h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"but because of the lack of reporting of history and context, and the fact that whereas Israel is a modern state with people employed to deal with the media at any point, the Palestinians are not and so cannot tell their side of the story so effectively."

Can you give examples of how failing to report "history and context" creates notable bias in BBC reporting?

Can you give examples of cases where the Palestinian case is damaged by their not being able to "tell their side of the story so effectively"? More to the point, can you please elaborate on what exactly this means? Any Palestinians I've seen on the news being asked for their take on the situation have tended to make their opinions and arguments perfectly clear.

"Funny that the BNP are presented as the arch-bogeymen and a threat to the civilised world when they are an open, democratic party who publically state their aims - however distasteful. Yet the deobanis and hizb ut tahrir are regarded as isolated loonies. How many people have the BNP killed lately?

The BNP are an easy target precisely because they set themselves up to be shot at and, having absolutely no chance of ever gaining power, they serve as a release valve for a section of the electorate."

I don't think either the BNP or HuT have any chance of getting power. What I do think (and why I think its important to keep up coverage on their activies in the media) is that they have the potential to polarise their respective communities which can increase both radicalism in the Islamic community (arguably leading to recruits for terrorist organisations) and racism in the white community which can lead to attacks on muslims generally which can lead to said muslims feeling victimised and hence into the arms of their own rightwing groups etc etc.

Ultimately, it's not about the percentage of support these groups command but about what the knock-on effects of their activities are.

I agree that Islamist groups are a much more provably dangerous threat than fascist groups at the moment but that doesn't make fascist groups somehow irrelevant. The fact that the BNP operate in the democratic sphere and are open about their beliefs (incidentally have HuT ever conceal their beliefs?) doesn't change the sort of effect they can have in the long run.

Quintuple post! Jackpot.

*collects coins*

SWL,

I agree that News 24 tends to editorialise less, but it also does less analysis. They tend to just report what was said by a government or in this case police spokesperson, without looking into it further. So it's a mixed blessing.

Zagreb,

"It's not just coverage it's getting the story *out there* and this seems to be the first time the BBC has done this properly with this particular group."

Hmm. Read this message again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/FFM135418?thread=4569125&skip=120&show=20#p53348226

Newsnight has dedicated large segments or even whole programmes to HuT before, as I already said. Remember, we're talking about whether or not the programme you saw counts as good investigative journalism. It doesn't, for the reasons I explained in the message linked to above.

"Have you watched any BBC TV recently?"

Actually, not in the last month I must admit. I've moved to Paris.

But the BBC are not critical of the authorities except in a very superficial way, and terrorism is a good case in point. I have never on the BBC seen the point made that the threat of terrorism is fairly minor. That the number of people killed by terrorists is a tiny fraction of the number killed on the roads, or about the same as the number killed by lightning or drowning in bath tubs. Now, you may disagree about the wider significance of that, but you'd think that some sort of reckoning of the actual level of risk of terrorism would be warranted by an unbiased news organisation.

Another case in point: in reporting the recent failed car bomb attempts, to my knowledge the BBC have never questioned the government / police line that the car bombs could really have been effective. The BBC Q&A on those attacks

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6253802.stm

merely quotes the police: "The police say the devices were "viable"". On the other hand, the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114970,00.html

brought in an expert on explosives, and the Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/29/more_fear_biscuits_please/

did a whole piece explaining that without an oxidiser (which there wasn't in those cars) there could be no explosion, only a fireball.

Anyway, I'm not going to spend any more time explaining this point, because I already know what you're going to say. You're going to quickly look at the argument I've made above, not read the links, and say something like: "So you're saying that just because the BBC aren't making the points you want them to make they must be biased in favour of the government." It takes me quite a long time to go off and find all these articles backing up my points, and writing these messages, and if that's what your response is going to be it's not worth my time and effort continuing.

"The BBC *did* cover the ex-BNP candidate being found with explosives extensively (I know because it was through them I learned about the story)."

