Some Sunday morning reading

I

According to The Mail on Sunday, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries will use her conference speech to 'throw down the gauntlet to the BBC'. A source has told them:

The plan is to put the BBC on notice that its days as the voice of the Islington Left are numbered. 

Nadine appreciates that it has a global reputation for the quality of many of its programmes, but the woke-infested news output needs addressing.

We'll see. Anyhow, there's a good quote from Nadine in The Sun: 

I could almost hear the almond latte cups hitting the floor at the BBC when I got this job. 

II 

Former BBC controller of daily news programmes Gavin Allen, ousted from the BBC board in February this year, has moved on. He's now working as 'executive editor in chief' for the highly controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei. From seeing him on Newswatch many times, always sticking up for the BBC, I suspect it won't be long before he's saying that Huawei is getting everything about right. The top comment at The Mail on Sunday reads, 'No honour, no integrity. These are the sort of people that run the BBC.' 

III

I suspect many will agree with The Times's Richard Morrison about the BBC's 'sordid' Jimmy Savile drama, starring Steve Coogan:

It was the BBC that fuelled his career and gave him a nationwide, peak-time platform. And despite all the allegations, it was still protecting and projecting his “saintly eccentric” image when he died, less than ten years ago. For such a tainted organisation to be thinking about using the name of Savile once again — after all that has been revealed — to boost its ratings and generate publicity for its TV drama output beggars belief. 

I’m surprised that Coogan, a thoughtful man, has accepted this role. I’m astounded that Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, has approved the project, especially with all the other battles he needs to fight to safeguard the BBC’s future. He should think again.

IV

This week answered the question on everyone's lips: Whatever happened to the 'face of the BBC' in the US, Katty Kay? Well, she left the BBC to work for Ozy - a left-wing digital media outfit that sees itself as "a catalyst for change and inspiration" and which launched the #ResetAmerica campaign to amplify racial and social injustice issues and "forge a path forward". After its chief operating officer was accused of pretending to be a YouTube executive on a conference call during talks about a £30m investment from Goldman Sachs, Katty Kay quit. So the question on everyone's lips is now: Whatever will happen to the 'face of the BBC' in the US, Katty Kay, now that she's left Ozy?

Victims of viral disinformation

If you're one of those people who believes that there was voter fraud and rigging in the US presidential election and that Donald Trump may have actually won the election, or if you're one of those who thinks that the deadly fracas in the Capitol building on Wednesday involved Antifa 'false flags'...

...well, here's Marianna Spring of the BBC's Disinformation Unit (on Thursday) to tell you that you're a "victim" of "viral disinformation".

(And Christian blames "the right-wing media" too):

Christian Fraser: It was so striking listening to those people as they went up the steps of the Capitol building yesterday Marianna about what they believe, what they understand to be true. What are they saying today on social media? What have you seen? 

Marianna Spring;  Those images, those interviews, were very, very striking because a lot of people really, genuinely, do believe allegations of rigged elections, of voter fraud - conspiracies that have been circulating on social media in recent weeks and months - very passionately, and in many ways too they have fallen victim to viral disinformation. Today we have seen even more disinformation online, more conspiracies. A lot of it has focused on who was there outside Congress yesterday and inside, and there are lots of images showing supporters of the QAnon Conspiracy - that's the baseless conspiracy that suggests President Trump is waging a secret war against satanic paedophiles - as well as those who are part of the Stop the Steal movement that emerged in the days following the election when it appeared that Joe Biden was going to win, and also extreme groups like the Proud Boys and others who have been linked to far-right groups and circles. But today the suggestion from those people, influencers within those conspiracy communities, was that people causing the trouble yesterday were Antifa - anti-fascist groups. There is no evidence to support that idea, and a lot of the pictures they are using to demonstrate that show recognisable conspiracy influencers, generally on the far right. So those claims are not true. But in the chaos of what has been building on social media, and in the days afterwards, we are just seeing more and more conspiracies. 

Christian Fraser: Yeah, and some of that is stoked by the right-wing media as well. 

Katty Kay:  I'm going to assume, Marianna, that all of that now gets traction, and that is what the narrative becomes amongst those groups. Does suspending President Trump make any difference in that case or is this bigger than one person now? 

Marianna Spring:  I think that it is bigger than one person. President Trump's social media accounts have been crucial to fuelling the conspiracies spreading on social media for a number of months. But what is key here is, this is not something that came out of the blue, It has been building online for weeks and weeks, not just after the election but in the build-up to that too. Conspiracies like QAnon have thrived on platforms like Facebook, like Twitter, like Instagram and YouTube, and President Trump since April has been tweeting allegations of voter fraud showing no evidence, claims about rigged elections that have further fuelled those conspiracies. So many people have been primed over a number of months on social media to genuinely believe false claims. And what you remove now and do now almost feels slightly futile because the very worst thing, the fears, were realised yesterday. And those fears were that not only viral information can inspire violence but in many ways it can erode democracy. We saw that happen. 

