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Robert Poll of the Save Our Statues campaign noted another BBC headline : One line in it reads:  Roads such as Canning Street, Cannon Hall Road, Dundas Road and Havelock Street were named after people who were heavily involved in slavery. Robert tweeted :   BBC says historic street names are racist. Despite most people disagreeing, it's reported without quotation marks, so clearly represents BBC News's own view. They also say Havelock was "heavily involved with slavery" despite zero connection. Fact check please?  Indeed, Major General Sir Henry Havelock (1795-1857) wasn't involved in slavery in any way, shape or form.    Robert has now asked the BBC to change the headline and correct the article :   Could you please add quotation marks around that very much non-factual and highly contentious description? Could you also please correct the sentence on Havelock, who had no connection with slavery. This is precisely how fake history spreads.

A week ago today Sky News at Ten led on new evidence about grooming gangs preying on young girls in Hull , with one girl telling them  that she was raped by 150 men. The men involved are reported to have 'Asian or Middle Eastern' backgrounds. A series of reports followed for nearly a week, featuring the evidence and testimony of the alleged victims, and it was given round-the-clock coverage by the broadcaster.   Meanwhile, the BBC has today posted a video about the Rochdale grooming gang: ‘My life just started crumbling’: Is British media Islamophobic?  on how a Muslim man was wrongly accused by the Mail of Sunday  of being a ''fixer'' linked to the Rochdale grooming gang.  That striking contrast led me to do a spot of research... A search on TVEyes for the words 'grooming' AND 'gang' during the past six months [1 June-30 November] brought up just one mention on the BBC News Channel - that was on Friday 10 September 2021 at 1.55pm.  A

Here's a little Tuesday morning reading from the newspapers, starting with Anita Singh in the Daily Telegraph : There is navel-gazing, and then there is the sight in The Princes and the Press (BBC Two) of BBC presenter Amol Rajan reporting on media editor Amol Rajan reporting on the Royal family criticising the BBC. Absurd doesn’t cover it. After the second and final episode of a series that has caused so much controversy, what have we learned? That there was rivalry between the Royal households. That Harry hates the press, and Meghan got terrible headlines. That Palace sources, whose job it is to secure favourable press coverage for their royals, may have briefed certain journalists in the hope of doing exactly that. Any and all of this information has been available to read in the newspapers for several years. Recycling it for television has achieved nothing, except to sour relations between the BBC and the Royal family. And David Blunkett is back on the subject of '

Manchester Arena Inquiry: Bomb response shameful, says victim's dad, by Judith Moritz, BBC North of England correspondent is a lead headline  on the BBC News website this evening.   As ever, the piece reports everything except the main point: the radical Islamic terrorism-related nature of the atrocity.  That doesn't merit a single mention, even in passing.   The language is, as ever, carefully chosen. It's a 'Manchester Arena Inquiry' and a 'Bomb response' and and 'attack' and a '2017 bombing', and the Islamist terrorist Salman Abedi is merely a 'bomber'.

As well as marking the start of both Hanukkah and Advent this year, yesterday marked the momentous moment when the BBC's North America Editor Jon Sopel finished his job in the United States and flew off to BBC pastures new... He tweeted , ''And that’s a wrap. Farewell USA. Have had a ball''. It's a good-natured thing to wish people well, but I really don't think he covered himself in any glory whatsoever.  He played to a very particular gallery throughout.  And he returned the role to its ultra-sneering, partisan past under Matt Frei. [In between came Justin Webb and Mark Mardell]. I'm afraid my heart is with this comment in reaction to JS's tweet:  News Addict : Thank God this guy has gone. He was one of the main reasons I stopped watching the BBC during the US election. One of the most biased, unprofessional, emotionally unstable political correspondents they have ever had. Good riddance. So where is he off to next? To present Tod

Trying to do my blogger's duty and following up on David Blunkett's claims about Radio 4's The Food Programme , where His Lordship said that the programme had “lost its connection with the ordinary cook” by focusing on the “interests of those making the programme, rather than those of the wider public,” I listened to last week's edition ... ...at least for as long as I could stand it.  It marked the moment when the winners of the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2021 were announced at a ceremony at London's Broadcasting House. I made notes, but soon realised it was pointless. The agenda was openly stated. The programme was selecting winners who would be ''models for others'' [their words].  Social responsibility, BBC-style, was one key factor. The other was helping radically transform the means of food production in favour of things like farming cooperatives, organic farming, sustainability, local-sourcing - and lowering the amount of meat-eatin

