Rumours

 

'Breaking news' this morning...

At the very same time that tweet was sent, BBC reporter Yalda Hakim was sending out the following tweets...

A brickbat and a bouquet

Yalda Hakim

Following up on some of your earlier comments...

It really is the case - as Alan noted at B-BBC - that the BBC has been unusually reluctant to report the latest political pronouncements of Bill Gates. Usually, they have been very supportive of Bill Gates, favourably reporting his campaigns, asking him to give their Richard Dimbleby Lecture, letting his wife guest-edit Today, etc. But his criticisms (in the German media) this week of Angela Merkel's open door policy and his calls for the EU to make it much harder for migrants to come into Europe haven't been taken up by the BBC at all. ("Europe must make it more difficult for Africans to reach the Continent via the current transit route", he's said - among other things). 

I've tried searching for any mentions of his (elsewhere) much-reported remarks but I can't find any on the BBC. I've found praise for his philanthropic efforts in Africa this week, but nothing on this.

LBC has discussed them. Talk Radio has discussed them. The BBC hasn't.

The Times, the Mail, the Sun and the Express have reported them. The BBC hasn't. 

This shows the BBC's left-liberal news priorities in action (or, in this case, not very much in action).

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That said, as also noted in earlier comments, Newsnight (by coincidence?) did actually produce a most un-BBC report on the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean this week on this very subject.

Reporter Yalda Hakim made it clear that the large majority of so-called refugees are actually economic migrants, that NGOs may have a case to answer over the charge of taxiing over waves of such migrants from Libya, and that ordinary Italians are fed up with it all. Even the right-wing activists taking action to stop it weren't demonised (much). 

It was report unlike any other report I've seen on the BBC. It made it clear that there is a serious problem about which something must be done and that the people the BBC usually supports - NGOs, the EU, etc - may be a major part of the problem. 

All credit to Yalda and to Newsnight for broadcasting that.

No credit though to the rest of the BBC monolith for ignoring Bill Gates's remarks on mass immigration.

Talking of fake news...

Yalda Hakim

Last night's Newsnight featured a report on the Trump executive order from the BBC's Yalda Hakim, who had her own personal tale to tell about it:

We've just arrived at JFK and I must say I've been quite nervous the entire flight over. I was born in Afghanistan but I travel on an Australian passport and I just wasn't sure if the policy had changed mid-air between London and New York.

She went on to say:

Despite the mounting pressure and criticism, President Trump is not backing down. He criticised the tears of Chuck Schumer and asked where the lefty outrage was from Democrats "when our jobs were fleeing our country". He also reminded protesters that a crackdown on Muslims was a big part of his campaign.  

This was based on a series of tweets from Donald Trump: 

As you can see, she added "lefty" to the bit about the "outrage from Democrats" (and dropped the bit about the media).

Must worse though was her characterisation of what Donald Trump said yesterday about his campaign: "He also reminded protesters that a crack down on Muslims was a big part of his campaign". 

No, he didn't say that. That's highly misleading reporting.

His tweet said that "searching for terrorists before they can enter our country" was "a big part of my campaign" not that "a crackdown on Muslims" was "a big part of my campaign". 

And the BBC has the nerve to complain about 'fake news'!

Another Tale of Two Reports

Bob Walker

If you listened to regular Sunday reporter Bob Walker's piece about Sweden on yesterday's From Our Own Correspondent you will have heard a typical BBC piece about the effects of mass migration and the migrant crisis.

It reminded me strongly of earlier pieces by Jenny Hill, for example - such as the one featuring a young Iraqi man who enthusiastically declared his gratitude to Mrs Merkel and his love for Germany or the one featuring a hard-worker Syrian welder and his German boss, "a great, kindly bear of a man" who's full of admiration for him and believes such migrants are good for the economy.

In Bob Walker's report yesterday we had a very similar cast of characters: (a) a Swedish businessman, "a bouncing ball of energy who enthusiastically welcomes refugees and in positive about their potential contribution to Swedish society"; (b) an Iraqi man who's set up his own business in a "dying" small village, thus saving a supermarket there; and to end (c) A Syrian electrician "who says he's prepared to do any job he can find" and with whose words of gratitude to Sweden Bob's report ended: 

'When no one wanted to help Sweden has taken us in. Tell them, tell the King of Sweden, we're all very grateful', he declared. 

Various refugee workers and a Syrian man living in a too-small room pass through his narrative as well, but also - and set against them - there appear two "drunk" locals, one of whom complains about the number of foreigners coming to the country. ("His words are slurred but his meaning is clear", said Bob).

