# What will the British government do about the BBC? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2003, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-british-government-do-about-the-bbc/185749 "2003-07-02T11:30:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-british-government-do-about-the-bbc/185749/81 "2003-07-08T11:28:31Z")
Actually, even discounting the usual partisan bickering the findings were inconclusive. If you read the conclusions in the final Parliamentary report (linked in **Abe** ’s post), there’s a lot of requests for further information and statements from the Government [note Paragraphs 29 and 30 in particular], and caveats relating to lack of substantive information. The specific allegation reported by the BBC was dismissed [Paragraph 11] and there was a recommendation to find out who Andrew Gilligan’s contact in the intelligence agencies is [Paragraph 26], but if you read the conclusions the Government doesn’t exactly come out of it well either, and Campbell gets his wrist slapped on a few key points. If this is a victory for the Government, it’s a Pyrrhic one; they come out much worse than the Beeb does. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-british-government-do-about-the-bbc/185749/82 "2003-07-09T09:53:38Z")
Tying up loose ends with the response to **December** I promised a couple days ago. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > **Abe** blasts Coulter without indicating that he has read her books and articles and without giving examples of her alleged “lame-brained opinions without any grasp of the larger picture.” **Abe** also blasts _BBC Watch_ as allegedly biased and not deserving of attention, also with no basis. I think **Collousnbury** highlighted the emptiness of your complaints, **December** , but I’ll add a few comments. Coulter: you’ve brought her up before, and I would not call her work garbage without any knowledge of it – I leave that kind of behaviour to your sources. I must say I was tempted to dismiss her out of hand, but I didn’t do you the disservice. I remember reading rather more of Coulter (in the form of her Web articles) than I cared to as part of background reading for a Coulter thread of yours – I think there is really no need to waste time on researching her more deeply. If I recall correctly you didn’t defend her too well back then (couldn’t find the thread, but I thought it had her name in the subject). Nor do I feel that you ever defend your sources very well, but we’ve been over this before. Plus, an obviously partisan cite and all that. As for the BBC Watch report, I don’t intend to write any sort of formal evaluation, so I will keep this as simple and straightforward as possible, without recourse to third party information etc., simply to demonstrate that it doesn’t take much effort to identify the cited “report” as nonsense. > [@](#): > > If he had read their [BBC Watch] reports, he would have discovered many dozens or cited quotes from BBC broadcasts with analysis of comparable coverage. And… ?? One form of bias is confirmation bias, where it is entirely possible to use information from accurate sources selected and presented in such a way to support misleading conclusions or interpretations. A tactic sometimes used even by some of your better sources, like the ADL – and that’s not calling ADL a great outfit mind you, but they do a bit of good work every now and then. Compared to many of your cites, that’s outstanding. So, **December** , even though I know this will be the usual futile exercise as far as your enlightenment goes, let me point out why your cite of BBC Watch is (once again) unacceptable december-serving garbage – further to the reasons already kindly provided by Collounsbury. A few things that stood out in that silly “report” from BBCWatch, and that you may have been too ideologically biased to take note of are outlined below. This won’t be a detailed examination of BBC Watch, rather it will show why it is easy to dismiss them and their third report after only a brief examination. > [@](#): > > \*from [http://www.bbcwatch.com/fullReport3.htm](http://www.bbcwatch.com/fullReport3.htm) \* > This report expresses the personal views of the authors. Which means, after the reading of only two other lines of text, that this report is in fact the **opinion** _of just two people_: one an (Israeli?) lawyer with not overly impressive experience (11 years since called at the bar, not bad though), the other a graduate (BA English) just two years out of university. Neither seems to be a media expert, although some media expertise is what I would expect given the name “BBC Watch”. Neither appears to have relevant experience. Neither really has any qualifications to be issuing such reports as far as I can see. Neither seems to be an historian, or political scientist, or communicator. Neither makes any claims to independence or impartiality, let alone hints at establishing any such thing. And there’s only two of them, hardly a significant scholarly (or otherwise qualified) body operating on informed debate and consensus when preparing their “reports”. No credibility at all is established for this report or for the “body” issuing it. Ringing warning bells can be heard in the distance. That’s the fact that we can glean from the report thus far, but we can also do a bit of speculation. One of the writers of the report, Lee Kern, could be quite young since he just graduated two years ago; he has a BA in English Literature and, considering his lack of significant graduate work experience, one could hazard the guess that Mr. Kern is there (wholly or in part) to handle the mechanical and stylistic aspects of the report. He certainly seems to be the junior member of the pair in all possible respects, which leaves Trevor Asserson as the dominant member of this dynamic duo. Mr. Asserson, having been called to the Bar in Israel over a decade ago, could well be Israeli or at least Jewish in spite of the fact that he is based in the UK – which is a little bit