Not a volte-face - the video!

Not a Volte-face

Paul Danahar’s appearance at the Frontline Club on October 15th is the subject of articles at BBC Watch and Daphne Anson whose blog contains a video of the the whole session.

Given the prevailing scale of expectations, where the bar is set from low to lowest, his throwaway observation about ‘understanding’ Israel caused a minor sensation. 

In honour of his book “The New Middle East”,  Paul Danahar answers questions posed by Sam Farah of the BBC’s Arabic service, and afterwards from members of the audience.

His style is Bowenesque, as I suspect is his interpretation of Middle Eastern affairs. The analysis has a cartoon-like simplification, perhaps to suit the Q & A format. For example as Hadar points out,  “his claim that the focus of the Arab-Israeli conflict has shifted from being “about land” and “about borders” to “about God”  sounds decidedly sloppy. It ignores the fact that the ideology of Israel’s enemies is the motivating factor behind their rejectionist position, and always has been.

Just before the end, Danahar made some uncharacteristic comments on the subject of understanding Israel.

He said something like: You can’t understand Israel and why the Israelis do what they do if you view it only through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One might think throwing a fairly modest crumb at the Zionists was the least he could do, if only to demonstrate that he had something to show for all the time he spent as chief of the BBC Jerusalem Bureau; but since his stance, particularly on Gaza, had been patently “BBC”, it came across as an act of unprecedented generosity. 

Or is that to misdescribe it, in the manner of Mehdi Hasan describing Tommy Robinson’s career move a volte-face?  I  think it was neither an act of generosity nor a volte-face.

Danahar showed precisely where he and his protégé Jon Donnison stood when he relayed unadulterated Palestinian rhetoric on Twitter at the time of the infamous killing of the toddler Omar Masharawi. 

The consensus is now that the missile that killed the child was not an Israeli shell, after all, but a Palestinian rocket fired at Israel, which fell short. This was confirmed by the UNHRC, an organisation not noted for its sympathetic attitude towards Israel.

Having only seen the video of his performance at the ‘left-leaning’ Frontline Club, (and not read the book) I turned Amazon’s “Look inside” feature.  

A cursory skim confirmed my hunch that (while we’re on the subject of prisms,) Danahar and the BBC view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the same prism, moral equivalence and all. In the introduction Danahar seems to minimise the religiosity that dominates the Arab World and exaggerate the “Just like us” theme that is ever present in the BBC’s M.E. reporting. At the same time he magnifies the threat in Israel from an ominous-sounding and ever increasing ultra orthodox menace. Thus, a superficial kind of moral equivalence is laid down. 

Expanding on “you have to live in Israel to understand it” he says growing religiosity and nationalism in Israel puts the country at risk of becoming less democratic, and concludes: “Israel has swung sharply to the right”. The election did not bear that out. 

On his current Twitter feed he’s busily promoting the book and saying it has been well received. He might mean the reviews on Amazon, one of which begins: “I started this book with trepidation because of course it couldn't possibly compete with Robert Fisk, 'The Great War for Civilisation' could it?!" (He thinks it does)         Robert Fisk?

The impression is that the analysis is of the Jeremy Bowen school; whole concepts are extrapolated from strings of anecdotes, which I guess is a valid journalistic approach. This review in the Telegraph is positive, with reservations, and I am willing to hear that my negativity is motivated by my own wishful thinking, and that I’m talking crap. I haven’t read the book. I  have merely cherry-picked and, if you like, extrapolated a whole concept from odds and ends. Such as:

Chapter called ‘The Problem.’

This is copyrighted material so I can’t reproduce too much of it, but in the chapter entitled ‘The Problem’ Danahar revisits the tale of Omar Masharawi. He still seems to believe his death was caused by an Israeli airstrike, although by calling it “a stray missile” he does seem to concede that it wasn’t deliberate, as in another example of Israel’s predilection for killing babies.

“The family and human rights groups said it was an Israeli airstrike. Privately, at the time, so too did Israeli officials. Publically (sic) four months afterwards, the IDF said it could not confirm or deny whether it had hit the house. Then in March 2013 the UN human rights Council said it was probably a Palestinian rocket falling short. The next month an investigation by the Israeli Military Advocate General reached the same conclusion. Jehad dismissed the UN claims as ‘rubbish’ as did Hamas. Like much else in this corner of the ME the cause of the fireball that ripped through the family home was fodder for the competing lobby groups and they argued viciously over it. But the effect of the missile was indisputable.” 

The Israelis’ initial response mirrors their self-damaging reaction way back at the time of the Al Dura incident. The Israelis should be mindful that their initial (often apocryphally self-incriminating) responses will always be taken down for future use as evidence against them.

I think Paul Danahar was very foolish to use the bereaved family’s understandably subjective opinion, based on nothing but wishful thinking, to rationalise his own ‘gut feeling’ and his contemporaneous, unprofessionally rash Tweets. Even more foolish was he to reference the opinion of Hamas. 

The emotive language (fireball that ripped through the family home) sort of tries to guild a wilting lily.  He forgets that ‘emoting’ like that, and all that furious publicising of ‘those’ images can turn into an own goal when the tables are turned. That’s why he’s forced to keep digging in the way he has done here, and notice that the spelling has automagically morphed to a benign ‘Jehad’, from the original 'Jihad' with its unpalatable associations.  Simon Plosker:

"Speaking to the BBC in the aftermath of a UN report exonerating Israel from killing Jihad Misharawi’s 11-month old son, his brother and sister-in-law, Misharawi chose to believe the latter option. Misharawi, perhaps unsurprisingly, restated his belief that Israel had killed his family and claimed that Hamas would have apologized if it had been responsible. As ludicrous as this explanation may sound, is it that surprising coming from a grieving Palestinian father?The BBC reports Misharawi stating that nobody from the UN had talked to him as if this is further evidence of the UN being less than thorough in its investigation. Misharawi is clearly not a munitions expert with intimate knowledge of the forensics involved. So why should the UN regard him as a key witness and why should the BBC regard this as relevant?[…]In the BBC’s usual worldview, the United Nations is regarded as a pillar of propriety and virtue. A UN report (and there are many) criticizing Israel is the definition of truth… unless it states the opposite. Why is it that only when a UN report exonerates Israel and blames Hamas is that report not to be trusted?"