Bob Walker was there following the pilgrim tail of St Olaf, who he described as "a refugee of sorts himself", and the only problem he specified with the asylum seekers' presence was "arsonists" attacking their hostels.

Some might think there are other problems too...

Yalda Hakim

Contrast Bob Walker's FOOC report with the remarkable report from Yalda Hakim on last night's Newsnight - a piece that was far from being a typical BBC report. 

It concentrated on the huge jihadi problem there, reported on Muslim-dominated no-go areas, interviewed a man who wants Sharia law imposed on Sweden, featured hostile mosque users who refused to allow the crew to film, and challenged the liberal Swedish police's counter-productive (PC) policies. 

The closing question of the accompanying BBC News website article is one you don't hear put very often on the BBC:

With so many of them saying they don't feel Swedish, perhaps the bigger question is: has integration and Sweden's experiment with multiculturalism failed?

The answer from her report looked very much like 'yes'.

The contrast between that  question and Bob Walker's "we're all very grateful" migrants closing line is stark, isn't it?

'Divisive' and 'Controversial' - Yalda Hakim on 'Newsnight'

Last night's Newsnight led with the overwhelming victory of Narendra Modi, the BJP and their allies in India's general election.

They persisted with the "Modi is such a controversial figure" line that the BBC has been pushing so vigorously over the last few weeks, and rather nailed their own colours to the anti-Modi mast by inviting the strongly Islamophilic, left-leaning, Western-bashing, Palestinian Solidarity Campaign-supporting historian William Dalrymple to present their main report on the story.

Mr Dalrymple's report may have featured a fair sample of 'talking heads' but his commentary was deeply loaded against Mr Modi. Anyone who knows William Dalrymple's work will have expected that, and so would Newsnight. 

In the studio presenter Yalda Hakim then interviewed Mr Dalrymple and journalist Swapan Dasgupta. That provided a measure of balance in that we were now getting a two-sided debate, though - in a classic example of bias by labeling - Yalda introduced William Dalrymple as "one of the keenest observers of Indian life and history" while introducing Mr Dasgupta as a "Modi supporter" [Mr Dasgupta is, in fact, an award-winning journalist who tilts rightwards politically, being a fan of British Conservatism]. 

Their discussion was interrupted for an interview with sculptor Anish Kapoor, a Modi hater who wrote that letter (along with lots of other left-wing Modi haters) to the Guardian denouncing Mr Modi in the strongest terms. In Yalda Hakim's introduction to this interview, she called Mr Modi "one of India's most divisive politicians" [despite the fact that he seems to have united most of India to vote for him!!]. Mr Kapoor was vicious about the soon-to-be prime minister, calling him "a mass murderer" and speaking sourly of "supposedly democratic politics" in India. 

Then it was back to the studio and William Dalrymple and Swapan Dasgupta, with Yalda Hakim going on the offensive against Mr Dasgupta and William Dalrymple backing up Anish Kapoor. Yalda strongly interrupted and challenged Mr Dasgupta, each of them virtually screaming at each other at times, while William Dalrymple was allowed to speak uninterrupted and not challenged. 

If this was impartial BBC broadcasting then I'm Yalda Hakim. And I'm not Yalda Hakim.

Still, then came an interview with the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett. Frankly, it's the first time I've ever felt sorry for the Green Party. Yalda was absolutely unrelenting in her interruptions. She was like Jeremy Paxman/Andrew Neil/John Humphrys on speed. Quite what's to be gained by interviewing someone like that (except a name for yourself as an interviewer) beats me. Still, at least she can't be accused of pro-Green bias.

Then came one of Ian Katz's trademark all-female panels to discuss one of Ian Katz's trademark issues - sexism. (Yep.) The boss of the Premier League sent a friend a private e-mail that has got the ranks of the easily offended up in arms. (No, he didn't use the n-word). Two women in the studio were aghast at his sexism, Claire Fox of 'The Moral Maze' was aghast at all the fuss. (2 against 1).

Then in the closing credits we were invited to (snigger) laugh at two bearded American Republican would-be candidates ('redneck' ZZ Top lookalikes). Classic BBC.

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Update: I don't think Rod Liddle was very impressed with last night's Newsnight. "It was bad on a whole new level of badness", he said.

Presented by an Afghan-Australian woman called Yalda Kasem, of whom I had never heard. Yalda was hampered in her presentational debut by being unable to string a sentence together; nor did she have the knowledge or acuity to ask interesting questions of her guests. 

Mind you, she’s quite fit. And yes, that would be a sexist observation were it not for the fact that I cannot fathom any other reason the lass was presenting the BBC’s premiere news and current affairs show. Well, ok, I can think of one, but let’s not go there.