Remembrance of Recent Mamories...

Times change. 

Long gone are the days of Sir Robin Bowtie, Charles 'Hot Cheeks' Wheeler, Eric Morecambe of Morecambe fame, counting-in-and-out Brian O'Hanra O'Hanrahan, and Martin 'Man In The White Pants' Bell. 

And the days of John Simpers (Liberator of Kabul) and Dame Kate Adeeee of the Beeee Beeee Ceeee are numbered too.

We now live in the BBC Age of Marianna Spring, named after the BBC's senior disinformation reporter, where 'look at me!' selfies from BBC staff are legion. 

Indeed - as a sexist might say - one of the least onerous curses of tracking BBC bias on Twitter is that of being inadvertently obliged to see numerous BBC females posting endless selfies of themselves, frequently pouting. 

Cue: Industrial-scale lipstick, huge close-up smiles, gleaming teeth to outshine the work of an ancient Greek dental hygienist siren, clingy dresses so tight they'd put conscientious boa constrictors to shame, legs stretching to infinity and far, far beyond, and, most of all, GLAM. 

They love themselves, these BBC ladies, bless them. And they absolutely love all the appreciative 'You look beautiful' relies too. 

I'd love to know what Dame Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey, now departed, make of all this. Whither old-school BBC feminism?

Here's a tweet this very evening from BBC Trending boss Mike Wendling's underling and star reporter Marianna tweeting about her hair:

Call me old-fashioned, but her wonderful hair wasn't the only thing I noticed. I also noticed her smile.

And, even as an impartiality fan, I really, really don't want to see her boss and possible puppet master, Mike Wendling, for balance's sake, glammed up in tight lycra showing off his BBC-friendly 'lower man rack'. 

The bulk of the replies to Marianna's tweet tonight are of this kind:

• You look fantastic. I'm so happy I've found someone such as yourself who is focusing on the harmful effects of online conspiracies and abuse. Thank you for your work.
• Green suits you. Thanks for your hard work x
• Looking lovely!
• Fab hair. Looking forward to watching the programmes.

As far as mainstream outlets go, media-wise, it's a different, less serious and less intelligent age perhaps, despite - in the BBC's case - its present licence fee funding. 

Paging poor, increasingly-cancelled, ex-BBC regular Germaine Greer. Wonder what she makes of all this? 

I rather miss Germaine, lost from the BBC during the Trans wars. 

Who can reply? We can

It begins as a Twitter trail, but goes much further...

Mike Wendling, 'Editor of BBC Trending and the BBC News team investigating disinformation', took to Twitter this morning to promote a perfectly-balanced-sounding BBC News website piece headlined Mandatory vaccinations: Three reasons for and against.

That's one heck of an impartial-sounding title.

A chap called Robin Lee, 'writer and journalist - based in London', duly replied, ''This article is a disgrace''. 

To which Mike [after first popping on his Who can reply? People Mike Wendling follows or mentioned can reply message to limit the conversation] replied:

I guess if someone was completely ideologically opposed to covid vaccines for some reason, they might have that opinion about an interesting and balanced story on a matter of public debate.'

Robin replied, ''There was nothing balanced about that article''.

I will lay my cards on the table before continuing...

I had my booster jab today, and was perfectly happy to do so, and hope that I'm helping by doing so. And I'm not where many people hereabouts are on the issue of lockdowns. I'm one of those cautious types. And I'm as far from being an 'anti-vaxxer' as it's humanly possible to be. But I don't want people forced into having vaccines and I'm seriously alarmed by the draconian actions of some governments abroad, as cited in the BBC article, to cajole and punish refusers. 

So, knowing that, here's my take on this BBC article: 

Despite its promising title and Mike Wendling's protestations, it is far from balanced. 

In fact, it's almost a template parody of BBC impartiality. 

It begins by framing the argument and casting the actions of those many foreign governments enforcing vaccinations in a positive light, as if they're behaving reasonably and proportionately, thus implying that if so many reasonable governments from France to New Zealand to Canada are moving in the direction of compelling vaccines why shouldn't we?  

