The American Expatriate

BBC Link

2006-06-26T14:56:00.000+01:00

The BBC has linked once more to TAE, so thanks to Giles Wilson for including TAE as an example of an "independent" blog, despite the fact that it has not been updated for some time now due to my impending move. Despite the lack of recent output, I'm sure new visitors, being what I suspect are mostly dedicated BBC fans, will find plenty in the old posts for which to take me to task. (Some have already).

Into the belly of the beast: America beware

2006-06-02T15:24:00.000+01:00

Apparently not content with broadcasting misinformation about America, the BBC has now decided to begin broadcasting to America. The BBC's global news channel, BBC World, has launched in the US, aiming to
capture audiences hungry for international news.
Or, at least, audiences hungry for the BBC's own spin on international news.

BTW, BBC World promotes itself as a "commercially funded" arm of the BBC, but I wonder whether this is a wholly accurate characterization, for it also claims to "draw on the resources of more than 250 BBC News correspondents and 58 international BBC News bureaux across the globe." Surely most of those correspondents, along with the reports they produce, are paid for by the BBC or the BBC World Service, both of which are funded not commercially but by UK taxpayers. Which suggests that perhaps BBC World is "commercially funded", except of course when it isn't.

The future for journalism...or journalism for the future

2006-04-24T10:13:00.000+01:00

Clearly not content with simply reporting the news as it happens, the BBC now gazes into its crystal ball in order to give a day-by-day hyping of stories that “could be dominating the headlines” in the coming week.

Perhaps TAE should start a new feature pointing out stories that the BBC might mis-report in the days ahead.

All you need to know about the Beeb

2006-04-21T14:22:00.000+01:00

The BBC's John Humprhys is apparently concerned that the Queen has snubbed a certain 80-year old by failing to invite him to her birthday party. Says Humphrys, about his remarks to the Queen when he met her a couple of days ago:
I suggested it was a bit mean not to invite [him] to the Palace because he's
80 as well...
Who is this luminary whose lack of an invitiation bothers Humphrys so much that he felt compelled to question the Queen herself about it? Was it Alan Greenspan, who turned 80 just over a month ago? Or Jerry Lewis, who celebrated his 80th a couple weeks later? Or perhaps Mel Brooks, who hits the four-score mark in June?

Nope. Humphrys is, in fact, worried about the Queen being "mean" to....aging Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Iain Murray summed it up nicely when he said on NRO's The Corner, "All you need to know about the BBC is included in that one remark."

News that may explain some things

2006-04-21T12:18:00.000+01:00

TAE (the site) has sat idle for almost three weeks now, and while it may be a bit of unwarranted self-flattery to think that some of you might actually care, I suppose an explanation is in order.

Well, the big news, simply put, is that the American Expatriate (the man) is soon to become the American Repatriate. Yes, after nearly 14 years away from the US, and over 7 in this fine country, it looks as though I will finally be returning to the homeland this summer. Towards that end, I have been immensely preoccupied with starting the process of ending my existence here and (re-) starting one there. It is an exciting process, although hugely time consuming, what with trips back to the US, looking for a place to live, selling my house here, etc. Hence the absence of any new posts over the last few weeks.

I am not quite sure what this move portends for the future of this site. It would certainly be possible, in this internet age, to continue to observe the British media from afar. And with the likes of the BBC and The Guardian taking active steps to build their own US-based audiences, it is perhaps more important than ever to keep an eye on their corrupting agenda and influences. For now, however, I remain in the UK, and will continue to keep the site updated as best I can. I only ask those of you (hopefully many, possibly few, perhaps none) who enjoy reading these observations and visit the site often to have patience if there are extended periods without anything new posted. It will not, I assure you, be for lack of effort.

FYI

2006-03-31T11:51:00.000+01:00

TAE is off back to the US for two weeks, including a weekend in Augusta, Georgia, watching the best golfers in the world battle it out in the most exclusive tournament in the world - The Masters. Hence, the site will be devoid of anything new for a while.

In the meantime, however, some of you may be interested in the exchange I had with Tim Lambert and Kevin Donoghue (page down to comments) on Lambert's site Deltoid.

Paul and me

2006-03-28T19:32:00.000+01:00

Back in mid-March, the BBC noted the 3 year anniversary of the ousting of Saddam from Iraq with an article by Paul Reynolds. A couple of TAE readers directed me to it at the time, noting the fact that Reynolds highlighted Juan Cole's dismal portrayal of the current situation in Iraq. (Regular TAE readers will be familiar with both Cole and the respect the BBC seems to afford him.) I confess that I did not pay particular attention to the article at the time, and only had the occassion to focus on it yesterday. Wholly apart from the use of Cole, TAE noticed that Reynolds also publicized the infamous, and discredited, Lancet claim that the invasion had resulted in the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis. Wrote Reynolds:

Thousands of people have died. The true number of Iraqi deaths is not known
and even the Iraqi Body Count figure -- compiled largely from news reports -- of somewhere in the mid 30,000s is criticised as a possible underestimate and admitted by IBC to be a baseline. The British medical journal The Lancet suggested a figure of about 100,000 back in October 2004.
Ignore, for the moment, the bizarre use of language which has it that an anti-war organization established for the precise purpose of trumpeting the number of civilian deaths is "admitting" to something which it proclaims in no uncertain terms in its FAQ. At least the IBC figures can be said to be based at least to some extent on hard, verifiable data. The Lancet figure of 100,000, on the other hand, has been well-debunked.

It was in fact an extrapolation based on an extremely small sample of deaths, a loose and unverifiable method of gathering data, and indeed the headline 100,000 figure is not even an accurate characterization of the study's results. In fact that is simply the approximate mean between an upper limit and a lower limit which bracketed the study's 95% confidence level. Big deal, you might say. If the lower limit was 90,000 and the upper limit was 110,000, then 100,000 is an accurate enough figure to give a meaningful picture, isn't it? Perhaps. But in fact, owing in part to the small sample size as well as other statistical short cuts used because of the difficulties and dangers involved in gathering data, the 95% confidence interval was absurdly wide...8,000 to 194,000. This is so wide as to render the numbers useless. As Fred Kaplan put it in his critique of the study in Slate:
Imagine reading a poll reporting that George W. Bush will win somewhere between 4 percent and 96 percent of the votes in this Tuesday's election. You would say that this is a useless poll and that something must have gone terribly wrong with the sampling.
Unless, apparently, you are a reporter for the BBC, in which case you think it essential knowledge for your audience.

Wondering how such discredited data could not only find its way into his article, but be presented with nary a word about its deficiencies and the controversy surrounding it, TAE put some questions to Paul Reynolds on this issue via e-mail, and, to his credit, he was more than willing to respond. Note, however, that I say he "responded", because, as you will see, to characterize most of his responses as "answers" wouldn't really do them justice.

Mr. Reynold's responses are in blue.

FROM: TAE
TO: PR

Were you aware of the methodology used by the Lancet study and the details of it when you included it in your piece?

Do you think the fact that the study had a 95% confidence interval of 8,000 to 194,000 is irrelevant when trying to judge the usefulness and meaning of the 100,000 figure?

If not, why didn't you include that information for your audience?

Do you think you have a responsibility as a journalist to weigh the credibility of claims made by others before reporting them, and to present information that bears on that credibility if you decide to promote the claims? Or is your responsibility fulfilled by simply reporting factually that, for example, claim A was made by person X, with no regard for the credibility of either A or X?

FROM: PR
TO: TAE

It was a reference only. It was not 'promoting claims'. The arguments about the Lancet report are well known.

FROM: TAE
TO: PR

I take it from your response (ie the arguments were well known) that your answer to my first question is that you were aware of the methodology and details of the study prior to including the reference to the study in your article.

Am I to understand it to also mean that you didn't include the relevant information about the study because you assumed it was already well known by your audience? If so, why would you include even the 100,000 figure, as that must also have been just as well known? If not, then, again, why didn't you include the information?

Finally, will you be answering my last question, or should I assume your on-the-record response is "no comment"?

FROM: PR
TO: TAE

You can use it all [on TAE], including my suggestion that you fight it out with MediaLens!

(The reference to Media Lens referred to the fact that Media Lens, an apparently left-wing critic of the media, had taken Reynolds to task for a different aspect of the same article. He had previously advised me to engage them in debate.)

FROM: TAE
TO:PR

I didn't ask if I could use it. I asked a) if my understanding was correct, and b) if I should assume your answer to the questions you haven't answered is an official "no comment". If you'd like, I can repeat the questions that I think I haven't yet gotten a response to.

FROM: PR
TO: TAE

Yes, I understand the arguments about methodology. There is in fact a long correspondence involving Lancet author Les Roberts on MediaLens. It would be hard not to know the arguments. I simply used the Lancet report as illustrative of the problem over figures. I was not in this piece dealing with the row over its findings which is well known, as I said. This is always a problem with blogs and you are not alone in this. We get it from the left as well. If we do not pause in an article about something else and deal fully with the rows over one particular point, all hell breaks loose and we are accused of ignorance or bias or both! You can quote me on that.

FROM: TAE
TO: PR

Do you think that, as a journalist, you have a responsibility to weigh the credibility of claims before you present them in your articles? Or does it suffice simply to report factually that person A claimed X, with no thought or reference as to the credibility of either A or X?

If the former, isn't it fair to assume that you have made the judgment that the claim that the war in Iraq has cost 100,000 Iraqi lives is credible? If not, why not?

If you believed that the controversy over the 100,000 figure was so widely known that you needn't offer it as context, why did you feel the need to discuss the problem of counting Iraqi deaths at all, since logically that must be at least as widely known?

FROM: PR
TO: TAE

In fact Scott, the 100,000 is no longer the upper limit. There are claims that it should be much higher! See Les Roberts http://www.alternet.org/story/31508/

Am I supposed to include his now higher estimates as well? I should do so, according to your rules.

Of course I weigh credibility. I am currently engaged in a hot debate with The Cat's Dream about why I reported on the Iraqi documents at all, the suggestion being that they were unreliable. In the case of the Lancet article, the arguments are well known. You ignore the point I made.

FROM: TAE
TO:PR

Since you do weigh credibility, and since you passed on the 100,000 Lancet claim without mentioning any caveats, is it fair to assume that you find that figure credible? If not, why not?

Far from ignoring your point about the arguments being well known, I have taken it on board and realized it leads to a further (and so far unanswered) question: Again, if you assumed that your audience already knew about the Lancet controversy, why did you feel the need to inform your audience about the Lancet figures themselves, for surely they must also have known those, too?

FROM: PR
TO: TAE

I neither found the figure credible nor incredible It was simply a figure. I reported it. . What's the problem?

As for not mentioning the figure at all, that is a bizarre suggestion.

So, what have we learned from this exchange? We've learned that "of course" Mr. Reynolds weighs the credibility of information before passing it on to his readers...except, that is, when he doesn't, as in the case at hand.

We've learned that he thinks there is no problem with reporting a highly disputed claim without either a) establishing in his own mind that the claim is credible or b) making any mention whatsoever that the claim has been greatly disputed.

We've learned that, although he believes the controversy surrounding 100,000 figure was so widely known that noting it for the sake of his audience was unnecessary, he also thinks it would have been "bizarre" to assume that the very same audience was equally aware of, and therefore in no more need of reminding about, the 100,000 figure itself.

Finally, while Paul should be commended for taking the time to engage his critics rather than taking the easy course and simply ignoring them (as many of his colleagues do), I think we've also learned that Michael Howard has nothing on BBC reporters when it comes to avoiding direct answers to direct questions.

BBC trying to catch up

2006-03-27T10:01:00.000+01:00

The BBC has finally decided to cover the release of Iraq and Afghanistan intelligence documents with a piece by Paul Reynolds on Saturday.

More language infidelity

2006-03-24T10:53:00.000Z

BBC headline today:

Wife "thrilled" at Kember release

Released? Why all the kudos to the British special forces, then?

I noted it the other day, but for an organization whose business is communication, the BBC has a strangely difficult time using words properly.

Good news...and a question

2006-03-23T09:45:00.000Z

The BBC reports today that Norman Kember, the British national who was abducted in Iraq last November, has been rescued along with 2 Canadian colleagues who had also been abducted. One British and two Canadian peace activists held hostage in Iraq have been
freed in an operation by multinational forces.
Excellent news.

But why is it that, when a good thing happens, "multi-national" forces are responsible, but when bad things happen, "US-led forces" are responsible?

UPDATE: The Guardian says that the rescue operation involved "British, Iraqi and other coalition forces." I wonder which "other" coalition forces they might be referring to.

UPDATE II: Reuters says that "U.S.-led forces freed three Christian peace activists held hostage in Iraq on Thursday..."

Begum loses; BBC still wrong

2006-03-22T14:24:00.000Z

Sanity and reason, it seems, does still exist here in Britain.
A school which was told it unlawfully excluded a Muslim pupil for wearing a traditional gown has won its appeal at the House of Lords.
The Court of Appeal had said Denbigh High School had denied Shabina Begum the right to manifest her religion in refusing to allow her to wear a jilbab.
But in a unanimous ruling, judges at the House of Lords overturned that.
Unfortunately, given the degree to which Britain has already relinquished its sovereignty, the last word has not necessarily been heard.
[Miss Begum] would consult her lawyers about a potential appeal to the European courts, she said.
There is little reason to hope that such sanity and reason continues to survive in the halls of Brussels.

On another note regarding this story, it is clear that fidelity to language continues to be a problem for the BBC. Despite it’s portrayal to the contrary, Miss Begum was not excluded “for wearing a traditional jilbab”. She was, in fact, excluded for not wearing an approved school uniform…a uniform which in fact did include concessions to Muslim sensitivities.

Virtually every story on the BBC about this affair has portrayed it as an issue in which a school “refused to allow” the jilbab rather than, as was the case, an issue in which a student refused to wear the approved school uniform. In other words, the BBC characterizes the conflict as arising from the actions of the school, rather than from the actions of the girl, a characterization which is belied by the facts of the case. To be fair, the BBC has supplied the details of the case, thus allowing more attentive readers to ultimately draw the correct conlcusions. But still, it's introduction of the issue inevitably seems to place Begum in the role of victim, when in fact reality is quite the opposite.

BBC wonders if Bush = terrorist

2006-03-21T22:07:00.000Z

This morning on BBC radio’s Five Live Breakfast program (about 20 minutes in), presenter Nicky Campbell was interviewing the UK’s Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn about the situation in Iraq, and specifically with regard to an American military investigation into allegations that American soldiers deliberately targeted and killed some Iraqi civilians. After asking Benn if he thought American soldiers were “acquitting themselves well” in Iraq, Campbell attempted to elicit further comment with the following:
I spoke to John Reed yesterday and he continually referred to the insurgents as terrorists. But there are those who say that George Bush is as bad.
Well, yes there are, but that doesn’t mean that it is an opinion with enough merit to be aired on the BBC, much less a subject requiring comment from serious public figures. Unfortunately Benn responded politely, simply expressing his disagreement with the notion. What he should have done was treat both the claim and Campbell with the contempt they deserve.

While the BBC has an obligation to air a range of viewpoints, it has no such obligation to air all viewpoints. It is indicative of just how radical editorial opinion at the BBC is that, in its judgment, the idea that George Bush is the equivalent to terrorists is a respectable opinion worthy of serious discussion amongst serious people.

An angry middle eastern woman

2006-03-20T23:26:00.000Z

A very interesting broadcast from Al Jazeera, via the excellent Middle East Media Research Institute.

UPDATE: I'm told the woman in the video is an Arab-American psychologist. I confess that I didn't check out her background, and made the apparently erroneous assumption. Apologies.

Iraq intelligence ignored...by the BBC

2006-03-20T21:19:00.000Z

The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes has been the only journalist that I am aware of who has consistently been on the case of the until-now classified intelligence documents recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq, specifically with regard to information that they hold connecting Saddam Hussein to international terrorism in general and in specific to Al Qaeda. He has been calling for the release of these documents for quite some time, and, having been joined by some allies in the congress, those documents have finally started to be released. Hayes has written two articles (here, and here) in the last few days detailing what some of the documents show. The are quite interesting.

Pretty big news, eh? Not, apparently, to the BBC, which has shown a complete lack of interest in either the on-giong release of these documents, or their contents. A search of the BBC's online articles returns not a single one about the Office of the Director of National Intelligence releasing the documents. Having embraced the conventional storyline that any such relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda or Bin Laden existed strictly as a function of Bush administration deception it appears that they are reluctant to disrupt that comfortable point of view, and would prefer to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

The BBC is not alone in its failure to report this story. Neither The Guardian (surprise, surprise) nor The Times has mentioned anything about it. Those of you seeking a more informed picture of Iraq would be better off taking what you would otherwise pay for the "license fee" and subscribe to the likes of The Weekly Standard and Foreign Affairs, places that are doing some real reporting these days.

FYI

2006-03-16T20:24:00.000Z

If it seems like I'm posting less often over the course of the next few weekends, it's because I am pre-occupied with what is undoubtedly the best sporting event of the calendar year. I know you Brits don't get it, but you really are missing out, believe me.

First round is under way, and my alma mater just survived a huge scare in double overtime. Phew.

Of two minds on Souter

2006-03-15T21:59:00.000Z

Supreme Court Justice David Souter has apparently been spared by his neighbors the unfortunate consequences of his own judicial folly. The residents of Weare, New Hampshire, while clearly lacking a good sense of ironic humor, have displayed a degree of constitutional understanding and, frankly, common sense that is regrettably lacking in the good Judge himself. Yesterday, by a margin of nearly 2 to 1, they voted down a proposal that would have allowed a developer to take Souter's own farm under the power of eminent domain and build a hotel in its place, a proposal made legally conceivable only as the result of Souter's own inexplicable interpretation of the fifth amendment.

This result leaves TAE torn. It's a good day for justice in principle, but it sure would have been satisfying to see Souter subject to the same injustices his own bizarre reasoning has inflicted on others.

MoDo....truth-teller?!?!

2006-03-14T23:20:00.000Z

Over the weekend The Guardian’s Susie Mackenzie did a profile on The New York Times’ op-ed columnist, Maureen Dowd. For those of you lucky enough to remain unfamiliar with Dowd, she is probably the worst advertisement for female punditry around. Her attempts to be bitingly witty more often than not come across like the product of a catty juvenile trying to hide a total lack of insight by being just a little too clever. The enduring question surrounding Dowd remains whether she or Paul Krugman is the biggest embarrassment to America’s “paper of record”. It's a tough call, believe me.

Anyway, despite the sub-header’s promise that Mackenzie “grills” her, Dowd emerges from the piece still looking pretty, er, uncooked. If Mackenzie asked her a single challenging question, we the audience remain none the wiser. But by far the most risible aspect of the piece is the portrayal of Dowd as a dedicated truth-teller. According to Mackenzie, Dowd is “someone who has plenty to say about truth-telling,” who “hates hypocrisy and liars,” and who “despises” “truthiness” – truthiness being a “good story” that “you want to be true” but which “doesn’t correspond to reality.” This particular aspect of Dowd's personality will come as quite a surprise to anyone familiar with Dowd’s work.

Ever hear of the word “Dowdification”? It is blog-speak for the use of elipses in a quotation, thereby eliminating a word or a phrase, and thus altering its actual meaning. Or, in other words, portraying the quotation as something you want it to say, but which doesn’t correspond to the reality of the quotation....just what Dowd apparently "despises". Now, especially observant readers may have noticed that “Dowdification” appears to be derived from the base word “Dowd”. That isn’t a coincidence. Unfortunately, Mackenzie didn’t see fit to include in her profile of the tell-it-like-it-is MoDo her particularly unique contribution to the blogging lexicon.

Indeed, apparently unknown to Mackenzie, Dowd's primary writing style often rests on studious avoidance of a straight up look at the truth, relying instead on simplifying and mischaracterizing in order to facilitate her snarky and clever one-liners. Regrettably the excellent site Spinsanity is no longer in business, but while it was it did a good job of tracking particularly eqregious examples of Dowd's (as well as others) forays into deceit and mischaracterization. Given that Dowd is guilty of journalistic transgressions ranging from withholding relevant information about polls cited in her writing to falsely portraying events, it seems to me that if Dowd portrays herself as a hater of hypocrisy and liars, she's established herself firmly as a self-loather.

Too bad Susie Mackenzie was too busy praising her to notice.

