The BBC wriggles again

A Tale of Two Tims, for the DJ Tim business has firmly dropped DG Tim in it.

The whole business is fascinating, recalling the past Bashir and Savile scandals, with one part of the BBC working with The Guardian [naturally] and firing Freedom of Information requests at another part of the BBC to find out about previous complaints about former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood, while that other part of the BBC was behaving in classic BBC fashion by initially stalling and refusing to confirm or deny any past complaints, and then shifting tack and saying it didn't hold information "helpful for this investigation".

And that's when Tim Davie put his foot in it, insisting:

I've asked and we've looked at our records and we've seen no evidence. If something like this were raised or anything comes up, we investigate it fully.

...which turns out to have been less than accurate. For now, seven months on from the start of it all, the BBC has admitted there have been six complaints after Tim Westwood [who worked for the BBC up until 2013].

What is wrong with them? You'd think, after Bashir and Savile - and Cliff - that they'd stop being so defensive, so obstructive, so incompetent, so shifty when faced with investigations that might damage their reputation. The impression of constant knee-jerk 'covering up' is the thing that's most damaging to their reputation, but they don't seem to be able to help themselves. 

They Don’t Know the BBC

I caught the above Guardian tweet the other day but forgot to share it:

‘I didn’t think this would air on the BBC’: the stars of shocking legal drama You Don’t Know Me. Samuel Adewunmi, Bukky Bakray and writer Tom Edge discuss highlighting startling racial prejudice in the justice system – and showing that it isn’t fit for purpose.

...to which my immediate first thought was: Never mind You Don’t Know Me, they obviously don't know the BBC. Nothing was more likely to air on the BBC than this at the moment. 

Even the Guardian...

There's been a lot of anger directed at the BBC today because of the BBC News website's reporting of the David Miller affair.

David Miller was the Bristol University sociology professor who revelled in baiting Jewish students at his university by mocking them and spreading conspiracy theories at their expense. He's now been sacked.

I've seen people saying that even The Guardian reported the story more fairly than the BBC, and contrasting their respective headlines. 

Where the BBC headline says Bristol University: Professor David Miller sacked over Israel comments, the Guardian headline says Bristol University sacks professor accused of antisemitic comments. 

Even by putting it that way the BBC has taken David Miller's side, because the claim that he's only criticising Israel is his - and his supporters' - main defence.

The Guardian report begins:

The University of Bristol has sacked a sociology professor accused of antisemitic comments following a high-profile investigation and after Jewish students said they felt “unsafe and unprotected” on campus.

The BBC report begins:

A University of Bristol professor being investigated over comments he made about Israel has been sacked.

Here are two tweets from people starting from contrasting perspectives, both agreeing:

David Collier: The BBC headline saying David Miller was sacked over 'Israel comments' is outrageous. Miller was sacked for what he did to BRITISH students here in the UK and his antisemitic mindset that turned BRITISH Jews into Israeli spies. He was sacked for his comments about British Jews.

Sunder Katwala: [1] Poor reporting by the BBC. Core complaint is primarily about Miller's comments about Jewish student societies in UK universities (that they are pawns of a racist foreign power). His characterisation of them being controlled by Israel, but "over Israel comments" misses core point. [2] BBC report. Flawed headline. Opaque report, because it alludes to comments, and responses, but it does not quote comments sufficiently to inform a new general reader about the dispute. Unclear about link between "Israel" and "Jewish students" that is core. 

Reading the full BBC report after reading the full Guardian report was quite an experience.

I don't for one minute think that the Guardian report by Rachel Hall was hostile to the sacked professor, but it tried its best to fairly report both sides, without adding overly obvious winks and nudges in any direction. 

Not so the BBC piece, which struck me as being quite passive-aggressive in some of its language [e.g. "Dozens said the comments were 'inciting hatred against Jewish students'"] and positively deceptive it what it didn't mention that the Guardian did mention. 

Compare and contrast. First the BBC:

The investigation included an independent report, the university said, which considered the "important issue of academic freedom of expression and found that Prof Miller's comments did not constitute unlawful speech". 

Now the Guardian: 

Bristol said that although a QC found that the comments Miller is alleged to have made “did not constitute unlawful speech”, a disciplinary hearing concluded that he “did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff”. 

The BBC wrote that piece and obfuscated what the Graun makes fairly clear. The Graun gave both sides and a pretty full view. 

The BBC is increasingly full of activists who wouldn't recognise impartiality's bottom from its elbow. That they're even worse than The Guardian on this is jaw-dropping.

A ''virtue advertisement'' from the BBC

  

Even The Guardian is joining in, describing the new-look Question of Sport as ''a vapid BBC reboot'' and ''a howler''. Mark Lawson's review points out the typical BBC cack-handed virtue-signalling too:

The balance of the team feels off. [Paddy] McGuinness, who has telling moments of apologising that the script or format need more work, introduces the Olympic hockey gold medallist Sam Quek as “the first ever female captain” on the show. The producers leave in the audience applause for this virtue advertisement. Yet with former rugby union international Ugo Monye as the other captain and Barker replaced by McGuinness, there is still only one woman in the top trio, as has been the case for the past quarter of a century.

 

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye

 

The BBC's main defender in print, The Guardian/Observer, has a piece today that comes out very strongly against Andrew Neil & Co. and their new television service(s). 

