...and Sunday morning

Following Saturday night comes 'Sunday' morning and, thus, the latest results from my experiment to predict the type of stories Edward Stourton's Radio 4 programme would - and wouldn't - cover, based on my sense of the programme's many biases. 

Well, none of the stories I predicted wouldn't come up came up. So that's a clean sweep there!

My prediction that the Pope's visit to Brazil would be covered was also correct. It was the opening story. 

From the usual list of Sunday ingredients - "the usual diet of breaking news from the Arab world, Christian-related abuse stories, bad news about the Catholic Church, something about human rights, the usual airing of Muslim grievances, a call for something or other by a left-wing campaign group, an Anglican row over something" - we got the 'Christian-related abuse story'/'bad news about the Catholic Church' and 'an Anglican row over something'. 

Last week's edition plugged a Thought for the Day regular, David Wilkinson. This week's edition plugged another Thought for the Day regular, Bishop James Jones. The usual 'Anglican rows' theme came up in this section too. 

The other items reflected particular perspectives we might well associate with the BBC. The Traylon Martin-George Zimmerman story led, inevitably for Sunday [and the BBC more generally], to an interview with an African-American pastor/campaigner who denounced the acquittal of Mr Zimmerman by a jury and talked a lot about racism. Even the interesting story about the Lutheran church in London was given a little pro-immigration spin.

Here's an outline of this week's edition.

7.10 Intro

7.11 Pope Francis is going to Brazil for World Youth Day. We hear the views of some pilgrims from the UK. Edward Stourton talks to Paulo Cabral of the BBC. Ed asks no tough questions about Pope Francis, but asks about the standing of the Church in Brazil. [That's as expected]. Paulo says the youth in places like Sao Paulo are more secular, the countryside is more deeply Catholic. The number of Catholics has fallen from 95% to 70% in the past 20 years, partly down to the rise of evangelical Protestantism. The cost of the event is also discussed.

7.17 The acquittal of George Zimmerman over the killing of "Traylon" [as Edward calls him]. He speaks to Pastor Valerie Houston of Allen Chapel AME Church in Sanford, Florida, who took a key role in leading the campaign against Mr Zimmerman. She is very unhappy about the result. Ed asked her what the killing tells us about racism in the USA. 

7.21 St George's Lutheran Church is 250 years old this week. It was the first German church in England. Trevor Barnes reports. An "undeniably handsome church" Trevor calls it. He discusses immigration. German immigrants felt welcome here at the time, especially given the Hanoverian monarchy. The congregation dwindled before the First World War, as anti-German sentiment rose. We also hear about anti-Nazi theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer's connections to the church. The church no longer has a permanent congregation but isn't a museum piece. The closing vox pop says that the church's history provides a model of successful immigration for our age.

7.26 NI divisions. We hear from Norman Hamilton, a Presbyterian minister, and a Catholic priest, Father Martin McGill on how the churches can bring about healing in the province. 

7.32 The [Anglican] Church of St Stephen Walbrook in the City of London is trying to sell a painting by Benjamin West to the US. There's a row about it. Ed talks to Anne Sloman, chair of the Church Buildings Council, who's against the sale and tells him why. [She was also the BBC’s Chief Political Adviser from 1996 to 2004 and used to defend its reputation for impartiality]. 

7.36 'Catholic Whistle-Blowers', a new organisation campaigning against Catholic child abuse in the US. Matt Wells reports from New Jersey on the campaign to back whistle-blowers who speak out against clerical abuse. We hear from campaigners, a campaigning journalist and an approving New York Times reporter. Matt asks one if he's encouraged by the change of tone of the new pope. The Vatican is the key, they say.

7.42 James Jones is stepping down as Anglican Bishop of Liverpool. Edward interviews him about the Hillsborough inquiry and his softening views on gay marriage. He had, Edward says, been "quite hardline" on that in the past. [A telling chose of words]. The example of the "beloved disciple" in the Gospel of St. John has made him re-think same-sex intimacy. Edward then discussed other "divisive" issues in the Church (such as women bishops). Edward then asked him about the north-south divide in the Church and asked him about the "reluctance" in the Church to tackle the issue of fairness. Finally, he asked him in what state he leaves Liverpool in. A news series - 'The Bishop and the Bankers' - begins on Radio 4 tomorrow night.

Saturday Night...

Saturday night is always followed by Sunday morning, so here are this week's predictions for stories that will and won't appear on Radio 4's Sunday tomorrow. 

I'm still hoping for that chat with Melvyn Bragg, who spoke out last week, saying that Christianity should be respected for its history and its contribution to mankind.

The new Catholic Bishop of East Anglia, Alan Hopes, used his installation this Tuesday to say, "Our faith seems under attack; Christian morals and values which have been the bedrock of western society have been all but rejected and we are often portrayed at the best old fashioned and at the worst bigoted." An interview with Bishop Hopes, where he can expand on these points, might well be of interest. It's unlikely to happen though.

The Guardian this week ran a story under the headline Vatican offers 'time off purgatory' to followers of Pope Francis tweets. It became a massive worldwide story. Unfortunately, according to CNN, the Guardian largely got it wrong. Explaining why - plus the concept of purgatory - would make for a fascinating discussion on tomorrow's Sunday. As it was in the Guardian, this one might happen - though not in the way I'm suggesting. 

Tomorrow also offers another chance for Sunday to explore anti-Semitism in Britain and its links of anti-Israel activism in the wake of Lib Dem MP David Ward's expulsion from the party. They didn't do that last week, and my bet is that they won't do it this week either.

Plus a story which the Times, the Jewish Chronicle and many others across the world have been covering - "British government to investigate discrimination against Jews: The British government plans to investigate whether other Jews were denied employment benefits after an Orthodox Jew who refused to work on the Sabbath won a landmark appeal" - should surely be a must for Sunday. After all, it's about benefit cuts - and they aren't shy of reporting complaints about benefit cuts. Still, unless a Muslim angle to the story can be added, it's unlikely to feature. (Bonus prediction: If a Muslim angle to the story can be found, it will feature.)

Features about Buddhists (unless it's about what Burmese Buddhists are doing to the Royingya Muslims), Sikhs or Hindus are very unlikely to be included. They almost never are, even after one of Buddhism's holiest sites is bombed and Buddhists in many other countries are fearing for their security. - a story Sunday really should be reporting. On the other hand, I predict there will be at least one Muslim-based feature. There almost always is. 

What else will we get? Probably the usual diet of breaking news from the Arab world, Christian-related abuse stories, bad news about the Catholic Church, something about human rights, the usual airing of Muslim grievances, a call for something or other by a left-wing campaign group, an Anglican row over something, that sort of thing. They may also be something related to the Pope's visit to Brazil.

