BBC and the word of God: the rise of the think tank

The Thatcher years saw an increase in the number of privately financed think tanks/pressure groups with mission statements liberally infused with terms such as: liberal, freedom and liberty. Picky people might interpret the dogmas dished up by the majority of them, rightwing neoliberal and neocon, more accurately as illiberal, authoritarian and repressive.

Their objective is to propagate their particular ideologies; to influence government thinking and the direction of policies on areas such as the economy, health, education, transport, welfare, benefits and pensions. They hire researches to comb through statistics and compile strategies covering every aspect of British life and present themselves,  as fed to us daily by the BBC, as ‘experts’. And, importantly, they all claim to be ‘independent’ except the question is never posed on the BBC who funds them. Now I’m being picky.

It must be so reassuring to the busy programme presenter, editor or reporter in a hurry to press fast dial for one of their contacts with whichever think tank is seen as most appropriate to the item being covered – a reliable friend to sort out confusing facts and figures for them and, perhaps, provide an articulate spokesperson for interview who can dazzle with facts that trip off the tongue. And in the unlikely event of a challenge will run rings around any reporter lacking their expertise. 

A cursory glance at the personnel involved with some of these think tanks suggests a familiarity about them. It is as if person A completes his/her degree, preferably at Oxbridge (in Scotland it may be Glasgow), goes to work with a think tank for a while, nips off to the BBC or a newspaper for a bit, then perhaps into parliament or, if unelectable, turns up in the House of Lords. Same faces reinforcing a similar message.

 

They – peers, top journalists, senior civil servants, senior BBC staff are among an interdependent British elite who mould our thinking and values. They inhabit their own ecosystem – feeding off each other, mutually dependent and interbred to a degree that is incestuous – and results in the neoliberal or neocon.

The growth of the neoliberal or neocon since the 1980s has been impressive. Frequently smart and well educated at private school followed by Oxbridge – or Glasgow but mainly Oxbridge – if not recruited by the intelligence services they might amble into journalism, perhaps be found a ‘position’ at the BBC, especially if a member of their family ‘puts in a word on their behalf’ (in other places this might be called nepotism but at the BBC it is coincidence) or they might go into parliament but the important thing is that they find ways to ensure the survival of their species and they are surrounded by others of their species who are there to help.

One such ‘independent’ voice given liberal access to the BBC is The Institute of Economic Affairs (set up by Antony Fisher, a habitual funder of think tanks aka pressure groups including the Fraser Institute and Adam Smith Institute as well as others in America and Canada – and the first to set up a battery chicken ‘farm’ in England but that’s by the way – his granddaughter is married to Conservative former strategist, Steve Hilton.)

This London-based rightwing lobby group has links to other similar organisations such as Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the International Policy Network. It sees itself as active in expanding the network of conservative think tanks worldwide – all of them ‘independent’.

Another, the Centre for Policy Studies  was set up by Thatcherite minister Keith Joseph with Thatcher its Deputy Chairman. It’s current director is Tim Knox and its president is Lord Saatchi (Conservative). CPS was ranked as one of the four least transparent think tanks in the UK in relation to funding by Transparify. Former PM David Cameron credited the vital role played by CPS in the Conservative election victory of 1979.

In 2013 the CPS complained of the BBC’s ‘left of centre bias’ and suggestion that leftwing think tanks were ‘independent’ while flagging up the likes of theirs as rightwing. It complained in particular about the Social Market Foundation, Demos the New Economics Foundation and Institute for Public Policy Research. It will come as something of a shock to many that the Social Market Foundation is regarded by anyone as leftwing or, indeed, that the BBC could ever be accused of omitting the word, ‘leftwing’ in any of its political or economic coverage. Rightwing, now, I’ve never heard that spoken by them.

In case you are not familiar with the Social Market Foundation its purpose is to ‘”advance the education of the public in the economic, social and political sciences” and to “champion ideas that marry a pro-market orientation with concern for social justice”‘ – according to Wikipedia. Its director is Emran Mian (Cambridge), former civil servant and policy adviser in Whitehall. It was set up in 1989 by ‘Tory minded elements’ in the SDP – forerunners of Liberal Democrats. Oh, and it is ‘independent’ but you knew that. And it is based at Westminster and said to have been former Conservative PM, John Major’s ‘favourite think tank’ and associates itself with New Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.  

A former director of the SMF, Rick Nye, was also a director of the Conservative Research Department and Director of Populus (a research consultancy for corporate research and analysis) as well as a journalist. Another was Daniel Finkelstein, (LSE) a Conservative peer.

Better known to you, possibly, is Evan Davis (Oxford and Harvard) a former BBC economic editor and currently a presenter of several BBC programmes who when at the Social Market Foundation was among authors of its publication Osborne’s Choice: Combining fiscal credibility and growth. He was once seconded to the Thatcher government to work on the poll tax and previously with The Institute for Fiscal Studies. Mills spends time on examining the role of economic journo and monetarist, Peter Jay, (private school/Oxford) born into illustrious Labour family, one-time son-in-law of Labour PM James Callaghan and Jay’s influence on the rise of Evan Davis.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies  was founded by Will Hopper, (Glasgow),  banker and later Conservative MEP, investment trust manager, Bob Buist (Dundee); Nils Taube, stockbroker; John Chown (Cambridge), monetary economist,  a tax consultant and ex-chairman of Cambridge University Conservative Association. The Institute’s director is Paul Johnson (Oxford) formerly employed in the Cabinet Office, Dept for Education and Employment, HM Treasury who is aided and abetted by some 60 researchers. According to an article in The Guardian the IFS wields huge influence over economic policy in the UK – its authority has become, ‘the word of God’ according to former economics editor at the BBC, Robert Peston. Pronouncements from the IFS frequently become the main story at the BBC and other news outlets and the base line from which others should argue. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/15/british-umpire-how-institute-fiscal-studies-became-most-influential-voice-in-uk-economic-debate