Here's a Twitter chat that might be of interest to you: Emily Kate : The politicisation of R4's output is quite mind-boggling. There seems to be no programme left without some political issue being dragged in (eg, today - migrants). I listen in quite rarely these days, but even when I do, just for an hour, it is very noticeable. Is this what media was like under communism? How does one of the greatest radio stations in the world, loved at home, envied around the world, descend to this level of patronising student agitprop in such a short space of time? Ben Cobley : On Radio 4. I used to listen almost religiously. Now: I never listen. Graeme Archer : I stopped listening years ago (an early de-adopter). The R4 of my entire life was suddenly consumed by a sickness of preaching that rendered it unbearable. First they came for the 6.30pm comedy, then they took everything else. Switch it off. They can’t ruin music. Graham Applin : I’m afraid it’s getting like that with Radio 3

  Just before 6.20pm I checked the Sky News website and saw this lead headline:  The Sky report  quoted Gerald Darmanin, the megaphone-mouthed French interior minister, sounding off tonight and saying that those crossing the Channel are: ...attracted by England, especially the labour market which means you can work in England without any identification.  Britain must take its responsibility and limit its economic attractiveness. Britain left Europe, but not the world.  We need to work seriously on these questions, without being held hostage by domestic British politics. M. Darmanin is very 'off-message' there, BBC-wise - at least in the first two paragraphs of the quote above. He's saying [a] that the people in the boats are mainly economic migrants, and [b] that the UK's economically attractiveness is acting as a magnet for such people, and [c] that we in the UK need to make our country less of an easy touch to deter them from coming, and I think he's right

Lord Blunkett's claim that BBC Radio 4 is “playing into the hands of its critics by becoming almost the caricature its opponents think it is” certainly rings true with regards to Radio 4's Sunday .  Today's programme (a) discussed the West's culpability regarding vaccine inequality in Africa [sample question from presenter Emily Buchanan to a South African bishop:  “Do you have any message for leaders here about the fact that there is this inequality in availability and people here in Europe are having their third jab?”], (b) dealt with the migrant crisis by avoiding the word 'migrant', (c)  told “a refugee story with a happy ending”' about Afghan girl footballers arriving in the UK [from Pakistan], (d) talked about domestic abuse in connection to faith whilst being vague about specifics, (e) looked at the problems faced by deaf people in churches, and (f) returned to the migrant crisis by talking of “Britain's obligations” towards unattended childre

    ‘Right-on’ Radio 4 is a turn-off, complains Blunkett runs a headline in today's Sunday Times .   Though as a BBC supporter, the former Labour home secretary David Blunkett wants BBC Radio 4 to “stop taking its core audience for granted”. He also argues that it's “playing into the hands of its critics by becoming almost the caricature its opponents think it is”. He says it's “not adapting and becoming less metropolitan” but “playing up to that perception.”  He also claims “there’s too much focus on what its contributors and presenters are doing, rather than on being informative” and asks that the station should “think about what matters in the wider sphere” - eg. that  Today should cover a wider range of subjects . As for Radio 4’s dramas he says, “I fear that good, easy-listening drama that doesn’t have to lecture us or ensure we are ‘right-on’ has gone for some time. Misery and a constant reference to identity politics are not what people want.”  And

Madeline Grant of the Telegraph has, I think, the driest take on today's Boris-led Downing Street Omicron Press Conference where the journalists from the BBC, Sky and ITV all asked basically the same question [the same question they've all been asking for well over a year]: One can't help but admire the persistence of these lobby journos, who plug on with their "Why aren't we going harder?" / "Plan B now!" questions, even after they've already been posed by about 15 other people at the same press conference. True grit and determination. Reminds me of turning up at uni tutorials having not read the book, and someone else in the class has used your one talking-point, so you have to make it again but using a slightly different form of words.

While watching yesterday's BBC One News at Six , Patrick O'Flynn took to Twitter to make a point that from the response clearly echoed with a lot of people: Have we become so desensitised to knife crime that the murder of a 12-year-old girl by other children doesn't even lead the news? The story of the murder of Ava White in Liverpool and the arrest of four boys - one aged 13, two aged 14 and one aged 15 - on suspicion of murder was reported 12 minutes into the bulletin. My first thought was to remember the murder of Jamie Bulger and how that haunted our memories for many years. Events of this kind were so rare they shocked the nation and the media dwelt on them at length. Now, with rare exceptions, they just seem to pass by.   Indeed, by the time BBC One's News at Ten was broadcast yesterday the story had fallen even further away from being a main story, being reported 24 minutes into the bulletin.