I hope to be proved wrong tomorrow morning. Come on Sunday, pleasantly surprise me!!

Doing the decent thing

Spot the difference time.

Here's Adam Withnall writing in The Independent:

Former health secretary Alan Johnson said there was “reluctance” in the NHS to make its biggest mistakes public under Labour, while the party tabled a motion saying the problems had got worse under the coalition “since May 2010”.

Speaking to BBC Four’s Today programme, Mr Johnson said there was a “resistance to recording harms - when something terrible happens even to the extent of amputating the wrong limb”. He said it happened “very rarely but nevertheless there was a reluctance to make this public”.

Despite these acknowledgements he said that the criticism from the Conservative party represented a “political operation”, and said this contrasted directly with the “statesmanlike and fair” way it had presented the report into the failings of the Mid Staffordshire Trust in 2010.

And here's Rowena Mason and Laura Donnelly of the Daily Telegraph reporting on the very same interview:

The NHS was reluctant to reveal mistakes that caused harm to patients under Labour, Alan Johnson, a former health secretary has admitted.

Mr Johnson acknowledged some failings in the NHS started under Labour's watch amid a furious political row about who is to blame for the scandal of poor care at British hospitals.

Speaking on BBC Radio Four's Today programme, Mr Johnson argued that Labour had been forced to rebuild the NHS after decades of neglect. He pointed out that a review by Lord Darzi under Labour had identified a need to focus on quality. But he also acknowledged that there was a "resistance for instance to recording harms - when something terrible happens even to the extent of amputating the wrong limb".

He said this happened "very rarely but nevertheless there was a reluctance to make this public".

"We must focus on this remorselessly," he said.

Compare those takes with the BBC News website's reporting of exactly the same interview and you won't fail to spot the difference:

The Conservatives are trying to "re-write" history about the performance of hospitals during Labour's years in power, an ex-health secretary has said.

Alan Johnson told the BBC that a "political operation" was going on to discredit Labour's record on the NHS.

Mr Johnson, who was health secretary between 2007 and 2009, said the Conservatives' arguments had changed since the publication earlier this year of the Francis report into the 2008 Stafford Hospital care scandal - which attributed no blame to politicians.

"There is a political operation going on here," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Contrary to what happened over Stafford, when the prime minister presented the Francis report in a very statesmanlike and fair way.

"Something has happened between Francis and Keogh that is almost trying to re-write the Francis report."

Both the Independent and the Telegraph make Mr Johnson's admission that Labour did make some mistakes their main angle. They both, however, also report Mr Johnson's criticisms of the Conservatives.

The BBC, in complete contrast, turns Mr Johnson's criticism of the Conservatives into their main angle. Moreover, they make it their only angle. 

Yes, the BBC account omits all of Alan Johnson's admissions about Labour's mistakes. 

OK, maybe the Indie and the Torygraph articles are biased against Labour (the Telegraph one certainly is), but at least they also have the decency to report Mr Johnson's comments in the round. The BBC article has no such decency. It gives every impression of being completely biased in the other direction.

Whatever shenanigans the Conservatives and their supporters in the press may have got up to in recent days, that still takes nothing away from the fact that this is a clear and unambiguous example of BBC bias. 

Not enough Israelis

Mishal Husain is to join Humphrys, Webb, Naughtie, Davis and Sarah on the Today programme. We’ve got a pensioner, a Scot, a gay, a gal and an anti-semite. Can’t categorise Webb, but diversity quotas are probably complete.

Here, nasty nationalists blog a kerfuffle involving some old geezer rebuking Husain’s brats for unruly supermarket behaviour. The rebuke had racist overtones: “Your tribe need to behave like proper English children” That offended Husain deeply, and she made the manager of Waitrose apologise.

Wishing to denigrate Husain, nasty nationalist bloggers referred to her as an ‘autocue reader’ .

 While that rant clearly contained a racist element, and was therefore offensive, the fuss seemed slightly over the top and caused  aforementioned bloggers to describe Husain as ‘super-sensitive’.

Well, she can dish it out, but she can’t take it.  The notorious “interview”, which shows Husain trying to out-Paxo Paxo by using the repetitive-questioning maneuver against Israeli spokesman Gil Hoffman was made all the more offensive by the deeply unpleasant smirk she wore throughout.

To her it was a smirk of victory, which I for one will always picture as I listen to her dulcet tones on radio 4. Written all over the smirk was a kind of misplaced satisfaction, but all her clumsy hectoring showed was that she didn’t think enough Israelis had been killed by what she called home-made contraptions, to justify any kind of fuss, kerfuffle or apology.  

Whoever thought it was a good idea to appoint her can’t be aware of the BBC’s nosediving reputation. It’s the bias, stupid.

The Tiger has shown himself at Gap

Do you any of you remember this classic example of journalistic 'adaptation to events' from English lessons at school?

It traces the headlines in the French newspaper Moniteur in March, 1815 as Napoleon made his return to Paris from exile in Elba:

March 9  The Monster has escaped from his place of banishment.

March 10  The Corsican Ogre has landed at Cape Juan

March 11  The Tiger has shown himself at Gap. The Troops are advancing on all sides to arrest his progress. He will conclude his miserable adventure by becoming a wanderer among the mountains.

March 12  The Monster has actually advanced as far as Grenoble

March 13 The Tyrant is now at Lyon. Fear and Terror seized all at his appearance.

March 18  The Usurper has ventured to approach to within 60 hours' march of the capital.

March 19  Bonaparte is advancing by forced marches, but it is impossible he can reach Paris.

March 20  Napoleon will arrive under the walls of Paris tomorrow.

March 21  The Emperor Napoleon is at Fontainebleau

March 22 Yesterday evening His Majesty the Emperor made his public entry and arrived at the Tuileries. Nothing can exceed the universal joy.

I was put in mind of that hilarious-but-true lesson from history when I began to think about writing this post. You'll soon see why.

If you follow the sequence of my posts over the last couple of days - 'Up To 13,000 Needless Deaths' In NHS Hospitals...Which "ministers"?...“What makes a story?”...Running orders...Chinese whispers?...and now...The Tiger has shown himself at Gap - you might perhaps notice something not entirely dissimilar happening.  

I started out hammering away at the BBC's failure to report the Keogh report story - including that 13,000 'needless deaths' figure which the rest of the media were (wrongly) saying was to feature in the report. Then I slammed the BBC for failing to mention the trouble Andy Burnham was finding himself in throughout the course of Sunday and then got annoyed about a belated BBC article which seemed to be misleading BBC readers into thinking that the Keogh report was criticising the present government, and disguising Labour's responsibility for the scandal....

