relished control of Gaza which has a border with Egypt. The Arabs continued their terror against Jews which the Mufti of Jerusalem had started 100 years ago and which has never stopped.   Over 2m Arabs live  and vote in Israel.  

Israel is prepared to allow self-autonomy in parts of Judea and Samaria.
Two-thirds of the Palestinian mandate was carved off by Churchill for the Palestinians but to live under Hashemites do that they have their state. 

what injustice do you refer to? That Arabs continue as they have done for 100 years continue to murder women and children?

I see that Catherine Philp has responded to one comment. She must read the comments then. Her unsympathetic attitude to Israel reflects the MSM’s pretty accurately. It will be a long time before the tanker turns, but  I believe it will.

Melanie Phillips sets out the pro-Israel case with her customary eloquence.

The Palestinians' bluff has been called. Over to you, world https://t.co/IPU76NKJpv via @melanielatest

— Melanie Phillips (@MelanieLatest) January 31, 2020

 The bottom line is: 

“Now the Palestinians’ bluff has been called. Once again they are responding with threats of more violence because there are no circumstances in which they will ever accept the right of the Jews to their own ancestral homeland.”

Here’s Daniel Pipes: 

“Along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, all my friends are delighted with Donald Trump's plan to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I agree that, in contrast with prior presidential plans, this one has much to commend it; unlike the Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush proposals, it takes Israeli security concerns seriously. Most of all, it indicates an unprecedented and emotionally wonderful level of U.S. support for Israel.“ That said, I am not delighted with the plan”

and:

• Their century-long rejection of Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and Israel is the one and only problem preventing a solution; it must end, immediately, completely.

• They will gain no resort area, no new trade regime, no vast financial aid, much less sovereignty and prosperity until they unequivocally accept the Jewish state of Israel and do so over a protracted period.

David Collier sets out his verdict here.  He explains it well. As per tedious usual, this thoughtful piece has lured his most tiresome trolls who, unable to counter with a reasonable argument, resort to vitriol, venom and personal insult. I really don’t know why he puts up with them, but I suppose in a way it demonstrates the degree of idiocy we’re up against.

So bearing in mind that no-one other than me gives a stuff about my opinion, I offer you a selection of the opinions of others, albeit with a strong hint at mine. As if you didn’t already know. 

I give you a brief look at some of Israel’s achievements 

in contrast with the achievements of some of the Palestinians.

The madman theory

A man with a tan

The BBC's permatanned North America correspondent Nick Bryant, talking on last night's BBC News at Ten of "the most unpredictable president ever to occupy the White House", concluded his latest editorial for the BBC by saying:

It sometimes feels like Donald Trump is pursuing a modern day version of what Richard Nixon called 'the madmen theory', creating a sense amongst American adversaries that he would be prepared to take the most extreme military options, casting aside the notion of proportionality. He has also repeatedly stated he doesn't want to embroil his country in another Middle East war, an objective made much harder by his decision to assassinate General Soleimani. America is sending B52 bombers to its base in the Indian Ocean, planes for decades that have symbolised its military might. Will the perception that Donald Trump lacks restraint check the response from Iran?

Editorial

Here's Mark Mardell introducing the first item on today's The World This Weekend:

The body of General Qassem Soleimani has arrived back in Iran. Tens of thousands of mourners have packed the streets walking alongside the flag-draped coffin. Women sang a hymn to the fallen general. The depth of mourning for the infamous spymaster, Iran's chief foreign strategist, isn't in doubt. The consequences of the US assassination of him are still very uncertain. President Trump has announced in a tweet that if Iran carries out its threat to retaliate the United States is ready to hit 52 Iranian sites "very fast and very hard". He said they be at "a very high level and important to Iran and Iranian culture". Deliberately attacking cultural sites would be a war crime. The number of targets, 52, is rather bizarrely based on the number of US hostages taken by Iran some 40 years ago.

For their own dignity if nothing else

Philosopher and author Dr Ben Irvine was taken aback last night:

Did you hear, just now, how the BBC news reporter read out the tweet Donald Trump sent about his impeachment? The reporter read it in a deliberately mocking voice - as though impersonating a petulant child. This is just unbelievable, unacceptable, from an "impartial" broadcaster. 

That was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen from the BBC. I don't even think a broadcaster in a fully communist country would ever be that brazen in its sheer spitefulness; they'd at least attempt to present a mask of objectivity, for their own dignity if nothing else.

Ben Irvine sent that tweet out at 10.49 pm and, checking TV Eyes to find out which reporter he was talking about (though I could easily guess), there at 10.46 pm on BBC One was the BBC's North American editor Jon Sopel (Bingo!) reading out a Trump tweet. And,  to add to the mockery, he prefaced it by saying , "...his Twitter thumbs have been busy".  

Ben must be new to Jon Sopel's reporting.

The Gulf of Truth

This is a very interesting comment from the Open Thread, which I thought deserved a blog post of its own:

Anonymous3 November 2019 at 08:36  

There are some here who keep up with U.S politics and are aware of the gulf of truth between the BBC / Guardian take on the impeachment process and the actual course of events over the last 3 years.

I don't like Mr Trump, and I don't trust him, but he is selling anti-war tickets and that's good enough for me. The reporting on what is taking place in the U.S is beyond a joke. 