Christian Fraser: Yeah, Interesting that the DC police have asked for people to come forward with information. A lot of it is there on social media, You can tell who these people are, as you say. Marianna, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. 

Are you? 

When Tony Met James and Katty

I was just going to post the questions here, but why not post the whole interview? (I can guess an answer to that, it's Tony Blair!)

The questions are very BBC. 

There's James Reynolds going straight for the negative and suggesting that Israel's agreements with Arab nations might be putting the region "on the road to open conflict", then pursuing the "sidelining" of the Palestinians angle, and then interrupting to point out that "many" more than just the Palestinians don't want peace with Israel yet. 

And there's Katty Kay (naturally) going for the Trumps - as she did even more emphatically in her follow-up question about Trump and climate change. 

Enjoy!

*******

James Reynolds: Let's look at the reasons for this alliance coming about. The Iraq War, which you co-led, got rid of Saddam Hussein but it also gave much freer rein to Iran to expand as a regional power. In order to counter that Israel and some of the Gulf States are getting together potentially putting the region on the road to open conflict. How is the Middle East a safer place after this deal?

Tony Blair: James, I think you can tell the history a little bit differently. The fact is, this is now just about security and about Iran. It's about the belief in the Middle East that if you want to establish a peaceful Middle East, then you have got to establish relationships between the State of Israel and the Arab nations. That is entirely sensible, not just for reasons of security, Yes, it's true, Israel and the Arab nations are very worried about what Iran does to destabilise the region, but they're also worried about the various extreme groups on the Sunni side who also want to destabilise the region. And what these agreements symbolise are people coming together in pursuit of a different Middle East, one that is based on religiously tolerant societies and modern economies. And that's what is really behind this. And I think what you will find with the agreement signed today is that this is not going to be a cold peace, and it's not going to be about security. It will be about a warm peace and it will be about actual engagement in the economy, in culture and, of course, in  the resolution of the Palestinian issue. 

James Reynolds: When you visited Israel and also the Palestinians as prime minister after 9/11...I remember those visits. I was a Jerusalem correspondent at the time...here was a common belief that you couldn't solve any of the problems until you had tackled and solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But doesn't this 2020 agreement show something completely different, that you can solve parts of the Israeli-Arab conflict by sidelining the Palestinians instead of resolving their fate? 

Tony Blair: You're not sidelining the Palestinians. Look, you're not going to get a...I've studied this now for the best part of 20 years, I was heavily involved as Prime Minister. I was involved afterwards as the quartet envoy, I've spent the last five or six  years working on the Arab-Israeli relationship. You're not going to solve it unless two things happen. You've got to get a Palestinian politics that is unified and in favour of peace, and you've got to bring the Arab nations alongside the Palestinians in that peace effort. And so, when people say - and there are, of course, people on the Palestinian side who say - no, you should have nothing to do with Israel....

James Reynolds: (interupting) Many are saying that.

Tony Blair: ...until the Palestinian issue has been resolved. They do say that. but the strategy they've had up to now has not worked, and it won't work in the future. The right strategy is to encourage the relationship between Israel and the Arab nations and then say to the Arab nations. 'We need your support. A unified Palestinian politics in favour of peace needs your support. That is a strategy that can succeed. If we carry on doing what we have been doing for the last half-century, we'll carry on with the same result'. 

Katty Kay; You've just came from the White House, Mr Blair. I remember speaking to Jared Kushner at the beginning of this administration, and he said that Donald Trump was the person to bring about the Palestinians and the Israelis, nobody else could do it, but he was the guy that's going to do it, but effectively they've given up on that, haven't they? I mean, they're now saying, well, if the Palestinians want to come along but I'm not seeing much outreach from the White House to the Palestinians to get that agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Tony Blair: Katty, the White House, to be fair, have been reaching out the entire time. It's the Palestinians that won't engage with the Americans at the moment. Now, I understand all the reasons for that, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and so on. But the fact of the matter is, the intervention of the UAE was what prevented the annexation plans going ahead, and if the Jordan valley were to be annexed that would make a Palestinian state very difficult. So that intervention has actually preserved the possibility of a future Palestinian state. And, you know, the best thing for the Palestinians to do would be to engage with the Americans, engage with them by the way not saying that we agree with your plan, but saying let us sit down and discuss the detail of it. Because otherwise, and this is why...I understand completely why...people like me, when we encourage this relationship between the Israelis and the Arabs, they say. oh, you're an Israeli stooge, you don't care about the Palestinians. If the Palestinians don't get a different political strategy they will never get a state. What they've got at the moment is a strategy for sympathy. They need a strategy for statehood, and a strategy for statehood has to begin with making sure you engage with the Americans because they are powerful, making sure you bring the Arab nations on side because they can help, and making sure the Israelis feel secure with a Palestinian state because at the present time they don't. So if you want the strategy to succeed, that's how to do it. 

