A hae ma doots

 

(Didn’t know I was Scottish, did you?)  We’ve been pretty quiet on the BBC’s coverage of the War / Special Operation in Ukraine. The BBC is quite confident that it is one of the most - if not THE the most - reliable and unbiased sources of information on this alarming state of affairs.

As Jamie Angus says:

“Are we an arm of the Government? No, we’re nothing of the sort. We are an independent news broadcaster funded by the licence-fee payer. That’s why we’re so trusted and why the BBC Russian news information is so widely trusted…”

Ros Atkins asks:

So no discussion between the BBC and the government as to how the BBC covers this conflict?

Jamie Angus responds:

It’s not the government’s job or position to tell the BBC how to cover the conflict; our editorial independence from the UK government is assured….”

etcetera etcetera.

Anyway, as I’ve said over and over, whenever the press gets hold of a story about which one has empirical knowledge - ‘based on first-hand observation or personal experience’ - one knows only too well the vast potential therein for bungling, garbling the details and omitting crucial facts.

If I were to take the BBC’s reporting on Israel as a model, I would have to doubt that I am getting the whole story from the BBC on almost any issue, let alone this particular one. How can I believe it’s simply a case of Ukraine=good, Russia=bad, much as I’d like to? 

Listening to Jeremy Bowen, Fergal Keane, and Orla Geurin doesn’t fill my heart with joy and I’m not totally convinced that there’s an iota of genuine impartiality between them.

Sadly, the BBC’s record on all sorts of issues raises doubts and sets alarm bells ringing. It hasn’t turned me into an all-out conspiracy theorist yet, though I’m noticing that a few others are there already, or on the cusp. 

I must just be one of nature’s Doubting Thomases. I doubt everything, including myself.

Thank heaven for small mercies

 

Watching this week's Newswatch with Samira Ahmed was a strange experience. 

The concerns discussed included whether the BBC should have broadcast in full the racist language cricketer Azeem Rafiq experienced, and Samira danced on a pin about that with Jamie Angus, Senior Controller of News Output and Commissioning. 

Azeem's evidently still a hero for the Newswatch crowd. Samira called his parliamentary testimony 'harrowing' and didn't mention Azeem's own antisemitic/anti-black African gibes. 

And then the programme moved onto whether it was right to show repeatedly the moment of death of the Liverpool bomber. Some BBC viewers felt that showing the footage was disrespectful to the dead bomber. Yes, seriously.

But, saints be praised, a measure of reassuring normality came from the BBC boss present. Jamie Angus came very near to saying what we've joked for years that all BBC bosses on Newswatch always say [a joke with far more than a grain of truth]: 'We think we got it about right'. 

Jamie said:

I think broadly we reached the right decision.

Bless him. 🤡

Poison blades in shoes and BBC gossip

 

Thank you for your comments on the Open Thread. You've covered - and nailed - so much of the ground I would have covered, including the departure of BBC lifer Fran Unsworth.

Today's Sunday Times - featuring that photo of Ms Unsworth which always draws Rosa Klebb comparisons in comments fields - includes lots of BBC insider gossip, including claims that Tim Davie is glad to see her go because she's “stuck in her ways” and part of the “malaise” at the corporation.

Friends of Tim also give us some juicy quotes, including saying that he's engaged in “constant fire-fighting” and that “he feels he opens Pandora’s box every day, and only the bad stuff ever comes out”. 

As far as the general exodus of BBC lifers go, any BBC source quips “More people are leaving the BBC than Afghanistan.”

And who's going to replace Francesca as Director of News and Current Affairs at SPECTRE the BBC? 

The piece names four people: present Deputy director of news Jonathan Munro, Senior controller of news output and commissioning Jamie Angus, Digital director of BBC News Naja Nielsen, and Commissioning editor for factual and arts at Channel 4 Shaminder Nahal. 

