More on Mark Easton

I may not be watching BBC News at the moment but I can guess what certain reporters are up in their broadcasts from their tweets - especially when they link to their own BBC One news reporting.

The BBC's pro-open borders/mass immigration home affairs editor Mark Easton - their most shamelessly biased reporter - hasn't been letting a world crisis get in the way of his agenda-pushing. 

In fact, he's latched onto it and exploited it. 

He's been plugging away relentlessly at one single thing for two weeks, trying to shame the UK government into opening our borders to far larger numbers of refugees.

He's been at this kind of thing for years - though this time he has genuine refugees to latch onto.

And now the poor Ukrainians are his convenient excuse for pushing his pro-immigration, open borders hobby-horse yet again.

Let's take a look at a licence-fee-funded arch-propagandist in action.

He uses every trick in the book here, using careful framing, loaded questions that aren't genuinely meant as either/or questions, editorialising hashtags, heart-tugging individual cases, etc. 

It's a masterclass in the art of biased agenda-pushing very consciously just-about covering itself so it can get away with it with BBC bosses:

• Feb 25: Should Britain offer sanctuary to Ukrainians fleeing the war? The Home Office says refugees should stay in the first safe country they reach. But Nottingham's Ukrainian community hopes the UK will agree to do more. #bbcnewssix 
• Feb 28: Asked today if Ukrainian pensioner refugee Valentina Rumyantsyeva could come to London on the Eurostar having been turned back on Saturday, the Home Secretary said 'yes'. But the UK Home Office has since told me she is still not eligible to join her daughter. 
• Mar 1: Someone from the UK Home Office contacted Ukrainian refugee Valentina in Paris after my piece last night promising she would get a visa to the UK. Still nothing in writing. But on what basis? The current rules mean she remains ineligible. Compassion or desperate PR? 
• Mar 1: UK government to ask the public to sponsor a Ukrainian refugee. Reluctant to put money into a conventional resettlement scheme, the UK Home Office is looking at #BigSociety to help out. Will it work? 
• Mar 1: "Leave to enter outside of the rules!" Valentyna Klymova, in the yellow beret, now has her visa to come to London. She is tired, relieved and delighted she has helped the UK Home Office become more generous to refugees. #bbcnewssix 
• Mar 1: Valentina has arrived at St Pancras, wrapped in the Ukrainian flag as passengers gave her a round of applause. #bbcnewsten 
• Mar 3: Ukrainian refugee Valentyna arrived in London on Tuesday to join her daughter, her visa stating she had 'leave to enter outside the rules'. But rules allowing other parents, grandparents, adult children and siblings to seek sanctuary here don't start until tomorrow. 
• Mar 4: On Tuesday Priti Patel said Ukrainian refugees with family in the UK could stay for a year. Today the UK Home Office increased the limit to 3 years, matching the EU offer (although EU doesn't demand family ties). Still playing catch-up? 
• Mar 6: The only UK visa application centre in Ukraine at Lviv has closed, according to the UK Home Office website. Guidance changing by the hour (see below) causing confusion consternation for those fleeing the war.
• Mar 6: In a letter to Priti Patel, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin says that 150 Ukrainian refugees have been turned back at Calais by Border Force officials, accusing the Home Secretary of a "lack of humanity" and a "completely unsuitable" response.
• Mar 6: Priti Patel has responded to Gerald Darmanin: “Let me just correct what has been said by the French government. The British government is not turning anybody back at all”.
• Mar 7: What did Priti Patel mean when she told The Sun “I’m urgently escalating our response … to create a humanitarian route” for Ukrainian refugees”? Downing Street insists nothing has changed but the UK Home Office says a new route IS being worked on. #confusion
• Mar 7: Ukrainian refugees stuck in Calais tell me there’s a gap as wide as the English Channel between the supportive rhetoric of the UK government and their experience on the ground.

The BBC and the Russian invasion of Ukraine [and an EXCLUSIVE behind-the-scenes glimpse of an ITBB discussion]

Craig: The BBC is being praised to the skies for its war coverage, and not only by itself and the usual suspects. Not that I've seen any BBC coverage, so I can't say if it's deserved or not, but lots of surprising people are singing its praises. It seems to be having a good war.

Sue: Well, I was half thinking that the BBC is ‘having a good war’, too. But with all its resources and long-standing infrastructure it would be surprising if it wasn’t. 

I haven’t watched it very much though, but sometimes the ad breaks on other channels drive one BBC-wards. I haven’t seen any of the Beeb’s opinion stuff, only the Myrie/Doucet reporting. I must say Lyse is getting more emotional than usual (and Clive is okay. A bit drained obvs.) 

I saw Konstantin Kisin's performance on Question Time (excerpts on YouTube.) It’s weird to see him on the dreaded BBC, especially when he’d only just said he’d stopped appearing on GB News because he felt he was being expected/required to opine on things he didn’t particularly know enough about. 

This unexpected invitation from the QT team must be partly to do with the new ‘impartiality’ pledges. 

Speaking of which I dread to think why they’ve let Jeremy Bowen loose on Ukraine. He will inevitably make comparisons with the M.E., (how he sees it - The bully against the oppressed, the brave Ukrainian-Pally resistance, the almighty Russian-Israeli aggressive warmongering.) 

I think I actually heard him make a reference to the M.E. in an aside on the Today prog, though I couldn’t find it when I searched. Can you imagine how the BBC’s new impartiality regulators let someone like Jez go to Ukraine with all that baggage? 