I'll pause there to say that, given all I'd been reading that day (other than from the BBC), it did seem at the time that Labour was pretty much the only party in the frame and that the report related to the period leading up to 2010. So I made hay with that: "The problem occurred on the Labour Party's watch".  "...the latest scandal to hit the NHS (and the Labour Party)". 

After (if I may say so) quite rightly questioning the BBC's bizarre news priorities throughout most of Monday, as well as its (again) delayed reporting of the Keogh report story, I reviewed The World Tonight, pointing out (quite fairly!) the presenter's failure to counter the political point scoring of Labour's Lord Hunt but here I again slipped into the assumption that the report would only cover Labour's period of government. As for Newsnight, I gave credit to much of the programme's coverage though (rightly!) slamming Allegra Stratton's partial commentary. Even then, I was still thinking it was all about Labour though, politically-speaking. 

However, a 'final update' on the same post (written the following morning) showed the doubts beginning to creep in as the thought crossed my mind - after reading Nick Triggle of the BBC's use of the death rates from 2010-11 and 2011-12 (an article which, I still think dodgily, failed to mention any date before 2010 - update: that's because 2010-11 and 2011-12 were the years Sir Bruce examined. So not so dodgy after all.) - that maybe the Keogh report could also be reporting on the period after 2010 and not just from 2005-10. That resulted in me writing:

Does this suggest that the pre-spin from the rest of the media has been biased (perhaps resulting from careful government leaks)? Or is Nick Triggle spinning now? We'll see when the report comes out I suppose.

Still, I found an article in the Daily Mail that slammed Andy Burnham, so there was hope!

A pause for work then, on coming home, I start catching up with what the report actually says. It seems damning enough, but not quite as damning as we were led to believe.

And then I saw comments that the 13,000 'needless deaths' figure wasn't what much of the media claimed either. Alarm bells started ringing. What if the promotion of the figure was the result of spin by enemies of Labour? 

Closely following that came the thought, 'What if the many articles suggesting the report would cover the 2005-10 period when Labour were in power were also a result of the same anti-Labour spin? Well, now we know that the report covers Labour's period of government and the Coalition's period of government [update - though its specific focus is on 2010-12, the Coalition period]. So something was amiss in the earlier reporting, and something was missing from that reporting -, mention of the years from 2010 onwards. 

The heavy concentration on the Labour angle, which even now is dominating the Daily Telegraph's take - their present headline being NHS inquiry: David Cameron accuses Labour of 'cover-up' over hospital failings -, now strikes me as being questionable. Labour may well still have many more questions to answer over this than the Coalition, but how certain can we outsiders be of even that, given the spin we all seem to have been subjected to in recent days - particularly those of us, like me, who are partial to a spot of Labour-bashing (due to our own anti-Labour bias)?

Am I now falling for counter-spin? (After all, this is close to what Labour itself is saying.) Well, I could well be. Given this weekend, I realise I seem to be susceptible to spin - especially when I allow my own biases to get the better of me. I'd better rein them back in again.

Update 17/7: I reached the conclusions of this post after studiously avoiding yesterdays' BBC coverage of the story, watching other channels and reading online newspapers instead, with the aim of getting up to speed with the story without seeing it through the BBC's filter.

A slow review of the BBC's coverage yesterday will follow over the next few days (it won't be quick as it's sunny outside!), attempting to answer the questions, 'Who's in the dock?', 'What makes a story?' and 'Is the BBC biased?' 

Chinese whispers?

So Sir Bruce Keogh's report didn't say there were 13,000 'needless deaths' in NHS hospitals after all - despite the confidence of much of the British media that it would. (The BBC, as you know, is innocent of this particular charge).

This is quite startling, shocking even. Where did that figure come from? Is it a case of shameless government spin, feeding the Daily Telegraph (and others) with a lie? 

Isabel Hardman at the Spectator spells out where the figure came from:

It isn’t a made-up figure, but neither is it a list of 13,000 people who have definitely ended up in a mortuary as a result of the failings at the 14 hospitals examined by Keogh. It is in fact a calculation by Professor Sir Brian Jarman of Imperial College. Jarman calculates that had the hospitals had average death rates, 13,000 deaths could have been avoided in that period.

I'm still looking for an explanation as to why that figure of 13,000 'needless deaths' came to be so widely and prominently reported in association with the Keogh report, especially as the report itself explicitly rejects such methods of calculation:

However tempting it may be, it is clinically meaningless and academically reckless to use such statistical measures to quantify actual numbers of avoidable deaths. Robert Francis himself said, “it is in my view misleading and a potential misuse of the figures to extrapolate from them a conclusion that any particular number, or range of numbers of deaths were caused or contributed to by inadequate care”.’

Sir Bruce Keogh himself said of the 13,000 figure yesterday:

"Not my calculations, not my views. Don’t believe everything you read, particularly in some newspapers."

He said that in reply to the reader of a pro-Labour blog who decided to e-mail Sir Bruce and ask him if the figure was true. If only our mainstream journalists had that kind of initiative! (And why on earth didn't one of them think to do something as simple as that?)

The government is strongly denying that it is responsible for spinning the figure to the press (especially the Daily Telegraph). So how did it come about then? Why did almost all of the main British media organisations (excepting the BBC) run with it, one after the other? What does this say about journalistic standards?

Running orders

Following on from the last pair of posts, here's another way of looking at the BBC's unique set of news priorities today - simply by comparing the list of stories covered by BBC One's News at Six with that covered by ITV's News at 6.30. 

What stories were covered? In what order? And how long was spent on each story?

BBC News at Six

1. The benefit cap (over 4 minutes)

2. The Resolution Foundation's report on high rents (well over 3 minutes)

3. The benefit cap, again (over a minute)

4. The soldiers who died while training in Wales (over 2 minutes)

5. More charges against "former TV presenter" Stuart Hall (22 seconds)

6. A man kills the neighbour of a paedophile (20 seconds)

7. Liverpool Care Pathway (end of life care) is to be phased out (over two minutes)

8. A mother accused of starving and murdering her son (one and a half minutes)

9. Fuel - oil drilling in the U.S. & the fears of environmentalists (over 3 minutes)

10. The woman who died swimming the English Channel (2 minutes)

11. The hot weather (3 minutes)

ITV News at 6.30

1. The new NHS report into high death rates and unacceptable standards (over 4 minutes)

2. The soldiers who died while training in Wales (just under 3 minutes)

3. The woman who died swimming the English Channel (2 minutes)

4. More charges against "former BBC presenter" Stuart Hall (18 seconds)

5. A man kills the neighbour of a paedophile (15 seconds)

6. A mother accused of starving and murdering her son (over 2 minutes)

7. Liverpool Care Pathway (end of life care) is to be phased out (two and a half minutes)

8. The benefit cap (18 seconds)

9. The top athletes who failed a drugs test (15 seconds)

10. The Traynor Martin-George Zimmerman case (two and a half minutes)

11. The demise of the telegram (one and a half minutes) 

As you can see, ITV led with the big story about the Keogh report into thousands of 'needless' deaths in the NHS - the same story the BBC were avoiding until late yesterday evening after every other media organisation had been reporting it for hours (as a major story). The BBC's News at Six completely failed to mention it. In other words, the BBC ignored ITV's lead story completely. 