suspicious given the topic, its handling, _and_ the lack of established impartiality, no? Can’t guess much about Kern’s background so let’s stop the speculation. There isn’t much material to extrapolate from, but I don’t see anything of promise so far. Let’s leave the report and take a look at this BBC Watch outfit in more detail to see if we can establish any credibility whatsoever. Their web site at [www.bbcwatch.com](http://www.bbcwatch.com) is a rather bad piece of fly-by-night Web design that inspires no confidence in their professionalism. There seems to be nothing other than a mission statement and three “reports” in the way of content. The mission statement: > [@](#): > > \*From [www.bbcwatch.com](http://www.bbcwatch.com) \* > The objective of BBC Watch is to monitor BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to analyse this coverage > > \ > > We have prepared two [actually there are three, they could at least update their front page] reports which provide a thorough analysis of BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict So far so good it would seem, although it is suggested that BBC Watch consists essentially of “two [three] reports”! But wait - > [@](#): > > In the reports we demonstrate how the BBC consistently fails to adhere to its legal obligations to produce impartial and accurate reporting. That’s highly strange, to be mixing what seems to be a mission statement with their (foregone) conclusions. Are they there to “monitor BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” as they claim just a few sentences earlier, or is their (_a priori_) position to demonstrate that the BBC is doing a terrible job of it? It doesn’t take too many brain cells to figure out that option two is the more likely of the two. It doesn’t take any knowledge of how bias works to hear the various bullshit alarms going off. > [@](#): > > Our systematic, objective and rigorous research has lead us to the firm conclusion that the BBC frequently displays marked and consistent pro-Palestinian bias. The first half of that sentence is posturing, empty self-validation (with a spelling mistake, to boot – so much for being “rigorous”); the second half seems to be the real thesis of this organization. Good to know, thanks guys! > [@](#): > > We urge you to read the reports and to encourage others to do so. Ah, viral marketing, I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys are making the e-mail rounds as well. Hardly the methods of respectable impartial organizations that issue respectable reports. > [@](#): > > The BBC, perhaps more that any other news organisation, has a reputation for impartiality. Our reports will disabuse readers of this view and prove why this reputation, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is far from justified And that just about puts the nail in the coffin in terms of BBC Watch’s credibility. Their intent is quite obviously not to assess objectively BBC news coverage, but to tarnish the BBC’s reputation through cheap propaganda methods, something supported also by the choice of words employed. Confirmation bias looms larger than a house. Back to the report numero three. In the Summary the writers suggest straight away that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the conflict between coalition and Iraqi forces earlier this year are analogous for the purposes of comparing BBC’s coverage of same > [@](#): > > \*from [http://www.bbcwatch.com/fullReport3.htm](http://www.bbcwatch.com/fullReport3.htm) \* > The coalition forces, although claiming to be defending the security of their own countries, singularly failed to convince popular opinion that Iraq posed a real threat. By contrast popular opinion clearly accepts that the Israeli army is defending its civilian population from a very real threat which does constantly claim Israeli lives. This difference between the two conflicts, if it affected an impartial news provider at all, would logically tend to result in Israel receiving a more sympathetic coverage than did the coalition forces. The opposite is in fact the case. Seriously faulty logic. Firstly, popular opinion in some countries **did** hold that coalition forces were defending the security of their own countries: it may be an erroneous and rather ignorant conclusion, but popular opinion in the US and (to a lesser extent) in the UK held that the objective of attacking Iraq was about ending a critical threat. BBC Watch assumes incorrectly that the legitimacy of Israeli or coalition military operations is directly proportional to coverage bias of the military operations. Obviously this is a ridiculous way of looking at mass-media; it is in fact a ridiculous way to operate in the real world, period. Favourable coverage _or the impression thereof_ could well be due to a large number of other factors beyond that small one selected by the writers. As an example of this false logic, consider the false assumption by the writers that “popular opinion clearly accepts that the Israeli army is defending its civilian population”. Really, is that all there is to it? Popular opinion where? Which Israeli soldiers are we talking about – the ones that took bulldozers to raze down Palestinian settlements, and threw families out of their homes? The soldiers that enforce an apartheid state, that prevent cross-settlement movement even if it’s something as urgent as driving a pregnant woman to a hospital? The soldiers that have been known to threaten journalists, kill women and children, and scowl fiercely at cameras? The same soldiers whose practices and actions have been soundly criticized by a large swath of the world, the UN, and practically every human rights organization that exists? The same soldiers who assist their government in occupying land that is not theirs, oppressing and suppressing the Palestinian populations? Now of course I don’t want to give the impression that the Israeli side of the story consists solely of the (negative) material in the paragraph above, and indeed much of it is