BBC champions Collins dictionary

2006-03-13T22:11:00.000Z

Back when TAE last received a communication from the BBC, I was assured that an explanation of the BBC's characterization of President Bush as a "champion" of Intelligent Design theory would be soon forthcoming. Last week that promise was (finally) fulfilled:

Further to my email of 28 February, I am now in a position to respond to your email which you sent to our Complaints Website regarding the article entitled: Churches urged to back evolution
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4731360.stm)

I raised your concerns directly with the News Website Team who have asked me to forward the following response to your concerns:

Thank you for your e-mail relating to Paul Rincon's article on intelligent design. According to numerous newspaper accounts and an official transcript of the event, George Bush made the remarks to a group of Texas reporters invited to the White House. The whole point of these conferences is for reporters to question the President about his position on issues that matter to their audiences. Given that, we don't think the argument over whether President Bush made the remarks in response to a question he fielded, or of his own volition, has much bearing on what our correspondent wrote. Those were views he expressed on the record, at a pre-arranged press conference where he knew his remarks would be reported.

We would however concede that to describe President Bush as a 'champion' of ID was misleading. This was not the phrase that our reporter used, but was mistakenly introduced in the subbing process. The sub concerned failed to make the distinction between being a champion of ID and being a champion of the teaching of ID. Incidentally, the word 'champion' is defined in the Collins dictionary as 'someone who defends a person or cause'. This does not necessarily imply the kind of proactive role you talk about, but we agree it could be interpreted as such. We have therefore amended the article, replacing the sentence you refer to with the following:
Intelligent Design has also received backing from US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.'

We would be grateful if you would direct any future correspondence about BBC news website output through the normal channels. [This, presumably, refers to the fact that TAE e-mailed Paul Rincon directly.] This will allow us to deal promptly with any points you raise. Paul Rincon did not ignore your comments; he was away on holiday.

With best wishes,
The BBC News Website

I do hope this response addresses your concerns. Thank you again for contacting the BBC.
Yours sincerely
Denise Tattersall
Divisional Advisor
BBC Information

A new question: What is the "subbing" process? Is that the process by which the opinions of an editor are substituted for the plain facts as reported? If anyone out there knows, please let me know.

Dr. Ansari and Iran's help revisited

2006-03-13T21:09:00.000Z

Back in January, TAE noted a BBC segment on Radio Five Live in which a Dr. Ali Ansari, of the University of Saint Andrews and Chatham House, claimed that "the war in Afghanistan probably would not have succeeded as it did without Iranian help, and of course the Iranians were rewarded with the 'axis of evil'." When TAE questioned Dr. Ansari via e-mail about this rather remarkable claim, he reiterated the point saying "It is generally acknowledged that Afghanistan would not have been so swift or indeed easy had the Iranians not been on board both during and after - in the Bonn Talks."

How interesting, then, to find The Weekly Standard reporting last week that "Newly released documents provide evidence of Iranian collaboration with the Taliban in October of 2001." Iran secretly agreed to assist the Taliban in its war against U.S. forces in October 2001, according to the transcript of a high-level Taliban official's tribunal session at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba. The seven-page transcript, as well as thousands of pages of similar documents, was released by the Pentagon on March 3 in response to litigation brought by the Associated Press.
If true, this tends to put a damper on Dr. Ansari's theory, broadcast over the BBC, that Iran extended an offer of detente to the US, and was subsequently "rewarded" with the "axis of evil" label. I've e-mailed the good Dr. about this, and will pass on any response I get.

FYI

2006-03-05T15:57:00.000Z

TAE will be in the US for the next week, so if there is a lack fo new posts, that is why. I'll pick it back up when I return next weekend.

Notes from a philistine

2006-03-03T08:40:00.000Z

The BBC reported yesterday on a boy in Detroit who stuck a piece of chewing gum onto the corner of an abstract painting estimated to be worth $1.5 million, thus leaving a stain that will now need to be removed. A look at the painting, The Bay by Helen Frankenthaler, suggests to me that the BBC missed out on the real news story here, which is that someone might actually be willing to pay $1.5 million for a piece of “work” which might…I emphasize might…garner praise from a nursery school teacher.

Given the utter absurdity of the art world, I wonder if anyone stopped to think that the gum might have actually addded value.

FYI

2006-02-28T21:21:00.000Z

Received today from the BBC (links added by TAE):

Thank you for your email of 27 February to our Complaints Website.

Firstly, may I offer my sincere apologies on behalf of BBC Information for the response you received from this department in reply to your email regarding the News Website article "Supreme Court to rule on abortion". It is most unfortunate that your concerns about factual inaccuracy were not addressed and I would assure you that the way in which your initial complaint was handled will be raised as a training issue.

I have been in contact with senior editors at our News Website who tell me that your original complaint did lead to this piece being checked and amended. You can view this at the following link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4737082.stm

I do hope that the fact that this article was changed has reassured you in some way that the BBC does take complaints seriously. I note you have also contacted us regarding another article on our website "Churches urged to back evolution" and I have today been in contact with Paul Rincon, who you also emailed, and I understand from Paul that he will be responding to your concerns.

Thank you again for taking the time and trouble to contact us.

Yours sincerely
Denise Tattersall
Divisional Advisor
BBC Information

BBC cracks the case

2006-02-27T21:17:00.000Z

So just how long do you suppose the BBC has been working on breaking this story?
US President George W Bush was waving to police when he fell off his bike at the G8 summit in Scotland last July, newly published police papers reveal.
This has been under wraps since last July, and has only now been "revealed"? It seems Bush's penchant for secrecy knows no bounds.

You just can't put a price on the service provided by the Beeb.

Has Webb made a New Year's resolution to be sensible?

2006-02-25T17:36:00.000Z

Thanks goes to TAE reader Jeff, who brought to my attention the latest installment of Justin Webb's continuing effort to deprive TAE of anything to complain about.

In today's FOOC report, Webb focuses on the hollowness of the American left, claiming that Democrats "do not have a message" and "do not know where to go", and that "The American left has faded away." More notably, he points out that, even if they had a message, they've lost their traditional method of getting it out.
Most importantly, the worlds of entertainment and news (which used to pipe a vaguely left-wing message into the nation's homes) have been blown to bits by technological changes which render them powerless.
That is quite an acknowledgement, coming from an employee of the BBC, which continues to this day to pipe a vaguely left-wing message into its own nation's homes. (Regrettably, the BBC itself has not yet been rendered quite so powerless, its antiquated and coercive methods of financing working to immunize it from the irritation of having to actually compete for its survival.)

Unfortuantely, Webb still has not purged himself of the need to show his disdain for religion in America. Noting the ubiquity of bumper stickers in the US and the "treasure trove of American free speech" that they represent, Webb can't help himself from informing us of his "favorite": "Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church." I could have guessed.

Still, that's a nitpick. Have a read of Webb's latest. It's worth it.

Highs and lows at the Beeb

2006-02-24T22:30:00.000Z

Today, in an article headlined Could this be the end of Roe v Wade, the BBC's Clare Murphy discusses South Dakota's passage of a law apparently designed to eventually challenge the Supreme Court's infamous abortion ruling from 1973. The article is in many respects a rehash of another Murphy article which TAE noted and praised back in November, but it is worth praising again. Murphy explicitly notes something that the pro-abortion lobby (and its proxies in the media) goes to great lengths to obfuscate, namely that an end to Roe v Wade does not mean the end of access to abortion in the US. She even notes:
But the battle would take place in state legislatures, and that, to an increasing number of pro-choicers, may be no bad thing.
It would force them to argue their case with voters at the state level, so the thinking goes, and stop them relying on unelected courts to impose their views. Abortion rights would finally have a firm, democratic foundation.
The fact that current abortion policy has been imposed by courts rather than elected representatives, thus removing it from the arena of political compromise, is the single most important cause making abortion the highly contentious and polarizing issue that it currently is. An end to Roe will be the first step in establishing an abortion policy which will help prevent the festering of political grievances that judicial-fiat rulings tend to engender.

Murphy should be commended for presenting a reasonable and balanced profile of the abortion issue as it currently stands in the US, and for avoiding the more typical BBC meme of using the issue as a hook on which to hang yet another story about the rise of the dreaded religious right.

Less commendable was the BBC's response to TAE today on another abortion article. Earlier this week the BBC ran an article on the Supreme Court's decision to hear an appeal of a lower court's ruling that the federal law banning partial-birth abortions is unconstitutional. The opening line of that article claimed that "The US Supreme Court says it will rule on whether to uphold the first federal ban on an abortion procedure since terminations were made legal in 1973." This implies that there was a federal ban on abortions prior to 1973, which is simply untrue. Prior to 1973, abortion policy was decided by state legislatures, and hence whether or not abortion was legal varied from state to state. In many states abortion was already legal even before Roe, a point which, if understood, tends to put the lie to the alarmist claims of the pro-abortion lobby regarding the possible end of Roe.

TAE pointed this out to the BBC via its on-line complaints procedure, and today the BBC responded with the following:
I understand you feel that the opening paragraph in a BBC News article about
abortion in the USA is factually incorrect.
I can assure you that factual accuracy is the essence of news reporting and the BBC aspires to the very highest standards of journalism but in many cases, particularly with breaking news stories, facts can be scarce or conflicting.
Nevertheless I do realise the frustration this supposed error must have caused. Therefore please be assured that your complaint has been registered and placed on an audience log which is made available to all members of the BBC and a copy of your e-mail forwarded for the attention of the BBC News team.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact the BBC with your complaint.
Regards
Louise O'Doherty
BBC Information
Have you got that? It is apparently the considered judgment of Ms O'Doherty that the status of abortion in the US prior to 1973, and the nature of the court ruling that has been the subject of intense analysis and debate for 23 years (update: ahh, I mean 33!) since then, is in fact a "breaking" story about which facts are "scarce" and/or "conflicting". Either that, or Louise is nothing more than a computer program pumping out automated responses to e-mails that no one ever reads or pays any attention to. Either way, it rather shows the BBC's claims to "research" the issue, "listen to your concerns", and "learn from all complaints" to be the farce that they apparently are.

Speaking of schadenfreude

2006-02-24T17:35:00.000Z

With today's news that London Mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone has been officially suspended from his duties for 4 weeks for acting in an "unnecessarily insensitve" manner, the weekend could not have gotten off to a better start. Livingstone, recall, had responded to a Jewish newspaper reporter's questions by asking the reporter if he was a "German war criminal" and then likening him to a concentration camp guard. (You can hear the fateful exchange between the two here.) Livingstone refused to apologize, and was eventually charged by the Standards Board of England with having breached the Greater London Authority code of conduct. Today an Adjudication Panel ruled against him.

For those lucky few who may be unfamiliar with him, Livingstone, who at one time got himself ejected from the Labour party, has been known to blurt out such thoughtful and intelligent gems as "I look forward to [the Bush administration] being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown," and "Every year the international financial system kills more people than World War Two." He is, in other words, the Pat Robertson of the British loony left, although, unlike the imaginations of the BBC with regard to Robertson, Livingstone's political power is in fact substantial. So when the news of the (perhaps literal) bully's comeuppance was released, it was difficult to suppress a wide smile.

And yet...

As much as it pains me to take his side, this case against Livingstone is utterly ridiculous. So he was rude to a journalist...big deal. Are journalists, who BTW are not without their own particularly effective form of defense, really so fragile? Is Livingstone's idiotic, if all too predictable, allusions to Nazi's really out-of-bounds simply because the target of his bile happens to be Jewish? Frankly, if a majority of Londoner's really do want to be represented by such an inane and foolish buffoon as Livingstone - and apparently they do, as he has been re-elected despite his well publicized absurdity - they ought not be deprived of the privilege by an unelected, three-member panel on hurt feelings.

Still, if it is the case that someone must fall victim to modern-day sensitivity worship, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. It won't, in any case, spoil my weekend.

Matt Frei's schadenfreude...or something

2006-02-23T12:06:00.000Z

Okay, okay, call me a pedant, but I can’t resist.

From this week’s dose of Matt Frei’s pithy observations on America, dedicated largely to the Olympics:
Whether it is the [US's] relatively low medal count - I stress relative as the US has so far won 17 medals to the UK's 1 - or the dismal ratings of NBC's Olympics programmes, these winter games are laced with schadenfreude.
Uh, relative to what, exactly? Certainly not the rest of the field. As of yesterday morning when Frei’s column came out, the US was behind exactly 1 of the 84 competing nations in its medal count. How about historically? Nope. At 17 medals and counting with 3 days still to go, the US had already garnered more medals than any other Olympic games bar one (2002). So what exactly is Frei talking about? Is there a special word for getting pleasure from the imagined misfortunes of others?
The problem is that NBC had touted the US Olympic team as the best ever and stars like Bodie Miller, the Colorado answer to Franz Klammer have, to be frank, been a bit of a disappointment.
Perhaps one can excuse Frei’s phonetic misspelling of Bode Miller’s name, but for goodness sake, why snidely implicate innocent Coloradoans in his failures? Especially since the brash but medal-less Miller is actually from, er, New Hampshire. Good fact-checking, Beeb.

So now America's hopes are pinned on a gold medal in that most glamorous and sofa gripping sports: curling.

America’s hopes? Oh my. One wonders if Matt has ever heard of projection.

Frei also manages to get in a sly plug for his employer, or at least its financing methods, by pointing out that US Olympic coverage is "annoyingly interrupted by a commercial break every few minutes". Yeah, well, at least that annoying American coverage isn’t being paid for out of the pockets of those British ex-pats who find it so annoying. Which is more than can be said about TAE and Frei’s own very annoying coverage of the US.

BTW, I particularly enjoyed one of the comments posted to the BBC in response to Frei's latest entry. From one Leonard Johns:
I am a Brit currently here on a biannual stay and have never been able to
find this country as you tend to report it.
Welcome to the club, Leonard. Welcome to the club.

The making of a champion

2006-02-21T21:02:00.000Z

Today, in an article about scientists in the US reaching out to religious leaders in an effort to get them to support the teaching of evolution, the BBC’s science reporter Paul Rincon declares that President Bush is “among the most high profile champions of intelligent design.”

This is not the first time someone at the BBC has characterized Bush as a “champion” to the ID cause. But on what is such a claim based? As far as I am aware, Bush’s public comments on the issue are limited to a response he gave to a reporter’s direct request for his “personal views” on the matter of teaching intelligent design in schools. His response, in the great tradition of politicians seeking to avoid taking a firm position on a controversial subject, was that 1) the decision of what to teach should ultimately be left to local school districts and 2) people ought to be exposed to different ideas so that they "can understand what the debate is about." He then cut the reporter off from pressing the issue by saying “Very interesting question, Hutch,” and moved on.

Is the BBC really suggesting that this politically calculated non-answer is indicative of an intelligent design “champion”? Or is the BBC aware of Bush publicly advocating on behalf of ID elsewhere? TAE put those questions to Mr. Rincon via an e-mail early today, but unfortunately, as of 9pm, he has yet to respond. If Mr. Rincon steps to the plate to defend his reporting, be assured I will certainly pass it on.

A simple plan

2006-02-20T22:43:00.000Z

John Simpson, sage of the BBC, reveals his master plan for making Afghanistan a more peaceful place: Simply prove to the tribes of the country that there are better ways of securing honour and dignity than supporting Islamic extremists. Quoting one Vanni Cappelli with admiration, Simpson says: [CIA missile attacks] will not, Cappelli argues, "sway this warrior people if it feels it can uphold its honour and dignity by supporting Islamic extremists. The trick is proving to them that there are better ways to secure these things."
Cappelli is entirely right. If the trick can be performed, Afghanistan will be a safer, better, more prosperous country.
What a stroke of genius! Just perform this "trick" of convincing the tribes not to support our enemies, and everything will be fine. Why didn't anyone else think of this?

And how to perform this trick? Well, simply "reason" with them, naturally.

The trouble is that, of course, the irksome American public "favors the use of force rather than reason," a fact which Simpson seemingly thinks is evidenced by the reluctance of US newspapers to publish Capelli's "eminently sensible" article, Capelli being "one of the most thoughtful American commentators on Afghanistan."

So there you have it. Disavow the use of force and just convince Afghani tribes, by reasoning with them, not to support terrorists. Easy as pie. What has Bush been thinking? Simpson for president, anyone?

BTW, I don't know the first thing about Vanni Capelli, but it is probably worth keeping in mind the types of people that Simpson has used his column to promote in the past.

BBC: Torture at Gitmo is a fact

2006-02-20T21:00:00.000Z

It seems that, in the view of the BBC, there is no longer any doubt about whether the practices at Guantanamo Bay constitute torture. On Saturday's "Any Questions" on Radio Four, the first question put to the panel was:
"What action should the British government take to bring about an end to the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay?"
The question, of course, persumes as an established fact that torture is indeed occurring, and wonders only what should be done to stop it.

Now, the first thing to note is that, although the question came from an audience member, it was not an unscripted question. The BBC knew beforehand what the question was, and chose the questioner and his question with the specific purpose of introducing the topic. And once the question was posed, neither the host, David Dimbleby, nor any of the four panel members, expressed any objection to the premise upon which it was based or doubt that the premise was indeed true.

Unfortunately, although its producers, presenters, and selected guests all apparently accept as beyond question the fact that torture is being employed at Guantanamo, I have yet to see any articles on the BBC website detailing either a) the BBC's official definition of torture or b) the proof of that it has occurred at Camp X-ray.

(Hat tip: reader Jonathon)

Satire beyond the BBC's ability to fathom

2006-02-15T13:35:00.000Z

Just how bright does one need to be in order to find employment in the BBC newsroom? On today’s evidence, not very.

The BBC offers up its (un-bylined) take on the media reaction to Dick Cheney’s recent escapades in Texas. To show just how universal is the dismay over White House secrecy and the delay in filling in the press corps on the shooting, the BBC notes that:
Even for the conservative Wall Street Journal, enough was enough.

"Don't these Bush people understand that the cover-up is worse than the crime?" Wednesday's edition asks, before launching a satirical broadside at the White House efforts to play down the story.
Bad news for the White House indeed. Except for one thing: A quick read of the WSJ editorial makes it pretty clear, to anyone of moderate intelligence that is, that the satirical broadside was aimed not at the White House’s efforts to play down the story, but rather the media’s efforts to play it up.

The WSJ editorial provides a “coverup timeline” along with “crucial questions that deserve to be asked.” Among those questions:
Saturday 6:30 pm - White House Chief of Staff Andy Card informs President Bush that there's been a hunting accident involving the Vice President's party. Did Mr. Bush ask follow-up questions? Was he intellectually curious?

7 pm - Karl Rove tells Mr. Bush that it is Mr. Cheney who did the shooting. Why was this detail withheld for a full 30 minutes from the President? Who else did Mr. Rove talk to about this in the interim? Was Valerie Plame ever mentioned?

Sunday 1:30 pm - The Texas paper [Corpus Christi] posts the story on its Web site, after calling the Veep's office for confirmation. Everyone involved confirms more or less everything, or so the official line goes. Their agreement is very suspicious.
And just in case there was any doubt among the especially daft, after noting a particularly absurd question from a member of the WH press corps (“and we’re not making this one up” it warns), the WSJ ended its editorial by proclaiming:
We hope the 78-year-old Mr. Whittington recovers promptly after his heart attack yesterday. As for the Beltway press corps, it has once again earned the esteem in which it is held by the American public.
For the dolts at the BBC: The use of the word “esteem” in this context would be, um, ironic.

(And here I thought that it was supposed to be Americans who couldn’t appreciate the heralded British sense of irony.)

UPDATE: As some of you may have noticed, the BBC has done a little bit of editing, and the reference to the WSJ editorial now bears a much closer relationship to what it actually said. I'm not sure whether someone at the Beeb saw TAE's comments, or if an editor with a more heightened sense of sarcasm than the original editor noticed it on his own. Of course the reference to the WSJ has been moved from the top of the article to the bottom, given that it no longer reinforces the story line the BBC is pushing. But give the Beeb some small amount of credit for at least mentioning the contrary take of the WSJ rather than wiping it out of the article completely. Still, I'd say the BBC is, net, in the red on this one.

Read the comments

2006-02-14T22:25:00.000Z

I feel compelled to direct your attention to the comment section on this post on social mobility, where an interesting back-and-forth has taken place between a couple of readers, culminating (most recently) on some excellent comments by reader Stephen on gobalization, comparative advantage, and the perils of zero-sum thinking.