Director Johnson’s tutorial partner at university was Ed Balls (Oxford), former Labour Chancellor →IFS →Treasury→IFS and ex-journalist Financial Times. Ex-director of IFS Robert Chote, (Cambridge) was chair of the university’s Liberal and Social Democrats, a journalist at The Independent, Independent on Sunday, Financial Times, ex-director IFS, ex-Office for National Statistics; Office for Budget Responsibility. Chote’s wife is Sharon White, (Cambridge) civil servant – sometimes of the Treasury, 10 Downing Street policy unit under Blair; chief executive of Ofcom  which regulates broadcasting, postal services and other communications and oversees licensing, complaints, competition etc. Ofcom’s current chair is Dame Patricia Hodgson (Cambridge) ex-BBC producer, ex- BBC Trust and a host of other posts.

“The IFS today occupies a quasi-constitutional role in British life, but without the scrutiny on management and funding that applies to formal government bodies. Its separation from government may be one of the best explanations for its success.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/15/british-umpire-how-institute-fiscal-studies-became-most-influential-voice-in-uk-economic-debate

Innumerate journalists have come to rely on the IFS to do the sums for them when it comes to explaining numbers – and the IFS is more than happy to oblige. It is all very incestuous and the more innumerate the journalist the more heavily is reliance on the IFS’s figures and interpretation of figures being accurate or even acceptable.

The Adam Smith Institute -“a formidable advocate of economic and personal freedom, achieving real and lasting changes in public policy” Andrey Neil (Glasgow) member of Glasgow University Conservative Club, ex-research assistant with Conservative Party, journalist and BBC broadcaster.

The ASI was founded in 1977 by three British men then living and working in the USA. One was its president, Dr Masden Pirie, (Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Cambridge) to promote free market policies including privatisation of public services. Sam Bowman:

“Our policy agenda hasn’t changed. We want low, simple, flat taxes to promote investment and growth. We want patients and parents to have choice and control over healthcare and education, through voucher systems and competition between private firms. We want to liberalise the planning system so that the private sector can build more homes, and create a free market welfare system that guarantees that work always pays. And we want free trade with the world and a liberal immigration system that people trust.”http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/10/sam-bowman-why-we-at-the-adam-smith-institute-are-best-described-as-neoliberals-not-libertarians.html

It was from the ASI the poll tax originated and as we’ve seen above reconfiguring taxation is one of its principle preoccupations.

Of Masden Pirie the journalist and panellist on the  BBC’s the Moral Maze and twice failed to land a seat for the Labour Party in the House of Commons, Edward Pearce wrote:

“He is a Scot of sorts, but despite education at Edinburgh and St Andrew’s Universities, he is quite unscarred in either accent or hang-ups by Scottishness.”

 The Guardian, 19 April 1993. 

Think we’ve got your number there, Ed. Just in case you haven’t had enough of Mr Pearce’s velvety prose try this:

“For the second time in half a decade a large body of Liverpool supporters has killed people …the shrine in the Anfield goalmouth, the cursing of the police, all the theatricals, come sweetly to a city which is already the world capital of self-pity. There are soapy politicians to make a pet of Liverpool, and Liverpool itself is always standing by to make a pet of itself. ‘Why us? Why are we treated like animals?’ To which the plain answer is that a good and sufficient minority of you behave like animals.”^[8]

the Sunday Times  23 April 1989

In Scotland as well as all of the above the BBC here often turns to the neo-liberal Fraser of Allander Institute, attached to the University of Strathclyde, for its opinions on a whole range of topics. In an article in the BBC’s website it charted the expansion of FAI in favourable terms and quoted a spokesperson:

“…the expanded institute would be able to provide decision-makers, the media and the public “with even greater leading-edge independent economic analysis than before”.

Presumably on its call to privatise Scotland’s water and such like.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-36747530

Who are they? Financial sponsorship for the FoAI has come from the Hugh Fraser Foundation, BP, Shell, Scotsman Publications, Mobil North Sea Ltd, Shell UK, the Industry Department for Scotland. Fraser of Allander Institute’s director is Dr Graeme Roy (Edinburgh/Glasgow) who replaced Brian Ashcroft, husband of Wendy Alexander former leader of the Labour Party in Scotland and a former Labour MSP.

Mills in his book The BBC: Myth of a Public Service criticises the BBC for its narrow range of sources – chiefly political party press statements augmented by think tanks that form the incestuous media/government network that runs through Westminster and Whitehall in England and I will add, encircles the Clyde in Scotland. He writes of the revolving door through which the select are admitted and the links they form that bolsters their influence and allows their voices to be heard.