We are not amused

I know it’s all wrong for someone who co-hosts a blog about BBC bias, but I confess I haven’t watched the BBC for quite some time. I gather Craig is going through a similar phase.

At mine, the family TV is nearly always tuned to other channels. Sky, despite the ads. Al-Jazeera, for some unknown reason. The Parliament Channel. Channel 4. The one exception is BBC 4. *This household can tolerate snippets of Katty Kay and Christian Fraser interspersed with Jon Sopel and - if I remember correctly, Gary O’Donoghue. *In short bursts.

Katty Kay’s appearance is fascinating; eyes heavily eye-shadowed at the outer corners and those flared, flyaway eyebrows, I assume she’s trying to mimic a cat, as I guess one would if one went by the name of Katty. (What sort of name is that?) Miaow. Recently she’s gone for a more natural appearance and her hair even looks as though it could move. So, all good.

While I’m feeling catty, Jon Sopel still reminds me of Private Pike. It’s the wobbly head and the petulant, whiney voice. When he wears a scarf the resemblance is uncanny. 

So, by way of fulfilling a strange sense of obligation, I decided to switch on HIGNFY last night to see if Labour’s catastrophic trouncing had made any impact on the ‘humour’. I have left-leaning friends who loyally tune in, week in, week out, in the hope that this time it might be entertaining. (The residual effect of the long-lost memory.)

What I saw was even worse than anyone could have thought possible. Beyond one’s wildest dreams awful. As the panel and the chairperson were self-isolating, they were filmed in their own homes. The panel members chose to be filmed in front of bookshelves laden with books, (Hislop had tomes, Merton had paperbacks) while Steph McGovern (chair) chose to pose in her kitchen.

A decorative frame (hideous) surrounded each animated vignette, underlining the separateness of the contributors while eliminating any potential camaraderie and bestowing a deadening effect upon the whole enterprise. As if it wasn't laboured and unfunny enough in the first place. Surprisingly, Helen Lewis seemed amused, as did the chairperson. I think the other one was Miles Jupp. 

Or were those toothy grimaces actually signs of hysteria?

Trump’s "Muslim ban"

Trump’s "Muslim ban." That's how Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib describe Israel’s last-minute decision to ban them from their proposed tour of Palestine, the non-existent state that non-exists in Israel. 

Of course, they can’t actually go to Israel while boycotting it. That would be hypocritical!

You might have noticed there’s a particular type of spin attached to the reporting of a decision that turns out to be the gift that strikes two of the media’s least favourite birds - Trump and Israel - with one stone.

There are numerous examples of this spin, but let’s stick to the BBC. (1m 24s)

Newshour and The World Tonight featured two ‘anti” interviewees. The poisonous hag (sorry) Hanan Ashrawi who giggled with forced amusement at any question she deemed preposterous while making the ultimate preposterous statement herself, namely  “Israel cannot tolerate dissent!”.  

Next to reinforce the BBC’s disapproval was Yaakov Katz of the Jerusalem Post, whose argument against the ban came through as deluded naivety. He hoped the two democratically elected congresswomen ‘might see how open Israel is”.   A likely scenario (I don’t think.)

However, a lengthier presentation of this development came with Beyond 100 Days. Katty Kay and David Eades (sitting in for Christian Fraser) with the help of Tom Bateman and Chris Buckler. 

All were in default anti-Trump mode. While Katty Kay was probably quite correct to speculate that President Trump was using this opportunity to divide the Democratic Party (a shrewd move perhaps) by ‘tarring the whole party with the “views they (Omar and Tlaib)  might have,” the actual views “they might have” were played down. Hardly mentioned (not mentioned) was the fact that the pair’s proposed itinerary left hardly any space (no space at all ) for any of the so-called ‘reaching out” that rose-coloured specs-wearing pro-Israel opponents of the ban hoped for.

Rather than detailing the anti-Israel /antisemitic histories of these two ladies, they glossed them over  with the pared-down, cavalier “having been critical of Israel.’ Someone mentioned: “coming with open eyes, open ears and open minds.” (As if!) Buckler even revived the truncated  “Go back to their own countries” theme, which I mistakenly assumed had been discredited for good.

