Well, that's the lyric from the Michael Jackson song anyway. But it DOES matter if you're writing a BBC online news story. THIS story from BBC Wiltshire tells the terrible story of a white youth who was beaten up by eight youths. It doesn't mention their ethnicity.
THIS story from BBC West Yorkshire tells the story of an Asian youth who was beaten up by four youths. It tells us the four were all white.
If it was necessary to mention the offenders' ethnicity in the second story, why did the first story not mention that the eight attackers were of Asian descent. I don't think it is too much to ask for a bit of consistency here. The BBC has a multi volume editorial policy document. I would have thought it would cover such an instance.
35 comments:
He said "white." Witch! Burn him or have him hauled off for re-education, New Labour style
Might be a Johnnie Kongos song called Togoloshe Man Iain? ... "Tonight is the night to for-get-et" (doo doo du doo, doo doo du doo)
Have checked the links now. The second case is at a much different stage of things. And much more serious. The youths are in court and convicted, now pending sentencing, their pictures are published, the victim is DEAD.
It's a good story. But there may be better comparators.
Do you rememebr the row about the story of the Black cab driver?
They do this all the time. Utterly predictable. So depressing. Try complaining and see if you get the standard, patronising brush off. I can't be bothered.
BBC Rule Number 1:
Victims are always black/asian. Offenders are always white. (unless it's the other way round, in which case don't mention colour)
It's typical BBC multi-culti PC reporting.
It's what we pay the licence fee for.
Yes, but doesn't the fact that in one case the youths have not been only been charged, but sentenced ? In the more recent case, charges were made, but not for all involved, and there was a restriction on at least some of them being named 'for legal reasons'.
That said, I think I have seen some inconsistencies on reporting, but I would want further evidence, and a view from the BBC as to how they'd explain their policy before coming to a conclusion that they aren't applying editorial policy fairly.
Iain, you know what the Beeb's like.
There's a similar story on the BBC at the moment: a young black man stabbed to death in London by a gang of Asian or Arabic men.
The BBC have put it in an obscure bit of the 'England' section of the website. Of course, had the killers been white, it would have been front page news.
Re the Wiltshire case where two car loads of Asian adults entered school premises and beat a white schoolboy almost to death: it was reported that police were not treating it as a racially motivated crime.
Can you imagine if two car loads of ........
So it's not just the BBC and The Guardian who follow the PC line. The police have long since taken the easy option of obeisiance to well-organised minority groups.
Is it any wonder that the BNP continues to gain ground.
Why do various factions of the media continue to support the government and not retain their independence?
It's a sad loss.
Come on Iain,
this is the BBC (Brazen, Biased, Communicating) we are talking about!
I'm amazed. The two cases are different. the BBC and the police may make mistakes and may have in this case. But these examples are not all that comparable. And the mistakes against black and brown people outnumber those against white people by a very considerable factor. It's not close. My example of BNP bombers escaping coverage is but one of many.
HERE
I've only just seen your post, Iain. I covered this same issue over on A Tangled Web a few hours ago, in a very similar vein. Just to let you know I wasn't plagiarising your blog in this instance (though I'd be quite happy to plagiarise you, in principle)!
Whoops, sorry, I hit publish before I was finished there.
Yes, I agree with your point: consistency - that's the issue with the BBC. They seem all too eager to "big up" the racist implications of a crime when the assailants are of caucasian ethnicity and the victims are not, but vice-versa, it's a different story. We all know that there are "white/caucasian" people who are racist and who are capable of, and who do commit vile racist crimes against ethnic minorities in this country. Such crimes/people are to be utterly condemned. But racist violence is not a one-way street; it is committed by other races also, and that is to be equally condemned. However, the BBC's "hushing up" of any possible racist element when the assailant is of an ethnic minority and the victim a caucasian, only leads to a build-up of resentment, and in fact stirs up feelings of racial discontent.
chris paul: the severity of the cases should not be discussed because that really is for a judge to decide -- the kid who got attacked by the "Asian Invasion" gang's big brothers with a hammer was just lucky not to die, but no-one really cared whether he lived or died as they hammered him (literally).
I hope we can agree that all racist attacks are bad, they do not cancel each other, but simply push up the sad score... 1+1=2.
And given how often racist attacks on white people are downplayed, masked by neutral descriptions or relativised (as you tried yourself here on this blog) it is fair to say that there appears to be a bias on the BBC's part.
Ian,
There is a very good test case for the BBC's impartiality coming up.
Google "Charlene Downes murder". The only BBC report thusfar is this one:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/5099090.stm
The case come to court, finally, next month. Many believe that the offenders were part of an Asian peadophile gang - the grooming of young English girls for sex by Asian men being an issue raised repeated by local BNP members in several northern towns.
This issue has been steadfastly ignored not just by the BBC and other MSM but by officialdom at every level, despite very clear evidence.
In Charlene's case, however, the official desire not to open that racial can of worms has led to her extraordinarily macabre end going unmentioned mationally.
The accused owned a burger take-away, Funny Boyz, in Blackpool. Only the local Lancashire papers reported police DNA-testing in a home-made tile grout used on the premises walls ... and the fear that Charlene's bones were ground down and used there. The assumption is that the good people of Blackpool were fed the rest.
Can you imagine the media feeding frenzy if suspected white peadophiles had disposed of a 14 year-old BME in this appalling way?
It is official fear of the people, of course, that leads to these hypocricies.
Reminds me of the remark by a previous Director-General that "I think the BBC is hideously white." Ostensibly about the management structure and equal opportunities, but what a revealing attitude.
