Why won't ANYONE interview Robin Aitken?
Writing on his blog today, Iain Dale has championed Robin Aitken. Dale advertises Aitken's book and what appears to be Aitken's only TV interview under the headline "Why won't the BBC interview Robin Aitken?". "The book has received widespread coverage in the press but Aitken believes he is the subject of a blanket ban by the BBC", says Iain.
So - the BBC is ignoring a book which has had newspapers flying off the shelves in a manner unseen since the sinking of the Lusitania?
Well, no, not really.
The book has been reviewed: glowingly in the Telegraph (unsurprising since, according to the review, the solution to Aitken's biased BBC is "to hire more journalists from ... the Daily Telegraph") [no link - 18 Feb 2007] and less glowingly by Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times (but then, this is perhaps also not so surprising when you consider that Liddle was Aitken's boss at The Today Programme)
Although Liddle agrees that there is bias in the Beeb, he criticises the paradox inherent in Aitken's argument.
"He does not seem to grasp that all journalists have opinions and it doesn't really matter if they are right, left or centre so long as there is a profusion of all three across the output."
The Mail on Sunday gave Aitken about 1500 words to put his point across, but the MoS's weekly sister title appears to have only given the book a 60 word insert into a diary column - about the same as the famously lefty Observer.
And that, apart from Tim Montgomerie (of 18 Doughty Street fame) sounding off about Aitken in the Business, appears to be yer lot.
So - two book reviews, a couple of diary pieces and a Mail on Sunday rant. Nothing on Sky, ITV, C4 or any other broadcast news outlet. Hardly a news storm. Colleen McLoughlin got more converage than that. And yet the failure of the BBC to cover the story is evident of the BBC's Pravda status?
Rubbish.
As Liddle points out, journalists are inherently biased. There is no surprise that there are more left wing journalists in certain areas of news gathering - espcially in foreign policy. There are areas of news gathering that really get up the collective Tory hooter - coverage of American foreign policy ranks pretty highly on this list. Most British people believe that American foreign policy is a force for bad in the world today. It is unsurprising that most BBC journalists believe that too.
In his MoS piece, Aitken gives a number of examples of BBC bias:
- That Scottish coverage in the 1980s was anti-Conservative because of the decline of Scottish industry. Well, duh. What rankled most with Conservative policy in Scotland was not just the decline of Scottish industry, but the callous Thatcherite attitude to the newly unemployed. This was not just newsworthy but arguably the defining set of circumstances in Scotland in the 1980s.
- That, by 1989, Thatcherite monetarist economics were "working" but the BBC chose to focus on "doomed privatisations". Again, those that lost their jobs and houses didn't need the BBC to tell them that Thatcherite policies were emphatically not working.
- That Major was attacked over the ejection from the ERM and the sleaze scandals of his government. Well, given that he had promised "family values" while his Ministers were bonking anything that moved, you can't really argue with that. The BBC in 2006/7 haven't exactly been backward in coming forward in criticising Labour sleaze, have they?
- That the BBC was supportive of Blair's Kosovo war while it had been critical of the Falklands and the first Gulf War. Setting aside the issue of the Falklands war which remains a bone of contention between left and right, the first Gulf War was hardly the idealistic engagement that Kosovo - a humanitarian intervention - patently was.
- That the BBC was too critical of the second Gulf War. Well, they weren't wrong were they? And Aitken's precis of the Andrew Gilligan affair - who I'm prepared to bet doesn't know all the words of the Red Flag and doesn't drink his tea out of a "Benn for Leader" mug - neglects to point out that his criticism of the government certainly didn't come from the left.
He says "Today and the Corporation would certainly have disowned Gilligan's story had it not fitted so perfectly with their own narrative." But Gilligan is a right wing journalist (he now writes for the Mail and the Standard) - surely an anti-right organisation would have hung him out to dry at the first opportunity rather than defending what was patently a sloppy piece of journalism.
He criticises the BBC for their treatment of Kilroy's "what have the Arabs ever done for us" piece as being evidence of further anti-right wing bias, while glossing over the nature of the piece itself (he calls it "presumably contraversial").
And finally he points to Fox News as the "answer" to left wing bias.
Great. 25 years of journalism at the highest level and the answer is Fox News.
It's no wonder no-one (Apart from Fox News Lite) will interview him..
Something tells me Mr Aitken is not going to see his ambition of a state funded right wing broadcaster come to fruition. He will have to make do with the weekly column that will no doubt be forthcoming from the Mail.
The rest of us will be left wondering - as Greg Dyke was when confronted by Aitken's claims of bias - "Who was that fucker?"