A mere snapshot of those who have taken a spin around that revolving door – Ben Bradshaw, (Sussex) BBC reporter, Labour MP and minister; James Purnell, (Oxford) ex-BBC Director of Radio, BBC Director of Strategy and Digital, Labour MP and minister;  Don Brind, ex-BBC political correspondent, Labour press officer; Bill Bush, ex-BBC analysis and research, ex chief of staff to Labour’s Ken Livingstone, head of political research for Blair; Lorraine Davidson, ex-BBC political correspondent, Labour Party, journalist – wrote biography of ex-leader of Labour of Scotland, Jack McConnell, former partner of Labour MSP Tom McCabe, wife of Labour MEP David Martin; Michael Gove, (Oxford) Conservative MP and minister, ex-journalist, ex- BBC reporter; Patricia Hodgson BBC, Ofcom, a Thatcherite, Ruth Davidson, (Edinburgh/Glasgow) ex-BBC presenter, leader Conservative Party in Scotland; Thea Rogers, ex-BBC political producer to BBC political editor Nick Robinson, ex-adviser to Conservative Chancellor George Osborne; Nick Robinson, (Oxford), Oxford University Conservative Association, BBC presenter and journalist, who has a catalogue of controversial incidents relating to his reporting recorded for posterity. At the 2015 General Election:

“I am not, though, required to be impartial between democracy and the alternatives”

which comes down to an individual’s definition of ‘democracy”.

We can gauge a great deal about an organisation by those who run it and dominate it. To discover who sets the tone of the BBC and how reflective it is of UK society you just have to run your eyes down a list of who gets to be top dog there. 

The BBC is governed by a group of appointees. Currently they include:

Rona Fairhead – (Cambridge/Harvard), former CE of Financial Times Group, non-exec director HSBC
Sir Roger Carr – Chair of BAE Systems (UK biggest arms producer)
Richard Ayre – former Deputy CE of BBC News
Mark Damazer – (Oxford/Harvard), former controller of BBC Radio 4 and Radio 7
Mark Florman, (private school, LSE), CEO of merchant banking group
Aideen McGinley former NI civil servant; Nicholas Prettejohn – senior City executive.

Former governers:

Lord Gainford (Joseph Pease), (Cambridge), Liberal politician, Deputy Chairman of the Durham Coal Owners Association, director of Pease and Partners Ltd and other colliery companies, Chair of Durham Coke Owners – in post at the BBC during the General strike that included miners, President of the Federation of British Industry.
George Villiers, Earl of Clarendon, Conservative, Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms;
John Whitley, Liberal MP,
Viscount Bridgeman, (Eton and Cambridge), Conservative MP,
Ronald Norman, (Cambridge), banker, his brother was governor of the Bank of England, 
 Sir Allan Powell, Lawyer.
Lord Inman, Labour MP,
Baron Simon Wythenshawe, (Cambridge), Labour Party then Liberal, Industrialist.
Sir Alexander Cadogan, (Eton and Oxford), Conservative MP, Director of the Suez canal company and friend of PM Anthony Eden – handy during the Suez crisis for the bias promoted by the BBC – which he defended, naturally.
Sir Arthur fforde – no mistake spelled with two lowercase fs, (Oxford), Civil Servant;
Lord Normanbrook, (Oxford), Senior Civil Servant.
Lord Hill, (Cambridge) Consrvative MP and a Liberal.
Si Michael Swann, (Cambridge and Edinburgh), appointed by Conservative PM Ted Heath following his handling of student protests at Edinburgh.
George Howard, (Eton and Oxford), owned Castle Howard in North Yorkshire where Brideshead Revisited was filmed), chair of the County Landowners Association.
Stuart Young, appointed by Thatcher to be a conservative influence – his brother of Conservative Cabinet Minister Baron Young of Graffham in Thatcher government.
Marmaduke Hussey, (Rugby and Oxford) Conservative, husband of Lady Susan Hussey, woman of the Bedchamber to Elizabeth II (sic), put into BBC to bring it ‘into line’ with her government’s policy – he was also involved in print union disputes.
Sir Christopher Bland, (Oxford), Army, Business, Conservative.
Gavyn Davies, (Cambridge), adviser to Labour Party, former Goldman Sachs partner, married to Susan Nye -former Director of Government Relations and diary secretary to Gordon Brown.
Lord Ryder of Wensum, (Cambridge), Conservative peer,
Sir Anthony Salz,  Executive Vice Chairman at Rothschild
Lord Grade, Controller BBC 1, Conservative peer,
Sir Michael Lyons, Labour Party
Lord Patten, (Oxford), Conservative peer,
Sir Hugh Greene (Oxford)
Greg Dyke, (York), former Labour Party donor.

 

You don’t have to have attended Oxbridge or Glasgow universities to get on at  the BBC but if you have it won’t be held against you. In fact, you may even have formed friendships there which could hold you in good stead to secure a position because in life it isn’t what you know so much as who you know – or who kent your father. 

There are believed to be genetic risks with incest in that the genetic pool is depleted with the result that diversity is limited. But the advance of neoliberal and neocon ideologies through our newspapers and on television and radio has so far proved a boon for those species in achieving their goal of becoming the accepted authority on all things but their very success is damaging to society for it restricts and perverts the discourse on alternatives to their rightwing doctrines. 

BBC: Myth or Magic part 2 – In Wonderland they Lie

Second part of a sideways glance at the BBC prompted by Tom Mills’ book The BBC: Myth of a Public Service.

