Emily Kate: In the space of about 25 years, R4 has gone from a radio station full of sparkling, brilliant people you'd feel incredibly privileged to meet, to a radio station full of the most boring people at the most boring gathering you have ever been to in your life. I know I'm always tweeting about how awful R4 is now, but I just cannot get over what has happened to it. I will never stop being shocked at its total collapse, its descent from the dizzying heights of an enlightened elite broadcaster to dreary third-rate university podcast.
There was a revealing moment on this morning's Radio 4 Sunday programme. They were giggling at Boris Johnson's reading at the Jubilee service at St. Paul's and discussing past prime ministers, and one of the guests mentioned Gordon Brown and imagined him being given the Parable of the Unjust Steward to read as a joke. The guest said that it would have been unfair, and Edward Stourton chipped in to agree, saying “Because he was quite a just steward”.
That's a point of view I don't entirely share.
Time then, I think, to head off down Memory Lane again:
As Sunday also continued to celebrate Pride Month today, maybe Ed and Gordon could 'get a room'?
The Daily Telegraphreported this week that Storm Fagan, who blew in as the BBC's Chief Product Officer in 2021, has announced an “ethical approach” to AI, with “the corporation...seeking to puncture online 'echo chambers' that reinforce existing biases” by developing technology “designed to serve up articles and iPlayer suggestions tailored to their interests.” She says:
We have a really ethical approach to machine learning, where we are looking at removing any bias from the algorithm.
It means we are seeing really good quality return on results for users.We can balance national versus local as well because you are not reinforcing an echo chamber. You are showing thema more curated view of BBC content.
That is quite different from other products where they are driving clicks, so they are trying to show you more of the same thing.
“Removing any bias from the algorithm” sounds fine but showing them “a more curated view” doesn't. It sounds like Nanny BBC shepherding people away from what they'd like to see to what the BBC wants them to see.
The top comment at the Telegraph begins:
"Encouraging a wide range of content", or in other words shoving woke down your throat.
Given Storm's Twitter bio, with its pronouns and rainbow '/pride' emoji, that commenter might be onto something.
Update: Winter George, in the comments below, wondered about Storm's background, especially she/her schooling.
According to LinkedIn, she/her went to Combe Bank School, a girls-only private school in Kent where she was deputy head girl.
Personally-speaking, I'd have removed that when joining the BBC if I'd have been her. It's a bit rum for a BBC boss to keep Sadiq as an 'Influencer' after joining the BBC.
As you've been recording on the open thread, it's been quite a few weeks for the BBC.
I
The one that puzzled me was the Antony Gormley story. Reeta Chakrabarti, with earnestness all over her face and eyebrows raised, read out this 'news' last Saturday evening:
One of Britain's most acclaimed artists, the sculptor Sir Antony Gormley, who created The Angel of the North, is to become a German citizen. Sir Antony said he was giving up his British passport because of the UK's decision leave the European Union. He described the move as "embarrassing" and says he has plans for new sculptures that reflect this view.
Three days later the BBC posted the following on its Corrections and Clarifications page:
BBC One, 4 June 2022, 10.30pm
We reported that the acclaimed British sculptor Sir Antony Gormley is to become a German citizen. We said he was giving up his British passport because of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union and that he had described the move as embarrassing and had plans for new sculptures that would reflect his view.
In fact Sir Antony Gormley is not giving up his British nationality and has asked us to make clear the circumstances behind his application for a German passport.
Sir Antony holds dual nationality as a result of having a German mother and has decided to apply for a German passport, which he will hold alongside his British one.
In a statement he says he remains a proud British citizen and is grateful for the extraordinary support he has received from so many people and institutions across the UK but he is also keen to retain his links with and continue to show his work in Europe.
We apologise for the mistake.
07/06/2022
How did this happen? As far as I can see, the BBC simply picked the story up from their Sunday house journal The Observer and misread it.
Nowhere in the Observer article did Sir Antony say he was giving up his British passport [and I've checked the Wayback Machine to see if the Observer did say it but then changed it].
So were the BBC 'projecting', seeing what they wanted to see in the story rather than what it actually said?
It certainly looks like it.
II
Meanwhile, following a number of apologies for 'errors' made by the BBC's climate editor Justin Rowlatt - who's far clumsier than the departing Roger Harrabin - there's a new report out by Paul Homewood detailing a dozen corrections/apologies the BBC's had to make in recent years for false claims.
