Diary of a BBC complainant

[Teddy Bear]

Neil Turner is the man who set up the petition, that we linked to for over a year, to require a referendum over the BBC licence fee.

He writes an excellent piece for 'Harry's Place', about his experiences submitting complaints to the BBC over their anti-Israel propaganda.

Diary of a BBC complainant

This is a guest post by Neil Turner

When was the last time you shouted at the telly ? Over the last twenty years I have had occasion to complain to the BBC, and I guessed the reason I got fobbed off was down to my lack of preparation or perseverance. So, for twelve months – as an experiment – I have kept a diary of our dialogue, so I could learn, adapt and evolve. I’m glad I did, otherwise – as you will see – I might have started to question my own sanity.

My beef is about the BBC’s coverage of Israel. Yours might be the EU, political correctness, global warming, or some other. I read with interest Nigel Farage’s comments about the BBC’s Europhilia and its stereotypical reporting on UKIP. Well said that man. In fact, were one to take Mr Farage’s words and substitute ‘Israel’ for ‘UKIP, I wouldn’t be writing this now. So I’m not alone. You don’t have to share my particular views, but just stay with me a bit longer.

The conclusion of my twelve month experiment is that the BBC is in reality accountable to no-one but itself. It is quite simply, the largest political party in the country: immensely powerful, biased to its core, either wholly oblivious of its prejudice (or cynically aware of it) and defiantly unrepentant. It is a totally closed system, with processes engineered to repel feedback from its customers.

So, what didn’t I like about the BBC’s coverage of Israel ? Let me give you a few examples. In each case I complained. In each case, and at every level, I was rebuffed.

During 2012 Israel had been on the receiving end of months of rocket attacks from Gaza. With a (very) few token exceptions, the BBCNews Middle East website (as well as TV and radio) didn’t report either the individual incidences or dramatic escalation of these launches until Israel had responded. This well-established ’last/first’ reporting policy thus allowed the BBC to create the impression that Israel always instigated the violence, and that Gazans were always the victims. In responding to my complaint, the BBC denied this, adding ‘We do aim to lead our reports with the most interesting or significant element’, which, for the BBC of course, is apparently always when those nasty Israelis fire back.

Next, during last November’s conflict, 5LiveDrive’s Peter Allen interviewed Gil Hoffman of the Jerusalem Post, making the accusation that ‘Israel always wreaks its revenge’’ and adding ‘it does it all the time!’ When I challenged this, the BBC informed me that this was OK because Allen was playing ’devil’s advocate’. Strangely, he didn’t do the same to his Palestinian interviewee on the same programme. It is amusing to peruse Allen’s interviewing tips in the BBC’s Style Guide for conducting an interview: ‘The interviewer should be well briefed, good humoured but firm, and never bad tempered’. (unless he’s interviewing an Israeli). OK; so I added that last bit myself

Newsnight conducted an interview with Jonathan Sacerdoti last November. On the screen behind him a video was running, showing a man with beige jacket who purportedly had been injured in an IDF airstrike on Gaza. Moments later, ‘beige jacket man’ was seen running around totally (and miraculously!) healed. To all but the BBC, this was most likely the work of ‘Pallywood’: the well-oiled Palestinian propaganda machine which provides a constant stream of photoshopped ‘victim’ imagery to an acquiescent main stream media. The phenomenon is well documented through sites like HonestReporting. Again, the BBC denied this, advising it was probably an ‘innocent’ editing error, and ‘difficult to see how it might have significantly misled the audience on a material point’. So it’s OK to show fabricated video footage and this has no impact on the viewer’s perception. Why bother showing it then ?

How about the Today programme’s John Humphreys ? Last month he interviewed Jack Straw and Dore Gold about the Iranian elections. Straw made the offensive and inflammatory statement that ‘Israel is stealing Palestinian land’. According to the BBC’s own live reporting guidelines, Humphreys, as interviewer, should then have acted to ‘intervene, challenge the comments where appropriate and/or distance the BBC from the comments’. He did not, and appeared to side with Straw against Gold. By now you should be able to guess the BBC’s response to my complaint on that issue. Go to the top of the class if you thought that the BBC advised ‘it simply wouldn’t be possible for a presenter to challenge every point made by a guest’ – despite its own guidelines to the contrary.