I think I might have mentioned that I haven’t read the book. Maybe Danahar is more accurate in print than in person. Oh, wait, that was from the book.

One almost wonders...no surely not...could the newly acquired, against-the-grain “understanding” of Israel’s position be a way of artificially whipping up a controversy?  

You know, a kind of publicity stunt.

Jeremy Bowen in court

Jeremy Bowen

The BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been in court in recent days. He's been at The Hague, giving evidence at the trial of the Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic. 

An 'impartial' BBC journalist giving evidence at a war crimes tribunal might raise a few eyebrows; indeed, as Jeremy Bowen's Twitter feed shows, it has raised a few eyebrows. 

Still, Jeremy firmly believes that he's doing the right thing: 

 Jeremy Bowen ‏@BowenBBC 17 Oct

In answer to a few tweets. Some journos believe testimony compromises journalistic impartiality. But I testify what I reported at the time

 Jeremy Bowen ‏@BowenBBC 17 Oct

I've done it because only justification for reporting terrible human suffering on war is bearing witness, and this comes under that heading

 Jeremy Bowen ‏@BowenBBC 17 Oct

This is the 4th time I've testified for the prosecution at the former Yugo war crimes tribunal. Some journos won't.

The ethics of his actions were touched upon during today's The World This Weekend. Jeremy was interviewed by his BBC colleague, Anna Holligan - the corporation's Netherlands correspondent. 

Before coming to that, however, here's a vignette from that interview: Mladic has a tendency, apparently, to try to stare people out while they are giving evidence. Jeremy Bowen said that he tried to get Mladic to make eye contact with him, but Mladic failed to oblige. Both Jeremy and Anna noted, however, that Mladic was trying to stare Anna out, even though she wasn't giving evidence. [Having seen what Anna looks like I suspect he might have had other reasons for staring at her. A clue follows].

Anna Holligan

Here's a transcript of part of that World This Weekend interview, dealing with the main issue:

Anna: Do you feel its the duty of journalists to bring that to court?

Jeremy: I do. I do actually, because I think that the only justification for what we do, entering peoples' lives at their worst moments, or in some cases their final moments, the only justification for that is to create a record, to be a witness, to bear witness.

Anna: Were you aware at the time, when you were reporting, of how your reports may be used in a war crimes tribunal like this?

Jeremy: Absolutely not. I thought they wouldn't be able to arrest people. I thought they wouldn't be able to get people into a trial. I didn't think there'd be the determination. For me, I'm glad that I've come here to talk about it and to testify because, you know, this sounds a bit corny but I really think I owe it to all those people whose deaths and injuries and disasters that I covered back then. You know, it enormously affected me. It sort of took over my life. And so I'm satisfied that I've done the right thing. 

Anna: There are other journalists who've witness similar things who don't do this, who won't do this on principle, and others who say coming to testify in court could potentially make other journalists targets in the field.

Jeremy: We're targets anyway. In the time that I've been a foreign correspondent, which is getting on for thirty years now, we've gone from being people who at times were accepted as non-combatants. I remember going to my first war in El Salvador in 1989. I remember if we wanted to cross the street we'd shout out in Spanish 'journalist' - 'Periodista! Periodista!'. We'd have white flags and we'd wave them and we would walk very slowly across the street and it seemed the two sides would even cease fire for a while. We're not seen as non-combatants any more. We are much more in the firing line.

He's not the BBC's head of religion and ethics. He's a very naughty boy!

The Independent's Ian Burrell interviewed Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC's head of religion and ethics, this week:

It’s no laughing matter: Britain has become a nation of religious illiterates 'who are baffled by Biblical references in Monty Python film The Life of Brian'

Mr Ahmed says that "failings in religious education over two generations" are "undermining public understanding of contemporary national and international issues":

“If you tried to make The Life of Brian today it would fall flat on its face because the vast majority of the audience would not get most of the jokes. They don’t have the knowledge".

As for today's comedians who make jokes about religion, they tend to joke about the subject "in general terms" rather than about "specific aspects of religion".

Ian Burrell continues:

Ahmed also claimed that a key reason that Islam is not the subject of more humorous discussion is that the life of the Prophet Muhammad is poorly understood by large sections of the British public. “How can anybody tell a joke about Muhammad when they don’t even know how to spell his name, let alone anything about his life? The day we have people standing up and telling detailed jokes about Muhammad and have the audience understanding that humour, then we will have come a long way in society and we will have a lot more religious literacy about a major world figure.”

Now it has to be said that the Independent's own online readership don't seem to particular buy this latter line of reasoning:

Mike • a day ago

At least Life of Brian was allowed to be made and screened without any fatwas calling for the death of the actors and film makers. Just try making a satirical film about Islam and see where it gets you !

lionsingh @Mike • a day ago

Bad enough for drawing a cartoon ;-(

AdolfBalls2  @Mike • 15 hours ago

Earlier this year Channel 4 did a two part historical documentary about Islam (I forget which historian wrote it), but it put a reasoned argument forward questioning some of the so called accepted 'facts; of islam. 

They had to pull the 2nd part because of threats.

This country is scared sh*tless of Islam

So, do you get the following jokes?

Wise Man No.1: "We were led by a star."
Brian's mother: "Led by a bottle, more like." 