The BBC's curious sensitivities

2006-02-14T20:46:00.000Z

Several days ago, TAE's friends at Biased BBC noted an interesting letter published in The Times from former BBC Broadcast Chief Executive Will Wyatt. While applauding the BBC's treatment of the whole Danish cartoon fracas, Wyatt felt compelled to point out the "double standard" on the BBC's website regarding its treatment of Islam and Christianity.
In its history of Islam we read: “One night in 610 he (Muhammad) was meditating in a cave on the mountain when he was visited by the angel Jibreel who ordered him to “recite” . . . words which he came to understand were the words of God.” This is written as fact, no “it is said” or “Muhammad reported”. Whenever Muhammad’s name is mentioned the BBC adds “Peace be upon him”, as if the corporation itself were Muslim.
How different, and how much more accurate, when we turn to Christianity. Here, Jesus’ birth “is believed by Christians to be the fulfilment of prophesies in the Jewish Old Testament”; Jesus “claimed that he spoke with the authority of God”; accounts of his resurrection appearances were “put about by his believers”.
A fair point, it seems to me. But I do wonder what exactly Wyatt found praiseworthy in the BBC's treatment of the Danish cartoon affair, given that it is fraught with precisely the same kind of double standard. Although the BBC did, apparently, show "fleeting" glimpses of the cartoons in question on television (which is at least more than can be said of most other media outlets in both the US and the UK), according to Peter Horlocks, editor of BBC's TV news: We've taken the view that still images that focus and linger on the offending cartoons would be excessively offensive so we haven't used those in our television news pieces.
"We've used moving pictures of the newspapers where they've appeared to show people the context in which they've appeared and to give them some flavour of the type of imagery but without focusing closely on them."

Explaining why the BBC's website is not showing images of the cartoons, BBC interactive's editor Steve Herrmann said: In addition, images on a web page can have an immediate impact on readers who will not necessarily have absorbed any of the context around them...When we cover any sensitive issue we have to balance our duty to report the story faithfully with our responsibility not to unnecessarily shock or offend our audience.

One can only wonder why, then, an image of a painting that caused much offense among Christians in the US has lingered on the BBC's website for over 6 years without Herrmann or Wyatt being fussed about it.

Readers may recall that, back in 1999, an art exhibition in NYC controversially included a painting by Chris Ofili, purportedly of the Virgin Mary and adorned with cut-outs from pornographic magazines and elephant dung. Rudy Giuliani, then mayor of New York, took offense (along many other Christians) and threatened to withdraw public money which funded the gallery showing the painting. The BBC website covered the story with several articles, including one which contained a picture of the offending painting. That article remains available on the BBC's website to this very day.

Is it too cynical to wonder whether the degree of concern the BBC shows over offending a particular culture's sensitivities is directly proportional to that culture's tendency towards violence?

(BTW, for those interested in seeing the cartoons, they can be found here.)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

2006-02-13T22:26:00.000Z

In perhaps the biggest news to hit the headlines this year, Dan Glaister of The Guardian joins legions of other media outlets to report that....brace yourself...
The first photograph of President George Bush with the disgraced Washington
lobbyist Jack Abramoff was published yesterday after the White House refused for
weeks to release images of them together.
Apparently the photo "has been compared [by who? - ed] to the Monica Lewinsky 'ropeline' shots, which showed President Clinton greeting the White House intern." Now that certainly would be interesting, seeing Bush giving a big bearhug to a star-struck and adoring Jack Abramoff. Alas, it turns out that Abramoff "appears as a small, blurry, bearded figure in the background" of a photo of Bush meeting the chief of an American Indian tribe. Not everything, I suppose, that scandal mongers would have hoped for, but you have to take what you can get. And, perhaps most incriminating fo all, "Karl Rove, the chief White House political adviser, is also in the photograph." Really makes you think, huh?

Almost forgot

2006-02-13T21:53:00.000Z

Oh yeah...and Clive Davis in The Times, writes about the future and blogs, mentioning Paul Reynolds' article from the other day, in which TAE featured.

Solid commentary

2006-02-13T20:29:00.000Z

Lots of interesting commentary this past weekend in the papers.

The Times especially was chock full of good stuff. Minette Marin takes on the Muslim demand for respect, and blames, at least in part, the West itself.
It is a failure for which we in the West — we in this country — bear a great deal of responsibility. Until very recently, the doctrine of multiculturalism reigned supreme here. For at least 15 years public services and the liberal media have been riddled with the idea that all cultures are equally deserving of respect, and that the values of the host culture are not supreme, but on the contrary, rather racist and oppressive (so possibly not equally deserving of respect)...Quite why large sections of the host culture here were taken in by the confused claims of multiculturalism remains a mystery to me. But the consequence is that many Muslims (among others) have come to believe that we agree that their religion and culture are entitled to unquestioning respect.
In another article, which oddly doesn't appear to be on-line, Amir Taheri points out that:
Today, the visible Islam, the loudest Islam, is a political movement
masquerading as a religion...Not long ago when I asked an imam in a London
mosque why it was that God hardly featured in his sermons, he thought I
had lost the plot. "What matters today is the suffering of our brethren
under occupation," he snapped..."We have no religious grievances in this
country," said Azam Tamini, a pro-Hamas British Muslim scholar. "Here we
can practise our religion with more freedom than in any Musilim-ruled
country. It is therefore natural that we should focus on political rather
than religious issues."
How wonderful.

Rod Liddle mentions the BBC's wistful look back at the halcyon days of the radical left with the show Lefties, and makes the sad but true observation that:
The consensus is that the left was trounced, good and proper, in the middle of the 1980s. Certainly the economic arguments were won pretty convincingly by the right...But as the mere existence of the BBC’s series might suggest, the consensus is flawed. For if the right won the economic argument and the cold war, the left won everything else. The followers of Lady Plowden and Shirley Williams still control our education system; children are ill-disciplined and the educational emphasis is on interpretation rather than learning facts.

Popular culture, too. Find me a right-wing Hollywood film, if you can. Or a right-wing play in the West End. Or a pop star who wishes to give less money to Africa and thinks the war against Iraq was just fine and dandy. Or a right-of-centre novelist up for the Booker prize.

Or, indeed, a programme on the BBC that presents a right-wing point of view without irony or downright condemnation. One suspects that over there in Wood Lane they were all, like me, lefties themselves. And maybe still are.

Maybe?!?

And, speaking of lefties, Martin Kettle at The Guardian warns his capitalist- and US-hating "brothers and sisters" not to find themselves - yet again - on the wrong side of history. After 1956 it was no longer intellectually honest or true (if it had ever been) to use the cold-war syllogism that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Those who saw history as a long war between good (the left, socialism, the future, the Soviet Union) and evil (the right, capitalism, the old order, the United States) were no longer entitled to swallow their doubts. It was no longer sweet and noble to kill for the cause. A few, of course, still said it was. Even to this day one occasionally encounters the old lie that the Hungarian rising was a counter-revolution.
But the cold-war syllogism lives on today in a new guise. Too many haters of capitalism and the United States still cram everything into the frame of untruth and self-deception that says my enemy's enemy is still my friend because, even if he blows up my family on the tube, murders my colleagues on the bus or threatens to behead me for publishing a drawing, he is still at war with Bush, Blair and Berlusconi. It is 50 years this month since that simplistic view of the world lost whatever moral purchase it may once have had. It is time such thinking was, to choose a sadly appropriate word, purged. Too long, my brothers and my sisters, too long.
Will they listen?

Social mobility myths

2006-02-11T10:23:00.000Z

An excellent commentary in The Times today from Jamie Whyte, who is, according to the by-line, a philosopher and author. As the headline says, Whyte asks Why are we all so stuck on the virtues of more social mobility? He makes the seemingly obvious, although rarely mentioned, point that: Those who recommend social mobility tend to focus on upward movements. John was born into a bottom-income quartile family, but now he is in the top quartile. Good for John. Alas, every upward social movement requires an equal quantity of downward movement. Just as a tennis player cannot climb the world rankings without others falling, so John’s ascent in the social rankings guarantees that others descend. And their losses must be exactly equal to John’s gain. When everyone is taken into account, it is simply impossible for social mobility to deliver a net benefit.

He also points out that:
In modern economies, the intelligent and well-educated tend to have higher incomes. Intelligence and educational performance are largely inherited, through both nature and nurture. People tend to marry within their own social class. If these tendencies are very strong, then we should expect almost no social mobility in a meritocracy. Those with the attributes that get them to the top (merit, let’s call it) will produce children with merit, who will also get to the top and produce children with merit . . . and so on for generation after generation.
Indeed, this was largely the point made by Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein in their book The Bell Curve, although much of it was lost in the accusations of racism when the book came out.

Anyway, have a look at Whyte's article.

Snatching victory...

2006-02-10T20:57:00.000Z

Loyal readers may recall that TAE pointed out a BBC headline back in December announcing that Bush suffers Patriot Act defeat. At the time I explained that the headline, along with its accompanying article, was totally absurd, suggesting that it was akin to declaring a football match over even as it was tied and headed into overtime. How embarrassing, then, for the headline writing soothsayers at the Beeb (and how satisfying for TAE) to have to announce today, as the match draws to a close, that Bush wins deal on anti-terror law.

Lots of comments

2006-02-10T20:51:00.000Z

Paul Reynolds' article about blogs and the link it gave to TAE has resulted in a large number of new comments on several posts. They are worth having a look if you get the chance. Most are critical of TAE, albeit not all entirely thoughtful. The most amusing was from, unsurprisingly, Anonymous, who had this to say: "America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge. I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture..." I dont see why you put this at the top of yr website. It seems that if Justin Webb admits to it then he must have his reasons. The fact is is that we can plainly see for ourselves that America has all of the above. Your East and West Coasts may be different but you lot are so busy buying big ol cars and being rampant consumers with little or no care about polluting the environment and the plight of your fellow men in Africa that you have allowed the greedy corrupt republican party to totally rule your country. You lot allowed Kennedy and MLK to be shot, you allowed lynchings, you had apartheid up until the 60s and still have not redressed the balance. Your foriegn policy has been absolutely scandalous for decades and your media is totally corrupted by its reliance on big business for advertising. You have pulled the wool over your own peoples eyes for so long that they hardly know what goes on in the world. Your ridiculous patriotism and self regard and greed has meant that you are blind to the fact that we live on the same planet and share the same air and are all brothers and sisters. You have done nothing to prevent the mass proliferation of arms amongst your own communities and around the world. You preach violence and consumption. You have got a crazy streak of religious fundamentalism yourselves as evedenced by 'creationalism' and 'natural design' and your military is crap and too gung ho. Your main exports like Macdonalds and Coke are actually polluting the Worlds health too so get a grip. Look inwards before you critise the rest of the World. All of what Justin Webb says is patently obvious to the rest of the World and the fact that there are parts of your country that are different is a moot point. You allow that big mid section of your country to vote in the corrupt republicans time and time again.

Indeed. How dare we allow democracy to work its nefarious ways.

There were, however, some more thoughtful comments. Have a read through.

BBC reports on blogs..including TAE

2006-02-09T19:14:00.000Z

A busy night tonight, so not much time to talk about it, but Paul Reynolds has done an article about blogs in the UK. The article is interesting, quite reasonable, and both mentions and quotes TAE. Take a look.

Christopher Hitchens...libertarian?

2006-02-07T21:45:00.000Z

In an otherwise innocuous article about the reaction of western governments to Muslim hysteria over the inconveniences of free speech, the BBC's Paul Reynolds notes the struggle of governments to "reconcile a defence of free speech with criticism of the media for exercising that right," and points out that:
The nuanced approach to the competing rights of free speech and responsibility has led to criticism from right-wing and libertarian quarters in the West.
In the United States, writer Christopher Hitchens launched into the State Department spokesman in these terms: "How appalling for the country of the First Amendment [protecting the freedom of the press] to be represented by such an administration."
Unprincipled and hypocritical might have been a better description of the approach, but this being an objective news piece, "nuanced" is, I suppose, somewhat understandable.

Less understandable is Reynolds' apparent belief that Christopher Hitchens occupies right-wing or libertarian quarters. While it is certainly true that Hitchens has been a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and hence, at least in that respect, a supporter of President Bush, a man who laments the loss of his association with socialism "like a lost limb", continues to think that redistributing wealth is a good thing, and who still speaks of his associates as "comrades", can hardly be characterized as a man of the right.

Even more absurd is the implication that he can be counted among libertarians, who actually oppose wealth redistribution even more than those on the political right, and whose representatives, from the mainstream establishment down to the uncompromising fringes, were entirely opposed to the one thing that Hitchens has been most outspoken in supporting...the Iraq war.

Now, it is certainly true that this a very minor point within the context of Reynolds' overall piece, the value of which hardly rested upon the incorrect characterization of Hitchens' political sympathies. But if the BBC cannot be trusted to grasp the difference between an anti-capitalist who argues from leftist principles for the invasion of Iraq, and laissez-faire capitalists who argue against that very same invasion, just what can it be trusted to grasp?

Catch-up

2006-02-05T09:42:00.000Z

TAE has been fairly pre-occupied lately, hence the sparse output in the last couple of weeks. I have, however, taking note of a few things worth pointing out.

Last week Judge Alito finally and happily became Justice Alito, much to the chagrin of raving loons like Ted Kennedy. The Guardian, demonstrating again its fundamental lack of understanding of American politics, recapped Alito's rise to the Supreme Court by claiming that Aliot got the nomination only because Bush's first choice, Harriet Miers, was too "moderate". According to Simon Jeffery: Mr Alito, a US court of appeals judge since 1990, was put up for the court when Harriet Miers, Mr Bush's personal lawyer in Texas, withdrew herself from consideration. Social conservatives looking for a justice who shared their values had harshly criticised the president for nominating an apparent moderate.
Just what made it "apparent" to Jeffery that Miers was indeed a "moderate", much less that this was the reason for her being forced to withdraw, is a mystery. Certainly, to whatever extent that social conservatives were concerned about her political leanings, what bothered them was not what was known about them, but rather what wasn't known. Given her total lack of any experience in constitutional law, it was nearly impossible to determine independently whether she was a judicial conservative, liberal, or something else. But regardless, anyone who followed the Miers debacle with any attention (ie not, apparently, The Guardian) knows that the primary focus of conservative attacks upon her was that utter absence of judicial experience and distinction, not any evidence that she was an "apparent moderate."

Matt Frei's latest diary entry on the BBC focused on the the President's latest State of the Union address, and the decreasing interest Americans seem to be showing in it. In what was otherwise a fairly inoffensive and mildly interesting piece, Frei demonstrated quite well that characteristic BBC tic (recently and surprisingly pointed out by none other than Justin Webb) of assuming that all would be well with the rest of the world if only America would behave properly. According to Frei, the current crisis of Iranian pursuit of nukes led by a man who denies the holocaust and psuhes for the destruction of Israel can be firmly traced back to, and blamed on, a previous SOTU in which Bush decried Iran as a part of the "axis of evil", a claim which Frie describes as a "self-fulfilling prophecy."
In 2002, Iran still had a strong impulse for secular, democratic reform. But since it was already declared a basket case by Potus, the extremists have been doing their level best to prove him right.
Right. Iran, firmly on the path to freedom, peace and democracy, took a drastic turn towards authoritarianism and nuclear armament simply to spite Bush. It's a theory, I guess.

And finally, from today's top story in the Times, a clear sign that the death of reason has arrived and the apocalypse is nearly upon us.
NURSES want patients who are intent on harming themselves to be provided
with clean blades so that they can cut themselves more safely.
Just think about that for a while.

BBC doing its best to prolong Miers' 15 minutes

2006-01-31T23:15:00.000Z

Does anyone else find it mildly irritating that, nearly 3 months after the fact, virtually every mention of new Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito by the BBC comes with the addendum that “Mr Bush's earlier choice for the post, lawyer Harriet Miers, withdrew when conservatives refused to support her”? See here, here, here, here, and here for the most recent examples. Is that fact really still relevant in any way at all?

Will we, years from now and following a particularly interesting Supreme Court decision, be reminded that the deciding vote was cast by Justice Alito, Harriet Myers having withdrawn herself when conservatives refused to support her nomination?

BTW, note the stellar BBC coverage of the confirmation vote. It doesn't even reveal what the final vote in the Senate was. (For those interested, it was 58-42.)

Appeal to emotion dictates BBC coverage

2006-01-31T22:18:00.000Z

What is it with the BBC and these manufactured casualty milestones? What makes the 1ooth British casualty in Iraq any more or less worthy of promotion on the front page of the BBC's website than the 99th or the 101st?

The Falklands War in 1981 lasted 74 days and resulted in 255 British deaths. There are, of course, no BBC archives on-line from that time, but does anyone suppose that the Beeb at the time hyped the 100th British death as a milestone in any story, much less make it the top story? Or that it did so during World War II with the 100th, or 1,00th, or 10,000th, or 100,000th death? I doubt it.

And, as an aside, how the BBC can continue to quote George Galloway as if he is a serious and respectable voice worthy of being heard on the subject, despite him having voluntarily relinquished any remaining shed of self-dignity during his self-promotional stint on Big Brother, is well beyond me. What's next, Dennis Rodman's analysis on the Alito confirmation?

Better late than never

2006-01-30T21:38:00.000Z

Justin Webb, apparently more unrepentant than his apology might suggest following the beating he took from listeners the last time he defended the US, once again surprises with a "viewpoint" analysis that is not altogether unflattering to George Bush.

Rather than the typical caricature of an intellectually challenged and detached president, Webb describes Bush as exhibiting a "charm and wit worthy of Ronald Reagan", as "a man capable of seizing new ideas", and someone "who knows what it is like to maintain a course in spite of temptations along the way." In what Webb seemingly recognizes will come as news to the ill-informed BBC audience, he points out that "the Bush Doctrine has beef" and "is not devoid of content." Who'd of thunk it, huh?

Webb even notes, with some degree of bemused sarcasm, the irrational response of the "Bush-haters" to his mild defense of America and Bush from a few weeks ago. The response was furious and instructive...I had crossed a line in the sand: it is acceptable to defend the US to snooty Europeans (well, almost) but never to show any sympathy for the "toxic Texan" and his sinister doings.
Of course, it would be wrong to call the piece pro-Bush. It is sprinkled with knocks on him, both implicit and explicit, as when he says that Bush "is nowhere near as unyielding as he would have his more credulous supporters believe." And he suggests that the White House's current agenda is driven primarily, if not exclusively, by the upcoming mid-term congressional elections rather than any broader strategic vision. And, inevitably, Webb can't quite resist the urge to paint his infamous picture of the US as an ignorant and unsophisticated place, referring to Washington as "the capital city of a nation where Iran and Iraq are frequently confused."

Still, Webb has made some effort to provide a nuanced, thoughtful view of Bush...certainly more nuanced and thoughtful than many we have seen in the past on the BBC. Indeed, in response to the wrath vistited upon him by the "Bush-haters", Webb says that "it seems to me that an unprejudiced view of where the president is coming from, of what he has in store, is more important than ever." One would have hoped that an "unprejudiced" view has always been important for the BBC, but better late than never, I suppose. And although he won't admit it, Webb himself has played no small part in stoking the anti-Bush crowd. However, with this latest effort, Webb has provided some measure of that unprejudiced view, and while it is ironic that Webb's properly labelled opinion piece is considerably more "unprejudiced" than much of his straight reporting, it is an irony welcomed by TAE.

Condi's advantage

2006-01-27T10:35:00.000Z

On Wednesday Jonathon Beale wrote about Condoleeza Rice and the movement to draft her into running for the presidency in 2008. The (unlabelled) opinion piece was, for the most part, reasonable, but I do question some of Beale's political judgments. At one point he writes of Rice:
And then there are the more obvious disadvantages. There has never been a single black woman president in the history of the United States.
It's not at all obvious to me that this is a disadvantage. Indeed, it seems to me to be a rather signifcant factor in her favor. Particularly the fact that she is black. The Democrats hold a virtual monopoly on black votes, which is one of the only things that keeps them competitive. In 2004 Bush managed to get just 11% of all the votes cast by black people, yet still he was able to win the election.

It seems to me that, of all people, Condi Rice stands the greatest chance of actually breaking this monopoly which, if done, would virtually ensure the defeat of whatever candidate the Democrats put up.

That said, Beale is probably correct in betting against Condi running.