Craig: I've tracked down that Jeremy Bowen bit:

The Chinese strategist Sun Tzu talked about building your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across. In the Cuban Missile Crisis - the closest the world has come to nuclear disaster in 1961 - the deal there after the Soviets put missiles into Cuba was that the US move missiles out of Turkey. Now, of course, the things are not...you know, you can't directly transfer the idea, but the point is, there needs to be in all these crises, to finish them, a face saving deal. Otherwise, the two sides tend to fight until one side wins or both are exhausted, which is a catastrophe for the countries affected by that, as we've seen in the Middle East extensively.

BBC reporters like Lyse being more emotional than usual was one of the topic on Samira Ahmed's Newswatch this week, asking: How new is it? Does it help or hinder the viewer's understanding? 

The fact that it featured a particularly toe-curling example of heart-tugging purple prose from Fergal Keane [‘On platform 6, a father's farewell to his infant son. What cannot be held must be let go. Until another day’] shows where that kind of thing probably began at the BBC, with the likes of him and Orla Guerin - and Jezza Bowen, with his endlessly-repeated, embittered, personalised memories of a particular moment involving Israel and his unfortunate friend. 

Even John Simpson cried recently - though he told Samira Ahmed that he's not proud of doing so and it won't happen again. 

So, as you can see, I've actually watched a BBC programme now. 

Ukrainian affairs

Peter Hitchens has the BBC squarely in his sights in his Mail on Sunday column this week. 

I'm rather proud of having helped him, ever so slightly, by using TVEyes to track down all the broadcasts of the offending Orla Guerin report for him.

I suspected he was going after her usual mawkish, award-winning purple prose. But, no, he was concerned about something more specific. 

Given how relentlessly the BBC will focus in on fringe figures/groups, neo-Nazi swastikas, Confederate flags, etc, even if they are in no way representative of the group the BBC disapproves of, if they are reporting on people they disapprove of, he wonders how the BBC last week “repeatedly broadcast an entire news item, featuring a group of undoubted, shameless neo-Nazis, actually wearing SS insignia on their clothes – and not even notice?”.  

The report “starred a sweet old great-grandma” from Ukraine - a “doughty 78-year-old” woman, being taught to use a gun against the Russians by Ukrainian soldiers sporting shoulder-flashes displaying a Nazi emblem, the ‘Wolfsangel’”, used by the Waffen SS. Many wartime massacres were perpetrated by men sporting that jagged symbol. And their Ukrainian supporters proclaim their membership of the ‘Azov Battalion’ - a ‘paramilitary unit… known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and the use of Nazi symbolism’, lately absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard. 

Peter Hitchens asks: 

Is it really possible that, in the BBC’s vast and costly apparatus of reporters, editors, producers, fact-checkers and bureaucrats, not one person spotted the problem? If so, we are dealing with Olympic-level incompetence.  

But it is my suspicion that something else is going on. The generation that kept the BBC relatively impartial is fast dying off. Those who remain have accepted a large number of contentious opinions as facts. 

One of these opinions is the ridiculous cartoon idea that Russia is like Mordor in Lord Of The Rings, an utterly evil country ruled by a Dark Monster. And that Ukraine, its current enemy, is by contrast a shining Utopia, pluckily defending itself against the orc-like hordes of Moscow. This explains why the BBC were so keen to use this film, in which a Brave Granny Gets Her Gun. ‘Brave Granny Gets Her Gun From Some Neo-Nazis’ is not quite the same, is it? 

He ends by arguing that “if we are going to interfere in this very complex problem, then we are going to need to tell each other the truth about it”. Including the BBC.

UPDATE - Meanwhile, an old blog favourite has roared back in this morning, smearing away:

John Sweeney: Peter Hitchens says that Ukraine has "quite a few Nazis." So does UK. But President Zelenskiy is Jewish, something he does not mention. Peter Hitchens is Putin's man. Happy to debate this, Hitchens Minor, in person. I'm in Kyiv. And you?

Peter Hitchens: John Sweeney, you are incapable of debate, as you proved during the great panic with your repeated untruths. Why am I not surprised that you have attached yourself to the latest liberal fad?

John Sweeney: Vladimir Putin has the knout, the whip, the tanks and Peter Hitchens. Ukraine is a democracy. Once again, Peter, you're welcome to come to Kyiv and we can debate in person. But don't call a nation pro-Nazi when it has a Jewish President. Unless, of course, you are Moscow's man.

Peter Hitchens: I know you won't read my replies, because your mind is shut, but others might. I have not 'called a nation pro-Nazi'. Mainly I have pointed out that the BBC has failed to report that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine. My actual words: 'One of the roots of the Russia-Ukraine problem is, alas, the existence of some very crude and nasty factions of Ukrainian nationalism, many of them unblushing neo-Nazis. Of course there are plenty of perfectly civilised Ukrainian patriots, but bigoted racialist thugs have an influence way beyond their numbers in that country'. I am a British patriot and defend the interests of my own country, no other.

Razia Iqbal sticks up for Joe Biden

I saw a tweet last night from journalist and broadcaster Mike Yardley: 

Just heard a BBC presenter slapping down the ex head of Estonian's army for noting that Putin's threats to the Ukraine had parallels to the Hitler pre WW2. Why? This situation could quite easily escalate. It's brinkmanship at the moment, but that's still a very dangerous game.

That intrigued me so I hunted for the interview he was talking about and found it on Radio 4's The World Tonight. 

 

It was an extraordinary interview by the BBC's Razia Iqbal. 

It's a long time since I've heard her [because I no longer listen to The World Tonight] and she interrupted so loudly I feared I might not be hearing anyone of anything ever again as she almost burst my ear drums. 

Plus, she was remarkably rude to a man whose grasp of English was magnificent but not perfect. 

And as most of her interruptions were to stick up for Joe Biden it's as if she was channelling Jen Psaki and acting as Joe's spokeswoman, protecting 'her man'. 

