A guest post by Hippiepooter: Certain think tanks, pressure groups, unions, associations (etc) can pretty much rely on the BBC to report their press releases, reports and studies. Articles appear daily on the BBC website devoted to such things. Others are not so lucky, having their reports ignored - or, if not ignored, marginalised or criticised. Getting back into the swing of things, I thought I'd monitor the New Channel's coverage of the AV referendum campaign on Tuesday. On that day at least (I can't vouch for any of the others), it seemed scrupulously balanced - balanced number of guests, exactly the same length of interview (well three seconds difference!) for the pro- and anti- spokespersonages, appropriate questions to each side, same number of interruptions, and the BBC even kept quoting an opinion poll showing a significant 'No' lead. I wasn't expecting any of that, but it shows the BBC can do it. If you use the BBC News website's 'Search' function, as many do, you'll find that broad categories have a right-hand section where BBC editors recommend sites 'elsewhere on the web' for readers to investigate. Some of these (usually links to newspapers or news agencies) are regularly updated. Others are much more permanent choices, staying up for several months. The three examples below have been the editor's choice for over half a year now (at the very least). Do they provide BBC Online readers with a fair spread of opinion? Hardly.
ANTI-SEMITIC SHILLS FOR GADDAFI
>> FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2011
If I was an anti-Semitic despot desperately trying to cling to power and I wanted to give an interview with pliant Western journalists to make propaganda, I know that Jeremy Bowen would be at the top of my list.
It came as no surprise to me that Mr Bowen was one of the three journalists that Colonel Gaddafi chose to interview him.
This said, in my cursory viewing of the interview, I would say that Bowen successfully maintained plausible deniability that he was acting as Gaddafi’s shill, if indeed it would be fair to construe that that would possibly be his intention.
In what I heard of his reports thereafter there was nothing that really stood out as that untoward. Until recently. As the ‘madman in the kaftan’ has rallied his forces and appears to be gaining the upper-hand over the rebels despite major defections and allied bombing, there has been a decided shift in the BBC Tripoli Correspondent’s tone of coverage.
On Saturday 16th April the Telegraph online reported Lord General Dannatt expressing the following concerns over Mr Bowen’s reporting:-
“People hang on the words of the BBC in Libya and throughout the Middle East and I do wonder if what he has been saying has been entirely helpful,” says General Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff. “Mr Bowen has, of course, every right to report what happens, but when he dwells to such an extent on intangible things — such as how long the operation will take and whether the will is there to see it through — then it sets a tone that could hardly have given heart to members of the rebel forces.”
Round about this time I noticed Bowen refer to Gaddafi’s side as ‘Libya’, although he quickly corrected himself straight away.
Not any more though. Here’s Bowen on 5Live’s Victoria Derbyshire(19/04/11). The interview starts 1:18:10 (my emphases):-
“[…]The Libyans say that they will allow some humanitarian access coming out of Tripoli into places. Uh, I think they have motivation for allowing a certain amount of it, now of course there’s a trade off between what the army here might want and there’s a trade off between what the more political people might want, but you can see from the Libyan point of view there are advantages in allowing humanitarian aid in”
Bowen is clearly self-identifying with Gaddafi. I had to wait some time in to the interview to confirm that by ‘Libya’ he actually meant the Gaddafi regime. The lingua franca of covering this conflict is ‘loyalists’ and ‘rebels’. While Foreign Secretary the Rt Hon Wiliam Hague MP has announced that Her Majesty’s Government no longer recognises the legitimacy of Gaddafi’s regime for the murderous brutality with which he has suppressed his people’s quest for freedom, Bowen clearly wants to confer legitimacy on Gaddafi in the minds of the British public.
Why would Bowen do this? My contention, or supposition, is that he sees there is a very real possibility that if Gaddafi is toppled Libya will have a Government that does not share Bowen’s pathological hatred of Israel. Such a thing for Bowen would be enough to give him a coronary.
If you listen to the whole of the interview you’ll see that overall Bowen does enough to maintain a veneer of impartiality – enough to seduce the unsuspecting listener into trusting him so that he may steer their unsuspecting minds to where he wants them to go. Although you might consider, as I do, that he was deftly trying to rubbish a rebel supplied casualty figure without having any idea what they’d been based on (Some idea here).
One occasion however when Bowen’s facade dropped spectacularly is etched vividly in my mind.
During Gulf War I a cruise missile struck a civilian bunker in Baghdad leaving hundreds dead.
David Dimbleby interviewed Bowen live from Baghdad.
Bowen reported in terms of ‘aren’t we bad, we really need to stop this war as soon as possible’.
Prior to this, I had read or heard reports that the allies suspected that Saddam Hussein was sending control and command communication signals from civilian bunkers in the hope of causing the very tragedy that had just occurred to leave the US Coalition discredited and strengthen calls for the war to end. I was heartened when David Dimbleby asked Mr Bowen:-
“But Jeremy, what were they doing there?”
Bowen exploded. Face contorted with rage he shouted: ‘They were trying to protect themselves from the bombs that the Americans are dropping on Baghdad!’
Bowen was livid that Dimbleby had got in the way of him promoting Saddam Hussein propaganda. There is no anti-Semitic tyrant that Bowen will not shill for.
Unfortunately, Mr Dimbleby chose not to pursue the matter further, apparently wishing to avoid any further unseemliness from his deranged colleague.