The first witness it calls in opposition to Andrew Neil's GB News (and another new service) is none other than the BBC's Jon Sopel. 

The Observer introduces his contribution by saying that he "sees the promised channels as a greater potential threat to democracy than Britain’s already openly biased newspapers."

And what is Jon Sopel then quoted as saying by The Guardian/Observer? 

Well, he's quoted at some length but I can sum it all up in a few words: He thinks that he's getting it about right, and that the BBC and the other existing main UK news channels are also getting it about right. Why? Because, he says, he and they seek to be 'fair' and 'balanced' and don't propagandise. 

Paging Mandy Rice-Davies!

And pull the other one!

I'm surprised Andrew Neil hasn't commented on this on Twitter yet, as far as I can see (and I've checked). Wonder what he thinks of Jon Sopel's appearance in this anti-GB News piece?

*******

UPDATE: On a related theme, and fresh in...SHOCK NEWS!!! The Guardian (which 'some say' is the inky wing of the BBC) comes out in favour of the BBC: 

*******

FURTHER UPDATE: And here's a little Twitter feedback for Jon Sopel:

Martin Daubney: Absolute cobblers here from BBC’s North America Editor who sees new British TV channels as a “threat to democracy”. If the BBC & the rest had been impartial over Brexit/Trump/COVID we might not need alternatives. Bring it on - and let the market decide!

Ella T: The BBC's Jon Sopel said what? Can there be a more biased, warped individual reporting from USA than him? The gravy train for him and his ilk is coming to an end.

Richard Hammonds: Sopel has been a Trump hater from day one. Every single report he makes is negative biased and twisted. Just watch him about turn into the 'love-in' mode for Biden. Utter garbage is the BBC. It is now a propaganda unit not a news outlet.

From Hell.

 

A few days ago I watched Roger Waters on Al Jazeera to see whether I’m really willing to listen to the other side.

Roger Waters believes that if one supports Human Rights one should also be a passionate supporter of the Palestinian cause. Gesturing ‘zip-across-the mouth', he believes he isn’t “allowed to speak out” on the MSM’ He is adamant that he is not an antisemite.

Al Jazeera’s grinning hostess gently challenged him on the apparent disconnect between, eg, his silence on the Russian - Ukrainian situation and his all-consuming quest for “Justice” for the “Palestinian people”. Unable to offer a coherent explanation he faltered and ground to a halt.

Curious as to how he might define an antisemite since he obviously doesn’t want to be thought of as one, I assume that willingness to tolerate the Jews who disavow or denounce Israel is enough, in his eyes, to exonerate one from the disgrace of being deemed a racist.

The BBC hasn’t no-platformed him as far as I know. Granted they don’t give his pseudo-intellectual political ramblings much publicity, but they still venerate his former magnificence as one of the iconic 60s rock group Pink Floyd.

**********

A few days ago I saw the clip of Piers Corbyn and David Icke sharing a platform  - well you know the rest. I didn’t blog it then, but I should have because several others spotted it too, but belatedly. I could have had a scoop. 

Similarly, David Collier flagged up that weird Nimesh Thaker and his ‘Not That Bothered’ Twitter account. I had already seen it on another site but I let it go. Another nugget I might have scooped., but didn’t.

But I don’t care. The urgency is blunted. Everyone is aware that the BBC is biased. They might not be as interested in the anti-Israel angle as I am, but they’re on the case. I am glad this is happening, but the problem for me is that so many of the better-late-than-never pundits who have risen to a collective crescendo over BBC bias have gone for low hanging fruit. Mostly they cite examples that we’ve highlighted. Lewis Goodall and so on. The Proms. Not that we deserve the credit - it would be very wishful indeed to think that our decade-worth of blood sweat and tears had paid off. 

********

Did anyone spot a gem of would-be satire in the Guardian a few days ago? Chatting to a high court judge about crime and criminals, (as you do) m’lud remarked that most criminals look like criminals. Look at mugshots and you’ll see that there’s more than a grain of truth in that. 

                                

Marina Hyde, pictured with either a sneer or some kind of Bell’s Palsy (which I understand is a temporary condition) is a perfect example of 'show me the mugshot and I’ll show you the character'. 

She fantasises about a biased-to-the-right-incarnation of the BBC. 'The Fox News Beeb'. Here we have an oh so witty description of a right-wing BBC from Hell and it’s so hilarious I can hardly type for the tears running down my legs; as the saying went.  

Which extremists and fascists would feature in the Guardian’s right-wing TV from Hell?  What totalitarian creatures would star in an imaginary Foxy BBC Reichstag? Well, Marina Hyde names the bad guys thus:

Toby Young, Laurence Fox, Tom Harwood, Isabel Oakshott (Oakshitt) (Oh my aching sides) Darren Grimes, Allison Pearson, Nick Ferrari, James Delingpole, Nigel Farage. 

The concept of a parody of a ghastly right-wing BBC must amuse her and her Guardian-worshipping followers because un-self-aware amusing parodies are the genre - nay,  the life-blood - of Marina Hyde and, say, John Crace. But ha! The joke’s on her! She forgot Melanie Phillips!