It could be that though the whites have been charged with racially aggravated assault the asians may not have. If so this gives the BBC an out but actually makes it worse since the question then moves to whether the judiaciary are showing racial bias.
BBC ? Never watch it but understand it was taken into State ownership in 1926 after 4 years in the private sector and Govts have been loath to part with it ever since.
Of 992 persons in the public sector with incomes >£100.000 pa - 306 work in the BBC
So much for the GPs' contract !
Another example of PC driven ambitions are the latest pronouncements from the ACPO mouthpiece Gargini of the Yard, recommending reviewing stop and search policies and profiling of suspects. Seems to be balming his staff i.e. the employees of the MPS police and civilian as opposed to the loony jihadists in our midst.
Iain,
In the Wiltshire case, the police and the head of the school concerned have both denied, when asked, that the incident was motivated or aggravated by race.
In the West Yorkshire case, the CPS and the judge said the murder was racially aggravated.
I'm afraid you're playing into the hands of the far-right here. You make me quite angry sometimes
BJ said...
Iain,
In the Wiltshire case, the police and the head of the school concerned have both denied, when asked, that the incident was motivated or aggravated by race...
Well they would say that wouldn't they?!
And when the parents and the victim were asked if this was a racially motivated attack by a gang of asian men on a white school-boy the answer was an uneqivocal yes.
Now when it comes to attacks on blacks or asians, if the victim deems the attack to be racist the police class it as racist. It seems however that when the victim is white and classes it as a racist attack the police ignore him.
That tells you all you need to know about the way things are going in this country.
That might be an issue you want to raise with the police rather than the BBC, anon @ 4.06.
I haven't seen any interviews with the victim -- just unattributed quotes from other parents at the school.
It would be pretty poor journalism for the BBC to run with those instead of two on-the-record sources.
In the Wiltshire case, the police and the head of the school concerned have both denied, when asked, that the incident was motivated or aggravated by race.
Isn't this where Lord Macpherson came in after the Met found the Stephen Lawrence unexplained death not a racist incident ?
Now what did Lord Macpherson decide determined whether an incident was racist ????
I'll say it again
I haven't seen any interviews with the victim -- just unattributed quotes from other parents at the school.
cinnamon: the point is that the cases are at different stages. the judge on the huddersfield one has lifted reporting restrictions and asked or allowed that all concerned be identified. perhaps not in the other case. I agree the kid may be lucky to be alive.
But the victim in H was not a youth as Iain said. he was 41 and father of three.
And Iain and Boris have both recently made a thing about the whiteness of an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe. All ASs are or should be equal.
sheesh Cinnamon: I've just read the rest. Attacks on black people by white people, often racially motivated, are in a different order of magnitude than t'other way round. take into account the relative size of the two populations and it may be two orders of magnitude.
yes, all racist attacks are bad, but no, there is no statistical underreporting of attacks on white people, quite the opposite given the absolute numbers and proportions of overall population.
whites attack black is basically dog bites man.
BJ said...
I'll say it again
I haven't seen any interviews with the victim -- just unattributed quotes from other parents at the school.
Well I have seen interviews with the victim and with several parents from the school as it was shown on ITV local Midlands news. They all said it was an asian-on-white racist incident and the latest in a line of them by a gang calling themselves "asian invasion".
I doubt your BBC covered it though.
Sorry anonymous, but that's complete guff. If you've just been beaten fifteen times with a hammer, you do not recover sufficiently to give an interview to ITV before any charges are laid (at which point such an interview would become highly prejudicial).
I've searched for the boy's name on Google News and can find no direct quotes from him whatsoever, and no attributable quote describing the incident as racially-motivated.
There is evidence that this very alarming and nasty incident has been hijacked by the BNP to extremist Muslims, as well. Shame on you Iain, for dancing to their tune.
bj
Try looking a bit harder.
He was quoted on both local ITV, midlands, news and in the Daily Mail as was his father. Both claimed it was the latest in a line of racist incidents by an asian gang against whites.
A demonstration of parents outside the school was also televised by ITV local news again claiming racism against white children.
Just because your BBC chose not to report it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Perhaps you should cease your prejudice against white people and start reporting the unpalatable facts about this multi-cultural society.
BJ,
The local Swindon newspaper had a thread (linked by Laban) several hundred strong in which the local story was all too plain. It was a racist attack.
The latest available Home Office figures show is that the 10% of the population that is non-white commits over 50% of all race crime, over 60% of violent race crime and over 80% of race crime involving wounding.
The BNP, incidentally, doesn't have to hijack the issue. The liberal elite can't run away from it mast enough.
Anonymous at 0852,
My last word on this. There is not one attributable quote in the only Daily Mail article to mention the boy's name -- the article dated 12 January, timed 2219 on the Mail's website.
Provide a link to any attributed quote in a mainstream news outlet suggesting this was a racist incident and I shall apologise.
Furthermore, you say the boy gave an interview to ITV in the Midlands. The fact that Swindon is covered by ITV West gives me further cause to believe that you are making stuff up.
Yours fraternally
BJ
bj
Like I said earlier try looking a bit harder why don't you?
The Daily Mail had quotes from the lad and his dad referring to this as a racist incident and not the first one.
As for ITV coverage of Swindon, you will find that both regional news channels (midlands and west) cover Swindon events. It is on the border, so to speak. Living in south Glos, 15 minutes from Swindon we receive both.
I'm sure ITV West covered the incident. Midlands did and the parents interviewed were up in arms about asian gang attacks on white kids at the school.
Try denying reality all you like Mr Apparatchik but you are not on the BBC now so you will not get away with it.
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