Post by Teddy Bear on Jan 27, 2009 1:05:58 GMT
Melanie Phillips writes her usual brilliant articles, this one about the refusal thus far by the BBC to broadcast the appeal for humanitarian relief in Gaza. Melanie makes the observation that the excuse used by the BBC not to air the appeal as it would 'compromise its reputation for impartiality' kinda sticks in the throat a bit.
The BBC ‘impartial’? Whoever believes that?
Daily Mail, 26 January 2009
What an extraordinary crisis the BBC has provoked by its decision not to broadcast an appeal by various aid agencies for humanitarian relief for Gaza.
The BBC said it feared that doing so would compromise its reputation for impartiality. This detonated a ferocious attack from politicians, religious leaders and even members of its own journalistic staff, along with ‘Stop The War’ demonstrators laying siege to its offices.
It is not surprising that the BBC’s decision seems inexplicable to so many. After all, aid is intrinsically controversial, with repeated claims that it doesn’t get to the people who actually need it. Yet the BBC regularly broadcasts such appeals.
Indeed, its very own ‘Make Poverty History’ appeal programmes laid itself open to the charge that it was promoting a Left-wing view of humanitarian relief — and that the millions it was helping raise were likely to end up in the pockets of corrupt African kleptocrats.
So no wonder many have been baffled by the decision not to broadcast this particular appeal for Gaza, where the need for humanitarian relief for people suffering the grievous effects of war are undeniable.
Nevertheless, I personally believe that on this occasion the BBC has made the correct decision. For what few in this country are aware of is that Hamas is said to be systematically stealing shipments of humanitarian relief and shelling the aid crossing points.
These claims have been made not just by Israel but by Jordanian journalists and the Palestinian Authority, who have reported that Hamas has intercepted dozens of aid trucks and confiscated food and medical supplies bound for the UN aid stores in Gaza. The allegation is that Hamas is manipulating the aid convoys as a weapon of war.
So the BBC director-general Mark Thompson was, in my view, correct in justifying his decision not only because of concern that the aid would not get to the needy but also because the very issue of humanitarian need in Gaza remains deeply contentious.
Whether he was right or wrong, moreover, it is surely a matter of some concern that Government ministers have been putting such pressure on the BBC to reverse its decision. There were signs over the weekend that the BBC was digging itself in for a fight over the sensitive issue of its political independence.
With the Culture Secretary’s statement yesterday that the BBC was entitled to reach its own conclusion on what was a ‘difficult judgment call’, the Government seems to have recognised the political warning signals and drawn back.
But the BBC surely bears a far broader responsibility for this row. In particular, its claim that it was anxious to safeguard its reputation for impartiality will have caused a sharp intake of breath among the many who think it no longer has a reputation of impartiality to defend.
One of the great ironies of this situation, after all, is that most people in Britain have no idea about claims that Hamas has apparently been stealing the aid supplies and blowing up the crossing points — because the BBC’s reporters haven’t told them.
Indeed, by reporting many of Hamas’s own claims as fact — particularly its estimate of the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, which Israel strenuously contests — the BBC has helped create a dangerously unbalanced and irrational public mood. It was especially troubling, for example, to hear the jaw-dropping accusation — made by, among others, Health Minister Ben Bradshaw — that the BBC has buckled to Jewish or Israeli pressure.
But way beyond the reporting of the Middle East, the BBC has brought this crisis upon itself. It is not surprising that it finds itself friendless, since for years it has been systematically squandering the respect and trust of the public — so much so that licence-fee payers are increasingly questioning its very existence as a publicly financed broadcaster.
Across the board, the BBC operates as a kind of ‘Guardian’ newspaper of the air. It is institutionally hostile to conservatism, big business, religion, the countryside and family values; it supports multiculturalism, environmentalism, European federalism, human rights law and ‘alternative’ lifestyles.
Its own impartiality review concluded two years ago that it operates in a ‘Leftleaning comfort zone’ and has an ‘innate liberal bias’, dictating what issues it chooses to cover and how it does so.