The BBC will have to come to terms with it when the report is officially launched tomorrow. Not even the BBC will be able to avoid it or downplay it then. (Or will they?)

ITV didn't totally ignore the BBC's lead story - the benefits cap - but they placed it well down their running order and spent a mere 18 seconds on it. The BBC not only led with it but, alongside the Resolution Foundation report (with which it was again tied), spent almost ten minutes (a third) of the whole programme discussing it. [ITV didn't mention the Resolution Foundation report at all.]

Why haven't the rest of the media been leading with the same story as the BBC?

Well, the benefit cap will affect some 40,000 households. There were 26.3 million households in the UK in 2011. By my calculation that makes those affected a mere 0.15% of all UK households - which, by my other calculation, that means that 99.85% of all UK households weren't affected by today's changes....

....and yet the BBC made this its main story of the day, and has been making such an enormous song and dance about it from dawn till dusk! 

Isn't that truly extraordinary when you think about it?

Yes, surely the Today programme should have been dragging Andy Burnham into the studio for an 8.10 grilling by John Humphrys instead of Iain Duncan Smith this morning? Ah well, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow...

Away from that angle, I did smile though at the BBC describing convicted paedophile Stuart Hall merely as a "former TV presenter" whilst ITV called him a "former BBC presenter". You could have seen that coming a mile off!

************

Update 9.30pm: It's getting late on Monday evening.

Sky News is going big with the NHS report story. Their website has it as the lead story:

Report Slams High Death Rate NHS Hospital

Sky News can reveal exclusive access to a shocking report detailing a catalogue of failures at an NHS hospital.

The ITV News website also has the report as one of its top two stories:

'Hit-squads' to help failing trusts
Specialist teams are to be sent in to help up to 10 failing hospital trusts on the orders of the Health Secretary. The move will be announced tomorrow after a report by NHS England Medical Director Sir Bruce Keogh into trusts with high-death rates.

What of our reluctant-seeming friends at the BBC? Well, the BBC News website's home page, remains completely free of any mention of the story.

Their time for hiding away from this story is almost up though. The report will be published tomorrow.


Further updates: Ah, at least my local BBC news programme North West Tonight reported the story this evening, though not at any great length. We've got three of the offending NHS hospitals in our area.

10.00pm: And so it begins....

The World Tonight is discussing the story, interviewing Professor Brian Jarman, an advisor to the report's author. Ritula Shah is talking about "ministers" ignoring things (not naming any names, or parties, leaving listeners to make their own, possibly wrong assumptions). She's now interviewing Labour's Lord Hunt (defending the NHS, repeatedly attacking the Conservative Party) and Lib Dem free-marketeer Mark Littlewood (questioning the NHS, not engaging in party politics). Ritula is not raising Labour's record with the highly party political Lord Hunt, despite him continuing to attack the present government over and over again, without interruption. Is this the pattern of things to come?

10.30pm: Well, not necessarily, if Newsnight is anything to go by.

It's leading with the story and giving much of the programme over to it. Science Editor Susan Watts is presenting a report providing the background to the story and presenting some grim personal stories about treatment at one of the NHS hospitals. Questions for the CQC are being raised. The story of Joshua Titcombe, the baby who died so needlessly at Furness hospital, is being retold. Joshua's father, James, was Professor Jarman in the studio with Kirsty Wark.

Kirsty is now talking to Newsnight's Political Editor Allegra Stratton. The latter is angling the political aspect of the story as being about the Conservatives being "shocked" that no mud is sticking to the last Labour government. Their allegation is that Andy Burham "ignored" 1,500 warnings. Mr Burnham, who has been "dragged" into this, is denying the allegation. Why are the Conservatives so "desperate to land a glove" on him, asks Kirsty. It matters to the Conservatives because "they're never going to get the lead on the NHS", and yet "nothing has stuck to the Labour Party", replies Allegra. So it's all about the Conservatives wanting to sling mud at Andy Burnham for party political advantage, it seems. Poor Mr Burnham! This was a rather Guardian-like political commentary - and the bit that had the strongest whiff of bias about it.

James Titcombe and Professor Jarman were joined on the panel by Camilla Cavendish of the CQC board, former Conservative minister Stephen Dorrell, shadow health minister Andrew Gwynne and senior consultant Bernadette Garrihy. This was a panel full of people with deep concerns about the NHS - and, I think, a well-judged panel. A very interesting set of insights came from all the non-politicians. Kirsty hardly pushed Labour's Mr Gwynne very hard or for very long over Andy Burnham (and he defended his boss with vigour), but she did push him a bit and invited both Mr Titcombe and Professor Jarman to comment on Labour's record too. Stephen Dorrell didn't make any party political points.

Fraser Nelson of the Spectator then joined the discussion to talk about the economics of funding the NHS as time goes on - the "funding pressure". Whether this is the night for such a discussion might be questioned. Fraser didn't get to say very much at all on this, and hardly much more on the next question: What of Danny Boyle's NHS celebration at the Olympics? Do we romanticise the NHS? The non-politician panellists quickly returned the discussion to more practical matters.

So the story is unfolding now on the BBC....though, unbelievably, still not on the BBC News website!!


Final update (6.30am, 16 July): The eagle finally landed on the BBC News website during the early hours of this morning. Health correspondent Nick Triggle's article, Report focuses on high death rates at NHS hospital trusts, appeared at 01.24. As of 6.00am, it is leading the BBC News website (and leading the Today programme):

Standards of care at 14 hospital trusts with the worst death rates in England are to be laid bare in a report later.
An investigation was launched earlier this year after the public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital scandal.
The trusts all had higher-than-expected death rates from 2010-11 to 2011-12.
The probe, led by NHS medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, has focused on whether the figures are indicative of sustained failings in the quality of care and treatment at the trusts.

Interesting use of dates there. Most other news sites have been talking about deaths "from 2005" or "from 2005-2010" - dates which have been making it all look quite bad for Labour. Nick Triggle's report only uses the dates "2010-11 and 2011-12", dates from after Labour's loss of power. Does this suggest that the pre-spin from the rest of the media has been biased (perhaps resulting from careful government leaks)? Or is Nick Triggle spinning now? We'll see when the report comes out I suppose.