TAE scoops BBC

2006-01-27T10:14:00.000Z

The BBC finally gets around to reporting on the campaign to use the Supreme Court's novel interpretation of the eminent domain clause in the constitution to seize the New Hampshire home of Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

TAE readers, of course, learned of this effort some 7 months ago. Good to see the Beeb on the ball.

UPDATE: BBC link added. Sorry.

Justin Webb apologizes for offending viewers

2006-01-25T20:41:00.000Z

Unfortunately, he's apologizing to the wrong viewers.

Readers may recall that earlier in the month, in an unprecedented post, TAE praised Justin Webb for his outburst of common sense on one of the BBC's end-of-year roundtable correspondent discussions. Apparently unaccustomed to such fits of clear thinking cutting through the typical Auntie-American schtick, several viewers wrote in to complain about Webb's lack of "impartiality", prompting him to make an appearance on the BBC's Feedback program last Friday with Roger Bolton, to apologize and explain. (The interview is about 4 minutes in.)

Roger Bolton: I spoke to our correspondent this week, and asked if he had gone native

Justin Webb: No, I haven’t, and what I would say to those who complained about me is that I genuinely do apologize to them. It’s not my business to upset and annoy people and its not my business to be seen to be partial or indeed to be partial. And, to the extent that I was in this broadcast, then I think I do owe them an apology.

RB: You agree you were a little partial. You expressed yourself perhaps a little too warmly?

JW: Possibly a little too warmly. But what I was trying to do – and I would say this in mitigation – is puncture an atmosphere which developed,I thought, during this broadcast and which I think does occasionally develop on the BBC, and on other broadcasting outlets, where there is a kind of cosy feeling that somehow if only America would behave differently, then everything in the world would be fine. I think that is a view which does annoy and upset Americans, as I said it did. And it's not just the White House - it is a broader thing than that - and also a view which is, to put it mildly, open to challenge, and that's what I hoped to do, so to the extent that I upset people, I do apologize for that and I would ask them to listen to the range of work that I do, because America is such an important place I am on the radio pretty much every day, and I don’t think they could generally accuse me of being someone who is pro-American. In fact, most of the work that I do, frankly, is sceptical, certainly about the Bush administration and, to a wider extent, about American policies and motives. But I do think occasionally, and I would reserve this, in the context of a discussion that is an open, free discussion, not a news program, I do think it is important that we keep an eye on this tendency that I think we do sometimes have just to throw up our hands and take the easy road, which is to suggest that everything would be fine if only the Americans behaved better.

RB: You think there’s a double standard operating, effectively?

JW: I don't think there's a double-standard at a conscious level. I don't think the BBC has a double standard. I've never been told what to say one way or the other.

RB: But you're saying there's a greater readiness to criticize America than there is to criticize China, or perhaps Saudi Arabia or countries in the Middle East?

JW: And the reason is, I think, that it's easier, that we have a problem reporting open societies, particularly in a time of great international turmoil and war. It's just easier to criticize, it's easier to get access to information, it's easier to find people within the society who are intensely critical of it. Yet when you think of China, when you think of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who are still operating on the fringes of society in Afghanistan,when you think of the situation in Iran it's just more difficult to get a handle on what's going on in those places. And I think there is a tendency, which we always have to guard against, of being tougher on democratic societies simply because it's easier.

Frankly, the only thing surprising about JW's lack of impartiality in the offending piece was that it resulted in him defending America rather than joining in the attacks on it. And TAE for one would be more than happy to testify to the fact that JW's regular work on the BBC belies any accusation that he might be pro-American. It is notable that, after spending most of his on-air time annoying and upsetting Americans with his self-admitted portrayal of them as unsophisticated ignoramuses, he now finds it necessary to grovel for forgiveness over having annoyed and upset others by making the surprisingly controversial suggestion that the US is a better place than Saddam's Iraq.

We can, I suppose, take some small comfort in the fact that, despite his sincere apologies, JW does make some effort to stick to his guns. He does, afterall, continue to make the point that the BBC's coverage of America is not, perhaps, what it ought to be. But, while it may be true that the double standard Webb all but admits is practiced at the BBC with regard to America is indeed an unconscious one, a person would have to be literally unconscious not to notice it after the fact.

However, let us not be too ungracious to Mr Webb. Afterall, even if he feels the need to soften with an apology his pinpricks against the bubble within which the BBC fosters anti-American sentiment, he is, at least, saying a few sensible things that need to be said.

(hat tip: Clive Davis via Neverdock)

Question and "answer"

2006-01-24T20:59:00.000Z

TAE's question to the BBC, sent on Jan 21.

A study of the BBC website's coverage of the death penalty in both the US and China shows remarkably skewed coverage. In 2005, the BBC did at least 28 articles focusing exclusively on some aspect of the death penalty in the US: 21 articles about specific individuals who faced execution, and 7 articles more generally about the death penalty (of the 'waning support for death penalty' variety). All this coverage on a nation that executed 60 people in 2005. Contrast this with China, a nation that according to Amnesty International executed 'at least 3,400' people in 2005. From my search of the BBC website, I could uncover only 2 articles focusing exclusively on the death penalty in China: 2 articles of a general nature, and zero articles about any specific individual who faced execution. What explanation does the BBC have for this undeniable imbalance in its coverage?

The BBC's response, received Jan 24:

Thank you for your e-mail with regards to the BBC News output.

I note your objections to the BBC reporting on significantly more to aspects of the death penalty in the US rather than China where more executions take place. In dealing with any controversial matter the BBC is required to give a fair and balanced report. Bias cannot simply be judged principally on the quantity allocated to each separate case, and BBC journalists are expected to put their own political views aside when conducting work for the BBC in order to produce an even handed report which should enable the public to come to their own conclusions. Perfect balance is difficult to achieve on every single occasion but overall it is a more achievable goal.
Nevertheless, please be assured I have registered your comments regarding this issue and have made them available to the BBC News department and the senior BBC management. Feedback of this nature helps us when making decisions about future BBC services and your comment will play a part in this process.
I would however also like to make you aware of a television programme being produced by BBC News that gives viewers the chance to air their concerns directly with those responsible for our news output. You can e-mail 'NewsWatch' at the address below if you would like your views to be considered for this programme:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/feedback/default.stm
Thank you again for taking the time to contact the BBC.
Regards
Adam Sims
BBC Information

Well then, if the BBC "requires" fair and balanced reporting and "expects" its correspondents to put their personal views aside, it couldn't possibly be true that their coverage of the US and Chinese use of the death penalty was skewed. Forget everything I've said.

ONS agrees with TAE: It's a tax!

2006-01-21T16:19:00.000Z

In a rare occurrence, the corrupt use of language - not to mention the PR of the BBC - has officially been dealt a small blow. From the Office of National Statistics: The television licence fee has been reclassified as a tax, because the licence fee is a compulsory payment which is not paid solely for access to BBC services. Previously, the licence fee had been classified as a service charge. This reclassification means that the BBC will move from the public non-financial corporations sub-sector to the central government sector, effectively moving from one part of the public sector to another.
Finally, official recognition that the BBC is not in fact providing a "service" in return for the payment that is coerced out of TV owners. Now perhaps we can move on to the next logical question: If the BBC is not providing me with a service, why should I have to pay for it?

Dorfman, the MLA, and Orwell

2006-01-20T19:55:00.000Z

So get this.

Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean writer and intellectual, is invited by the Modern Language Association of America to give a speech on "the role of the intellectual in the 21st century" to a gathering of US professors of language and literature. Provocatively, Dorfman decides to poke a little bit of fun at the self importance and dire seriousness of the intellectuals to whom he is speaking, so rather than delivering the expected speech about the role of the intellectual, he instead relates an outrageous story about how he cannot give the speech he was meant to be delivering because it was confiscated at the airport by a secret division of Homeland Security which detained him at the airport as part of its role in targetting "dangerous" academics. He details an increasingly absurd conversation with the two agents, who "grill" him about possible Chilean sleeper cells in the US seeking revenge against the CIA for its role in the overthrow of Salvadore Allende in 1973. He even has one of the agents telling him that "you guys at the MLA take yourself way too seriously" and that the MLA should "Try some humor" if they want regular people to understand what they are talking about.

One would think (as Dorfman obviously did) that if the idea that the powers that be in the US are concerned about Chilean sleeper cells bent on revenge against the CIA was not enough to tip the audience off that the whole story was a parody, surely the notion that agents of Homeland Security have the slightest idea of what the Modern Language Association even is, much less that they would take enough interest in it to have an opinion about how to sell itself better, would be. But, as Dorfman discovered, the self-regard and paranoia of the modern intellectual class apparently knows no bounds. Following the talk, Dorfman was approached by several people seeking more information and expressing deep concern about the tale. They accepted it as entirely believable. Dorfman says that "Not one of my friends and associates at the convention or afterward dismissed my tall tale as patently absurd."

Now, the obvious conclusion to draw from this is that Dorfman's original thesis was entirely correct, and that these intellectuals deserve mockery. They take themselves far too seriously, and are far too self-important, which in turn feeds their own unbridled fantasies (Dorfman's words, by the way). Only a member of the MLA could possibly be so foolish as to think Homeland Security gives a fig about what members of the MLA think and say. And the irony of a person giving an open and unoppressed speech detailing the oppressions of the police state in which they are giving it seems entirely lost on these humorless linguistic giants.

But is this the lesson Dorfman takes from this experience? Of course not. Seemingly intent on solidifying his standing as a member of the same intellectual class that he has just shown to be gullible fools, Dorfman concludes precisely the opposite.
When I lamented the naivete of my sophisticated audience, the response was unanimous: I was the naive one.
Maybe they were right. My fraudulent yarn was apparently terrifyingly plausible in a country where citizens can be held indefinitely without charges, where wire-tapping without warrants is rampant, where the vice president defends the use of torture, and where the president invades another country under false pretences.
The sad truth about my story is that it comes straight out of the trepidation and terror caused by 9/11. Before that date, I would not have thought of concocting it, because most Americans would not have understood what I was talking about. The sadder truth is that I can imagine an epilogue to my story. The US is hit by an even more devastating terrorist attack. That day, can I confidently say there will not be a knock at my door and that two men, one tall and gangly, the other short and beefy, will not ask me if I recall spreading lies about their efforts to fight the war on terrorism? And that they will not demand that I accompany them, just for a few hours, for some routine questioning?
Thus does Mr. Dorfman join his fellows at the Modern Language Association in establishing the enduring wisdom of Orwell's axiom that some ideas are so absurd only an intellectual could believe them.

An extraordinary interest in US executions

2006-01-19T20:18:00.000Z

A couple of days ago, after reading the BBC's article about the execution of Clarence Ray Allen, the convicted murderer from California who spent 25 years on death row, it occurred to TAE to wonder just why the BBC finds the use of the death penalty in the US to be so particularly worthy of its attention. And there can be little doubt about the special interest the BBC takes in US executions. Consider the BBC's coverage for the year 2005:

January

An article on the execution of Donald Beardslee in California
An article about a last minute temporary stay of execution for Michael Ross in Connecticut

February

Another article about another last minute stay for Michael Ross

March

An article about the Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles iunconstitutionalal
Kevin Anderson reports that legal rulings in the US are "whittling away" at the death penalty

April

An article claiming that prisoners in the US executed by lethal injection may be "aware" as the poison kills them.

May

Matthew Wells documents (yet again) the impending execution of Michael Ross.
Michael Ross is finally executed.
Matthew Davis claims that support for the death penalty in the US is "on the wane".

June No articles

July

Jury to decide whether Daryl Atkins is mentally fit enough to be executed in Virginia.
Matthew Davis weighs in on Daryl Atkins case.
Chris Summers begins BBC's publicity campaign on behalf of death row inmate Tookie Williams.

August

Daryl Atkins is ruled to be fit enough to be executed.

September No articles

October No articles

November

US reports a decline in executions in 2004.
Clemency grant spares Robin Lovitt from becoming "landmark" 1000th prisoner to be executed.
Snoop Dogg campaigns on behalf of death row inmate Tookie Williams in California.
Prosecutors urge no death sentence clemency for Tookie Williams in California.
Stars line up for Tookie Williams.

December

Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina becomes 1,000th prisoner to be executed in US since 1976.
James Westhead reports on "grim milestone" of 1,000th execution, and "waning support".
Bush reaffirms his support for death penalty in wake of "milestone", despite "waning support".
Alistair Whitehead reports on Tookie Williams as he awaits nearing execution date.
Matthew Davis takes up Tookie Williams' hope to avoid execution.
Alex Kirby weighs in on Tookie Williams' pending execution.
Chris Summers reminisces about his interview with Tookie Williams on death row.
California court rejects stay for Tookie Williams.
Schwarzenegger denies clemency request for Tookie Williams.
Tookie Williams is executed in California.

So, to sum up, for the year 2005 the BBC covered the executions of 5 specific individuals (and clemency grant of 1) with 21 articles, and touched on the death penalty in the US more generally in an additional 7 pieces. This, in a year in which 60 convicted criminals were executed throughout all of the US. Even if we ignore the BBC's Tookie Williams campaign and count all of its 11 articles on him as one, the BBC still averagied more than an article a month about the US death penalty.

The BBC also repeatedly reminded its readers that the US ranked 4th behind leader China in total number of executions for the year 2004, a fact which presents us with an interesting comparison.

A definitive figure on the number of executions in China for the year 2005 could not be found, but Amnesty International estimates that the figure was "at least 3,400". How many articles do you suppose can be found on the BBC website specifically about executions in China? TAE did a google search on the BBC's site for "china execution [month] 2005". The relevant results were:

January - none
February - none
March - none
April - none
May - none
June - none
July - none
August - none
September

UN envoy cautions China on human rights (with a specific mention of executions).
China top court gets power to review death sentences.

October - none
November - none
December - none

So, 3,400 executions in China merits only 2 stories on the death penalty in general, and zero stories on any specific execution, while 60 executions in the US merits 7 stories in general and 21 stories about specific executions. Or, put another way, executions in the US, which total only 1.76% the number of executions in China, get 1,400% of the amount of coverage given to executions in China. And the 1,000th execution in the US since 1976 is, for the BBC, a "landmark" and "milestone" requiring 3 stories, while the 1,000th (and 2,000th, and 3,000th) execution in China since January 1 last year passes by entirely unremarked upon.

Just what is it about US executions that so attracts the attention of the BBC?

Don't miss State of Fear

2006-01-17T21:38:00.000Z

I just finished reading Michael Crichton's State of Fear, and duly recommend it to anyone and everyone. It was not only a great thriller but also a powerful manifesto debunking one of the great phantoms of our our era - catastrophic man-made global warming. It reminded me at times of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged with its sharp, point-making dialogue. Imagine the force of Fransisco D'Anconia's money speech, only aimed instead at the "science" of global warming and backed by charts and footnotes. It's a powerful book.

And the fate of Ted Bradley, Crichton's symbol for hypocrisy-laden Hollywood do-gooders, is just too perfect to be missed.

BTW, after having finally read the book, I've decided that, as harsh as I was on the BBC's Harold Evans over his column about Crichton and the book, I wasn't harsh enough.

The BBC keeping the Che myth alive

2006-01-16T21:09:00.000Z

What is it with the BBC's fascination with Che Guevara's friends? Since May, the BBC has done three profiles on three different people each of whose sole claim to anything remotely resembling a point of interest is a past connection to the "revolutionary".

In May, BBC 2 did a documentary giving voice to a fawning look at Guevara through the eyes of, Alberto Granado, Guevara's companion on his early escapades in South America on a motorcycle.

Then in December, Mark Doyle did a piece on Freddy Ilanga, a former Congolese rebel and now surgeon who was Guevara's interpreter during his failed attempt to foment revolt in the DR Congo. Needless to say, Ilanga also admired the "hard-working" Guevara, perhaps even as much as Doyle, who had discovered Ilanga while "following in the footsteps" of Guevara.

Now, today, Deborah Bonello offers up one more feature on yet another FOC, Carlos Ferrer, who has decided to cash in on his association with a book about his time with Guevara. Like the others, Ferrer greatly admires Guevara, while Bonello upgrades him from a mere "revolutionary" to a "now legendary revlutionary".

By the way, none of these tributes to Guevara manage to mention his slightly less romantic role as Castro's chief executioner of political dissenters from the Cuban "revolution". Perhaps some day the BBC might get around to doing stories about Guevara's many victims rather than his acolytes. But, given that the BBC itself seems to be one, don't hold your breath.

From the "Who gives a toss" department

2006-01-16T20:36:00.000Z

Frontpage headline and article on the BBC's website:

Simpson becomes father at 61

Just how self-absorbed can the BBC get?

Dr. Ansari responds

2006-01-16T20:04:00.000Z

Following my bewilderment over Dr. Ali Ansari’s reference to the apparently essential help provided by Iran to the coalition in liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban, TAE wrote to Dr. Ansari to enquire about just what he meant. Dr. Ansari, who is employed at the University of St. Andrews in addition to being affiliated with Chatham House, was gracious enough to respond, and we exchanged a couple of e-mails. He explained that:
Iran provided the Northern Alliance, as well as logistical support. It is suspected though not confirmed that airspace was used for flights, and publicly Iran offered to assist any Coalition pilots that may be shot down. It is generally acknowledged that Afghanistan would not have been so swift or indeed easy had the Iranians not been on board both during and after - in the Bonn Talks. There was a palpable sense of detente at the time, to be deflected in good time by the discovery of the Karine A, which was used as a justification by the Bush administration to include Iran in the axis of evil, although if Pollack is to be believed, Iran's inclusion was something of an afterthought! Bizarre if that's true because the consequences in Iran were devastating.
He also pointed out:
Opportunities were missed on both sides of course. I wouldn't want the impression to be given that Iran was reasonable while the US was unreasonable. My contention is (as will be discussed in my forthcoming book), that both sides have been unreasonable at the most unfortunate times!
When asked where one might find references to public offers of Iranian assistance to any downed coalition pilots (TAE did several google searches, but was unable to find anything) Dr. Ansari said that he had such references, but couldn’t dig them out at the moment.

TAE also pointed out several quotations of Iranian officials from the fall of 2001 condemning the US operation in Afghanistan, and asked Dr. Ansari how such rhetoric might be explained if Iran was in fact providing essential assistance to the very same operation. He said: This is just normal public/private diplomacy at work Iranian style (though I should say not exclusive to Iran!). The Islamic Republic could not appear to condone an attack on another Muslim country, but privately, as they were with Saddam, there was barely disguised glee. Iran had almost gone to war with the Taleban in 1998, mobilising some 200,000 troops after the Taleban had massacred Shia's in Mazar e Sharif including 9 Iranian diplomats. There is no love lost between the hard line Sunnis and the Shia. Moreover, Iran had been fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan since the Soviet withdrawal and the US action (as in Iraq) would open the way up for Iranian gains, as they have been doing methodically since. The great paradox of US-Iran relations is that the animosity disguises a massive coincidence of interests!
It is worth pointing out here that Dr. Ansari’s original point in the BBC interview was that the west (ie the US) had essentially snubbed Iran with the “axis of evil” label after it had provided crucial assistance during the Afghanistan campaign, and that this resulted in a squandered “opportunity” to engage Iran diplomatically over its nuclear ambitions.
…people have long memories in Iran and they say, “Well, we offered them opportunities and they didn’t take them.”
It is difficult for me to understand exactly how Iranian pursuit of a long-held strategic ambition – the demise of the Taliban – by privately cheering on the US as it did the heavy lifting, all the while publicly demonizing the US for domestic political reasons, represents some sort of “offer” of goodwill at all, much less one upon which an attempt to thwart Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons might have been built.

Also of interest is Dr. Ansari’s mention of the Karine A incident. Recall that, in early January 2002 (after Afghanistan and before Bush’s “axis of evil” speech), a Palestinian ship bound for Gaza was intercepted by Israeli commandos, and it was subsequently revealed that the ship contained $15 million worth of illicit Iranian weapons. Dr. Ansari says that this incident, coming at a time characterized by “a palpable sense of détente” between Iran and the US, was “used as a justification by the Bush administration to include Iran in the axis of evil…”

Perhaps, but Dr. Ansari ignores the more fundamental question of whether shipping $15 million worth of weapons to terrorists in Palestine does indeed justify inclusion in the axis of evil, and, if so, just which party, Iran or the US, was actually responsible for the demise of this détente.

In any event, many thanks Dr. Ansari for taking the time to respond, and for clarifying his position for TAE.

Iran responsible for demise of the Taliban?!?