Ex-Leper: Okay, sir, my final offer: half a shekel for an old ex-leper?
Brian: "Did you say 'ex-leper'?"
Ex-Leper: "That's right, sir, 16 years behind a veil and  proud of it, sir."
Brian: "Well, what happened?"
Ex-Leper: "Oh, cured, sir."
Brian: "Cured?"
Ex-Leper: "Yes sir, bloody miracle, sir. Bless you!"
Brian: "Who cured you?"
Ex-Leper: "Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me! One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave! 'You're cured, mate.' Bloody do-gooder." 

Brian's mother: "Who are you?"
Wise Man No.2: "We are three wise men."
Brian's mother: "What?"
Wise Man No.1: "We are three wise men."
Brian's mother: "Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o'clock in the morning? That doesn't sound very wise to me."

Brian's mother: "So you're astrologers, then? What is he?"
Wise Man No.2: "Pardon?"
Brian's mother: "What star sign is he?"
Wise Man No.2: "Er, Capricorn."
Brian's mother: "Capricorn, eh? And what are they like?"
Wise Man No.2: "He is the son of God, our Messiah."
Wise Man No.1: "King of the Jews."
Brian's mother: "And that's Capricorn, is it?"
Wise Man No.3: "No, no, that's just him."
Brian's mother: "Oh, I was going to say, otherwise there'd be a lot of them." 

Suicide Squad Leader: We are the Judean People's Front crack suicide squad! Suicide squad, attack!
[They all stab themselves]
Suicide Squad Leader: That showed 'em, huh? 

Can we still trust the BBC?

Seconds out. Round Four....or should that be 'It's war!'?

The Telegraph's assault on BBC bias continues apace. 

Former long-term BBC reporter Robin Aitken has become one of the corporation's sharpest critics in recent years and wrote a book a while back called Can We Trust the BBC? It looks as if he's now published a sequel called Can We Still Trust the BBC?, and that's also the title of a piece of his published in the Telegraph today:

Can we still trust the BBC?

He says that "life within the BBC’s newsrooms can feel hermetically sealed and insulated from reality." The first part of his essay examines how he believes this situation has come about.

One of the reasons, he says, is that most BBC's journalists have jobs for life, "stable careers and little incentive to go elsewhere" - a "stasis" which makes the BBC "a very self-referential institution".

Also, the corporation is protected from its commercial rivals by the licence fee ["£5 billion a year buys a very substantial comfort blanket."] As regards TV, Sky's news presence is "puny", and ITN is no longer a worthy competitor because of "straitened financial circumstances". Moreover, Robin believes that Radio 4 is "the single most influential media entity in the country." 

What this means is that the BBC can pretty much dictate terms when it comes to the national debate – and it’s a power it exercises in full measure.

"The so-called Right-wing press is the “other” against which the BBC defines itself," he continues. BBC editors steer away from their agenda and, though they occasional heed the Guardian and the Independent, "what emerges from the loudspeaker is the BBC’s own agenda. That’s why the news priorities in BBC bulletins are so markedly different from the newspapers."

Robin then echoes a point we've made several times at Is the BBC biased?:

This underlines a truth not sufficiently acknowledged – that all journalism is a matter of selection. The running order of the BBC’s main bulletins is not ordained by some higher authority; instead, it is merely the preference of BBC editors. 

The BBC selection boards tend to choose people "in their own image and likeness" and, thus, "the system becomes self-reinforcing." 

Aspiring young BBC journalists know that they will be expected to show an interest in a particular type of story. So an internal culture is constructed, recruit by recruit, which reinforces an established world view.

Another thing we've occasionally remarked on at Is the BBC biased? [and that people at Biased BBC have observed for years]:

The way the day is structured in the BBC’s main news centre encourages an insidious orthodoxy. Each morning, the senior editors meet to discuss the day’s agenda. A consensus emerges, and because the corporation is fiercely hierarchical, the juniors – nurturing their promising careers – take their cue from their elders and betters. Which is why from morning to midnight, from Today to the Ten O’Clock News and right on down the chain to local radio, the same stories lead the bulletins.

It does indeed.

This amplification effect is what gives BBC news output such enormous clout. More than 90 per cent of us listen or watch the BBC every week. For many people, the BBC is their constant companion – from dawn to dusk it is the background soundtrack in the lives of millions. That is why, uniquely among media organisations, the BBC performs the role of gatekeeper to the national debate. If the BBC doesn’t run with a story then, arguably, it isn’t a story at all.

Robin's essay then expands on some specific examples of how the BBC has handled some recent stories and lists a few of the main subject areas where BBC bias seemed to him to be most glaring. 

He ends, however, by noting something which opinion polls are also showing at the moment:

I had first-hand evidence of this recently at the Ilkley Literature Festival. The convenor took a straw poll of the audience I was addressing. Who trusts the BBC, he asked, and who doesn’t? To my surprise, the split was more or less 50/50. OK, it was a self-selected group, but warning bells should be ringing in New Broadcasting House. The BBC used to inspire near-universal trust: it can no longer take that for granted.

"The subjectivity shown by the BBC will not do."

Seconds out. Round Three. 

The Telegraph's ongoing fight with the BBC continues in their leading article today. 

Are you happy, Tony Hall, about the BBC’s bias?

After outlining its own take on that EC report about immigration from the EU into the UK, it states:

Yet when we reported these facts, those sympathetic to the EU Commission’s views fought back. Troublingly, the BBC – which prides itself on impartiality – appeared to take the EU’s side. Last Monday night, the 10 O’Clock News broadcast an analysis of the EU Commission’s report by Mark Easton, the home editor for BBC News. Its bias was, in our view, startling.

It then reviews the case against Mark Easton's report, as made by David Barrett [see previous post], then proceeds to make the crucial point about why BBC bias matters more than, say, Sunday Telegraph or Observer bias:

This evidence of bias is worrying. Newspapers, after all, are privately owned institutions that are free to express whatever political opinion they want – and we are open about our editorial standpoint. By contrast, the BBC is funded by a licence fee of £145.50 levied on the general public and, as a state broadcaster, is supposed to be entirely neutral. According to its editorial guidelines, “News in whatever form must be treated with due impartiality, giving due weight to events, opinion and main strands of argument.”