Ilhan Omar has announced. “This is Trump’s Muslim ban being implemented.” 

If you think this move by Israel is a bit of an own goal - and in many ways, that’s what it looks like, try thinking again. 

Take, for example, the ‘bans’ our own country has implemented over the years. Take the bans that many of us consider having been unwarranted, for example when the Home Office banned Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Lauren Southern, bans we opposed in the name of freedom of speech. These voices should be heard, we said. 

But how many of the people we wanted to hear were seriously coming with “open eyes, open ears and open minds.” Is it likely that Geert Wilders would have gone to one of Luton’s or Birmingham’s many Mosques to ‘learn’ about the beauty of Sharia from one of the imams? Perhaps he would then go back to Holland and say “Hey guys, I was a bit harsh on Islam. Forget the whole Fitna thing and bring it on”.

On the opposite side of the coin, look at the case of ‘Jews bake bread out of babies’ blood’ Raed Salah. He managed to evade the ban although I’m not sure if he was able to take up the invitation to take tea on the terrace with Jeremy Corbyn, but I’m pretty sure that nothing he did or saw in the UK helped moderate his antisemitic views or did much towards promoting peace and goodwill.

So I would speculate that Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib had no more intention of ‘learning’ anything at all from their Ashrawi-sponsored tour of Palestine.

I have to say that certain individuals who claim they are only defending their right to exercise free speech are in fact hellbent on crying ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre. So on this occasion, Israel’s US-inspired decision is probably the right thing to do.


Meanwhile, Rashida Tlaib has been granted the right to enter the Israeli-occupied West Bank on humanitarian grounds. She has a 90-year-old grandmother there. The proviso is that she would “not promote boycotts” during her visit. 

"Granny" 90-year-old Mufti Tlaib

 So there.

Update:

Oh noes! Under such oppressive conditions, she doesn't want to go after all!

Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in--fighting against racism, oppression & injustice. https://t.co/z5t5j3qk4H

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 16, 2019

Mistakes always come in threes

Apropos of nothing, did you know that the word 'apropos' in a mid-17th Century coinage deriving from the French à propos, which means ‘(with regard) to (this) purpose’? 

You did? Oh.

Anyhow, apropos of nothing, did you spot that Andrew Marr fell into the old mistake of calling the Ku Klux Klan "the Klu Klux Klan" this morning? Andrew Neil did exactly the same on this week's This Week. As did Katty Kay on Monday's Beyond 100 Days. 

Bonus fact: Katty Kay, despite her initials, is not connected to the KKK. 

In Praise of DB

Talking of DB (me and Sue's old blogging pal), he's on fire again at the moment, and his Twitter feed is a must - if you're into Twitter.

Please follow him if you can.

Here's a selection of his posts from the first three weeks of 2019:

I

Hmm. Maria reminds me of another pro-EU Newsnight employee with a Polish-sounding name, Maya Rostowski. Maya's apparent heavy involvement in a report slagging off her pro-EU Polish politician dad's political opponents, the conservative Law and Justice, raised eyebrows - to put it mildly.

II

Nomia's not a Rod Liddle fan, obviously. 

(In contrast, I thought this from Rod in this week's Spectator, on a related theme, was another gem from the former Today editor).

Nomia isn't new to us. She did a pro-hijab report for BBC One's news bulletins.

III

And here's that very The Young Talks video for your delectation, featuring alt-right-obsessed, left-wing, ever-so-impartial, senior BBC Trending guru Mike Wendling. Enjoy!

IV

This preceded the previous example of the BBC leaping on an anti-Trump story from a major US mainstream media source and swallowing and regurgitating it hook, line and sinker (see next-to-last post). Here the BBC, making it their top News Website story, leaped on an anti-Trump Buzzfeed story that, like an insubstantial pageant, dissolved and appears to have left not a rack behind, leaving the BBC scrambling, discreetly, to bury its tracks. 

(MB has been closely following this on the previous Open Thread). 

V

Ah yes, good old Hugh. Coat always hung up at the door of BBC impartiality. 

And that 'gotcha' so excited the BBC that Reality Check generalissimo Chris Morris was wheeled in in to deliver the coup de grace to poor, babbling Boris. 

Oddly, Chris's take (and other would-be 'reality checks' across the BBC, and elsewhere) piled on just three examples - two throwaway, somewhat ambiguous comments and one co-authored letter with Michael Gove and Gisela Stuart. 

And that was pretty much it. Where was the long, damning list of quotes?

And, to me, this actually, accidentally, showed that Boris had, in reality, made next to nothing of the Turkish EU accession question in the run-up to the EU referendum. 