Sadly, the alternative non-hilarious schedule of the BBC from Hell isn’t a fantasy. We have Lewis Goodall, Emily Maitlis, Kirsty Wank (Oh my aching sides) Owen Jones, Victoria Derbyshire, Jeremy Bowen, Ed Stourton, Mishal Husain, The Labour Party, the entire staff of the Guardian and the independent and representatives of Novara Media and The Canary. 

That’s your alternative version of the media from Hell and I’m not even joking.

Being fed a huge amount of lies

Did you know that all pro-Israel advocacy from the mouth of a non-Jew (Col Richard Kemp) is worth a million times more than the very same thing from a Jew? Obviously, the theory is that a Jew has skin in the game or a dog in the fight, whereas a non-Jew is trustworthy and less likely to lie. 

No sooner had I digested that sad-but-true observation (in the Stand With Us video) than I was invited to digest a proposal with a similar concept; inversely. And pretty indigestible it is too. 

The theory is, of course, that when an actual Jew defames Israel, his defamation is worth a thousand defamations by the usuals, and the Guardian and its ilk will hang on to every priceless word.

The ilk?

On the Elder of Ziyon site, I read this piece about a comedian named Seth Rogen who, “AsaJew” believes the scales have fallen from his eyes and that he has suddenly discovered the unvarnished truth about Israel. 

This is Rogan's revelation that got The Guardian going:

"And I also think that as a Jewish person, like I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life. You know, they never tell you, that oh by the way, there were people there. They make it seem like it was– just sitting there, oh the fucking door’s open!…Literally they forget to include the fact to every young Jewish person: Basically, oh yeah, there were people living there.

Unfortunately, he has yet to realise that those scales have been replaced by the much grimmer lens - the prism of Palestinian propaganda. According to Elder 'any fule (who attended a Jewish school), kno' - or should kno - the relevant history. He explains:

"It is literally impossible to teach Israel’s history without mentioning the Arabs who were the majority before 1948. The riots in 1920, 1921 and 1929; the mini-civil war of 1936-9, the reasons for the British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration, the partition plan, the fighting in 1947-8 and the refugee issue – these topics cannot be avoided if one is taught even a perfunctory history of Israel, no matter how Zionist that history is.

The 1950s book “The Story of modern Israel for young people” features this illustration;

The damage that this silly person will do through his own gullibility and that of others - and (if applicable) his celebrityhood - is of inverse proportion to the substance of his ‘revelation’. The fact that the Guardian 'leapt on it and ran' speaks volumes. 

Not only does the circularity of this brand of propagandising highlight the push-me-pull-you nature of the dissemination of disinformation like a snake eating its own tail, but it gives the Guardian a hook on which to hang further disinformation with its very own potted  “history lesson”.

"More than 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes or fled fighting in the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation. Today, those families and their descendants make up around 5.6 million refugees.

No! It was not the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation! Wrong! Wrong and back to front!

1. End of British Mandate 14th May 1948. 
2. State of Israel proclaimed 14th May 1948. 
3. Israel invaded by five Arab states 15th May 1948

It was Israel’s creation that ‘led to’ the war - a war of intended annihilation - started by the Arabs, waged by the Arabs and lost by the Arabs, if you didn’t know, Oliver Holmes or whoever wrote that garbage.  You might ask yourself who’s been feeding you all those lies your entire life? And, Oh, by the way, there were lies everywhere; and you literally forget to mention The Inconvenient Truth About Jews From Arab Lands

In case you can't access content from Haaretz - I think they ask you to register - I'm giving you an excerpt from it below. Don't forget, this is from Israel's equivalent to The Guardian and the BBC's go-to source of news and views from Israel - so don't dismiss it as predictable nonsense from the book of 'they would say that wouldn't they'  Nathan Weinstock, the subject of the article and author of a study about Jews of Arab lands began as a member of the anti-Zionist left - until the scales fell from his eyes and he realised he'd been playing the part of the 'useful idiot'.

"What makes Weinstock’s decision to write about the Jews’ expulsion from the Arab world especially surprising is his own political biography: He was one of the leading figures in the anti-Zionist left in France during the 1960s and ‘70s. From viewing Israel and Zionism as a colonial project aimed at dispossessing the Palestinians, Weinstock underwent a dramatic conceptual upheaval that led him to address a painful and rarely discussed aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“This book is the story of a tragedy,” he writes in a special introduction to the Hebrew edition, “of the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi Jews, who were torn cruelly from their homes and homelands. Whole communities of Jews, who had always resided in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, underwent expulsion, persecution and malicious liquidations Nevertheless, this drama remains unknown and it has been denied for a lengthy period.”

In retrospect, Weinstock explains, that event showed him the degree to which he played the part of the “useful idiot” at the time. “I was thrilled when I got up to speak to the Palestinian students,” he told me. “Very naively, I was convinced that the Palestinian students would be happy to hear my pacifist message. So I was astonished when not one of them showed the least interest in what I said. Instead, they listened ecstatically to Radio Cairo, delighting in every word and swallowing the boastful announcements that the Arab armies would soon throw all the Jews into the sea.” 

Not the Bell end after all

So much for Steve Bell getting cancelled by the Guardian. 

