Day 5909: Mr John Humphrys in Muddy Waters

Monday:


Today’s lesson: when @BBCR4Feedback call an hour early and say they can call back in an hour… they aren’t going to call back.

How did we get to there? Well, the usual start to the week – listening to Daddy Richard shout at the radio – was interrupted by a moment of shocked silence when, as he tweeted, THIS happened:

“Jaw dropping moment as John Humphreys asks: doesn't it muddy the waters if we call far right terrorist murder of Jo Cox "terrorism" #r4today”

Life in the Today Programme goldfish bowl...

That generated… a fair number of retweets and replies, one of which said we should make it a proper complaint to the BBC. So that’s what we did, and posted it up on the Facebook too:

“After a jawdropping moment on this morning's Today programme, I have submitted this complaint to the BBC, via http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

During an interview with Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, in charge of Counter Terrorism, Mr Rowley warned the public should not forget the terrorist threat from right-wing extremists, and cited the murder of MP Jo Cox.
John Humphreys responded by asking "didn't that muddy the waters" and suggesting that the murderer Thomas Mair was mentally ill.
The judge, sentencing Thomas Mair, said: "There is no doubt this murder was done for the purpose of advancing a political, racial and ideological cause namely that of violent white supremacism and exclusive nationalism most associated with Nazism and its modern forms."
Dismissing genuine terrorism as actions of "lone mentally ill person" is factually wrong and dangerous to public safety. And the implication that terrorism is something done only be foreigners / non-white people / Muslims is dangerously close to accepting the premise of the racists that Thomas Mair represents.
If the police are describing the Jo Cox murder as terrorism, the BBC should not be questioning that, but asking itself serious questions about the climate of right-wing hate that has been allowed foment in the UK, for which the BBC by airing or repeating (as here) the views of these people bears some responsibility.

And THAT generated another lot of traffic and clearly a LOT of other people were quite cross too, because that was when the Radio FEEDBACK programme got in touch and asked if they could talk about that Tweet and the reaction to what Mr Humphrys said.

So they said that they would call between 10am and 1pm, Wednesday. Actually they called at 9.15, just as we were getting on the Jubilee line.

So, IF this ever happens to you, do not let them say: “it’s fine we will call you back in an hour”. No! You say “I WILL TALK TO YOU NOW”!

Anyway, here is what we WOULD have said:

Why was I so taken about by John Humphrys suggestion that calling the murder of MP Jo Cox terrorism was “muddying the waters”?


1.
The Facts – the police, the crown prosecution service, the sentencing judge all agreed that this was a politically motivated terrorist murder. These are not liberal snowflakes, they are serious people. Jo Cox’s killer, Thomas Mair, was psychiatrically examined and found to be in his own mind and fit to stand trial for his actions.

This is the BBC’s own report of the sentencing judge’s remarks: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38076755 - note the emphasis on the high degree of planning and premeditation, as well as the political motivation. This was not the random act of a “madman”.

The right wing press – who have an agenda – might question this. But I expect very senior BBC journalists to know the facts and not repeat propaganda.

2.
The Context – the interview was with Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley asking the public to contact the police with information if they are worried or suspicious about their neighbours. And as a Liberal, I’m not 100% happy with his “be afraid and inform on your neighbours” agenda here. So actually, I was giving him some credit when he was reminding people that there is far right political terrorism to watch out for as well. When Mr Humphrys interrupted. But if anything is going to “muddy the waters” it is the suggestion from the interviewer that some terrorism isn’t as worth while contacting the police about because it is a fascist rather than ISIS who is threatening people’s lives.

And I think you could tell that the Assistant Commissioner was somewhat taken aback by this sudden derailing of the interview, too.

3.
The Narrative – because it’s all very familiar to hear white terrorists described as “a lone wolf” or “mentally ill”. These excuses get repeated whenever a white person commits an atrocity like this. Anders Breivek who killed all those children in Sweden; Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma bomber; Dylann Roof, the man who shot nine black churchgoers at a service in Charleston Carolina; the list goes on, back to the Unabomber and earlier.

The message is “white people don’t commit terrorism; only brown people do terrorism”.

And it’s wrong.