A transcript can't quite do justice to the impact of her hectoring here, but it's worth a try anyhow:

------------------

 

Razia Iqbal: Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked the US president Joe Biden for his strong support in the face of Russian threats as the West accuses Moscow of preparing to invade, based on the serious military build-up on the border. While for Moscow any prospect of Ukraine joining NATO is a red line, Washington refuses to countenance any red lines being drawn by President Putin. And now Mr. Biden's announcement that a small group of larger NATO countries will hold talks with Moscow is causing concern on the alliance's eastern flank where members close to Russia are particularly worried that issues of security must not be negotiated over their heads. Let's speak to Riho Terras who is a member of the European Parliament and the former commander of the Estonian defence forces. Good evening.

Riho Terras: Good evening.

Razia Iqbal: What's your main concern about this planned meeting between President Biden, some of the big NATO members and Moscow?

Riho Terras: Well, I think that President Biden has given in to the blackmail of Russian president Putin who increased the pressure, military pressure, on the border with Ukraine. He was on the warpath, and now he's invited to talk to the important people, other heads of state of the big countries in Europe and the American president and...

Razia Iqbal: [interrupting] That's a pretty serious word. It's a pretty serious word 'blackmail'.

Riho Terras: Yeah, Well, how can we label it differently if President Putin is gathering his troops along the Ukrainian border and is on the warpath, and once you draw a new line in Europe, once you create a new security architecture which fits to his taste and doesn't care about NATO or an independent country, like Ukraine is?

Razia Iqbal: Are you concerned and that the smaller countries such as Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania have not been invited? Is that the issue, that you feel you should be at the centre of these discussions?

Riho Terras: No, I think the problem here, definitely the problem is, that the aim of Putin is to break the unity of our two alliances, the European Union and NATO, and if President Biden tries to invite only certain countries to the discussion and not the alliances as a whole and is not discussing the topic with his allies, that is exactly what Putin wants - to break the unity of NATO, which is our strength, which is our centre of gravity.

Razia Iqbal: [in a tone of increasing incredulity] Well, I mean, what evidence do you have that President Biden is doing any such thing? Even if he has this meeting, he has also been taking part in the meeting at in Riga recently, which, of course, suggested that he was deeply concerned and for him the red line over Ukraine, as it's being drawn by Moscow, is unacceptable.

Riho Terras: Why are all the other countries then excluded from the meeting? Why does he want to meet only with the big boys? If he...

Razia Iqbal: [interrupting, incredulously] What do you think is going to happen?

Riho Terras: It smells very much like Munich 1938, and the Munich agreement when Chamberlain came out to say...

Razia Iqbal: [interrupting, even more incredulously] Surely, surely you're not comparing this to the Second World War? That's, that's, that's...just absurd!

Riho Terras: To what extent is it absurd? This is exactly a country who is threatening another sovereign country with a military invasion and Ukraine is not at all on the discussion right now. [Mr Terras clearly meant 'in on the discussion' but Razia failed to pick up on that.]

Razia Iqbal: [incredulously] Well, but that's, that's clearly not true. Ukraine was obviously the top of the list in the summit, the video call summit between the two presidents. What is it that you think...

Riho Terras: [interrupting] Well the discussion was about Ukraine but the Ukrainian president was not involved in the discussion. That is exactly what is not acceptable...

Razia Iqbal: [interrupting] What, what...

Riho Terras: ...that the heads of state of the big countries are trying to divide the world.

Razia Iqbal: But, but... [incredulously] Do you not think that President Biden is going to do everything he can to make sure that the NATO alliance is one that is held together?

Riho Terras: Yeah, that means that the first thing is to discuss with the allies how to solve the problem...

Razia Iqbal: OK.

Riho Terras: ...and then, then NATO should be at the table of this discussion.

Razia Iqbal: Riho Terras, member of the European Parliament and a former commander of the Estonian defence forces, thanks for being with us.

Where John Sweeney rushes in...

Oh no! Has Newsnight's notorious Graphics department got at this Steve Rosenberg photo too?

There was an interesting interview on this morning's Newswatch between Samira Ahmed and the BBC's Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg. 

In recounting his experiences of reporting in Vladimir Putin's Russia, it struck me how different his experiences were to that of his colleague John Sweeney as reported on Panorama. 

John Sweeney managed to get himself tailed repeatedly and even got arrested and never got to speak to the Kremlin. Steve Rosenberg has had none of that and even got to ask President Putin a question. 

What did Newsnight's star reporter do that the BBC's Moscow correspondent hasn't yet done to get himself into such trouble?

Anyhow, here's a transcript (for anyone who's interested):

Samira Ahmed: Well, Steve Rosenberg joins me now on the line from Moscow. Steve, you do give us the Kremlin's side of the story. And as we just heard in those e-mails, some viewers fear that it gives them credibility. How do you answer that?  

Steve Rosenberg: Well, I consider my job as the BBC's Moscow correspondent to tell viewers in Britain and around the world what Moscow is thinking. This is a very confusing story and I think it is important to listen to what the Russians are saying. They have a range of arguments. And I think then I have to use my experience of living and working in Russia - and I have been here for 23 years, not with the BBC all that time - but to use my experience to examine what the Russians are saying and to try to cut through all of that and give my interpretation, my opinion, about what is going on here. As I say, it is a very confused story but I think it is important to present the Russian perspective on it.  

Samira Ahmed: We saw you on the campaign trail asking quite a tough question of Putin. Was that a difficult, even scary, thing to do?  

Steve Rosenberg: I wouldn't say it was a scary decision. It was quite a challenging thing to do because normally question and answer sessions with President Putin are heavily controlled. We were covering him on the campaign trail, we found ourselves in a position physically where we were able to pop a question to him and it was the question that really everyone wanted to ask at the moment. Journalistically, I think it was the right thing to do. And the thing about Vladimir Putin, whether you like him or hate him, whatever you think of him, you know, he has no trouble answering questions.  