2006-01-15T11:46:00.000Z

On Friday night, BBC radio’s Five Live did a short segment on the on-going issue of Iranian nuclear development, during the course of which presenter Peter Allen interviewed a Dr. Ali Ansari, a research fellow at Chatham House. The interview begins at just about the 2 hour mark of Friday’s Drive show. After re-capping the current situation, Ansari made what to me is a very strange assertion. When asked what he thought the West should now be doing about Iran’s nuclear program, he spoke of engaging in a “very vigorous diplomatic effort”, and then said:
When there were opportunities to be taken we missed them. You know, let’s not forget that the war in Afghanistan probably would not have succeeded as it did without Iranian help, and of course the Iranians were rewarded with the “axis of evil”. So I mean these sort of things…people have long memories in Iran and they say, “Well, we offered them opportunities and they didn’t take them.”
I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise to find someone on the BBC portraying a perfectly reasonable Iran as having been snubbed by Bush. But does anyone out there have the slightest idea what kind of “help” Iran provided which ensured the success of the US action in Afghanistan following 9/11?

Surprise...BBC respects NYT

2006-01-13T21:09:00.000Z

The BBC's Matthew Davis, in his superficial recap of Judge Alito's confirmation hearings, says:
Yet an editorial in the respected New York Times newspaper said there had
been a number of "quiet bombshells" that should give cause for concern.
Well, there's a shocker. The New York Times, the most prominent voice of liberalism in the US outside of the Democratic National Committee, home to such reliably hard lefty loons as Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, and Frank Rich, is "concerned" about a conservative getting on the Supreme Court. This qualifies as news, how exactly? If the NYT had actually said that, despite its political disagreements with Alito, it had to acknowledge his manifest fitness to serve on the high court....now that would have been worth noting.

But of course Davis (or his editors, if there be any) can't even put the NYT in its proper context by identifying it as a highly partisan voice of liberalism. No, to Davis it is simply the "respected" NYT. I guess if he respects its opinions, that settles the matter. Is there any need to wonder why he chose to mention the NYT instead of the Wall Street Journal, which editorialized that: [The Democrats] can't touch him on credentials or his mastery of jurisprudence, so they're trying to get him on guilt by ancient association...[I]f this irrelevant arcana is the most his opponents have, he can start measuring his new judicial robes.
I suppose the WSJ is just not a respectable enough voice for the BBC.

Heh heh

2006-01-13T20:57:00.000Z

Israel tells Robertson where to go.

The two Bremers

2006-01-10T21:33:00.000Z

Paul Bremer, the man who led the US civilian authority in Iraq following the toppling of Saddam, has written a new book about his experience in Iraq and, naturally, is doing the interview rounds to drum up publicity for the book.

On Sunday, Paul Harris of The Observer/Guardian covered one of those interviews, with NBC, while today National Review Online had its own interview with Bremer. It is interesting to contrast the two, especially the impression one gets of the tone of Bremers thoughts about Iraq.

For instance, Harris says that Bremer claims that “ultimately the White House bore responsibility for decisions that had led to the current violence.” In the NRO interview, when asked if the current insurgency was the fault of the US, Bremer says simply “No, the insurgency is the fault of the insurgents and the terrorism is the fault of the terrorists."

Harris says that in the NBC interview Bremer “recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly”, a “decision” which, Harris says, has come under much criticism. But in the NRO interview, Bremer says that no such decision was ever made, calling it a “myth”.
The facts are these: There was not a single Iraqi army unit intact in the country at Liberation. There was no army to “disband.” It had “self-demobilized,” in the Pentagon’s phrase. Hundreds of thousand of Shia draftees, seeing which way the war was going, had simply gone home. They were not going to come back into a hated army.
With regard to the NBC interview, Harris says that “Bremer’s comments will upset [the] optimistic picture [of Iraq being presented by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw].” However, in the NRO interview, Bremer says:
I stay in touch by phone, e-mail, letter, and message with many Iraqis. I think what would surprise most Americans is how optimistic most Iraqis are about their future despite the daily terrorist attacks. You could say, “Well that’s because they’ve been down so long there’s nowhere to go but up.” But they are going up and one of the least-reported aspects of Iraq is the enormous economic advances they’ve made. According to the IMF, per-capita income has doubled in the past two years.
Harris goes on to claim that Bremer “join(s) a lengthening list of Iraqi hawks turned critics of policy in the country.” Yet in the NRO interview, Bremer says that he remains “a strong supporter of the president, both in the war on terrorism and in the Liberation of Iraq.”

Not having seen the NBC interview, it is difficult to know just what accounts for the discrepancies. Perhaps Bremer is telling different stories to different audiences. Perhaps it was the nature of the questions he was asked. Or maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with Paul Harris spinning Bremer's comments to appear as negative about the liberation of Iraq as he possibly can.

You make the call.

The neverending story

2006-01-09T22:34:00.000Z

You may recall that back on December 1 TAE pointed out some deficiencies in a Newsnight piece about the Joe Wilson/Niger affair. On the same day, I sent an official complaint to Newsnight pointing out directly to them the same problems. Today, January 9 - that's 39 days later, for those counting - I finally got a response.
Thank you for your e-mail regarding the 'Newsnight' website. May I start by apologising for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents expect a swift response and I am sorry that you have had to wait so long on this occasion.
The report you refer to was drawn from a number of sources across BBC News Online and was an attempt to accurately summarise the key issues for viewers. I appreciate you feel this has not been achieved; however, there is not a great deal I can add to the response you received to a similar complaint about News Online recently from Laurence Peter.
Having said that, 'Newsnight' have now decided to take down the story.
Thank you again for contacting the BBC.
Yours sincerely
Stewart McCullough
Divisional Advisor
BBC Information

It is something, I suppose, that they have removed the article, although that could be simply due a judgment that the story is stale rather than wrong. But it is instructive that Newsnight drew the story from a number of sources across BBC Online. As TAE has already pointed out, those sources were more often than not wrong themselves. A fine example of how errors get perpetuated through either laziness (why bother checking the source documents when I have a nice, convenient storyline already?) or arrogance (if the BBC has already said it, it must be true.) My guess is that it is arrogance. In my comment to Newsnight, I included references and links to source documents (Wilson's original NYT op-ed, the Senate Intelligence Committee report) which proved that the Newsnight timeline was incorrect, but Mr. McCullough makes no mention of those whatsoever.

BTW, the reference to the response from Laurence Peter is to a response TAE received to an earlier complaint that, in another on-line article, the BBC had erred in asserting what Wilson had "reported" upon his return from Niger. Mr. Peter defended the article by quoting from the Senate Intelligence Committee:
The Senate report you link to contains this passage: "the former ambassador described his findings to Committee staff as more directly related to Iraq and, specifically, as refuting both the possibility that Niger could have sold uranium to Iraq and that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium."
When I pointed out to him that the sentence immediately following the one he quoted made it plain that the CIA report based on Wilson's debriefing following his trip contradicted Wilson's testimony and "did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium," Mr. Peter had no response.

That Mr McCullough has little to add to Mr. Peter's non-response is, somehow, not that surprising.

In praise of Justin Webb (Yes, that Justin Webb)

2006-01-06T22:24:00.000Z

Normblog has a transcription of a remarkable exchange between the BBC's Justin Webb and Stephen Sakur from Radio 4's Correspondents Look Ahead program. What makes it so remarkable is the fact that Justin Webb rises to the defense of America in the face of a typically ludicrous (Webb's word) charge against it.

Sackur: One fascinating insight into human rights attitudes round the world I had in recent weeks was chatting to Mary Robinson who till very recently was the UN chief running the Human Rights Commission. She said the problem is that, because of what has happened, post-Iraq in particular, with Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, a whole host of other things she listed, it is impossible now for countries like America which basically are democracies, which many people around the world have always looked up to - the problem is now they cannot take the moral high ground and lecture other countries on how they should impose human rights values. It doesn't work any more...

Webb: That's absolutely ludicrous, though, isn't it? I mean the view in America of that kind of comment is just to throw your hands up and say 'For goodness sake...' Look at the facts on the ground, look at the way that Iraq was run before the invasion, look at Iran now, and then look, for instance, at America. I mean, can you seriously say that there is some kind of moral equivalence between the way they treat their own people and the way Americans treat theirs, the way they behave on the world stage...?

Sackur: Justin, hang on, it's all about perception...

Webb: Ah, that's a different matter... Someone in the position that Mary Robinson is in, where it shouldn't be just about perception, it should be about a knowledge of the facts on the ground - that kind of thing is what so annoys people in this country, and not just Republicans, Americans of all political stripes, who just say to the rest of the world, 'For goodness sake: look at us without your soft anti-Americanism, or your dislike of McDonalds or whatever else, or your dislike of big people, powerful people, successful people... just look at the facts on the ground.' America is a very very free country...

I haven't yet listened to the exchange myself (Norm says it is 28 minutes into the show, but I couldn't find it there), but if this is correct, color me astonished. This is not the Webb we have come to know. What next? Are we to find out in a couple of months that the condescendingly secular Webb is in fact a closet Born Again Christian?

Well, regardless, given the harsh words TAE has reserved for Webb in the past, it is only fair to give credit where it is due. Kudos to Justin for making a salient point and making it well in defense of the US.

More Robertson lunacy

2006-01-06T14:39:00.000Z

It seems increasingly apparent that Pat Robertson is engaged in a vast experiment to see just how nutty a person’s public utterances must become before the media takes pity and starts ignoring him. According to ABC, yesterday Robertson attributed Ariel Sharon’s stroke to the wrath of God.
Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land."
You may recall that back in August, Robertson caused a stir when he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. The BBC played that episode to the hilt, pumping out no less than 6 full on-line articles about it, but it has yet to mention anything on Robertson’s latest spasm of lunacy.

It would be comforting to think that its silence is due to a belated realization that Robertson is a buffoon whose public proclamations need not concern serious people. But TAE can’t quite shrug off the nagging suspicion that it has more to do with the BBC’s posture towards the objects of Robertson’s bile than with Robertson himself.

Update: TAE's nagging suspicion is wholly unjustified. Justin Webb reports on the issue, telling us that "Mr Robertson is too big a figure in American politics to be ignored." One wonders why, then, apart from his occassional tourette-like outbursts of inanity, Robertson is, well, pretty much ignored, even by the BBC.

It's official

2006-01-06T07:40:00.000Z

Just in case there were any doubters left, it has now been confirmed. George Galloway is officially a bad joke.

UK more free than US

2006-01-05T19:08:00.000Z

The UK makes its way into the top 5 on The Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom. It is a sign of just how overregulated the US has become that it is now being outpaced on the economic freedom front by a country that forces people to pay for socialized medicine, charges tax/duty rates in excess of 250% on essential goods, and runs a government-owned and coercively financed media operation.

FYI

2006-01-05T10:06:00.000Z

For those interested, please be directed to Paul Reynolds' response in the comments section of this post.

More of the same

2006-01-04T22:48:00.000Z

The BBC has apparently decided that we're not getting quite enough of Matt Frei through his regular reports, and so has granted him his own on-line space for a fortnightly "diary".

Today's entry treats us to what could be the worst use of simile ever used by a major media outlet ("...discarded Christmas trees litter the pavements like ejected relatives, plucked bare of baubles, shedding needles and waiting for the District of Columbia Refuse Collection Department"); typical overdramatization ("the National Security Agency, a body so secret it has been nicknamed 'No Such Agency'" - indeed, so secret is the NSA it has its own public web page and extensive history on wikipedia); and, in yet more evidence that an agreeable UK media is being used to hype a presidential bid from an unknown, an admiring profile of Mark Warner ("not impossibly handsome; a self-made telecoms millionaire, who is rich but a lot poorer than John Kerry; running a southern state that voted overwhelmingly for George Bush, is fiercely patriotic and sends almost as many convicts to death row as Texas.")

Frei does deserve credit for his observation that:
I am always struck by how weak the American president is compared to, say, a British prime minister, who can do more or less as he and his party please if they have the right majority in parliament.
This is indeed something that will be lost on many in the UK, as most media coverage here tends to treat the president as though he is the fount from which springs forth all law and policy.

In any event, it seems that this new diary will give Frei the opportunity to offer up his own personal and editorial take on the goings-on in Washington. So how exactly it will differ from his normal reporting remains a bit of a mystery to TAE.

BBC "improves" on a WaPo article

2006-01-04T18:43:00.000Z

Today the BBC's Paul Reynolds uses the Jack Abramoff indictment and guilty plea as an opening to delve into the world of Washington lobbyists with a fairly interesting article. At the end of the piece, he talks of the recent growth in Washington lobbying, citing a Washington Post "survey" which touched on the rather impressive salaries being commanded by lobbyists these days. Reynolds then says:
The growth was attributed in the survey to a combination of an expansion of government, the control of the White House and Congress by Republicans keen to develop this part of the governmental process, and the increasing realisation by companies they needed help in securing benefits and preventing damage to their interests.
When asked about where one might find this survey, Reynolds directed TAE to a Washington Post article from June. Oddly, the Post story makes no mention of any survey whatsoever, although it does indeed substantiate the figures that Reynolds cites. More significantly, though, was this particular paragraph from the Post article.
The lobbying boom has been caused by three factors, experts say: rapid growth in government, Republican control of both the White House and Congress, and wide acceptance among corporations that they need to hire professional lobbyists to secure their share of federal benefits.
Note the difference between this and Reynolds' re-write (apart from the fact that the opinion of "experts" has been transformed into the findings of a "survey"). In Reynolds' retelling of it, a partial cause of the growth is no longer simply the fact of Republican control of both the White House and Congress, but is instead the attitude of Republicans who control the government, namely that they are "keen to develop" the lobbying process.

Where this notion came from is unclear, and Reynolds has yet to respond to TAE's request for an explanation, but TAE will certainly post any response Reynolds may provide.

UPDATE: Just as I posted, my inbox flashed with a response from Mr. Reynolds.
I chose the most neutral form of words I could in order to explain in one paragraph what the article takes several to go into.
Given that at no point does the WaPo article claim anything like that Republicans are "keen to develop" the lobbying process, and that the WaPo article actually managed to convey the reasons for the growth in lobbying with 9 fewer words than did Reynolds, this strikes me as an extremely odd explanation.

Reynolds also said that since figures and graphs were included in the WaPo article, it was "obvious" that a survey was involved. Perhaps, but what seems less obvious to TAE is why the opinions explicity attributed to "experts" by the WaPo would then be attributed by the BBC to a "survey".

The BBC "covers" the NSA dust-up

2005-12-31T15:50:00.000Z

The recent (and on-going) brouhaha in Washington over the NSA’s monitoring of certain communications into and out of the US has provided us with a textbook example of the way in which the BBC’s coverage is skewed and entices its audience to adopt a negative view of President Bush and his actions through the selective reporting of facts.

From TAE’s count, the NSA wiretap issue has been addressed or mentioned in nine different BBC online articles since the story broke on December 16. In seven of those nine articles, the BBC gives voice, often extensively, to the view that Bush’s authorization of the NSA monitoring program is at least questionable, if not plainly illegal. However, in only one article is anyone besides Bush himself or someone from his administration presented as defending the authorization as legal and within his constitutional powers. And that mention, frankly, was a tepid, passing reference.

In the BBC’s first article, reporting on the original New York Times allegations, the BBC notes that: ...some NSA officials familiar with the operation have questioned whether the surveillance of calls and e-mails has crossed constitutional limits on legal searches, according to the Times.
And it further added that: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said eavesdropping in the US without a court order and without complying with the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was "both illegal and unconstitutional".

"The administration is claiming extraordinary presidential powers at the expense of civil liberties and is putting the president above the law," director Caroline Fredrickson said.

The group called on Congress to investigate the report.
Although Secretary of State Rice was quoted as (naturally) denying that anything illegal had taken place, no mention was made of any person outside the administration itself who thought the authorization might actually be legal and constitutional.

In its next article, later that same day, the BBC again mentioned the ACLU’s view and quoted its spokesman, while adding a raft of new voices. It quoted Senator Arlen Specter as saying that "There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," and mentioned that Senator John McCain has asked for “an explanation.” It quoted Senator Ted Kennedy as saying that this represented “Big Brother run amok” and Senator Russ Feingold calling it a “shocking revelation” that “ought to send a chill down the spine of every senator and every American.” The BBC also mentioned an anonymous “former senior official” who claimed that the authorization represented a “sea change” in NSA policy.

Again, however, not a single person apart from the president himself was given a voice to defend the legality and constitutionality of the authorizations.

The next day, on December 17, the BBC wrote again on the issue. It rehashed the McCain, Specter, Kennedy, and Fiengold quotes, in addition to mentioning, for the third time, the ACLU and its spokesman. It also put the revelations into the context of the debate over extending the Patriot Act by (falsely) claiming that the Senate had “rejected” extensions. (In fact the Senate had not voted on the extensions because a minority of Senators had filibustered it.) This allowed the BBC to add the opinions of its own correspondent, Justin Webb, who claimed that this “rejection” was “a sign of intense concern about infringements of civil liberties in the name of security,” and went on to add that “The White House is having a tough time convincing even its Republican supporters that the things it does in the name of the war on terrorism are always justified.”

Once more, with the exception of the president himself, the BBC failed to mention a single person or fact suggesting that perhaps the president’s authorization was indeed legal and constitutional.

On December 18, the McCain/Specter/Kennedy/Feingold quotes were, for the third time, marched out by the BBC for the edification of its audience. But, yet again, any defense of the authorization was left strictly to the president himself, and no independent defenders of the action were mentioned.

On December 19, the BBC covered Bush’s press conference in which he defended his actions. This was dedicated exclusively to Bush’s own defense, and neither opposition nor support outside the administration was mentioned.

On December 20, BBC correspondent Matthew Davis weighed in with another piece on the issue. Once more, while Davis points out that “Members of Congress from both parties have suggested that the president has overstepped the powers granted to him,” and he yet again provides quotes from Russ Feingold implying that the authorizations were unconstitutional, Davis gives voice to no one other than the president himself in defense of the decision.

Then on December 21, BBC News Website World Affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds wrote a piece more generally about US presidential powers, pointing out (commendably, I think) that the current controversy is hardly unprecedented historically. With regard to the current imbroglio, the criticisms that Reynolds highlighted were certainly more tempered than those in previous BBC pieces, with Reynolds mentioning Senator Rockefellar’s refusal to “endorse” the activities, and rather than using Specter’s “inappropriate” characterization, he simply mentioned that Specter plans on holding hearings into the issue. Reynolds did, however, add new voices of dissent, pointing out that one FISA judge has resigned in protest (Reynolds mentions he is “regarded as a liberal”…a welcome characterization, although regarded by who?), and that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito “has said that he doubts if the oversight offered is adequate.”

To balance this off, Reynolds mentions that “Acting House Republican Majority leader Roy Blunt said he was "personally comfortable" with what he knew of the programme.” This single sentence represents the entirety of the BBC’s coverage of any non-administration official defense of the president’s actions. Even this rather miniscule mention sets Reynolds apart from his BBC colleagues.

This was the last the BBC had to say on the issue until yesterday (unless one counts Matt Frei’s passing mention of the issue in his outrageous opinion-masquerading-as-news article from December 22) when it reported on the fact that the Justice Department has opened up an investigation into the leak which led to the original NYT article which broke the story. While detailing the background to the investigation, the BBC yet again mentions that “senators from both the Republican and opposition Democrat parties have expressed concern about the "inappropriate" and "Big Brother" monitoring programme”, while leaving its audience yet again with the impression that the only people who defend the legality of the program are the very administration officials who enacted it.

Now, having pointed out this lopsided coverage, if that were in fact the case, then clearly the BBC’s method of coverage would be justified. If Roy Blunt is the only person outside the administration who feels “comfortable” that the president non-FISA approved authorizations are legal and constitutional, then so be it. But is that the case? The answer, manifestly, is no.

As National Review’s Byron York reported on December 20, back in 1994 the Clinton administration asserted essentially the same authority to conduct warrantless searches that President Bush has now asserted in order to justify his NSA authorizations. On July 14, 1994, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that “The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes.”

On December 21, John Schmidt, associate attorney general of the US under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997, argued in a Chicago Tribune op-ed titled President had legal authority to OK taps that, well, the president had legal and constitutional authority to OK the taps in question.