Then come three FOR points, alternating with three AGAINST points. 

Read them for yourselves and you will see straightaway that FOR Point No.1, Vaccines save lives, is straightforwardly a FOR case.

Then comes AGAINST Point No.1, There will be resistance. And this, in contrast, is also a FOR case scantily dressed up as an AGAINST case. It says, ''The point is, whatever a government does, it will face opposition'' and then piles on two experts, one presenting the 'resistors' as being emotional, the other neutrally summarising both the FOR and AGAINST cases in a single sentence. A photo of a 'gammon' with a placard saying THIS IS WAR comes midway.

So far, so unbalanced. 

It goes on. 

FOR Point No.2, We've exhausted other options..., even has a graph to support its point. It's another pure FOR section.

AGAINST Point No.2, ...or maybe not just yet, is the best yet. It begins with a classic bit of BBC 'impartiality', pretending to be an AGAINST point but starting by basically ruling the argument over in favour of FOR:

While there is a strong health argument in favour of mandatory vaccinations, it is not the only way to boost levels.

Do you see what I mean about this being ''almost a template parody of BBC impartiality''?

FOR Point No.3, End the cycle of lockdowns, is one obviously designed in a rather blatantly propagandist way to appeal to those opposed to lockdowns whilst being a FOR argument. An expert is on hand to agree with the BBC line. Midway comes a video when a passionate case is made for people to get their vaccines. 

And the final AGAINST Point No.3, It could prove counterproductive, is simply weird - and very BBC. It's the only AGAINST case this BBC piece presents as if it's a genuine concern. It features a couple of experts worrying that mandatory schemes might embolden conspiracy theorists and nasty right-wing political parties. 

Seriously, if Mike Wendling believes this piece is genuinely ''balanced'' then Marianna ought to be be pursuing him down the rabbit hole armed with Elmer Fudd's shotgun accusing him of 'FAKE NEWS'. 

The BBC reporter here, Thom Poole, is new to me, He's another BBC 'senior journalist'. 

'"Debate"? Not a thing we do.'

Mike Wendling, head of  BBC Trending and the BBC's Disinformation Unit, takes note:

We Are Freedom: I have a great idea for a debate on BBC News. Mike Wendling and Marianna Spring vs Dr Anthony Hinton and Prof Carl Heneghan. Let’s settle “the science” once and for all. Come on BBC “disinformation” journalists. You can make this happen… #BBCMassDebate

Mike Wendling: Weird idea that impartial journalists should go around "debating" people with clear partisan views. Interview perhaps but "debate"? Not a thing we do. But I get it, lots of people screaming for blood. Noted.

#hasthebbcfactcheckedthisyet (starring Mike Wendling)

Here's an interesting exchange (h/t Guest Who at Biased BBC):

BBC Trending: "Fake news has real consequences". Listen to our summary of the last year or so with Mike Wendling and Marianna Spring [linking to BBC Radio 4 - A Year of Misinformation].  

Tooth2Power: Just read this quote: “Watching the BBC News Channel earlier and the anchor reported that Trump was leaving office with the lowest approval ratings of any US President ever. She quoted a figure of 34%. This is a blatant lie.” #hasthebbcfactcheckedthisyet

Mike Wendling (BBC Trending, replying to Tooth2Power): You'd have to give me the exact citation. However, this is broadly in line with a number of public opinion surveys. As you might expect, some have the number higher, some lower.

Mike Wendling - not only the boss of BBC Trending but also the head honcho at the BBC's disinformation unit - linked his reply to an ongoing tracker from FiveThirtyEight (Nate Silver's famous polling company), presumably in support of his point.

But, bizarrely, when you click on his link it shows that Donald Trump is now at 38.6% and has only ever dipped to 38% in recent years. 

In fact, he's never been at 34% in the long-term poll tracker Mike Wendling linked to, so I'm not sure quite why Mike thought that helped his argument. 