a matter of perception. But one of the problems the writers neglect to address is that there are plenty of existing grounds for complaint when it comes to Israel’s conflict, especially because it is a long-established conflict with many long-running problems. Because of all the above, seeing Israeli soldiers in action is not likely to be pretty, any more than seeing Palestinian militants firing guns in the air is a sight to warm the heart. Coalition forces, by contrast, were not in Iraq for any time at all prior to invasion, nor are they especially similar in nature or character to Israeli troops, who on the whole appear better trained and more serious. Coalition troops, Americans mostly, will tend to whoop loudly and shout something childish from atop their vehicles when cameras pass by, or boast about going “to kill people that need killing” and “shoot us some eye-raqis” (actual words from BBC field interviews shown on BBC World, my heart swells with sympathy for this _liberation_ force!). Israeli troops, on the other hand, will tend to keep a watchful eye and a professional demeanor. Israeli soldiers, for reasons having largely to do with context and past experience, don’t like cameras anywhere near as much as the American soldiers seem to – _that fact alone will cause them to be portrayed (framed, presented) somewhat more negatively in the mass-media, but not necessarily because of media bias_. If you pick at random, you’re more likely to see a serious and forbidding soldier in the IDF than you are in coalition forces, and that is not necessarily the medium’s fault; rather, the causes could be the conditions and contexts involved in each situation, as well as the character of the soldiers themselves. Plus, coalition forces had embedded journalists and volunteered much better information than that offered by IDF at any point (“parcelled & sanitized” farces like Centcom notwithstanding). It really is not remarkable that coalition soldiers should come across rather differently from Israeli soldiers in the media, or from Russian soldiers, or Iraqi soldiers. Which brings us to: > [@](#): > > Collation troops are described in warm and glowing terms, with sympathy being evoked both for them as individuals and also for their military predicament. Collation [sic] troops described thus? If they were, it’s very likely at least partly due to the fact that collation troops are rather different from Israeli troops, as mentioned. I am a watcher of BBC World, listener of BBC World Service, and reader of the BBC web site, and I must say that NOT ONCE did I detect “sympathy” for coalition soldiers being evoked in any way other than possibly through a display of the difficult conditions they have to work in. Now I question, in the light of the above arguments, if it is really necessary to look further at this silly “report”. Did I read all of it? No way, I read enough to decide that I am not looking at a credible or impartial document, and when I got about half way I gave up all hope. Since the report is not even able to establish valid premises or demonstrate an impartial (free of victim complexes) handling of “evidence” it is safe to conclude that its assertions have no logical validity. No time left for this exercise so I’ll post what I have and trust it is sufficient. A link for the general edification of the usual suspects (a link I confess recycling from one of my posts a while ago): > [@](#): > > \*from [http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadca](http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadca)…,909450,00.html \* > > The controller of editorial policy, Stephen Whittle, has told staff that even once a war is under way, opposition voices should be given airspace, provoking concern over an anti-war bias at the BBC. > > \ > > “We must reflect significant opposition in the UK (and elsewhere) to the military conflict and allow the arguments to be heard and tested. Those who speak and demonstrate against war are to be reported as part of the national and international reality,” Mr Whittle said. > > \ > > BBC reporters have also been told to test the reliability of information from government press briefings, while the armed forces are to be referred to as “British troops” and not “our troops”, because BBC reports are broadcast around the world Now, here’s a special quote from the same article that brings forth a chuckle for our complex-ridden watchdogs wannabes BBCWatch: > [@](#): > > the Conservative culture spokesman, John Whittingdale, accused the BBC’s management of allowing its own views on the war to affect coverage. > > “People inside the BBC who are opposed to the conflict are imposing their own views,” he told the Times. > > “The BBC is our national broadcaster and it must make clear why we are asking British forces to risk their lives.” Doesn’t sound like other people feel the BBC is too sympathetic to coalition forces, quite the opposite! Please don’t bring up crap like BBC Watch again unless you have a seriously good defence ready. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-british-government-do-about-the-bbc/185749/83 "2003-07-29T15:57:57Z")
> [@](#): > > [http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=428552](http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=428552) > > 29 July 2003 > The Government is losing out to the BBC in the battle for public trust in the wake of the David Kelly affair, an opinion poll published today indicates. > > The survey by NOP found that 54 per cent of respondents trusted the BBC more than the Government over claims about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Only 21 per cent said they had greater faith in the Government. > > The poll, commissioned by public relations company Weber Shandwick, found that despite concerted criticism by government ministers, the public still places greater trust in the BBC than in other news organisations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-the-british-government-do-about-the-bbc/185749.md?page=4)