Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dulouz]

BBC bias complaint upheld

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Saturday November 26, 2005
The Guardian

BBC governors yesterday upheld a complaint of bias against Radio 4 reporter Barbara Plett for a description of her tearful response to dying Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's final departure from the West Bank. The corporation's head of editorial complaints originally cleared the controversial edition of From Our Own Correspondent of breaching BBC impartiality guidelines, but the governors' programme complaints committee yesterday overturned the decision.
During the programme, broadcast in October last year, Plett described covering Arafat's illness and airlift by helicopter from his home in Ramallah to a French hospital as "a real grind". She added: "Yet when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry ... without warning".


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The programme prompted hundreds of complaints from those who said the BBC should not broadcast the personal opinions of its correspondents on controversial matters and fuelled claims from some that the BBC was pro-Palestine.
The complaint considered by the committee claimed this "tearful eulogy" would not be matched by a BBC report extolling Ariel Sharon. Despite initially issuing a statement in support of Plett, the BBC director of news Helen Boaden later apologised for what she described as "an editorial misjudgment".

The governors praised her speedy response and have commissioned a wider ranging study into the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, which is due to report in the spring. The committee, chaired by the former ITN editor-in-chief Richard Tait, has been championed by BBC chairman Michael Grade as a plank of his drive to overhaul complaints procedure at the BBC.

[Rhoddri]

I find it ironic you quote the Guardian, a paper you have discredited on other threads.

Sorry for bringing up the French, but the idea of a free press was greatly forwarded by their revolution starting in 1789. There was then founded the idea of the "four pillars of democracy": the executive, the legislative, the judicial and the free press.

The free press was the "fourth pillar of democracy": an avenue to keep the other three in check. The idea being a free press- free from the restrictions of government intervention, should always challenge government policy and decisions to give the general public a different perspective. I.E. the media being a 'watch dog', and not a 'lap dog', or a mouthpiece/cheerleader of government propaganda.

Now we have western 'global' media, especially, but not exclusively, US networks owned by transnational companies more interested in making money than providing the public with a clear and "objective" perspective. This has led to news being reported more like sport or entertainment than serious journalism- a trend coined as "infotainment" (good guy/bad guy)

Companies are bound to be more conservative, because it is in their interest to be so. Because conservative/neoliberal policies (like degregulation, liberalisation, privatisation) will provide an opportunity for more corporate expansion. So, for example, if a political leader like Hugo Charvez decides to nationalise the oil sector, our media is bound to portray him in a negative light (Charvez may be clown, but he was democratically elected, and although people may disagree, he's no threat to the national security of any other country- he just has a different and conflicting ideological perspective. CNN tried very hard to report his election victory in 2003 as rigged, but in the end they couldn't. Anyway, if election scams like postal voting in the UK this year or the in US 2000 would have happened in Venezula, Charvez would be labelled -as he is in some media outlets- a dictator)

For example, if Venezula bought weapons made by General Electric, it's difficult to think that NBC would report him in a negative light, because NBC is owned by General Electric.


Rupert Murdock, in the early 90s, claimed that satellite TV would end "tyranny" in non-democratic countries. This resulted in Star being booted out of China. A few years later, realising the the business opportuinities in China, he sucked up to China- and at the Chinese government's request, dropped the BBC from his Asian satellite network- which let him back in to the country (via the Phoeniex network. China didn't like the BBC because they had aired a documentary on the cruelness of the Chinese regime. I guess he forgot about "ending tyranny" and concentrated on making money)


You claim that the BBC is some sort of 'liberal' news source. The BBC is on a downward spiral. The Hutton report was a huge blow (the Butler inquiry relieved them somewhat- although you never hear about that). The BBC has a lot of good things, but objective reporting is not one of them. They maybe slightly more objective than mainstream US media, but that is because US media is more interested in making profit than reporting news. The BBC has had a lot of pressure to change, and eventually the private sector will have a say.

In 2001, the BBC stopped reporting "shootings", "murders" and "planned attacks" by Israeli forces in the west bank and gaza strip, and started using the phrase "targeted killings": the same phrase used by all army PR officials.

I have to argue that if you think that the BBC is some kind of liberal, anti-american/british news source, you are very consistent with the same claims made by the Russians in the cold war who claimed that the BBC was pouring out anti-russian/pro western propaganda (because it is information inconsistent with the government line).


If you want to know where the BBC's real priorities lie, I suggest you look at section 3 (J) of their current royal charter. You can find the charter by going on the BBC's web site.... I'm not going to help you anymore, you should start doing some of your own research instead of being a lap dog and mouth peice of the US state department

[gdimension]

[bigverne]

[hypnotist]

[Wangja]

[dulouz]

Hi,

I don't want to research what the guidlines are because it simply won't counter whats in the BBC staffers' heart. That being hatred the West, love of Lenin and Stalin, love of political correctness, love of socialism and communism and hatred of White people except the open minded ones ie those who convert to Islam. There is no study, mandate or guideline that can neither address nor change that. I simply find entertainment seeing the manifestations of said outlooks.

The glee hasn't been concealed in recent articles about the New Orleans flood, the rise of China as an economic power and the simultaneous demise of the US's influence in said area and my favorite the statistics about modern slavery.

According to the BBC, The USA is largest slave holding country in the modern world. Thats really not accurate of course but the map graph they posted had The USA top dead center and keyed as #1 . There was no ordinal ranking but there was a graph key and gosh darn, the USA was no #1. Most of modern slavery, as we know slavery, today exists elsewhere per slave. I tried to find that article but I could not and instead I found another article that posted that used a different statistic to again to put the USA at the top of a similar chart. Sigh.

[Wangja]

To think that I used to take the trouble to read your writings.

[dulouz]

Wanja, I enjoy your writings in the early AM, when I am in my pyjamas, when I can hear the birds singing and when the morning dew is melted off by the day's rising sun. Your posts are always so mild hearted and inoffensive that they could never spoil my morning yogurt experience.

I do like the petroleum posts though.