Justin, who first rose to fame as Newsnight's 'Ethical Man', is now up to three strikes [BBC ECU rulings against him], though naturally he's not 'out' at the BBC:
In 2021 he falsely claimed that the offshore wind industry was now 'virtually subsidy free'.
In 2022 he falsely claimed that the death toll from climate change is rising.
In 2022 he falsely claimed that the recent drought in Madagascar was 'the world's first climate-induced famine'.
I was particularly intrigued by the passages about the BBC's complaints process, including this concerning the false claim about the death toll rising:
A complaint to the BBC was fobbed off with the risible excuse that Panorama was referring to the cumulative death toll, which will obviously rise every year.
I wish I could say that was 'a nice try' by the BBC, but it's so disingenuous as to be anything but.
As the press release accompanying the report notes, the BBC has a team of reality checkers, including a 'Climate Misinformation' section.
Yet none of these teams of fact checkers noticed or addressed the long list of false news stories that were only corrected by the BBC after lengthy and protracted complaint procedures.
Those BBC reality checkers are very selective in the 'facts' they choose to 'check'.
III
Worst of all was the BBC's editing of an online report to change a rape victim's words - replacing 'he' and 'him' with 'they' and 'them' in order not to offend the trans person accused of raping the woman - a truly staggering editorial intervention.
I was reading a comment elsewhere that referred to a BBC Reality Check following the Texas shooting headlined US gun control claims fact-checked. It's one of those pieces where the facts 'checked' seem to fit with a particular point of view on the fact-checker's part. In other words, though it goes through the motions of 'BBC impartiality', it selectively 'checks' two Republicans and one Democrat, and the two Republicans come out of it much worse. Interestingly, the BBC ends with a correction - a 'reality check' on itself:
Correction 30 May: An earlier version of this piece stated there had been one mass shooting in the UK following Dunblane. There have been two, based on the definition widely used in the US of four or more deaths.
Jeremy Clarkson, once of the BBC, has a superb piece in The Sunday Times in defence of “us oldies” headlined Don’t cancel us oldies just yet. We’re trying harder than anyone to do the right thing.
His starting point is Len Goodman appearing on the BBC's Platinum Jubilee coverage and saying how much he loves coronation chicken but didn't eat it when he was younger because his gran considered curry powder to be “foreign muck” - as, indeed, did mine. An inevitable eruption of foolish activists immediately ensued...:
Everyone with spots and hormonal issues ran around waving their pierced arms in the air and gnashing their tattooed teeth, saying that this colonial and racist attitude is exactly what’s wrong with privileged white men today.
.,,despite the moral of Len's story surely being that Len had learned and changed:
So Len doesn’t need to be criticised for saying how things used to be. He needs to be praised for having the wit and the strength of character to change his way.
And what of the BBC's role in this foolishness?
...Because it has the same spinal integrity as a sea anemone, the BBC instructed Clare Balding to issue an on-air apology for the “offence”.
This BBC film about a child dealing with racism in 1980s Birmingham promises real-world lessons but delivers saccharine platitudes.
Rachel Cooke further chargrills it thusly:
Horribly preachy and overly schematic, this film feels more like one made for children than for adults – and sure enough, every single actor in it turns in the kind of ostentatiously heart-warming performance that suggests they’re present as much as a matter of duty as because they relish their role; that they have, in fact, signed up to teach an important lesson rather than to perform a subtle, complex drama.
Meanwhile, it seems that BBC comedy is no laughing matter either.
Romesh Ranganathan’s new BBC One show Avoidance doesn't appear to be exercising too many people's chuckle muscles. The Daily Telegraph's Marianka Swain charitably says it has “almost no redeeming features”. Naturally, I've not seen it, but the top-rated comment at the Telegraph describes it like this.
Let's just get this right...an Asian bloke in a mixed-race marriage runs to his sister who is in a lesbian mixed race marriage. Yup! 5 out of 5 for reflecting normal life on the BBC.
200 people, many allegedly BBC sceptics, were kept BBC-free for nine days and most of them ended up saying they couldn't live without the BBC.
It's something I'd heard about earlier because BBC types were gloating about it on Twitter.
I'm sceptical. I've managed to almost entirely avoid the BBC's output for over two months with no adverse consequences or regrets whatsoever.