But "latch on" and make "a huge gotcha moment" of it the BBC tried to do nonetheless.

VI

This one was initially prompted by StewGreen:

Well done More or Less! The BBC's BBC Global Gender and Identity Correspondent (yes, really), to give her full official BBC title, certainly did get called out by Tim & Co, there. Ha ha. 

For more on Megha from me and Sue, please click here. She's very BBC - not into Ivana Trump, a fan of Naomi Klein, someone who wants to explain explain arranged marriage "to white people", and someone who deleted a tweet damning pro-gay rights Ireland for backing Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest!

VII

And, OMG, here's something about Katty:

Yes, Katty actually just-about, in a roundabout, unspecific way, acknowledged that mainstream media types, leaped in too soon on the Buzzfeed Mueller story. but then - having, as DB noted, evidently learned nothing, was straight in their again on the Native American/MAGA-capped schoolboys media fiasco. 

Oh Katty, as we approach Burns Night, please bear this good-natured advice in mind:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.

Aye to that! Cue bagpipes...

Birds of a feather tweet together

Whatever you thought of President Trump's helicopter/rain problems yesterday (with or without ironic quotation marks), I was struck by the instant, almost unthinking downpour of disapproval and disdain that rained down on him from some of the BBC's finest (and John Sweeney)...

...as chronicled by Guest Who at B-BBC in a quite devastating sequence. 

It really hits home when you see a stream of tweets like this just how like a flock they act...(whether that be of sheep, or of starlings, or of free, fair and impartial BBC journalists I'll let you decide!):

Pressing the press

I watched the entirety of Donald Trump's post-midterm elections press conference tonight - as you too can do here. 

(In fact I greatly recommend it. It was very entertaining: Be warned though. It's nearly an half and a half long - though it will fly by). 

I heard Sky News and Channel 4 (Jon Snow) asking questions, but where were the beauties of the BBC? There was not a single question from the "world's most trusted". (Some other news organisation got today's 'another beauty' from President Trump instead).

CNN's Jim Acosta and the President got into their usual verbal bare-knuckle fight. My Twitter feed divided between Stephen Pollard describing Donald Trump's treatment of Mr. Acosta as "vile, vile" and Tim Montgomerie retweeting Ben Shapiro saying that Jim Acosta "is a disgrace to his alleged profession". 

As you do, I naturally chose to check out what the face of the BBC in the USA, the main anchor of BBC America, Katty Kay, had to say on Twitter about it. Naturally, besides noting the length of the press conference, all she did was to retweet a Trump racism dog-whistle tweet from someone from CNN:

OMG.

And Anthony Zurcher took to adding emojis to his snarks at the US president, namely this very one:

Meanwhile, being more conscious of the need to appear impartial than either of those two partisan BBC hacks (no offence) his BBC colleagues, Jon Sopel, the BBC's North America editor, remembered to 'balance' his first re-tweet from Mr. Guardian/Radio 4...

with another from everyone's cup of tea Piers Morgan:

Ah, and watching Beyond 100 Days tonight and their take on the Trump press conference, well, Katty Kay and Christian Fraser have never heard anything like it, and neither has Barbara Plett Usher. 

Can Amazon Prime dispatch smelling salts to them overnight? If so, I'll add them to my basket and go to 'check out' straightaway. I feel I ought to do something to help them, poor things. Maybe a Radio 4 appeal is needed? 

A thing of wonder

Katty Kay's Twitter feed remains a thing of wonder - the wonder being that she's allowed to get away with it. Anyone completely new to her would never guess that she was meant to be an impartial BBC journalist.

P.S. I agree with Roland:

"Whether this happened or not..."

Here's another transcript, just for all of you Katty Kay fans (and I know there are legions of you out there). It comes from the BBC News Channel's Outside Source.

I've highlighted in bold some of the choicer passages. The way Katty and, indeed, Ros drop in those little sops to impartiality whilst being anything but impartial and immediately contradicting themselves is almost...almost...worthy of grudging admiration (especially if you're into Machiavelli).

Ros Atkins: And Katty, even if the Republicans do take Brett Kavanaugh's side of the story, does his demeanour have any bearing on their decision? Because a lot of people have been watching this and thinking, this man's not calm, this man is not reflective as you might expect a judge to be, and he certainly is not nonpartisan. 

Katty Kay: So, in 1991, Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Ford (sic). She gave her testimony and was seen to be very credible. He then came back after her testimony, fighting and very defiantly. He called it a high-tech lynching. He was absolutely furious and angry and he was then confirmed to the Supreme Court. He still sits on the Supreme Court's 27 years later. So it's quite possible...there's a precedent here for a judge to come out and be angry like this, to be emotional like this and still be confirmed to the Supreme Court. We've heard it happen before. The partisan site is interesting because Clarence Thomas did not take on Democrats and the left in the way that Brett Kavanaugh has done during the course of this hearing. I don't think, however, that that will mean that you will have Republicans suddenly saying, oh dear, he's too partisan, we can't vote to confirm him. 