Of course, it's easy to show the boss of BBC Trending undermining his own case - and his disinformation-checking unit's reputation too - with a slipshod link, but what about Mike's own demand on Tooth2Power - because Tooth2Power, it seems, HAS to provide the BBC man with "the exact citation"?

Well, the discussion is still going on:

Tooth2Power: I don’t have to give you anything. And given the citation is from another source I am seeking confirmation upon, and is from the same office as you, maybe you would be so kind as to check if and who said it. And then the surveys you refer to - to assess why this ‘broad’ number chosen. 

Mike Wendling: I was only trying to answer your question. The News Channel broadcasts 24 hours a day so you'll understand I can't watch all programme to find something that you say was broadcast "earlier". Among those surveys I'm sure you'll find a credible source with the exact number. Or did you not really want an answer to your question, and were rather trying to score some sort of political point? In which case I can't help you.

H'm.

Weirdly enough, I found one example of the famous citation on the BBC News Channel very easily - and without either licence fee funding or a team of researchers:

BBC News Channel (20 Jan, 11:44 am) - Joanna Gosling: Bryan, as we're hearing, the Biden/Harris administration will undo so much of what Trump did through executive order. Also, obviously, Democrats control both houses of Congress and Trump is going out with the lowest rating of any outgoing president according to the polling, 34%. Is he now going to be consigned to history politically? Could he ever come back within the Republican party?

I thought I'd butt in and pass that on to both Mike and Tooth2Power. 

To help Mike Wendling out even more, I think I know where the divine Joanna (we Craigs are known for fancying Joanna Gosling) - or her scriptwriters - got that from. Brian Klaas, author of The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy, was on BBC Breakfast at 7:17 am and used that very helpful statistic. I'm guessing someone at the BBC picked up on it, liked it, and ran with it as The figure. 

*******

Update 27/1 - It looks as if Mike Wendling, having been given the citation he was asking for, decided to ignore it and take offence instead.

Tooth2Power replied today to Marianna Spring's Radio 4 plug:

Tooth2Power: Can’t wait. But to be accurate, even BBC Radio 4 alone has been doing it a lot more than just a year.

Mike Wendling, having fallen silent, returned to the fray:

Mike Wendling: You go from what appears to be a legit question to outright accusations w/o any evidence or substance. Good bye. 

And Tooth2Power then replied to both me - and Mike Wendling. 

Tooth2Power: No problem here. If possibly elsewhere. Seems things have reached a natural break somehow. Have they for you? Thank you for the facts requested. It was all getting interesting. Then someone seems to have decided it needs stopping. One supposes in that trusted, transparent BBC way.

To wendle or not to wendle?

The BBC editor in the not-so-hot seat on this week's Newswatch was blog favourite Mike Wendling of BBC Trending. 

I thought it worth transcribing the whole segment as I found it interesting. The subject under discussion was: Is the BBC News website (including BBC Trending) dumbing down?

One thing I noted, in passing, was Samira Ahmed seeming to signal her view of one critic's complaint by introducing him as "fulminating". At least she didn't say "frothing at the mouth". 

As for Mike Wendling, well, I think he put up a pretty good defence of himself and of the need for light as well as shade in the BBC's news output. I was even won over by his stout defence of the "My boyfriend dumped me but how do I tell my cat?" story.

I also spotted that the BBC journalist who wrote the cat story, Dhruti Shah, thanked her boss on Twitter for sticking up for her. I do admire a boss who sticks up for his underlings, however much I'd like BBC editors to go off message:

Thanks Mike Wendling for defending my journalism. I still remain proud of my BBC Trending cats piece. It was always about taking a different look at relationships and it succeeded.

In an unrelated point, however, the BBC's Dhruti isn't a happy bunny today. Here's another of her tweets:

All this talk of diversity - people want you because they want you to tick their boxes and make them look good; but what they don't want is what your "diversity" represents - difference. When your difference starts spilling out the box... you are squashed. It's an awful feeling.