The exception was Composer of the Week on Radio 3, which - see a few posts below - was celebrating a major Vaughan Williams anniversary. But I even gave up on that and reverted to YouTube and Spotify to supplement my record collection.
I may or may not be an outlier, but I think this blog - and others like it - have long been onto a growing mood among a growing swathe of the population.
The BBC was invaluable to me when I was young. It isn't now.
From now on I suspect my re-engagement with the BBC will be limited to checking up on the BBC for the purposes of this blog, and very little else.
Has the normally supremely self-confident Nick Robinson had his wings clipped?
A highly prolific Tweeter, he's fallen silent in recent days, despite not being on holiday from Radio 4. Maybe after having to apologise for wrongly and repeatedly claiming a Ministry of Justice cleaner died 'of Covid' while working in 'Downing Street' his bosses have asked him to rein himself in a bit?
His silent stands out this week because Charles Moore has given him both barrels in The Spectator and Nick on previous occasions has mounted his high horse and galloped straight out onto Twitter to blow his own bugle and rally the troops as fast as you can say 'Nick Robinson'. This time though, crickets and tumbleweed...
Intriguingly, his silence began on the day he made the error Charles Moore describes.
Here's the passage from The Spectator:
Nick Robinson of the BBC devotes his considerable energies to removing Boris. Presumably with this confirmation bias, Robinson kept repeating on Today on Tuesday that Johnson’s vote was ‘worse than Margaret Thatcher’s in 1990’. This was an odd thing to say, partly because they were different types of vote (his a no-confidence one, hers a leadership election), but mainly because it is untrue. In 1990, Mrs Thatcher received 204 votes from an electorate of 372. In 2022, Boris Johnson received 211 votes from an electorate of 359. I am no statistician, but I make that more votes, both proportionally and absolutely, for him than for her. In the same programme, the political editor, Chris Mason repeated LBJ’s dictum that the first requirement in politics is to be able to count. He politely did not point out that his illustrious predecessor in the job seems to lack that skill.
6:12 - On one measure the Prime Minister got fewer votes the Margaret Thatcher when she was challenged back in 1990.
7:09 - His critics, you won't be surprised to hear, see it somewhat differently, pointing out that Boris Johnson did less well than Theresa May, John Major, even Margaret Thatcher, when they faced challenges from their MPs.
7:42 - So history will not repeat itself? Boris Johnson will not have to go, in your view, simply because he did worse than Margaret Thatcher?
7:47 - I've just been speaking to one of the veterans of the Margaret Thatcher leadership contest. Boris Johnson did worse than Margaret Thatcher. But they say, doesn't matter.
As far as I can see [via TVEyes] Today hasn't corrected this either.
Alastair Stewart tweeted last night that “the only voices on BBC News tonight were opponents of #Rwanda”.
BBC One'sNews at Ten certainly bore that out, with [a] a campaigner against the government's policy and [b] an illegal immigrant facing deportation being the two featured voices in Mark Easton's report. And the campaigner against the government's policy was the sole voice featured in the opening headlines too.
Mark Easton's report itself was, as Charlie notes on the open thread, typical Mark Easton, using every trick in the book to reinforce the case that Priti Patel's Rwanda policy is wrong and illegal, with the arguments of government opponents dominating and government opponents being said to have 'pointed' things 'out' while people reacting favourably to the judge's ruling went severely underreported - as did what the judge actually said.
The structure of the report says it all. It began with a 'talking head' - the campaigner against the government. Then came what the lawyer representing those trying to stop next week's flights said in criticism of the government. Then came what a barrister for the UN said in criticism of the government. Mark then added his own point to reinforce what the critic from the UN had said. The government's legal team then got a sentence-long summary of their position from Mark before turning to thee plight of the 'asylum seekers' and 'a Syrian' saying he has family here and that his future and his kids' futures will be 'destroyed' if he's sent to Rwanda. A final sentence - a characteristic Mark Easton move - then feigned impartially with a brief, even-handed summary of the present legal situation from both the Home Office and campaigners' perspectives.
Why didn't he quote what the judge had ruled, given that the judge had some 'helpful' things to say from the government's perspective? Why didn't he quote Priti Patel's response, already reported elsewhere by that time? Why did he pile on the critics of the policy but exclude supporters of it?
The answer is surely that he was making the case against the government under the guise of impartial reporting, as ever.
The report has been re-broadcast throughout the night and was still showing on BBC Breakfast this morning.