Ros Atkins: Now Katty, on the Outside Source screen I've just put up the picture here from the hearing that the New Yorker tweeted out showing the view that Christine Blasey Ford was facing - a raft of white older men - and you and lots of women around the world watching her testimony commented on how the whole experience was profoundly uncomfortable, regardless of whether you believe her story or Brett Kavanaugh's. 

Katty Kay: Yeah, I think there would have been a lot of women who listened to the account she gave...and you just played it there. That's I think the fifth time I've heard it, and it's hard to listen to, Ros, frankly, every single time. And I think there will have been women who have been the victims of sexual abuse who will have listened to that and felt a certain amount of PTSD. Whether this happened or not, and we may never know what happened or did not happen in that room, whether this happened or not, her account was very compelling, it was very emotional. I had read the testimony beforehand but it was a punch in the gut to hear it. To hear her deliver it was very powerful and it will have had a big impact on women who've been through similar things. 

Another beauty

Someone, I can't quite remember who (the Dalai Lama perhaps?), keeps calling The New York Times "the failing New York Times". Well, it certainly "failed" over a would-be hit-piece on Nikki Haley, the US's UN ambassador. The paper, whose CEO is the former BBC director-general Mark Thompson, has now posted a correction: 

An earlier version of this article and headline created an unfair impression about who was responsible for the purchase in question. While Nikki R. Haley is the current ambassador to the United Nations, the decision on leasing the ambassador’s residence and purchasing the curtains was made during the Obama administration, according to current and former officials. The article should not have focused on Ms. Haley, nor should a picture of her have been used. The article and headline have now been edited to reflect those concerns, and the picture has been removed.

"I'm so old I remember when New York Times editors reviewed stories before they were published," commented former NYT man Clifford D. May, later adding, "I'm so old I remember when repeatedly getting facts wrong at the New York Times carried serious consequences for the reporters and editors responsible."

And apparently this is the second piece this year by the same NYT reporter that later carried a lengthy editor's note. (The other one can be seen here).

Some people are sticking up for the NYT though, including...guess who?:

(Beauties) Birds of a feather evidently flock together.

DB on Emily, Katty and The Zurch

It's hard to reasonably disagree with DB about any of these, isn't it?

The BBC's DNA is being invaded, via Twitter, by ever more strident mutations. Where's the Helen Boaden or Mary Hockaday to remind them that they aren't meant to discredit the BBC's reputation for impartiality, even on Twitter?

Mama

An American woman tweets a picture of herself and her two year old son.

You might think nothing of that but another woman at the Guardian regards it a malicious act (and, being a photo of a white mother and her white son, thinks it's racist too). 

Yes, seriously.

Even the Guardian's online commentariat found this very hard to swallow and have been calling the Guardian reporter out in large numbers...

...but (h/t DB) a 'Senior Reporter at BBC Stories' called Megha Mohan didn't just fail to call the Guardian writer out on that but instead chose to endorse her views by not only tweeting a link to the Guardian piece but also name-checking its writer author and quoting her too (without any distancing/balancing caveats): 

Is this the tip of a BBC iceberg?

*******

Now I see, Googling around, that the BBC has also posted an online article about this (inevitably).

I've not read it yet so I don't know which way it will go - if it goes any way.  So this is 'live blogging'...

Clicking into it the headline is US child migrants: Ivanka's mother and child photo sparks backlash, and the piece begins:

As the daughter of one of America's most divisive presidents, Ivanka Trump is no stranger to controversy. 

But on Sunday, she sparked backlash by sharing a photo of herself holding her two-year-old son, Theodore.

i.e. the daughter of the 'divisive' president 'sparks' (i.e. causes!) a backlash. 

I think I can already guess where this is going (not so much 'slut-shaming' as 'daughter-of-Trump-shaming'!)...

Reading on...

We then get two paragraphs outlining 'the prosecution case' against Ivanka followed by two paragraphs saying that Ms Trump hasn't yet responded to the criticisms and had previously said she'd not work against the administration's policies (points that also help 'the prosecution case'). 

Then comes a section headed What prompted the current outcry? and if you expect the suggested answers might include 'anti-Trump hysteria spreading into hatred against Trump's daughter' and 'media groupthink' then think again...