Steve Bell 'stunned' at reports he has been 'sacked': 'The whole thing has been a bit disturbing

"Dear Dominic

Thanks for your email. I would have appreciated a chat before you went to press because your story is not true. I would be delighted to talk sometime, over a pint of Harveys or whatever, but I would dearly love to know who confirmed it, if anyone did. I know there has been a twitter spat, and my own small contribution seems to have made things worse for me, but surely it is a necessity to at least talk to the subject of a story before publishing it. My contract as it stands is coming to an end next year, but since I have always been on an annual freelance contract, and this has always been a process of negotiation. 

You can imagine that this has been a very difficult time for me. I don’t know how the story that I’d been sacked got about, and nobody has bothered to approach me to confirm or deny it, but it highlights the problem with social media. I certainly didn’t put it out. My tweet was an attempt to counter the disgusting and damaging story that I have been sacked for alleged antisemitism, racism and misogyny. I’m now pretty certain that the Guardian didn’t either. I’m a bit stunned myself, but I’m hoping for the best. I had an approach from the Guardian Press office in response to all the nonsense on twitter, so they’re obviously in the dark too. Since I have for a long time been one of the Guardian’s most well-paid and prolific freelancers, and have been in negotiations with Kath Viner for some time about reducing my overall workload (I currently do seven cartoons a week), my contract as it stands will come to an end at the end of next April. Sadly this probably spells the end for the ‘If…’ strip after 39 and a half years, which I enjoy doing immensely, but is a hell of a lot of work for an old codger like me, particularly in full colour. I do hope to continue after next April doing large editorial cartoons.

What I am absolutely certain of is that, firstly, any changes to my contract are a result of budget cuts, and the full story of what this means for all Guardian staff and freelancers is only just becoming clear. Secondly, no one at the paper that I know of has ever suggested that I am being got rid of for reasons of alleged or supposed misogyny, racism or some other misdemeanour.

I must admit that the whole thing has been a bit disturbing, but I hope to be cartooning for a while yet. 

All the best 

Steve Bell

(emphasis mine)

Don’t you feel happy that the racist, antisemitic, misogynist old codger will continue to be generously remunerated for his imaginative beautifully drawn witty original satirical cartoons?

Unfolding story

Labour pays out six-figure sum and apologises in antisemitism row.

The BBC and the Guardian are reporting this as if butter wouldn’t melt. I can’t fully access the Guardian’s article now unless I register, and I can’t say I want to do that at the present. However, when I saw it earlier today (when I could access it for some reason) their report looked extensive. That’s one thing one can say about the Guardian; unlike the BBC whose write-ups always sound so non-committal, as if they’re walking on eggshells of their own making - the Guardian goes into detail. The general effect of the BBC’s über brevity is that anyone can project their own meaning onto any given story.

Anti-Semitism: Labour pays damages for 'hurt' to whistleblowers

After Jeremy Corbyn's statement, which said Labour settlement was a 'political not legal' decision, journalist John Ware understood to be consulting his legal team

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) July 22, 2020

BREAKING: I am told that journalist John Ware is planning to sue Jeremy Corbyn.

— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) July 22, 2020

According to a few Labour sources this morning, it's "very possible" and "highly likely" that Jeremy Corbyn will have the whip removed very soon, as a result of some of the recommendations in the EHRC report.#LabourAntisemitism

— Adam Cailler (@acailler) July 22, 2020

Developments

The Guardian's Jim Waterson reports that Emily Maitlis won't be presenting tonight's Newsnight as planned and that Katie Razzall will be presenting the programme instead. Will Ms Razzall be asked to deliver an apology? 

Jim Waterson also confirms, from BBC sources, that the programme's editor, Esme Wren, did indeed work on Tuesday night’s episode - so it was her who signed off on the Maitlis monologue. The question then is: Does she deserve to survive in post after this?

Update 22:00: A little while back Katie Razzall tweeted, "Just for the record, Emily  Maitlis has not been asked by the BBC to take tonight off - and if I thought she had been, I certainly wouldn’t have agreed to present the show".

Esme Wren herself has also recently tweeted in response to The Observer's Carole Cadwalladr (Carole was doing her usual getting-the-wrong-end-of-the-stick thing on Twitter, writing "And this makes no sense.  Emily Maitlis has an editor. The editor takes responsibility for the editorial content. What is this? A punishment beating?"), to which Ms Wren replied: 

I am the Editor of Newsnight Carole Cadwalladr & I am responsible for the output of the programme. Emily Maitlis hasn’t been replaced tonight in response to the BBC statement. Katie Razzall is part of the team and we work as a team throughout. 

Given that Emily Maitlis ended last night's programme by saying she'd see the audience tonight and she's listed in the various TV listings as being scheduled to present tonight (as usual on a Wednesday), people are putting two and two together and smelling a rat. 

I'd say, however, looking at the very careful wording of Katie Razzall's and Esme Wren's tweets that it's almost certainly the case that Emily Maitlis isn't presenting tonight because she didn't want to present tonight's programme (Too embarrassed? Too upset? Too angry?) and so Katie Razzall agreed to present it instead.

P.S. And The Telegraph tonight reports: 

Although the BBC did not go as far as an apology, Maitlis was said to be furious that she and her colleagues had been publicly reprimanded and she did not appear as planned on Wednesday’s programme. The presenter Katie Razzall took her place.’ 

Gotcha journalism?

The Guardian's 'exclusive' yesterday that Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government, "is facing questions" after visiting his elderly parents house is itself facing questions.