It is our judgment that the 10 O’Clock News report by Mark Easton did not meet the standards set out in those guidelines. On the contrary, it was an example of the BBC acting as a mouthpiece of the EU.

It then sets a challenge for Tony Hall:

When Tony Hall was appointed Director-General of the BBC last April in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, he pledged to make the organisation more accountable and to restore the public’s trust. We would like to ask Lord Hall when that agenda will be extended to the news division, where blatant bias is likely to damage the viewer’s confidence in the broadcaster. Addressing tendentious reporting is all the more necessary because the issues under discussion are so important. When it comes to the debates over immigration, our relationship with the EU or welfare reform, the public deserves honesty and clarity. The subjectivity shown by the BBC will not do.

Is Mark Easton biased?

In the red corner, the BBC's Mark Easton. In the blue corner, the Telegraph's David Barrett. Seconds out. Round Two.

The Daily Telegraph's home affairs correspondent David Barrett has written a detailed - and fascinating - analysis of a two-and-a-half minute report on last Monday's BBC 10 O'Clock News by home editor Mark Easton. 

The subject of that BBC report was the European Commission's report on migration, and the question the Telegraph asks is 'Was the BBC's reporting of the migrant issue fair and balanced?'

The answer from David Barrett article is a resounding 'no'; indeed, he goes further than that, describing Mark Easton's point as seriously "misleading" on a number of counts and, at at least one point, in breech of the BBC's own editorial guidelines. 

According to Mr Barrett, the BBC draws several conclusions from the findings of the EC report that simply cannot be drawn from the EC report, and aren't found in the EC report. All those BBC conclusions either downplay the issue of the costs of EU immigration or spin the story against the UK government. 

He goes on to question the choice of Polish 'talking heads' featured in Mark Easton's report [all of them taking issue with the UK government's concerns about benefit tourism], with Mark electing to visit an unrepresentative area of London [relatively affluent, relatively low recent EU immigration], and choosing a Polish cultural centre that opened before 2004's 'open border' with Eastern Europe. One of those 'talking heads' has been here since 1943, isn't one of those covered by the EC report.

Next comes an example of bias which seems particularly damning:

What the BBC said

Easton: “Well, reflecting the views in this restaurant, today’s European Commission report quotes research suggesting that, actually, EU migrants are less likely to claim benefits than British citizens and describing 'benefit tourism’ as a 'canard’, or a myth.”

Analysis

The word “canard” does not appear in the 276-page document, nor does the word “myth”.

David Barrett goes on to attack Mark Easton's apparent anti-UK government spin, and the subsequent sidelining of Theresa May, who is given just seven seconds "before Easton drowns her out in a voice over says: “Mrs May preferred to talk in general terms about Government policy.” In contrast, an EC spokesman is given eleven seconds of airtime. 

David then questions a graphic used in the BBC report, which the BBC labelled an "EC response", saying that it doesn't appear in the EC report and, in fact, comes from the DWP.

"It is unclear why the graphic described the 60,000 figure as an “EC response” when it was, in fact, a figure from a completely different set of figures." 

He goes into the fine detail of how Mark Easton appears to the spinning away concerns about those immigration statistics by placing a misleading slant on them. 

He also quotes Mark as saying that the £1.5 billion on NHS spending that goes on workless EU migrants represents "as little as" 0.7% of NHS spending. David's response to that is:

"Although this is 0.7 per cent of NHS spending, it is clearly a significant amount, being greater than the budget for criminal legal aid."

...which cast that figure in a very different light. 

He adds:

Secondly, the assertion that EU workers contribute more to the UK economy than they take out is misleading as the report was about EU migrants who do not work. 

Then comes the apparent breech of the BBC's editorial guidelines:

What the BBC said

The report shows pictures of migrant workers reading job adverts in a newsagent’s window.

Analysis

These pictures were archive footage, thought to be at least five years old. The shop can no longer post such advertising in its window. The BBC’s editorial guidelines state that archive material “should not be used in a way that materially misleads”.

Mark Easton then asserts that “Jobless EU workers are already subject to tougher benefit rules in Britain than elsewhere, a fact that has led to legal challenge”. David Barrett responds that this legal legal challenge is from the EC itself, and isn't because it is “tougher” but because the EC says it discriminates against EU citizens who aren't from Britain. 

It is not a “fact” that Britain has tougher benefit rules; it is a matter of opinion.

The analysis ends with this:

What the BBC said

Easton: “The Government says it is responding to widespread and understandable public concern.”

Analysis

The final sentence is a token balance, but is only 11 seconds of the report.

Well, that makes pretty damning reading, doesn't it? 

The BBC's response is then quoted, and is entirely characteristic of a BBC response - in that it denies any suggestion that it may have been biased:

“We explored the wider debate with relevant context and representing a range of views. We reflected language used in the report, the press release from the European Commission and the wider debate.

“Polish migrants living in the UK were asked if they had ever come across, or were aware of other migrants coming to the UK to access benefits, and were not represented as non-active intra-EU migrants themselves.

“Their views and experiences added relevant insight into the story. We also included criticism of the UK government by the Commission and the Government’s position.”

She said the age of the footage of jobseekers outside the shop had “mistakenly” not been made clear but it was “not editorially significant in the piece”.

Incidentally, reading through the BBC report, as transcribed in full by the Telegraph, and then reading David Barrett's criticism of it, draws out another point: The BBC refers throughout to 'migrants' and 'migration' and studiously avoids the words 'immigrant' and 'immigration'. The Telegraph, in contrast, freely uses all four terms. That seems to be becoming par for the course at the BBC.

The Merry-go-round goes round and round...