According to a December 21 Wall Street Journal piece by Ronald Kessler, President Carter’s attorney general Griffin Bell, under whom the original FISA law was drafted, told him that at the time of passage there was a “tacit agreement” between congress and the executive “that FISA was not intended to displace the president's authority” and that the new law would not prevent the president from “using his powers granted under the Constitution to carry out foreign policy and intelligence activities.”

On December 20, well known (in America, anyway) law professor Cass Sunstein defended the president’s authority to give NSA authorization on the University of Chicago’s faculty blog, and did so again on December 22 on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show.

On December 22, lawyer and blogger (of Powerline fame) John Hinderacker wrote an extensive analysis of the relevant case law and constitutional provisions (including a link to former federal prosecutor Andrew McArthy’s demonstration of just how common and legal warrantless searches actually are), concluding that “there is simply no question about the fact that under the Constitution and all controlling precedents, the NSA intercept program is legal.”

This is not an exhaustive list, and the point here is not to question why the BBC has failed to mention these specific examples. Some of them, having come after certain of the BBC articles had already been written and posted, simply couldn’t have been included as examples of support for the president’s actions. The point, instead, is simply that there were and are examples to be found of prominent people who will defend the legality/constitutionality of the actions, and plenty of arguments that suggest they were legal, but that the BBC simply does not seem to have expended any effort whatsoever in trying to find them. Seemingly unconcerned with whether or not the president’s actions were in fact illegal and unconstitutional, the BBC contented itself with concentrating its attention almost exclusively on the hyperbolic soundbites of critics (“Big Brother run amok”), thereby leaving its audience with the clear impression that there is virtually no defenders of the president's position except the president himself. This is demonstrably untrue.

Note also the BBC’s efforts to make the outrage over the revelations appear non-partisan, repeatedly pointing to Republican critics of Bush and even including Justin Webb’s editorial comments to the effect that “The White House is having a tough time convincing even its Republican supporters” that its actions were justified. In that context, it is worth noting that three of the five examples cited above of those who, either implicitly or explicitly, support Bush's position – Bell, Schmidt, and Gorelick - come from members of Democratic administrations.

Clearly, the BBC’s coverage of this particular Washington kerfuffle has been inadequate and slanted, not surprisingly redounding to the detriment of President Bush. The only real question is why the information presented by the BBC was so skewed, selective and therefore misleading. Is it because BBC reporters themselves remain ignorant of all the facts, or simply because they want their audience to remain so?

The Guardian bugs its web readers

2005-12-30T12:03:00.000Z

London (Dec 30) - Today TAE has discovered that, just like the NSA, The Guardian tracks visitors to its website via the use of monitoring files known as “cookies”. Following a visit to The Guardian’s website today, TAE checked the computer folder in which temporary files and cookies are stored, only to find that The Guardian had installed one of these cookies onto TAE’s own computer.

Unlike the NSA, which has agreed to end its use of cookies, claiming that their use was accidental resulting only from an oversight following a recent software upgrade in which the use of cookies had been preprogrammed when the new software was shipped (a fact notably missing from The Guardian’s account), The Guardian has not given any indication that it will cease “bugging” visitors to its website.

According to The Guardian’s own article on the NSA’s use of cookies, a cookie is a packet of information kept by a website on your computer. The Guardian also admits that commercial websites, such as The Guardian itself, use cookies for “tracking” web users.

Although a tech expert consulted by TAE says that cookies can only be used to track activity within the domain which actually placed the cookie there, and cannot relay all web activity back to the cookie owner, The Guardian claims that cookies can be used to “keep track of the different websites you have visited.” Whether this was simply an error, or is perhaps based on secret knowledge of the way in which its own cookies operate, is not clear.

It is also unclear whether or not the cookies still used by The Guardian to monitor its readers’ activities are of the same type of cookies no longer used by the NSA. However, just like the NSA cookies, which were so-called persistent cookies that would not expire until the year 2035, The Guardian cookie found on TAE’s computer is also persistent, with an expiration date of 2015, well beyond the normal life of a computer. According to The Guardian, those previously used by the NSA were “invisible to the user and are hidden on a web page and installed on any machine that visits it.” This description also seems to fit the profile of the cookies used by The Guardian. When entering The Guardian’s website, there is no visible notification that cookies are being installed, and The Guardian admits to installing a cookie on the computer of every visitor to its website.

Although The Guardian does explain on its website its use of cookies, finding it requires the reader to navigate to the terms and conditions page, and then to click on an additional "cookies" link, which is hidden off to the side and placed in a much smaller font than the rest of the body of text. Some say this makes it very difficult to find unless one is specifically looking for it.

The uncovering of these ominous parallels between the secretive NSA and The Guardian come at a time of already increasing pressure on The Guardian over its deceptive behavior towards its readers. Just last week it came under fire over its dubious use of statistics on two separate occasions, and these new revelations are sure to raise additional questions, placing The Guardian into an even more defensive posture.

BBC priorities

2005-12-29T09:05:00.000Z

Last Wednesday, just before Christmas, Kofi Annan held an end-of-year news conference during which he took questions from assembled reporters. One of those reporters, James Bone of The Times, had the temerity to question Annan over his still unexplained role in aiding his son to import a Mercedes-Benz in Ghana without paying customs or taxes on it. Annan interrupted Bone in mid question and proceeded to berate him, calling him “very cheeky”, “an over-grown schoolboy”, and “an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession.” He then told Bone to “stop misbehaving” and demanded that they “move on to a serious journalist.” When Annan refused to allow Bone to ask his question, Bone walked out.

Now, one might think that such undiplomatic behavior from the UN’s top diplomat, especially one so renowned for his soft-spoken demeanor, would qualify as fairly big news. Certainly The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Washington Post all thought so.

Not so the BBC’s website. It’s brief mention of Annan’s address contains nary a word about what was surely the most, if not the only, interesting thing that happened at the news conference. Recall, by the way, that this is the same BBC which found President Bush’s thwarted attempt to leave a press conference so notable that it dedicated an entire article along with a video to the event.

I guess the BBC has its priorities.

Catching up

2005-12-28T18:08:00.000Z

This goes back a bit, but TAE reader Sean tipped me off to Rick Moody’s December 17 review in The Guardian of the film Brokeback Mountain. Based on a short story by Annie Proulx, the film apparently gives new meaning to the phrase “the wild west”, chronicling the travails of two young cowboys who share a summer of bliss together in the heretofore mentioned mountain, and then spend the rest of the movie trying to live more conventional lives in between their semi-annual trysts.

What grabs the attention of TAE, however, is not this 1800’s - yet ever-so-progressive - take on the Alan Alda/Ellen Burstyn classic, but is instead the almost effortless – and certainly mindless - way in which The Guardian manages to slip in a bit of anti-Americanism into even its film reviews. Says Moody:
And yet calling Lee's film a "gay cowboy movie", as I've heard it described, would not exactly be a way into the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of, arguably, the most homophobic nation on earth.
Arguably? One can only wonder exactly what "arguments" Moody might have in mind to support the notion that a place which makes, markets, and spends its hard earned money to see a movie about homosexual cowboys is more "homophobic" than those which go so far as to imprison and flog gays.

Interestingly, Moody himself almost immediately contrives to let his audience know that, despite his delight in the homosexual themes of the original short story, he himself is fully heterosexual. In the very first paragraph of the review, Moody says:
And yet I remember calling out to my wife, midway through this particular story, saying, "I'm reading this cowboy story that I thought I was going to hate. I thought the only way I was going to like it was if these cowboys had sex! And then they did!"
Gee, Rick, why the clumsy effort to make sure everyone knows you have a wife? Why didn't just relate what you were thinking about the story directly to your audience, rather than using your wife as a vehicle to do so? Surely it isn't that you are, um, afraid of being mistaken as gay, is it? Nah, of course not.

BBC correction

2005-12-23T18:02:00.000Z

A couple of days ago, in an article about the Dover/Intelligent Design/Evolution court case, the BBC wrote that: A majority of US states have seen some form of challenge to the pre-eminence
of Darwinian evolution theory in the curriculum of publicly-funded schools since
2001.
This struck me as fairly unbelievable, so I wrote to the BBC requesting the data to back up the claim. Today I received the following e-mail in response:
Dear Mr Callahan
Thank you for your e-mail.
You are right - this is a mistake that appears to have slipped through our checking process. What the article should have said - as it does now - is that some 20 states have seen challenges at local level.
Thank you again for your interest in our coverage.
Regards
BBC News Website

So, not only were the challenges in less than a majority of states, they were in fact local, not statewide, challenges. The difference is not insignificant. The original claim clearly instills, (and is almost certainly designed to instill) the impression that challenges to evolution are sprouting up all over the US. But to give you some perspective, there are 47 local school districts that begin just with the letter "B"... in New York State alone. Across the whole of the US there are literally thousands of local school districts. The fact that 20 states have seen challenges at the local level indicates nothing whatsoever about how common such challenges are, and in and of itself certainly does not merit the attention paid to the fact by the BBC.

I am willing to give the (anonymous) author of the BBC piece the benefit of the doubt, and accept that it was an honest mistake. But it is almost certainly a mistake that was born out of the same prejudiced view that so often finds its way into BBC pieces, and adds to the mounds of evidence which suggests the BBC is in dire need of some mindset and ideological diversity. It is instructive, I think, that these "slips" in the "checking process" inevitabely seem to err in the same direction. It is inconceivable that a similar BBC piece might err by claiming that the Dover case was the only of its kind in America, and hence portray it as an aberration. Even if a writer made the claim, it would almost certainly not get by a skeptical editor. Manifestly, the same cannot be said about inflated claims of American religiosity.

Crystal balls at the BBC

2005-12-23T12:00:00.000Z

Bush suffers Patriot Act defeat blares a headline today on the BBC’s website. Such a headline is akin to one declaring that Arsenal suffers Carling Cup upset even as the game is tied and enters extra time. (For the record, Arsenal went on to win on penalties.) Such is the quality of reporting at the BBC these days that it attempts to write the story even before it has been played out.

The facts are as follows:

The Patriot Act was due to expire at the end of December.

President Bush wants Congress to extend the act indefinitely.

The House of Representatives passed an indefinite extension of the act back in July, precisely in accord with the President’s wishes.

A majority of the Senate favors indefinite renewal. However, some senators object to certain aspects of the act as it now exists, and want to rewrite or remove some of its provisions. Because they are in the minority and the president will get what he wants if it actually comes up for a vote, these senators have engaged in a filibuster, thus preventing a vote on indefinite renewal.

Given that the act will expire by law at the end of the month, and because the objecting senators are not entirely unserious, recognizing that the Patriot Act is a valuable tool despite whatever objections they may have with certain specifics, they voted Wednesday to postpone the argument over its existing provisions for now by extending the law by 6 months, by which point the specific objections will have to be addressed.

Since the law as passed by the Senate (6 month extension) was not in accord with what the House passed (indefinite extension), the bill had to go back to the House for passage there. The House, objecting to the efforts of the Senate to postpone making a firm decision, but mindful that it would be irresponsible to allow the law to expire altogether at the end of the month, voted to allow only a one month extension, thus keeping the law in effect, but forcing the Senate to re-address the issue sometime next month. The law then went back to the Senate, which hastily agreed to the one month extension.

Now, does this represent a “defeat” for Bush? Hardly. Whether or not the act ultimately gets renewed indefinitely, and whether or not certain provisions of it are ultimately removed or rewritten, remains an open question. Essentially, to return to our sports metaphor, the game has gone into extra time with the outcome still undecided. Yet the BBC, in its relentless campaign to diminish Bush in the eyes of its audience, disingenuously portrays this as a “defeat” for Bush.

What is most risible is the BBC’s deceitful suggestion that the move by the House to shrink the extension to only a month “is a rebuff to President Bush, who wanted the legislation extended indefinitely.” Given that the House had already passed precisely what the president wanted, and was in fact sending the Senate, not the president, a message in refusing to agree to the 6 month extension, and given the fact that the House agreed to the one month extension only after White House intervention and persuasion to do precisely that and prevent the law from expiring altogether, it is difficult to characterize the BBC’s narrative as anything other than an out and out lie.

The Guardian's own creationism

2005-12-22T20:01:00.000Z

Today The Guardian's editorial board uses the occassion of Kitzmiller v Dover School District, in which the Dover school district board of directors' attempt to introduce Intelligent Design into its science curriculum was ruled unconstitutional, to continue its campaign to deceive its readers about American religiosity.

Claiming that "biblical literalism is on the march in America", it presents as evidence the fact that:
A recent survey found only 26% of Americans believe, with Darwin, that life on earth has evolved through natural selection.
Clearly the implication is that the rest believe in the "biblical literalism" previously mentioned. Unfortunately, The Guardian didn't think it was necessary to reveal just what survey it was talking about. However, given that a Pew Forum survey from August produced precisely that 26% number on precisely that topic, it is probably reasonable to assume that it is this survey which The Guardian is talking about. A closer look at the survey, however, reveals that The Guardian is not being entirely upfront with its readers.

In fact the survey showed that, far from a small minority, fully 48% of the people surveyed accept the notion of evolution, or put another way, an even larger population than the 42% which believe that living things have only ever existed in their current form. From whence, then, comes The Guardian's 26% figure? Well, it turns out that the survey broke down the population of evolution believers into two further categories: those who think that a supreme being guided the evolutionary process (18%) and those who accept only "natural selection" and no divine guidance (26%). (4% did not know).

This deceit by omission is bad enough. Far worse is The Guardian's repeated attempts to convince its audience that biblical religiosity in America is on the rise. At various points it claims that biblical literalism is "on the march" and is "growing" and it refers to a "tide" of Christian fundamentalism. At no point, of course, does The Guardian offer any evidence at all of this growing tide of biblical literalism. And it is no wonder.

Gallup has been doing the same poll and asking the same questions, regarding beliefs about evolution, since 1982. The results (page down a couple of times) are remarkably consistent year after year, with those who reject the notion of evolution ranging between 44% (1992, '97) and 47% (1999), and those accepting either theistic or natural evolution ranging between 46% (1993) and 51% (2004). Whatever one may think of American views of evolution, it is clear they have not substantially changed.

And indeed other statistics suggest that not only is The Guardian's portrayal of the US as a nation increasingly under the sway of religious belief wrong, it is the direct opposite of the truth. One major study of religious trends in America showed that between 1990 and 2001, the percentage of adults who identified themselves with one religious group or another actually dropped from 90% to 81%; the percentage of Christians dropped from 86% to 77%; those who subscribe to no religious identification rose from 8% to 14%.

Although The Guardian warns its readers about "the kind of country that George Bush's America is becoming", those readers would do better to be warned about the kind of journalism that is being practiced at The Guardian. Ironically enough, its own view of America has no more basis in reality than does the creationism that it finds so derisory.

Fat America

2005-12-21T12:46:00.000Z

The BBC’s Matthew Davis has been working overtime, with two pieces over two consecutive days, to reinforce yet another caricature of America, that of the obese American. Despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans are not obese, yesterday Davis wrote about the US obesity “crisis”, and today he travels to Jefferson County Mississippi, the “fattest part of the fattest state” in the US.

Frankly, I don’t understand at all the interest in this subject. Davis writes that “most agree that the unhealthy lifestyles of many in the US need to change.” Unfortunately he never gets around to answering the rather obvious question: Why? So what if they don’t change? The societal importance of preventing people from getting fat escapes me.

But with the BBC’s embrace of national stereotypes as the basis of serious and on-going reporting, perhaps we can look forward to the BBC doing a series on the questionable bathing habits of the French by sending one its crack reporters to the smelliest part of the smelliest country in Europe (“most agree that the malodorous lifestyles of many in France need to change.”) And then maybe a story on the deplorable state of dental hygiene in the UK by visiting the most toothless pub in the most toothless county in the British Isles (“most agree that the unhygienic brushing habits of many in the UK need to change.”)

FYI

2005-12-19T20:30:00.000Z

You may have noticed the posting has been very light for the last week. This has not been for want of things to say - how could it be given John Simpson's on-going campaign to sow defeatism amidst the clear victory represented by the recent Iraqi elections, and Newsnights farcical Allies on trial stunt? No, the time of year and other obligations have regrettably gotten in the way. Expect the light posting to continue through Christmas, and TAE will hopefully pick up the slack before the New Year starts. Keep checking in, though.

BTW, isn't it just great the way that UK tax payers have to shell out compensation to victims of the BBC's lack of journalistic scruples? (Hat tip to TAE reader Qaz)

America's obsession?!?

2005-12-14T21:27:00.000Z

Yesterday the BBC provided an excellent example of the way in which its own warped and pejorative view of the US is casually passed on as established fact. In an article prompted by the execution of "Tookie" Williams and headlined Can a murderer ever be redeemed, religious affairs correspondent Alex Kirby points out that most of those arguing against the implementation of Williams' death sentence presented strictly utilitarian arguments.
Oddly, for a country as obsessed with religious observance as the US, the Christian argument seems almost an afterthought.
Not a country with a predominantly Christian population. Not a largely church-going nation. No. A country "obsessed" with religious observance.

It is pretty much unimaginable that the BBC might ever characterized a Muslim theocracy governed by Sharia as being "obsessed" with religious observance. But with America, where religion is increasingly banned from the public sector and the number of people who attend church weekly is, at best, around 40% (and is more likely much lower), the BBC has no problem at all not only characterizing the country as being "obsessed" with religion, but with assuming it is a well-known and established fact among its readers.

Frankly, given the BBC's own relentless coverage of religion in America, one must wonder just where the "obsession" with religion lies.

Guardian Catch-22

2005-12-14T21:08:00.000Z

The Guardian’s Luke Harding today questions whether Bush got the number of dead in Iraq since its liberation from Saddam correct the other day when he claimed it was around 30,000. Harding contrasts Bush’s figure with the infamous Lancet study which last year placed the number at 100,000. Naturally, Harding failed to inform his readers of just how misleading that headline-grabbing number was.

More notably, though, he begins his piece by characterizing Bush’s 30,000 number as a “belated admission”. Yet he then goes on to claim that the actual figure of deaths is “categorically unknowable”, concluding that Bush “would do better” not to cite any specific number at all.

So, one might wonder, how is it possible to be “late” in “admitting” something that is both unknowable and better left unspecified? Guardianthink at its best.

A point to ponder

2005-12-13T09:34:00.000Z

Notice that in nearly every article on the BBC about ex-gang member, convicted murderer, and soon-to-be-executed Stanley “Tookie” Williams, readers are reminded that Williams has “earned” several Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Considering that all it takes to get such a nomination is a nod from a single social science professor somewhere in the world, and especially given the kinds of people who have managed to actually win the prize, it’s not at all clear to me that such a nomination is all that significant.

But let’s imagine, for a moment, that getting nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is indeed a significant and important achievement. When, do you suppose, was the last time the BBC reminded its audience that US President George W. Bush has been the recipient of such a nomination not just once, but twice?

FYI

2005-12-12T23:35:00.000Z

Apparently BBC Radio 4's Today Program is going to run a segment each in in which it will be inviting a rota of bloggers to comment on a particular issue. Of particular interest to TAE will be tomorrow's question, Does the media rule Britain?, and Friday, Does the US rule Britain? Both tomorrow's and Friday's featured blogger will be Judy, who's blog Adloyada has been very good particularly on BBC coverage of Israel. If you get a chance, have a look.

Simpson fulfills Reynolds' prediciton

2005-12-12T20:25:00.000Z

The big news today is the release of the latest poll results to come out of Iraq. As the BBC's Paul Reynolds notes, the results reflect a rather different story than the one we are used to hearing from the MSM.
The latest survey of opinion in Iraq shows a degree of optimism at variance with the usual depiction of the country as one in total chaos.

The figures will provide evidence for supporters of the invasion and occupation to argue that the international media have got it wrong - that, despite everything, most Iraqis are wedded to a democratic future in a unified state and have faith it will come.

Indeed they do. The attitudes of Iraqis towards both their own individual circumstances and the future prospects of the country are both overwhelmingly positive. But Reynolds goes on to show that he knows his colleagues at the BBC only too well.
However critics will claim that the survey proves little beyond showing how resilient Iraqis are at a local level. They will argue that it reveals enough important exceptions to the rosy assessment, especially in the centre of the country, to indicate serious dissatisfaction.
And sure enough, along comes the BBC's relentlessy pessimistic John Simpson to prove Reynolds correct, trying to convince us that despite the poll results:
Things have changed radically in Baghdad since March last year - and not for the better.
Nevermind the 70+% of Iraqis who say that things in their life are going either quite good or very good. Despite the fact that Simpson admits that he doesn't stay in any one place for more than a few minutes, he apparently knows better than than the Iraqis who do.