The Times's Matt Chorley responded to it by writing:

A story which doesn’t even survive four pars. There are plenty of people who would be in real trouble, including some of my own family, if relatives didn’t travel to leave food/medicine on the doorstep. Credit to Robert Jenrick for looking after his parents.

And the BBC's Andrew Neil commented:

This Guardian story kills itself by para four. So why publish at all?

Mr Jenrick himself tweeted this yesterday:

For clarity - my parents asked me to deliver some essentials - including medicines. They are both self-isolating due to age and my father's medical condition and I respected social distancing rules. 

Meanwhile, today came this tweet from Stephen Canning:

I think the even funnier thing is the Daily Mail trying to run the same story the next day and claiming it’s an exclusive.

The Daily Mail seems to think he shouldn't live with his wife and children if he works as a cabinet minister in London. 

I first heard about the story while listening to Radio 3's Breakfast this morning. The usual intrusive, BBC-wide news bulletin at 8 o'clock ran the story like this:

Meanwhile, as the Government's again urged people to stay at home, a cabinet minister's had to defend his movements. The Daily Mail reports that Robert Jenrick went from London to his house in Herefordshire after Government guidance said that travel to second homes was not essential. In a statement the Communities Secretary said that he'd been in London on ministerial duties but left once he was able to work from his family home where his wife and children were.

The BBC is going with the Daily Mail's main angle interestingly, and ignoring the Guardian's angle (which that paper is, bizarrely, still sticking with). Presumably, the BBC accepts that the Guardian's angle is untenable.

I could be misunderstanding this story, but if Mr Jenrick's family lives in this 'second home' and he's an essential worker, why is it wrong that he travels back home to them? Surely that angle is just as untenable, as Mr Jenrick seems to have obeyed every one of the Government's own guidelines here.

Update: The title of the post has been amended. And I quite clearly was misunderstanding this story - see comments below. 

Mixed Bag

At least in my head, I like to think of this site as being something of a 'blog of record' as far as certain BBC-related matters go, so having missed most of the last two weeks I'm feeling the need to fill a few gaps.

Your comments are proving very helpful in helping to plug them, so thank you.

******* I *******

First, there's that anonymous 'whistleblowing' Guardian piece by a BBC insider.

I saw mixed reviews for it here on the Open Thread.

It took me a while to figure out exactly where the piece was 'coming from', but the fact that the writer twice uses the word "reactionary" - once about Danny Lockwood, the other time (literally) about 'people like us' - and then proceeds to call the leavers of the ERG "far-right" left no room for doubt that the writer is a BBC left-winger. And although it puzzled me initially that the BBC Anon sounded queasy on the question of Brexit and was against both Mark Francois and Anna Soubry, reading the longer, unedited version of the piece at The Fence (where Tom Watson and Chuka Umunna came in for snippy criticism), I think it's safe to confidently assume that the writer is a disgruntled BBC Corbyn admirer instinctively defensive of Jeremy Corbyn's fence-sitting over Brexit. (Or am I wrong?)

Still, there was some fascinating stuff in the piece, including all the bits about the grid used by producers on all BBC political shows to ensure 'diversity':

A whiteboard would be marked up with a clumsy grid system. The grid would revolve around a set of key identities such as “woman”, “northern” or “poc” (person of colour). These would then be cross-categorised with political stances such as “Brexiteer”, “Tory” or “progressive”. Our task [as BBC producers] would then be to ensure that any proposed panel contained a complete balance of all these attributes.

If 100% accurate, how 'very BBC' and patronising is that?

I don't doubt for one moment the counting bit of the grid, especially the “woman”, “northern” or “poc” (person of colour) bit. The BBC, despite rejecting the 'number-crunching' of News-watch (and my massive 2009-10 interruptions survey), are total hypocrites in this respect. They put The Count from Sesame Street to shame when it comes to counting things like "women, Northerners and pocs".

Plus, if 100% accurate, it would mean that the BBC uses the labels "Brexiteer", "Tory" and "progressive" in production meetings - and, if the BBC really does label people that way, that would speak loud volumes about the "progressive" outlook of BBC producers.

The writer also writes about the "boozy familiarity" between BBC journalists and "a handful of MPs, deeply entrenched in London’s literary and intellectual circles, [who] treat the BBC like a university common room". These MPs are "slick and power-hungry" Remainers:

Off-camera, a highly influential Westminster social circle revolves around trips to various holiday homes in continental Europe, where various MPs and the journalists who are supposed to report on them have long been playing just as hard as they work.

It's hardly proper whistleblowing though, is it, if the BBC Anon doesn't name names?

******* II *******

The grid may be repellent to opponents of identity politics, but there's no doubt that some people gain from it.

Yesterday's The Times included an interview with regular BBC Politics guest Helen Lewis (formerly of The New Statesman, now at The Atlantic).

She singles out blog favourite Rob Burley, Editor of Live Political Programmes for the BBC, as being responsible for "a seismic change in the inclusion of women in line-ups".

I don't doubt it.

Rob, however, is forever busy in having to fend off people on Twitter comparing his carefully counted and tick-boxed programmes to Loose Women.

Having counted himself, Rob says it works out, over time, at about 50/50 as far as the balance between men and women goes.