I could go on, but you probably get the point by now. Bear in mind that when one complains to the BBC, one must abide by their rules and procedure. Step 1 is a phone call or an entry via their Complaints website. Within four weeks (if they haven’t lost it) you will get a superficial response from a junior member of staff advising how the BBC cannot possibly be at fault, but will be assured that ‘we’ve registered your complaint on our audience log…(which) is available for viewing by all our staff. This includes all programme makers and presenters, along with our senior management. It ensures that your points, along with all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC’. You can now relax, knowing that all these sincere, interested BBC people are pouring over your concerns and reflecting on their own self-justifying explanation. They will then do absolutely nothing. But never mind, the BBC has thanked you for ‘taking the time to get in touch’.

Assuming you aren’t happy with this treatment, step 2 is to call or write back via the Complaints website to explain why. Within seconds (sometimes) or not at all (often) the BBC’s computer sends you a ‘personal’ message to advise ‘we are sorry that you were not satisfied with our earlier response to your complaint and appreciate that you felt strongly enough to contact us again about the matter’. Eventually, maybe six weeks later (or longer) you’ll be told again you were mistaken, the BBC is right (as always) but never mind, because ‘we’ve registered your further comments on our audience log, made available to BBC staff across the Corporation’. Again.

By the way, should you give up after either stage, the BBC will interpret your action as being satisfied with their response. ‘Smug face’ for all concerned. Are you losing the will to live yet ?

Well done. You have just completed what is known as ‘Stage 1’. No grown-up in the BBC has yet seen your complaint, but hey, it has killed off at the very least a couple of months. They can now add you to their highly sanitised statistics of ‘satisfied’ customers which are hidden away in an obscure part of their website, and rolled out at Licence Fee Review time to gullible MPs. But, (fanfare of trumpets) you now will be given ‘permission’ to progress to Stage 2 and complain to the ‘independent’ BBC Editorial Complaints Unit, which, actually (unlike the more efficient Press Complaints Commission) is not independent. Months later, you will then receive another brush–off dressed up as a response on a formal BBC letterhead, explaining in a patronising tone how the BBC is right yet again. Finally, you are given ‘permission’ to appeal to the BBC Trust.

Back to my story though: being a good soldier, I didn’t give up, but tried another tack. The BBC’s complaints system is stacked against you, the individual. Its mix of bureaucracy, inefficiency, bias, groupthink and disdain for the Licence Fee payer creates an impenetrable barrier, and seems designed to off-put. So I thought why not bypass it and use a Freedom of Information request ? Backed by legislation, it surely couldn’t fail, particularly if I made it a generic and innocuous question on overall complaints:

● how many complaints were made to the BBC over the last 5 years on a year by year basis

● how many complaints were upheld (i.e. the BBC makes a correction) on a year by year basis

● how many complaints were rejected by the BBC (i.e. no corrective action taken)

A (surprisingly) short time later, I got a six page response from the BBC’s Marketing and Audiences Business Manager, advising that as the information related to ‘information about editorial complaints … held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature’, so I could go and whistle. This, by the way, was the precise reason that Balen has never been published. ‘Journalism, art and literature’ seems a wonderfully broad brush for the BBC to paint over inconvenient truths. Next, I wrote to the head of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, via my MP, but got the brush off again. Patten noted my ‘disappointment’, but regretted that due to his position as Chairman ‘it would not be appropriate for him to respond’. So another letter went out to the new DG, Tony Hall. A new brush sweeps clean, as they say, and I guessed that post-Savile (et al) he might be amenable. His answer (and I paraphrase) was ‘get lost, I’m not going to tell you’. ‘But you can appeal to the Information Commissioner’, so I have.