To help save the planet, here's a spot of recycling for a soggy Saturday afternoon. It's [a long] part of a post from early last month:

Saturday, 7 September 2013

BBC Breakfast paper reviews

Nick Cohen's view that the BBC's liberal, conformist tendencies tend to stifle insightful reporting from people with non-conformist opinions (whether on the Left or the Right) can be generalised and then swung round to tackle the question of why, say, BBC Breakfast's paper reviews are so much more predictable than those on, say, Sky News. 

Whenever I see paper reviews on Sky News they tend to feature a variety of people, many with strong opinions, some from the Right and some from the Left (and some from the passionate Centre). Not so on BBC Breakfast. 

Whenever I tune in it always seems to be the same people - Simon Fanshawe (on again this very morning), David Davies, Olly Mann or Bishop Stephen Lowe usually -, all on the BBC's merry-go-round. 

Those four people - a Labour-supporting writer and broadcaster, a former FA boss accused of being too close to New Labour, a self-confessed 'liberal' writer and a left-wing bishop - may indeed suggest a comfortable left-liberal bias. 

Are they typical though? Have I just tuned in at the wrong times?

I monitored the programme closely for a few weeks back in 2011, when Mr Fanshawe, Mr Davies and Mr Mann were already regulars. Other regulars, during this snapshot, firmly on the Left, were Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman and Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror. 

I did find, however, that BBC Breakfast does try to introduce the occasional counter-balancing right-leaning guest reviewer, usually the Telegraph's Tim Walker or the Daily Mail's Andrew Pierce - though neither of them anywhere near as partisan politically as, say, Mehdi Hasan or Kevin Maguire - and some of the other guests were what you might call 'unpassionate centrists' (if you could attach any specific label to them at all) or uncontroversy-seeking journalists from the broadsheets...oh, or Camila Batmanghelidjh.

Please see what you make of the list (all relating to 2011):

11 June - David Davies, former FA boss

12 June - Jonathan Oliver, Sunday Times

18 June - Mehdi Hasan, New Statesman

19 June - Chris Adams, FT

25 June - Simon Fanshawe, writer

26 June - Camila Batmanghelidjh, charity leader

2 July - Margaret Doyle, Reuters

3 July - Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror

9 July - Phil Hall, PR consultant

10 July - Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror & Vincent Graff, freelance journalist

16 July - Tim Walker, Daily Telegraph 

17 July - Andew Pierce, Daily Mail

23 July - no paper review (because of coverage of the Breivik massacre in Norway)

24 July - Olly Mann, writer

30 July - Simon Fanshawe, writer

31 July - Camila Batmanghelidjh, charity leader

6 August - Margaret Doyle, Reuters

7 August - Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror 

13 August - Olly Mann, writer

14 August - Vincent Graff, freelance journalist

20 August - Tim Walker, Daily Telegraph 

21 August - Andew Pierce, Daily Mail

27 August - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian 

28 August - David Davies, former FA boss

3 September - Margaret Doyle, Reuters

4 September - Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror 

10 September - Simon Fanshawe, writer

11 September - Stryker Mcguire, US journalist

17 September - Olly Mann, writer

18 September - Jonathan Oliver, Sunday Times 

25 September - David Davies, former FA boss

1 October - Vincent Graff, freelance journalist

2 October - Mehdi Hasan, New Statesman

8 October - Simon Fanshawe, writer

9 October - Olly Mann, writer

15 October - Tim Walker, Daily Telegraph

16 October - Michael White, Guardian

And here's an update [from 2013], just to see what the BBC Breakfast guest list since that post has looked like [i.e. another snapshot]:

7/9 Simon Fanshawe, writer

8/9 Ian MacMillan, poet

14/9 David Davies, former FA boss

15/9 Paul Horrocks. former president of the UK Society of Editors

21/9 Cary Cooper, academic

22/9 Kate Williams, historian

28/9 Olly Mann, writer and broadcaster

29/9 Emma B, radio presenter

5/10 Simon Fanshawe, writer

6/10 Ian MacMillan, poet 

12/10 Margaret Doyle, Deloitte

13/10 Vicky Beeching, feminist blogger 

19/10 Bishop Stephen Lowe, former Bishop of Hulme

As you can see, the merry-go-round pretty much goes on. And on. [There seem to be more women though].

Ouch!

Lest you missed it (or if you want to savour it again)....

Courtesy of Trending Central, here's the moment when Mehdi Hasan was mocked on Have I Got News For You:

/

An American Thinker on BBC bias

Here's an extract from a piece entitled BBC Bias. It was published on the conservative U.S. blog American Thinker. Its author is Paul Austin Murphy: 

Another personal experience of BBC bias occurred with the well-known BBC journalist and writer Mark Easton. In this instance I heard him pontificate for five minutes or more on the ceaseless and unpolluted glories of (unrestricted?) immigration on BBC Radio 2's "Jeremy Vine Show." I decided to pick him up on what he said by emailing him. To my surprise, he replied. He wrote back saying:

"I was not making an argument about the pros and cons of immigration itself..."

In fact Mark Easton had done precisely the opposite of that. He didn't offer a single criticism of any aspect of mass immigration. In response to that reply I repeated my criticism in a return email. And, even more surprisingly, he replied again. However, this time the political nature of what he had said was made much more explicit:

"I do think it is shocking that, a significant minority of people in Britain don't think immigrants who live and work here quite legally should be able to use the NHS and other public services."

Mark Easton also told me about the 'climate of prejudice and xenophobia at that time' (in the 1960s) and that the 'British have a very negative attitude towards immigrants compared to other European nations.' Now that could be classed as a simple after-the-fact elaboration. Nonetheless, those views were still there -- if not so explicitly -- in the original BBC programme; despite Easton's claims about 'not making an argument about the pros and cons of immigration.' In fact he put a very 'pro' position on immigration in the programme and the following emails only made his political position even more explicit.

None of this is surprising, however. Of course, Mark Easton has political biases. In may even be the case that was he said is true or politically valid. So why then hide these biases or political positions through such silly dissimulation? And what is true about Mark Easton is of course true of the BBC as a whole.