(Question: What is it for pocs and us Northerners?)

Male-female-wise, the BBC is just like Is the BBC biased?, the most woke BBC bias blog in the world, only beaten by The Conservative Woman.

******* III *******

It's been an interesting week for Rob.

I do like him, and I understand why he's severely drawn back from being the BBC's chief musketeer on Twitter: I'm assuming too many unreasonable Corbynistas, venom-spouting spider-sporting FBPE types, and Carole Catwalladr cultists - fringe fanatics, all of them, who speak for barely a minor fraction of the public.

Even a rare, admirable, charming (if choosy) BBC engager-with-the-public like Rob must get worn down by totally irrational complaints about BBC bias from 'the other side', despite temptations to continually shoot half-witted fish in tweet-sized barrels.

('Our side', of course, is perfectly reasonable in our complaints, so 'complaints from both sides' can go and take a running jump!)

On which subject, BBC Two's Politics Live came under fire from Guido Fawkes for seeming to accept without question, or any basic journalistic probing whatsoever, what an Extinction Rebellion girl said.

There's no 'seeming' about it though. As this YouTube clip shows, Jo Coburn, seeing protestors wearing miner's hats made of cardboard, simply took it on trust that the protestors surrounding the XR girl were miners and ex-miners, despite them protesting against 'their mines' and livelihoods being extended and wearing cardboard miners hats.

Apparently, they weren't either miners or ex-miners, just climate activists pretending.

Free-range egg on the BBC's face it seems, alongside fried fake news sandwiches.

To rhyme in cliché: 'So/think/before you blink/Jo'.

******* IV *******

Meanwhile (if a bit late in the following day) here's an intriguing nugget from Andrew Billen's Times interview yesterday with David Cameron's deputy chief of staff, Kate Fall:

I was also surprised to learn that Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor at the time, recommended the editor of BBC News at Ten, Craig Oliver, to succeed Coulson as director of communications. “Look, the head of comms at No 10 has nearly always been an ex-journalist, from a paper or from broadcast. I don’t think that is a huge issue.” And Robinson recommended him? “Yes, apparently.”

Who knew Nick Robinson was such a man of influence?

*******V*******

A blog well-wisher really didn't enjoy Tuesday's Newsnight complaining that they had an item about Cyril Smith and David Steel and had Harvey Proctor on to comment. "Never mind that his story had nothing to do with it. And Maitlis kept pushing him towards her POV about the police. And I noticed that the ex-policeman was a cuddly 'John' and the ex-politician was a formal 'Harvey Proctor'". That's our Em!

Still, it might earn the programme another award. Newsnight won 'Daily News Programme of the Year' at the Royal Television Society TV Journalism Awards last week.

I love this photo of the triumphant team, firstly because of Emily Maitlis's theatrical pose and, secondly, because of the total lack of diversity on display. What would Geeta Guru-Murthy say about such "a white crowd"?

*******VI*******

Talking of triumphant people, Samira Ahmed - fresh from her equal pay victory over the BBC - is definitely smiling a lot more on Newswatch. Good!

This week's BBC editor on 'we got it about right' duties was Richard Burgess, UK News Editor for BBC News. He was defending the BBC over that perennial Newswatch complaint about BBC reporters getting blown about and soaked while reporting in the middle of a storm, preferably getting drenched in sea-spray. I think Mr Burgess put up a good defence and, here at least, the BBC did get it about right.

*******VII********

Never mind coronavirus, nothing was going to stop Mishal Husain from going to Paris to interview Asia Bibi for Today. What would Greta say?

The will to live

Am I the only one who’s starting to think of death as a blessed relief? No. I’ve heard others saying something similar.

Two of the most depressing things I’ve seen recently. (In the interest of balance and fairness, the Guardian is in our sidebar.)

“We should completely close the borders … enough is enough”

This audience member says the number of people ’flooding in’ to the UK is costing public services too much. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/T5EshhWqQu

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) February 20, 2020

One. Owen Jones, supposedly railing against ‘hate’ The BBC normalised racism last night, pure and simple

‘Yet Question Time then saw fit to clip the 82 seconds of hate, accompanied by a succinct summary of the audience member’s rant. Lies and hatred, uncorrected and unchallenged, rippled across social media from the account of the BBC’s self-described “flagship political debate programme”

this, followed by a rant against the BBC for ‘allowing it’, a spittle-flecked reference to ”racist thug and convicted fraudster” Tommy Robinson and, in conclusion, something about a prime minister with a history of racism. All in all, an unadulterated outpouring of hate. Pure and simple. (oh for a  soupçon of self-awareness) 

and

Two: Marina Hyde, in the same publication, writing about Priti Patel’s ‘perma smirk’. It takes one to know one I suppose, but Marina’s perma-expression is more of a sneer than a smirk.

Those two examples of ‘left’ (for virtue) against ‘right’ (for vice) featured high in yesterday’s Guardian’s ‘most popular’ rankings. Incidentally, Matthew Parris has also had a go at Patel in the Times. I’m no particular fan of Priti Patel, and I know nothing of bullying within the Department for International Development, (how could I?) but I do know that her off-piste dealings with Israel showed a spark of independence and imagination that I admired at the time. Parris described this as ‘a monumental error”.  Typical.