It's to be hoped that many viewers can see through this though. Here, for example, is a tweet from someone who obviously watched Mark Easton's report on this morning's BBC Breakfast:
BBC news this morning with a report about boat migrants. Every clip they showed was with young children being carried into the UK. Who are they kidding? Everyone can see the boats being unloaded with men only. Women and children are few and far between....
The one exception to my recent exorcism of the BBC has been listening to several episodes of Composer of the Week on Radio 3, which has been a month-long celebration of one of my favourite composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Though the programme and its long-time presenter Donald Macleod are understandably regarded as jewels of the BBC, even they aren't wholly immune to the failings of the modern BBC.
The season began by trying to speak to its Islingtonian listeners by persuading them that RVW had a 'progressive' outlook.
I've just rechecked now and the first episode was called 'The Young Radical'.
They just have to filter it this way, it seems.
For love of RVW, and beautiful recordings, I've stuck with it though.
However, in a later episode Donald Macleod told listeners that RVW always voted 'Labour or Radical' in elections.
Vaughan Williams voted Labour or Radical all his life but his music, and Sancta Civitas is a fine example, seems to strive mightily above the shrill clamour of political dispute.
Now I've read huge amounts about RVW over the years and I was pretty sure that that's factually inaccurate and that RVW once voted Conservative [for Churchill against Attlee].
Vaughan Williams voted Conservative in 1945 because he was 'so disgusted by what [he] considered the mean tricks of the Labour party in forcing an election'.
That said, he voted Labour again in the 1951 election, though he added that 'in my heart of hearts I wanted the Tories to get in'.
So my only significant encounter with the BBC for a couple of months has betrayed BBC political groupthink and factual inaccuracy even on Composer of the Week.
Though I've avoided the BBC like a plague, putting my attention to its output into a lockdown so strict would astound even Jacinda Ardern, I have been keeping an eye on comments about it, here and elsewhere.
You may have noticed - I certainly have - that the lull in vociferous Israel-bashing is finally over.
What turns out to be a temporary diversion from the anti-Israel status quo may have been because the media’s current focus on Putin’s war against Ukraine has effectively paled other conflicts into insignificance; it may simply be the fallout from the near-miss of a Corbyn government. Whatever caused the haters to beat a temporary retreat, the Israel-bashing hiatus has now reached its natural sell-by limit. Back to abnormal; the haters are back in full force.
The BBC hasn’t had much to say about the resurgent and ongoing violence in the Middle East recently. The dearth of BBC reporting on the matter is becoming conspicuous by its relative absence. In the unlikely event that one were to rely on the BBC one would not know of the intifada-like flare-ups that resulted in the killing of Shireen Abu Aqla (also spelled Akleh) - few western reporters seemed interested in the prologue to the shooting itself.
Several subtle and not-so-subtle differences between “pro" and "anti" media have obscured the facts. Predictably, the pro-Palestinian press has stoked the Israel-bashing flames. The BBC and The Times, to give just two examples, regurgitate the ‘Palestinian’ version, which not only ignores the ‘context’ but is pitched from the premise - the assumption - that the fatal bullet was fired by the IDF. The Israelis want the chance to analyse the bullet before formally accepting or denying responsibility for firing the fatal shot, but the Palestinians won’t let the evidence out of their sight; they’re grimly hanging onto the bullet.
Worse still was the actual funeral. Although the ‘slain’ journalist was a Christian, she was fiercely politically pro-Palestinian, so the decision to follow the Muslim practice of burying the dead immediately would be acceptable - were it not for the fact that so much store is being (unnecessarily I think) set upon the identity of the shooter; obstructing potential forensics is not a good look.
Much of the reporting focuses on the brutality of the Israeli police, who were filmed attacking the pall-bearers and using batons with such violence that the coffin almost fell to the ground.Describing a frenzied mob plainly revelling in the drama as ‘mourners’ is stretching it a bit.The emotion on display hardly strikes one as ‘grief’.
We have to look at the ‘Jewish’ press to find a fuller description of the event. It’s alleged that the family had agreed not to have the coffin ‘paraded’ through the streets; instead, it was to be driven by hearse in order to avoid the very scenes that transpired.
However, Abu Akleh’s brother disputes the Israeli account, and he has “slammed the Israeli police for “extreme, vicious and brutal force”.