As all the experts have told us, imposing a no fly zone on Gaddafi is an act of war. We are at war with Gaddafi. If Jeremy Bowen keeps heading the way he’s going he risks supplying enough grounds to the security services to place him under formal investigation for aiding and abetting the Queen’s enemies at time of war. Given that Her Majesty’s Government has stretched Her already overstretched armed forces still further with the much needed action against Gaddafi to stop him massacring his own people for seeking freedom, not to mention the unfinished business of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and Lockerbie that must rightly underlie our action, it might be hoped that if Mr Bowen does take that ill-advised step too far, the P45s awaiting our heroic servicemen upon their return may be cushioned somewhat by the long overdue spectacle of HMG taking action against Treason. Hopefully, our Prime Minister would not feel the need to ask Shami Chakrabati’spermission to do this, or is our country so far into its death throes that this might not be such an absurd notion? Treachery, seek it out.
********************HippiepooterPLAYING FAVOURITES
There's an article on the website at the moment that, rather unusually, considers two separate reports from different organisations. Not that you'd know that from the headline:
****Teachers' survey: Schools changes 'won't benefit poor'
The headline summarises the findings of one of the reports - that from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) on behalf of BBC regulars, the Sutton Trust charity. This undermines Michael Gove's education policies from the standard BBC perspective, so it is given the vast bulk of the article. The short fourth paragraph, however, shifts to another report - "Separately, the pro-free market Adam Smith Institute has said free schools should be able to make a profit." This other report attacks the government from the Right and is subsequently marginalised. Immediately Paragraph 5 reverts to the Sutton Trust study and dwells on it at great length and in considerable detail. Finally, in Paragraph 19 (after 14 paragraphs on the Sutton Trust report), we return to the Adam Smith Institute report. This is given just three paragraphs in total (one of Lilliputian size) and goes into no detail whatsoever.
I suppose the Adam Smith Institute should be grateful that the BBC gave space to their report. (They may even have been surprised!) But I suspect their gratitude will be tempered by not being given an article to themselves, by being given very short shrift, by being shoved at the bottom of a long article about another very different report and by not being given a mention in the article's headline. I only found the BBC's take on the Adam Smith Institute report by accident because I spotted the headline and thought it might be a good chance to check out whether the Churnalism search engine (h/t Katabasis)would suspect it of being churnalism for the Sutton Trust. (It did).
(This post of mine might be proof of the saying 'You wait ages for a bus and then three come along at once!')NOT SO EVAN-HANDED
Unfortunately, they often fail to do it - as Evan Davis demonstrated this morning.
Here, staged before an audience at the South Bank Centre (who sounded even less representative than a Question Time audience), Evan hosted a debate between Jonathan Bartley of the Yes campaign and Stephen Parkinson of the No campaign. Evan did much more than host it though. He actively joined in the debate, almost entirely on the side of the Yescampaign. It was effectively two against one.
The interruptions flew at Mr Parkinson, often only seconds (one time just asecond) after he had begun to speak. So did the questions. All but one of the questions asked/points made by Evan Davis came from a stance opposed to the No campaign. Transcribing Evan Davis's words should make the extent of the bias clear:
Questions/comments put to Stephen Parkinson (No to AV):
1 Stephen, you're against AV. Can we just talk about fairness because it seems like..you keep saying the winner under AV loses which means, you know, the system's unfair but if the winner loses it's because the majority of voters don't want that person to win, they want another candidate instead.
2 The crucial thing is whether you view it as an election where people have one vote and then a few people get another vote and another vote and another vote or whether you view it as a sequence of elections which very cleverlyare concocted to be held on one ballot paper, isn't it Stephen?
3 (interrupting) Well it IS a sequence of elections, it's a sequence of counts and the person who puts their first preference and that's not knocked out gets their first preference counted again.
4 (interrupting) And some get their first preference counted twice!
5 (interrupting) But it uses something similar. Most systems, even the American presidential election, uses something where you wangle the candidates down to a run-off between two effectively, or some sort of run-off, they do it on the X Factor, they do it on Big Brother, they do it in the American presidential election with the use of primaries, isn't that what everybody does?
6 (interrupting) But I mean that's just true. It's not going to make a difference in most seats of the UK, is it? I mean that's just telling you it doesn't matter which way we go..
7 One issue that has come up is the issue of whether people understand AV. Can I just ask the audience here if you think you understand AV and what it entails? And how many say you don't understand it, it's too complicated? So again about 98% of people understand it. That has been a bit of your campaign hasn't it Stephen, a little bit of scaring people with the complexity of it all?
Questions/points put to Jonathan Bartley (Yes to AV):
1 Jonathan?
2 Jonathan, let me put this to you. Does it not encourage the candidate who is the most banal and least offensive to always win and you end up with a government that is sort of the lowest common denominator?
Not very even-handed, is it?HOBSON'S CHOICE
Type in 'Climate Change' and the two other sites permanently linked to are:
The Met Office
Greenpeace International
Type in 'Wind Farms' and the permanent Editor's Choices are:
Renewable UK
"Renewable UK, formerly the British Wind Energy Association, the professional body for the UK's wind and marine industries, providing news, links and downloadable resources"
Yes2Wind
"Learn about the Yes2Wind campaign to use wind energy to tackle global warming"
(Incidentally, there is also a No2Wind website, which the BBC chooses notto link to).
Finally, type in 'European Union' and the only other site on the web permanently linked to is:
Europa
(the official website of the European Union)
P.S. Happy Easter!
Saturday, 23 April 2011
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