Perhaps recognizing that readers are less likely to believe him than Iraqis themselves, Simpson does make an effort to portray the Iraqis as agreeing with him.
No wonder, then, that the people whose views are reflected in the new
opinion poll are so obsessed with the need for security.
Indeed. I suppose that "obsession" explains why, when asked "What is the single biggest problem you are facing in your life today?", terrorist attacks ranked, um, 8th with 2.2% of the responses, behind things like "personal problems". And also why, when asked how they would rate the security situation in their own village/neighborhood, fully 61% rated it as either "very good" or "quite good". And also why, when asked to compare the security situation now to that prior to the war in 2003, 44% said it was either "somewhat" or "much" better now, as opposed to 38% who said it was worse. That's quite an "obsession".

Simpson also helpfully points out that:
Given that the Shia-dominated government which has been in power for most of 2005 has been so unable to provide [security], it's not surprising the great majority of people told our pollsters they wanted strong government more than anything
else.
More surprising if one believes Simpson's portrayal of things - so surprising, in fact, that Simpson decided not to tell his audience about it - is the fact that, when asked how well the current government had carried out its responsibilities, 61% of respondents thought it was doing either a "very good job" or "quite a good job".

There may indeed be obsessions in Iraq, but a review of his articles suggests that any such obsessions belong to Simpson himself, and not Iraqis. When he cannot ignore the good news coming out of Iraq, he is relentlessy trying to spin it as bad news. Given his belief that the primary battleground in the war for Iraq is over public opinion, it remains difficult for me to conclude anything other than that Simpson is doing his best to shift that battleground in favor of the enemy.

Webb, wrong yet again

2005-12-10T10:31:00.000Z

On Wednesday evening, in a radio report about Condoleeza Rice's announcement regarding the use (or lack thereof) of torture on terrorists outside of the US, BBC's Five Live radio had Justin Webb on to clarify things for its audience. During the course of his report (about 1 hour 35 minutes into the show) Webb was asked:
How has this announcement gone down in Washington?
Webb responded:
Never mind Washington, look across the United States. All the polls suggest that Americans do not want people to be tortured in their name.
This is a classic example of why the BBC in general, and Webb in particular, simply cannot be trusted to report the news factually. Just one day before Webb's report, an AP-Ipsos poll was released which showed that 61% of Americans supported the use of torture on at least "rare" occassions. Back in November, a Newsweek poll (scroll down) showed that 58% of those polled said they would support torture if it might lead to the prevention of a terrorist attack.

As I must say so often when it comes to Webb, he is either deliberately deceiving his audience, or he is plainly incompetent. The fact that the BBC continues to employ this man and allow him to pontificate on issues in America says a great deal about the BBC's institutional commitment, or rather lack thereof, to truth and accuracy.

The Guardian breathes new life into Sheehan mania

2005-12-09T19:13:00.000Z

After having been used by the media to liven up the otherwise monotonous days of August down in Crawford, Texas, and with her extended 15 minutes of fame rapidly coming to an end in the US, Cindy Sheehan has apparently decided to seek out an environment a bit more amenable to her publicity seeking ways by making the trek across the ocean, arriving here in Britain yesterday. Not surprisingly, The Guardian’s Duncan Campbell did not waste any time at all in obliging, conducting an interview with her in a taxi on her way to London from the airport. (I wonder who picked up the taxi fare.)

The article is, naturally, a complete puff piece, turned over primarily to Sheehan’s own views with nary a word of criticism or contrary point of view to be heard. Campbell certainly show no interest in challenging her bizarre take on things. But he can’t even get the simplest facts correct. He begins the sympathetic portrayal of Sheehan by describing her as “a housewife and a mature student.” Well, let’s see: she’s spends most of her time at protests rather than at her house; she’s no longer a wife;according to Campbell himself her “campaigning work leaves her no time for anything else,” which presumably includes enrollment in any class that would qualify her as a “student”; and she engages in the most unserious, childish rants against the president. She is, on the other hand, a ripe old 48 years old, so perhaps Campbell was just using euphemism to avoid describing her as “middle aged”. We’ll give him a dubious pass on “mature”.

Of course, given that Sheehan’s rise to prominence has come primarily through the exploitation of her soldier son’s death in Iraq, Campbell would be remiss if he did not engage in at least a little exploitation of his own. Hence he opens his piece by introducing us to young Casey.
When Casey Sheehan joined the army in May 2000, he was assured that he would never see combat. Four years later, he was killed in Iraq.
And, just in case you didn’t get the point, Campbell reiterates it later:
Her son Casey signed up in the final months of the Clinton era, at a time when there seemed to be little possibility of war in foreign fields. "His recruiter told him that even if there was a war, he would never see combat because he had scored so high in the entrance exam - he'd only be in a support role," says Cindy.
Ah yes, poor Casey was lied to, and he paid the ultimate price for that lie. Trouble is, the facts sort of get in the way of that narrative. This is a classic case of The Guardian lying through omission.

The truth, according to a David Gelertner article in the LA Times, is that Casey’s obligation to the army ended in 2004, with him alive and well, despite the war having been going on for the better part of a year. He then took it upon himself to voluntarily re-enlist, in full knowledge of the on-going situation in Iraq and that he would most likely be sent back there. He then was sent back as a mechanic attached to an artillery division…or, put another way, in a non-combat “support” role. When a convoy was attacked in Sadr City, Casey volunteered to go on the rescue mission, despite having no formal obligation to take on that combat role. And it was on that mission that he was, sadly, killed.

In other words, Casey Sheehan exhibited all of the virtues that mark the best of a military hero. Yet, rather than celebrating him as the hero he was, Campbell and The Guardian instead choose to paint him as nothing more than a witless victim from beginning to end…a victim of his recruiter, of Bush, of the nation.

Cindy Sheehan, at least, has the fact of her obvious grief at losing a son to explain her tenuous grip on reality. How Campbell excuses his shoddy reporting and his exploitation of Sheehan’s grief, I don’t know.

Today was a momentous day in history

2005-12-08T09:50:00.000Z

Did you know that today, December 8, is the 14th anniversary of the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, and hence the official end of the Cold War? On this day in 1991, national political leaders from the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian republics issued a joint declaration that the Soviet Union was officially dissolved and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. Thus ended the longest military and ideological struggle that Britain and America had ever been involved in. And yet today, less than two decades later, it is barely recalled.

Although the BBC does not find the fact to be as notable as the introduction of television cameras into the House of Lords (or, in fact, notable at all), I think it is worth reflecting today not only on the demise of the single greatest and longest standing threat to Britain and America since the end of World War II, but also on the great British and American leaders who helped precipitate that demise.

This guy needs a more ambitious lawyer

2005-12-06T21:57:00.000Z

Apparently a Lebanese-German man is suing the CIA for inflicting upon him "prolonged arbitrary detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment". He's seeking damages of......"at least" $75,000.

Working for the enemy?

2005-12-05T20:36:00.000Z

BBC bigwig John Simpson chimes in today with another column on Iraq. It raises some very interesting questions.

Simpson makes the point that, far more than a conventional war (which, he acknowledges, America "would win hands down"), Iraq is "a war of public relations", and not just for America. He also says that "For the insurgents, too, this is a war for public opinion." And although he avoids coming out and saying it baldly, it is clear that Simspon thinks the "insurgents" are winning this particular public relations war.

Now, whether or not he is correct about this, the very fact that he thinks it raises an interesting, and perhaps troubling, issue. John Simpson is an opinion columnist for the BBC. As such, presumably, he hopes to help shape public opinion about issues he writes about. That is, afterall, why pundits offer their opinions up to the public - in the hopes of influencing the opinions of members of that public. And, if the Iraq war is a battle for public opinion, then isn't it fair to ask what role John Simpson, as a shaper of public opinion, is playing in that war?

Take, for instance, the very column under question. What is the likely effect on public opinion of Simpson's sage observations? Well, let's look at the observations/opinions he is promoting:

America's military strength is not all that helpful in Iraq.
On the same day Bush pledged "nothing less than complete victory", 10 marines were killed in Iraq which, Simpson reminds us, is atypically yet particularly significant.
The Pentagon "presumably" witheld the news of the deaths for 24 hours for political/propaganda reasons.
If America can declare victory "of a kind", withdraw its troops, and leave Iraq to "sink or swim" on its own, then even if the "insurgents" ultimately win the war outright, America could claim to be uninvolved.
The Iraqi army is ill-suited and ill-equipped to take on the "insurgents".
The US "has not succeeded in neutralising the insurgency in any of the major population centres in the Sunni heartland."
History strongly favors an "insurgent" victory.
The insurgents "had the better of" the war for public opinion last week. (This, by the way, the week in which the "insurgents" killed 2 British civilians at the airport and kidnapped a German, an American, two Canadians, and a Briton, civilians all, holding them hostage. Simpson doesn't mention these events, so it is not clear whether or not he considers them to be a part of the good PR week for the "insurgents".)

This is all pretty demoralizing stuff. Which seems to be rather the point. Significantly, Simpson offers up no suggestions or opinions about what to do to correct this seemingly hopeless situation. He is content simply to encourage his readers to adopt his gloomy view of the future.

Now if, as Simpson proclaims is the case (and I think he is correct at this point), public opinion is the "real battleground" of this war, and John Simpson himself is helping to shape that opinion through the use of his (tax-funded) opinion column, then in light of the opinions he is promoting, it seems entirely fair to me to wonder just who John Simpson is pulling for.

BBC still telling porkies about Wilson/Niger

2005-12-01T21:24:00.001Z

BBC's Newsnight interviewed Judy Miller, formerly of The New York Times, yesterday. Recall that Miller was the NYT reporter who went to jail ostensibly to protect the source of her information about Valerie Plame, that source turning out to be Scooter Libby, who has since been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Presumably to help edify viewers, Newsnight has put together a timeline about the whole affair.

Now, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but it is both astonishing and galling that, even after BBC Online's Paul Reynolds managed to do a commendable job setting out the details of the affair (after much prompting from TAE), the wider BBC still refuses to tell the true story. The very first entry in the timeline has three sentences, each of which is, in a word, false. Joseph C Wilson IV, a retired career diplomat, is asked by the CIA to go to Niger, in west Africa, to investigate reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium there. On his return, Mr Wilson reports back that he does not believe this. Nevertheless, President Bush refers to the reports in his State of the Union address in January 2003.
First, Wilson was not sent to investigate reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger. He was sent to investigate reports that Iraq had purchased uranium there.

Second, Wilson did not report back that he did not believe that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger. He reported back that he believed no purchase had taken place.

Third, Bush did not refer in his SOTU address to the reports which Wilson was sent to investigate. He referred to a British intelligence claim which, significantly, British intelligence stands by to this very day.

Three sentences; three falsehoods. The BBC at its best.

Also notable is the complete absence in the timeline of any reference at all to the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation that looked into the matter, much less any reference to the fact that the investigation totally discredited Wilson. The BBC is shameless.

(Review of the Miller interview hopefully to come later this weekend.)

A BBC/Guardian partnership?

2005-11-30T23:19:00.000Z

About a month ago, TAE noted that in the space of a week, The Guardian published two seperate editorial hosannas to the BBC, one in the regular Guardian, and one in the Sunday Observer. The latter came under the headline Worth Every Penny: The BBC still delivers the goods. At the time I wondered out loud whether this was an unconscious reference to the amount of money the BBC poured into The Guardian itself via advertising. One of the comments to the post took me to task, suggesting that I was "tipping over into conspiracy mania".

That prompted me to make a freedom of information request of the BBC regarding a breakdown of the amount of money it spent on recruitment advertising in the print media. Today, TAE got an answer.

In the fiscal year from from April 2004 until March 2005, the BBC spent a total of £568,343 on recruitment advertising in a total of 49 newspapers. The recipient of the largest amount of revenue from such BBC advertising was, by far, The Guardian. Nearly 41% of the BBC's expenditures, or £231,944, went into The Guardian's coffers. To put this into some perspective, this is over two and a half times more than the amount received by the next largest recipient, The Western Mail (a Welsh paper) which received £92,388, or just over 16% of the total expenditures. The Times/Sunday Times received a combined total of just £53,326, or a shade over 9% of the total. The amount received by The Guardian alone is approximately equal to the next seven largest recipients combined. And one of those seven, The Manchester Evening News, which received £11,100, is in fact itself a member of The Guardian Media Group.

Now, perhaps this rather blatant disparity in the distribution of the BBC's (tax-financed) advertising expenditures, can be easily explained. After all, one might expect the BBC to justifiably focus a lot of its recruitment efforts where the audience is, so if The Guardian has a particularly large readership, perhaps it makes sense that it receives a particularly large share of the BBC's advertising expenditures. Is that the case? Alas, no.

According to the National Readership Survey, of the 13 top line dailies in Britain, The Guardian ranks eighth, garnering just 2.5% of the total adult population. The Times has a readership 1.5 times larger than that of The Guardian, although it received only 22% of The Guardian's take in BBC advertising monies. The Daily Telegraph received only 15% as much, despite the fact that it has a readership almost double that of The Guardian. The paper with the biggest readership by far, The Sun, received no advertising revenues at all from the BBC's recruitment efforts. So, it would seem clear that it is not an effort to reach the widest audience that had produced such lopsided expenditures.

Perhaps it is, instead, a desire to reach a particular kind of audience that has driven the decision to spend so much at The Guardian. But what kind of audience is the BBC reaching at The Guardian? Well, it is no secret that The Guardian is a left-leaning newspaper. Even Emily Bell, editor-in-chief of The Guardian Unlimited, admits (nay, proclaims) that it approaches the news from a "slightly more liberal perspective". Even if the BBC is not intending to target a left-liberal audience from which it will pluck its future employees, that is, in fact, precisely what it is doing when it spends nearly half of all its recruitment advertising in a single newspaper dominated by a left-liberal perspective.

Is this really the way that a tax-funded, "public service" enterprise ought to be running itself?

In any event, and in light of this information, I can only reiterate what I suggested a month ago...perhaps there is more to The Guardian's belief that the BBC "delivers the goods" than meets the eye.

Could be worse

2005-11-29T22:45:00.000Z

Given the Supreme Court vacancies that have arisen this year, it was inevitable that the BBC would do a profile on abortion in America. Clare Murphy provided that profile today, and to be honest, it could have been a lot worse.

Yes, Murphy focused largely on a single state, Mississippi, where abortions are more heavily regulated than most others, and she did so in vaguely disapproving tones. And yes, she made spurious comparisons between the sparsely populated Mississippi and the most populous state in the Union, California, in order to make Mississippi abortion policy appear particularly draconian. And yes, the article contained an information sidebar which characterized limitations on state funding of abortion as legal "restrictions" on abortion. (On that logic, the absence of public funds to pay for my greens fees is a legal "restriction" on playing golf.) So, no, the BBC has not been able to entirely rid itself of its left-leaning tics.

However, there are some positives that should be pointed out. Murphy does introduce the notion that abortion policy in the US is primarily a state, not a national, issue. And in so doing, she touches on the fact that, even should Roe v Wade be overturned, many states would still retain an abortion on demand policy little different to what exists today. This is significant, because many reports erroneously convey, and many people erroneously think, that the overturning of Roe would necessarily result in the end to abortion in the US. This notion is simply wrong, and Murphy does well to avoid protraying the issue in that way.

Beyond this, she's even introduced the idea that "an end to Roe v Wade might not be a bad thing after all." It would force the pro-choice lobby to argue their case with voters at the state level, so the thinking goes, and stop them relying on unelected courts to impose their views.
I can't remember ever seeing this point being made in a mainstream media piece before. Certainly, at least, not on the BBC. She's even used an "avowed pro-choice columnist" as her source for this notion, quoting him as saying that reliance on Roe "has been deeply unhealthy for abortion rights, for liberalism more generally, and ultimately for American democracy."

Perhaps I am exercising the soft bigotry of low expectations, but I think this represents a big step forward for the BBC, and hopefully it portends a more reasonable and less breathless coverage of not only the abortion issue in the US, but more specifically the Supreme Court nomination process.

Joe Wilson on the BBC

2005-11-29T14:21:00.000Z

Natalie at Biased BBC has an interesting post about Joe Wilson's appearance on the BBC's Radio Four last Wednesday. Unfortunately I missed it, but Natalie caught it and has a wee bit of criticism for James Naughtie's interview techniques. Apparently it was not exactly what you might call a confrontational interview.

Webb's own little fantasy world

2005-11-27T23:00:00.000Z

In yet another From Our Own Correspondent entry, Justin Webb reveals just how deep is his obsession with religion and religious Americans. How deep? Well, it seems that being a Bush supporter and - even worse, one imagines - a sunday school teacher is enough to set Webb to secretly questioning one's children to make sure one is mentally suitable to qualify for Webb's friendship.

I'm not making this up. As a lead in to his tediously typical portrayal of the American right as religiously ensconced ignoramuses, Webb relates a personal anecdote about going to dinner at the house of the parents of one of his own child's classmates. He felt compelled to test the classmate, Meade, on the origins of the dinosaurs in order to satsify himself that the parents are not religious loons. As Webb himself tells us, the answer to his question will tell him "something about Meade's parents which will affect our relationship." Happily, after a pause which Webb finds to be "agonising", Meade manages to provide a satisfactory answer, much to Webb's immense relief.
I could have hugged him and his parents; we are, after all, inhabiting the same mental planet.
Sharing Webb's "mental planet"? Poor Meade.

But, of course, Webb's purpose is not to fill us in on his interesting social life. It is, instead, to demonize Republicans, and his lengthy anecdote culminates with his relief about "inhabiting the same mental planet" simply in order to provide a suitable segue into his real topic:
But many modern members of the Republican party, including some in positions
of great power, do not seem to be living on that planet.
Conveniently, Webb doesn't actually name any of these people in "positions of great power", so the insinuation is allowed to linger without the nuisance of actually having to provide any substantiating evidence. Indeed, the only actual person directly associated by Webb with these thoughts from another planet is Pat Robertson, who has no position of power within the US government whatsoever. But, Webb informs us, Robertson "is an important man" because "his views are sought on Supreme Court candidates and foreign affairs." Sought by who? Again, Webb doesn't say.

Even when Webb is on solid ground, he stretches his analysis to the breaking point. Not content with simply pointing out that creationists are at odds with science, he tries to expand the realm of evangelical heresy to science by claiming that even their thoughts on homosexuality and abortion "place them...at odds with science campaigning." I was always under the impression that whether or not homosexuality and abortion were sins was a religious rather than a scientific matter. Webb knows differently, I guess.

The most laughable part of Webb's piece, however, is his justification for it. Displaying the journalistic acuity that regular Webb-watchers have come to expect of him, he tells us: As the nation recovers this weekend from the worldly pleasures of the wonderfully inclusive festival of Thanksgiving, a festival which can appeal equally to atheist and Bible-basher, it seems to me that the central political question facing everyone here, far more important than any to do with Iraq or the deficit or Guantanamo Bay, is whether or not the Republican party, after decades of flirting, has finally got into bed with an irrational sect.
The central political question? Facing everyone in the US? Far more important than any question to do with Iraq? Coming only sentences after having suggested that creationists inhabit a fantasy world, the irony is palpable.

The fallacy of "dependence"

2005-11-25T19:55:00.000Z

The Guardian today adds to the seemingly limitless supply of publicity being given to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez with a piece by Simon Tisdall headlined "Chavez the Bush baiter". Tisdall opens up by exclaiming that:
Hugo Chávez knows how to wind up the US government. His latest wheeze - selling discounted home heating oil to chilly residents of Massachusetts - follows his offer to help victims of Bush administration bungling over Hurricane Katrina.
I guess it is now established fact, at least in The Guardian newsroom, not only that Bush “bungled” over Katrina, but that it was this “bungling”, and not Katrina herself, that created “victims” requiring help. That aside, I must wonder exactly how these things have “wound up” the US government. I don’t doubt that both his involvement in the Massachusetts oil deal and his offers of “help” over Katrina were intended by Chavez to do so. But from what I have seen, far from getting wound up over them, the US government has mostly just simply ignored them.