We don’t hear people challenging the idea that the murder of Lee Rigby was terrorism. We don’t hear people suggesting that the shoe bomber Richard Reid was mentally ill. And it’s not like we have no experience of white sectarian terrorism in this country.

The BBC has a responsibility not to perpetuate this myth, which leads to…

4.
The hate crimes – we’ve seen a surge in attacks against women and minorities, particularly people who are immigrants or even just perceived as immigrants, fuelled by the xenophobic language of the Leave campaign and UKIP and now even the more right-wing elements of the government. The murder of Jo Cox happened at the height of the most horribly divisive and racially charged referendum campaign and on very the day Nigel Farage was unveiling his Nazi-imagery-evoking “Breaking Point” poster.

And people want to deny there is a connection.

The right wing, the nationalists, want people to think that only foreigners can be terrorists. They want people to be afraid. But they don’t want it to come back on them. And they won’t take responsibility. They want to deny that there are extremist views on their side, and that among those extremists are some people who use violence and murder for their political ends.

I do not expect senior BBC journalists to be giving support to these people.

5.
The excuse – the excuse given in reply to my complaint was that John was just putting a challenging question. Well, firstly, it wasn’t a question. It might have had the form of a question, but it was just an assertion. It was not posed as a question, more a muttered aside. And it presupposes that Jo Cox murder could not be terrorism if the “question” put is whether that statement muddies the waters.

But also, if you’re going to ask challenging questions, why start at that point? Why not challenge the Assistant Commissioner over why the terror alert is still at the second highest level after years and years, and doesn’t that make it a bit pointless? Or challenge him on the threats that the police say that they’ve defeated – what sort of threats are we talking about: knife attacks, anthrax letters or something on the scale of 7/7? That would give the public a genuine insight into the threat level, in a way that questioning whether Jo Cox murder was terrorism would not.



The Farage agenda gets far too much of a free ride from the BBC already, with UKIP – or their proxies in the Tory Party – on the air far more often than their support however you count it would justify. But this was a particularly poor interview – unquestioning of the authoritarian agenda at the start and then then tossing in this unjustified assertion that would not have been out of place in the Daily Mail.

John Humphrys has a reputation to live up to. We should expect more of him.

Day 3579: Attack of the Cybermen

Tuesday:


So, the robotic and frankly emotionless Mr Vague announces that the biggest threat facing Great Britain today is CYBER-ATTACK!

Meanwhile, deep inside Thames House…

Ruth nervously enters Sir Harry's office. Hand trembling, she offers him a piece of paper, which he reads at a glance. Instantly a finger stabs the intercom.

"Activate Section D," he barks, "we've received an e-mail from Mrs Ngumba of Nigeria saying her husband has $40,000,000 and he needs to get it out of the country…"

PERSONALLY, though, I'd rather have the BBC than an aircraft carrier (even one WITHOUT any aircraft to, er, carry).

Of course, I blame Mr Frown. After all, it was HIS Hard Labour Government that in their dying days signed contracts that made it more expensive for us to build NO aircraft carriers than to build two aircraft carriers. Leaving the Coalition with the frankly impossible task of paying for the things while still trying to extricate ourselves from Lord Blairimort's Afghan Adventure.

Some decisions appear eminently sensible. I can't imagine why we still have twenty thousand troops occupying Germany. It's about time we stopped flushing money down the money-toilet that is the Nimrod replacement project 'cos it's literally never going to fly. And, half-a-halleluiah, we've succeeded in at least delaying the insanely-expensive atomic rocket program that is the so-called Trident nuclear deterrent. I guess so named for the huge DENT it puts in the budget. Apparently this deters people by convincing them that if we'll burn up billions of pounds buying a weapon system we not only will probably never use but actually cannot use because Uncle Sam won’t give us our own keys then it's no good attacking us because we must be DANGEROUSLY INSANE!

On the other fluffy foot: aircraft carrier without any aircraft.

I suppose keeping the Conservatories pledge to avoid unilateral nuclear disarmament by skipping straight to unilateral TOTAL disarmament has at least the advantage of novelty!