Not at the time it happened they didn't, although there was a small amount of coverage around the time of the trial. Compare with the blanket coverage of the hearsay evidence in every instance where Muslims are involved.

"> All the academic studies and independent reports I've seen have suggested that the BBC is slightly biased in favour of Israel.

"Where and by whom?"

I'm tempted to say: do your own research. But, since I happen to know exactly where they are:

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT PANEL
FOR THE BBC GOVERNORS
ON IMPARTIALITY OF BBC COVERAGE
OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
April 2006

No longer available on the BBC's web page, but you can get it through the web archive:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061202222318/http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/reviews/panel_report_final.pdf

And you can read what I wrote about it at the time:

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/dangoodman/entry/independent_review_of/

There's also the Glasgow media group study:

http://www.glasgowmediagroup.org/content/view/4/2/

The Balen report may go the other way - or it may not - but we can't see it because the BBC won't release it.

Oh, didn't see that there were more posts on this page.

"Can you give examples of how failing to report "history and context" creates notable bias in BBC reporting?"

Read the report for the BBC governors I linked to, but here are a couple of quotes from it:

There is an asymmetry of power between the two sides and this is reflected in a number of ways which impact on the journalistic enterprise. It is easier to gain access to Israeli spokespeople, and the Israeli authorities may be in a position to grant or deny permits to access Palestinian areas and spokespeople

...

In recent years, many more Palestinians have been killed but usually in circumstances which are less dramatic and give rise to less striking images. Moreover, leaving aside death and injury, much of the Palestinian suffering arises from the situation of displacement and occupation, which does not generally lend itself to the newsworthy event. Given this symmetry, providing a fair account of relative suffering is itself a challenge. Moreover, while the suffering is real and it is important that an account is given of it, graphic pictures on screen can produce a strong emotive reaction which can be seen as evidence of bias unless an even–handed approach is clear.

...

the BBC [is] committed, as our terms of reference make clear, to fairness, impartiality and balance. (While fairness and impartiality are legal requirements, balance is a concept adopted by the BBC in seeking to give effect to them.) These objectives, especially balance, work most naturally where the parties to a dispute are on an equal footing. Indeed, without care, a formulaic application of these doctrines, and in particular that of balance, to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict could produce coverage which misleads from the outset.

"Newsnight has dedicated large segments or even whole programmes to HuT before, as I already said. Remember, we're talking about whether or not the programme you saw counts as good investigative journalism. It doesn't, for the reasons I explained in the message linked to above."

Oh, I agree Newsnight has covered HuT before (I read the links you provided and they made that quite clear) but I'd never seen them advertise said programme before or make it such an issue. Again, as I said, I think it's important that they do this since there's a general ignorance about Islamist ideology and methodology (and this plays to groups like the BNP who like to insunate Islam and Islamism are basically the same thing, less rightwing groups make the same mistake).

I'm lost as to your claim that it's not good investigative journalism. The reports I've seen from the Beeb on HuT seem to go into good detail and give a good account of the group's thinking and ideology. That's what I expect from investigative journalism.

"But the BBC are not critical of the authorities except in a very superficial way, and terrorism is a good case in point. I have never on the BBC seen the point made that the threat of terrorism is fairly minor. That the number of people killed by terrorists is a tiny fraction of the number killed on the roads, or about the same as the number killed by lightning or drowning in bath tubs. Now, you may disagree about the wider significance of that, but you'd think that some sort of reckoning of the actual level of risk of terrorism would be warranted by an unbiased news organisation."

You're doing something you often seem to do which is confuse your own opinions with the neutral ground. You think the BBC should be more critical of the authorities. All well and good but that doesn't mean the BBC should match your position and indeed it can't because of it's commitment to impartiality. As a good example you give the BBC's report on the car bombs and then do a comparison with a Guardian report. The Guardian is a leftwing newspaper sceptical of the whole "war on terror" thing with an interest in playing-down the terrorist threat. It's like someone criticising the BBC's reporting on immigration and then linking to a Daily Telegraph editorial. Yes, it's a point of view but not one the BBC should pursue.

