More of Have Their Say?

Last week, we reported on the BBC's use of the Have Your Say to select quotes for stories and the possibility that this system was being abused by the BBC to give their own views. In that instance a quote was provided that was supportive of the BBC when it was way down on the list of popular sentiments.

Today I checked the Have Your Say page. The question asked is "Should sport and politics mix?" in relation to the Olympic Torch and the occupation of Tibet. There are two quotes selected. One reads "Those who disrupted the torch relay should be fined, jailed and where necessary, deported" which appears on page 11 when ordered according to recommendations, but at least it has 12 of those. The other comment reads "I have nothing but contempt for "personalities" who've chosen to endorse this mockery of the Olympic spirit" from one "Adrian, UK". Only trouble is, this doesn't even appear to be a published comment.

Perhaps the BBC could publish their rules for these sorts of things to avoid confusion. This comment may well be one of the 1149 in the moderation queue, but if it has been published one must assume that it has been moderated. And why have the "Readers Recommended" option if the BBC continually ignores those comments?

The entire system is open to abuse. Since effectively the BBC can get any quote it wants from the thousands provided it is left to someone to choose one quote. And with apparently no oversight on the selection process it is all too easy to choose a nice quote that fits the mindset of the person writing the article and instantly it becomes an opinion piece not a news article. So if the BBC is going to continue to use this quoting system there needs to be an awful lot more transparency.

Ben Elton and BBC Bias

Another day, another celebrity attacking the BBC for bias. Ben Elton told a Christian magazine that the BBC was scared of Islam jokes. He said:

There’s no doubt about it, the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass. They might pretend that it’s, you know, something to do with their moral sensibilities, but it isn’t. It’s because they’re scared. I know these people.

He added:

I wanted to use the phrase ‘Muhammad came to the mountain’ and everybody said, ‘Oh, don’t! Just don’t! Don’t go there!’ It was nothing to do with Islam, I was merely referring to the old proverb, ‘If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.’ And people said, ‘Let’s just not!’

It’s incredible. I’m quite certain that the average Muslim does not want everybody going around thinking, ‘We can’t mention you. We’ve just got to pretend you don’t exist because we’re scared that somebody who claims to represent you will threaten to kill us.’

The BBC didn't agree. A spokeswoman said:

No subject is off limits for BBC comedy. The treatment should not cause harm or offence as defined by the BBC's Editorial Guidelines or breach other BBC Guidelines. There is no evidence that the BBC is afraid to tackle difficult subjects.

No evidence? Dear me. Not that long ago the BBC held an "impartiality summit" and during a discussion concerning Room 101 - a comedy show - most of the BBC staff present including senior staff said that they would allow the Bible and the Archbishop of Canterbury to be thrown into Room 101 but not a Koran.

What evidence do the BBC need then, one wonders?

BBC News - Have Their Say?

Kevin Spacey has attacked the BBC for talent shows such as How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? He said that they were "essentially a 13-week promotion for a musical". He makes a good point. The end result is not a BBC performance but a commercial enterprise that has been hyped throughout the show.

But the BBC report of this story has a number of problems. For a start, why is it hidden in the "Entertainment" section with, at the time of writing, no link or mention on the UK or Front Page of the News Site. If the BBC is abusing its position of trust this is more than an "entertainment" issue.

My main issue, though, is with the apparent abuse of the "Have Your Say" system. The BBC a while ago started a forum on its site allowing users to leave their thoughts. Recently the BBC has included a thought from Have Your Say in some of their news articles. This system seems to be abused.

On this article the BBC has a Have Your Say forum running and has a quote from one user, a certain Rob from Leicester. His comment is:

It can be seen as a promotion for a musical, but it can also be seen as decent family entertainment

Now, head over to the actual forum. Rather conveniently the BBC allows you to sort the responses by "readers recommended" to gain some idea of which thoughts people most agree with. Going down the first page not a single response is in support of the BBC. Rob's response is buried on page 39. There are 15 responses to a page which makes Rob's response less popular than 570 responses.