Mr Munro has 'issues' involving the debacles over Cliff Richard and Martin Bashir while Mr Angus is considered “lightweight”. Cue two more insider gossip quotes:

On Jamie Angus: “He’s a dilettante. When he was at the World Service, and your job is to know this stuff, I remember him saying he hadn’t heard of Waziristan, which was where bin Laden was hiding at the time.”

On Jamie Angus and Jonathan Munro: “Angus is a man who has risen without trace and Munro is a man who should have sunk without trace”.

Ms Nielsen is a recent arrival from Danish broadcasting, and “relatively unknown.” while Ms Nahal has all the baggage of being associated with left-wing Channel 4 and was jointly responsible for Black to Front, the channel's recent racist day when only black people appeared on the channel. “We were tired of taking small steps, say Vivienne Molokwu and Shaminder Nahal”, Broadcast reported her saying two days ago.

Especially as she previously worked for Newsnight, I'd place my money on Ms Nahal.

Trouble at t'mill

This year's Correspondents Look Ahead on Radio 4 lacked its long-term host Owen Bennett-Jones.

I've always liked OB-J, and was going to joke that his eternal prophecy about Imran Khan becoming PM of Pakistan, made year in and year out, actually came true last year, but unfortunately the freelance BBC World Service host didn't get the gig this time. 

I wonder whether that was in any way connected to the coruscating piece he wrote for the London Review of Books just before Christmas, in which he delivered elegant punch after elegant punch to the BBC's solar plexus and left it reeling.  

It's a remarkable read, and I'll post a few extracts from it over the next few posts. 

This is whistleblowing at its finest. (Ignore the fact that he's obviously a typical BBC Remainer).

It obviously didn't go down well with the BBC as below the LRB article there's a snarky right-to-reply comment from Jamie Angus, Director of the BBC World Service, which goes so far as to say that Owen "should have known better" and to damn his "careless remarks" for endangering BBC journalists, provoking an aggrieved OB-J to reply:

To suggest that my citing publicly available and widely discussed information about the BBC’s relationship with the state puts staff at physical risk is ridiculous – a flailing attempt to sidestep scrutiny. 

 Time to renew my subscription to the leftist London Review of Books.

Beyond Fake News

Brandishing their simple swords of truth, the trusty BBC is donning armour and riding forth against fake news. 

For yes, the BBC is launching Beyond Fake News. 

And it's a global crusade too (not that they'd put it like that, of course). The season is aimed at Europe, the Americas, Africa, India and Asia Pacific.

The countries specifically mentioned so far are India, Kenya, Somalia, Russia and the Philippines.

Jamie Angus, supreme leader of the BBC's World Service Group, says the BBC must “move beyond just talking about the global ‘fake news’ threat, and take concrete steps to address it”. 

And his first step will be to abolish BBC News. 

Only joking. 

He goes on:

“Poor standards of global media literacy, and the ease with which malicious content can spread unchecked on digital platforms mean there’s never been a greater need for trustworthy news providers to take proactive steps. 

“We have put our money where our mouth is and invested in real action on the ground in India and in Africa. 

“From funding in-depth research into sharing behaviours online, to rolling out media literacy workshops globally, and by pledging to bring BBC Reality Check to some of the world’s most important upcoming elections, this year we’re carving our path as a leading global voice for spotting the problems, and setting out ambitious solutions.”

Tally-ho!

Not (necessarily) getting it about right

Meirion Jones's citing of a couple of examples of apparently pro-Tory bias in the BBC's coverage of the junior doctors' strike reminds me that Radio 4's Feedback also covered the story - especially how it was reported on Today.

The complaints cited by Roger Bolton weren't, however, just from critics of the government. Critics of the BMA also accused the BBC of bias. Ergo: complaints from both sides!

We often joke about BBC editors going on programmes like Feedback and Newswatch and trotting out their old, favourite, tired and easily-debunked argument, "We get complaints from both sides. Therefore, we must be getting it about right", to any complaint about BBC bias.

Do BBC editors really still say that though?