In another report, the writer Antony Jay, who helped create the sublime TV comedy Yes Minister — itself evidence of the brilliance that Auntie can produce — devastatingly described a BBC in which arrogance and a false sense of moral superiority combined with gross ignorance to spread an ideology ‘based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine’, into which all events were wrenched to fit.
The worst of it is that even senior BBC executives can’t grasp the problem because they, too, share the same way of looking at the world and view their own Left-wing position as the centre ground.
Intrinsically unable to correct itself, the BBC thus embodies a frighteningly closed thought system. But the concerns extend more broadly even than its journalism. There is widespread dismay that, far from elevating and educating public values, its entertainment output is becoming steadily degraded.
The anger and revulsion this has created boiled over in the Jonathan Ross affair, when he and Russell Brand abused the elderly actor Andrew Sachs by leaving obscene and cruel messages on his telephone answering machine, which they broadcast on air.
Many people thought the £6 million-a-year Ross should have been sacked rather than suspended. But now he is back and it’s pretty well business as usual.
While his TV show was apparently carefully edited to remove the most offensive material, crude remarks were broadcast on his Radio 2 show about sleeping with an 80-year-old woman. And even on the TV show, a smutty question to Tom Cruise about breaking wind escaped the censor’s scissors.
The return of Jonathan Ross is not just a disgrace. It is a gesture of contempt to the public and highlights the extent to which the BBC has lost its way.
Its entire reason for existing as a public service broadcaster is to embody the highest standards of excellence and integrity. But through both its partisan journalism and its moronic and unprincipled entertainment shows it has destroyed this reputation.
The slew of audience-participation frauds that it perpetrated upon the public in such iconic shows as Blue Peter, Children In Need and Comic Relief, not to mention the broadcasting of faked footage purporting to show the Queen storming out of a photo-shoot when, in fact, she was arriving at it, brought to a head the real crisis gripping the BBC.
This is a profound loss of its identity, caused by a repudiation of the values that gave it a unique place in Britain’s cultural life and, indeed, the world. The resulting combination of loss of trust and public ignorance means that when the BBC makes a correct judgment call, no one recognises it as such.
The row over the aid appeal shows above all that the BBC is now dramatically reaping what it has so recklessly sown.
Daily Mail, 26 January 2009
What an extraordinary crisis the BBC has provoked by its decision not to broadcast an appeal by various aid agencies for humanitarian relief for Gaza.
The BBC said it feared that doing so would compromise its reputation for impartiality. This detonated a ferocious attack from politicians, religious leaders and even members of its own journalistic staff, along with ‘Stop The War’ demonstrators laying siege to its offices.
It is not surprising that the BBC’s decision seems inexplicable to so many. After all, aid is intrinsically controversial, with repeated claims that it doesn’t get to the people who actually need it. Yet the BBC regularly broadcasts such appeals.
Indeed, its very own ‘Make Poverty History’ appeal programmes laid itself open to the charge that it was promoting a Left-wing view of humanitarian relief — and that the millions it was helping raise were likely to end up in the pockets of corrupt African kleptocrats.
So no wonder many have been baffled by the decision not to broadcast this particular appeal for Gaza, where the need for humanitarian relief for people suffering the grievous effects of war are undeniable.
Nevertheless, I personally believe that on this occasion the BBC has made the correct decision. For what few in this country are aware of is that Hamas is said to be systematically stealing shipments of humanitarian relief and shelling the aid crossing points.
These claims have been made not just by Israel but by Jordanian journalists and the Palestinian Authority, who have reported that Hamas has intercepted dozens of aid trucks and confiscated food and medical supplies bound for the UN aid stores in Gaza. The allegation is that Hamas is manipulating the aid convoys as a weapon of war.
So the BBC director-general Mark Thompson was, in my view, correct in justifying his decision not only because of concern that the aid would not get to the needy but also because the very issue of humanitarian need in Gaza remains deeply contentious.
