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Well, it says it all. The websites of the Sky News and ITV News made the upcoming, historic 11pm break from the EU their lead stories in the run-up to 11pm. The BBC News website kept the story in fourth place.  Typically sour from the BBC.  11pm strikes. History is made. The BBC moves the story to first place. ITV (at 11.07pm) goes with Big Ben bonging and a picture of Downing Street:  Sky  (at 11.08pm) goes with Big Ben and a new chapter: And the BBC (at 11.09 pm) goes with a police van and a police officer talking to a lorry driver stopped at the border and talk of 'separation': I rest my case, M'lud. The BBC has surpassed itself.  And with that, good night, cheers and a Happy New Year from snowy Morecambe!

  Meanwhile, over on BBC One, the BBC News at Six 's Reeta gave us this cheery (fourth-place) headline: The end of a nearly 50 year marriage . At 11pm tonight, the UK leaves the trading bloc of the EU. Ah, yes. We all love a wedding. We all admire long marriages. We're not so positive about divorces. What a headline! It later became: At 11 o'clock tonight, the United Kingdom will complete its transition from the European Union's single market and customs union - bringing an end to a partnership that lasted almost 50 years.  We all like the idea of partnerships. And now this one's now no more.  It's all so sad! I don't think Jane Garvey will be seeing too many empty champagne bottles strewn around Broadcasting House tonight, unlike in 1997. (Maybe the odd vodka or absinthe bottle?). ******** And what came next?  The BBC's Alex Forsyth reviewing in fast forward the past 4+ years (starting, in true BBC/Remain style, with that bus with the £350m

  I was curious to see, with just a few hours left till the Brexit transition period ends, quite how BBC Radio 4's Six O'Clock News would mark the approaching momentous moment.  Would they opt for a positive angle, a neutral angle or a negative angle?  I expected negative of course, and got it: As the Brexit transition period comes to an end tonight, those trading goods between the UK and the EU are looking nervously to the future . The trade deal with the EU, which has signed into law last night, ensures there will be no tariffs or quotas but many businesses and hauliers are concerned that they will have to file new paperwork . Our transport correspondent Caroline Davies has been talking to some of them some of them . [ Ed -  Of course she has!] Let's remember this moment too:  This is how BBC Radio 4 chose to mark this historic day - by sticking with what it's been doing, relentlessly, for four and a half very long years, and focusing only on the negative sid

  There was a discussion on the old open thread yesterday about last night's BBC News Channel seemingly pushing the ' The Government is not acting fast enough or hard enough' line over coronavirus.  Looking back (with the help of TV Eyes), yes, there was Laura Kuenssberg asking Boris Johnson what she's been asking him and others at the Downing Street briefings incessantly in recent weeks:  Laura Kuenssberg : Many children now won't be back at school this time next week, more people are going to be living under the limits near lockdown, ambulances are queueing outside hospitals and there are more daily coronavirus cases than at any point. Hasn't the government again just been too slow? And that was soon followed by a BBC-BBC discussion along similar lines: George Alagiah : Vicki, I read somewhere that now three quarters of the population is under either tiers 3 or 4. I mean, that is going to open up the accusation that, yet again, the Prime Minister has a

  A Guest Post by Arthur T  I have made the point recently that the BBC’s news gathering and broadcast is more biased in the US than in the UK. From top to bottom, the BBC have allowed their dislike of President Trump to pervade every pore of news reporting as they seek to ridicule him. Jon Sopel just couldn’t wait to label his nemesis ‘loser’ as the BBC declared Biden victorious in the November 3rd Presidential Election.  The above screenshot from the other day has replaced the US Election feature on the BBC News website US and Canada pages. What caught my eye was the Sopel and Maitlis Americast: Review of 2020. I thought ITBBCB? might review Sopel and Maitlis’s podcasts, one in particular: 'Hunter Biden’s Laptop, Why the media isn’t covering a story Trump wants them to’ , a podcast from 21st October - just two weeks before polling day. Craig has very kindly made a transcript: Jon Sopel : Let's go onto the topic of conversation that Donald Trump would love to be talkin