The whole "police said it was viable" stuff is nitpicking, anyway. Fireballs can hurt people and that is what these people were definitely trying to do. It doesn't really help to play-down a terrorist threat by saying "yes, but they didn't have the best explosives". The 9/11 hi-jackers used box-cutters, remember. The danger lies in the intent and the willingness to act more than anything else. It's a little like a gang of neo-nazis breaking into an asylum-seekers hostel, being found to have knives on them and then someone debating whether the knives were sharp and how long the blades were. It's an attempt to divert attention from what should be the main focus.

Incidentally, the "more people killed on the road" argument isn't really justifiable. Terrorists not only kill people they kill people in ways intended to have political impact which also often have social impact. No one was killed in the failed car bomb attacks in Glasgow but muslims were still targetted by racists afterwards seeking "revenge" in collective punishment. If some people had been injured in an everyday accident that wouldn't have happened. If just a few large-scale Islamist terrorist atrocities happen that will increase public feeling against muslims in general (despite how wrong this is) and polarise communities. There is much more at stake in preventing terrorist attacks than the numbers killed which is why the government get so jittery about it (there is a muslim minority of several million in this country and groups like the BNP and HuT trying to start a race/culture war - do you think their goal will be more or less likely if even a few bombs go off successfully). Additionally, terrorist attacks are *murder* not accidents so weighing them up against accidents is morally void. If someone murders fifty-odd people then its quite right that there's outrage. If someone else tries to incite people to do it again then its quite right people comdemn it utterly. The *risks* of terrorism go beyond the people killed and so the government have to treat it much more seriously. People with an agenda will try and play that down, of course. The BBC, who rightly don't have an agenda, have to treat it with a certain amount of gravity. That's not the same as naked scaremongering (which is something they clearly don't do - their coverage of these sorts of things is commendably level-headed).

Here's another way of looking at it. How would you feel if someone insisted that the Pinochet regime's murder of leftists (which ran in to the thousands, I believe) paled next to the numbers killed on Chiles roads? Would you think that was dodging the issue or would you think they had a point? Personally, I think the regimes policy of political murder was outrageous but I can't say I get as angry about the numbers killed on the roads in Chile every year. Is this wrong of me?

"Not at the time it happened they didn't, although there was a small amount of coverage around the time of the trial. Compare with the blanket coverage of the hearsay evidence in every instance where Muslims are involved."

It got significant news coverage, not "a small amount" and I've no idea where you're getting your claim of "blanket" coverage everytime Muslims are involved in terrorist claims. There's coverage, yes, but hardly blanket. More to the point, this is largely due to public interest. Islamist terrorists *have* made attacks recently and have tried several times since. The last neo-nazi atrocity I can recall was the Soho nailbombing years ago. If the BNP blew-up a mosque then I imagine we would have a lot more stories about white skinheads being arrested on suspicion of building bombs because suddenly it would be in the public eye. News refects public concerns, hence why all these stories about a little girl missing in Portugal are getting so much coverage on British news channels even though its a minor story in the wider scheme of things. If the news was giving coverage to muslims being picked-up on suspicion of terrorist activities and there hadn't been an Islamist bombing for years and no reason to suspect one was planned then the news coverage would look quite odd and possibly suspect but in the current context it isn't.

Regarding the Israeli BBC reporting stuff, thanks. I'll try and take a look at it. I'm genuinely interested in the way the Israeli-Palestnian conflict is reported and I find it frustratingly difficult to get good information because of all the cranks with drums to beat about it trying to push their argument and sanctify their chosen side. Personally, my own problem with the Beeb's reporting of the issue is that it often focusses on the immediate (ie this bomb went of in an Israeli cafe of the IDF shelled this town) without going into enough context and history. For example, for all the coverage of the Palestinian conflict I've no idea why the Palestinians in refugee camps in neighbouring arab states don't return to the occupied territories. There might be an argument here but I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in a refugee camp rather than a town or village, even under Israeli occupation.

"I'm lost as to your claim that it's not good investigative journalism."