Samira Ahmed: As you mentioned, you have been in Russia for 23 years. One wonders how hard it is to report there now, and how it compares to reporting from there in the past.  

Steve Rosenberg: I think one thing that we can't always get into our short two-minute news reports but I think it is important to say is that if you go outside the bureau here, Moscow seems like a normal European city.  We don't get the feeling that we're being followed by people in long raincoats with trilby hats and that we're being watched constantly. So, in that sense, we don't feel greater pressure  now. Having said that, we have been harassed while covering controversial stories, sensitive stories, and this didn't happen, say, ten years ago.  

Samira Ahmed: One does wonder how much real political opposition there is in Russia, including from ordinary citizens.  

Steve Rosenberg: It's an interesting question. Vladimir Putin has just been re-elected with a landslide victory and it's clear that, although this was not a level playing field, this election, and only those candidates who posed no serious challenge to Vladimir Putin were allowed to take part, many Russians do support Vladimir Putin - some because they really like his sort of muscle-flexing, his strong-arm tactics, his anti-Western rhetoric. There are other people who support him because they fear change. Many Russians fear change. They don't want life to get worse than it is now and they fear picking a new president.  

Samira Ahmed: You talked about being on the campaign trail for this election. How did it compare to covering a Western election?  

Steve Rosenberg: Well, it's not like a Western election. As I said before, only those candidates who didn't threaten Vladimir Putin were allowed to take part. Russia's most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, he was barred from taking part in the election. And then you look at the amount of airtime that was given to President Putin on Russian television ahead of the election - he had far more airtime than all of the other candidates put together, and all of the coverage of Putin was very positive. So, you know, in that sense, no, this is not like a Western election.  

Samira Ahmed: The Russian authorities have been particularly critical of the British media. Do you worry about your safety at all?  

Steve Rosenberg: I have not worried up till this point. As I say, walking around Moscow right now, it feels pretty normal. You go into the coffee shop, you get happy smiley faces serving you. And although there is - I have noticed more anti-British sentiment on Russian television. For example, I saw a report the other day where the reporter claimed that over the last few centuries, Britain has had it in for Russia and they listed all the things over the last few hundred years that Britain has done to Russia. So we have seen that, but from the public, I have not noticed really any rise in anti-British sentiment. And also, Russian government officials are still talking to the BBC. We get comments from the Foreign Ministry, from the Parliament, so - which is important because, as I say, it is important for us to be able to listen to what Russia's argument is and then include that in our pieces.  

Samira Ahmed: Steve Rosenberg, thank you.  

Steve Rosenberg: Thanks. 

Taking on Putin

Well, I must say that I found John Sweeney's Panorama: Taking on Putin a gripping watch. It was almost like a Cold War spy drama at times. 

It build a strong case that Russia is a sham democracy and  a police state - something we already knew, of course, but it was eye-opening to see just how thuggish and ruthless it actually is. 

It was a distinctly Orwellian moment when the BBC crew (including JS) got arrested for vandalising a memorial to murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov when we viewers knew (and can be sure that the Russian authorities also knew) that a pro-Putin group had carried it out and that the BBC had merely been there filming them. 

And then came the local media's cringingly inept attempts to 'doorstep' John Sweeney, and the far-less-amusing pro-Kremlin TV news reports smearing John Sweeney.

As he himself writes in the Times:

While helping police with their inquiries, a story about me popped up on REN TV, a network that is said to be close to the FSB. The website said that I may be charged with vandalism for the attack on the Nemtsov shrine. I had once met Nemtsov, a brave and very funny critic of Putin. I dedicated my novel about modern Russia, Cold, to him. The idea that I would vandalise a Nemtsov shrine is nonsense.

(Sarcasm klaxon! - If there's one thing you can say for BBC reporters such John Sweeney is that they'd never leap to unjustified conclusions and smear people they disapprove of - and I'm sure Nigel Farage would back me up on that one).

Still, this Panorama could be taken as a warning to all democracies - sham or otherwise: A true democracy doesn't harass journalists. It doesn't follow them, or smear them, or arrest them on jumped-up charges...or, for that matter, refuse them entry into the country because they hold 'the wrong views', or detain them because they intend to interview someone of whom the authorities disapprove. 

P.S.

Thursday

Vladimir Putin's intervention in Syria was first up on Thursday night's Newsnight. 

As a blogger about BBC bias I'm supposed to check for any patterns of bias and point them out to you (our readers) if I find any. 

Well, see if you can spot a pattern here: 

The main 'talking head' in Mark Urban's opening report was (anti-Putin) Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. Then came an interview with the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg  (also no friend of Putin), Then came a studio discussion between former UN ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock (who is critical of Mr Putin) and the FT's foreign editor Roula Khalaf (also no admirer of Mr Putin). 

I'm nervous about making OTT statements, so I won't make the claim that whereas Russia Today can rightly be considered a pro-Putin mouthpiece then Newsnight, on this evidence, ought to be considered an anti-Putin mouthpiece (whether acting for the British government or merely acting for left-liberal BBC received opinion).

So I won't make that claim at all,...and maybe I'll just stick with saying that Newsnight's coverage certainly wasn't sympathetic towards the Russian leader at all, to put it mildly.

The next segment began with Emily saying, "The former prime minister Gordon Brown said the European Union could be put at risk if those who want to leave are allowed to pose as what he called 'the sole defenders of Britain'".

That was the prelude to a chat with Allegra about the launch of the pro-Brexit 'Vote Leave' campaign the following day. A clip from their campaign video and a short clip from an interview with their media spokesman Robert Oxley was framed by Allegra and Emily's conversation. 