  I wonder if Emily Maitlis now tops the charts for most 'Upheld' complaints over the past couple of years as far as the BBC goes?  (Maybe she's aiming to get into the  Guinness Book of Records ?) In September 2019 the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit  upheld a complaint against her  for her "sneering and bullying...persistent and personal" interview with Rod Liddle.  In May 2020  the BBC found her to be in breach of their impartiality guidelines again  over her (in)famous  Newsnight  Dominic Cummings monologue.  And in December 2020 - on Christmas Eve to be precise ( sneaked out the day before Christmas, when the Brexit deal was agreed and major new Covid lockdown measures announced, some nine months on  from the original programme) -  the BBC released their latest ruling against Emily Maitlis  for her March 2020 documentary,  Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story .  Remarkably, they cleared her over impartiality but ruled against her over accur

  Wishing you all a Happy New Year! Thanks for all your comments and may 2021 be a better year. 

Birmingham Museum of Art  November 20, 2020 - February 07, 2021 Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle  features the series of paintings  Struggle . . . From the History of the American People  (1954–56) by the iconic American modernist. The exhibition reunites the multi-paneled work for the first time in more than half a century. One of the greatest narrative artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) painted his  Struggle  series to show how women and people of color helped shape the founding of our nation. Originally conceived as a series of sixty paintings, spanning subjects from the American Revolution to World War I,  Struggle  was intended to depict, in the artist’s words, “the struggles of a people to create a nation and their attempt to build a democracy.” Lawrence planned to publish his ambitious project in book form. In the end, he completed thirty panels representing historical moments from 1775 through 1817—from Patrick Henry to Westward Expansion. T

Birmingham Museum of Art October 05, 2020 - May 02, 2021 - Arrington Gallery In 1948, the Wedgwood company asked British-American artist Clare Leighton (1898-1989) to create a series of twelve designs to be printed on a limited edition set of creamware plates for the American market. Wedgwood decided that the theme would be “New England Industries,” but gave Leighton freedom to choose which industries she would focus on, an exciting opportunity for the artist, who was well familiar with New England from summers spent in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Thus began a journey for the artist, who spent the next three years of her life exploring New England’s countryside and seaside villages in an effort to better understand the place and the people. In the end, Leighton chose twelve industries that represent the heart and soul of New England: whaling; cranberrying; marble quarrying; maple sugaring; cod fishing; ship building; farming; tobacco growing; logging; grist milling; ice cutting; and

  Fact-checking the BBC might become a new cottage industry. The BBC News website has a daily Covid-19 page. On Christmas Eve they reported on the third national lockdown in Israel and wrote, "The clampdown comes days after Israel began vaccinating the general population against the novel coronavirus." As Hadar at Camera UK notes , Israel has not begun vaccinating the general population, only healthcare workers and over-60s  so far. Maybe the BBC should re-focus on getting the basic facts right first? Of course, when it comes to Israel, inaccuracy isn't always accidental. For example,  The Jerusalem Post reports today that Robert Beckford, presenting an edition of the BBC World Service religious affairs programme  Heart and Soul   called 'Black Jesus' (oh, yes!), repeatedly  and anachronistically described Jesus as "a first-century Palestinian Jew", despite Jesus being a Galilean Jew. Mr Beckford was, of course, signalling  his 'radical

  Erasmus, as per Hans Holbein the Younger A recent piece on the BBC News website headlined   Erasmus: What could happen to the scheme after Brexit?  and written by BBC Reality Check's Anthony Reuben has been described today as showing "the BBC's pro-EU bias both blatant & unrestrained...written wholly (& ultra-sympathetically) from the EU viewpoint...Could have been written in Brussels." It certainly only cites pro-Erasmus points, including a House of Lords report that "warned the benefits of the Erasmus programme would be very difficult to replicate with a national programme as the government is planning" and which claimed that " vocational education and training would stop , and that leaving Erasmus would 'disproportionately affect people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with medical needs or disabilities'".  Is this true though? Googling around, I found an LSE post from 2017 by  Charlie Cadywould  that,

  One of the 'big' BBC-related stories this weekend was that an as-close-to-zero-as-an-infinitesimal-number-of-people-can-ever-get-without-actually-being-zero out of a near-70 million UK population - a vanishingly small number of people with far, far too much time on their hands - complained about there having been no black choristers in the 13-strong choir during the annual live BBC King's College Cambridge Christmas Eve carol service . And, thus, a complete non-story became a story.