The comments section of the Times clearly shows that the antisemites are back. The truce is over and the unleashing of all that pent-up Israel-bashing is further demonstrated by the enthusiastic reception of a film everyone’s raving about. It’s called Eleven Days in May and has been widely praised for the very thing it shouldn’t have been doing, namely “not contextualising”.The very thing it makes a virtue out of is the very thing it should have been ashamed of. Why would anyone be genuinely proud of stoking hate?
"Trying for a two-sided overview of this particular spate of bombardments would probably have doomed any documentary: no striving for editorial balance could ever be universally embraced.
The huge virtue of Eleven Days in May is avoiding any such attempt. It concentrates, with devastating simplicity, on the deaths of Gaza’s children, and only Gaza’s children, in that fray: the 60 of those innocent lives lost from May 10, 2021 until the ceasefire on May 21, amid an overall death toll of at least 243 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry."
Not contextualising is dangerous. It stokes hate. The film critic uses the “innocent face”. tactic.Michael Winterbottom’s justification for wallowing in decontextualised misery reminds me of a lyric from the 60s.
"I’m just a soul whose intentions are good Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."
Well, I don’t think the intentions are good. Misguided at best, and probably not misunderstood at all.
“Assembling a memorial to the dead is all this film is doing, and everything it needs to do. We’re not embroiled in disputing anything: in terms of what’s strictly on screen, there’s nothing to dispute.”
Memorials to the dead are well and good. One-sided, egregious, mawkish wallowing in tragedy amounts to incitement to hate, and hate has certainly been incited. Lone comment btl:
Of course it's appalling and tragic that children are killed in conflicts - still are in Ukraine and other places. But how about having a word with those children's fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles etc. Perhaps they could refrain from starting (most of) these fights.
The Jewish press has a different take on this but I can already hear the famous words of Mandy Rice Davies echoing in my head.
Co-director Mohammed Sawwaf was presented with an award by Hamas leaders for his work "countering the Zionist narrative". On social media, he has celebrated the launching of rockets against civilian targets and effectively called for the destruction of the State of Israel, saying that the map of Palestine should extend “from the sea to the river”.
Distinguished British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom is co-director, but did not visit Gaza for the making of the documentary.
On the other hand, Government severs ties with NUS over ‘antisemitic rot at its heart’ At least the majority of the responses here are encouraging. At last, the government has ‘done something’ but I fear the ever-increasing normalisation of “Muslimness” in GB does not augur well for some of us.
And now for something completely different.It’s not about Israel. (well, only a tiny bit)
Insulting voters’ intelligence?I thought: am I the only one who was taken aback by the bullying here? (scroll to about 2:21.41) It’s Nick Robinson taking advantage of his position in the concluding moments of this tetchy interview with George Eustice.
G.E. “In the interest of balance you need to recognise that the leader of the opposition…
N.R. (interrupting) “I don’t think we need any lectures from you about balance Mr Eustice, we interviewed Mr Starmer all about it yesterday”..
I did spot another reference to this exchange within a GB News feature titled: 'Does Britain still love the BBC?’ (scroll to about 6:20) Dame Esther Rantzen (Supporting the Beeb) and Rupert Lowe (not so much,) discuss with Mark Dolan.
Rupert Lowe:
“I mean I listened to an interview the other day between Nick Robinson and George Eustice. I’m a farmer - George Eustice is not my favourite person but I couldn’t believe Nick R’s arrogance when he was interviewing GE and it’s an example of how they know they’re going to be there well beyond when that person they’re interviewing is going to be voted out of power so there is a degree of arrogance which I think is unacceptable now….”
Full disclosure; George is my M.P. TheEustice family farm produce is pretty pricey though. George has come in for such a lot of stick for his ‘let them eat cake’ remark, but it’s sound advice. (Shop at Lidl’s and Aldi) I don’t know if the Eustice family farm would agree.
**********************
So then I caught a programme on the radio late last night aboutBLM. on the theme of combatting racism. It was hosted by our old friend Samira Ahmed.It came across as pretty vacuous, to be honest, but a couple of throw-away remarks suggested that the discussion was based on a somewhat creative interpretation of ‘anti-racism’.
One participant navigated his self-inflicted minefield of tricky glottal stops with such agility that something that would normally send my hackles through the roof was so distracting that it slipped by almost unnoticed. “…the way Israel has colonised Palestine” On reflection, I found that so profoundly dumb that it threw the whole of his tenuous anti-racist thesis down the toilet.