In a Wonderland they lie

In part one I mentioned how proactive the BBC was in attacking striking workers during the 1926 General Strike so it is not surprising it provided the government with a vehicle for propaganda during the Second World War. Now there is nothing unexpected about that for no country would allow any publicly financed medium become something of a fifth column – issuing news and briefings critical of the constitutional authority. Mind you before that war the BBC could be found in the camp of appeasers along with major British newspapers such as the Daily Mail, Sunday Dispatch and London Evening News owned by Lord Rothermere and The Times and The Observer owned by Lord Astor all of which were relaxed over developments in Germany during the 1930s when many from Britain’s upper middle class and aristocracy were sympathetic to Hitler’s Nazis – the very classes at the helm at the BBC. According to Mills, ‘speakers hostile to fascism were barred from broadcasting’ on the BBC which drew a rebuke from Churchill that he,  an anti-appeaser, was one.  

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing

 The BBC’s own interpretation of its conduct in the war on its website is a polished piece of guarded-speak which emphasises the integrity of BBC management and reaffirms the BBC as ‘a trusted news source’ and how the BBC resisted becoming simply a tool of government. It would, it insisted at the time, broadcast ‘the truth’ but omit anything that might ‘endanger the civilian population or jeopardise operations.’ To this end it admits heavily censoring news to omit mentions of high casualties among the Allies. There was not a single reference in the BBC website I consulted to its propaganda operations later made famous by George Orwell.

BBC chooses whose opinions may be heard in 1933

Orwell was one of many recruited by the government to work within its vast Ministry of Information, as Talks Producer at the BBC. You can see how smudged that line is between both institutions. For the Ministry of Information you could read Ministry of Misinformation. Other famous writers similarly employed included J. B Priestly and Graham Greene (whose brother Hugh Greene worked for the BBC’s German service and later he became Director General of the BBC)

The brilliant cartoonist David Low refused to be used as a propagandist for the government/BBC and the writer C. S. Lewis also refused to participate in disseminating lies.

Even the once enthusiastic Orwell later changed his mind on the integrity of outright propaganda, ‘all propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.’ His prescient novel, 1984, was written while his experience of working for the government/BBC was fresh in his mind and the novel’s Ministry of Information became the terrifying Ministry of Truth.

 The acknowledged importance of the BBC’s output during WW2 both for home and overseas audiences demonstrates the potency of its influence over the public’s perceptions of truth.

The Party’s go-to tactic for maintaining power is to shift blame to a designated scapegoat, toward which all of its constituents’ hatred and violence may be directed

Broadcasters enjoy a privileged role in life able to construct narratives in tune with their own opinions aimed at persuading their audience of the legitimacy of their interpretation of events. The BBC is not a place to hear radically divergent views instead it promotes that small c conservatism that is in tune with all of the major institutions in the UK. Like some well-oiled machine of state government, the City of London, the courts, military, royalty and the BBC reinforce one another and operate to maintain the status quo where the top brass in all of these institutions remain in charge.

The power of the BBC to censor its airwaves

We have seen how the BBC sought to sway opinion against workers during the General Strike how it was in tune with the reactionary press during the 1930s in relation to Germany and its willingness to broadcast a catalogue of myths and lies during the war and that aspect of its character was no less slanted post-war.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

During the Suez crisis of 1956 Britain found itself divided between those who defended the Empire and Britain’s military presence at the Suez canal and its control over this vital trade route and supporters of Egypt, a nation desperate to shake off its shackles as a colony and assert its independence. Britain’s rightwing were seething with racist venom against uppity and ungrateful Egyptians their xenophobia evident in many references to ‘our boys’ versus ‘wogs’ and ‘gyppos’ .

The Director General of the BBC dined at Number 10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister on the evening of 26 July 1956 when news broke of Egypt’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.  As Tony Shaw in his book, Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion during the Suez Crisis, explains the chairman of the BBC’s Board of Governors, and a former under-security at the Foreign Office (and share holder in the Suez Canal Company) nipped down to Downing street to discuss how the BBC should handle the crisis. A nervous government was said to have threatened to take over the BBC entirely but that appears was an exaggerated claim however it was made clear to the broadcaster that its handling of Suez should be on a war footing with all that involved including censorship. And, as Shaw points out, the DG of the BBC and his chief assistant were trusted with highly secret information in the run-up to military action.

The chairman of the Independent Television Authority, Sir Kenneth Clark, was also approached and asked to ‘slant the news about Suez’ but he refused to co-operate with the government on grounds of the need to retain impartiality.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Despite much hand wringing at the BBC the corporation complied with the government and broadcast carefully constructed reports and interviews or simply relayed official statements. It repulsed any attempt for outright government control over its output but did undertake close liaison with the Ministry of Defence and departments of the military.

Meanwhile in Cyprus an ostensibly independent radio station known as Sharqal-Adna but run by British Intelligence and ‘known’ to BBC management transmitted pro-British propaganda as did the BBC’s Arabic Service. Reminiscent of the Iraq wars enemy casualties were not counted or reported realistically and there were no first hand reports of bombings or the impact of British actions on civilians. Shaw noted  that BBC

‘bulletins on the whole bore such a close resemblance to so much of the officially released information on the invasion [it] suggests that the government’s machinery of liaison paid dividends.’

The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started…

Big events such as the General Strike, WW2 and Suez highlight the hugely influential function of the BBC. One that is more memorable for readers will be Hillsborough. It wasn’t only The Sun that chose to become a mouthpiece for the official police version of events.  

BBC Radio 2 reported: “Unconfirmed reports that a door was broken down at the end that was holding Liverpool supporters.”