At exactly the same time James Chapman was posting an article at Mail Online, '20,000 extra NHS deaths' on Labour's watch amid calls for on-site inspectors at struggling hospital, based on what looks like a scoop. The paper has "seen" an e-mail sent to Andy Burham by Professor Jarman in April 2010, warning of very high death rates in 25 NHS hospitals (especially in 2007-08):

In a reply to his letter, sent in April 2010 as the parties prepared for a general election the following month, a junior health minister, Baroness Thornton, told him [Professor Jarman] it would be more appropriate to take up his concerns with the Care Quality Commission.  

“What makes a story?”

At the end of the previous post I raised the question of what would be leading the Today programme this morning. Would it be the latest scandal to hit the NHS (and the Labour Party)? Well, we'll know in a few minutes time...

In advance of Today, a look at the stories featured on non-BBC news sites shows the NHS story to be still important for papers like the Telegraph, Guardian and Independent, though it's the deaths of two military personnel in Wales during training on the hottest day of the year though which is the major story that all news site share. 

The BBC News website's top two stories are utterly unique to itself though:

Benefits cap of £500 begins roll-out

A cap on the total amount of benefits that people aged 16 to 64 can receive begins rolling out across England, Scotland and Wales.

Rent 'unaffordable' in one-third of UK

A third of Britain is effectively off-limits to lower-income working families because private rents are unaffordable, a new report claims. 

That new report, when you click onto the story, turns out to be by the Resolution Foundation - a think tank that should be clearly labelled as 'left-leaning' by the BBC (but usually isn't).

No other news site (whether it be Sky, ITV, the Guardian, the Indie or the Telegraph) places any emphasis on these stories whatsoever.

Given the way the BBC usually operates, these two stories are very likely to dominate the Today programme, Breakfast, the News Channel and Radio 4's other current affairs staples. Expect to see and hear a lot about the fears of 'vulnerable' benefits claimants, plus to find the BBC's Mark Easton and various Resolution Foundation spokespeople popping up all over the place.


Update 6.00am: Well, Today is leading with benefit cuts, and the news bulletin tied it in with the issue of high rent, thus combining both of the two lead stories on the website. (Interesting timing from the Labour-friendly Resolution Foundation then). Breakfast has a report on now featuring someone from the Resolution Foundation. Here we go!!


Update 6.00pm: Twelve hours later and watching BBC One's News at Six, their chosen lead story was the benefit cap and, yes, their chosen second story was the Resolution Foundation report, featuring Mark Easton. The BBC is nothing if not dogged on days like this.

Which "ministers"?

Further to my earlier post on the BBC's extraordinary failure to feature the story about the forthcoming report of those 13,000 'needless' deaths in the NHS - a story which the Telegraph and Mail led with and which both ITV News and Sky News considered a major story -, well the story is getting ever more politically dramatic....

....and it's not just being reporting by the right-wing newspapers.

The Independent's headline tonight reads:

Andy Burnham defends Labour's record as healthcare report shines light on 'failings' under previous government

The article beneath says:

Andy Burnham, the shadow Health Secretary, was under pressure on Sunday night over a shocking catalogue of fatal blunders at hospitals across England.

The health service’s Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, will detail serious failings in 14 NHS trusts tomorrow, suggesting that as many as 13,000 patients could have died needlessly since 2005.

The findings will raise doubts over the last Labour government’s claim that the scandal at Stafford Hospital was an isolated incident and did not reflect wider faults in the NHS.

According to the Huffington Post

The Department of Health refused to comment on the report's findings ahead of its publication.

But it has already put Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham - who was in charge of the department under the previous government - under pressure.

According to the Guardian:

Andy Burnham rejects Tory criticism over past NHS failings

Shadow health secretary 'fed up' with suggestions he was partly responsible for excess death rates at 14 trusts before 2010

It's a big political story - and it's a big health story - and yet the BBC News website (the country's most-read news website) still isn't reporting the story....

Breaking news....and yet as I type this what pops up, discreetly, at seventh place on the BBC homepage? This curious headline:

NHS failings 'being suppressed' NEW

Clicking on it brings up a report, posted at precisely 20.48 BST. 

Yes, the BBC has finally reported it! 

The report begins: 

An independent expert on mortality rates has suggested that ministers have suppressed details of NHS failings to avoid losing votes.

Prof Sir Brian Jarman said a "basic problem" with the NHS was that the government both provided health services and monitored them.

Unlike every other report, do you spot a missing word here? Yes, it's "Labour". 

The use of  the word "ministers" in that opening sentence is highly likely to suggest current ministers - ie Coalition ministers - in the mind of BBC website readers. It's an unhelpful way of putting it at best, misleading at worst.

The present tense in the headline itself - "being suppressed" - might also mislead readers into thinking the story is about the present government rather than the last Labour one.

Ah, but continue to paragraph 3 and you get a clue about who's really in the frame here:

In a report out on Tuesday, he says 14 NHS trusts totalled 13,000 more deaths than the national average in 2005-10.

Yep, it's those dates - dates showing that the problem occurred on the Labour Party's watch. Not that the BBC is exactly spelling that out for you here though.

And what of the man in the firing line tonight? Well, paragraphs 4 and 5 get round to naming him, but they don't give much of an impression of a man who's under pressure tonight. No, they go straight to his version of events:

Former Health Secretary Andy Burnham said he tried to flush out problems.

Mr Burnham, now shadow health secretary, was in charge of the NHS between June 2009 and May 2010 and said he left warnings in place at five of the 14 trusts and took particular action at Basildon and Thameside.

We hear more from Mr Burnham later, but no direct criticism of him - or of Labour. 

The BBC surely knows how everyone else is reporting this - as a headache for Andy Burnham and the Labour Party - but is choosing to report it in its own way. That way seems much more helpful to the Labour Party than any other account I've read (even in the Guardian).

What's going on here? The BBC comes very late to the story and then gives every impression of spinning it in a direction favourable to Labour. 

It's this sort of thing that makes BBC-bias-obsessed bloggers (like me) think that the BBC is biased. 

Watch the report change over the coming day and see if things get better. (News Sniffer will hopefully track every change that's made).


Update: The headline of the article itself (once you've clicked from the home page) reads NHS failings 'suppressed for electoral reasons'. So someone at the BBC website made a very quick change to the article (I spotted them doing it, as there was an error 404 message for a minute!), though they haven't changed the original headline on the homepage.


This will presumably be the lead story on Today tomorrow. I can't wait to hear Jim, John or Justin tear a strip off Andy Burnham! (If it isn't, and if they don't....it's BBC bias again!!)

FIVE..MILLION..POUNDS..