Whether he was right or wrong, moreover, it is surely a matter of some concern that Government ministers have been putting such pressure on the BBC to reverse its decision. There were signs over the weekend that the BBC was digging itself in for a fight over the sensitive issue of its political independence.
With the Culture Secretary’s statement yesterday that the BBC was entitled to reach its own conclusion on what was a ‘difficult judgment call’, the Government seems to have recognised the political warning signals and drawn back.
But the BBC surely bears a far broader responsibility for this row. In particular, its claim that it was anxious to safeguard its reputation for impartiality will have caused a sharp intake of breath among the many who think it no longer has a reputation of impartiality to defend.
One of the great ironies of this situation, after all, is that most people in Britain have no idea about claims that Hamas has apparently been stealing the aid supplies and blowing up the crossing points — because the BBC’s reporters haven’t told them.
Indeed, by reporting many of Hamas’s own claims as fact — particularly its estimate of the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, which Israel strenuously contests — the BBC has helped create a dangerously unbalanced and irrational public mood. It was especially troubling, for example, to hear the jaw-dropping accusation — made by, among others, Health Minister Ben Bradshaw — that the BBC has buckled to Jewish or Israeli pressure.
But way beyond the reporting of the Middle East, the BBC has brought this crisis upon itself. It is not surprising that it finds itself friendless, since for years it has been systematically squandering the respect and trust of the public — so much so that licence-fee payers are increasingly questioning its very existence as a publicly financed broadcaster.
Across the board, the BBC operates as a kind of ‘Guardian’ newspaper of the air. It is institutionally hostile to conservatism, big business, religion, the countryside and family values; it supports multiculturalism, environmentalism, European federalism, human rights law and ‘alternative’ lifestyles.
Its own impartiality review concluded two years ago that it operates in a ‘Leftleaning comfort zone’ and has an ‘innate liberal bias’, dictating what issues it chooses to cover and how it does so.
In another report, the writer Antony Jay, who helped create the sublime TV comedy Yes Minister — itself evidence of the brilliance that Auntie can produce — devastatingly described a BBC in which arrogance and a false sense of moral superiority combined with gross ignorance to spread an ideology ‘based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine’, into which all events were wrenched to fit.
The worst of it is that even senior BBC executives can’t grasp the problem because they, too, share the same way of looking at the world and view their own Left-wing position as the centre ground.
Intrinsically unable to correct itself, the BBC thus embodies a frighteningly closed thought system. But the concerns extend more broadly even than its journalism. There is widespread dismay that, far from elevating and educating public values, its entertainment output is becoming steadily degraded.
The anger and revulsion this has created boiled over in the Jonathan Ross affair, when he and Russell Brand abused the elderly actor Andrew Sachs by leaving obscene and cruel messages on his telephone answering machine, which they broadcast on air.
Many people thought the £6 million-a-year Ross should have been sacked rather than suspended. But now he is back and it’s pretty well business as usual.
While his TV show was apparently carefully edited to remove the most offensive material, crude remarks were broadcast on his Radio 2 show about sleeping with an 80-year-old woman. And even on the TV show, a smutty question to Tom Cruise about breaking wind escaped the censor’s scissors.
The return of Jonathan Ross is not just a disgrace. It is a gesture of contempt to the public and highlights the extent to which the BBC has lost its way.
Its entire reason for existing as a public service broadcaster is to embody the highest standards of excellence and integrity. But through both its partisan journalism and its moronic and unprincipled entertainment shows it has destroyed this reputation.
The slew of audience-participation frauds that it perpetrated upon the public in such iconic shows as Blue Peter, Children In Need and Comic Relief, not to mention the broadcasting of faked footage purporting to show the Queen storming out of a photo-shoot when, in fact, she was arriving at it, brought to a head the real crisis gripping the BBC.
This is a profound loss of its identity, caused by a repudiation of the values that gave it a unique place in Britain’s cultural life and, indeed, the world. The resulting combination of loss of trust and public ignorance means that when the BBC makes a correct judgment call, no one recognises it as such.
The row over the aid appeal shows above all that the BBC is now dramatically reaping what it has so recklessly sown.