I concluded that their version of ”anti-racism” is itself pretty racist, especially when Samira Ahmed brought in Azeem Rafiq as an example, evidently having forgiven and forgotten his casual antisemitism or disregarded it altogether. That's what I call insulting listeners’ intelligence.
I began a new post about al-Aqsa the other day, beginning with “I really didn’t want to flood the blog with Israel-related posts.”Then I wondered why I was apologising. Did I need a disclaimer? I imagined people saying “What?Another piece about the al-Aqsa riots?” Anyway, it didn’t get written (but not because of 'not' flooding the blog.)
Later, and splish splash I was in the bath and idly reading the label on my flannel. (I often read labels) “100% cotton. Keep away from Fire”I mean asif!How likely is it that a small face-flannel would get too close to a fire, and how dangerous would it be if it did get so close that it caught alight (!) and burst into huge flames? It seemed absurd andreminded me of the legendary notice on a post in the in the middle of nowhere marked: “Do not throw stones at this notice” Not only absurd - but instigating a compelling desire you hadn’t thought of till you were forbidden to do so. (Quick! Get stones!)
That brought to mind those Palestinian juvenile delinquents desecrating their ‘third holiest place’, al-Aqsa, by breaking up significant archeological relics into stones and rocks to hurl at Jews who dared to place their filthy feet on the Muslims’ ‘holy’ ground.
Yolande Knell must have missed that bit of the story. Perhaps she came in half way through the first act and spent the rest of the performance baffled about what was going on. All she could see was Israeli police having another go at Palestinian worshippers. The BBC’s context-lite reporting of that and similar incidents differed from the Jewish press’s accounts of the same thing.
That’s so weird. I understood that the BBC was the most reliable news organisation in the world. I’ve written about violence at al-Aqsa at least once before. Years ago I think. It’s almost a ritual. No doubt the Beeb sees the annual desecration by Palestinian delinquents of their holiest spaces as old hat and low priority news-wise. Not really worthwhile going into it again and again.
Fresh trouble was reported briefly by Rebecca Jones during a BBC news bulletin earlier this week, but little or nothing else was to be found on the BBC website. The institutionally-hostile-to-IsraelGuardian mentioned it once but I think they got away with it.
++++++++++++++
I stumbled upon a Zoom conversation on Jewish News Syndicate (new to me.) The panel included Melanie Phillips, who made an interesting observation. She said that while her occasional appearances on the BBC (and her column in The Times of London) afford her a tremendous platform she feels that her ‘mainstream acceptability’ comes at a price - the tacit understanding that her Israel-related contributions keep to a minimum.
That’s how I’m feeling right now about flooding this blog. In other words, Israel-related articles can only be smuggled in up to and until you reach an indeterminate saturation point, and if you want to put ‘the case for the "other side"’ you may; a) bury your observations on sympathetic fora like Jewish News Syndicate, or; b) risk alienating the - let’s call them the righteous misinformed - by fighting un-winnable battles on the MSM.
Of course, you could always just write on your own relatively niche blog and hope for the best.
Should I wade in on matters I know I’m relatively ill-informed about? With my vacillating opinions and known unknowns? I don’t know a huge amount about Ukraine and I suspect I’m guided by my own flimsy, fleeting emotions rather than objectivity. If anything, flag-waving curbs my enthusiasm.
Who, apart from Rod Liddle, admires Angela Rayner’s feisty political acuity? Do I? Not sure, but don’t think so.
Do I know much about cake and wine in the work environment? No. The collapsing economy and/or imminent nuclear annihilation?Not much. Can I opine with any credibility whatsoever? I think not. My advice to myself is: stick to what you know, and STFU about the stirred-up personal feelings that hang precariously on the shoogly peg of biased, one-sided reporting. I, for one,should really shut up.
We haven’t done any ‘housekeeping’ posts for a good while. Or any posts whatsoever for that matter. We’re in blogging doldrums.That cries out for a calypso; missing Lance Percival now.
Now that the BBC’s leftwing bias is generally accepted, why don’t you and I - the listening public - just stop moaning and carry on regardless, autocorrecting as we go? We’ve got our own antennae, haven’t we? We can edit as we see fit, in realtime.
That is what we do when we hear Mishal Husain introduce an item about riots at Al Aksa, you know, the third holiest site for the Muslims. We know she’ll parrot the Palestinian version of events. It’s expected and we make allowances. Do listen. It’s a bit of a shocker, bias-wise.