Mills tells us that Graham Kelly, Chief Executive of the English Football Association, who was interviewed on Radio 2 implied that the police had not ordered the gates to be opened. This was as was later became apparent not true but repeated by another reporter

“…at ten to three there was a surge of fans at the Leppings lane end of the ground… the surge composed of about 500 Liverpool fans and the police say that a gate was forced and that led to a crush in the terracing area – well under capacity I’m told, there was still plenty of room inside that area…”

Such shameful distortions of the truth continued to be broadcast on the BBC – Radio 4 news at 6pm still insisted that fans without tickets pushed their way into the football ground causing the disaster –

“It’s clear that many hundreds of Liverpool fans travelled to Hillsborough even though they didn’t have tickets for the game. Shortly before the match started it appears that these fans were able to get into the ground through a gate at the Leppings Lane end.”

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing

The BBC went further in its reporting of the so-called Battle of Orgreave in June 1984 when striking miners were battered by police. The corporation went out of its way to edit film in such a way it altered the sequence of events and broadcast film that was deliberately constructed to lie to viewers in something straight out of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.  

Mills: the BBC was ‘blatantly biased in their output to the extent it ‘chopped up and re-sequenced’ film of the picket attack to ‘make it appear miners provoked the police.’

With no hint of impartiality BBC reporters referred to miners as ‘law-breakers’. When confronted by their biased reporting the BBC immediately issued denials – as it invariably does when caught out.

“no evidence of any deliberate attempt to mislead viewers”

“marginal imbalance”

not “wholly impartial”

What did happen at Orgreave, and unreported on the BBC, was that the police launched an unprovoked attack on striking men who retaliated with missiles.

It took the BBC 7 years to own up to this deliberate manipulation of events

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/22/orgreave-truth-police-miners-strike

The BBC is almost unique in this country in its ability to mould public opinion. We found out in part 1 that the ‘impartial’ BBC is not keen on CND and peace campaigners in general but allows itself to be used as a bugle boy for British military campaigns. At the time of the Iraq war it was so openly jingoistic it allocated only 2% output to the views of people opposed to this war.  

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/08/mehdi-hasan-bbc-wing-bias-corporation

The BBC is very good at lots of things including marginalising groups it disapproves of such as the peace movement. At the same time it is supremely capable of enhancing organisations and views that fit in with the ethos of the men and women who wield influence at the BBC.

Banking and big business command great respect within the organisation, including the rural business of farming. We know this because the BBC has rather a lot of business slots as stand-alone programmes –

BBC In Business; Business Daily, The Bottom Line, Global Business, The World of Business, World Business Report, Talking Business, BBC Business Live, Business Matters, Dragon’s Den, Wake Up to Money, Inside Business with more of a similar hue dished up in Scotland, hourly on the lamentable Good Morning Scotland

– and teams of employees who feed economic and business data into news and current affairs programmes. By contrast it has no designated slots to reflect on green issues, or anti-business views or workers’ issues that might be at the heart of trades unions or indeed peace campaigning. The only perspective that interests the BBC are those of employers and a peek at the make-up of who’s who in the BBC which will be covered in a separate blog shows this is only to be expected. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours is surely carved over the front door at the BBC. This preoccupation the BBC has for finance and business is explored by Mills.

Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely

The Business and  Economics Unit at the BBC was set up in 1989 and I checked the BBC Website to see what this unit had to say for itself. The underlining emphasis is mine.

“The Business and Economics Unit is at the heart of BBC News. We produce output for all BBC platforms and offer editorial guidance to the full range of BBC programmes. We have a truly global presence including teams based in Singapore, New York, Johannesburg and Mumbai.

The Economics Editor holds one of the most senior roles in BBC News, leading the BBC’s coverage across all platforms, domestic and international…Reporting to the Editor, Business and Economics Unit, the Economics Editor will be a regular contributor to the main TV and radio news bulletins and programmes, as well as to BBC News Online. Much of the role will focus on providing material for the Six and Ten O’clock News, the 1800 Radio 4 news bulletin and the Today Programme…  a primary contact for senior figures in Government and the Business/Economics community.”

We can take from this that the BBC regards the promotion of trade and commerce as one of its prime functions.

The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering – a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons

According to Mills the BBC fell for the charms of the economic and business sectors with the flourishing of New Labour that neo-liberal progeny of Thatcherism. As a consequence obscene amounts of money were spent on creating a more pro-business BBC but in the end much of what is reported is little more than recitation of press statements issued by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Bank of England, City analysts, CBI, Office of Economic Development, IMF and their ilk who are also given air time to express their ‘expert’ opinions live.

Just who are the Institute for Fiscal Studies and why does the BBC assign them so much air time? I’ll look at think-tanks and pressure groups and the people who influence our opinions in the next part.

Quotes from:

Tom Mills: The BBC: Myth of a Public Service

Lewis Carroll; Alice in Wonderland

George Orwell; 1984

Tony Shaw; Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion during the Suez Crisis

 

BBC Myth of Magic? Part 1

The Rabbit took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket and saw it was 1922.

Broadcasting, “is ultimately a persuasive art” said Hilda Matheson, former MI5 officer and the BBC’s first Head of Talks. Her remark made in the wake of the creation of the BBC in the early 1920s is interesting on two grounds – that broadcasting’s role is to influence and it was the voice of British Intelligence that was invited to set the tone of the BBC.  

Tom Mills in his book, The BBC : Myth of a Public Service, dismantles the claim repeated ad nauseam by the British Broadcasting Corporation that it is an honest and impartial national broadcaster. Presumably their claim is repeated so often because it is challenged so often, with very good reason.