Well, yes. It's just that they now tend to sound quite a bit more sheepish about it, and have to hedge their uses of it with caveats and additional appeals to trust 

Today editor Jamie Angus gave us a particular fine example of this upgraded BBC defence tactic on Feedback in reply to that criticism of his programme's coverage of the junior doctors' strike:

It's a bit glib in a way to say if both sides are complaining volubly then we're just about in the right place but I do sometimes fall back on that.....Genuinely, my perception is that I'm getting a pretty balanced mailbag. 

As ever, that 'balanced mailbag' actually proves nothing about whether the BBC has been biased or not. One side might have a case, the other side might not. One side might be genuine, the other might be chancing it. One side might provide evidence and reasoned argument, the other might rant, assert and chuck ad homs about. 

BBC editors know that - hence the "It's a bit glib in a way to say" bit of his statement - but it won't stop them using it. They know it sounds superficially plausible. 

But there's always more we can do

Talking about Feedback and Today, there was a classic BBC exchange on today's Feedback between Roger Bolton and Today editor Jamie Angus:

Roger Bolton: Of course, some people do think that your programme needs a more diverse make-up. There was an opportunity, I suppose, also to look specifically for a black presenter. Did you think of that? 

Jamie Angus: Well, we take our...the issue of on-air diversity very seriously. Having presided over the appointment of the first Today presenter from an ethnic minority in Mishal Husain...and, indeed, our reporter team I think is now made up of three women and two men, and one of the women is from an ethnic minority...I think actually that Today's in quite a good place and making good progress. But there's always more we can do.

Of course there is, Jamie. Always.

Feedback loop

The first episode of the new series of Feedback on Radio 4 followed up on comments by Today editor Jamie Angus arguing that the programme needed to change the way it reports foreign news and that it also needs to introduce more lighter stories. 

If you remember (as I'm sure you do), Today lost a lot of listeners over the summer. Jamie Angus said that this had mainly come about because they couldn't face listening to so much depressing news, mostly from the Middle East - news which they felt powerless to do anything about. 

He said that listeners were also being put off by people shouting during interviews (specifically citing Palestinian and Israeli spokesmen throughout the Gaza Conflict, even though not a single Israeli spokesmen did any shouting - and I listened to every interview, so I know that for a fact!)

He went on to say that the programme needed to win such put-off listeners back and attract a younger audience as well (in particular "replenishers" - i.e. 35-55 year olds - like me). 

On Feedback, Jamie Angus said that this wouldn't mean any reduction in the overall amount of foreign news just new ways of reporting it to engage the listener, as well as less of a focus on 'depressing news' and more of a focus on 'undepressing news' from abroad. 

As an example of the latter, he cited one current problem - that pretty much all the news out of Africa is about disease, war, famine (etc). This, he said, doesn't give a full, fair picture of Africa; so, therefore, Today will be running a major new series over the next couple of weeks looking at something more positive - Africa's changing media. [A rather naval-gazing first choice, perhaps, but potentially interesting nonetheless].

This struck me as being what From Our Own Correspondent has been trying to do for years.

He denied this would be dumbing-down, and denied that the lighter items would take over. (He also denied that John Humphrys had been forced to rap. He said no one could have forced Humph to do that and that Humph had actually asked to do it!)

Speaking for myself, more lighter items on Today is not necessarily a bad thing and, similarly, less 'bang, bang!' (or 'award-winningly-gloomy') foreign coverage wouldn't be a bad thing either [less opportunity for finger-wagging bias!]. 

Jamie Angus is promising a decent balance and asks us to judge him over time - which we will.

Roger Bolton's interview with Jamie Angus didn't touch on the 'shouting' issue but his belief that shouting and on-air conflict can be deeply off-putting seems to be part of a growing zeitgeist at the BBC, what with Newsnight's Ian Katz, Evan Davis and Jamie Angus echoing each others thoughts about the need for a different kind of interview (less aggressive, less predictable.)

According to this week's Feedback, this urge for much less conflict also seems to be the zeitgeist among Radio 4 listeners.