Meanwhile, the BBC is to have the licences fee frozen and more costs heaped upon them, specifically the propaganda arm of the government is to be wholly under BBC control.

This isn't COMPLETELY brilliant, but at least it is better than making the BBC pay for free licences for households where there is at least one older person (an effective 25% cut in income!). Under the agreed scheme the licence fee income stays the same but there are no more costs covered by the Foreign Office, so that IS less money coming in. Having said that, it's not just less of a cut, but there is the possibility to do some greater cost sharing between World Service and domestic TV and Radio (although admittedly that means more English-language broadcasts on the World Services), whereas lose the licence fee income and the money is just gone.

Anyway, I'm sure Mr Marty at Mayorwatch will tell you how they can make up the gap by just firing an executive or two every year.

Seriously, though, even though it's clear that there is plenty of room to prune and trip the great rambling bureaucracy of the organisation, at its heart the BBC is one of the few remaining things that makes Great Britain Great.

The vibrancy and variety of our cultural inheritance on television and radio and even theatre is in large part down to the presence of a BBC that shows what can be done, and means that other channels have to try and match the best. "Upstairs Downton" is just the latest example of quality ITV driven by the need to compete with a quality BBC. Do you believe that Sky would produce ANY home-grown drama if they didn't have to try and look like an alternative to the free BBC?

And I reckon "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation" is worth a darn sight more as a national defence that the ability to "project power" (subject to the French not wanting to borrow the boat that day).

So I'm with Mr Mitch Benn on this. You'll have already seen the video, but it's always worth another watch. Cue the Now Show's resident Wookie…

Day 3372: A REAL Digital Economy: My New Business Model for the Internet

Friday:


It looks like the Times have already lost one reader, thanks to the announcement by Mr Roger Stavro Moredick that from June he'll be charging a pound a peep to look at his august organ.

Liberal Democrat Voice asks how the blogosphere will react, and I'm guessing: "goodbye and good riddance!" If the reactionary old digger WANTS to seal-off his mendacious, meretricious, propaganda rags in self-imposed exile from the rest of the web that's GOOD NEWS isn't it?

But if EVERYONE does that, then the Web Party is OVER!

So here's an idea that might be A BIT BETTER!

First, I have to ask: isn't there a way to run a news/media empire on the web AND make money?

From the Evil Empire's point of view, their news gathering organisation isn't getting any cheaper, but as the readership moves from print to online they get less advertising revenue per reader and NO sale revenue per reader, so it's lose-lose; charging for the online edition may see a big loss of readers (advertising revenue goes down further) but no one expects their readership to fall to NOTHING, so they get a new revenue stream.

From everybody else's point of view, the BBC, Gruaniad and Tell-lie-graph and the rest will all still be free-at-the-point-of-use, so what's the problem?

Well the "problem" is threefold: firstly how much do you WANT people to be putting things up on the net? This goes to the heart of the issue, not just news and comment but also music and movies and piracy.

I'm not saying that it should be a licence to print money, but producing content – gathering news, recording an album, filming Dr Woo's adventure – all costs money. Even hosting an online diary like mine has costs associated, which at the moment are picked up by Google (thanks you very much) but what if that doesn't last forever? Realistically NO ONE is going to just pour money down the drain merely for the dubious social benefit of, say, letting you read the "wisdom" of Mr Danny Finkenstein.

Secondly, and slightly more ABSTRACT, the Internet THRIVES on inter-connectivity. It's not called the Wibbly Wobbly Web for nothing! And anything that reduces that inter-connectedness reduces the Internet as a whole, reduces, however slightly, the amount of bouncing backwards-and-forwards of ideas. Think of it like this: would YOU like someone to cut off a chunk of your BRAIN?

And thirdly, if Mr Moredick actually makes a go of it, then it will quickly encourage other media providers to go down the same route, turning the WEB into a series of barely-connected ISLANDS.

Let's be honest, all Mr Moredick is concerned about it the MONEY. He's not making a news website for the good of personkind; he's not doing it as a result of peer pressure – actually there's a good chance that he WAS, but because he doesn't feel the peer-pressure is why he feels he can change the game. He's doing it because he thinks it will return more lucre than it costs.