If you think I’m being hard on the BBC, that’s because I am. I have given them every chance over a wide range of examples of bias, and am tired of being blanked and taken for a fool. But it’s my Licence Fee, my BBC. It’s yours too. It does not belong to them but to the great British public. And we want it back. Now please.

A good first step would be the introduction of a truly independent and transparent complaints procedure. Not too much to ask is it ?

[steevo]

Good article. I look at his exasperation with the knowledge I'm not there. But I'm still tempted to scratch my head asking why the effort, what's the point trying to prove what should be, what is the obvious? But I can still understand, unfortunately. And I appreciate when one speaks from the gut. I know damn well what he's saying cuts right through. I hate the BBC just like left-wing agenda-driven manipulators here. I hate their calloused self-serving inhumane guts, and I really can't imagine any other conclusion with this.

[Teddy Bear]

Neil actually has a family link to the establishment of the BBC which he details here. I can imagine for him it's seeing the work your grandfather invested to create something that should have been good, serving evil, and he's trying to address it.

The big difference, and the most galling, between the BBC and the US lefty media is you're not forced to pay for yours. Imagine if you were.

[steevo]

It's not my intent to argue which side of the Atlantic has more injustice but it's most galling just to point out motivation that's deceitful, unjust and inhumane.

Other than our PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) and NPR (National Public Radio) both of which are left-wing with significant subsidies from the tax payer, it's true we're not paying a license fee on the magnitude of yours. But since the advent of television our mainstream media have been granted the frequency spectrums of high and ultra high, the most capable of broadcasting with existing technology, via the protection/sanction of our federal government. They became established and left-wing yet granted an untouchable monopoly a long long time ago.

So it gets to the point where my feelings can become resigned to the same ole. There's nothing new here, or there under the sun. It may take a few beers but when I see people still wondering, still asking why, I'm bothered with all due respect. That reveals lingering doubt and unsureness. It really does. (Is there any good or noble intent?) Sorry but at this point in time I believe that is flat out stupidity. A weakness people need to get over. It is exactly what the BBC, British and the American Left, play on... remarkably to this day! That slightest of doubt. Slightest of asking why? It's a wild card in their hand whether you know it or not.

[Teddy Bear]

My statement wasn't intended as an argument, simply something more to consider.

I couldn't understand your last paragraph clearly Steevo. Can you elaborate a bit more?

[steevo]

I know it wasn't intended as an argument per se Teddy, but it's about injustice and there's more than enough to digest regardless of where we live.

I honestly don't know what to clarify in my last paragraph, maybe you can be even more specific?

I don't have to ask any more questions why left-wing journalists behave as they do. No further proof is required of their intent.

[Teddy Bear]

My estimation of why left wingers, be they journalists or otherwise, behave as they do is they are incapable of thinking through any topic with any depth. So they cling to simple tenets, and reject anything that shows the paucity inherent within.

When you consider that journalists are really those that merely report about what others who are active in society do. Journalists are not doers - but observers. When they are out of their depth in really comprehending what the doers achieve, or try to achieve, and judge their actions according to their own basic understandings, the problem begins.

There is a saying that starts to paraphrase this:
Those that can - do.
Those that can't - teach.
Those that can't teach - administrate.

So if we add - Those that can't do any of the above observe and report, and since they can't do any of the above they can't really understand it.

Why anybody should trust their viewpoints is beyond me.

For sure there are journalists who do have the capacity to reason more fully, and we can recognise the thought processes they undergo to arrive at their conclusions because we have gone through it ourselves - not instead of ourselves.

It is the nature of those with limited intelligence to avoid criticism of themselves. Journalism in this day and age uses its 'power' to shut out all who would, and defines the world in a simplistic and inane way that will never truly reflect reality.

I can't really be more specific about your previous last paragraph. I've re-read it numerous times but can't really understand what each part relates to. Perhaps it's the punctuation. I'm sure you know what you mean in your own mind, I just can't catch it - sorry mate.