   The BBC was reporting yesterday that seven people have been killed in a knife attack in Kaiyuan in China's north-eastern Liaoning province. The BBC report says that "the motive remains unclear" and adds: Violent crime is relatively rare in China, but the country has seen unrelated knife attacks in recent years. They have usually been carried out by people living with mental illness, or seeking revenge against officials or individuals known to them. Hmm, in their hasty speculation there have they deliberately 'forgotten' the  2014 Kunming terrorist attack already? Called "China's 9/11", that was a coordinated knife rampage carried out at a train station by a group of Muslim Uighur separatists and resulted in 31 innocent deaths and 143 being injured.   Of course, it probably doesn't have anything to do with that, but if a news organisation is going to speculate (as the BBC did here), why omit it? It's not as if China's relationsh

  RowZ was most definitely kidding us not on the open thread the other day when he pointed out that on Boxing Day on the BBC News Channel Ben Brown ended an obituary with the words "That great spy, George Blake": Thank you so much for talking to us about that great spy, George Blake. And an extraordinary life.  Hmm, I'd have said "infamous traitor" rather than "great spy".  Checking TV Eyes, I see that the BBC News Channel throughout that day had been using the word-for-word formulation, "Russia gave him medals and much praise but, to Britain, he is the Cold War traitor who escaped justice." Very even-handed!

  When Sir Ivan Rogers (former Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union)  claimed in 2016 that a final trade deal with the rest of the EU might not be done for 10 years, and might ultimately fail, the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said : This is perhaps a reality check of just how hard these negotiations might prove .  Wrong! I thought of Sir Ivan again a couple of weeks ago after Edward Stourton popped up on Paddy's Broadcasting House to preview The World This Weekend  and announce "a bit of a scoop" - an interview with the elusive Sir Ivan.  Ed then recalled another of Sir Ivan's predictions - his "warning" two years ago of "an accidental no deal, because the two sides didn't understand one another".  "Those warnings look very prescient this morning," said Ed Stourton.  Wrong! When  The World This Weekend arrived Ed described Sir Ivan as "a consistent prophet of the risk of no deal",

As mentioned by Sisyphus on the open thread, the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson was as factually slipshod as ever yesterday.  His disapproving take on Donald Trump's foreign policy allowed the President just "one foreign policy success": "g etting two Gulf states plus Sudan to recognise Israel".  John Simpson had obviously forgotten Morocco.  Incidentally, I wonder if the way he names the two presidents here will be a foretaste of things to come?  "Donald Trump" - 3 "Joe Biden" - 5 "Trump" - 3 "Biden" - 0 Anyhow, here's a transcript: ******* Joe Biden : America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Once again at the head of the table.  John Simpson : Now that Joe Biden is about to take over the White House and Donald Trump's moving out, governments right around the world are heaving sighs of relief. I'm not actually walking into the real Oval Office! This is

        How fascinating that Her Majesty the Queen's 2020 Christmas message beat everything else to win the annual Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (Barb) ratings prize on Christmas Day!   Though she crossed channels, on the BBC figures alone Good Queen Elizabeth beat   Call the Midwife , the revived  Blankety Blank ,  Strictly Come Dancing and Michael McIntyre's The Wheel  by almost a million viewers.  The licence-fee-funded BBC claimed victory over its commercial rivals though because it got all the the non-royal top spots, with ITV's  Coronation Street  coming into sixth.  Alas for the BBC though, former Christmas ratings giant  Eastenders  fell behind ITV's  Emmerdale -  and  even behind the BBC programme BBC defenders are allowed to hate:  Mrs Brown's Boys .  Still, here's Kate Phillips, the acting controller of BBC One, crowing about the ratings: BBC One had the most popular show on Christmas Day as audiences escaped to Poplar for the Ca