But what I particularly wanted to note was something else that Tisdall wrote. Noting the possibility of a new Columbian oil pipeline stretching to its Pacific coast, he says:
That could increase Caracas's oil exports to China at the expense of the US, which depends on Venezuela for roughly 15% of its foreign oil.
The extent to which the US is “dependent” or “reliant” on Venezuela for oil imports is a fairly typical formulation in media coverage of Chavez, the US, and oil. It frames the issue such that the US appears to be a hostage to Chavez. Hence, if Caracas increases oil exports to China, it will come "at the expense of the US". But is that really the case?

First of all, the US imports about 61% of its oil, which means that when Tisdall says “roughly 15% of its foreign oil”, what he really means is “roughly 9% of its oil consumption.” So already it is clear that the US is not quite so “dependent” as the inflated figure suggests. But is it really the case that the US is “dependent” on specifically Venezuelan oil to any extent at all? The answer to anyone with much economic sense: Of course not.

Imagine you live in a town with 5 grocery stores, and you like to spread your business around, so, after growing 40% of your own food in your back garden, you go to each of the 5 stores and buy 20% of your remaining needed food from each. Does that make you “dependent” on any given store for 12% (20% of 60%) of your food? No. If one store refused to sell to you, you could simply reallocate where you purchase from, and buy 15% from each of the remaining 4 stores.

The oil market is a global market. If, for whatever reason, Venezuela decided not to sell to the US, the US would simply go elsewhere to buy what was needed. True, it may have to pay a higher price, but then so would everyone else, because global demand for non-Venezuelan oil would have increased. In other words, if Venezuela decided not to sell oil to the US, all oil consumers would suffer, not just the US, because the global supply would have dropped and global demand would have risen, leading to higher global prices. In fact, everyone, not just the US, is “dependent” upon Venezuelan oil, even if it happens to be primarily the US which buys from Venezuela.

But suppose, for the moment, that Tisdall is correct, and the US does indeed “depend” on Venezuela for 9% of its oil consumption. Let's look at the situation from a slightly different point of view. The US currently imports about 13.2 million barrels of oil per day, which, given Tisdall’s 15% dependency, means that the US is importing roughly 1.98 million barrels per day from Venezuela. Venezuela’s entire oil exports are just 2.36 million barrels per day. So, it turns out that the US accounts for 83.9% of all export revenues that Venezuela receives from its oil production.

Now, according to the CIA World Fact Book’s entry on Venezuela:
Venezuela continues to be highly dependent on the petroleum sector, accounting for roughly one-third of GDP, around 80% of export earnings, and over half of government operating revenues.
So, one could say, if one was so inclined (which, of course, The Guardian is not) that Venezuela is dependent on US oil consumption for roughly 28% of its GDP, 67% of its total export earnings, and at least 43% of government operating revenues. Or, in other words, without US oil consumption, Venezuela would be an extremely poor country.

Hmmmm. 9% of US oil consumption, versus 28% of Venezuela''s entire GDP. Exactly which country is “dependent” upon the other?

Thanks, UK

2005-11-24T08:15:00.000Z

In the UK, as in most of the rest of the world, today is Thursday. In the US, however, today is Thanksgiving, the most quintessentially American holiday on the calender. It is the one day of the year, more than any other, on which I am wistful about not being there.

With that in mind, and in the spirit of the day, I present a short, eclectic list of things for which American expats in the UK should be, and this one in particular is, thankful:

NASN
The internet (Imagine having to rely on just the BBC, the British press, and the International Herald Tribune for daily information about the States.)
Costco
Frequent flyer miles
Sky digital (Sky sports, The History Channel, FOX News...what would I do without it?)
Boxing Day
Adam Smith
The tradition of classical British liberalism (for which all Americans should be thankful)

Most of all, thanks to all our British friends who have helped to make us feel at home in a foreign land. Have a good Thanksgiving.

BBC moonlights as Hugo Chavez' PR firm

2005-11-23T23:45:00.000Z

Today the BBC carried a story under the headline "Venezuela gives US cheap oil deal". The lead on the story reads as follows:
Officials from Venezuela and Massachusetts have signed a deal to provide cheap heating oil to low-income homes in the US state.
Contrary to the headline, the "US" has been given nothing at all, and despite the implication of the lead, government officials didn't sign anything. Actually, the deal was signed by officials from Citizens Energy, a private, non-profit corporation based in Massachusetts, and officials from CITGO, a US-based company that is owned by PVD America, itself a subsidiary of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA.

It is true that the deal was initiated by contacts betwen a Massachusetts politician, William Delahunt, and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. But the spokesman for Delahunt said that Delahunt "did not get involved in the details of the contract", and he characterized the deal as one between "'a US company and two nonprofits."

BTW, according to the Boston Globe the $9 million deal represents a discount of about 40%, which is an effective "donation" to the non-profits of about $6 million. In contrast, for the year 2004, Exxon Mobile (to take just one example) made charitable donations of $106.5 million in cash, goods, and services, including $35.8 million in countries other than the United States. No word yet on whether the BBC plans on covering these donations.

Unbeknownst to BBC readers...

2005-11-23T22:22:00.000Z

Guess who agrees with Dick Cheney and disagrees with her newly famous fellow Democrat, John Murtha?
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be "a big mistake."
The New York Democrat said she respects Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., the Vietnam veteran and hawkish ex-Marine who last week called for an immediate troop pullout. But she added: "I think that would cause more problems for us in America."
Don't bother looking to the BBC's website for this information. It, apparently, is only interested in unknown Dems who disingenuously call for "immediate" troop withdrawals from Iraq. High profile Dems who agree with the White House are not, it seems, news that he BBC wants you to know about.

A letter to The Guardian

2005-11-22T22:10:00.000Z

A letter sent to The Guardian's Julian Borger and the "reader's editor":

Mr. Borger,

In your piece today on VP Cheney’s speech at the American Enterprise Institute, you made a couple of strange assertions. I was hoping if you might clarify them for me.

You said that Cheney’s remarks represented a "change in tactics" which "reflected an acknowledgment that the White House had stumbled in its attempt to slow momentum towards a quick withdrawal by targeting its advocates rather than their arguments." But at no point did you establish, or even attempt to establish, that a strategy of targeting people personally rather than their arguments had been adopted by the White House. I am a fairly keen watcher of the US political scene, and I am unaware of any reason to think that such a strategy had ever been employed, and therefore no reason to think that Cheney’s comments represented a "change in tactics". What evidence is there that the White House had been targeting the advocates of an immediate pullout personally rather than taking on their arguments (such as they are)?

You also said that "The vice-president tried to make a distinction between its critics. He called a truce in the war of words with those who wanted a quick withdrawal, but escalated the attack on those who accuse senior officials of deliberately exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein."

Why "tried"? Isn’t it a fact that he did make a distinction? The implication of your wording is that he drew a distinction where none exists. Is it the position of The Guardian that there is no relevant distinction to be drawn between those who criticize the president’s war policy and those who accuse him of lying?

Lastly, why do you characterize Cheney’s statements as an "attack"? Isn’t he in fact defending the administration from the initial attacks by Democrats who claim the administration lied the country into war?

Any answers you might have would be much appreciated.

Regards,
Scott Callahan
The American Expatriate

Is there an agenda?

2005-11-21T19:17:00.000Z

A timeline worth noting:

Nov 17 – Democratic Congressman John Murtha calls for a “immediate redeployment of American forces” from Iraq. The BBC makes Murtha’s call the top story on the America’s page of its website.

Nov 18 – House Republicans put resolution 571 to the floor:
Resolved, it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
Following a rancorous debate, the House overwhelmingly defeats the resolution, 403-3. Notably, Congressman Murtha is not one of the three supporters the resolution, despite his call the previous day for precisely the same thing. Instead, Murtha puts forward his own resolution, calling for the withdrawal of troops “at the earliest practicable date.” “Practicable” remains undefined. The BBC apparently finds nothing notable to report about the resolutions, the debate, the vote, or the fact that Murtha has seemingly backed away from his much hyped call for an immediate withdrawal, as its website has no articles on this at all.

Nov 20 – Donald Rumsfeld, appearing on Sunday talks shows, dismisses calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The BBC notes Rumsfeld’s statements, and provides background to the issue by mentioning Murtha. It points out that “In Friday’s Congress debate, Mr. Murtha called for troops to leave Iraq within six months, prompting some Republicans to accuse him of abandonment, surrender and even cowardice.” The BBC does not mention a) the resolution that was the subject of the debate; b) that Murtha himself had actually called for “immediate” withdrawal from Iraq prior to the debate; or c) that it was in fact those unmentioned calls for an immediate withdrawal, not a call for a 6 month timetable, which led to Republican vitriol. The BBC does add that Murtha says “he had received great support for his position.” Although this might have seemed like an obvious time to point out it out, the BBC yet again fails to inform its readers that the House actually voted 403-3 against his position.

Nov 20 – President Bush gives a brief news conference in Beijing, following which he finds his self-described "escape" thwarted by locked doors. In contrast to the apparently less important goings on in the House, the BBC makes this the centerpiece of two separate pieces on its website, and adds a video for good measure.

Your "license fee" at work.

More on a tale...

2005-11-17T23:25:00.000Z

Another story today from the BBC, by Oliver Conway, is ostensibly about how critics and supporters of the war in Iraq have been "trading blows". Note how the only "supporters" quoted or mentioned are administration officials themselves, while, in addition to making big play again out of John Murtha's comments, Conway even uncovers a Republican, Chuck Hagel, who is said to have "questioned" the administration's approach. Thus does Conway portray the administration as increasingly isolated, even from its own party.

Conway also says that "...patriotism, and accusations that opponents of the war are letting down the troops have been the subject of fierce political debate in Washington," and goes on to imply that VP Cheney is making such accusations. Conway is, at least, partly correct. As VP, Cheney presides over the Senate, and in that Senate was heard these words just the other day.
The danger is that by spending so much attention on the past here, we contribute to a drop in public support among the American people for the war, and that is consequential. Terrorists know they cannot defeat us in Iraq, but they also know they can defeat us in America by breaking the will and steadfast support of the American people for this cause.
There is a wonderful phrase from the Bible that I have quoted before, “If the sound of the trumpet be uncertain, who will follow into battle?” In our time, I am afraid that the trumpet has been replaced by public opinion polls, and if the public opinion polls are uncertain, if support for the war seems to be dropping, who will follow into battle and when will our brave and brilliant men and women in uniform in Iraq begin to wonder whether they have the support of the American people? When will that begin to affect their morale?
The thing is, it wasn't Cheney who said them. It was Democratic supporter of the effort in Iraq, Joe Lieberman. Funny that Conway found time to mention Chuck Hagel, but Lieberman and his views remain hidden from the BBC's audience.

A tale of two stories

2005-11-17T21:55:00.000Z

Today the BBC hypes up the fact that a “Top Democrat” has called for US troops to be pulled out of Iraq. In an article based on a Justin Webb (who else) report, the BBC says:
An influential Democratic congressman - who voted for the Iraq invasion in 2003 - has called for the immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
John Murtha - a decorated Vietnam War veteran - said US troops had become "a catalyst for violence" in Iraq.
Now, despite the BBC’s attempt to elevate Murtha’s importance, don’t be too concerned if you’ve never heard of him before. Neither have I, and I think its safe to say that I’m more tuned in to the goings on in Washington than the average American, much less the average Briton. I wouldn’t be surprised if Murtha joined the ranks of the BBC’s “influential congressmen” the moment he decided to call for troop withdrawals.

But whatever the real degree of influence wielded by Mr. Murtha, the question arises: Given the highly partisan atmosphere that prevails in Washington these days, why is the fact that a relatively unheralded Democratic House member is expressing distress over and opposition to the effort in Iraq particularly noteworthy? Isn't this just what to expect? And make no mistake, the BBC thinks it is a big deal. At the time of writing, this is the main story on the America’s page of the BBC’s website, and between 5:30pm and 6:30 pm, BBC radio’s Five Live mentioned it no less than three times.

It is instructive to compare the BBC’s treatment of this marginally interesting story with another story about which many of you will almost certainly be unaware.

Two days ago, during a debate over an amendment on a defense authorization bill, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, who is perhaps not quite as influential as John Murtha (after all, he was only the Dem’s nominee for the office of Vice President of the US 5 years ago), took to the Senate floor to deliver a speech. It was both eloquent and, given the recent political strategy being employed by the Democratic party, surprising - so much so that I wouldn’t do it justice by simply reproducing selected snippets. Here, then, is the entire speech:

Mr. President, this is one of those quiet moments in the Senate with very few people in the Chamber when, in my opinion, something very important is happening. It is happening in good measure because of the two good men, my colleagues from Virginia and Michigan, who lead the Armed Services Committee, of which I am privileged to be a member. They are two gentlemen, two patriots, two people who have known each other for a long time, who work closely together, respect each other, even seem to like each other and, most important of all, trust each other.

Those qualities of personal trust and personal relationship have been too absent from our nation's consideration of the ongoing war in Iraq among our political leadership. We have, I am convinced, suffered from it.

It is no surprise to my colleagues that I strongly supported the war in Iraq. I was privileged to be the Democratic cosponsor, with the Senator from Virginia, of the authorizing resolution which received overwhelming bipartisan support. As I look back on it and as I follow the debates about prewar intelligence, I have no regrets about having sponsored and supported that resolution because of all the other reasons we had in our national security interest to remove Saddam Hussein from power – a brutal, murdering dictator, an aggressive invader of his neighbors, a supporter of terrorism, a hater of the United States of America. He was, for us, a ticking time bomb that, if we did not remove him, I am convinced would have blown up, metaphorically speaking, in America's face.

I am grateful to the American military for the extraordinary bravery and brilliance of their campaign to remove Saddam Hussein. I know we are safer as a nation, and to say the obvious that the Iraqi people are freer as a people, and the Middle East has a chance for a new day and stability with Saddam Hussein gone.

We will come to another day to debate the past of prewar intelligence. But let me say briefly the questions raised in our time are important. The international intelligence community believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Probably most significant, and I guess historically puzzling, is that Saddam Hussein acted in a way to send a message that he had a program of weapons of mass destruction. He would not, in response to one of the 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions that he violated, declare he had eliminated the inventory of weapons of mass destruction that he reported to the U.N. after the end of the gulf war in 1991.

I do not want to go off on that issue. I want to say that the debate about the war has become much too partisan in our time. And something is happening here tonight that I believe, I hope, I pray we will look back and say was a turning point and opened the road to Republican and Democratic cooperation, White House and congressional cooperation, to complete the mission. As Senator Levin said, no matter what anyone thinks about why we got into the war and whether we should have been in there, it is hard to find anybody around the Senate – I have not heard anybody – who does not want us to successfully complete our mission there. I feel that deeply.

If we withdraw prematurely from Iraq, there will be civil war, and there is a great probability that others in the neighborhood will come in. The Iranians will be tempted to come in on the side of the Shia Muslims in the south. The Turks will be tempted to come in against the Kurds in the north. The other Sunni nations, such as the Saudis and the Jordanians, will be sorely tempted, if not to come in at least to aggressively support the Sunni Muslim population. There will be instability in the Middle East, and the hope of creating a different model for a better life in the Middle East in this historic center of the Arab world, Iraq, will be gone.

If we successfully complete our mission, we will have left a country that is self-governing with an open economy, with an opportunity for the people of Iraq to do what they clearly want to do, which is to live a better life, to get a job, to have their kids get a decent education, to live a better life. There seems to be broad consensus on that, and yet the partisanship that characterizes our time here gets in the way of realizing those broadly expressed and shared goals.

“Politics must end at the water's edge.” That is what Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan said, articulating the important ideal that we seem to have lost too often in our time. I found a fuller statement of Senator Vandenberg’s position, the ideal. I found it to be in some ways more complicated and in other ways much more compelling. I want to read from it. Senator Vandenberg said:

“To me ‘bipartisan foreign policy’ means a mutual effort, under our indispensable two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”

That speaks to us today – the threat of Islamist terrorism, the desire they have to divide us and, in that sense, to conquer us in the free world. Senator Vandenberg continued in his definition of what he meant by bipartisanship in foreign policy:

“It does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity of which I speak.”

In a word, it simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage.

I felt again in recent days and recent months how far we have strayed down the partisan path from Vandenberg's ideals. The most recent disconcerting evidence of this was the lead story from the Washington Post – it was in papers all over the country – last Saturday, November 12. I read from that story:

“President Bush and leading congressional Democrats lobbed angry charges at each other Friday in an increasingly personal battle over the origins of the Iraq war. Although the two sides have long skirmished over the war, the sharp tenor Friday resembled an election year campaign more than a policy disagreement.”

That is from Saturday's Washington Post. Campaign rhetoric over policy debate, and what about? About how we got into the war 2 1/2 years ago, not about how we together can successfully complete our mission in Iraq.

The questions raised about prewar intelligence are not irrelevant, they are not unimportant, but they are nowhere near as important and relevant as how we successfully complete our mission in Iraq and protect the 150,000 men and women in uniform who are fighting for us there.

I go back to Vandenberg's phrase; the question is how Democrats and Republicans can unite our voice “at the water's edge” against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world in Iraq, I add, and beyond.

The danger is that by spending so much attention on the past here, we contribute to a drop in public support among the American people for the war, and that is consequential. Terrorists know they cannot defeat us in Iraq, but they also know they can defeat us in America by breaking the will and steadfast support of the American people for this cause.

There is a wonderful phrase from the Bible that I have quoted before, “If the sound of the trumpet be uncertain, who will follow into battle?” In our time, I am afraid that the trumpet has been replaced by public opinion polls, and if the public opinion polls are uncertain, if support for the war seems to be dropping, who will follow into battle and when will our brave and brilliant men and women in uniform in Iraq begin to wonder whether they have the support of the American people? When will that begin to affect their morale?

I worry the partisanship of our time has begun to get in the way of the successful completion of our mission in Iraq. I urge my colleagues at every moment, when we do anything regarding this war that we consider the ideal and we are confident within ourselves. Not that we are stifling free debate. Free debate, as Vandenberg said, is the necessary precondition to the unity we need to maximize our authority against those who would divide and conquer us. But the point is to make sure we feel in ourselves that the aim of our actions and our words is national security, not partisan advantage.

Now we come to today. After reading that paper on Saturday, I took the original draft amendment submitted by Senator Warner and Senator Frist – it actually wasn't offered, but it was around – and Senator Levin and Senator Reid. I took the amendments back to Connecticut, and last night I looked them over. Neither one expressed fully what I hoped it would, but as I stepped back, I said that these two amendments – one Republican, one Democratic, unfortunate in a way, breaking by parties – are not that far apart.

I like the way in which the Warner amendment recited again the findings that led us to war against Saddam Hussein and, quite explicitly, cited the progress that has been made. I do think Senator Levin’s amendment doesn’t quite do this part enough, about the progress, particularly among the political leaders of Iraq. They have done something remarkable in a country that lived for 30 years under a dictator who suppressed all political activity, encouraged the increasing division and bitterness among the Shias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. These people, with our help and encouragement, have begun to negotiate like real political leaders in a democracy. It is not always pretty. What we do here is not always most attractive. That is democracy. Most important of all, eight million Iraqis came out in the face of terrorist threats in January to vote on that interim legislation. Almost ten million came out to vote on a constitution, which is a pretty good document, a historically good document in the context of the Arab world.

What happened when the Sunnis felt they were not getting enough of what they wanted in a referendum? They didn't go to the street, most of them, with arms to start a civil war. They registered to vote. That is a miraculous achievement and a change in attitude and action. They came out to vote in great numbers and they will come out, I predict, again in December in the elections and elect enough Sunnis to have an effect on the Constitution next year. So I wish that some of that had been stated in Senator Levin's amendment. (end)

Again, given the opposition strategy that is currently being employed by the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill, the fact that this speech was given by a prominent Democrat (even if not as prominent as the “influential” John Murtha, district 12 PA) on the floor of the Senate strikes me as a distinctly noteworthy event. Certainly, at any rate, equally noteworthy to Murtha’s news conference. Yet, if Justin Webb, Matthew Davis, or the rest of the BBC’s America watchers had any inkling whatsoever of Lieberman’s striking words, you will search in vain to find any indication of it on the BBC’s website. Democratic calls for supporting the war effort and an attempt to put the achievments made in Iraq into some perspective apparently just don't register on the BBC radar screen.

Now, looking at the disparity in the treatment of the two above news items, who could seriously argue that there is not an ideologically driven bias problem in the BBC newsroom?

Anyone?