The BBC likes to present itself a bit like the NHS, as a British institution held in high regard by the public. Arguably that was true once upon a time but today it is a spurious assertion.

Broadcasting emerged as an alternative source of news and entertainment to that dished up by newspapers which were all biased in one direction or another and reflected the cultural and political views of their owners; wealthy individuals and corporations. The BBC would be different – as a public service it would report news in an impartial manner. That’s a bit like an historian claiming to be objective in recording events – it never happens. The storyteller’s role is a powerful one where what is not said distorts the message as much as what is selected for inclusion.

In 1926 the new BBC was regarded by the UK government as an ideal medium to inform Britain’s “politically uneducated electorate” an observation I suspect was as untrue then as it is now. Back in the 1920s in the wake of the Great War the majority of Britons would have been pretty clued up on politics – and active – women were still battling to get equal voting rights with men and both sexes had spent the 19th century fighting for employment and political rights a struggle that continued throughout the 20th century.

Of course it wasn’t a politically committed left-leaning electorate the BBC was looking to bring on-board (unless to re-educate) but to counter leftist views and disseminate information provided to the BBC by the government and its associated arms – intelligence, police, military, royalty with the expectation the public would swallow it hook, line and sinker. The BBC became an adjunct of the British state reinforcing its small c (sometimes big C) conservative message – a function is has proved to be well able to fulfil.

‘The question is,‘ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words means so many different things.’

1926 year of the General Strike with the horror of fighting for King and country in the Great War still fresh in memories and the echo of shelling and promise that returning soldiers would find  a land fit for heroes ringing in their ears Britain’s workers instead found they were being screwed into the ground for a second time in a decade and expected to accept pay cuts to their rock bottom wages and having to work longer hours for less pay. When they resisted the King and government did not come rushing to their defence as workers had for them in 1914 and 1915 – they were no longer heroes but demonised by the press, including the BBC .

Then conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, said:

“The general strike is a challenge to the parliament and is the road to anarchy.”

His chancellor, Winston Churchill, said:

“I do not agree that the TUC have as much right as the Government to publish their side of the case and to exhort their followers to continue action. It is a very much more difficult task to feed the nation than it is to wreck it.”

And BBC management agreed. If it was not exactly happy to oblige, oblige it did and allowed its airwaves to be used to undermine workers and defeat their strike. Far from being impartial the BBC only aired anti-strike opinions and propaganda, co-operating with government to read out its press statements in news bulletins verbatim while deliberately omitting pro-worker views.

Stonehaven man, John Reith, who helped establish the BBC was by 1927 its first Director General . The story goes that Reith made sure all voices involved in the General Strike were heard on the BBC but that wasn’t true. It’s a claim that is still made today. Reith asked the government to decide whether he should allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to go on the air to ask for a compromise between the unions and the government. The government  said no and that was that.  Does that make the BBC a government mouthpiece?  Surely there is no more appropriate term for it.

It was almost as if the British Establishment had discovered a great wheeze whereby it set up its own propaganda machine that could reach out to all four countries in the UK – and soon abroad – get the public to pay for it and claim it represented them.

And so impoverished workers and their families struggling to prevent being pushed into greater poverty were forced to abandon their protest. Many lost their jobs altogether and in the Depression of the thirties, the hungry thirties, these same people had to endure unbelievable squalor and anguish.  

Meanwhile Reith and his BBC colleagues were chummily office-sharing with government personnel in the Admiralty (UK government building) where news bulletins were jointly drafted by the BBC and the government’s press officer. That’s how impartial the BBC was. BBC/Westminster government/military/secret services = one body with tentacles.

Mills teases out an entrenched system of collusion between the BBC and successive governments since its inception in the twenties. Management of the BBC and its overseeing body, the Board of Governors, were and still are government appointees who inhabit the same social circles, attend the same schools, often private, and universities – mainly Oxbridge and, unsurprisingly, they share similar cultural and political outlooks. Basically, they are all the same chaps and gels.

Mills tells us that in 2014 26% of BBC executives attended private schools compared with 7% in the UK as a whole. 33% were Oxbridge educated compared with 0.8% of the population. 62% attended Russell group universities (Wiki – 24 self-selected research universities in the UK. Set up 1994 to represent members’ interests, principally to government and parliament. And receive two-thirds of all university research grants and contract income.) It is their job to represent the British public.

There is no need for any audacious conspiracy to try to link the BBC with the British establishment’s view of the world for their top personnel come from the establishment pool of contacts, friends and families recruited for their dependable attitudes or ability to adopt them to ‘get on’ within the organisation. Just in case any reprobate tried to squeeze in appointments to the BBC used to be vetted by MI5. Not now, of course. No, of course not. Mills tells us this vetting process was known as ‘formalities’ and the BBC pet name for MI5 was ‘The College’, in the spirit of George Smiley.

Why such tight vetting? What were they on the lookout for down at the BBC? Commies or lefties are the easy answers. To give them credit, extreme right-wingers were mostly excluded, too. In the parlance of the BBC those with ‘political reliability’ were the sort of chaps they were happy to recruit. It is just a pity the BBC’s intense vetting failed to uncover an inordinate number of sex fiends and paedophiles employed by the Corporation – all presumably of the ‘right sort.’

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the BBC, Lord Green – if they weren’t Lords when they got the job as Director General then most became one after – Lord Green was keen on upping MI5’s vetting of recruits to prevent the BBC’s reputation for impartiality from being compromised. And that, folks, is a line that Lewis Carroll should have written for the Mad Hatter.  