Who gave Malala the giggles?

Returning to the subject of the famously famous Malala, I was amused that she was amused by a certain (only marginally less famous) say-it-as-you-see-it royal consort:

The Duke of Edinburgh greets Ffion Hague, Little Red Riding Hood and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

According to Sky News:

Schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai was reduced to giggles by the Duke of Edinburgh who joked that parents only send children to school to get them out of the house.

The 16-year-old, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan for encouraging girls to go to school, was attending a reception at Buckingham Palace with the Duke and the Queen.

Malala said afterwards: "He said parents are tired of children, and that's why they send them to school, and I laughed."

Despite it being a joke on Prince Philip's part, Is the BBC biased?'s royal correspondent, Sue, has been told by palace insiders that Prince Charles immediately sought out one of his favourite potted plants for a spot of emergency one-on-one counselling. 

In or out

Two first episodes fronted by two queer people; Grayson Perry in the old fashioned sense, and Stephen Fry in the modern.

Stephen Fry’s reviews are varied. I thought the Sam Wollaston in the Guardian was trying too hard to be amusing, and the Telegraph’s Rupert Hawksley was trying not to be.

Notable moments were the gay wedding, which apparently made Stephen tearful: 

“Stephen (Fry) sheds a not totally convincing tear. Come on, you didn't even know them until five minutes ago …” said Sam Wollaston in the Guardian.

His chat with Elton and David was also of interest to that reviewer. It was queer, in all the senses of the word. I mean, they didn’t even mention that at one time Elton had been married to a German woman called Renate Blauel.   In the context it seemed relevant. One can’t help being drawn, out of curiosity, to Elton’s hair, which looked nice and shiny, but he and David are caricature gays in the old fashioned as well as the modern sense. A queen and her lady in waiting. 

Stephen Fry is okay at doing travelogues, and the travelogue aspect of the programme was okay. The drawback was his hectoring, as Rupert Hawksley says in the Telegraph.

“As a homosexual man himself, it was entirely understandable that Fry took the poisonous opinions he encountered in Uganda and Los Angeles as personal attacks. Nonetheless, I was surprised at how quickly he allowed himself to be drawn into a slanging match, his gravitas deserting him minutes into a debate with Ugandan pastor Solomon Male. It was all much too shouty and felt like the opportunity for instructive discussion had been lost. Later, in an invective-filled session with the Ugandan State Minister for Integrity and Ethics, Fry resorted to childish taunts: “Homosexuality is fantastic. You should try it, it’s really good fun.” This, surely, was not the best way to counter deep-rooted prejudice.”

I thought it was worse than that. Fry’s subjectivity sabotaged the impact such an encounter might otherwise have had. His shrill histrionics ruined the effect. Confronting these religiously indoctrinated African men, heavily burdened with all the sexual taboos and superstitions of the dark ages and their misogynistic attitude to women and expecting them to understand and empathise with Fry’s ‘Mills and Boone’ picture of homosexual romance was foolish. Predictably, a tirade on the immorality, complete with a graphic account of the mechanics of gay sex was all that the Pastor and the State Minister for Integrity and ethics could summon up. Too much information ensued.

The camera caught some interesting shots of men in the street just walking along. Only it was in California, and their ever so slightly lady-like strides implied ‘gay’. The doctor who mistakenly thought he could re-direct gay sexuality back to the straight and narrow  was only trying to help, after all, but he had a distinctly gay manner himself. In fact everyone everywhere now seems potentially gay.

Some of my best friends... my own mixed feelings  have nothing to do with morality. It’s only that I find the sloppy, effeminate, pantomime dame stuff hard to take seriously, especially when it’s so unPC to mention it, let alone joke about it. 

Talking of which.  Grayson Perry got pretty good reviews for the first part of his Reith lecture. It was entertaining, and he was a fluent speaker, till his tendency to leave off the final ‘t’ every time he said ‘art’ began to grate.I don’t know that I agree wholly with Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Telegraph 

that he was mocking the art establishment, which would be biting the hand that feeds him. He did outline the current situation but anyone who’s interested knows much of that already. He realises that he is part of a serendipitous  elite, and that but for his dressing-up antics he might not have been noticed at all. It could all have been a cynical ploy, drawing attention to himself in the manner of (a less imaginative) Leigh Bowery.

As Gillian Reynolds says, he’s obviously a clever man. There is a hell of a lot more to the art world than he tackled this morning. I hope he manages to cover some of it in future episodes.  There’s a layer below the metro-centric art world of dealers, collectors and make-or-break curators. For example there are provincial galleries, some commercial, some subsidised by the Arts Council, each with their own set of problems.  There are painters and craftspersons out there making a living, selling their work to customers who actually want to hang it on their wall the old fashioned way, giving hardly a thought to whether or not it’s monetary value will appreciate or turn to junk.  

"Democracy has bad taste"

A Grayson Perry pot

This year's BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures are being delivered by transvestite potter and former Newsnight Review regular Grayson Perry.

I read recently that Radio 4's newish boss chose Grayson to deliver these prestigious lecture as part of his bid to rid the network of its stuffy image.

Well, Grayson is certainly the frock-wearing guy to blow away a few odorous Reithian cobwebs.

His first lecture today was far, far away from the tone and spirit of any other Reith Lecture I've ever heard. Any Reithian spiders in earshot will have scuttled away into the BBC's environmentally-friendly coal-sheds within minutes.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, by any means. 

 I warmed to his early announcement that:

I'm not going to live up to sort of like the Reith lecturers' code of honour, which is to have definite, strong opinions and be a kind of certainly freak.

I will admit, however - as a ferret-obsessed, Northern, working class reactionary - that I feel somewhat removed from the modern art elite Grayson Perry critiques. So I like the fact that he critiques it. [I'm someone who likes their paintings to depict realistic ferrets - and nothing but realistic ferrets. {I am joking, by the way, there}].