So the question must be asked - is this Rob's opinion or the BBC's. It certainly isn't the popular opinion of the readers. They are all entirely in agreement with Mr Spacey and entirely opposed to the BBC's position. Yet the one single response quoted by the BBC is in support of their position, even though it is more than 570 places down the recommended list.

Is this Your say, or Their say?

Which is worse, Sky or BBC?

It's a difficult choice in this instance. Sky News managed to get an interview with Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal in Syria. During the discussion Mashaal said that kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was still alive. He also said that the Holocaust was exaggerated by Zionists and, incredibly, that Hamas doesn't deliberately kill anyone.

The BBC also reports that:

Mr Meshaal also urged Israel to agree that civilians should not be part of the current conflict, which has recently seen Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian militants.

This is some spin on what happened. Here is the Sky News transcript:

TM: It's 2008, can you make an offer that you would only have action against military personnel.

KM: We renew our offer to Israel to let the civilian people from the two sides be free from our conflict. Israel should respond to this offer.

This is an offer which we would like to renew. The problem is on the Israel side.

So which is worse? That Tim Marshall of Sky News considers it an "offer" to not murder civilians deliberately in terrorist attacks or that the BBC spins this "offer" into an urging that Israel stop killing civilians during their targeting of terrorists? It's a close one. But perhaps Sky has an excuse - they were in enemy territory and perhaps they didn't want to end up like Andrew Johnson. What's the BBC's excuse?

Terrorist Released Early and the BBC

The Government confirmed today that they released a convicted terrorist early because of prison overcrowding. Yassin Nassari was convicted of possessing documents likely to be useful to a terrorist. These included blueprints for Qassam rockets as used by Hamas against Israeli civilians. Included with these plans were details on how to construct the rockets, explosives and propellants.

The BBC report is again shocking. For a start the headline reads:

Terrorism convict released early

By normal standards a person convicted of terrorism offences is a terrorist. But apparently the BBC cannot bring itself to use that word even when a court has convicted the individual.

The report also says:

A man convicted of a terrorism offence has been released 17 days early

Given that Mr Nassari was arrested in May 2006 and sentenced to three and a half years in prison that makes his release more than a year and a half early. The point is clarified 9 paragraphs later:

Nassari would have been eligible for release 18 days later, having served enough of his sentence to be considered for parole.

In other words this "man convicted of a terrorism offence" was released 17 days earlier than his early release.

It's difficult to tell what is worse, that the Government is forced to release prisoners earlier than their already early release because they have allowed the situation to become so bad, or that the BBC finds it impossible to call someone a terrorist even when they've been convicted by the courts.

UPDATE: A new story on the BBC site does call him a "terrorist" in the headline. But the old story has not been changed.

BBC Whitewashes Fitna

Dutch MP Geert Wilders posted his film Fitna on the Internet last night. Let me say that the film is anti-Islamic in as much as it makes no attempt to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. It is also not very dissimilar to probably thousands of videos available on YouTube and other similar sites. But for all that it fails to distinguish between Islamism and Islam and between most Muslims and extremists it does contain some serious messages. Not new ones but real ones.

The BBC's report on the film (which is only about 15 minutes long) is a whitewash. The report says:

The opening scenes show a copy of the Koran, followed by footage of the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.

What it doesn't mention is that the copy of the Koran is shown along with selected quotes. The film is drawing attention to specific, disconcerting verses in the Koran, not the Koran in general. Not that there aren't similar verses in other scriptures, but the BBC report implies that it is simple a copy of the Koran and doesn't tell the reader that the focus was on specific and real verses.

The report continues:

And pictures appearing to show Muslim demonstrators holding up placards saying "God bless Hitler" and "Freedom go to hell" also feature.

What was that? "Appearing to show Muslim demonstrators"? They were Muslim demonstrators. What game is the BBC playing here? Is it peddling the line spread by some extremists that any Muslim who carries out terrorist attacks or the like isn't a Muslim? Surely it is not playing dumb, pretending that the people shown might be Christians or Jews?