A 24-year-old Kurdish woman from northern Iraq, Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, has been named as the first victim of Thursday's tragedy in the English Channel. The poor lady was hoping to join her fiancé, who is already here in the UK. One oddity about the BBC report about her is the links added to the piece:  What's being done to stop Channel crossings? Why do migrants leave France for the UK? The migrant debate can't escape European politics Channel deaths: What do we know so far? It misses,  a highly relevant BBC report that was published overnight headlined  Why Iraqi Kurds risk their lives to reach the West .  The piece isn't even on the BBC News homepage either. What's so striking about this buried-away piece is that it makes it plain that Iraqi Kurds come from a relatively secure, stable and prosperous area of the world and are essentially risking their lives to reach the West for economic reasons, to build better lives.  In other words, they

I think it's safe to say that the Daily Mail 's Amanda Platell isn't pleased with the BBC. Her Saturday column this week is headlined How the BBC's golden boy Amol Rajan conned me into royal hatchet job . As well as calling the first part of his documentary The Princes and the Press “a hatchet job on the Palace and the Press...and a hagiography of Harry and Meghan”, she says she “submitted” herself to “at least two hours of filmed conversation with Rajan” but found it “reduced to less than two minutes of selective quotes”. She says she “felt utterly conned”, and feels even more sorry for the Royal Family.   It has to be said that  The New Statesman 's Rachel Cooke isn't overly sympathetic towards Amanda's plight, writing: These [royal] correspondents have all walked straight into Rajan’s trap. He was the editor of the Independent , they must have thought, he’ll understand, he’ll listen, he’ll take me seriously. She suspects him of  “ laughing at th

   Alp Mehmet on GB News There were a brief few years when the BBC slightly thawed on the issue of immigration and began interviewing Migration Watch , who they'd previously help at arm's length  [to put it mildly].  Migration Watch , after all, had begun to establish a strong track record of predicting where trends would lead with an accuracy far exceeding other experts, not to mention governments.  The thaw didn't last and Migration Watch began to be frozen out again.  A scan of TVEyes shows just one appearance on either BBC1, BBC2 or the BBC News Channel over the past 6 months - namely September 9, 2021, when Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, appeared on the BBC News Channel for  three minutes. [Not now available]. In contrast, in the wake of the tragedy in the Channel, Mr Mehmet has been on ITV's Good Morning Britain, Sky News and GB News.   Indeed, Alp has been on GB News many, many times in recent months.  Checking BBC radio [rat

Newswatch this week continued to focus on language, also discussing whether BBC News should ever call Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko 'President Lukashenko', given that our government - among many others - refuses to recognise his 're-election' last year, before moving onto the main issue of our times [it seems]: yes, inappropriate language about gender identity.  Samira Ahmed : Closer to home, on Monday, the News at Six reported that The Brits, the biggest award ceremony in British music, was scrapping separate categories for men and women. Here's Sophie Rayworth: Sophie Rayworth : It will no longer give out prizes for Best Male or Best Female but instead choose one Artist of the Year. The Brit Award-winning singer Sam Smith who identifies as non- binary has campaigned for the change. He says he felt unable to enter last year because of the gender-based nature of the categories. Samira Ahmed : That use of the pronoun "he" in relation to Sam

This week's Newswatch discussed the issue of whether it's wrong to call the people crossing the Channel in small boats 'migrants' or whether 'less dehumanising' language, such as 'people', should be used instead.  This is how the subsequent interview transpired.  In it, BBC boss Richard Burgess also told us why the BBC believes it ''wouldn't be accurate'' to label such people 'illegal immigrants': Samira Ahmed : And to discuss the use of language on this story I am joined now by Richard Burgess, Executive Editor for UK Content at BBC News. Richard, thank you very much for coming on Newswatch . A lot of viewers are saying why don't you just call them 'people'? Richard Burgess : Well, I think, first of all, I should say, this was a terrible human, tragedy as you were reflecting there. And I think it's important that our coverage reflects that in a sensitive way and in a respectful way. In terms of t