Grayson himself is, however a part of that very modern art world - a former Turner Prize winner himself - however much he strives to keep himself at a distance from it. Hence, a certain double-edgedness to his idea-rich, fast-tumbling, amusing, stream-of-consciousness-sounding lecture.

Many of his points rang true (and made me laugh), even though he - and his adoring audience [present in  the Tate Modern arena] - felt only a little less removed from me than that alien-seeming modern art elite.

Still, who could resist this?:

In my second year at art college it was almost de rigueur at that point that you had to dabble in performance art. This is 30 years ago. This is the thing you had to do. Performance art. You know, cover the bases. So I did a little free act performance. I started off by being a kind of naked guru with a chastity belt which people had to come and worship.

And then the second part was a lecture I gave - a sort of facetious lecture, because they were very Marxist intellectuals in our college, so I was taking the piss out of them, so I did a whole lecture about the fact that 'art' was an anagram of the word 'rat'. 

And much as I'm an enthusiast for Cezanne, I had to grin at the accuracy of his verdict about a particularly famous Cezanne painting: 

Of course, the nearest thing we have to an empirical measure of art that actually does exist is the market. By that reckoning Cezanne's Card Players is the most beautiful, lovely painting in the world, I find it a bit clunky, kitsch, but that's me. $260 million it's worth.

And I shared the audience's amusement at his gossipy [and possibly not genuine] story about Tate Modern supremo Sir Nicholas Serota:

I live round the corner from Sir Nichola Serota, director of Tate....a very distinguished curator as well....I was round his house one day and I was lucky enough to see his world-class collection of Cliff Richard memorabilia.

Being able to criticise the modern art world and wear a colourful frock at the same, and not forgetting to have a few jokes at the expense of bankers (etc), Grayson Perry is ideal Reith lecturer material for a new-look, hip-'n-happening BBC Radio 4. His lecture had something of the feel of The Now Show. 

I enjoyed it, but the ideas flowed so thick and fast that it was hard to tell if they actually flowed, or cohered - hence my perception that it was a stream-of-consciousness lecture.  

The audience questions that followed were from a wide cross section of the public the usual crowd of BBC arties - begining with ultra-pretentious former Newsnight Review regular Ekow Eshun [the man who finally put me off watching that show], continuing with writer Kate Hardy, following her with a snoozeworthy Nicholas Serota [of Cliff Richard fame], then linguistic anthropologist Barbara Clark [who wonder if he makes pots "for poor people"], author Will Self [asking a question of such pretentiousness that even Ekow Eshun must have been thinking, "Jeez, what a pretentious question!"], a pompous art historian called David, and, last and very possibly least, Guardian writer Miranda Sawyer [another former Newsnight Review regular].

Roll on next week's lecture!

Bien peasants

Former BBC Radio 4 Today editor Rod Liddle is almost invariably fun to read at the Spectator. 

His latest blog post strikes a strong chord with me, in that it reflects my own experiences of listening to, and watching, the BBC. 

Does it yours too?

Greetings from the 2013 Radio Festival, in Salford. I’m here to take part in a debate about whether or not radio reflects the opinions and concerns of a broad enough tranche of the public. It certainly does a better job of this than TV; Radio Five (especially Nicky Campbell) and some of the local stations seem to reflect the views of middle England pretty well. Still, on Radio Four, you get the bien pensant toss rammed down your throat, almost without variation, which is a shame.

There are problems enfranchising the silent majority, though: they tend to be silent. This is most obviously evident on BBC1 Question Time, for example, despite the pretty rigorous lengths they go to in order to find a sort of “representative” audience. I remember doing a series of Today programmes off-base and one in particular was presented live from Dover in front of an audience. Dover was, apparently, in ferment over the levels of immigration in the town; fights, resentment and so on. But the audience didn’t even mention it and when we brought it up replied with: ‘Oh, absolutely bloody lovely people, pleasure to have them here.’

It's a question we've tackled here at Is the BBC biased? for many a month: Why do Question Time audiences seem so wildly removed from the views of most British people (as reflected in countless opinion polls) on so many issues? 

Also: Why is Radio Four so 'bien pensant'?

The Dismal Science

"They call Economics 'the dismal science'.

Today the Nobel Committee seemed to agree. They gave their prize in Economics to three different economists - one for proving that markets are always rational and efficient, and another for proving they are most certainly not, and a third who proved it was impossible to tell."

So said Kirsty Wark on last night's Newsnight. 

Now, I try (almost like an idealised BBC reporter) to be even-handed - Sometimes. When the mood takes me - but (like a non-idealised BBC reporter) I'm biased. Inevitably.

For example, economically-speaking, I'm pro-market. 

Thus, whilst watching last night's Newsnight, I wanted to hear from the guy who "proved" that markets "are always rational and efficient."

Newsnight, however, gave me the man who "proved they are most certainly not" - Robert Shiller.

I wasn't surprised by that. 

Nor was I surprised when Radio 4's The World at One also interviewed the least pro-market of the Nobel Prize winners, Robert Shiller.

Now, is that because I'm biased? Or is it because the BBC is biased?

Was Prof Shiller the only one of the three Nobel Prize winners available to speak to the BBC? Or was Prof Shiller the only one of the three Nobel Prize winners the BBC particularly wanted to speak to? 

If so, why? And, also if so, is that evidence that the BBC is biased?

Feel free to decide for yourselves. 

As if you were members of the Nobel Prize committee.

Thanks for the Memri

The Telegraph is almost as obsessed with BBC bashing as the Daily Mail, but I regard neither of them as a friend, as in my enemy’s enemy. For a start, Peter Oborne is a prominent Telegraph columnist with an irrational hatred for the dastardly Israel (Jewish) lobby, but on the other hand the Telegraph does ferret out a lot of gossip about the Beeb, as does the Daily Mail. 