There's apparently been almost universal praise from Radio 4's listeners for Matthew Taylor's three-part Radio 4 series Agree to Differ, where the idea was for Matthew to get his guests (from opposite ends of the argument) to explore where they disagree and, more importantly, where they agree on controversial issues like fracking, vivisection and the status of Jerusalem - and to do so calmly and without anyone loudly challenging anyone else, or talking over each other. 

That edition on Jerusalem didn't meet with universal approval beyond Feedback listeners though as Hadar at BBC Watch 'differed' with it in its entirely, accusing it of "promoting unchallenged anti-Israel propaganda and warped histories of Jerusalem". Maybe the next series of Agree to Differ should have Hadar and Matthew Taylor as the two opposing guests and, say, Sarah AB [my favourite poster at Harry's Place] trying to reconcile them!

Still, the idea behind Agree to Differ is clearly one that has considerable appeal. I like the idea of it too. It seems so grown-up [as teenagers might put it]. 

That said, I wouldn't want it to become the norm. This kind of interviewing should be part of the mix but I suspect that there's a good portion of the Radio 4 (and Newsnight audience), including me from time to time, which still wants to see/hear a Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Neil, Eddie Mair or John Humphrys tearing some politician to shreds...or, to be more accurate, tearing some politician we don't like to shreds. [When a politician we do like gets torn to shreds, then that's blatant BBC bias!]

Plus, I have the fear that a guiding, all-healing presenter in any programme which aims to reconcile contrasting opinions and find consensus has a greater potential to steer it in his or her own biased direction than in a more traditional BBC scrap. 

As per Hadar, Matthew Taylor was one of the non-pro-Israeli pair on that famously, shouty edition of The Moral Maze [alongside Giles Fraser]. His position was not a neutral one in that programme (even though it was the most nuanced), so - again, as per Hadar - he has his own biases and it's not unreasonable to worry that those biases might steer the discussion and, worse, do so to even greater effect given that the programme's 'reason for being' is to cancel out the biases of its guests wherever possible by the guiding hand of a consensus seeker (i.e. a paragon of impartiality).

Of course, that's far from inevitable, but it is a possibility, isn't it? [And, according to BBC Watch, a reality].

By this stage of this week's Feedback I was all for putting on some Morton Feldman and embracing the concept of conflictlessness. 

So I did and, lo, there appeared the next feature on Feedback and Feedback correspondents praising an edition of Any Questions that didn't feature disputatious politicians and where Jonathan Dimbleby didn't constantly interrupt people - i.e. a less conflictual Any Questions. [Yes, 'conflictual' exists. I've just made it up. So now it exists. Stephen Fry has tweeted his approval]. 

Yes, it was nice for a change. But democracy is disputatious, and ought to be. A sensible mix of Any Questions editions featuring silly, point-scoring, democratically-elected politicians and sensible non-elected, non-politicians (like me, Sue and David Preiser) would work a treat, perhaps, but this apparent BBC-sanctioned urge for conflictness should not be taken too far. The 'bad old days' of Dateline London and the 'ongoing days' of Sunday remind me how harmful consensual BBC programmes can be.

Given that I'm conflicted within myself, though seeking consensus within myself, I'd be interested in knowing what you reckon to all this malarkey.

BBC editor admits bias

In that same speech Today editor Jamie Angus also addressed the issue of political bias. In a shock move, he denied there was any. 

However, he did admit that the BBC appears to biased on some social issues:

“Where people have caught us out in the past has been on things like cultural issues where I think there is an apparent bias. I feel uncomfortable sometimes with coverage of right to die.

“I think too much of the BBC’s output, across the board, I am including drama, factual, not just news, has taken the standpoint that liberalising euthanasia is broadly a good thing and not too much to worry about.”

Angus also pointed to the BBC’s coverage of abortion reform but said he made “real efforts that we don’t fall into that groupthink, consensus. These are non political issues, they are every bit as tricky. One of the issues about common backgrounds is a lack of diversity on some of these social issues”.

