http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/bbc-j10.shtml

BBC was most pro-war of British networks
By Robert Stevens
10 July 2003


When giving evidence before the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into
whether the British government had exaggerated the threat of Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction to justify its planned war, Prime Minister
Tony Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell made
the following assertion:

In the run-up to conflict there was an agenda in large parts of
the BBC—and I think the BBC is different from the rest of the
media and should be viewed as different from the rest of the media
because it is a different organisation in terms of its reputation, in
terms of its global reach and all the rest of it—and there was a
disproportionate focus upon, if you like, the dissent, the opposition,
to our position. I think that in the conflict itself the prism that
many were creating within the BBC was, one, it is all going
wrong.”

Contrast this with the statement on July 4 by Professor Justin Lewis,
the deputy head of Cardiff University's school of journalism, on
the findings of an examination of the coverage of Iraq by the four
main UK news broadcasters, the BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky:

Indeed, far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend
to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too
sympathetic to the government in its war coverage. Either way, it is
clear that the accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to
any serious or sustained analysis.

In recent weeks, it has been commonplace for officials of the Blair
government to echo the charge levelled by Campbell that the BBC sought
to undermine the government by giving undue prominence to opponents of
the war and running critical news items. The charge is not new. Most
of the media were virulently pro-war and viewed any reporting that
attempted even a semblance of balance, let alone opposition, as
tantamount to treason. For this reason national newspapers such as the
Times, the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph featured
articles attacking the BBC as little more than a propaganda machine
for the regime of Saddam Hussein.

One such article appeared in the Daily Telegraph on March 30 entitled
“Listening to the World Service, I thought we were
losing. The author stated that, “Day after day,
studio-based presenters and gloomy academics criticise every nuance of
the coalition's strategy. Determined resistance by Iraqi troops
has been endlessly reported, alongside lengthy discussions about how
the allies failed to anticipate that the enemy might fight back.

Allied bombing raids on Baghdad are reported in the context of
the civilian casualties that they may have caused. British and
American troops are constantly described as being overwhelmed,
unprepared and taken by surprise. Worst of all is the outraged
reaction to the news that, shock, horror, the war might take longer
than a few weeks.

If Saddam Hussein listens to the BBC, he would be delighted.
Any coalition soldier hearing the BBC’s coverage would probably
want to go home. So it is hardly surprising that, according to the
BBC, that's exactly what many want to do.”

A more recent Telegraph article by right-wing columnist Barbara Amiel
dated July 7 continued this theme and contained an unveiled threat to
the BBC. It was entitled "Disinfect the BBC before it poisons a
new generation."

The opposition Conservative Party culture spokesman, John
Whittingdale, said during the war, "People inside the BBC who
are opposed to the conflict are imposing their own views. The BBC is
our national broadcaster and it must make clear why we are asking
British forces to risk their lives."

The fever pitch of such commentary was so high that Rageh Omaar, a BBC
reporter stationed in Baghdad throughout the invasion, felt obliged to
write an article with the purpose of opposing “the allegations
that we are being seduced by a slick Iraqi propaganda machine.”

Omaar will be remembered by many for his embarrassingly breathless and
uncritical reporting of the staged toppling of the statue of Saddam
Hussein in Firdos Square in April by members of the Iraqi opposition
recently flown in by the US. But during the war, he had reported from
the city daily and of necessity had to cover events such as the
devastating missile attack on the Al Sha'ab district in northern
Baghdad on March 28 that killed and injured more than 50 people. Based
upon what he was told by many immediate eyewitnesses and what he
himself saw, Omaar reported that he believed the missiles had been
fired by the US military. The attack was subsequently denied by the US
and British military, and the journalist was subjected to a character
assassination by sections of the media.

That the BBC's reportage was labelled "anti-war" or
"biased" indicates the debased state of much of what
passes as news in Britain today. For it is the opposite of the truth.