Wonder what brought that on?

Going back to Newswatch...

Naturally, I'd have preferred the focus on Newswatch to be on matters of bias - Is the BBC News website too 'woke'? Does it push various agendas? Does it pursue the youth audience too much? Is BBC Trending far too like an offshoot of The Guardian? Does it pander to certain obsessions, like the far-right and Russian interference in UK/US elections? What does it miss? 

Anyhow, here's the transcript, prefaced by a screengrab of a particularly fine 'look to camera' from Mike Wendling....

*******

Samira Ahmed: Now, last week, an article appeared on the home page of the BBC website which sparked something of a debate about the value of the Corporation's online output. "My boyfriend dumped me but how do I tell my cat?", read the headline, and the story that followed prompted fresh allegations that BBC News online was dumbing down. Neville Mind wondered:

"Anyone else bored by the lazy journalism? BBC describing what someone said on Twitter about their cat is not news".

Nigel Cummings agreed, fulminating:

"More rubbish from the national disgrace that is the BBC. Australia on fire, Iran poised for more action, Syria in uproar and they publish rubbish about a woman wondering how to tell a cat that her boyfriend has left her. It's hard to believe the UK public pay a licence for this dross!" 

And Bryn Harris widened out that criticism: 

"The sheer triviality of the BBC News website these days: 'My boyfriend dumped me but how to tell my cat?' 'Beauty YouTuber reveals she's transgender', 'Girl's lemonade stand for bushfire relief a hit'. What the hell is going on?" 

Well, the feature about the boyfriend and the cat came from BBC Trending, a strand devoted, as it says, to in-depth reporting on the world of social media. Their stories appear across a number of BBC social media outlets. On Facebook and Twitter, as you would expect, but also via podcasts, on World Service radio and on television. Recent examples of the work range from women equate being trafficked online to the rise of the Brazilian butt lift. With me to explain more is Mike Wendling, the editor of BBC Trending. Thank you for coming on Newswatch. The story did strike a bit of a nerve, I think it's fair to say, is 'How to tell my cat my boyfriend dumped me?' really what qualifies as a new story for BBC News? 

Mike Wendling: Yes. Let me explain it like this. News, all news, our website, newspapers, any news outlet, usually has light and shade, right? Feature stories that might be a little bit ighter and stories that might be a little bit heavier. The bit that I'm responsible for, the very small part of the BBC News website, BBC Trending, has also recently reported on Russian interference in the UK election. We had a viewer, a reader who mentioned Australian bushfires, well, we published a story that was very popular about misinformation online about the Australian bushfires, about a discussion on social media in Iran about the downing of the Ukrainian airliner. So, you know, there is a whole range of material. Now, I want to actually address what's actually in the story, because I feel like a lot of the reaction came, not necessarily about the story itself, but about the headline. You can say, oh, it's a silly thing about a post about a woman and her relationship with her cat. But if you frame it in a different way, if you say that it's actually about grief, relationships, break-up, and mental health, which essentially is what the story was about, and it got into these issues and we spoke to experts about those issues, than it looks a little bit less like fluff or light or clickbait. 

Samira Ahmed: OK. And suppose people might say, yes, BBC Trending overwhelmingly covers quite seriously stories, but isn't it important that anything should tell you about wider social issues and global concerns. You ate saying it does, just the headline was misleading, because there are stories which people feel don't have that defence. 

Mike Wendling: Well, that may be the case, but I don't think that this story qualifies, to be completely honest with you. I think that it was a perfectly legitimate thing to take a look at this issue. It started a wider conversation on social media, and we look at those. Now, all of the conversations that we look at on social media are going to be about say, Russian misinformation in the UK election, this is simply a different topic and a simply different way of looking at social media. 

Samira Ahmed: It's interesting you say 'starting a conversation'. People are saying 'is that BBC News's job to be starting a conversation which might seem trivial, and which other outlets can do, that BBC News should be focused on clear news'. 

Mike Wendling: So, what we do, what we aim to do with every piece, right, is to take a look at what people are interested in, which is actually one of the fundamental definitions of news, things that people are interested in, and crucially, not just sort of repeat, you know, it's not like we just sort of put up that woman's post, We add value. We look at the issues behind it. We talk to the people who originally may have produced the post. Sometimes, we go to the sources of disinformation or misinformation online. That's where we add value. That's our purpose. 

Samira Ahmed: Is the real controversy underneath all this that there is a generational divide among BBC consumers about what counts as news? 

Mike Wendling: Well, I have no idea how old the people who are writing in are. But I suspect that, and the numbers bear this out, that a lot of the people who are reading this particular story were younger. It was younger in general than the people who read BBC Online. So, that could be a part of it. Look, I mean, we run a general service here at the BBC, right? So, you know, if you do not want or are not interested in our coverage in this particular area about relationships or pets or whatever, you may be interested in our political coverage. You may be interested in hard news, the day to day news that appears on BBC Online, which of course is the mainstay of the website. It's a general service, and we provide part of that service to, quite frankly, an audience that has been ignored by a lot of the BBC for a long time. 

Samira Ahmed: Mike Wendling, thank you so much. 

Into the sewer

Meanwhile, in the more sewer-like parts of social media, elements of the left and the Islamic community have been heavily promoting the false flag concept. 'Isn't it too convenient that this attack happened during an election, just like the last terrorist attack at London Bridge?' 'Why is there a tweet from Boris Johnson that is time-stamped some five hours too early?' (I remember that one from past right-wing false flag allegations! It's something to do with time zones and Twitter default settings.) And there are Corbyn supporters accusing the police of 'state murder'. And there are others blaming the Conservative Party for producing a fake Jeremy Corbyn tweet (saying 'A man was murdered by British Police in Broad daylight'). Maybe BBC Trending can look into this sewer and report back?

Update: Ah, right on cue. I see BBC Trending's Mike Wendling has picked up on one element of this - yes, the fake Jeremy Corbyn tweet:

There’s a fake Jeremy Corbyn London bridge tweet that appears to have come from an anti -Labour troll account. Not huge traction, but it’s also floating on Whatsapp where who know.

I did wonder if that would be the thing that caught BBC Trending's eye (the Right rather than the Left's disgusting behaviour). 

Freedom for fools

It's not often that BBC Trending's Mike Wendling veers away from his pet subject - the far-right on the internet - but #wreathgate has tempted him to do so. Linking to the BBC's Newswatch, he's tweeted:

The real story of the PM, the wreath and the footage on Breakfast is actually very dull and will not go viral, because it’s not nearly as sexy as a half baked #wreathgate conspiracy theory.

And I agree with him. He's right about that. It won't. (Despite my post about it!).

Where I part company with him is that I favour argument and mockery in dealing with such conspiracy-mongering folly. He - as his following tweet shows - inclines towards censorship: i.e. the tech companies 'doing something' to stop it:

This is a major problem with our information ecosystem, and atm its {sic} very difficult to see what anybody (other than a few dudes in Silicon Valley) can do about it.

Fools will always be among us. Getting the dudes in Silicon Valley to prevent them from being able to use social media to accuse the BBC of deliberately inserting the wrong footage of Boris Johnson at the wreath-laying service at the Cenotaph in order to cover up for his wreath-laying ineptness (because of their 'pro-Tory bias') isn't the right way to go, at least according to my way of thinking. And I find it rather worrying that a senior BBC journalist seems to think it is. 

BBC Tending

Here's a little social media activity from this very afternoon, featuring the aforementioned Mike Wendling of BBC Trending:

• BBC Trending: Last week journalist Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) from Vox News posted a video about the anti-gay and racist abuse he was receiving from rival video-maker Steven Crowder on YouTube. Now YouTube says anti-gay slurs do not break its rules.
• DB: I see Mike Wendling & his BBC Trending team of SJWs are joining the left-wing media's attempt to shut down @scrowder's very popular YouTube channel. (Note the @BBCTrending tweet doesn't include [Steven] Crowder's twitter handle.)
• Iconoclast: For info: Maza's bio: "I write Strikethrough for @voxdotcom. Marxist pig. Tucker Carlson is a white supremacist." Nice huh? Vox is a far left fake news outfit, so support from BBC Trending & Alt-left hunter Mike Wendling not altogether surprising I guess.
• Mike Wendling, BBC: Confused. Did you read the story? Is there factual inaccuracy? (Also, why so angry?) 

It all relates to this BBC News website article: 

For the purposes of this blog, the question is more 'Is it biased?' 

Well, the choice of subject is 'very BBC' (identity politics, bad social media, right-wingers 'in the wrong'), but the story is the story. And the BBC could be reporting it fairly. 

Look though at the opening paragraph:

YouTube is one of many companies that has given its logo a rainbow-themed makeover to show support for LGBT rights - but, underneath the colourful veneer, a row has erupted over how the video-sharing site enforces its own hate-speech policies.

And then look at the closing paragraph:

With LGBT Pride Month just kicking off, it will be interesting to see how many other organisations will adopt rainbows across their brands, without necessarily backing the queer communities they are desperately marketing themselves to.

Though the first paragraph comes from the by-line-free main part of the report, the last comes from the closing 'Analysis' by the BBC's LGBT correspondent (oh yes, that really is his job title) Ben Hunte, and the narrative arc of the article is as perfect as a rainbow.

As DB and Iconoclast say, YouTube is surely being pressured by the BBC here to follow their favoured agenda here, don't you think?

That whole closing 'Analysis' from LGBT BBC Ben runs as follows:

Many professional LGBT video-makers will be familiar with uploading material online and instantly being tormented by certain audiences, solely because of their sexuality.  

YouTube's take on this will disappoint the LGBT community.  

It will surprise them that hurtful things considered hate speech and punishable by law in real life can simply be labelled "debate" online, and not require any repercussions.  

With LGBT Pride Month just kicking off, it will be interesting to see how many other organisations will adopt rainbows across their brands, without necessarily backing the queer communities they are desperately marketing themselves to.

You might defend Ben here with 'The Katya Adler Defence'. Just as Katya is tasked with reporting what the EU says, so Ben is surely only reporting what the LGBT community are saying? Unfortunately, he lets himself (and the BBC down) with that word "desperately" in the final paragraph. It betrays his feelings.

As Mike Wendling might say, 'Also why so angry, Ben?'

Mike Wendling on Carl of Akkad

Here's BBC Trending's Mike Wendling on recent UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin, as featured in a piece in Scotland's The Herald:

“He’s cultivated a fan base, he’s cultivated quite a passionate fan base, but he’s not alt-right. He’s explicitly said that he doesn’t believe in the alt-right.  

“On the other hand he’s obviously very offensive. He claims to be for free speech but it’s more specific than that, it’s not really about free speech it’s about the freedom to offend people.

“If you have a message that gets so many people riled up then surely you can convert that into a political message if you do it the right way. But maybe that is the problem, maybe it’s simply a fact that the actual campaign is not as compelling as your YouTube videos.

“The significance is that they are people with large YouTube followings, who come from fairly provocative, offensive, or extreme right positions and they have not been able to translate that into a political movement.” 

[Mr Wendling added he has not conveyed] “any sort of philosophy” [during his campaign]. “All he’s known for is a rape joke.”  

“There’s always been a disconnect between developing a large social media presence and turning that into a mainstream electoral success. 

“The jury is definitely still out on the actual influence of social media.” 

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...

Continuing...

The previous post is, shock horror!, 'fake news'.

Well, as far as I'm aware anyhow - though I wouldn't put any of it past the BBC.

It was prompted by Rod Liddle's latest Spectator piece about the BBC's adaptation of Watership Down, which says the following:

I’ve just watched the four-part animated series of Watership Down, shown on the BBC, with my daughter. She was slightly more aghast than me to discover that the aforementioned Bigwig was a bruv from the ’hood. And still more repelled by the elevation of a minor female rabbit character into a doughty campaigner for justice, the transgendering of a rabbit called Strawberry, and, most hilariously, the does calling each other ‘sister’ and keening a song of freedom in an orgy of #MeToo victimhood — their importance to the book she too had loved vastly exaggerated for fatuous political reasons

That all sounds very BBC. 

And it follows in the wake of a dramatisation of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders which its writer declared to be a parable on 1930s xenophobia and fascism in the UK with relevance to Brexit Britain, and a Les Miserables that even its star felt was ahistorical in the 'diversity' of its casting.

Ah but, but don't forget impartial, left-leaning BBC Trending editor Mike Wendling...

Yes, BBC drama may have a massive, massive bias towards his way of thinking, despite all that 'BBC impartiality' thing, but aren't people like us 'snowflakes' for objecting?

(Answer: No).

Ex-cor-iate! Ex-cor-iate!

OMG!

Oh yes, I did watch Doctor Who on New Year's Day, and it featured a Dalek. 

(Spoilers). The most terrifying creature in the universe was eventually defeated by a microwave oven and by the love of a dyspraxic son for his previously deadbeat Afro-Caribbean dad - the very same deadbeat Afro-Caribbean dad who'd earlier come up with the microwave oven idea and, thus, already saved Planet Earth - even before the heart-warming climax where his son (in return) saved him from the defeated but vengeful octopus-like naked Dalek. At which very point the anti-violence Doctor let the gobby Dalek piece of nude calamari fall into the Sun and die a horribly painful death.

I was at this point originally going to write:

No offence, but the writing by Chris Chibnall was so clunky that it almost feels insulting to the word 'clunky' to associate it with such, er, not-very-good writing. And, frankly, if the word 'clunky' wants to report me to the police for a hate crime here I'll fully understand.

(My plotting is impaired, I cannot write! My plotting is impaired, I cannot write! I cannot write, my plotting is impaired! I cannot write, my plotting is impaired! Warning! Warning! Emergency!) 

But that would be far too rude to Chris, so I won't.

That said, it did feature this 'classic' piece of writing from Our Chris, after our Dalek friend had done something bad to the internet:

White working class kid 1: The Wi-Fi's gone off!
White working class mum: Everything's gone off. No Wi-Fi, no phone signal. It's all down.
White working class kid 2: Not even Netflix?
White working class mum: Nothing.
White working class kid 1: What do we do?
White working class mum: [shocked] I suppose... ..we'll have to have a conversation.
Both white working class kids: [horrified] What?! 

Who needs Ibsen, or Shakespeare, or Tom Stoppard, or Frank Muir and Denis Norden?

The Twitter reaction was overwhelmingly of the opinion that the whole thing was rubbish and a low point for Doctor Who - and, for once, the bulk of Twitter opinion was right.

One tweet that made me laugh came from Mark J Farnon: 

BBC: Lets make Daleks scary again! (For the umpteenth time.) 

Chris Chibnall: How about one turning people into mindless slaves, with a shell made of farm scrap, that can be almost destroyed by a microwave oven? 

BBC: Yeah, go on then!

Meanwhile, even the Guardian, though broadly supportive, was wise to the programme's politicking:

So liberal-friendly has the show been, it was a surprise in this special that the Dalekian inner jelly didn’t turn out to be called Jacob Rees-Blob, or that when the extraterrestrial glop was enclosed in a plastic bag, it wasn’t the packaging that proved to be the biggest threat to the planet. 

With 88 days to go until the UK is supposed to leave the EU, however, there was one pointed political reference. When the Doctor tried to call on the cross-border Unified Intelligence Taskforce to help save Sheffield from extermination, she learned that Britain was no longer a member after falling out with her “major international partners”. Another satirical gag was aimed at the cross-planetary force threatening to exterminate the BBC.

Ah but, Mark Lawson of the Guardian, hold you mouth! All of us, hold our mouths! 

