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It will be interesting to see what kind of coverage Kemi Badenoch receives from the BBC News Channel now that she's thrown her hat into the leadership race to replace Boris. 

She had a spat with the then-editor of Huff Post UK, Jess Brammar, over the behaviour of Huff Post journalist, Nadine White. 

Jess Brammar is now the boss of the BBC News Channel and BBC World.

Incidentally, Nadine - now at The Independent - is on fine form today, tweeting:

Can you imagine a Black or Asian person leading the Conservative Party? Others argue that the very concept is diametrically opposed to the party's core values.

It would be amusing if Kemi became Conservative Party leader, if only to see Nadine's reaction. 

By the way, I see that Jess is still retweeting Nadine White:

 

Meanwhile, the BBC News website's report - Kemi Badenoch launches bid to be Conservative leader - has an odd subheading paraphrasing this passage:

Setting out her stall in an opinion article in The Times, Ms Badenoch said a "strong but limited government focussed on the essentials" was needed.

You might think they'd use, say, “Strong but limited government”, but they took out “government”, leaving:

Are they implying something?

Megha Mohan - another update

So the BBC's first global gender and identity correspondent Megha Mohan, who appeared to have deleted her Twitter account after being told off for failing to comply with BBC guidance that “staff should also not post offensive or derogatory comments or content on social media and avoid abusing their position as a BBC employee in personal interactions”, brought her account back to life on 7 December and is busy tweeting again. And Jess Brammar, head of the BBC's news channels, has been singing her praises. She's still working at the BBC. Indeed she's been covering ''the first female Samoan PM'' and the former president of the Marshall Islands who was the first female leader of a Pacific island, and reporting on climate change in places like Samoa, the Marshall Islands and Fiji. There's no stopping her. 

“The details of this story are pretty astonishing”

“The details of this story are pretty astonishing”, tweeted Jess Brammar, editor of the BBC's news channels, this morning. 

She was referring to a BBC News website report by James Landale, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent: Afghanistan: Foreign Office chaotic during Kabul evacuation - whistleblower. 

Reading it myself and then reading other accounts astonished me too. 

The headline in The Times shows where that paper's emphasis lies: Work-from-home culture fuelled Kabul chaos, leaving Afghan refugees in danger, says whistleblower. 

The Daily Mail agrees. In its account, the whistleblower's main point is that the UK's Afghan rescue effort was hampered by a 'work from home' culture in the Foreign Office. 

That, however, doesn't even get a mention in the BBCs report. It's not listed under ifs 'Key issues flagged' flagged section. It must be a key point, however, as the Guardian lists it as a key point under the sub-headline FCDO ‘working culture’. 

The public service 'working culture' at the FCDO sounds rather similar to that at the BBC. Is that why the BBC hasn't reported this part of the story, either because it made they weren't interested in it or felt uncomfortable reporting it? The ''chaos'' outlined in the BBC piece is about everything but that.

Update: As others are noting, the name 'Joe Biden' is missing from that long report about the chaos of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite him being ultimately responsible for it. 

BBC management makes Lewis Goodall delete a tweet

     

Just to recall a comment of mine from 10 July concerning the mooted appointment of former Huff Post editor Jess Brammar to the post of the BBC's executive news editor, despite her history of left-wing tweets:

An interesting part of this story is that Robbie Gibb communicated his reservations about Jess Brammar in a message to Fran Unsworth. Someone at the BBC has obviously leaked this.

Jess Brammar is part of the old Newsnight circle of friends on Twitter that includes my old favourite Lewis Goodall. Lewis and Robbie Gibb, as you'll probably remember, had a bitter Twitter spat over impartiality after Sir Robbie laid out a long list of reasons why Lewis's reporting wasn't impartial. I suspect Robbie Gibb was aware of her being in that circle when warning Fran Unsworth about appointing her to a senior BBC news management role.

Well, there's been a development on that latter front today. The BBC has made Lewis Goodall delete a tweet about Jess Brammar, attacking the Mail on Sunday:

The deleted tweet said:

You can read the Mail on Sunday's ''unhinged, simply misogynist'' article by Glen Owen and Katie Hind here.