And lastly:

The film shows a young girl in a headscarf making derogatory comments about Jewish people.

"A young girl in a headscarf". Muslim is what they mean to say. You might argue that the entire film is about Muslims so it is obvious, but then why mention the headscarf? And given the comment above about "appearing to show Muslim demonstrators" it isn't so obvious that the BBC is not trying to glide over the M-word. Truly this report is a whitewash of the contents of the film.

UPDATE: Even The Independent manages to include the details the BBC has tried to hide. It's report says:

It interspersed images of the 9/11 attacks and other bombings with quotes from the Koran.

...

The film shows ... Muslim women with banners reading, "Be prepared for the real Holocaust" and "God Bless Hitler".

If The Independent can do it, why can't the BBC?

Positive News From Venice

Two stories have emerged from a meeting in Venice of the six largest EU members. The first is that security officials have backed a plan to profile mosques across Europe to try and prevent Islamist clerics from radicalising young Muslims. The increasing threat from home-grown Islamists has shown that more needs to be done. Just one example would be the Finsbury Park Mosque where Abu Hamza was allowed to preach hatred for years before anything was done.

The second piece of good news is that John Reid has called for a changing in the Human Rights Laws to reflect the nature of the war with Islamists. He said:

We need to work to modernise the law - still protecting human rights and still providing equity and justice - but reflecting the reality of the conflicts and struggles we now face.

...

The right to security, to the protection of life and liberty, is and should be the basic right on which all others are based. Now, more than ever, it should be the fundamental starting point of all our principles and practices across Europe.

With John Reid stepping down next month, let's hope his successor will act on his words and reform the Human Rights Laws so that our rights to safety and security are treated with at least as much importance as the "right" of criminals and terrorists.

Naturally, Human Rights groups are not happy. Shami Chakrabarti, from Liberty, is quoted by the BBC News as saying:

In this struggle, we have to work with allies around the world to make sure they up their game on human rights because terrorism is being bred in countries which have the worst human rights records.

Obviously, Ms Chakrabarti doesn't watch the news and has failed to spot that many Islamists are being bred right here in Britain. Unless, of course, Liberty think Britain have the worst human rights records.

And here's something for all the BBC bias watchers. Note how early the BBC chooses to quote Ms Chakrabarti's comments. Even before quoting what John Reid had said (which is what the article is actually about) three paragraphs are devoted to Liberty's response. Why place the response before the actual statement? Surely it isn't to ensure that people read Liberty's point of view before that of John Reid? Surely it isn't to ensure that Chakrabarti is above the fold?

Islamists' Demands for Johnston

The Islamists who kidnapped the BBC's Alan Johnston have released a tape with their demands. The tape didn't show Johnston only his ID card leaving the question of whether he is still alive.

This tape reveals, yet again, that the cause of terrorism is Islamism. The demands were for Muslim prisoners to be released. Not in Israel, the country that we're told is the target for Palestinian terrorism, but British prisoners. Part of the statement was:

We say to all of them [Western countries] - free our prisoners or we will do the same to you. We won't make an exception for anyone. If you need money to release our prisoners we will give you all you need up to the last dirham we have.

So, it isn't about money either. And, if further proof were needed that the cause of this is Islamism, the tape included readings from the Koran. Can we now start to realise that changing our foreign policy will not stop Islamist violence against us?

BBC Omission

In Gaza, Islamic extremists attacked a UN-run school which was hosting a sports festival that they considered to be un-Islamic. Extremists had earlier held a protest outside the school before returning with guns and bombs. One bomb was thrown into the school and a security guard was killed. (see here for more)

Is this newsworthy? Not if you ask the BBC. Not a hint of this on their website.

Why not? Would it be too cynical to suggest that it is because this is a case of Islamic extremism in Gaza that cannot be blamed on Israel?