Given the Labour Party's troubles with its biggest trades union donor Unite in the last couple of weeks, in the wake of the Falkirk scandal, who could blame a cornered Labour leader for raising the issue of Conservative Party donations during Prime Minister's Questions last week? There's not been a Conservative Party donations scandal for quite a while now but, still, a Labour leader can but try, can't he? 

What if the BBC tried the same tactic as Ed Miliband though?

Well, a cynic might say that this was exactly what Paddy O'Connell was up to on this morning's Broadcasting House. Instead of talking about the topical issue of Labour's funding from Unite, BH brought together Labour's Baroness Prosser (a former TUC boss) and ex-Conservative Party donor Stuart Wheeler (now UKIP's treasurer) to discuss donations to/influence upon political parties in general. If Ed were listening I can well imagine that he would have approved of that. 

Paddy introduced Baroness Prosser as someone who "rose through the ranks of trades unions before becoming President of the TUC in 1995" and, having earlier described him as a "millionaire" (something he did again later on in the interview), then introduced Mr Wheeler as "a businessman who founded the spread betting firm IG Index. He gave the single largest political donation to a party - FIVE..MILLION..POUNDS..to the Conservatives in 2001. He's now treasurer to UKIP" - and, yes, Paddy did say 'five million pounds' in the way implied by those capital letters and dots - as if it was something jaw-dropping. 

Note Paddy's use of a cash amount to describe the donation to the Tories, but no mention of any cash amounts with regards to the unions' donations to Labour. If you've noted that, then you'll spot something similar in the opening set of questions to each of the interviewees:

"Baroness Prosser, why do you think Stuart Wheeler gave £5 million to the Conservatives?"

"And to you Stuart Wheeler, why do you think the unions and Baroness Prosser's unions gave money to the Labour Party."

Paddy, as is his way, didn't even stop there. Soon after he was asking Mr Wheeler this question:

"Did you want access? Did you get what you wanted when you gave £5 million?"

After Baroness Prosser had attacked David Cameron and defended the unions, Mr Wheeler began to say that the controversy in Falkirk wasn't about donations it was about allegations that union members had been signed up to the Labour Party without their consent. At that point Paddy rushed in, said firmly "And that's an exceptional case" and promptly changed the subject away from Falkirk.

Now the assertion that it's "an exceptional case" isn't a neutral point. In fact, it's a point that's highly controversial. Labour are, indeed, saying it is an exceptional case. The Conservatives (and others) are claiming it isn't.

Paddy was interrupting Mr Wheeler there to put a Labour Party point as if it were a uncontroversial fact. Quite how that squares with his duty to be impartial is beyond me.

And what did he interrupt Mr Wheeler to ask?

"And do you take Margaret Prosser's general view that at least the unions are elected, the leaders are elected. If they give union money it's not like very wealthy people?"

Yep, it was back to the £5 million point again.

Mr Wheeler's reply was met with a "Yes, but...but..." and a question to Baroness Prosser that, instead of posing an unhelpful question to her own side (as he had done to Stuart Wheeler) about Labour-union funding, asked instead a question helpful to her own side - and unhelpful to Mr Wheeler's:

"Baroness Prosser, do you think that there should be a cap on personal donations?"

Guess what? She did!

That's a case of unbalanced interviewing from Paddy there.

When Stuart Wheeler said that political parties have to tell a "lie" about political donations and their links to such things as honours, Paddy could hardly contain himself:

"Well, that's a very big announcement from you, because you're still on the record as giving the largest single donation to a party, Mr Wheeler, and you're saying that there seems to be a spot of lying going on."

Paddy must have thought the Tories were being accused of lying here. Mr Wheeler explained, however:

"....lying when, as must sometimes have happened with Labour, and the Conservatives, and everybody, else. when the person is actually expecting a peerage or some advantage then the chairman has to lie by saying that he's not."

The sense of disappointment in Paddy's "OK, all right" in answer to this was plain to hear.

Paddy O'Connell. Impartiality is in his genes.

“Who is in the dock?”

This is a post of two halves - one recycling an article from elsewhere, one reviewing a particular edition of the Today programme. The one, however, follows on from the other, and I think they can both shed some light on the preceding posts about the BBC's news priorities. 

The Telegraph's Charles Moore has written one of the best articles about BBC bias that I've read for a long time: 

Why does the impartial BBC not tell the story of the great majority?

Our self-righteous national broadcaster is woefully detached from voters’ real lives

The 'Liberal Progressive' hegemony

For starters, he spots something rather revealing in the Prebble Review and draws the obvious conclusion from it:

Stuart Prebble, ex-BBC, has this month produced a report for the BBC Trust on “Breadth of Opinion Reflected in the BBC’s Output”. Explaining his approach, he says that most attacks on the impartiality of the BBC are “based on the notion that it is largely run by a group with similar backgrounds and attitudes, loosely describable as 'liberal progressives’ – and, of course, I am one”.

Why “of course”? Is it unimaginable that the BBC would commission anyone other than one of their own sort to write a report on their own impartiality? Well, yes, perhaps it is.

Charles Moore then goes on to doubt the logic of Mr Prebble's assertion that, “… in common with the overwhelming number of journalists within the BBC…, I leave my personal politics at home when I go to work”, believing that to be absurd and comparing the statement to a doctor saying that he leaves his personal medical views at the surgery door. 

Then he wonders why, even if Mr Prebble were correct, the BBC keeps choosing so many of his fellow 'liberal progressives' to work for them. 

His suggestion is that 'liberal progressives' believe themselves to be fair and open-minded - unlike the rest of us. With what Mr Moore calls "beautiful, circular logic", that means that 'liberal progressives' necessarily are the only ones who can provide that breath of opinion which the BBC (and Mr Prebble) claims they provides. Those of us who aren't 'liberal progressives', therefore, aren't BBC material, as we we are neither fair nor open-minded enough to put BBC impartiality into practice; rather, we would push our own agendas. 

The problem, Charles Moore, argues is "that the BBC is self-righteous - in the exact sense that it identifies its corporate identity with righteousness". 'Breadth of opinion' is something the BBC can and does provide. So, where's the bias?

Two Questions

Mr Moore identifies a couple of key aspects.

Firstly, “Who is in the dock?”:

In almost all major stories, you can tell very quickly who this is. 

He cites an interview from this Friday's Today where James Naughtie treated the representative of a charity in a much gentler way than the Tory backbencher taking part in the same interview. Why this disparity?

Charities and pressure groups, in the BBC’s approach to life, are to be trusted, because they do not make profits. People who do, are not.

Secondly, “What makes a story?”

In the BBC’s view, some form of institutional validation is almost always required. 