"At times the way government comms have attempted to publicly shame individual journalists during this crisis for simply doing their jobs has been deeply sinister. I’d hoped we’d seen the last of it"

Here's a story you may have missed yesterday (understandably)...

The government's black, female equalities minister took umbrage at a black, female journalist journalist yesterday and all hell broke loose on Twitter. 

(When is all hell not breaking loose on Twitter?)

Here was minister Kemi Badenoch's Twitter thread denouncing HuffPost journalist Nadine White:

• A sad insight into how some journalists operate...On Wednesday, I shared our positive, well-received cross-party video to increase vaccine confidence in the midst of so much disinformation. Last night we heard great news about the Novavax Vaccine which I’ve been trialling.
• Today, an unfortunate reminder of why there is so much confusion and mistrust. Was in meetings all day yesterday and been made aware of 2 emails received from HuffPost journalist, Nadine White.

• Disinformation is on the rise, yet HuffPost are looking to sow distrust by making up claims I refused to take part in a video campaign…(which I suggested and promoted!) Even when Labour and Tory MPs work together, some in the media will still look for conflict. 
• And the main reason I didn’t appear in the video? Because I’m taking part in and promoting vaccine trials.  Given the worst disinformation is that the virus is being “tested first” on black people, I thought it better to avoid mixed messages about volunteering to be tested.
• I’ve been working with the Government Equalities Office on improving govt communications across all communities especially those disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.  The ”important matter” isn’t who is or is not in a video. 
• It’s that Huffpost publish numerous articles about how Covid impacts black people, yet are quite happy to undermine our efforts to build trust in the vaccine by making absurd claims. Chasing clicks like this is irresponsible.
• It’s also creepy and bizarre to fixate on who didn’t participate in a video and demand they explain themselves. As a govt minister I have a platform, but it worries me that other people with less of a voice can be smeared in this way.

• I hope more people will share our cross-party video and help improve vaccine confidence.  It’s about protecting and saving lives not petty politics.

Nadine White's boss at HuffPost, ex-Newnsight Jess Brammar, rode to her journalist's defence:

• One of my reporters has had to make her Twitter profile private today because a *government minister* tweeted out screenshots of a completely standard request for comment on a story, and accused her of spreading disinformation. Absolutely extraordinary.
• Young, female, Black journalists receive some of the worst abuse on Twitter, and to behave in this way is extremely disappointing - even before you consider that the person involved is the minister for equalities. We stand by Nadine for doing her job correctly, as she always does.
• We’re now into the second day of Kemi Badenoch’s feed having an 8-tweet thread alleging that HuffPost and our reporter were “looking to sow distrust” or being ”creepy and bizarre” by asking standard questions of a govt minister. We reject this in the strongest possible terms.
• Yesterday I wrote to the cabinet office to make a complaint, asking for these allegations to be withdrawn, and for an apology for Nadine, who is an excellent reporter who was doing her job. I had hoped to resolve this quickly to minimise the impact on her.
• I know Nadine is grateful for the outpouring of support (and common sense!) on here, as am I. Reporters should be able to go about their jobs without fear of something like this happening to them, particularly where a government minister is concerned.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter here, what struck me was how certain of the BBC's most activist journalists couldn't resist entering the fray, all guns blazing:

Rianna Croxford: Solidarity with Nadine White, a brilliant journalist who is getting trolled and piled on today simply for doing her job. Her coverage of the impact of covid-19 on ethnic minority communities has been excellent throughout the pandemic. 

Lewis Goodall: Absolute solidarity with you and Nadine. At times the way government comms have attempted to publicly shame individual journalists during this crisis for simply doing their jobs has been deeply sinister. I’d hoped we’d seen the last of it.

Brace yourselves!

Oh no, not again! 😉

How did they manage to put that communist-red top on Jane Moore?

Meanwhile, from the outgoing, going, gone acting Newsnight editor...