[steevo]

I'm a bit surprised by your explanation but appreciate the time. It's an outdated maybe even romanticized view that journalists' work is to report what others do. There may have been a time... but for many, especially on the Left, that's old school and very outdated requiring an integrity they don't possess. They are now ideologues and manipulators of reality. It can be argued the depth of willful intent but their objective and ulterior motivation is beyond question, or should be and that's been my point here. I am emphasizing those on the Left.

They are doers and they know it, just as any organization or ministry of propaganda. They may be alienated to a degree in their ideology and amoral/immoral disposition but they can rub each others' cat bellies while being well paid and connected, and they can look at their ever growing fruits of 'change' toward the destruction of the individual's liberty to think and act on his own.

You and I do judge the degree of calculated intent very different, that is quite clear here. This is a fundamental difference in our perception and assessment.

So I'll get back to Neil again. I have no problem with someone pointing out what can only be understood as deceitful,underhanded, hypocritical, unjust, calloused etc. with the hope of convincing others who may not already be convinced. Part of a continuing effort to affirm critical awareness needed to have any chance at affecting change for the good. But he did it to also convince himself. That's been a prime motivation for his last year dissecting BBC behavior. He needed even more convincing of their intent, to be even more assured of what he highly suspected. I'm saying he shouldn't have needed any more proof for himself. And lingering doubt in a man like him is a powerful testimony that the BBC can still get away with claiming legitimacy especially with those less informed.

[Teddy Bear]

Jul 24, 2013 22:33:28 GMT steevo said:

I'm a bit surprised by your explanation but appreciate the time. It's an outdated maybe even romanticized view that journalists' work is to report what others do. There may have been a time... but for many, especially on the Left, that's old school and very outdated requiring an integrity they don't possess. They are now ideologues and manipulators of reality. It can be argued the depth of willful intent but their objective and ulterior motivation is beyond question, or should be and that's been my point here. I am emphasizing those on the Left.

I'm well aware of this and fully agree. I was trying to explain what I see as the motivation or inner dynamics that lead them to do this. They can make themselves believe that they are highly intelligent and see clearer than everybody else, but they are only fooling themselves and those that allow them to think for them. The reality is still they are NOT the real doers, and any doers that allow these incompetent fools to think for them, like many of our politicians as an example, are just as incompetent.

They are doers and they know it, just as any organization or ministry of propaganda. They may be alienated to a degree in their ideology and amoral/immoral disposition but they can rub each others' cat bellies while being well paid and connected, and they can look at their ever growing fruits of 'change' toward the destruction of the individual's liberty to think and act on his own.

I know what you mean and I believe we agree, just stating it slightly differently. Something like they are the tail wagging the dog, instead of the other way round.

You and I do judge the degree of calculated intent very different, that is quite clear here. This is a fundamental difference in our perception and assessment.

I'm not so sure

So I'll get back to Neil again. I have no problem with someone pointing out what can only be understood as deceitful,underhanded, hypocritical, unjust, calloused etc. with the hope of convincing others who may not already be convinced. Part of a continuing effort to affirm critical awareness needed to have any chance at affecting change for the good. But he did it to also convince himself. That's been a prime motivation for his last year dissecting BBC behavior. He needed even more convincing of their intent, to be even more assured of what he highly suspected. I'm saying he shouldn't have needed any more proof for himself. And lingering doubt in a man like him is a powerful testimony that the BBC can still get away with claiming legitimacy especially with those less informed.

I really doubt he needed to do this to CONVINCE himself as much as to demonstrate to others what he already knew to be true. I see our own actions on this website to be much the same. We are well aware of the agenda of the BBC and mindset inherent in it. There is little if anything that surprises us, yet we still bring constant and consistent reminders for the benefit of others who may never have realised it.

[steevo]

Well this has been another interesting exchange my friend and I'll continue to scratch my head. No doubt we will continue to have non-disagreement disagreements

[Teddy Bear]

"You say tomayto, I say tomahto..." ;D

Cheers matey