One of the shadowy figures who features in Mill’s exposure of the BBC was the Corporation’s special little helper Ronnie Stonham also known as Bongo. Stonham was a handy sort of chap with a background in post office communications, the military and the secret services that found him operating in all sorts of shadowy theatres of conflict: Cyprus, Malaya, Vietnam, Northern Ireland. He worked out of Room 105 at the BBC where careers were enhanced or broken and he had the power to prevent programmes being transmitted according to how embarrassing they might become to the government. 

It is said any staffers not quite BBC/establishment enough had their files marked with a triangular green tag or Christmas tree to show they weren’t trustworthy sorts.

Typical of the BBC first it denied any such vetting took place then it reluctantly admitted it. Some things never change. Even when the truth was dragged kicking and screaming out of it  BBC management prevaricated and hid as much as it revealed. – claiming that only around 8 people had been positively vetted when in fact the number was close – well not that close – over 6000.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/11038585/Brigadier-Ronnie-Stonham-obituary.html

Back in 1969 a young film maker asked to make a film for the BBC about a sit-in at Hornsey Art College in London realised he was being watched by the police and soon his film was cancelled. Fast forward two years and he was again taken on to make a different film for the BBC and provided with a room to work from until thrown out by a member of BBC management. His crime? Travelling to Czechoslovakia as a student. He was far from alone. Read more examples about BBC housekeeping here:

http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi5.bbc.page9_obs_18aug1985.html

Leftwing and communist were indivisible categories of the unclean to BBC management and not the sort encouraged to share their opinions with the public which gives the lie to BBC’s assertion of impartiality and fair representation of all opinions. Never has been and never will be. That is just not its function in the UK – it works for the British state to preserve it as it is, elitist and conservative; the BBC and the British state work hand-in-glove in pursuit of the ‘national interest’ which, of course, they define.

While a function of the BBC was to reinforce status quo in Britain its much vaunted World Service was established to influence political opinion abroad and disseminate British culture and ‘standards’ to a wider audience. This service nearly doubled post 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, according to Mills, who highlighted input from the BBC’s security correspondent, former army captain in the Royal Green Jackets, Frank Gardner, who, according to Mills, admits close contact with MI5 and MI6. Mills described the BBC World Service as ‘an instrument of “soft power”‘ and it is difficult to disagree when in 2015 the Conservative government announced in its National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review of all places investment of £85 million annually in the World Service in order to, in the words of the World Service –

“further enhance our position as the world’s leading soft power promoting our values and interests globally'”

No iffs, no doubts, BBC working for the British state. And, of course, the DG of the BBC, Tony Hall was grateful, acknowledging the World Service as,

“one of our best sources of global influence”

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out

… to be continued

The BBC: Myth of a Public Service
By Tom Mills
Verso, 272pp, £16.99 and £14.99
ISBN 9781784784829 and 4850 (e-book)

Watch “LONDON CALLING: BBC bias during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum” on YouTube

 

 

https://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/oh-what-a-tangled-web-we-weave-when-first-we-practice-to-deceive-bbc-scotland-and-the-labour-party

https://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/the-bbc-and-the-2015-general-election-its-at-it-again

https://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/good-morning-scotland-sic-bbc-scotland-sic-a-station-like-no-other

 

Cyber bullies and journalists ‘only doing their jobs’