Was there any bias here (in any direction)? Well, nothing I can quote, though the tone struck me as somewhat unconsciously revealing - a slight sighing scepticism of tone followed by laughter and quips (of a slightly mocking kind) at the upbeat campaign video.

Then Allegra made the following statement: 

British public opinion on Europe is a bit like a Christmas cracker. You have 30% on the end that believe we should leave come what may. You have 30% in the middle that are undecided. And at the other end you have 30% that is quite keen on remaining.

That was a striking image. 

Naturally, I immediately totted up the percentages and wondered about the missing 10%. Was that an example of a BBC reporter being innumerate? 

Also, when someone presents one 'end' as "believing" we should leave "come what may" (i.e. as reckless fanatics) and the other 'end' as being "quite keen on remaining" (i.e. positive, reasonable and open-minded) my bias detectors start seriously twitching. I think I can guess which way Allegra will be voting - what with her being so positive, reasonable and open-minded.

Next came a discussion about presenting budgets (and the EU referendum), presented by Newsnight's (former FT) policy editor Chris Cook, with Lord Lawson (Conservative) and Alistair Darling (Labour). It was almost light relief and I couldn't find much bias in it, though I suspected Chris of trying to fish out some uncomplimentary comments from his guests (especially Mr Darling) about the new Labour leader.

Next up a story about how a bunch of prisoners in the US beat a set of Harvard scholars in a debate.

My first thought was: Aha! a Guardian-type story about elitism in the US being 'done one over' on by the underclass!

As the story was being introduced, however, I noticed (BBC Three racism hunters take note!) that all of the Harvard losers appeared white while three out of four of the winning prisoners were black. Was Newsnight about to obsess about race angle again? 

Well, no. Wrong!...

Then Emily outlined the motion of the debate: "The children of illegal immigrants should be denied access to free schooling".

Here I stopped in my tracks. Surely the Harvard types would oppose such a motion. (I imagine Harvard types to be overwhelmingly liberal). So would Newsnight actually be defying my expectations of them and celebrating the victory of a team that argued that the children of illegal immigrants should be denied access to free schooling? Really?

Of course, it was more complicated than that. On Googling around it transpires that the inmates were indeed backing that unexpected position, but they were doing so despite personally opposing it - i.e. they were brilliantly playing devil's advocate (so no harm done as they didn't believe it). A safe story for Newsnight after all then.

Further checking online, this story has been a big story (for three days) at...the Guardian. I've checked quite thoroughly and the Guardian does seem to have been the only UK media to make a lot of this...other than Newsnight. 

So, yes, after all, it was a case of "Aha! a Guardian-type story about elitism in the US being 'done one over' on by the underclass!" Presumably Ian Katz read it in his old paper and thought, "Great story. Let's do that!"

And if you thought that reeked of BBC/Guardianista sensibilities then the final item absolutely stunk of them. 

Yes, it was all about the latest BBC/Guardianista obsession: transsexuals and transitioning gender - and normalising transexuality. 

(Apparently, from what I've read elsewhere, BBC One's Eastenders is being used to push this angle too.)

This Newsnight report by Cat McShane (complete with emotional music) was wholly sympathetic and one-sided (and featured an attack on a Murdoch paper for being unsympathetic), propagandist even...

...and here I get into a moral quandary because I'm as liberal as anyone at the BBC about such things. I understand. I sympathise. I wish them well...

...but this report had such an agenda, such a palpable design on its viewers, that my hackles were somewhat raised by it - particularly by Cat's ostentatiously virtue-signalling commentary. 

Checking Cat out, I can't say I was too surprised to read:

I’ve presented for the World Service, and written for Vice, The Observer, New Statesman and blogged for the Huffington Post.

Of course she has. And of course Ian Katz is a fan. (If it turned out she'd written for Breitbart I'd probably have had a heart attack from sheer shock!)

Of Profs, Putin, pro-EU MPs and Prokofiev

Boats 

An investigation of the BBC News website reveals that the most recent of their 'Viewpoint' features (where voices beyond the BBC are giving space on the BBC website) is: Viewpoint: Treat refugees as a development issue, by Prof Alexander Betts (Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University).

Here's a flavour of it: 

Europe is facing a mass influx of refugees from outside the region for the first time in its history, as people flee persecution and conflict in countries such as Syria and Iraq. And its politicians are struggling to find a coherent response. 

At the European level, the EU's supposed common asylum and immigration policy has been stretched to breaking point. While politicians and the media have inappropriately characterised this as a "migrant crisis", the overwhelming majority of people are coming from refugee-producing countries. 

Europe has a proud history of protecting refugees - it created the modern refugee regime after the Holocaust. This tradition is under threat. 

Europe needs to provide asylum, but it also needs to take a global perspective. Only a tiny proportion of the world's 20 million refugees come to Europe...

Although not a substitute for sanctuary in Europe, the EU needs a comprehensive global refugee policy. The response must include better cooperation within the EU among the 28 states on sharing responsibility within Europe. 

It has to include articulating to the public why we should take refugees ourselves - in terms of ethics, law, economic and cultural benefits, and the symbolic importance of reciprocity. 

But it also requires a plan for how to sustainably support refugees in other parts of the world.

Well, that's exactly the kind of piece I'd expect the BBC to be promoting at the moment if I believed the corporation to be biased on the issue (which I do).

*****

Professor Betts was also on today's The World This Weekend, making some of the same points in a discussion about Europe and the UK's response to the illegal immigrant crisis (as he most definitely wouldn't put it).

Alongside him was migration expert Elizabeth Collett, whose Twitter feed reveals that she comes from a similar standpoint to Professor Betts (and a firmly pro-EU one to boot).