Unless people know who Lisa Page and Peter Strzok are, it's pointless discussing Trump with anybody.

In recent months, aware voices from the left (Jimmy Dore (the American George Galloway), Tim Pool etc) have been blurring the left / right dividing line of commentary which is fascinating to me, and echoes my own perception of modern times. 

Compare and contrast the two articles I've provided links to (and a few of the more recent articles featured on Moon Of Alabama). Notice the details - like actual names and sources - as opposed to the vague narrative of The Guardian / BBC. 

The wierdest aspect is that the BBC keeps backing itself into corners from which it can't escape. It provides narratives or omits facts that it can't return to without highlighting its own initial failings. 

Its Syrian war coverage, the Saving Syria's Children documentary, its coverage of Israel, Hungary, Turkey, France, The Netherlands, the US, black on black violence in the UK, the ongoing migrant crisis and the Tommy Take Down Panodrama are really lacking because those subjects weaken the narrative they wish to promote. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/02/its-time-to-throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-trump-impeachment 

(Below is the 1st November 2019 article) 

https://www.moonofalabama.org

A Tale of Two BBC Reporters

Jon and John

Oh, you don't often hear from David Morris, Conservative MP for Morecambe, especially when it comes to criticising the BBC. He's usually silent on the issue. Ah, there's must be an election on! Anyhow, the Mail quotes him saying "Barely has the Election campaign begun and already the BBC is betraying its pro-Corbyn leanings and its anti-Boris bias." 

This was in reaction to a BBC One News at Ten report last week. 

Here's how the Mail reports 'the row':

BBC bosses were last night accused of blatant ‘anti-Boris bias’ for failing to nail Labour’s lie that the Tories will sell off the National Health Service to Donald Trump after Brexit. 

Conservatives angrily accused BBC1’s flagship News at Ten of promoting Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘ridiculous’ claim last week – even though the US President specifically ruled it out on the very same day. 

Tory MPs demanded to know why Mr Trump’s trenchant denial was not included in the BBC report on Thursday night. 

They also took offence at what they saw as ‘pro-Corbyn’ references, including BBC deputy political editor John Pienaar reporting how ‘Jeremy Corbyn has offered real change’.

Here's a transcript of some of it:

Moving on

Yesterday I promised to respond to your points here, but this morning things seem to have moved on, what with Donald Trump’s LBC debut 

and that young fellow’s sparky contribution to last night’s QT. 

“Bring on a general election. I hope Boris gets a majority, delivers Brexit and defeats a Marxist Jeremy Corbyn government”, says this #bbcqt audience member. pic.twitter.com/1XQS42KYVC

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) October 31, 2019

No matter how much we strive to be less of a ‘hate-site’  and more of a platform for legitimate criticism, the BBC gets worse, not better.  Naturally, we feel discouraged by our own impotence.  I can’t speak for Craig here, but recently I have detected a stagnant air about this place.  I found the dwindling number of below-the-line contributors disheartening.

The page-views are still buoyant, but if you’re merely lurking, why not join in? 

Perhaps the comments facility is a deterrent - it’s not at all user-friendly - but people complain about Disqus as well. To those of you who have stuck with us  - your loyalty and thoughtful contributions are much appreciated.

These (we call them introspective) posts come across as ‘fishing for compliments’, which isn’t exactly what I’m fishing for at all. I’m fishing for engagement and debate. To liven things up.

(This is today. I might feel different tomorrow.)

To Arthur T 30 October 2019 at 14:31

Once upon a time, the BBC considered the sincere criticism they found on the Biased-BBC blog worth engaging with and refuting. But when the site was reinvigorated (taken ’downmarket’) some of the petty and factually questionable comments that popped up discredited the whole enterprise and let the BBC off the hook, so to speak. They took the easy option and dismissed the whole thing as ‘hate’. In a way are collateral damage. But we knew that when we started this.

To Unknown 30 October 2019 at 15:39

I thought the idea of ‘handing it over’ was slightly absurdist. I mean, what’s to hand over? It’s a free blog, run on goodwill and gratis. Nothing to stop anyone setting up one of their own. I suppose the domain name could be transferred. D’you think it has commercial value? Any offers? (Only joking)

To Monkey Brains 30 October 2019 at 22:35

All nine of your questions are up for discussion as and when you like. Open debate is exactly what this site is (wishes it was) about. So, how can we encourage it any more than we do already? Genuine question.

Bear in mind that self-publicity is not our strong point. We’re hard-wired against it. This is what Douglas Murray calls a 'hardware' rather than a software issue - it’s genetic, inborn; nature rather than nurture. 

To Terry 31 October 2019 at 11:16

Battle-weary is a good diagnosis. The general election might reignite some passion - but as I’m more of a long-form merchant, the appropriate brevity is hard to master and I don’t know if there’s any future in churning out posts that end up “tl;dr”. (I do try.)

Twitter bantz

Nick Bryant, BBC: If you were wondering what’s on the mind of the President of the United States this morning....

Donald Trump: Vote for good guy Sean Spicer tonight on Dancing With The Stars. He has always been there for us!

Jeremy Bowen, BBC (replying to Nick Bryant): Good to know.