It's not good investigative journalism if you're rehashing a story for the seventh time rather than finding out something new.

"You're doing something you often seem to do which is confuse your own opinions with the neutral ground."

Well, at least my prediction in post 165 has been proved correct.

"All well and good but that doesn't mean the BBC should match your position and indeed it can't because of it's commitment to impartiality."

The point about my example of the BBC not ever talking about the level of risk posed by terrorism was not that I think they ought to have an editorial policy of always downplaying terrorism related things because the risks are small. The point is that this is *never* mentioned. There is a total blackout on the mere possibility that we are over-reacting to terrorism. And this is not just a minor crank viewpoint. The prestigious US journal Foreign Affairs devoted a special issue to it, and had an extensive debate on John Mueller's article arguing that there is no serious terrorist threat:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901facomment85501/john-mueller/is-there-still-a-terrorist-threat.html
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/special/9-11_roundtable/

Not a left wing, crank journal by any means. Just look at who's writing in the current issue: Rudolph Giuliani, John Edwards, Tom Daschle, etc.

My point is, the BBC doesn't make itself unbiased by excluding a large part of the range of views out there. I'd be happy if the BBC had serious right wing view points on it as well as serious left wing ones. Hell, I don't even mind if they include stupid right wing viewpoints and stupid left wing ones. You know, I want that diversity on the BBC. I want people arguing that we should have a CCTV camera in every home because of the threat of terrorism, and I want someone else arguing that there is no terrorist threat.

"The whole "police said it was viable" stuff is nitpicking, anyway. Fireballs can hurt people and that is what these people were definitely trying to do."

Fireballs can hurt a very small number of people if they happen to be standing right next to the car when it goes off - unlike an actual explosive device which would have killed hundreds. It's not irrelevant that these terrorist wannabes are so incompetent. A threat to take over the world from some doofus who can't tie his own shoelace is quite different to one from someone with a professional army at his command. If the terrorist threat was really a serious one, then maybe it would make sense to get rid of our civil liberties to stop the danger. That's why it's absolutely crucial that the BBC presents the case that says it isn't serious (as well as the one that says it is serious) rather than just implicitly assuming in every broadcast that the threat is serious. The very nature of our society is at stake. And that's not an exaggeration either. Some of the civil liberties we have lost because of supposed threat of terrorism go back to the Magna Carta which has written in the 13th century. It's really serious if we let ourselves lose these rights because some morons drive a van full of propane up to a London club and fail to even ignite it.

"No one was killed in the failed car bomb attacks in Glasgow but muslims were still targetted by racists afterwards seeking "revenge" in collective punishment."

Yes, and the government and media are somewhat complicit in this. The government seeks to exaggerate the threat of terrorism because then they can pass new laws that make their lives easier. The media seeks to exaggerate it because terrorism is frightening and exciting, and that sells well. (The BBC on the other hand just go along with what everyone else is doing.)

"There is much more at stake in preventing terrorist attacks than the numbers killed which is why the government get so jittery about it..."

Well, I'd say that's a view that shows a lot of trust in a government that has been proven time and time again to have rather baser motives: lying to take us into war in Iraq, cancelling the inquiry into BAe bribes to Saudi Arabia, etc.

"Here's another way of looking at it. How would you feel if someone insisted that the Pinochet regime's murder of leftists (which ran in to the thousands, I believe) paled next to the numbers killed on Chiles roads?"

Massive tangent warning:

OK, let's run with this example because it's an interesting one. First off, let's start with the numbers, just to get them straight. Wikipedia claims that a number of reports agree that the figure was about 3,000 leftists killed (and maybe many more 'disappeared', not clear). These mostly happened within the first three months after the coup, but Pinochet ruled for about 17 years. So, we either have a death rate of 12,000/year if we count only those three months when the killing was actually happening, or about 176 a year if we consider the whole of Pinochet's rule. Assuming that UK road deaths are about the same rate as in Chile, that would be 750 road deaths / year. So, the scale of deaths is sort of comparable, you certainly wouldn't say that one 'paled' in comparison to the other at either of these extremes.