  Tim Shipman's long Sunday Times piece today describes the big day at Downing Street, in which the BBC apparently had a truly surreal walk-on part: Johnson got a good night’s sleep and got up for a run with his dog Dilyn. But he began to lose patience. A senior figure at the BBC spoke to No 10, urging it not to announce the deal during the broadcast of the corporation’s big Christmas Eve film, Kung Fu Panda. About 12.30pm Johnson spoke again to von der Leyen and said: “We really need to get this over the line now. We’ve got to get Frosty and his team home for Christmas.” An hour later Frost WhatsApped the prime minister to say: “I think we’ve got there.”   Johnson called and said: “Go and close it out.” Twenty minutes later there was a video call with von der Leyen. Johnson asked: “So do we have a deal, Ursula?” She replied: “Yes, we do.” Downing Street staff at the back of the room burst into spontaneous applause.

Sticking with the BBC's Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris... I'm reviewing his performances on the BBC News Channel on Christmas Eve and have come to the bits where he responded to the two press conferences announcing the EU/UK deal - the first from the EU, the second from the UK government.  Both performances absolutely epitomise the BBC's reporting of the two sides over the past four and a half years. After the EU press conference, the BBC presenter and Chris Morris reviewed what Michel Barnier and Ursula von der Leyen said.  Words like "interesting", "fact", and "highlighted" were deployed, along with several uses of "said".  Their remarks were presented without criticism, or countering points, or distancing words. It was all very respectful.  Then Chris belittled concerns about fishing. In contrast... After the UK press conference, the BBC presenter reintroduced Chris Morris with the words, "I want to speak t

Or what Chris Morris got wrong.... Ben Cobley, author of The Tribe,  made a good point this morning on Twitter : The world would be a much better, saner place if we all had our predictions replayed back to us every now and then. Predictions are a way of expressing our preferences while sounding knowledgeable. For elites, they are a way of standing ahead of others, pre-empting us. Let's test that on the BBC's chief reality check correspondent, Chris Morris.  ******* This is  a BBC News website article  he wrote dated 5 December 2019, just prior to the last year's general election.  It began in classic BBC Reality Check mode, debunking a Conservative minister and saying he is factually wrong: Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid has said there was not "a single doubt" in his mind that the UK would "have agreed and finalised a very ambitious deep and comprehensive trade deal" with the European Union (EU) before the end of next year.  Th

  Hope you had a lovely Christmas Day. Thank you for keeping the blog so well-fed with comments. There's been a lot going on, hasn't there? ******* 1. Yes, BBC newsreaders on BBC Radio 4 really are repeatedly saying " France has confirmed its first case of the new variant of coronavirus which originated in the UK " this morning - which is poorly-worded at best, and 'fake news' at worst.  The BBC has previously acknowledged that the variant may well have originated outside the UK and merely been detected here first by our well-equipped scientists . At least they're not calling it "the English virus"...yet. 2.  Watching the BBC Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris making countless appearance on the BBC News Channel on Christmas Eve made me think of 'Why the long face?' jokes, usually made about horses. Chris had a long face on all day. After all his endless scaremongering 'on behalf of reality' over the years, here was th

It's a year ago to this very day that Charles Moore,  under the headline  It’s the BBC that is in need of a Reality Check , took a scalpel to the pronouncements of the BBC's Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris.  Lord Moore wrote this last Boxing Day: One of the minor agonies of the Brexit process since 2016 has been the existence of the BBC’s Reality Check, usually presented by Chris Morris. Rather than arguing the issue with political leaders, Morris gives ex-cathedra pronouncements on where the truth lies, which are then unquestioningly accepted by his flock of fellow-BBC staff. Funnily enough, his version of reality seems always to coincide with the view from Brussels. He then related a specific example from Christmas Day 2019's  Today  programme: On the  Today  programme yesterday, Morris was asked by a deferential Mishal Husain to pronounce on whether “Get Brexit done” was misleading. He said, in essence, that it was. He complained that the slogan gave the