Bedrooms –  incubators of extremism

Once upon a time journalists were expected to be balanced, fair, factual and accurate in reporting news. People swallowed every syllable, each overcooked adjective, each slight tilt of opinion. Perhaps. Objectivity was the journalists’ watchword. Some understood it. Some didn’t care. And anyway as every historian will tell you there are few facts which are incontrovertible…everything in its context. And there is opinion. And there are the doorkeepers to news – the newspaper proprietors and the head of broadcast news – the tail wagging the dog. Then came social media and the professional journalist found him or herself faced by a snarling dog biting back – too much canine association so I’ll stop it. Good Morning Scotland 3rd May on BBC Radio Scotland featured a piece about ‘bullying’ of journalists by the status quo’s latest demon, the cyber bully. Cyber bullies are people who talk back, some shout, some swear, at opinions they don’t agree with, presented by other people ( not gods) called journalists. Social media has provided a voice for those previously known as the silent majority The phenomenon of cyber bullying has often been raised on programmes such as GMS, often, as today accompanied by the adjective chilling. A definition of cyber bullying is proving difficult to clarify but the National Union of Journalists is launching a ‘campaign’ along with Strathclyde University ‘to highlight the increasing incidents on online attacks on journalists in Scotland.’ The research is led by former journalist Dr Sallyanne Duncan. ‘Cyber bullying of journalists is a serious and growing problem’ it was claimed, citing two forms: social media and comments made under online articles (by journalists). These often comprise views counter to the journalist’s and may be abusive or offensive which is unacceptable as journalists are only doing their jobs. Journalists, it was claimed by Ms Duncan, are being attacked for their political beliefs – ‘which often journalists are not expressing explicitly because they are attempting (to be) or are impartial in their reporting’ and are subjected to attacks not only on their opinions but ‘bullies’ may make sexual or homophobic remarks. Several references were made to actual threats to life. Now this is already illegal and should be reported to the police. That women are more targeted than men was discovered not to be true. Perhaps it is what is being said and not the gender of the journalist that upsets people? Dr Duncan’s worry is this phenomenon could lead to a ‘degree of self-censorship’ which I assume goes on all the time – she earlier remarked, journalists attempt to be fair-handed in their reporting (therefore must constantly be suppressing their own views). The argument continued that freedom of expression is therefore curtailed…infringing human rights. The accusation being that public opinion is preventing reporters doing their jobs …the freedom to connect (UNESCO) has become limited because journalists are frightened of being abused for their views. My problem with this piece was that Dr Duncan clearly revealed she has already decided what might in objective research be its conclusions. It can only be that she will look for evidence to confirm her belief that journalists should not be expected to ‘toughen up’ but be protected from the great unwashed Scottish public … ‘Try being the one who’s receiving that abuse’ she said in reply to that point. ‘… they (journalists) are just experiencing something that is vile… why should journalists be subject to that kind of abuse when people in other professions are less likely to get it? Does it happen to lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants?’ – is she seriously asking that question? James Doherty NUJ national executive was also on the programme. The research is being done for the union. He sounded pretty angry about the abuse received by some of the union’s members. Of course there was a time when journalists would write anything they liked, sometimes looking for a response from the public. Letters would be sent and received and sifted through and one or two would be published. Most would not. The public were entitled to their views but not entitled to their views being widely circulated. That privilege has been reserved for journalists. Mr Doherty made reference to ‘angry’ protests outside BBC in Glasgow, as though protests are not, in most cases, angry. I just thought of angry women hurling stones and abuse at politicians, including the prime minister, for denying them what they thought should be their right to vote. I just thought about the hungry and disenfranchised who rose up in the 1820s for an end to their miserable living conditions, dangerous working conditions and for an end to poverty and to the Chartists years later, still fighting for the same, still challenging a hostile press, still angry, still demonstrating. Trade Union member Mr Doherty said it was intolerable that demands were made for journalists to lose their jobs. That this ‘rising sense of entitlement’ emboldened people. And it should not be that casual and idle threats are common parlance nowadays but anger at audacious bias, used as black propaganda, tarted up as even-handed journalism that needs to be criticised and there appears to be confusion over where the dividing line lies between abuse and strong opinion…as there is confusion in some quarters between stretching the truth, omission and downright lies. Isabel Fraser offered up the description ‘chilling’ a few times during the interview in relation to social media which struck me as gratuitous. In much the same vein Mr Doherty referred to social media types who sit in their bedrooms, anonymously madly typing away on their ipads as though bedrooms are by their nature incubators of extremism. This is mainstream media fighting back. It has lost its domination of news and it doesn’t like it. Until now we’ve had a one-way street for journalists; radio, TV and newspapers who have enjoyed the privilege of having their opinions aired across the country but who don’t recognise the advantages this has given them. Ordinary folk have had no such opportunity to express their views. I don’t deny there is horrible abuse out in social media. I’ve been the target of attacks from unionists, many who drape themselves with the Union flag and profess Rangers forever – the sort who don’t get their hate messages reported on mainstream media (objective, balanced and fair-minded) and it is nasty but they are just words and I don’t believe I’m in danger for my life from them anymore than I actually believe the Labour MP Ian Davidson is heading towards my house to bayonet me. The NUJ may wish twitter didn’t exist but it does, and a good thing too. Whatever is said on twitter is nothing compared with the behaviour of professional journalists bunged up in the slammer for their corrupt practices. People are people and people have opinions. As Hunter S. Thompson said, ‘ I don’t quite understand this worship of objectivity in journalism. Now, just flat-out lying is different from being subjective.’ We get flat-out lying from professional journalists. Daily we are subjected to jaw-droppingly biased reporting. How hard is it to distinguish between pro-Labour and pro-Conservative newspapers? They cannot all be presenting objective news stories. It is not difficult to witness BBC, Sky, STV journalists include, omit, spin items they will swear blind are FACTS. Journalists are not demi-gods beyond criticism. They are still privileged as they beaver away, if not in their bedrooms, in their own equivalent of the news sensation incubator, sifting through the FACTS to concoct their own versions of the actualité. If I may indulge in an aside – sport reporters, the majority of whom demonstrate the folly of bunking school between 7 and 16yrs are mainly attracted into their ‘profession’ through their desire to watch fitba for free, every week. An FE lecturer whose job was to broaden the horizons of these myopic young professionals found it an uphill task for there was nothing in their heads but football which goes some way in explaining their uncanny ability to pronounce the most tongue-tying names of footballers and their complete inability to pronounce accurately the names of female Russian tennis players – and so they don’t bother – even to mention the sport when Andy Murray isn’t playing – and anyway they are women – and foreign women – and not even just foreign women but Putin’s foreign women…which is my way of saying that putting professional in front of journalist amounts to nothing worth respecting in itself.

Journalists must be judged on their work not for simply being journalists.  They are open to greater scrutiny than ever and that can be no bad thing. We don’t need threats of violence anymore than we need the pretence of balanced reporting.

As a final aside it hasn’t escaped my notice that BBC presenters are rarely shy about condemning other professions for allegedly shoddy work and suggesting they should be sacked, particularly teachers and nurses come to mind. Yet they scream bloody murder when they are judged as incompetent. That’s the behaviour of the playground bully isn’t it?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11167778/Senior-Sun-journalists-accused-of-corruption-on-a-grand-scale-as-trial-begins.html http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/sep/04/broadcasting.bbc http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/25/screw-objectivity-study-finds-opinionated-journalism-boos http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/24/washington-post-puzzled-by-strange-new-c