What does pale in comparison mean then? Since we're discussing my claim that terrorism related deaths pale in comparison to road deaths, let's use this as a numerical definition of pale in comparison. For purposes of estimation, I'm going to work from September 10th 2001, so as to maximise the numbers in favour of the argument that terrorism is a serious threat. Let's now take the UK. Total terrorism related deaths 10/9/2001 to now is 52. Total road deaths, assuming 3,000 a year (an underestimate), about 18,000. So, in the UK, over this time period, road deaths are looking to be about 345 times worse than terrorism related deaths. Let's take the US in the same time period. They had 3,000 deaths on 9/11, and about 40,000 road deaths a year, so about 240,000 deaths since 9/11, or a ratio of road deaths to terrorism deaths of 80. Let's take the smaller number of these two, 80, as the definition of one death rate paling in comparison to another.

So for the leftist murders in Chile to pale in comparison to road deaths, they would have had to have come at a rate of about 9 per year (which over the 17 years of Pinochet's rule would be about 160 total). I agree, that would be pretty bad. Alternatively, if road deaths in Chile were as high as 14,000 a year (which would be as if the road death rate here were 56,000 a year) then the ratio would be the same.

But anyway, although I think it's important to compare like with like, this doesn't get at the essence of your point. The reason why the comparison of Pinochet murdering leftists in Chile to road deaths is not such a good one is that murdered leftists was only one aspect of why Pinochet was bad. But in the case of terrorism, the only actual problem is the murders. The terrorists aren't in control here, they're not stopping us from voting, they're not changing our foreign policy. They are succeeding at making us give up our civil liberties for no good reason, but really that's our fault, not theirs.

The other reason that the road death comparison is valid, is that one can not only compare the number of deaths, but also what we could reasonably do about it. I'd say that a government could do a lot to reduce the number of road deaths if they were willing: they could mandate that all cars had to have automatic speed limiters in them, that gadget that brakes the car automatically if the car in front is too close, and a device to stop people being able to start the car without passing a breath test for alcohol; they could make the driving test much more difficult, make people take the test again every 5 years; they could ruthlessly enforce all of this with severe penalties and more police. I'd be willing to bet that doing all that would enormously reduce the number of people killed, probably by thousands a year. On the other hand, all the terrorism legislation has saved how many lives do we think? My guess would be none, but maybe it's saved a few. Maybe it's actually increased the numbers of deaths. Jean Charles de Menezes for example.

Now I'm not suggesting that we do all of the things I said above to reduce the rate of car deaths. What I would suggest is that we take a more reasoned approach to assessing the risks we face. As a society, we consider that the benefits of driving are worth it even though the risks are fairly high. We don't seem to consider that the right not to be imprisoned without charge for more than a few days is worth it, even though the risks are tiny.

Incidentally, I've just remembered the BBC did have a programme which covered some of these points, called The Power of Nightmares. But still, that's one bit of one programme in the 6 years since 9/11. Compare that to the number of broadcasts which have implicitly assumed that the threat of terrorism is very serious indeed.

This article is interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7015154.stm

"Home Office Security Minister Tony McNulty has admitted the government made mistakes in response to the 7 July 2005 bomb attacks in London.

"... He said one of these mistakes was Mr Blair's argument that people must be ready to accept reductions in their civil liberties in the fight against terror because "the rules of the game have changed"."

We now have a possible empirical test of my claim that the BBC is soft on the government. Assuming that McNulty really means what he's saying and the government really does start down a line of being less hard on civil liberties, will the BBC follow suit?

It probably won't work though, because I don't really believe the government is going to change their policy. In the same article:

"Mr McNulty spoke out just a day after Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the time was right to reconsider extending the 28-day limit on holding terrorism suspects without charge."

Ever since the Hutton whitewash the BBC have been running scared of this government. They have shown they are willing to attack the BBC at its heart - the license issue - and so they fail to highlight issues that I would expect to have as lead items on the news.

This also overlaps into not being particularly critical of governmental policy - home and abroad.