The profits from newspapers have gone DOWN.

That's not JUST the fault of the Internet. Circulation has been declining for AGES, ever since television really, and there's just been a massive recession which has cut both the numbers of people buying papers (an obvious cheap thing to cut out) and the numbers of people advertising in newspapers (an obvious cheap thing to cut out).

Not that it's impossible to make money from newsprint as the rise of the Free Sheets like the Metro and now the London Evening Standard have shown. Though of course Free Sheets too cut into the circulation of the paid-for press.

BUT, if the profit goes down, Mr Moredick looks for a way to squeeze more out of it.

Let me just interject with one important point: "making money" ISN'T a DIRTY WORD. It isn't even TWO dirty words.

Liberals have LONG believed in TRADE, in people being able to benefit from their gifts and talents, bettering themselves by being able to exchange their abilities for then things that they need.

There's a bit of a habit of thinking of the Internet as a new SOCIALIST UTOPIA, where everything is available to everybody all the time for nothing. (Apart from the RUDE SITES!)

It's been said that "people are used to everything on the Internet being free". But this of course is NONSENSE.

People DO pay for the Internet, but they pay for it as a SUBSCRIPTION, whether it's handing over a monthly fee to their ISP or an hourly rate to their Internet Café. It's like a magnificent magazine, with infinite pages. Once you've paid up front, you expect to be able to flip though to whatever articles you like.

So the solution is so obvious I can't believe that no one has come up with it: your media providers should absorb your Internet providers.

People would take out a subscription for Timesonline (or BBConline or Grauniadonline or Virginonline etc…) and that would provide you with your access to the Internet. You would automatically get all the content of the Times website or the BBC website or whichever website you subscribed to.

And then here's the clever bit.

The service providers charge each other for all the people who visit.

You ascribe an agreed "micropayment" value to a webvisit and then the providers can sort it out between themselves – like the bank clearing system – who gets what cash at the end of the month.

So, suppose you subscribe with the BBC, say, and you click through to the Times's website, the Times keeps count of your page views and those of every other BBC subscriber (and every ITV subscriber or Virgin subscriber or Hackney Community Cable subscriber), and at the end of the month they add it all up and say to the BBC: we've had X-million visits from your subscribers, that's X-million micropayments that amounts to Y-million pounds please. (And in return, the BBC says, yes and we have had A-million visits from YOUR subscribers so that's B-million quid back to us; let's settle the difference.)

(From a data protection point of view, I'd just add that it would be best for a system that "counts them at the gate" – putting toll booths on the Information Superhighway as it were – rather than one that records every website and page that you visit. Just like Google and Microserf absolutely don't do.)

The HUGE advantage, as I see it, is that this places the REWARD on providing CONTENT rather than merely ACCESS. This wouldn't just promote more online content from existing providers, it would encourage webhosting – if you provide a free platform for, say, bloggers then the more bloggers you support, the more visits you get, the more subscription income you receive.

You could even think about having a system where the provider REIMBURSES money to the subscriber if they provide some content that generates a lot of click through.

In the LONGER term, once you HAVE a system like this in place, you can see how it could provide the beginnings of a way of rewarding artists directly for the exploitation of their online works, bypassing the NEED for music piracy. And the best possible outcome could see it as a replacement funding stream for even the BBC, if we can figure out the right micropayment rates to keep up the quality.

Could it work? I don’t know; I'm just a stuffed elephant – perhaps better netheads than MY fluffy one can tell.


.

Day 3297: Mr Balloon Preaches Politics of Envy

Sunday:


Can you believe Mr Balloon would say that a successful, popular British producer (and exporter) ought to have their operations squished in order to benefit less well-performing operations?

Restricting the people doing best in order to give a helping fluffy foot to their less-commercial rivals… wouldn’t he call that a bit, well, SOCIALIST in any other context?

And yet he DOES say this:

“I think sometimes there are sort of territorial extensions … into areas where, frankly, they are in danger of sort of squashing the smaller commercial operators.”

Who’s he talking about? Oh, it’s the BBC of course.

Yes, restrictive practices! Yes, handouts to the underprivileged (multi-megacorporations)! Yes, deal a blow to those free market wheeler-dealers who say a body that does what it does well should bally well be left to get on with DOING it well!