  I actually listened to a Radio 4 comedy programme today for the first time in many, many months - and quite possibly for the first time in 2021 (if my memory serves me right).  Seeing that it was that  vehicle for the actor Kevin Eldon  which I didn't find overly funny four series ago when it started in 2012, I wasn't expecting much, but I did get a few laughs out of it.  It was pleasantly silly.  I particularly enjoyed guessing the punchline of one of the main running gags in advance [the one about the couple splitting up]. The biggest laugh I got though was unintended. It was just one line, but it brought back happy memories of my old 'it's funny cos it's true  (hopefully) '   R a d i o   4   C o m e d i a n s   B i n g o  card. The main quirk of that bingo card was that  The Daily Mail  appeared three times ''because just having it once would be far too easy, given how often Radio 4 comedians have a go at it''. Today's Actor

Sopes, Maitlis and The Zurch gathered again for Americast this week to review the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, absolute oozing disapproval of Kyle Rittenhouse and his defence team and his supporters. The Zurch complained about two-tier justice for the rich because of all the funding for Kyle R; while Maitlis asserted that his gun was illegal despite the judge saying it wasn't; and Sopes sneered at him for meeting Tucker Carson and for becoming ''a celebrity'' after killing two ''protestors''; and both Sopes and Maitlis were aghast at him being offered internships, and played clips of some of his ''far-out'' high-profile Republican supporters, mocking and sneering at them; then The Zurch talked of the ''tragedy'' of the men's killing and how the Right was turning Kyle R into Captain America. And then came their guest, and she ruled Kyle R ''morally culpable'' and thinks the case should have been made

   The BBC's home editor Mark Easton has an advocate's way with statistics.  On Wednesday's News at Ten he made this statement: There aren't more asylum seekers asking for sanctuary in Britain. By Thursday's  News at Ten -  which began with the statement “Boatloads of desperation continue to wash up on Kent's beaches. Only a fraction of asylum seekers in Europe choose the UK” - Mark Easton added this, almost in passing: Figures released today indicate asylum applications at their highest level for six years, at 37,000. And there's a canny bit of jiggery-pokery here. The Times reports the same figures and says : Asylum claims are higher than the number recorded at the peak of the 2015-16 European migration crisis at the height of the Syrian civil war, when applications hit 36,546. That asylum claims are comparable or even slightly higher than they were in 2015 - at the very height of the European migrant crisis - is quite something. It's a

Here are a few tweets this morning from Dan Hodges: Macron cancelled a meeting about how to stop people drowning in the English Channel because he didn't like the tone of a letter he was sent. And he then accuses Boris of not acting seriously... It doesn't matter what the issue is. In any argument between the UK and an EU member state the FBPE crowd will always align themselves with the EU. If this was reversed they would be screaming "Boris cancelled a meeting because of a letter!!! For God's sake, lives are at stake!". And have you ever refused a meeting that could save lives because someone sent you a badly worded letter? Hm, after watching BBC Breakfast this morning and hearing their tone I'm tempted to tweak that to: It doesn't matter what the issue is. In any argument between the UK and an EU member state the BBC crowd will always align themselves with the EU.

Also as per Charlie's comment, Ofcom reports that audiences “consistently rate the BBC less favourably for impartiality” than they do on any other measure and that many viewers and listeners don't believe that the BBC obeys impartiality rules. 55 per cent of BBC television news viewers rate it very highly  - a figure which strikes me as surprisingly high.  Ofcom was also critical of the BBC’s lack of transparency over its complaint process. Ofcom wants the BBC to be more transparent, especially over its complaints process, as the corporation doesn't give details of rejected complaints. Ofcom says: “Given the importance of the BBC to many people in the UK, we have consistently called for the BBC to be more transparent. For instance, in how it explains its decision to the public.” I'd add that they're getting very tardy at adding to their Corrections and Clarifications page . It's well over a month since they last publicly corrected or clarified anything, th

It was always one of the arguments in favour of the BBC being uniquely funded by the licence fee that only the BBC could produce in quantity the kind of high-quality arts programmes and documentaries that that their crowd-pleasing commercial rivals were reluctant to make. It was called 'public service broadcasting'.   The decision to turn BBC Four into repeats channel was just one sign that this argument has been breaking down, and it was reported a week ago , that Mark Bell, arts commissioning editor for the BBC, has explicitly rejected such esoteric programmes in favour of “TV that people want to watch” and “find things that will play at 8pm and appeal to all sorts of broader audiences”. Now, as Charlie notes on the open thread , Ofcom is reporting that the BBC has cut its original arts programming by half in the past decade [from 305 hours ten years ago to 154 hours last year], its history programmes by more than a quarter [from 814 hours to 595 hours], its music pr