Then there’s that intellectual giant and philosophical lyricist “Dave” whose brilliance and originality Is being so much admired.

The general downgrading of everything was encapsulated in a snippet on the Today programme within a conversation between Mishal Husain and Chris Mason (why?) extolling the virtues of regional accents.  There’s regional accents and there’s lazy, dumbed down, ungrammatical, illiterate patois.

Slightly consoling though, is the knowledge that Douglas Murray has written (in the Speccie) about the Beeb’s dumbed-down arts coverage How low can the BBC go? and Richard Morrison (in the Times)  The arts world is tolerant, as long as you’re left wing and anti-Brexit about the arts community’s wokeness and the new totalitarianism of the left. At least there are masses of appreciative responses.

They could almost restore the will to live.

A meeting of mind (in the BBC's defence)

Good news! The former editor of The Guardian and the present editor of the Times Literary Supplement agree to agree (isn't that lovely?):

Alan Rusbridger: BBC is due to celebrate its centenary in 2022. Quite easily - still - one of the most trusted institutions in Britain, if not the world. But apparently Dominic Cummings doesn’t like it, so, whatever.
Stig Abell: The problem is that it is hard to argue that the funding model is not anachronistic. If the BBC were to be invented today, it would not be funded by a licence on televisions. It is a small step to ignore the fact that state-supported broadcasting fills an essential function.
Alan Rusbridger: Agree. So we need to shore up the “essential function” argument and make people realise that is impossible if the BBC is essentially privatised.
Stig Abell: And the BBC needs to shore it up too.
Alan Rusbridger: True.

Friendship groups

StewGreen has pointed out a Guardian article about BBC election bias that might well tempt BBC types into their 'complaints from both sides' mantra, but oughtn't to. 

The vicious far-left/EU-fanatic Twitter bubble that terrified the BBC during the election, spraying nonsense over them, apparently made such BBC types feel deeply uncomfortable in their everyday lives. 

Fran Unsworth, the BBC's director of news and current affairs, has been defending herself to the Guardian. 

The line (highlighted by Stew) from the Guardian inadvertantly says a lot:

BBC journalists based in London, an area with strong Labour support, reported finding it harder now that their friendship groups were increasingly critical of the corporation’s output.

Of course BBC types have been in "friendship groups" with such people. (I'm not). 

Maybe they should 'unfriend' them. Many of them will have voted for Jeremy Corbyn after all, and no decent, informed person who hates antisemitism and left-wing extremism should have even considered doing so.

Luvvies' Lament

Just in case you missed this in the Graun: Concerns about antisemitism mean we cannot vote Labour

From The Letter:

“The coming election is momentous for every voter, but for British Jews it contains a particular anguish: the prospect of a prime minister steeped in association with antisemitism. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has come under formal investigation by the EHRC for institutional racism against Jews. Two Jewish MPs have been bullied out of the party. Mr Corbyn has a long record of embracing antisemites as comrades. 

“We listen to our Jewish friends and see how their pain has been relegated as an issue, pushed aside by arguments about Britain’s European future. For those who insist that Labour are the only alternative to Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, now, it seems, is not the time for Jewish anxiety. 

“But antisemitism is central to a wider debate about the kind of country we want to be. To ignore it because Brexit looms larger is to declare that anti-Jewish prejudice is a price worth paying for a Labour government. Which other community’s concerns are disposable in this way? Who would be next? 

“Opposition to racism cannot include surrender in the fight against antisemitism. Yet that is what it would mean to back Labour and endorse Mr Corbyn for Downing Street. The path to a more tolerant society must encompass Britain’s Jews with unwavering solidarity. We endorse no party. However, we cannot in all conscience urge others to support a political party we ourselves will not. We refuse to vote Labour on 12 December.” 

John le Carré (David Cornwell), Fay Weldon, Joanna Lumley, William Boyd, Simon Callow, Antony Beevor, Sathnam Sanghera, Janina Ramirez, Trevor Phillips, Jimmy Wales, Suzannah Lipscomb, Tom Holland, Frederick Forsyth, Peter Frankopan, Ghanem Nuseibeh, Dan Snow, Fiyaz Mughal, Tony Parsons, Dan Jones, Maajid Nawaz, Oz Katerji, Nick Hewer, Ed Husain, Terry Jervis

The Guardian goes on to explain that several of the signatories don’t normally vote Labour in the first place, and: Labour antisemitism row: public figures say they cannot vote for party under Corbyn

“A Labour party spokesperson said: “It’s extraordinary that several of those who have signed this letter have themselves been accused of antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny. It’s less surprising that a number are Conservatives and Lib Dems. 

“We take allegations of antisemitism extremely seriously, we are taking robust action and we are absolutely committed to rooting it out of our party and wider society.”

Maybe the BBC will mention this tomorrow. If so, it will be interesting to see what their take on it will be.

Brexit bias? BBC faces a difficult balancing act in polarised nation

This article by Roy Greenslade in the Guardian caught my eye.
If you really want to immerse yourself in a parallel, Brexit-dystopia-style world, read the comments. You don’t have to be semi-literate to join in the discussion, but it helps. (As the saying goes.)