And Brexit-hating lawyer/activist Jolyon Maugham QC - Twitter's loudest legal voice - is upping the pressure on the BBC before jetting off on a plane and going out of communication...:

 

Rob Burley isn't having it:

Hatgate (2)

Jess Brammar

The acting co-editor of Newsnight responds to Owen Jones:

Jess Brammar:

• Ok, it’s Saturday & I’m in the hairdresser but my phone is having a meltdown so I’m going to address this - I’ve been staying out of it because I haven’t been in the office since thurs afternoon, but here we go...Newsnight didn’t photoshop a hat.
• Our (excellent,hardworking) graphics team explained the image has had the contrast increased & been colour treated, usual treatment for screen graphics as they need more contrast to work through the screens. If you look you can see it’s same hat in silhouette.
• Apparently (forgive me for passing on tech details I don’t understand firsthand) some detail might also have been lost with it going through the screen and then being filmed back through a camera, again the standard effect on images on that big back panel.
• And finally, the Russia background was a rehash of one Newsnight used a few weeks ago, for a story about Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary
• By all means criticise Newsnight. That’s healthy, and we will always welcome people like Owen Jones coming on the show to criticise us from our own studio. But no one photoshopped a hat.

Owen Jones:

• Hi Jess, firstly lots of respect for you. The photo of Williamson is in a suit and his photo remains clear. There is no shortage of photos of Corbyn in a suit. A photo was selected which was as Leninesque as possible in combination with a red Kremlin background.

Jess Brammar:

• RTing you in interests of openness! Don’t want to get into a twitter spat, and need to switch off twitter now, but happy to give your views a full airing. And you can say what you like about NN, you certainly will be invited on again.

Owen Jones:

• In addition, the photo of Corbyn has clearly been touched up, making it look Soviet poster-esque in a way Gavin Williamson did not. You'll be aware, too, of a context of Corbyn being demonised all week as a Russian stooge. Which this background clearly blatantly reinforces.
• (Finally I thought you'd left already but massive congrats on your new job!!!)

Laura in the lions' den

Millicent Garrett Fawcett, founder of the Fawcett Society 

Woman's Hour debated 150 years of feminism on Tuesday. 

I enjoyed it, and I suspect you might too if you fancy catching up with it on the iPlayer. 

Unusually for Woman's Hour, Jane Garvey's guests didn't all sing from the same feminist hymn sheet. Three of them did, but one didn't - and the one who didn't was Laura Perrins of The Conservative Woman. 

So it was 3:1 against Laura, but at least someone who thinks like Laura was, for once, invited onto Woman's Hour - which is something. 

Or, more accurately, it was 4:1...and this is really where the BBC bias comes in, I think. 

Jane Garvey could have been non-interventionist and allowed the discussion to flow, or she could have consistently played devil's advocate and 'taken the side' of Laura Perrins, given that Laura was so clearly outnumbered and, thus, the underdog.

But she did neither. In fact, she did the exact opposite.

While asking non-challenging questions to her other guests, it was only Laura who got the challenging ones and all the hostile interruptions - and there were quite a lot of them! (Listen to Jane's interventions here: 6.02, 6.05, 9.49, 14.43, 16.38, 16.54, 17.13, 17.55, 18.12, 20.54).

The BBC presenter was far from neutral, despite one halfhearted devil's advocate question (at around the 19.10 mark).

The first thing to get Ms. Garvey's goat, incidentally, was Laura's citing of a Fawcett Society finding that a mere 7% of British people (9% of women and 4% of men) actually describe themselves as 'feminists'. That would mean (as Laura pointed out) that 93% of British people don't identify themselves as 'feminists' (unlike all of her fellow guests {and all the presenters} on Woman's Hour)....though it must also be said, in counterpoint to that finding, that this same survey did say that 74% of women described themselves as being "sympathetic to feminism". 

Fortunately, Laura was more than capable of holding her own against all of this - and not only against the BBC presenter but against her fellow guests too.

And, naturally, that didn't please everyone.

Here's Newsnight 'senior broadcast journalist' Jess Brammar, for example, nearly choking on her lentil soup over Laura's battling underdog performance: