From Their Own Correspondent

I first began listening to From Our Own Correspondent in my late teens, back in the '80s, and I rarely missed it for years.

I liked the stories, from places familiar and unfamiliar, and I liked the way the BBC's storytellers told their stories, and I also liked learning facts about places, and the history and politics of those places, and FOOC was useful for that. 

I wasn't much troubled by questions of bias back then. 

Nowadays, however, I'm a much less frequent listener and questions of bias are (as you probably know) somewhat less far from my mind, so I have to ask - if any of you have an opinion on the matter - if you think the programme has changed as much as I think it's changed in recent years? Or is it me that's changed? 

Take today's edition, for example. 

Standing back and looking at it as objectively as I can, I can see that it still features BBC journalists who can certainly tell a good story in a stylish fashion. Today's programme included three such people: Lyse Doucet, Nick Thorpe (a master of prose) and Gabriel Gatehouse. 

Lyse Doucet's piece concerned the silent Yazidi villages of Iraq. It was powerful stuff, full of compassion, and it made me feel for the Yazidis (though, that said, I've long been sympathetic to them ever since Islamic State being persecuting them and have believed from the very start that they are the sort of refugees we should be protecting and giving refuge to). Its authoritative staccato style of delivery felt very familiar too, following (as it does) in a long FOOC tradition of that kind of delivery. (Perhaps cynically, it brought to mind Chris Morris's On the Hour/The Day Today and its satire of the language and style of war reporting). Maybe, however it was more emotive than FOOC pieces of old and less fact-focused.

Then came the rest of the pieces - a piece about Catholic sexual abuse in Chile which pretty much gave, in passing, a free pass to (liberal favourite) Pope Francis (Linda Pressly); a feminist piece about India (Vivienne Nunis); a piece from Colombia which somehow turned into a piece about indigenous peoples being spot-on about climate change (Nick Thorpe); and a piece from Sweden which equated the trolls of Scandinavian legend with supporters of the Sweden Democrats and racism (Gabriel Gatehouse) - and I just groaned.

It's like being repeatedly hit over the head with a very biased wet haddock.

Has this kind of agenda-pushing always been a part of FOOC or is it a recent thing?

Getting things wrong

The BBC hasn't exactly done its reputation for reporting much good over its coverage of the Hungarian election. 

Firstly, there was the misinterpretation of the meaning of a high turnout:

BBC One's early evening news bulletin was still reporting that "the high turnout could benefit opposition parties" as the polls closed last night. 

I follow a Twitter feed called Europe Elects, which provided updates on turnout throughout the day, and I noticed them reporting, some four to five hours before that BBC One bulletin, that Fidesz-leaning counties were performing better than opposition regions, turnout-wise so I suspected this was nonsense. Yet still the BBC ploughed on regardless, and, bizarrely, persisted in saying "the high turnout could help the opposition" as late as last night's BBC One News at Ten. 

Jenny Hill (rightly) took some flak for that tweet about a high turnout possibly leading to "greater resistance to Orban" but her colleague Nick Thorpe was entirely on the same page as her, telling the BBC News Channel that a high turnout was "important" and that an "upset" was possible.

Well, they were wrong. The historically high turnout led to a significant swing in the popular vote towards Fidesz. 

Was it wishful thinking (i.e. bias) on their parts? Or had they taken the predictions of Hungarian political 'experts' on trust?

******

Secondly, having failed to stop digging that hole, Jenny Hill then decided to start digging another one on last night's BBC One News at Ten:

We are just getting preliminary figures which suggest that Viktor Orban has done it, securing himself a third consecutive term in office. But, something has shifted. It looks as, if these figures are borne out, that his Fidesz party has a majority but it has narrowed. Something has really shifted here. It has been an extraordinary day, record turnout and some voters queuing for hours to demand change. It's as if a country is holding its breath. Tonight could, just could, affect profound change for Hungary. 

Wrong again. The only shift was towards 'no change', with Fidesz increasing its vote share and the two biggest opposition parties falling back. 

After all this I had to grin at how the BBC was introducing this story this morning:

Hungary's Viktor Orban has defied critics at home and abroad again with an impressive win in Sunday's general election. 

Never mind the "critics at home and abroad", he also "defied" the BBC!

******

The third area where the BBC fell down yesterday is frankly bizarre... 

At 9.19 am, 10.29 am, 12.26 pm and 1.21 pm on yesterday's BBC News Channel variations on the following were read out by the BBC newsreader:

Hungary will elect a new parliament today, with the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, hoping to win another term in office. He's been in power since 2003.
People in Hungary are going to the polls today, with the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, hoping to win another term in office. He's been in power since 2003.

"He's been in power since 2003" was the recurring phrase over those 4-5 hours of BBC reporting. And yet it's completely untrue. Viktor Orban hasn't been in power for the last 15 years. He was first PM from 1998-2002 and then again from 2010 onwards.  Why did it take so long for anyone at the BBC News Channel to spot this error?

******

The incompetence of the BBC's reporting here is quite something, isn't it? 

A blast from the recent past

Regular readers of our little blog will perhaps recall our previous posts about the BBC's eloquent Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe and his many impartiality-busting reports about Hungary and the migrant crisis (and Brexit). 

His support for non-European migrants illegally entering Europe and his disdain for those who oppose their coming (the Hungarian government, the bulk of the Hungarian population, many Hungarian churches) is something his BBC reporting has never bothered to disguise. 

I've not heard him for a while but there he was on today's From Our Own Correspondent and a warm breeze of bias-filled nostalgia wafted across the Danube towards me like a memory of Tokay (a false memory as I've never been lucky enough to sample any).

I listened to him bang on about the migrant situation again this morning - his voice lowering as he described the baddies who oppose the mass entrance of people with names like 'Mohammed', his voice lifting as he described those making it through Hungary's tough anti-migrant measures (including some he's happy - on what didn't some like very long's acquaintance - to call his "friend") and those helping them do so.

And those Christian churches who don't want to bring in those migrants en masse are failing to show Christian charity, according to the BBC's Nick today.

If you read BBC Nick's Twitter feed (which he doesn't link to the BBC, despite his own website saying he's been the BBC's Central Europe correspondent since 1996), you'll see that he's no more impartial there. He's pro-immigration, anti-Brexit, Islamophile, pro-Soros, anti-Orban, etc, etc. 

If you then read the detailed posts we've posted about Nick Thorpe, you'll find most of those views reflected in his official BBC reporting. 

Were I an editor on a programme like From Our Own Correspondent alarm bells would ring over concerns about bias every time Nick Thorpe was asked for a piece. Evidently, those alarm bells don't ring for the team behind From Our Own Correspondent.

Maybe, it's his eloquence and mellifluous voice. Or maybe it's just the BBC being the BBC.

Dr Usama is Leaving for Manchester

Today's From Our Own Correspondent featured yet another attack on the Hungarian government by the BBC's Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe.

In it he fulminated (in mellifluous prose) against the Hungarian government's behaviour during the migrant crisis and the "xenophobia" now rampant in Hungary. 

He then focused on one individual: a nice Syrian doctor called Dr Usama who's done great things in Hungary and who inspired one kindly old Hungarian woman to welcomed the "refugees". 

Nick just couldn't get his head round the polling evidence that barely one in five Hungarians would feel comfortable living next to an Arab. Few of them have ever met an Arab, he said. And if they did, then they would surely change their minds - just like his nice Hungarian lady, 

Nick blames the Hungarian government.

Dr Usama feels so unwelcome that he's now joining his wife, son and three of his daughters who have already left Hungary to come and live in Manchester, here in the UK.

Nick vented his frustration this morning:

What has shocked me all along in the official handling of the refugee crisis in Hungary is the failure to recognise refugees as human beings, to find out their names and why they felt the need to flee their homes and countries. If they had this story might have ended differently.

It's an odd thing that the BBC can be so keen to demonstrate its impartiality that it refuses to call Islamic State 'Da'esh' because that's "a pejorative name" coined by their enemies and as doing so (as Lord Hall put it) "may give the impression of support for those who coined it and that would not preserve the BBC's impartiality", and yet it's prepared to give Nick Thorpe full freedom, time and time again, to give his far-from-impartial take on the Hungarian government and "the refugee crisis".

A BBC expert

"A prophet of intolerance", according to the BBC's Nick Thorpe

In between the previous two items on referendums on The World This Weekend came a report on today's Hungarian referendum by the BBC's Central Europe correspondent (and blog favourite) Nick Thorpe. 

Loyal followers of ITBB will know that Nick isn't afraid to express a strong opinion in the course of his BBC reporting (notwithstanding BBC impartiality guidelines). 

He's been quite vocal about Brexit recently (and clearly isn't keen), but has been even more opinionated about the migrant crisis, especially as regards what he sees as the appalling behaviour of the Hungarian government. 

As a brief reminder, here are some of his previous opinions on the subject, expressed during his BBC reporting:

This whole refugee crisis sometimes seems to me like a football match. Rich Nations of Europe 2: Wretched of the Earth 3.  

At first light, a Syrian man in a suit stained dark with sweat, still wearing his tie, swung down the railway track towards me on his crutches. And who are you? I asked wearily, like so many Europeans. "I am, Sir, a sovereign man," he replied. Among so many sovereign nations, it was a relief to meet a sovereign man.  

This has been a pyrrhic victory for the Hungarian government. [The huge fences erected to keep out migrants, which Nick kept predicting wouldn't work anyhow - even though they did]. The economic costs are high. Its good name is in tatters.  

Parallel to that, there is a hostility among some Hungarians to them. The government publicity has not helped that. I think it's whipped up a certain degree of xenophobia here. 

In these Hungarian stations you can witness the best and the worst sides of the Hungarian reaction to this crisis. Many stories of the indifference or even the hostility of the authorities, but also a remarkable outpouring of generosity from the Hungarian public.  

Today's The World This Weekend saw him using his brilliant way with language to drip damning irony on the Hungarian government for today's referendum on EU migrant quotas whilst simultaneously presenting the EU's demands on Hungary in the mildest, meekest, most reasonable light. 

"It seems to me this referendum is more about Viktor Orban's fate than about his country's", said Nick today re Hungary's prime minister and his referendum. 

And he went on to call Mr Orban "a prophet of intolerance". 

He may be wrong, he may be right, but still...there's really no doubting, is there, that the BBC's Nick Thorpe is very keen on offering us his opinions (merely at the price of many hundreds of BBC licence fees)?

PS. As of now (16:50), the apparent low turnout is predicted to be causing Mr Orban's referendum to fail. 

The return of the Migrant Crisis?

Thursday's first post-Brexit vote edition of From Our Own Correspondent gave us another chance to hear from one of the BBC's most opinionated foreign reporters, their Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe (a regular here at ITBB during the 'now-forgotten' migrant crisis).

Here he talked about the "fateful" British vote's effect on Eastern Europe. It's provoked "shock". "anger", "fear" and "insecurity" there.

And he had a personal message for us too:

People in Britain often tell me that Europeans don't like us. My own impression is the opposite. 

Wherever I travel in Eastern Europe people tell me how much they love the British for our idiosyncrasies, our awkwardness, our stubborn pints and unconvertible inches. We're respected for keeping our own currency and resisting the faceless euro. Our diplomats are admired for helping other nations end their wars and our soldiers for doing the job they were given and then going home. 

If that positive image of Britain in Europe were more widely known in the United Kingdom perhaps the result would have been different. 

(Might it? Are you, dear reader, now feeling 'buyer's remorse'? If only you'd known how much they love us!)

And the consequences appear to be wholly negative over there (at least from Nick's account):

The departure of Britain from the UK - if that actually happens - will deprive Eastern Europe of an important ally....For the countries of the Balkans it's a disaster. 

(Now see what you've done!)

At least the following report from India from Sanjoy Majumder gave a less wholly gloomy picture. Though the first half of his report (following an introduction from Kate Adie that began, "No one knows if or when the UK will trigger Article 50...") began negatively too, with "It's a disaster" as the main "refrain" in central Delhi, and lots of talk of "turmoil" and economic concern, it did, however, go on to say that lots of Indians now see opportunities for better business deals, and for much more migration from India  to the UK. Its closing line ran as follows:

"It's not all bad news," says one business leader, with a chuckle. "We may be able to help them out of their crisis".

And then came a story you - like me - won't have heard much of at all during the EU referendum debate. It's the story that many complained at the time was being conveniently 'forgotten about' by the BBC. But now it's back on the BBC, and here's how Kate Adie introduced it:

What with Brexit, political turmoil and terrorist attacks, news of Europe's refugee crisis has dropped off the front pages.

Ah, yes, Kate! "Dropped off the front pages", has it? It's the newspapers' fault, is it? It's not dropped even more markedly off the BBC News website, and the Today headlines, and BBC One's News at Six in recent months too?

She went on to tell us something you might not have known:

On the day of the referendum vote the Italian navy and coastguard said they'd rescued 4,500 migrants during that single Thursday.

It was then back to the kind of report which we haven't heard for many months. 

Freelance reporter Lizzie Porter reported from "a makeshift Afghan village" in Greece, where "increasingly anxious" people claim to have escaped the Taliban and "the so-called" Islamic State. She tells their stories, over sweet dates and tea. She seems to believe them. A little girl inspires her with her energy, but everyone else is depressed. "Don't you people in Europe watch the news?", was a refrain. Her closing words came from 'Habib':

If you saw us now you would not believe we are human beings. Pray for us.

Dripping with visceral bias

If you were wondering what's happened to Nick Thorpe - the BBC Central Europe correspondent whose barely concealed disdain for the Hungarian government's attempts to keep out migrants last year left him open to repeated charges of bias - well, he's still there, doing his thing.

Here's a reminder of just some of his greatest hits (sources here):

This whole refugee crisis sometimes seems to me like a football match. Rich Nations of Europe 2: Wretched of the Earth 3. 

At first light, a Syrian man in a suit stained dark with sweat, still wearing his tie, swung down the railway track towards me on his crutches. And who are you? I asked wearily, like so many Europeans. "I am, Sir, a sovereign man," he replied. Among so many sovereign nations, it was a relief to meet a sovereign man. 

This has been a pyrrhic victory for the Hungarian government. The economic costs are high. Its good name is in tatters. 

Parallel to that, there is a hostility among some Hungarians to them. The government publicity has not helped that. I think it's whipped up a certain degree of xenophobia here. 

In these Hungarian stations you can witness the best and the worst sides of the Hungarian reaction to this crisis. Many stories of the indifference or even the hostility of the authorities, but also a remarkable outpouring of generosity from the Hungarian public.  

His From Our Own Correspondent today discussed the growing clout of the Visegrad group (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). 

He told us that they came into being some 25 years ago, after the fall of Communism, to help each other to get into the European Union, but they quickly stopped working for each other and started working for themselves. 

Recently, however, Nick continued, the group has found "a common purpose":

Strangely though it's a negative one: to keep the migrants out of Europe.

"Negative" is such a negative word, isn't it? Some might feel that what the Visegrad group are trying to achieve is actually positive.

Obviously not Nick Thorpe, who then put on something of a silly voice when quoting the words "will dilute Christian Europe".

And then came this:

They've also issued an ultimatum. If the Merkel plan isn't working by mid-March they will join forces with Macedonia and Bulgaria to shore up Europe's defences on their own, sending Hungarian razor wire and police and soldiers to defend a wall as tough as the Israelis have built in the occupied West Bank.  

Well, isn't that a typical BBC comparison? Bias piled upon bias here!

And on he went, quoting a leftist Belgian academic (Jean-Michel de Waele) saying that the Visegrad group are "dripping with visceral xenophobia".

He then recounted an anecdote.

He'd met some "weary migrants" from the Democratic Republic of Congo last year near one of Hungarian's "archetypal" fences. He's still in touch with several, he informed us. They all have hard luck stories. One has been sleeping rough in Paris with a pregnant wife whose name - Nick also informed us - means 'peace' in Arabic. He asked them how they are doing. "We're clinging on", they tell him. 

"Like birds on the cliffs at Visegrad", he remarked, concluding his piece poetically.

There really is no impartiality like 'BBC impartiality', is there?

"Rich Nations of Europe 2: Wretched of the Earth 3"

Talking about talking about From Our Own Correspondent...

Jon Don's award-friendly piece from the Philippines was preceded by the latest FOOC pieces by BBC Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe - another blog favourite (and now a regular on FOOC). His fine writing - and even finer BBC bias (advocating the refugee {migrant} cause) - has been outlined here quite a few times recently.  

His piece today focused on the plight of refugees (migrants) passing through Slovenia, and Nick Thorpe has to be given his due here. Of all the recent reporting pushing a wholly sympathetic view of the refugees (migrants) this was the most compelling because it was so well-written and so intelligently put. Even I was drawn in. 

Unlike Fergal Keane's pieces, it avoided obvious mawkishness whilst achieving the same effects as obvious mawkishness - making you feel for the refugees (migrants) and all people with missing families (mothers, children, fathers and grandparents). 

Of course, it wasn't impartial. It was on the side of the refugees (migrants) facing the cold of the approaching European winter and a turn in the European mood against them. 

As a sampler, please just try this quote from the piece:

This whole refugee crisis sometimes seems to me like a football match. Rich Nations of Europe 2: Wretched of the Earth 3.

Now that's hardly an unloaded way of putting it, is it? 

None of the report was unloaded really.

"Just your pity"

Although the migrant crisis seems, strangely, to have receded from the forefront of BBC News (for whatever reason), articles about it are still intermittently appearing on the BBC News website.

Among such pieces is the latest BBC magazine article from one of the key figures in the BBC's reporting: their Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe, whose reports from Hungary have earned him plaudits (from pro-mass migration types) and brickbats (from BBC bias hunters - like me!). 

Nick Thorpe's latest piece is headlined Politeness and eloquence on the road to Europe and the image below that headline exemplifies the kind of images the BBC has been using throughout the crisis (so far):

Yes, there's the completely unrepresentative yet heart-tugging image of a family: a husband, wife and young daughter. 

*****

Now, 'eloquence' is a word that could be applied to Nick Thorpe's writing. He's a stylish writer. And, having read quite a bit of his writing, past and present, I don't doubt that he's very well-meaning too.

Whether he's correct in his reading of events and whether he's anything close to being an unbiased BBC reporter remain very different matters though. 

(Please check the links out for yourselves. They lay out evidence as to why he isn't on both counts).

As for this piece, well, it's certainly a stylish piece of writing. It makes a half-hearted play at balance but its heart is too obviously worn on its sleeve to be really considered balanced. 

There's the nice, respectful 'Palestinian refugee from Syria' who shows consideration for British sentiment...a 'charming character', by Nick's account.

There's also the nice, fat Hungarian policeman - an unusual "representative of the repressive organs" - who mocks his own side as being Monty Python-like idiots (prompting Nick to think of them as 'peculiar...comedians' using tear gas. Their "antics" make Nick "weep".)

Nick himself is finding this "refugee drama...exhausting". He's got to report the "plight" of the refugees but also to report back the "fears and concerns" of Europeans. And to quote politicians.

[Copying and pasting this article reveals the caption for the next image at this stage in the article: "Hungarian policeman wearing a mask". Boo!]

Nick is also having endless dreams about the migrants. In those dreams he is prone to "challenge statesmen, quarrel with friends, and explain to migrants where they might be fingerprinted, and what that might mean".

In his reporting however, he says, he "gather(s) the tales of the host communities, too - both friendly, and hostile".

Cue nice 73-year old Pista who "stood at his garden gate offering his excellent home-made plum brandy to bemused Muslims, out of the kindness of his heart". (Aaahhh!)

Alone in his village, Illocska in Hungary, he argued that everyone should be allowed in, for as long as they need safety from the bullets. But when it is safe to go home, they should.

From the other side, it seems, comes an uncooperative Christian bishop:

A Catholic bishop forbade me from filming the frescoes in one of his churches, which portrayed a victory of Christian armies against the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century. "It's too sensitive," his assistant told me. "The Bishops' Council is deeply divided over the refugee issue."

Then it's straight back to the 'good guys' who welcome the migrants:

A young German idealist stood greeting each new arrival in turn at Roszke, beside the famous railway track from Serbia, with the words: "Salaam Alaikum, would you like a sandwich?" He left no space for the refrain: "Alaikum salaam."

Still, Nick then presents the other side again, this time from "a friend":

An Indian friend told me the refugees are referred to, in Hindi slang, as kabutar - or pigeons. The word in this context means something like "opportunists" or "scavengers". If I was fleeing war, Rohini told me, "I would stay with people of my own culture, as near as I could to my own country." 

However, Nick counters that with an emotive anecdote:

And I thought of the young Syrian tattoo artist who told me he had worked for a year in Istanbul, but was unhappy with the wages - $1,000 a month, so had joined the exodus to Germany. What birds will he tattoo on those bulging Teutonic biceps, those gentle Germanic thighs? And who has the right to say to him: "Go home to your own ruins"?

....and follows that with another:

"What are you asking for, from the people of Europe?" I asked a man from Gao, in Mali, in the Hungarian dust before the weather turned to autumn? "Seulement ta pitie," he replied. "Just your pity."

An image that copying and pasting reveals as saying 'The "sovereign man", supported here by two companions' then leads us to yet another emotive anecdote (the third in Nick's closing triptych) - and it features the heart-tugging figure of a disabled Syrian man, and a final moral:

At first light, a Syrian man in a suit stained dark with sweat, still wearing his tie, swung down the railway track towards me on his crutches. And who are you? I asked wearily, like so many Europeans. "I am, Sir, a sovereign man," he replied. Among so many sovereign nations, it was a relief to meet a sovereign man.

The moral? Apparently: Let us value sovereign individuals rather than sovereign nations.

It's beautifully written but it's also deeply biased, isn't it?

The Thoughts of Nick Thorpe, BBC

The main face of the BBC's coverage of the migrant crisis in Hungary has been Nick Thorpe. 

Here's a collection of some of his views on the situation, garnered from various places during the last month. 

Please see if you consider them to be free from bias:

This has been a pyrrhic victory for the Hungarian government. The economic costs are high. Its good name is in tatters.

          BBC News at One, 17th September

What happens when you seek a police solution to a humanitarian disaster? CHAOS at#Röszke

          Twitter, 8th September 

Many Hungarians, especially those fed a diet of anti-migrant vitriol on state radio and television, are suspicious of the thousands of people from other cultures now traipsing through their country.

          BBC News website, 6th September

Parallel to that, there is a hostility among some Hungarians to them. The government publicity has not helped that. I think it's whipped up a certain degree of xenophobia here. 

          BBC News Channel, 5th September

I think they're split, like in other countries in Europe. Hungarians are no harder-hearted I think than anyone else in Europe. Many people have been showing enormous sympathy.

          BBC News Channel, 5th September 

In these Hungarian stations you can witness the best and the worst sides of the Hungarian reaction to this crisis. Many stories of the indifference or even the hostility of the authorities, but also a remarkable outpouring of generosity from the Hungarian public. 

          Today, 24th August

Impartiality flies out of the window

There's another spot-on post today from David Keighley over at Conservative Woman. 

Here's how David ends his post:

Shame on the BBC. Their duty, as defined by the public purposes, is to offer balanced reporting that reflects all sides of this massive story [the migrant crisis]. Instead, we are getting the Gospel according to the Liberal Left. On Friday night, elements of coverage were actually accompanied by epic movie music. This was not news reporting. You could call it instead what it actually was: propaganda.

I don't doubt for one second that epic movie music was used for some of the coverage, although I didn't hear it myself (as I was away on Friday night and didn't have much time for BBC-related matters). As I returned home on Saturday morning there was a moving piece about Palmyra on Today that made use of one of the most haunting pieces of modern classical music (Howard Skempton's beautiful Lento) to flood listeners' hearts with sadness. (An emotional 'flooding' I fully related to).

It really does seem to be propaganda that the BBC's pumping out though at the moment, doesn't it? 

When Sue and myself started this blog I really wanted to avoid that kind of accusation and to be as fair as possible to the BBC. Well, being as fair to the BBC as possible, I think it is propaganda they are pumping out now. And they ought to stop it.

As well as all the other evidence we've posted here in recent days to back that up I'd just like to add another line of thought - one that's also struck me over the past couple of days, though one I've hesitated about posting about (for some reason)....

There seems to be almost a template for certain BBC reports at the moment. Whether it comes from Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany or Sweden (or wherever) and whichever BBC reporter is doing the reporting, the template usually seems to be: 

Report stories of individual suffering (preferably women's stories, or stories involving children). Tell stories of 'good' people helping/welcoming migrants. Contrast them with 'the other side', using far less positive language about those people. And, above all, keep linking those opposed to the present 'influx' to the far-right. And use the term 'far-right' or 'hard-right' at every opportunity.

There are so many examples of this I've rather lost track of them, but there was Nick Thorpe in Hungary (besides all the other faults in his reporting we've outlined here over the past couple of weeks) welding himself to pro-migrant activists there (all female) and constantly mentioning the far-right in opposition to them. And Bethany Bell in Austria repeatedly talking about a far-right party there leading the opinion polls (as indeed the Austrian Freedom Party does, by quite a significant margin in poll after poll), and only about that party, in contrast to all those nice Austrians rushing across the border to help the migrants in Hungary. And Jenny Hills's cheering crowds v neo-Nazis in Germany. And Graham Satchell and Tom Bateman's ever-present hard-right/far-right Sweden Democrats, getting 20% in a recent poll according to Tom Bateman, always contrasted to all the nice pro-migrant people in Sweden (who stage rallies in favour of migrants). And Rob Cameron's extraordinary From Our Own Correspondent piece from the Czech Republic where nice pro-migrant people were juxtaposed with Hitler-supporting, obnoxious anti-migrant people. 

There may be grains of truth in all of those, but so lop-sided, so intense, so didactic is this kind of BBC reporting that impartiality seems to flying out of the window and doesn't look likely to return any time soon.

"What sense do you have, Nick, of public opinion in Hungary regarding this issue?"

The BBC's Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe has been making a lot of appearances on the BBC in recent days and, as we've noted before, he's not exactly been shy of expressing an opinion or two of his own along the way. 

Here's a transcription of an answer he gave to a question on the News Channel at 14:05 today. The question was. "What sense do you have, Nick, of public opinion in Hungary regarding this issue?". His answer ran as follows:

I think they're split, like in other countries in Europe. Hungarians are no harder-hearted I think than anyone else in Europe. 

Many people have been showing enormous sympathy. On the hard-shoulder of the motorway yesterday evening, late at night, people were parking their cars on the side of the road, risking some danger themselves, to bring food, to bring water, to bring comfort to those people. In the railway stations we've seen the efforts of the different migration aid organisations here to help them. 

Parallel to that, there is a hostility among some [emphasis Nick Thorpe's] Hungarians to them. The government publicity has not helped that. I think it's whipped up a certain degree of xenophobia here. There's a fear, a general fear in the population that these migrants may be bringing infectious, diseases, that there may be terrorists disguised among them. This has been very much what we've heard from the pro-government, pro-Fidesz media in the country. 

So a mixture of views, dividing families and dividing society at large. 

It's clear from that where Nick Thorpe stands on the migrant crisis (not on the side of the "harder-hearted types") and where he stands on the Hungarian government's behaviour. Impartial, it isn't.

Nor does his reporting seem to be particularly accurate either. 

Checking the internet, I'm guessing he was completely winging it here, merely going off his own anecdotal 'evidence'. 

He doesn't appear to have looked at the opinion polls, one of the most recent of which showed that 66% of Hungarians believe that "refugees pose a danger" while just 19% said it is Hungary's "duty" to help.

That's hardly the kind of split he was implying.

A Saturday night smorgasbord (Part 1)

Having spent much of the past fortnight away from the world of blogging, it's time for a post (or two) that randomly gathers together most of the stuff I would have posted if I'd had the time - or at least as much of it as I can remember.

So here goes....

I read a comment somewhere alleging that the BBC's reporting of the 'living wage' had undergone a 180 degree turnaround since George Osborne made it government policy in his summer Budget. 

Before then (and over many years), the complaint went, reports on the BBC about the 'living wage' were very strongly skewed towards the idea, incessantly highlighting calls for it to be introduced. After the Budget, however, the complaint continued, the BBC suddenly began promoting anti-'living wage' stories. 

Such things are hard to check, but I've tried to do so. Using a combination of the 'search' function on the BBC website and Google, it's possible to see if the BBC News website has done as the complainant claimed it has. 

I've found plenty of pieces spotlighting calls for the introduction of a 'living wage' before July this year but no pieces spotlighting calls for it not to be introduced. (If you find any, please let me know). However, since the July Budget, there have been several reports spotlighting calls for it not to be introduced: 

Budget 2015: Business worries over cost of living wage

Councils warn living wage costs could top £1bn by 2020

Living Wage 'could harm home care sector'

National Living Wage will 'damage care homes' (one month after the last one)

Ex-Sainsbury's boss Justin King slams National Living Wage

As far as I can see (and I've checked and re-checked this to see if I'm missing something), the complainant was correct. The BBC appears to have abruptly taken against the 'living wage'. 

Why? 

Simply putting it down to 'left-wing bias' won't work, giving that these articles are promoting the arguments of those opposed to a popular left-wing idea. 

Putting it down to knee-jerk 'anti-Tory bias' would work much better, if you believe that many at the BBC are shamelessly opportunistic enough to do such a party political thing (presumably from a Labour/Lib Dem perspective).

Or, as some say, maybe it's just the BBC doing it's 'anti-government' thing ('anti-any-government'), and acting as a self-appointed opposition? 

Or, as others (usually on the Left) say, maybe it's the BBC doing its 'anti-change' thing, always opposing something new?

Whatever, it's a real shift of focus from the BBC and an interesting phenomenon. Something must account for it. But what?

*****

As I was driving to work on Monday morning, listening to Today, I heard another of those BBC reports about the migrant crisis, this time reporting from Hungary.

The BBC reporter, Nick Thorpe, presented us with the work of Migration Aid in Budapest - a group helping incoming illegal immigrants there. We heard from an activist with the organisation (denouncing the Hungarian government's new fence with Serbia). We also heard from various migrants (who Nick Thorpe called "refugees"), including one from Afghanistan passionately demanding to be treated as a human being.

We also got an opinion (yes, an opinion!) from the BBC reporter, echoing Migration Aid's feelings about the Hungarian authorities:

In these Hungarian stations you can witness the best and the worst sides of the Hungarian reaction to this crisis. Many stories of the indifference or even the hostility of the authorities, but also a remarkable outpouring of generosity from the Hungarian public. 

Nick Thorpe is the BBC's Central Europe correspondent. According to Wikipedia,

Thorpe joined the BBC in 1986 as Budapest Correspondent, and was the first Western correspondent to be based there, and has continued to report on Eastern Europe ever since. In 1989, he joined The Observer newspaper as its Eastern Europe Correspondent, returning to the BBC in 1996. He has also written for The Guardian and The Independent newspapers. 

It figures.

*****

I'm not the only one to have spotted this, it appears, but...

The BBC has a very peculiar attitude to race stories in the U.S.

When a fatal incident involves a white person killing a black person (or black people), the BBC is straight onto the race angle like an albino ferret up a jet-black drainpipe (if ferrets ever go up drainpipes. We know they go up trousers, of course, but drainpipes? I might email David Attenborough to find out).

On the evening of the murder of the white U.S. TV reporter and her cameraman by a black former colleague, I read reports on Sky News and other places showing the murderer's calls for a race war. Now the killer may be a mental case, but that hasn't stopped the BBC before if there's a race angle involved, yet - as others also noted - the BBC News website that evening merely reported (in one paragraph) that their was a racial grievance on the killer's part. Nothing else. Sky quoted (with appropriate redactions) the killer's expletive-filled social media comments mentioning the Charleston killer and the 'bringing on' of a race war.

The BBC was holding back.

That night's Newsnight also merely mentioned the race angle in a sentence before passing on to debate how the media should report stories where the killer films his own atrocity. That night's The World Tonight on Radio 4 also debated how the media should report stories where the killer films his own atrocity but its segment on the story went even further than Newsnight and ignored the race angle completely.

All very odd. But also, all very BBC. It's as if some kinds of racism are too 'hot' to condemn (cf Yasmin Alibhai Brown).