...because the entire section is spent reinforcing the concerns of critics of the present US government's migration policy, especially as regards child migrants - complete with a link to a BBC video report headlined The missing - consequences of Trump's immigration crackdown (which is just the kind of report you'd expect from such a headline). The entire section is also part of 'the prosecution case'. 'The defence case' doesn't get a look-in.

What's next? Well, a section headed What are social media users saying? And, guess what? Yes, 'the prosecution case' wins out again by a large margin. The BBC reporter here gives us a 4:1 ratio of tweets against Ivanka. The one pro-Ivanka tweet is introduced by saying, "However, not everyone linked the post to the debate on immigration, with some praising its beauty."

Next comes a section headed What has the government's response been? Is this going to be the 'balancing passage'? Well, no. Within two paragraphs President Trump is getting it in the neck for "incorrectly" blaming the Democrats and a "fact check" by the Associated Press is then cited 'proving' the Trump administration to be the bad guys. And then various previous government statements are outlined before the closing image bearing the caption 'Around 700 minors have reportedly been separated from their parents by US immigration authorities' with a child's hand shown grasping a metal fence. 

The BBC has thrown so much detail at us here that it's hard to cling to the fact that there are at least two ways of seeing Ivanka's tweet of her and her son: One is to see it as a harmless photo of a mother and son; the other way is to see it as a malicious political act. 

If you support the first point of view you'll invite people to view the tweet and see it as a lovely tweet. If you support the second point of view you'll make it all about what Ivanka's critics claim it was about. 

The BBC here made it all about what Ivanka's critics claim it was about. It was a partisan piece, little better than the Guardian piece much criticised by those Guardian readers.

Did Megha Mohan write this piece? 

(For more on Megha from ITBB piece click here).

P.S. Katty Kay, the face of the UK in the US, is also on Ivanka's case today:

And a BBC News website article appeared today also containing criticism of Ms Trump. 

Oddly, it also seems to debunk itself. 

Please read it for yourselves and see what you think. It reads to me like a would-be carefully-hedged smear. 

P.P.S. There was a huge, widely-discussed flurry of social media activity this weekend where various high-profile opinion-givers (including a former Obama speechwriter, a New York Times editor-in-chief, a prominent CNN journalist and prominent Muslim rights campaigner (Linda Sarsour) were caught out tweeting an image of suffering child migrants in the USA and denouncing Donald Trump for their plight. 

The image turned out to be from four years ago, when Barack Obama was president. 

Despite being 'fake news', it trended 'bigly'.

I was hoping to read something from Mike Wendling & Co. at BBC Trending about it, who usually love a 'bigly'-trending bit of fake news. But I just somehow knew that Mike Wendling & Co. at BBC Trending, however much it was trending, would not be interested in it. And they haven't been (so far).

For goodness sake, Donald Trump - whose tweets they follow - even tweeted about it, gloatingly. And they've still managed to 'miss' it!

And I think that's easily explained: It was a clear example of 'fake news' from the anti-Trump camp, and it doesn't embarrass the people they enjoy seeing embarrassed so they choose not to report it. 

As Simon the Cat says: Simples!

Thumbs down for Gina Haspel?

I'd have thought that arch-feminist Katty Kay would have been delighted that a woman has been appointed to head the CIA (the first woman to head the organisation), but, alas, her Twitter feed has shown no interest in this feminist angle. Her lone tweet about Gina Haspel's appointment by President Donald J. Trump is this re-tweet:

And John Simpson has similar concerns:

And the following 'Analysis' on the BBC News website uses some telling adjectives:

A return to dark practices?

Analysis by Tara McKelvey, BBC News, Washington

The White House shakeup has profound implications - and particularly for the CIA. The agency's work is conducted with nominal oversight, and many decisions hinge on the discretion of the director. This morning the president spoke approvingly of the acting director, Gina Haspel, pointing out that she's a woman in a high leadership position.

As an intelligence officer, she was known for her harsh views: she ran a notorious black site in Thailand, a place where prisoners were waterboarded. She's now working for a president who's been ambivalent about the matter. He said in the past he wanted to bring back waterboarding. James Mattis, the defence secretary, convinced him otherwise.

The president could change his mind again - if Ms Haspel and other intelligence officials said they believed it was necessary. In this way the US could return to its dark practices of black sites and brutal interrogations.

It looks as if the BBC will be voting against Gina Haspel's appointment at the Congressional hearings...

...though actually, come to think about it, they don't have a seat in the Senate, so they can't. Oh well.

BBC partisans

The news about Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un's agreement to meet for talks has drawn some interesting reactions so far. 

So is the BBC being "partisan" over this? Well, all I can say is that their main BBC News website report about it waits for Paragraph 21 to devote one paragraph alone to citing someone giving President Trump credit.