And alongside both of them was a Conservative MP (one of the most liberal and pro-EU), Damian Green, who made somewhat liberal-sounding comments on the issue today.

That followed yet another long interview with a migrant, where the migrant's story of suffering was aired at length but barely questioned.

His story could, of course, very well be true, but how was Shaun Ley to be sure? How were we as listeners to be sure either?

None of which exactly assuages our qualms about the BBC's coverage of the migrant crisis, does it?

*****

Barbie and Ken

And for the sake of completeness...

...then came a segment on the exploitation of the Arctic in the wake of climate change (a very BBC subject) - especially Russia's planned exploitation of the Arctic.

An indigenous type from Canada denounced governments and corporations for exploiting the effects of global warming. A non-Putin-supporting Russian reporter (based in Norway) then teed up the section specifically focusing on Russia by saying that Russia didn't rank 'climate change' as very important in connection with the Arctic. And then someone from the Obama administration added his five-cents-worth about Putin's intended expansion into the region (in a strikingly non-committal [one might almost say appeasing] fashion, despite Shaun Ley's questions tempting him to say something critical of Russia).

If The World This Weekend had been broadcast on the internet a million Krembots would have instantly descended on it, like wolves on Peter's ill-fated duck (a reference for any Prokofiev fans out there).

Caroline in Putinland

In the spirit of open and honest blogging, I think I'm duty bound to record that this morning's Sunday on Radio 4 was excellent.

Putting my yellow (jaundiced) hat on, however...

...the programme certainly lived up to my caricature of it as being Tablet-fixated on Pope Francis: This edition was a special from Russia whose explicit starting point was the Pope's meeting with President Putin.

And it also allowed me to triumph again at the popular game of Sunday Bingo by having a Muslim representative (this time speaking with a strong meerkat accent) assert (without challenge) that there's no such thing as extreme or radical Islam and that people like Islamic State aren't true Muslims (#it'snothingtodowithIslam, #bingo!).

I am, of course, being somewhat flippant here (as you may perhaps have noticed). Yet, all in all, this was a seriously informative edition of Sunday, and I was impressed by it. 

And it was full of Russian Orthodox choral music too (a real favourite of mine).

It was presented by Caroline Wyatt rather than Ed Stourton and (for once) Pope Francis's actions received some proper questioning. (Was Ed listening? Did he faint?) 

Caroline was superb throughout.

Did you know that Moscow might possibly have a Muslim population of over one million - four times as many as its Jewish population - but only four mosques (shame!)? 

Or that there's a revival of Old Style unison chant in modern Russia (as opposed to all that chordal, polyphonic stuff that we Westerners take to so readily)? 

Or that the increasingly anti-Semitic Stalin created an autonomous Jewish region way out east? 

From the potted history of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (which Stalin dynamited and Yeltsin resurrected) to the interview with Moscow's Chief Rabbi, this was the kind of BBC broadcasting I wholly approve of.

And it would obviously be wrong not to say so.

This post is KremTroll-approved. 

Exposing Putin TV

I've not had much time to follow BBC-related matters in recent days, but I did spot a post by Gene at Harry's Place which praised a familiar BBC journalist - namely former BBC Middle East correspondent Natalia Antelava - for a piece she did from Ukraine.

This admirably debunked Russian media claims that Ukrainian bombing resulted in the death of a young girl. 

It certainly is a compelling piece of reporting and one that, on Twitter, has sent the Krembots into a state of malicious frenzy. 

It's a shame, however, that Natalia's determination to expose Putiwood (as it might be called) never extended, in her former life, into exposing the similarly emotive fakeries of Paliwood in Gaza and the West Bank.

Maybe she'll go back there one day and do the right thing.

A Potted History of Ukraine's Russian-speaking Minority

As part of Is the BBC biased?'s mission to inform, educate and entertain I thought I might transcribe the contribution of Anna Reid, ex-Economist writer and author of 'Borderland', to this morning's edition of Broadcasting House. 

Why? Because I found it very interesting and illuminating. (She didn't hide her own biases either, which is good.)

Ethnic Russians make up 8 million thereabouts out of Ukraine's total population of 46 million and they are concentrated in three areas - Donetsk in the east, next door to Russia; Crimea, down in the south; and Odessa to the west, next to the border with Romania - and all three regions were once part of something called the Black Sea Steppe, which was a great sweep of empty prairie which was fought over by all the neighbouring powers until Catherine the Great finally managed to prize it away from the Ottomans and called it 'New Russia'.

It is Crimea that identifies itself far the most closely with Russia. It's the only place with a clear majority of ethnic Russians. It's home to the Black Sea Fleet is Sevastopol. The Tsarist aristocracy built themselves summer palaces here and in Soviet days it was where every Stakhanovite worker and party apparatchik dreamed of retiring, and it's this patriotic Soviet elite and their descendants who still make up quite a big proportion of the population; hence it wasn't a great surprise when Putin was able to annex the peninsula almost unopposed.

Donetsk is completely different. It's a depressed industrial area and the provincial capital was founded in the 1870s by a Merthyr Tydfil ironmaster called John Hughes who sank the first mines o the invitation of the Tsar, and until the Russian Revolution the city was actually called Yuzovka after him. And when you drive through the countryside round about it looks a bit like you imagine 19th Century Wales looked - one minute you're passing slagheaps and pitheads and the next it's wooden cottages and plump ladies selling tomatoes from the side of the road. And the towns where the fighting is going on at the moment, like Sloviansk, have hardly moved on since the economic collapse of the '90s. And I got to a place called Yenakiieve just as a shift was ending at the local steel mill and it was like stepping into a Lowry painting. At the end of the main street these great brick chimneys loomed up and out of the main gates, which were still emblazoned with the hammers and sickles, this crowd of men was streaming in their filthy boiler suits with blackened faces and red eyes. And Yenakiieve's lucky because the mill is still open and the towns where the local factories closed are called 'dead towns'.