That's a welcome admission from a senior BBC editor of something that's been blindingly obvious for some time. 

Radio 4's 'Today' to be dumbed down

Following Newsnight editor Ian 'Cool' Katz's widely-publicised calls for a lighter, less aggressive kind of political interview - and his own determined steps to lighten Newsnight - it looks as if another top BBC editor is thinking along the same lines.

According to the Guardian, BBC Radio 4 Today editor Jamie Angus is concerned that his programme isn't appealing to "younger audiences". 

These younger audiences "tell us sometimes they have to pay too much attention to Today, some of the items are difficult to understand, some of them are too long"...

...so expect poor John Humphrys to be forced to follow in poor Kirsty Wark's footsteps and have to do something daft like rappin' 'n' gettin' down wid da yoof...

...oh, forget that, it's already happened.  

Mr Angus is also looking for new ways to report "bad foreign news", like Ukraine, Syria and Gaza, as some Radio 4 listeners just can't cope with it all, and have fled to to Radio 2 instead (apparently more than 300,000 of them over the summer).

Such people feel there was far too much "distressing foreign news" this summer, and they didn't enjoy being upset by it.

Nor, said Mr Angus, did they enjoy angry Israeli and Palestinian spokesmen shouting down the phone at John Humphrys.

So the Today editor is thinking of changing "how we do the storytelling, how we do the interviews.” 

I have some suggestions:

- Maybe they could shorten the reports to something manageable, like tweets (eg "This is Jon Donnison in Gaza. Won't someone pls think of the children #Israelsucks"). 

- Maybe Yolande Knell could 'do all the voices' in her reports, like Martin Jarvis. Or maybe Martin Jarvis could do them for her. 

- Maybe Mark Regev and Mustafa Bargouti could be asked by Sarah Montague to guess each others thoughts and then mime them to each other over the phone (in the spirit of a modern-day Educating Archie, or I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue). 

- Maybe the Cookie Monster (apparently set to replace Evan Davis) could start spelling out the name 'Benjamin Netanyahu' for Mishal Husain, and then going 'Om nom nom nom' as he consumes the letter 'B', the letter 'E', the letter 'N' (etc). 

That would bring 'em all rushing back from Radio 2. 

Shock news! 'Today' editor says BBC gets its about right on climate change

...still, there is one thing I can do tonight, blog-wise, that puts the question 'Is the BBC biased?' back at the forefront of our attention, and that's to transcribe part of Roger Bolton's Feedback interview with Today editor Jamie Angus, namely the bit about the BBC's coverage of global warming.

Please see what you make of it (though I can probably guess!):

Roger Bolton: I want to raise this question of balance, specifically in relation to climate change. The programme has come in for some criticism, particularly over a story in which Today interviewed Nigel Lawson, who's a former MP, a former chancellor of course, but a non scientist who's sceptical about climate change, alongside a climate change expert and scientist, and this is from Liz from Lewis who is very concerned about the presence of Nigel Lawson on Today.

Liz: I was seriously disturbed by the interview. It seems to me an extraordinary idea of balance that's involved here to say that when you have a whole group of people, all experts in their field, who say one thing, balance means finding somebody with no expertise in that area to say the opposite.

Roger Bolton: So, Jamie Angus, in this case about the fact, if you like, of climate change, do you need to balance your discussions?

Jamie Angus: The BBC's reviewed its coverage of climate change and climate science and it's set out some admirably clear guidelines for us to follow. We are able to put on air people who take a differing view from the majority view of climate science; however, that coverage should be proportional, and I think that any reasonable listener who'd listened to Today's coverage of climate change across the past three months would probably find that Lord Lawson was the only climate sceptic, if you like, who'd appeared in that period, and I think, you know, when Justin and I and the programme team discussed that interview, we thought we'd allowed it to drift too much into a straight yes/no argument about the science. And, of course, the settled view of the expert scientists is just that: Settled. And I believe that our coverage reflects that over the long term.