Yes, this is CLASS WAR, Conservatory style!

If it ain’t broke, hunt it down and kill it!


And he comes close to accepting the TERRIFYING idea of turning the licence fee into A GENERAL TAX – oh I’m sure he’d SAY he was “abolishing” the licence, but he’s still have to raise the money. So he’d have Master Gideon raise OTHER taxes “to pay for the BBC” and THEN promptly not pay Auntie Beeb as much as he was raising “in order to cut the deficit”.

“I mean the advantage is that if you didn't have all the paraphernalia of the licence fee arrangements, you could actually make it much lower because you wouldn't have the administrative costs.”

Yes, you could save LOTS of money by not collecting it. I wonder if he’s thought of suggesting that Sky could save money if THEIR subscriptions were collected though general taxation as well.

And what does he know about broadcasting anyway?

“Oh I’ve worked in television,” boasts Mr Balloon.

Oh, what do you act? DO you direct? Do you design sets? Sew costumes? Rig lighting? Fix make-up? What?

Name us ONE television programme you’ve had a fluffy foot in the making of! Saying you “work in television” is like saying that Mr Edward Timpson is one of those people who makes shoes by hand. You know: cobblers.


.

Day 3152: Expenses: Latest Shock!

Tuesday:


Never mind that he BETRAYED his COUNTRY to the SOVIET UNION, it seem that masterspy Mr Guy Burgess may have FIDDLED on his expenses while working for the BBC.


I know what you're thinking: how COULD the BBC have employed such a BLACKGUARD! Why, Mr Harold Nicholson and Ms Violet Bonham-Carter on the Board of Governors were even saying: "why don't you promote this brilliant man?" The The Today Programme demanded answers.

HELLO! He. Was. A. SPY!

It's not ALL chemin-de-fer with Le Chiffre and hijinks with Pussy Galore, you know. Sometimes you just HAVE to infiltrate the BBC.

Possibly in a submarine disguised as a crocodile.

Just don't forget to get Q to sign for the receipt.


.

Day 2959: M M Murder

Friday:


Number of people DEAD as a result of the Jonathan Woss / Russell Brand-name telephone titter: NIL.
(Daily Mail leads campaign AGAINST BBC)

Number of people DEAD as a result of measles due to the fall in MMR vaccinations: NOT NIL.
(Daily Mail leads campaign FOR measles)

The Daily Hate Mail: we kill people to boost our profits; trust US over the BBC or your house price will fall!!!!!!!!!


Fluffy Footnote: anyone at all familiar with where the Daily Mail's support lay in 1938 will know that accusing the BBC of using "informants" to oust Ms Thatch is IRONIC: a clear case of the pot calling the kettle… a term of racist abuse.



.

Day 2385: The BBC, An Apology

Friday:


It was quite WRONG and very MISLEADING, especially for an organisation in which we place so much TRUST, for the BBC to re-edit their footage so that her RADIANT and CELESTIAL Majesty, Mrs the Queen was made to look like a GRUMPY OLD WOMAN storming out of a photo session.

The TRUTH was so very DIFFERENT, and the BBC were forced to admit that Mrs the Queen was REALLY a GRUMPY OLD WOMAN storming INTO a photo session.

I realise that no one could fail to be MORALLY WOUNDED by this UTTER BETRAYAL, and can only APOLOGISE and hope that you forget all about it!


Actually, the question I really want answering is: “have the Sun Newspaper also issued a grovelling apology?”

After all, although this is supposed to have EMBARRASSED Mrs the Queen, really the only reason she IS embarrassed is because EVERYONE FOUND OUT about her strop thanks to the Scum printing it as a full page SPLASH in order to, basically, steal the BBC’s story.

Now it really was wrong of the editors at the BBC to change the story by putting things in the wrong order and exaggerating the events, indeed making it look like much more than it really was.

But what was the Scum’s excuse for not doing proper journalism? After all, if they HAD done it properly, they would have asked Mrs the Queen what HER SIDE of the story was before rushing into print, and the whole thing could have been dealt with privately without embarrassment.