The split between Donetsk and Kiev isn't just about nationality. It's also about the new middle class - there are people who are are taking holidays abroad, using the internet - and the old left-behind working class. A third of all Ukrainians have never left their home province, and in the Donetsk region that's nearer a half. So for them Western Ukraine really does feel like a foreign country and it's not so surprising that Putin's utterly grotesque propaganda about Western Ukrainians all being a bunch of bloodthirsty fascists has traction.

Odessa is a port city. It's multi-ethnic. It was settled by a whole raft of different nationalities in the late 1700s and then it boomed all through the 19th Century, exporting grain to the Mediterranean and beyond. So Odessans see themselves as business-minded and as not being interested in politics and, hence, the dreadful shock at those deaths in the trades union building. When I got to that building a couple of days later the public was just being allowed to wander around freely and people were laying flowers here and there among the debris. One British journalist had stones thrown at him, but a man just said to me, sadly, "This is stupidity. Look, this is not Odessa".

Will Donetsk and Odessa go the same way as Crimea? That depends on Putin but I think, if left to themselves, not. First, neither Donetsk nor Odessa has a Russian majority, an ethnic Russian majority, and polls show a large majority of Russian speakers overall in Ukraine wanting the country to stay united, and a recent one by the Pew Research Center shows only 27% wanting regions to be allowed to break away. And this referendum, this pseudo-referendum, today will doubtless try to show that Russian support is much larger but from what I've seen what Ukraine's Russians want is not a change of passport but better government, a better standard of living, and even when you speak to the small minority of extremists - the guys with the baseball bats in the balaclavas - what they harangue you about, first and foremost, are the same things that all Ukrainians, and for that matter all Russians, complain about - unemployment, corruption, wretched pay and pensions, useless politicians - and it's these, not the language issues, not the nationality issues, that Ukraine has to fix if it's going to hang together. Will Putin give it time to do that? We don't know. 

Chicken Kiev, the BBC and Russia

My goodness, last night's Newsnight was quite something. 

Especially remarkable was the tone it adopted over the Russia-Ukraine conflict - particularly during Emily Maitlis's interview with the newly-appointed Ukrainian interim economic minister, Pavlo Sheremeta.

Mr Sheremeta (who seems a reasonable sort of chap, unaffiliated to any party) told her that the only way forward is for Ukraine to remain calm, try to understand Russia's objections, and de-escalate the conflict through purely peaceful means. 

Again and again, in response, Emily asked Mr Sheremeta about why Ukrainian forces have failed to respond so far. ("So Russia is ON your military bases. Do you call THAT negotiation?", "How far will you let Russia go before YOU take action?", "Let me just clarify then. It sounds from what you're saying, like you are ruling out any kind of military response to what is going on there now. Is that right?").

What was peculiar though was her use of an incredulous tone of voice whilst putting those questions to Mr Sheremeta. 

That incredulous tone felt completely misjudged to me. 

And it was more than just incredulous. It sounded almost gung-ho, as if Emily Matlis were Mrs Doyle from Father Ted saying "Go on, go on, go on, go on..." to the reluctant Ukrainian government minister. (We can only be grateful that she didn't start going, "bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk", and flapping her arms around like a chicken.)

This wasn't very responsible interviewing, in my opinion. 

And that wasn't Emily Maitlis's only dogged pursuit of an angle in this section of last night' Newsnight. 

Emily was also keen to pursue the story of the accidental breach of security outside Downing Street yesterday, when a document was glimpsed (by eagle-eyed cameramen) showing that Britain rules out military action and tough financial sanctions against Russia. 

She pursued it with both Mark Urban and Senator John McCain, and in the case of Senator McCain, seemed very clearly to be fishing for criticism of the British government. ("How do you respond then to Western powers who will rule out military engagement or, indeed, tough financial sanctions?", "Tonight we saw documents from the UK government, inadvertently, showing they were not for now supporting trade sanctions or closing the financial centre to Russians. Is that the right approach?").

Senator McCain described himself as "disappointed".

Let's move on.

Senator McCain (unlike the always level-headed Mark Urban) is gung-ho for action against Russia, and the other guest who was due to appear on the programme, John Bolton, takes a very similar line to Mr McCain on the present situation...

...so it was probably a good thing then that Mr Bolton bolted just before the interview began (due to a prior engagement), or we would have heard the same views twice.

John Bolton has long been one of Newsnight's go-to men. He's their 'robust U.S. right-winger of choice'. 

His near-presence took me back to the days of the Iraq War, when he'd play the part of the 'bad guy' in Newsnight discussion after Newsnight discussion, set against the BBC's 'good guy', Sir Ming Campbell. 

Sir Ming used to be on the BBC so often during the Iraq War that it's long been rumoured that he used to have his own bed in the Newsnight studio. (Clare Short was said to have used the same bed too - though not at the same time.) 

As there's war afoot, Sir Ming was Newsnight's natural first choice for a British guest. The call duly went in. Had Mr Bolton stayed put, they would have both been reunited. Which would have been super.

Naturally, Sir Ming doesn't like Putin one bit, but he was up against Newsnight's 'robust Russian right-winger of choice', Alexander Nekrassov - and Mr Nekrassov (a former Yeltsin advisor) has (from what I've seen of him) become more and more pro-Putin as time passes. 

And he's becoming something of a fixture on Newsnight too. (Being a keen tweeter himself, he'll doubtless appreciate the fact that the liberal Twitterati seem to have a collective nervous breakdown every time he appears).