And the usual suspects are being sour about it on Twitter. 

Anthony Zurcher's Twitter feed (so far) is particularly "partisan" and, yes, he gives North Korea all the credit for a possible "diplomatic triumph":

As for Katty Kay, well, she's been very quiet about it (so far), simply re-tweeting a rather sour comment from a former Clinton Era Democrat defence secretary: 

Take a look at Laura Bicker's prominent 'analysis' piece on the BBC News website, and you'll see that her take is just as jaundiced as Anthony Zurcher's.

Her write-up of South Korean president President Moon Jae-in's role is measured in tone and full of respectful language. He's the one she's giving credit to.

When she deals with Donald Trump, however, a disrespectful tone crashes in:

• "His administration has had very few victories, despite promising his voters there would "so much winning".
• "Reporters say he casually mentioned in the White House briefing room that he hoped they would give him credit for Kim Jong-un's offer. His voters certainly will".
• "...his Art of the Deal book will not be the guide he needs to deal with Kim Jong-un".
• and an expert whose quote begins, "Trump doesn't study or even read. He tends to fly wildly off script....".

How typical this is of the BBC's reporting of the story I'll try to find out after getting work out of the way today.

Update (17.15): And what's the first thing I see on my Twitter feed after getting in from work? This from the BBC's ever-so-impartial World Affairs Editor (his one tweet on the subject):

I can't help but think that if President Obama had done what President Trump has done John Simpson would be praising him as a peacemaker rather than damning him as a dupe.

#partisanBBCreporting.

Further update (20:28): From last night...

Who indeed?

The Face Speaks

The face of the BBC in the U.S.

This Thursday's From Our Own Correspondent began with 'Kate Adee of the Bee Bee Cee' saying:

Today headlines here about sexual harassment but our correspondent fears a backlash against 'Me too' in the United States or a suspicion that old habits die hard.

My first thought on hearing that was to think, "OK Kate, but why is a supposedly impartial BBC correspondent 'fearing' a backlash? Isn't 'fearing' something that an activist should be expressing rather than a supposedly impartial BBC correspondent?"

An 'Aha!' moment came later when 'our correspondent' was named.

Yes, it was Katty Kay, the face of the impartial BBC is the U.S. 

Our Katty's piece didn't even try to disguise the fact that she is an activist on the issue - albeit a somewhat conflicted one. 

She explicitly said "We thought. I thought" and "We hoped" in describing the Me Too campaigners' hopes and anxieties. 

Their campaign - "a revolution long past its due" - was openly expressed as her campaign too.

It's odd, isn't it, what you can get away with, impartiality-wise, if you're the face of the BBC in the U.S.?

Shouldn't Katty have at least tried to maintain a mask of impartiality here?

And as she didn't, another question: Why are BBC journalist-presenters allowed to get away with this kind of thing, despite all the 'BBC impartiality' guff the BBC puts out? 

And further, what do people at the BBC who do try to maintain the BBC's claim to be impartial make of such comments on BBC Radio 4 from a high-profile BBC colleague? Doesn't it embarrass them?

You tell her, Rabbie!

Imagine you're one of those BBC reporter-presenters who uses Twitter as part of their reporting and includes 'BBC' in their Twitter handle. Then imagine that you're also  one of those BBC reporter-presenters who is highly opinionated and one-sided on Twitter. The rules on impartiality that the BBC applies to its employees on Twitter (and Facebook) don't seem to unduly bother such a hypothetical BBC reporter-presenter, and on she steams. 

Say she's based in Washington and reporting about US politics, this is the kind of person who is so partisan that she would tweet huge numbers of tweets and re-tweets about the alleged sexual misdemeanours of a Republican candidate (all critical of him) but would tweet very few about the alleged sexual misdemeanours of a Democratic politician - and many of the latter would be statements by the politician, re-tweets of people praising the politician or the BBC reporter-presenter herself using that politician to criticise the sitting Republican president herself. 

Such is the very behaviour of the face of the BBC in the United States, Katty Kay. 

The hilarious thing about this is that ultra-partisan Katty has now had the cheek to post a one-sided rant on the BBC News website...

Its theme? The awfulness of partisanship. 

Or to be more accurate,  the awfulness of Republican partisanship.

Yes really. 

She rails against US Republicans and their supporters for being partisan and blindsided by their one-sidedness.

Not for one second does it appear to have crossed her mind that she herself is far from immune from the charge of 'tribalism', doubtless seeing herself as the embodiment of non-partisan reasonableness. And yet here she is posting a BBC News website piece that is itself thoroughly partisan and  blindsided by its author's one-sidedness.

Oh would some Power the gift give her, to see herself as others see her!