This happened in the House of Commons yesterday: Brendan O'Hara, SNP : Last night I tuned in to the BBC 10 o'clock news to get the latest on this terrible disaster, and I was absolutely appalled when a presenter informed me that around 30 migrants had drowned. Migrants don't drown. People drown. Men, women and children drown. So will the Secretary of State join me in asking the BBC News editorial team and any other news outlet thinking of using that term to reflect on their use of such dehumanising language and afford these poor people the respect that they deserve? Priti Patel, Home Secretary : Even during the Afghan operations and Op Pitting I heard a lot of language that quite frankly seemed to be inappropriate around people who were fleeing. So yes, I will. I refer the honourable lady to Melanie Phillips :  “Pass the smelling salts: the BBC is right. Why is the Home Secretary endorsing an attack on objectivity?” So because she heard inappropriate language abou

    As we've been discussing on the open thread ... This morning's BBC Breakfast included an interview with the French MP for Calais and a former Chief Immigration Officer for UK Border Force in light of the tragedy in the Channel yesterday. In a very BBC moment,  BBC Breakfast  presenter Naga Munchetty decided to interrupt when the latter, Kevin Saunders, said something that, however factual, was clearly unpalatable to her.  She then took umbrage with him when he reacted with bemusement to her interruption.  And, not letting it go, she then went on to try and shame him by playing the time-honoured 'please think of the children' card.  It was all rather aggressive.  Here's a transcript of that section: Kevin Saunders, Former Chief Immigration Officer for the UK Border Force : In the longer term, we have got to have offshore reception centres for these people. The draw to the UK is phenomenal. They want to come here because basically everything

And while we're on the subject of the BBC Style Guide , these entries also caught my eye: al-Muhajiroun (radical British group also known as  Islam4UK , banned since January 2010) ie lower case "al", followed by a hyphen and capital "M". Make it clear in news stories that this group and others like it are regarded by the majority of British Muslims as unrepresentative - ideally, through a quote to that effect from a leading mainstream Muslim group such as the Muslim Council of Britain . Preachers associated with these groups should not be described simply as "Muslim clerics", but as radical , fringe or similar.   Supporters of Shariah (radical Islamic group)) Our policy is to run stories about this group and others like it (eg: al Muhajiroun ) only if we can make it clear that they are regarded by the majority of British Muslims as unrepresentative - ideally, through a quote to that effect from a leading mainstream Muslim group, such as t

If you've never actually read in full the BBC Style Guide's entry for ' gender/sex ' - the controversial one that's alleged to have been wholly informed by Stonewall's 'woke' ideology on transgender matters - then please take a few minutes to read it.  As 'pure wokery' expressed in BBC terms it really is quite something:  gender/sex Using appropriate language is an important part of how we portray people in our stories. Sexuality, race, ethnicity or disability should not be mentioned unless they are relevant to the subject matter. But when we do focus on one aspect of a person's character we should ensure we do not define them by it. Where possible, use the term/s and pronoun/s preferred by people themselves, when they have made their preferences clear. Gay/lesbian : Use gay as an adjective rather than a noun (eg: two gay men - but not "two gays"). It can apply to members of both sexes, but current preferred practice i

The National Gallery will stage a landmark exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of the great 20th-century artist Lucian Freud (1922–2011   October 1, 2022 to January 22, 2022. This first major survey of his paintings for 10 years will bring together a large selection of his most important works from across seven decades – spanning early works such as Image: Lucian Freud, 'Girl with Roses', 1947-8. Courtesy of the British Council Collection. Photo © The British Council © The Lucian Freud Archive / Bridgeman Images  'Girl with Roses' (British Council Collection) from the 1940s; to  'Reflection with Two Children (Self-Portrait)' (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) in the 1960s and right through to his famous late works. With paintings of the powerful, such as HM Queen Elizabeth II c.1999-2001 Lucian Freud Royal Collection Trust 2012 (C) The Lucian Freud Archive  'HM Queen Elisabeth II' (c.1999-2001, lent by Her Majest