There's no prizes for guessing who Emily Maitlis went after here. And strongly too.

Yes, Alexander Nekrassov got all of the disapproving challenges while Sir Ming was allowed to do his thing in piece (with one half-hearted devil's advocate question being asked, for 'balance'.)

Bad, bad Russia! - that sums up the tenor of Emily's questioning here.

Which leads me to reflect...(and please tell me if you think I'm talking nonsense!)...

People like me, thirty years ago, would often accuse elements at the BBC of being 'soft' on the Soviet Union - a 'softness' that stood in sharp contrast to the corporation's strenuous questioning of U.S. foreign policy back then. Some of us felt that the possible cause of that display of 'understanding' towards our enemy in the Cold War might have had its roots in the BBC's left-wing bias.

Nowadays, things could hardly be more different. It's as if the world has spun around 180 degrees. 

Now it's Russian spokesmen who are grilled by BBC interviewers and U.S. politicians (at least since the Obama administration came to power) who get the easier ride.

This tendency seems to have become a full-blown bias in the last few years. 

Whether it be over gay rights, or Greenpeace, or Pussy Riot, or its policy towards Syria, the BBC seems to have become openly hostile to the Russian government in a way which would have been unthinkable in the days of the old U.S.S.R.

I remember - and I now regret not blogging about it - a remarkable Newsnight debate last year based around Stephen Fry's calls for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics over Russia's new anti-gay laws. 

There were four guests - three anti-Putin and one pro-Putin. Kirsty Wark gave just one of them a hard time: the pro-Putin guest, our friend Alexander Nekrassov. So much so, that the debate became 'four against one', and it was perfectly clear where Kirsty's sympathies lay.

And, at around the same time, I recall both Paddy O'Connell and Eddie Mair giving Russian spokesmen a real going-over (Paddy hotly, Eddie icily) over the same issue - gay rights. (Alas, neither interview is available to 'listen again' now). 

There's, of course, a good case to be made that BBC interviewers should give pro-Putin spokesmen a severe grilling, especially over issues of human rights and - above all - if Russia is invading another country, IF those interviewers keep their own emotions and biases from becoming too evident during the interview [if we're sticking to the BBC's own take on 'impartiality', that is], but it does strike me as interesting that there really does seem to be a strong emotional bias against Putin's Russia on display at the BBC at the moment. 'Putinism' seems to offend them.

Do you agree?

Putin's calculating claim to be the leader of world conservatism last year, his outwitting of Obama over war in Syria (a war most people dreaded), his utter lack of political correctness, his machismo, his heavy-handedness with Greenpeace, all these things (and many more) seem to be winning him hordes of admirers (or half-admirers) across the right-leaning ends of the webosphere.

Whenever I read the comments at The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Daily Mail, Biased BBC, etc, I'm struck by the sheer width (if not depth) of such support for the Russian leader. (There are, of course, plenty of exceptions too).

That being the case, it's hardly surprising to find the largely left-leaning (or, at the very least, firmly non-right-leaning) BBC recoiling in horror at Putin and everything he stands for (or pretends to stand for).

The current crisis in Ukraine is raising tensions across the right-leaning webosphere though. Some are aghast that so many right-wing commenters are actively backing Putin's military intervention in Ukraine. (And something similar seems to be going on on the Left too.)

At this point I should tell you where I stand [as, on the blogosphere, everyone must have an opinon] but, frankly, I'm all over the place on this. The world is becoming a very confusing place.

A few years back, I was appalled at Putin's canny filleting of Georgia and its nice pro-Western president. Then it transpired that my black and white views were probably misguided. That nice president turned out to be corrupt and authoritarian and unpopular (albeit full of redeeming contradictions too), and maybe the people in the break-away regions (who Putin so cleverly exploited) did have some legitimate grievances at the way the Georgians had treated them after all.

That taught me a lesson.

Today's situation in Ukraine has parallels. It's 'shades of grey' all the way, and I feel deeply conflicted about it.

On the one hand, it's a case of Ukrainians (many right-leaning) crying out for democracy and probity in public office against a corrupt post-Soviet (former) president with a strong air of stupidity, venality and brutality about him, who imprisoned opposition leaders and grew increasing undemocratic, then rising up against him and being killed (in some numbers) by brutal state security forces, before eventually triumphing.

It's like 1989 all over again (and I loved 1989).

The Russian invasion is, therefore, a case of The Empire Striking Back, and Putin's claims that the new government is 'fascist' and anti-Semitic are clearly a calculated exaggeration.

Plus, and probably not incidentally, 'Russians invading places' is a concept I've spent decades holding to be, self-evidently, 'a bad thing', and the former KGB-man obviously also has a keen interest in permanently securing Russia's naval base in Crimea (especially given the closing of his 'Syria option') and keeping Ukraine tied into his energy policy.

On the other hand, those far-right, anti-Semites who spearheaded the violence against the Yanukovych government, and forced it out, do exist.

Despite Edward Lucas of The Economist's suggestion (can't remember where I read it) that such elements might be a Putin false flag, I've seen that Gabriel Gatehouse (BBC) report showing that such people really do exist (in some numbers) and I've followed Harry's Place (like Sue) enough to know that the nationalist Svoboda party does contain anti-Semites, and it now holds four government seats (including the defence ministry). I'm not comfortable with that. Svoboda (like Hungary's Jobbik) isn't just a Russian false flag. Such people exist, and there are more and more of them around.

Plus the new government did rise up against a democratically-elected government and then immediately passed (without any democratic mandate) a law restricting the use of the Russian language. Putin (and his people) might well regard that in an unfavourable light.

Shades of grey everywhere, eh? (And probably more than fifty of them).

tl;dr too, eh?