4 comments:
"There is no surprise that there are more left wing journalists in certain areas of news gathering - espcially in foreign policy" - there bloody well is. Why is f.p. inherently left wing? Yes, I know you are left wing, but are you genuinely incapable of seeing that your views lie on a spectrum and are not objective truth?
"Most British people believe that American foreign policy is a force for bad in the world today. It is unsurprising that most BBC journalists believe that too." - a case of effect and cause. Given the anti-American frenzy in the broadcast media (which you have acknowledged), how could the public poll differently? You're illustrating, not answering, the problem here.
Liddle says: "He does not seem to grasp that all journalists have opinions and it doesn't really matter if they are right, left or centre so long as there is a profusion of all three across the output." - but of course the criticism is that there is not this balance; something you have confirmed in the area of foreign affairs.
You then go on to show - bullet by bullet - that you agree with the left wing bias of the BBC. And...? What does that show, except that you're incapable of considering an issue beyond your own prejudices?
Book reviews are very rare in the broadcast media, less so in print. But the book is about the BBC, not Sky, C4 etc. The BBC has a duty to be impartial. No other media organisation benefits from a license fee paid by all, and no other organisation has a duty of responsibility to all its funders, conservatives included. The BBC betrays this responsibility energetically.
Peter
1. Foreign Policy attracts a more "bleeding heart" journalist. For that reason I think they are more likely to be left wing. Diplomatic Correspondents are more often detached and analytical - cf Mark Urban - while FP correspondents are more often asked to find personal stories to give texture to events - cf Orla Guerin. Just my take.
2. You don't need the BBC to convince people that America is a force for bad. Take the ICM poll last year - this was the opinion across the world, not as a result of the BBC. And even the US state department has acknowledged that the Iraq war has made terrorism more likely across the world. THis is not BBC spin.
3. The point Liddle makes - and I was making - was that whether or not a balance exists, Robin Aitken was unable to identify it. As such his book is fundamentally flawed. Hence the reason why no-one apart from 18DS is taking him seriously.
4. The bullet point treatment shows that the best examples that Aitken could come up with were weak. He's steered clear of issues like Israel/Palestine, where it might be easier to show a Palestine-centric bias (and therefore a "liberal" bias), because this has been done before and he shied away from the hornet's nest.
Stating "the BBC were too critical of the second Gulf War" is hardly symptomatic of an organisation with a blinkered outlook, now, is it?
As you point out there are a wealth of other news-gathering organisations - why have they failed to identify even one great right wing journalist? It is because your world-view doesn't support them. Even Fox News, held up as a great right-wing broadcaster... well have you ever watched it in the US? It's 90% local news - which allows it to avoid having to put a flawed worldview to the test of international situations and commentators.
This is not a conspiracy. You're just wrong.
Frankly, saying the BBC has a left-wing bias is like saying the Bank of England has a left wing bias.
And yes, I've worked at both.
The majority of people at the Beeb don't give two shits for left/right politics - particularly those who work in the regions.
It just irks the right that they can be criticised by the BBC, just as much as it irks the left. Remember, Campbell was very, very keen to crush all opposition to the Iraq debacle, be it the Mirror or the BBC.
The point is the BBC attacks each and every Government in turn.
Frankly, most of the people I encountered in Current Affairs wouldn't know a kitchen sink estate if they dropped in there for a urban version of Castaway. The main topic of conversation amongst producers and journalists upwards was how to get a new nanny, which school Tarquin was going to next year and whether to holiday in the Seychelles or Mauritius.
When you got down to the asst producers and researchers, the main topic was how to afford to live in London on the pittance you got paid. Those that didn't worry were invariably the ones who's Daddy owned a multinational company, or Surrey.
My bet is that someone of Aitken's level met a few champagne socialists when he hoped to meet a range of tub-thumping Thatcher-lovers.
For gods sake man, you're a journalist - we don't like any bloody political party except Screaming Lord Sutch's
I'm not surprised Dale is latching onto this bloke. He can't be bothered to do some proper research for himself and speak to the swathes within the BBC who just get on with the job of reporting the news in as fair and balanced way they can. Which the national newspapers don't have to, and can't, do.
Probably because he is a biased hypocritical fool with nothing to say. He spends all his time complaining about BBC bias in his book while at the same time not seeing the bias in his own writing or the media he writes for.
Holding up Fox News as an example of good news coverage is laughable. Saying the Guardian and Independent are biased without saying so are the Mail and Telegraph is plain ridiculous.
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