Stories "must arise" from government reports, court judgements, union statements, etc. This misses out "the relation of politics to what voters need or feel". 

This is because the BBC is itself a vast institution, so it is happiest speaking to other institutions, like mastodon bellowing to mastodon across the primeval swamp. Its absolute favourite is the device by which the big cheese from the big body in question – the Government, the CBI, Unite – comes on, says his bit and then departs, leaving omniscient persons like Nick Robinson, Robert Peston or Stephanie Flanders to explain to us idiots what he was really talking about.

So what are they missing as a result?

Seldom do they see the story in a tax rise, in energy bills or planning delays, in their own stupefying executive pay-offs. Seldom do they expose the rise in the national debt or investigate why it is that, despite “cuts” every day, government spending still grows bigger all the time. The one entity, in short, in which the BBC feels permanently uninterested is the individual citizen.

Charles Moore's ultimate explanation and solution follow swiftly:

It is not surprising that the BBC takes him for granted, because it can. It takes his money by law, and without his consent, in the form of the licence fee. Until this ends, the BBC will, with the finest impartiality, refuse to tell his story.

Radio 4's 'Today'

To test this out, maybe a look at the very edition of Today which Mr Moore cites might be the best course of action. This was the Friday, July 12 edition presented by Justin Webb and James Naughtie. (The live page is here).

The Cigarette Packaging debate

What of the “Who is in the dock?” question. Well, listen to the interview Charles Moore describes - between Conservative backbench MP Mark Field and Harpel Kumar of the charity Cancer Research UK - yes, a 'breath of opinion' was provided  (one in favour of the government's position on libertarian grounds, one against the government's position on health grounds) but, yes, Charles was correct in his characterisation of the interview - with Mr Kumar's "pretty extreme assertions" going "unchallenged" by James Naughtie, while one of Mr Field's assertions brought a swift corrective intervention from the BBC presenter. "You could almost hear Naughtie’s lips pursing", as Charles Moore put it.

Now you might say that MPs should be interrupted more than campaigners, as they have power - even if they're backbenchers - and that James Naughtie's harsher treatment of Mr Field can be defended in that light. 

The Abortion debate

However, a later interview saw another MP - this time an Irish one (socialist TD Joan Collins) - set against another campaigner (Cora Sherlock, of the Pro-Life Campaign in Ireland) and this time it was a different story with the (pro-abortion) politician getting a much easier ride from the BBC interviewer, Justin Webb, than the anti-abortion campaigner.  “Who is in the dock?” Here, clearly Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign, who was interrupted and challenged by Justin much more strongly than her opposite number. Despite the 'breadth of opinion' on offer, the whiff of 'liberal progressive' bias hung about this interview.

The Drug Pricing story

On the “What makes a story?” question, this particular edition saw stories based on reports from a government commission and the Academy of Medical Sciences, an upcoming government announcement, a law being passed in Ireland, comments by the Chancellor, and some new proposals from ministers - much as Mr Moore described.

Now, is that unique to the BBC? After all, ITV, Sky and the broadsheet newspaper also report plenty of stories like that. 

The question, therefore, is the extent to which Today's agenda is set by institutions. Is it set much more than, say, that of Sky News or that of The Daily Telegraph? To know would entail monitoring, say, the same morning's Sky News Channel or that morning's Telegraph Online homepage. I didn't do it that day, so I don't know. Still, I'd lay good money on neither of them being quite so institution-driven as Today's running order that morning.

Other things about that particular edition of Today that strike me as being revealing include the choice of the story buried away at 6.10am - when few people are listening, and which never appears on the 'live page'. This concerned the call from the Academy of Medical Sciences for a change to the rigid and heavily-regulated drug pricing policy to encourage more effective stratified/personalised drug development. Reading up on this (using the link above at 'the call'), it made good sense to me. However, it would encourage private companies to make profits, so - if Charles Moore is correct - it shouldn't be well-regarded by the 'liberal progressive' BBC. Take a listen to the interview between James Naughtie and the BBC's Tom Fielden here (available for a few more days) and hear Jim introduce the proposal as "a bit woolly" (talk about preparing listeners to be disappointed in advance) and maintain a sniffy tone throughout. You might think he wasn't much taken with the idea (or with Tom Fielden from the way he spoke to him!) Treating such a fascinating story in this way, and never referring to it again throughout the remaining two and three-quarter hours of the programme is quite strange - unless you assume bias, of course.

The Banning Packed Lunches debate

Another early BBC-BBC interview provided even stronger suggestions of bias. This was the remarkable 6.30am interview between James Naughtie and Gillian Hargreaves (beginning 33 minutes in here), where both BBC people gave me the impression they were sympathetic towards the campaign for packed lunches to be banned in schools in favour of school dinners. When mention was made of Jamie Oliver criticising academy schools for not being a part of the scheme, Gillian made sure the Coalition got the blame by saying "set up by the present government" - even though academy schools were first set up by Labour during Tony Blair's first term in office. James Naughtie kept up the same line: "How is it that Michael Gove can have an enquiry into school dinners and say this is important when more than half the schools in England don't have any reason to comply?" When she said that her "overnight" enquires with the Department of Education hadn't got her very far over that question, James Naughtie interrupted to say, somewhat sarcastically, "You'd have thought it would have been an easy question to answer for the Education Secretary!" Gillian laughed. We're back with Charles Moore's question again: “Who is in the dock?” Michael Gove, the present government, academy schools and free schools, by the sounds of it. 

On the same issue, Jim sounded no less supportive-sounding of the scheme itself to ban packed lunches during the 7.10am interview with its main cheerleader, chef Henry Dimbleby (son of David Dimbleby). Here's a sample question to back up this claim: "And the argument, presumably, from the teachers is that if they have a decent lunch, a reasonably healthy lunch, you know, the better-behaved, the brighter , they will probably have a better time at school?" (Henry agreed with that). Now, there are many liberty-lovers out there who have been vigorously complaining about this latest would-be infringement on personal/family autonomy by the nanny state (on blogs across the internet - from the comments field at the Mail and Telegraph on the right through to Spiked on the left). This libertarian-inclined, state-sceptical attitude is far from the 'progressive liberal' outlook; thus, is it really any surprise that it didn't even occur to James Naughtie to ask either Gillian Hargreaves or Henry Dimbleby a single question that came from that anti-nanny state perspective? Is it too far from his own way of thinking? 

Conclusions

Well, those are my impressions anyhow - and they tally with Charles Moore's. From now on, those who claim that the BBC is biased in many ways may find those two questions of his - "Who is in the dock?" and "What makes a story?" - ringing around their heads. 

