Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble

A lady who favours BBC Radio 4, for some reason

One of the things I like about The Spectator is its range of opinion. 

I mean, yes, I'd probably prefer James Delingpole to do the Radio reviews each week rather than Kate Chisholm, but I like reading drippingly-pro-BBC Kate too. 

And whilst reading her today I came across this: 

I wonder what Michelle Obama, the former First Lady who remade that role in her own image, would make of Hannah’s attempts on The Archers to embody the 2018 version of an empowered, liberated woman? Does Obama secretly listen in to Ambridge each night? Has she been impressed by the soap’s attempt, via Hannah, to address the #MeToo movement? Does that explain why she blessed Radio 4 (rather than an online audio provider) with the great coup of reading herself from her new autobiography, Becoming?

Now, I don't listen to The Archers myself but I know at least one of you does. So, did you spot the very BBC "attempt, via Hannah, to address the #MeToo movement"?  (On the flipping Archers?)

(And if I know the BBC, you'll probably have found it very hard NOT to spot it, as it will almost certainly have been laid on with an American-tractor-sized trowel.) 

As for the lovely Michelle having "blessed Radio 4", well, I suspect Radio 4 laid verbal rose-scented red carpets in front of her mouth to entice it to move so eloquently on their behalf  for the Book of the Week spot. 

And maybe she just read all those many, many, many lovely BBC articles about her over the years and, thus, developed a soft spot for the very friendly BBC.

If so, I'm guessing Melania won't be quite so personally motivated to say 'yes' in years to come.

A Role Model for the BBC

Michelle Obama visiting a school in (Bangladesh) Tower Hamlets, London

That biased Newsnight coverage...

...of the 'missing' jihadi wives and children, who left ISBAD (the Islamic State of Bradford And Dewsbury) to join ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).

(...as outlined in the previous post...)

...came in the same edition of Newsnight as that appalling Evan Davis interview with Israeli opposition leader, Tzipi Livni - which Sue rightly eviscerated here earlier this week.

I saw some left-wing Twitterers using the hashtag #bbcbias against the BBC for simply interviewing Tzipi Livni - but that says much more about the Israel-hating lunacy of those left-wing Twitterers than the BBC, or BBC bias.

The programme framed the issue as being about a senior Israeli politician being compelled (by Newsnight) to confront charges that Israel is like apartheid-era South Aftica, and - as Sue described - Evan Davis's subsequent interviewing of Mrs Livni was deeply hostile and his line of questioning heavily loaded against Israel. 

It was obviously meant as a hatchet job.

So...

...this one single edition of Newsnight provided plenty of fresh evidence of both the BBC's Islamophiliac bias and its chronic anti-Israel bias.

Quite an edition, eh?

All it needed was for the subsequent section of the programme to, say, drool over Michelle Obama in a heavily sycophantic way!...

...er, which is precisely what followed. As Evan Davis put in in the programme's introduction:

And the First Lady in London gets rave reviews. .What makes a first-class role model?

 ...and, in his later framing of Katie Razzall's report (looking at "the Michelle method"), after outlining Mrs Obama's day, added: 

All in all, a useful day's work, and the very model of a modern role model.

Katie said "we're all interested" when Michelle arrives in town. (Speak for yourself, Katie). 

She selected one short passage from Michelle Obama's speech for broadcast on Newsnight:

Maybe you read the news and hear what folks are saying about your religion and you wonder if people will ever see beyond your head scarf to who you really are.  

No wonder the BBC regards her as a role model! 

The one 'talking head' in Katie Razzall's report - an African-American academic - also praised Michelle Obama and talked about racism.

(Dawn French)...er... Diane Abbott

Then came a studio discussion about how great Michelle Obama is featuring...and, no, this isn't me being satirical...Labour's Diane Abbott, and Michelle Obama's biographer (and former Washington Post reporter) Peter Slavin.

Now, to be fair to Evan, he did add one slightly dissonant note - though I'm not sure the following quote helps the BBC much here!:

Evan Davis: What makes a good role model? Cos Michelle Obama...quite safe isn't she? She's fairly conventional in a way. She's not, you know, like Russell Brand as a role model, or the rappers, or..

******

That said, I did like Evan's nerdy aside:

Now, the term 'role model' was, apparently, first coined by a sociologist called Robert Merton, who died in his nineties twelve years ago. He was a role model for sociologists because he also invented the focus group, and he coined the phrase 'self-fulfilling prophecy'. Not bad for one career.

******

And, for the sake of completeness, this edition of Newsnight ended with a piece about the BBC (yes, I know!) - namely Chris Evans's appointment to replace Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear. (Evan called the former 'Chris' and 'Mr Evans' and the latter 'Clarkson').

Chris Goffey, former Top Gear presenter, was then duly interviewed to give his blessing to Chris Evans and extol the BBC's "heritage".

Chris hopes it will become less 'laddish', "deserves a bit more gravitas", and will feature more women.

Omission unconscionable

WTF?

 W The unconscionable F is going on? 

In its efforts to be impartial the BBC has decided its reports must avoid material that constitutes a ‘value judgement’. To this end it advises against using the word ‘terrorism” or describing anyone, even terrorists, as ‘terrorists’. 

The guidelines do however, allow the use of this word and its variations in reported speech. I.e., if someone uses it, and the BBC needs to include a verbatim quote from that someone in an article or report, they are to let it lie, i.e., not remove it, change it or fiddle with it at all.

Therefore it was quite odd when the BBC’s report of Michelle Obama’s speech (Our girls)  expunged the aforementioned value-judgement of a word from Mrs O’s speech, especially as she used it several times.

The BBC appears to be unaware of the fact that substituting the word ‘militant’ for the word ‘terrorist’ is arguably more of a value judgement in itself (than if they’d left it alone). Even more so because transcripts of the speech as well as the video are freely available for all to see.

Equally unconscionable is the fact that Mrs Obama herself calls the kidnappers “Terrorists” but has expunged the words “Islamist” and “Boko Haram” from her speech. 

Without context, she seems to imply that the kidnapping is a purely criminal act and nothing to do with an ideology that believes these actions are in accordance with the commandment of Allah.

As if that were not unsettling enough, neither the BBC nor the Obamas have mentioned that (according to this piece in the Spectator) most of the girls (Our girls) are Christian.

H/T BBC Watch