The study conducted by Professor Justin Lewis, Dr. Rod Brookes and
Kirsten Brander of the Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies
department of Cardiff University finds that the BBC was in fact the
least "anti-war" in its news reports even when
compared with Rupert Murdoch's Sky.

The study reviewed the contents of prime-time evening news bulletins
of the four broadcasters. These are the BBC1 news at 6:00 p.m., the
ITV Evening News at 6:30 p.m., Channel 4 News at 7:00 p.m. and Sky
News at 9:00 p.m.

Among its findings were:

Over the three weeks of conflict, 11 percent of the sources quoted
by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin. This was
the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The
BBC used government sources twice as much as ITN and Channel 4 News.

The BBC was the least likely to quote official Iraqi sources, and
less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent sources
of news such as the Red Cross. Channel 4 used these sources three
times more often than the BBC, and Sky twice as often.

The BBC placed least emphasis on Iraqi casualties, which were
mentioned in 22 percent of its stories about the Iraqi people. Numbers
of casualties received most prominence on Channel 4 News, figuring in
40 percent of its reports about Iraqis, compared with Sky at 30
percent and ITN at 24 percent.

The BBC was least likely to report on the opposition of the Iraqi
population to the invasion.

Across all four broadcasters, the bulletins were three times more
likely to present the Iraqi population as pro-invasion than
anti-invasion. The exception to the ratio was Channel 4, where it was
just less than two to one.

Professor Lewis pointed out that the survey was
"comprehensive" on the basis that previous research had
found that “people are influenced by the general weight of TV
coverage rather than by particular reports” from individual
journalists.

Giving examples of the BBC’s coverage, Lewis said, “The
team found, for example, that when Tony Blair accused the Iraqi regime
of executing British soldiers—a story Downing Street were later
forced to retract—the BBC was the only one of the early evening
news bulletins that failed to examine the lack of evidence to support
it, or to report the rather embarrassing government retraction the
next day.

“And when it came to the many other stories from military
sources that turned out to be false—such as the Basra
‘uprising,’ or the shooting of Scud missiles into
Kuwait—Channel 4 was the only channel—rightly as it turned
out—to offer a note of scepticism or caution. The BBC, ITN and
Sky were, on the whole, much more trusting of US and British military
sources.”

It is worth remembering that before the 2-million-strong anti-war
protest on February 15 in London, the BBC deputy director of news,
Mark Damazer, sent an e-mail to all newsroom staff requesting that
certain categories of journalist not attend the march and rally in
Hyde Park. Those instructed not to attend included anchor BBC news
presenters such as Jeremy Paxman of the BBC’s flagship
“Newsnight” program, newscasters Huw Edwards, Fiona Bruce
and journalists including Political Editor Andrew Marr.

As well as these broadcasters, the e-mail banned all presenters,
correspondents, editors, output editors and “anyone who can be
considered a ‘gatekeeper’ of our output.”

Damazer’s e-mail stated that junior staff could attend the
march, but only in a “private capacity with no suggestion that
he or she speaks for the BBC.” A BBC spokeswoman commented,
“There is a need to balance a respect for civil liberties with
the BBC’s need to be impartial.”

The supposed “impartiality” of the BBC did not fool many
opponents of the war, who correctly saw it as a voice generally
supportive of the government and at all times articulating the
interests of Britain’s ruling class. On March 29, for example, a
demonstration by 400 anti-war protesters was held outside the
BBC’s Oxford Road headquarters in Manchester. Those in
attendance were criticising the reportage of the BBC for its
pro-government and anti-Iraq coverage.

No one should take the attack being waged by the government on the BBC
as evidence of a change of heart by “Auntie,” nor should
they see it as an occasion to soften the their criticism of the
BBC’s role in disseminating political propaganda—even if
this often needs to be more subtle than the right wing would like,
given the BBC’s worldwide presence. It only testifies to the
desperate efforts of Blair and company to shift attention away from
their own misdeeds.

 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/bbc-j10.shtml