'Up To 13,000 Needless Deaths' In NHS Hospitals

Talking of the BBC's unique news priorities, the second story for ITV News at the moment is 13,000 'needless' NHS deaths: 

Some 13,000 patients may have died needlessly at hospitals since 2005, a report by the NHS medical director released next week will say. Sir Bruce Keogh will expose failings in the 14 worst trusts in England.

This is the story which the Daily Telegraph is leading on: 

13,000 died needlessly at 14 worst NHS trusts

The needless deaths of thousands of NHS patients will be exposed in a report this week.

The NHS’s medical director will spell out the failings of 14 trusts in England, which between them have been responsible for up to 13,000 “excess deaths” since 2005.

Prof Sir Bruce Keogh will describe how each hospital let its patients down badly through poor care, medical errors and failures of management, and will show that the scandal of Stafford Hospital, where up to 1,200 patients died needlessly, was not a one-off.

The report will also pile pressure on Labour over its handling of the NHS, with the Conservatives likely to seize on it to attack Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary who was in charge of the NHS in England from June 2009 until May 2010. 

Sky News is also making it a main story:

'Up To 13,000 Needless Deaths' In NHS Hospitals

The scandal of sub-standard care in parts of the NHS is set to deepen when a damning report is released in the coming days.

The Mail also considers it a story of importance for its readers:

Doomed to die by the NHS: Devastating report to reveal thousands dying needlessly as 21 hospitals probed in scandal that eclipses Mid Staffs horror

Look for it on the BBC's home page, however, and you will find nothing about this. Yes, nothing. Look for it on their Health page, and you will also find nothing. 

A story that matters to most members of the public doesn't seem an urgent priority for the BBC to report. 

The BBC doubtless will report it in time, but why isn't it reporting the story now? Is it its alleged pro-NHS bias coming through again?


Update 18.00: Amazingly, it's still not a story that's registering on the BBC News website's radar - though, as B-BBC's Alan notes, BBC website readers could just about see the story (if they squinted, and borrowed a neighbour's binoculars) late this afternoon in a link to the Daily Telegraph on the site's Elsewhere on the Web section. It really isn't good enough, is it?

This morning's 'Sunday'

7.00: I'm 'live blogging' this morning's Sunday - though I lack the technical wherewithal to do it like they do it properly. So it's just me typing as the programme is being broadcast! Has my experiment with predicting which topics would and wouldn't feature on this week's edition proved correct, or not - based on prior experience of the programme's many biases (as I see them)?

7.10: Edward Stourton is presenting this week. The first topic is Ireland and abortion. That was inevitable for Sunday - a "given" indeed (as I put it in the last post)! The Irish parliament's vote to allow abortion in certain circumstances is the first subject. Edward says "the Catholic hierarchy" was against it. (Only the "hierarchy"?) He's talking to Patsy McGarry of the social liberal Irish Times. 

7.15: Next, something else I predicted: "an Anglican row over something"! This row is over the scrapping of three dioceses in Yorkshire due to a reorganisation. A report by Kevin Bocquet. Some people support the scheme, some people don't. Bishop Nick, Bishop of Bradford, is in danger of losing his job. (Nick Baines, a fellow blogger, is a Sunday favourite). The report ended with a family hoping for women bishops - a curious ending. 

7.21: The "concern" over the Egyptian Army's pursuit of the Muslim Brotherhood is being reported on now by Andrew Hosken, BBC. I'm classing that as the "breaking news from the Arab world" feature". A third correct prediction in a row then! (I wish I had this sort of luck with the national lottery!) Andrew's report gave a range of views from Egyptians for and against the Muslim Brotherhood. 

7.26: The same subject. An interview with Tarek Osman, Egyptian writer. Ed begins by raising the topic of anti-Christian violence, as a Christian was beheaded in Egypt yesterday. Tarek says the anti-Christian activity is being perpetrated by a "tiny" minority. They then moved on to the Muslim Brotherhood and its future. He says the modern MB has changed from scholars to businessmen over recent decades, and that a split might emerge between the old strain and the new strain.

7.31: The violence in Northern Ireland. Ed is talking to a former director of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council. 

7.34: Aliens. A chat about the consequences for faith of the existence of alien life with Thought For The Day regular David Wilkinson, a theologian at Durham University. I didn't predict this! Still, a plug for a TFTD favourite isn't out of the ordinary for Sunday. 

7.39: A report from Bosnia by Trevor Barnes, prompted by a ceremony to commemorate the Srebrenica massacre of Muslim 18 years ago. This is the predicted "Muslim grievances" story this week. (Correct prediction No.4). It's a massacre that needs remembering, of course - the biggest massacre in Europe since the end of the Second World War, but why report on it this week? I'm getting a feeling that the big religious story of this week - the bombing of one of Buddhism's holiest sites (presumably by Islamic terrorists) isn't going to be discussed. Why on earth isn't this being discussed? Why is Sunday concerned so much about attacks on Muslims but not about attacks on Buddhists (or Jews, Hindus or Sikhs)?

7.46: A discussion on the European Court of Human Right's ruling to allow killers to have their whole life tariffs reviewed, to "a predictable chorus of outrage" (as Edward put it, rather predictably). I think I can class this as my "something about human rights" story of the week (Correct prediction No.5). We heard from lawyer Harry Potter (who openly backs the ECHR ruling) and Nick Spencer of the think tank Theos (who seems to be against the ruling).

7.53: That's it for this week. 

Well, that was all very predictable. In fact, I'm gob-smacked at how many predictions I got right. Beat that Mystic Meg! 

I really shouldn't have been able to predict so much of the content of a programme in advance - but then that's Sunday for you. It's obviously a deeply predictable programme. 

Though there were no "Christian-related abuse stories" and no "call for something or other by a left-wing campaign group", all the other usual ingredients of the Sunday diet were present and correct -  the "breaking news from the Arab world", "something about human rights", "the usual airing of Muslim grievances" and "an Anglican row over something." "The abortion debate in Ireland" was indeed "a given".

Just as predictably as what was discussed was what wasn't discussed...shamefully, nothing about the attack on the major Buddhist holy site, for starters. The concerns of Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs very rarely get an airing on Sunday. They just don't seem to register on the programme's consciousness - unlike Muslims, of course, whose concerns are aired most weeks. The anti-Semitism row over the latest Lib Dem to attack Israel was also, just as predictably, ignored. I just knew the new Pope's backing for the Ordinariate would be ignored too, given the programme's previous bias on the subject. (Tabletistas are none too keen on the Ordinariate). None of the other interesting religious subjects being reported this past week - and posited in the preceding post - were considered either. How unsurprising!

Well, I think that experiment worked. I think it shows that Sunday does indeed have a number of biases, which it reveals most weeks. Given that, I will keep on doing it.

UPDATE 9.45: You can listen to the programme for yourselves now here.