As Adam Levick points out, the Guardian sets the tone with its 'erupting clashes':
“…..clashes that erupted when Israeli riot police entered Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound ….”
Clashes erupt! Riots occur!Vehicles run people down!
Life’s far too short to peel this kind of onion. It’s a multi-layered vegetable.
(Mishal, I do wonder who you think “started the riots”? The Jews in 1948, maybe? Or should we go back a few millennia to the origin of the oldest hatred)
Mishal Husain may not be interested, but BBC guidelines state:
The BBC is committed to achieving due impartiality in all its output. This commitment is fundamental to our reputation, our values, and the trust of audiences. The term ‘due’ means that the impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation, and any signposting that may influence that expectation.
Mishal, this morning's report on the Today Programme cried out for a balanced picture of the incident, but you talked over and obstructed the Israeli spokeswoman you were supposed to be interviewing and you did so with such cloth-eared belligerence that you virtually drowned her out. You mustn’t do that, Mishal. It’s very biased. Here's the gist of the part you drowned out. To quote JPost:
The Muslims who stockpiled stones, rocks, logs, and firecrackers in al-Aqsa did not do so for religious purposes. They prepared for a riot – to attack police and Jewish worshipers – not for prayers. Police did not storm al-Aqsa Mosque to “conquer” it. They broke in to arrest the rock throwers who had barricaded themselves inside after Friday prayers. Some of the masked Palestinians waved Hamas flags and praised arch-terrorist Muhammed Deif as they tried to bombard the Jewish worshipers who had come to pray at the Western Wall at the start of the Passover holiday.
Did anyone say "They would say that, wouldn’t they?"I bloody well hope so, too. Someone’s got to say it, and it certainly won’t be the BBC.
Maybe Mishal Husain let her utter contempt for the Israeli spokesperson shine through because she knows that listener numbers are shrinking and assumes that those remaining wouldn’t care.
Continually speaking over her guest in one of her rudest, most schoolmarmish, and sneeriest tones, she outdid even her usual self this morning. The self-righteous, prissy, and sneery timbre to her voice on such occasions is as irritating as the saccharine tones that accompany her heartwarming stories. Perhaps she ‘smiles’ while speaking. I hear that's a technique to make the audience like you. I'm thinking of trying that.
I implore everybody to listen (link here again and at the top of the page, scroll to 2:23:00) to Husain indulging that malevolent fanatic Husam Zomlot, no stranger to this site, allowing him acres of air time in which to express his opinions.But wow! Was he allowed to rant and ramble on, barely interrupted - even though he strayed off-topic, wildly, fancifully, and at great length - and fawned over to the point of servility. Did nobody else notice?
This is almost unbelievable when you consider that Tim Davie was supposed to be addressing the bias. I understood that the BBC’s entire raison d’être for co-opting Tim Davie to the maelstrom— bringing him aboard - was to iron out the bias once and for all! But when? This year, next year, sometime never?
Not only with regard to the Martin Bashir and Jimmy Savile scandals, but something more fundamental, namely the BBC’s unspoken mission to normalise and acclimatise the British to creeping Islamification.Does the public want this? Do people want to pay for it?
I can’t quite follow my own advice here. I can’t just autocorrect everything as I go along and leave it at that. Someone has to say something. I’m afraid this particular issue is bigger than both of us.
Oh yes, and has anyone noted the recent absence of the BBC’s most ubiquitous guest on Dateline London recently? One of his rants has apparently been removed from YouTubebut does anyone know if his recent (semi) withdrawal from our BBC screens is a coincidence or part of Tim Davie’s nascent decontamination project? Yes, I’m talking about “Barry Atwan or ‘arry Batwan.
Haven’t seen Mr Atwan lately. Did he creep away quietly, or was there a showdown? (Asking for a few million friends.)
Eight times between 12:12pm and 12:24pm yesterday, April 1st, the BBC News Channel repeatedly ran a bit of breaking news across its screen.
They were reporting that one of Boris Johnson's arch-critics Rory Stewart was to become Number Ten Director of Communications. The news then disappeared without comment.
It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Director of Communications for No 10 Downing Street. I am looking forward to working with the PM, Ministers and Members of Parliament on the issues that matter most to our country.
And the geniuses at Jess Brammar's new channel fell for it.