You might need the Antidote below

'Profuse apologies'

Not BBC-related but obviously related to the previous post, I see that one of the Exaro people Newsnight used to work with - Orwell Prize-winning ex-Guardian reporter David Hencke (a precursor of the Observer's Carole Cadwalladr) - provoked The Guardian into this fulsome apology to Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard today:

Stephen Pollard, an apology. There were a number of significant errors in a report by David Hencke on page 9, yesterday, headed Chance chat over dinner led Blair to order u-turn on beds. 

The report depended substantially on the assertion that Tony Blair had had an animated conversation on the NHS beds crisis with Stephen Pollard, described as an associate editor of the Daily Express, whom he was said to have met by chance while the latter was dining in the River Cafe with his girlfriend. 

Mr Pollard is not an associate editor of the Daily Express; he is a columnist. He has never eaten in the River Cafe, let alone with Tony and Cherie Blair. While it is true that he has strong views on the NHS and the private sector, he has never discussed them "animatedly" with Tony or Cherie Blair. 

Mr Hencke did not check any of this with Mr Pollard. Profuse apologies.

Would that the BBC were more willing to offer such 'profuse apologies'!

Fine and Not Fine

A comment from MB first thing this morning...

Monkey Brains19 May 2019 at 01:19  

Horrific Fake News reporting from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-48323573 

Read that and weep after you look at the videos showing exactly who initiated the violence - this is just one: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mnHzF70Now 

And note the BBC won't even admit to the existence of a group called the "Muslim Defence League". Just remember that when you hear the 1000th reference to TR being the founder of the EDL. Fake News BBC won't even admit to there being an MDL.  

And remember - if Baroness Warsi gets her way you will go to prison if you criticise the "Muslimness" on display in the video...intimidatory shouting of "Allahu Akbar" on the streets of a once peaceful Britain. As the video guy says "No one disses our religion"...that's pretty much what the Warsi Definition means.

...had me checking that very BBC report.

Compare it to even The Guardian and The Independent's reporting of the same story and you'll see the BBC failing to report vital but uncomfortable elements of the story that even the left-leaning papers evidently felt obliged to report - most obviously the heavy involvement of the group called the "Muslim Defence League", who the BBC didn't even mention. 

If even the Guardian and the Independent can report their name and their involvement why can't the BBC?

And the Guardian and the Independent are also honest enough to make it fairly clear that the anti-Tommy Robinson crowd were at least as bad, if not worse, on the violence front. The BBC article, in very stark contrast, clouds that in so much linguistic mystery that its readers might easily assume that the violence came mainly from TR's side. 

Indeed, the BBC article as a whole is worth using in a secondary school/university English language course to show how language can be deployed to appear neutral while being very far from neutral.

And here's the thing: Despite being fairer, both the Guardian and the Independent pieces are unashamedly biased against TR. As neither paper is required to be impartial, that's fine. But the BBC, which is required to be impartial, is even more loaded against TR - despite following forms of language that cover their bias in a thin veneer of 'impartiality'. And that's not fine. 

How Leaking Happens

As everyone else is sharing it, and as I was so interested in it myself, I thought I ought to share this fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of the media and politicians by the Guardian's Gaby Hinsliff (on Twitter). Take it away, Gaby!:

*******

Look I haven't a clue what Gavin Williamson, or of course Another Mystery Person, said to Steven Swinford but generally: there seems to be some confusion about how leaking happens, so a brief boring thread...

What ministers almost never do is ring you up going 'HOO BOY GUESS WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS NSC MEETING' (to take a random example). Nor do you generally ring them up going 'OK, so what happened in the NSC meeting'.

And I think once in 13 years as a lobby hack someone rang me up saying 'there's a brown envelope in X place in the Commons, I think you'll find the contents interesting' and it was a leaked copy of a draft white paper. ONCE. So; it ain't like in films.

What happens ALL THE TIME is a sort of jigsaw ID. Maybe you know there was (say) a Cabinet meeting today and it was due to discuss X, and X is controversial. So you ring a few people and sort of bounce things around. e.g. you might say 'I've heard that there was a big row about X this morning and that you were anti it, am I doing you an injustice by writing that?' Maybe you do 100% know this is what happened and you are just responsibly checking. Maybe you are kind of guessing, and fishing. But anyway the person might then say 'You know I can't possibly talk to you about a Cabinet conversation about X, bye now'. Or they'll first try to find out what if anything you actually do know (which might not be much). Or they'll say 'gosh you guys are fast' and you'll think, OK so I was right. and then you bounce it off a few more people, and same process ensues. Or very rarely someone might go 'well if you know THAT, let me tell you XYZ'. But anything short of the last answer, and that person might tell themselves 'well I didn't leak it. They already knew. I just..helped the story be  accurate about me.' They reason everyone else is briefing to make themselves look good so why be the one who doesn't and get stuffed? Plus builds goodwill with hacks.

I've had people say to me 'I don't know how you got hold of X' and I think 'uh literally from you mate'. Sometimes if you know a person well it's about the face they pull when you ask them did X happen, or the answer they don't give. You might not write a story based on that alone obviously but it's like a rolling stone, gathering moss. A little bit of info from lots of people who in each case don't think they really told you anything much = quite a sizeable stone sometimes.

To repeat i have no idea what happened with Huawei; only the journo concerned does and he's right to protect his sources. But leaking is a complicated thing, done for complicated reasons, and thus very hard to stop. Unlike this thread. (Stop).