The BBC and Julian Assange

In the decade or so since this blog began many people's take on Julian Assange has changed. A decade or so ago he was reviled on blogs like this and treated favourably by the BBC. Now he's grudgingly admired on blogs like this and treated not so favourably by the BBC. And, for the record, I've undergone quite a change of view about him too. 

The news today that Priti Patel has given the go-ahead for Mr Assange to be extradited is receiving muted coverage from the BBC. The BBC News website briefly featured it on their home page, but it's slipped off into the remoter parts of the site already. A few years back they'd have kept it as a main story.

Here is BBC home and legal correspondent Dominic Casciani's 'analysis' for the BBC News website today. Please see how you read it, because I read it as [most unusually] sort-of backing Ms Patel, painting her as legally having no other alternative:

This decision is the most important stage so far in Mr Assange's long legal battle.

Judges in London have already ruled that the US's request was lawful and that the American authorities would care for him properly in prison.

Now, the home secretary has carried out her role in the complicated legal process by signing off the US request.

Her officials said she was legally bound to do so because Mr Assange does not face the death penalty - nor does his case fall into the other narrow range of categories for her to refuse to approve the transfer.

In practice, this means there is nothing to stop Washington sending a jet to pick up Mr Assange - unless he can win on appeal.

If his lawyers cannot get a hearing back before judges in London, he could petition the European Court of Human Rights.

Ten years ago it ruled extradition to the US would not breach human rights - but expect the Wikileaks founder to try fresh arguments not heard back then.

If, as I see it, the BBC has largely gone cold on Julian Assange, there are exceptions. The BBC's World Affairs Editor, a certain John Simpson, remains loyal and has come out for his publicly-declared friend once more today, ignoring the BBC's guidelines on commenting on matters of public controversy and tweeting:

Journalists in Britain and elsewhere will be very worried by the decision to extradite Julian Assange to the US — both for his own well-being & for the precedent it creates for journalism worldwide.

A tweet from ex-BBC/Newsnight whistleblower Meirion Jones tonight, meanwhile, casts a clarifying light on how things were a decade or so ago, when views of Julian Assange were rather different:

All media that were in on Wikileaks should be calling for Assange extradition to be stopped. That includes BBC - I know because I was courier between David Leigh's Kings Place bunker & Beeb World Affairs Unit for diplo leaks ahead of release 29/10/10.

Whistle-blowing the bias (and working with Greenpeace)

Newsnight's former head of investigations Meirion Jones has had quite a good press in the past year from right-wingers interested in the topic of BBC bias, doubtless due to his very strong criticisms of the BBC for 'forcing him out' (along with other BBC whistle-blowers) in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Now it's the turn of left-wing critics of the BBC to laud the former BBC Man. They are now busily tweeting about his article on Open Democracy's Our Beeb page: The BBC, Savile and Investigations.

Here's the part of his piece which relates to the question, 'Is the BBC biased?':

There’s another problem. Investigations aim to hold power to account, and one of the most powerful institutions is the government. People ask me is the BBC biased, and my answer is that the fundamental corporate bias is pro-government, regardless of party. It’s the licence fee – stupid. Of course not every story will be pro-government but the overwhelming narrative will be. 

When I was on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in the late ‘80s I’d regularly get calls from Margaret Thatcher’s party chairman, Norman Tebbit, while the programme was on air. He’d ring up to try to influence the daily agenda. Alistair Campbell and his merry men were equally effective under Tony Blair and their humbling of the BBC after the David Kelly affair only made the corporation more submissive. And now there’s a Tory government so the BBC is pro-Tory. Take the junior doctors’ strike this month. Newsnight, to its credit, ran a MORI poll showing 66% public in favour, 18% against. But on the day of the action Today trawled for anti-strike patients, and the BBC News at Ten ran two negative voices from ordinary people, and no-one in favour.  

The only periods when I saw the BBC’s loyalty to the government wavering was under John Major after Black Wednesday, and during the Gordon Brown administration. In each case a cynic might say the corporation could see the PMs were dead on their feet, and the other side was about to be elected and control the BBC purse strings.

Incidentally, if you wonder what Meirion Jones himself has been up to since leaving the BBC, his article informs us that he's "spent the last six months helping Greenpeace set up an investigations unit". 

I'd expect nothing less from a former BBC man!