Impartial, left-leaning BBC Trending editor Mike Wendling has something to say, so pray silence please!

Yes, BBC Trending guru Mike Wendling sent out this highly characteristic, ultra-impartial tweet the other day to set you Mark, and all the rest of us mere mortals, straight on the matter:

As our old friend D.B. replied, "Let me know when the BBC (paid for by threat of imprisonment using presumption of guilt) shoehorns anti-EU pro-Brexit propaganda into its drama output. I won't hold my breath."

Reporter or activist?

Senior BBC Trending journalist Mike Wendling is still busily speaking his brains on Twitter, and giving the present President's son a thorough US-based-BBC-reporter-style far-from-impartial piece of snarky editorialising, bless him:

I've Been Wendling My Way Back To You Mike

Imagine (if you can) that you're a senior BBC journalist - say (purely hypothetically) one who played a major part in setting up the corporation's hip-and-happening BBC Trending project.

And then imagine yourself deciding to write a book about something related to your field as a BBC journalist - maybe something looking at the political extremes of social media.

Now...

Would you, being determined to be seen as impartial, write a book focused on (a) only the extreme right, (b) only the extreme left, or (c) both extremes?  

If you make the brave decision to focus on either (a) only the extreme right or (b) only the extreme left, would you, as an impartial BBC journalist, make every effort to appear to be reporting them from a detached, disinterested but intrigued position? Or would you instead try to make your readers see that these are people who deserve to be disapproved of (just as Nazis, fascists and all shades of communists need to be disapproved of)?

Plus, would you, as a hypothetical senior BBC journalist, use your BBC-branded Twitter feed to plug your book, or not? (If you're even allowed to.)

And would you, as a hypothetical senior BBC journalist, use your BBC-branded Twitter feed to focus almost exclusively on the subject matter of your book or, instead, make every effort to show yourself to be broadminded and scrupulously impartial by focusing on extreme manifestations from 'the other side' (the side you've chosen not to write about) just as much? Or, if not 'just as much', at least 'pretty often'? Or, at a push, at least 'a few times'? 

In other words, would you go out of your way to be seen to be being fair-minded even if you're not being anywhere near 'balanced' and don't think you should be 'balanced' in this case? 

And would you, as a hypothetical senior BBC journalist, use your BBC-branded Twitter feed to display your views or to conceal them? 

And surely you, as a hypothetical senior BBC journalist, wouldn't think, even for a second, of regularly going into battle against the people you write about in your book and repeatedly mocking them or linking to/or retweeting rude critics of them or provocatively calling them names without providing any balancing tweets, thus risking seeming like a partisan activist?

And - questions, questions! decisions, decisions! - would you choose as your book publisher a niche publisher strongly associated with the opposite political extreme (whether it be far-right or far-left) to that of which you yourself (as a hypothetical senior BBC journalist) are engaged in writing a book about? Surely you wouldn't, would you? 

I only ask because I follow BBC Trending guru Mike Wendling's Twitter feed and his feed is emblazoned with images of his book, and links to his book, and various other plugs for his book. 

(His book is called Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House - and, yes, he's not meaning the Obama White House there). 

And, though his book is about the alt-right, his Twitter feed doesn't seem remotely dispassionate and disinterested. It reads instead like an activist's scrapbook of scraps - including his own prized scraps with alt-righters. 

He feels heavily engaged. Very heavily. So much so that he he regularly snarks at his alt-righters, attempts to rile them and even calls them names. 

It's an astonishing read (for anyone who can bear Twitter). 

It's all very exciting, but (I don't think it can be doubted) quite some way away - the distance from Earth to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe perhaps? - from being considered even remotely 'BBC impartial'. 

And, yes, Mike from the BBC really did publish his book about the far-right with a far-left publisher (as MB noted on the open thread).

As they probably say on Proxima Centauri, it's impartiality, Baron Hall of Birkenhead, of Birkenhead, in the County of Cheshire, but not as we know it.

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!