However, the Mail no longer boasts Melanie Phillips as a regular columnist, and rumour has it that she was given the heave-ho after her controversial performance on Question Time, where she famously ‘lost it,’ having been provoked, understandably, by the audience’s ignorance and naivety.

I revisted this incident through this 17th September article by the Spectator’s Steerpike.

One day it will be classic ‘ I told you so’ material.

I suspect the audience’s skepticism was largely because they find the beliefs that motivate religious fanatics that rule countries like Iran bizarre and beyond implausible. Don’t we all. 

Obviously they didn’t like being called ignorant either, when they didn’t even know they were, and especially because their ignorance was arguably through no fault of their own, since the BBC’s remit (to educate us) has fallen short.  Well, that and their lack of curiosity about the Shia Mahdi and so on. 

Due to the BBC’s lack of interest in this subject, both the BBC’s audience and employees haven’t the imagination to realise that everyone isn’t just like them and their secular,  right-on left-leaning circle.

The majority of BBC journalists see all individuals, even those in far-flung Islamic states, through a Western, lefty-liberal prism. They relay statements from fanatical Islamists as though they were straight from the man on the Islington omnibendybus. In other words they can’t digest the concept that Allah looms large over whatever most of them think, say and do.

There is a huge hole in the BBC’s reporting when it comes to things like incitement in the Arab world, and if Peter Oborne is so keen to warn us about the dangers of the Jewish Lobby, why isn’t he, or someone equally jowly, just as eager to make the world aware of the rabid hatred for the Jews and Israel, and even more unpalatably to Telegraph readers, the West, that is proclaimed loud and clear on televisions all over the Arab world and translated by Memri for the edification of those who wish to know.

Having an e-fit

“The e-fits are clear, and I’ve asked the public to look very carefully at them and if they know who this person is, please come forward.”

(If I were you I’d ask the plastic surgery community if they’ve performed any suspicious chin-ectomies recently.)

Result

Further to Craig’s post summarizing this morning’s edition of Sunday Morning Live, allow me once again to go over to Samira Ahmed, who is usually an excellent host for that Sunday  Morning Live scenario, daft as it is.

There are oh so many reasons why it’s daft, least of all the unreliability of Skype, and Samira’s inability  (partly, but not wholly, through technical limitations) to get certain contributors to shut the f**k up. Not that she had to do that this week.

Then there’s the wording of the “question” that was put to the vote. This week it was loaded in favour of the ‘yes’ vote. So much so that putting the question thusly, so that the outcome was a forgone conclusion, made the whole voting malarky even more of a pointless exercise than usual; even though I say so myself, being, as I am, an enthusiastic opponent of the Islamification of the western world.

What was it again? “Do you agree that we should be allowed to criticise Islamic terrorism?”

oh no, it was “Does the EDL represent a view that needs to be heard?” Duh! How could anyone object to views being heard, whatever they are? Well apparently 5% of people do, a figure that oddly echoes the proportion of Muslims in the UK.   

It would be interesting to know how many people picked up the phone in total. As it happens,  someone in my household who is not averse to doing pointless things did just that, and having been unable to get through for quite a while, was told “we’re very busy this morning”. So there.

Tommy Robinson is still anxious to distance himself from that awful sin, ‘racism’. Quite right, because although what he does has nothing to do with race, it may or may not come into the category of bigotry, which some people call ‘tarring with the same brush.”

He says over and over, that he’s “not against Muslims” just “radical Islam”, and that’s where things get muddy. Have Quilliam been re-educating him, has the left’s vilification of the EDL pushed him into a corner, does his eagerness to be seen to be tolerant of, nay, to embrace multiculturalism, cause him to stop short of criticising “Islam” and make him confine his criticism to “Radical Islam?” It certainly looks that way. If so, this begs clarification. 

What defines a moderate Muslim as opposed to a radical? Where does the red line go? Is it in the degree of devotion? The amount of prayer? The interpretation of the Koran? Adherence to the law of the land rather than Sharia? The attitude towards assimilation? The antisemitism? 

Some people think the line isn’t crossed until violence is involved; others draw the line just the other side of apostasy. As far as I’m concerned there needs to be more than merely any individual’s ethical decision to refrain from physical participation in holy Jihad before I feel reassured about the Islamification of Europe.

Charles Hawtrey

The appearance of Bungle lent levity to the affair. Looking like a cross between a microcephalic 
Mr. Bean and Charles Hawtrey, Inayat was funny. In both senses. Funny peculiar and funny haha. His attempt to introduce the ‘Muslims are the new Jews’ fallacy was laughable. His deliberate attempt to misrepresent Tommy’s position as repentant was less amusing. And he was sorely trounced by the vote.

Sandwich wars

Also on the Marr show, did anyone see David Mellor talking about his battle with an M&S sandwich? He had difficulty getting at his sandwich, which I admit can be tricky, but he showed little imagination in complaining about over-abundant packaging, (perhaps he prefers his sandwiches squashed to a pulp) and for some reason seemed apologetic that he’d been forced to stop off at an M & S service station at all because he was “overwhelmed by hunger”. He said it as though he was excusing some despicable aberration. Is stopping off at a service station for an M&S sandwich something to be ashamed of?

While we’re on the subject of packaging - the Daily Mail’s “war on plastic bags” that Paul Dacre says he’s proud of. What is this war? Anyway, there are probably a few rolls of supermarket plastic bin-liners in those politically correct canvas shopping bags nestling amongst the purchases. The ones that we carrier-bag re-users don’t need to buy.

Your 10p bags-for-life are always at home or in the car so you have to buy another one at the checkout, and your ever-increasing collection will one day go to landfill because they don’t fit in the pedal bin properly. There should be a war on bags-for-life.

Morrison’s have the best free carriers, although Tesco’s bags have improved recently, and those bright orange ones from Sainsbury’s are rubbish.