Part One: Chapter One The media and journalism
Other biases
The BBC protects its favourite services and minority groups, avoiding stories that criticise them but hammers, belittles and dismisses its enemies and unpopular targets. The BBC is blatantly anti Police, anti UKIP, pro liberal, anti-conservative, biased toward man-made global warming, pro Muslim, pro Dhimmitude, anti-Israel, pro Palestine, anti-Christian, anti-Law & Order, and anti-Eurosceptics. There are plenty more examples of bias from a service which is required by charter to be neutral.
I was shocked when I learned that Radio 4 serialised jailed police detective Ali Dizaei’s book. Dizaei was an Iranian Metropolitan senior police officer who came to a sticky end, imprisoned for MIPO and Perversion of the course of justice. There’s a summary of his rise and fall in chapter five’s appendix. This Telegraph headline couldn’t summarise him better.
‘Ali Dizaei: 'Teflon’ commander brought down by his own arrogance. Rather than keep his head down after a series of corruption cases, Dizaei continued to pick fights.’
You see, this story perfectly fits the BBC’s unofficial, unwritten policy; ‘all racism is white on black’ and ‘any non-white crime is not for us to report’.
Black against white crime is airbrushed out, not just by the BBC but all national press and broadcasters.
I mentioned above the BBC’s anti-police bias. Now I’m tuned into it I hear stacks of throwaway anti-police comments in BBC programmes and their second cousin, dismissive or mocking comments. These are deliberately done to plant two seeds in the public’s mind, then fed and watered by repetition. The two seeds are ‘the police are your enemies, corrupt, will fit you up, are above the law and untouchable and b) they are Keystone Kops, incompetent, doughnut scoffing clowns who couldn’t get a job anywhere else.
The even handedness I’ve seen the BBC report most public services with, reporting both critical and positive stories is not extended to the police. From the programme titles; ‘Police racism’, ‘Police complaints – a fair cop?’, ‘Bent cops’, ‘Race in police disciplinaries’, or the subjects covered; Hillsborough falsified statements, witness protection programme failures, allegations of collusion and evidence falsification during the miner’s strike, it is all critical and accusatory. I have never found one of these investigative documentaries covering a topic in support of the police. Examples could have been the injustice and consequences of Winsor II pay and performance reforms, effects of the austerity cuts on policing, manipulation of the crime figures, the press’ reporting bias blaming police for other services’ failure e.g. CPS incompetence or magistrates and judges giving yet another walkout. I’ve never found one discussing how ground floor officers’ jobs are made harder because of PACE, management priorities, targets, restrictions on stop and search. Some of these topics will reappear further on.
NB It’s only possible for the media to do this in a free country where there isn’t a police state. Imagine trying it in the USSR, China, North Korea and soon.
How about this summary of BBC R4 “The Report” entitled “Extremism in the UK”?
‘James Silver examines far right extremism in the UK and reports from some areas with large Muslim populations where fears of 'Islamisation' are fuelling tensions between communities.’
They cannot bring themselves to print the word Islamisation without the dismissive ‘speech marks’. Speech marks aren’t used for ‘far right extremism’ though. Hardly surprising, since Greg Dyke when he was Director General, called the BBC ‘hideously white”.