newspapers and Nicenewspapers

According to ITV News tonight, the outrage in Nice is the seventh terrorist atrocity in France in the course of the last 18 months.

We are in distressingly familiar territory.

Never mind how often well-meaning people tweet supportive hashtags or candles are lit or British PMs offer to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the French or the First Night of the Proms opens in tribute with La Marseillaise, here we are yet again. What are we to do?

Meanwhile, this morning's Today on Radio 4 laid out the case (through its interviews with a socialist MP, a liberal MP and two security experts) that the main issues were:

• the failure of recent French government security measures
• the long-term failure of the French authorities to properly engage with people who are prone to being radicalised 
• the sense of alienation that lack of engagement engendered along a particular part of the French population. 

(Such roundabout phrasing is intended to accurately convey the way Today reported this news story.)

Plus (except possibly for the socialist MP who refused to take Justin Webb's bait about the risk of the far-right having its hand strengthened by this atrocity), all of the other interviewees stuck to this same set of narrow messages.

It's all utterly depressing. Muslim terrorists cause terror and our leaders of opinion (including the BBC) try to shift the focus of the blame - and, especially, to shift the focus of the blame away from 'true' Islam; hence all the remarkable streams of circumlocution on Today, The World at One and BBC One's News at Six today.

It's all utterly depressing.

P.S. (Update): As Newsnight begins, James O'Brien is emphasising that the lorry driver has no known links to terrorists. He may just be a lorry driver with a criminal background.

Nice

According to ITV News tonight, the outrage in Nice is the seventh terrorist atrocity in France in the course of the last 18 months.

We are in distressingly familiar territory.

Never mind how often well-meaning people tweet supportive hashtags or candles are lit or British PMs offer to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the French or the First Night of the Proms opens in tribute with La Marseillaise, here we are yet again. What are we to do?

Meanwhile, this morning's Today on Radio 4 laid out the case (through its interviews with a socialist MP, a liberal MP and two security experts) that the main issues were:

• the failure of recent French government security measures
• the long-term failure of the French authorities to properly engage with people who are prone to being radicalised 
• the sense of alienation that lack of engagement engendered along a particular part of the French population. 

newspapers and 5-0 on 'Today'newspapers

Baroness, etc

Except for a few minutes whilst driving to work, I've not heard much of Today recently. So I don't know if their post-June Brexit coverage has been good, bad or indifferent. 

I decided to check today's edition though to test the waters, and have to say that I wasn't remotely reassured by what I heard. 

At around 7.18 Tim Farron of the Lib Dem's gave a Remainer's point of view on today's pro-EU march. He discussed various ways (political, constitutional, legal) to reverse the Leave vote. (He spoke with very little interruption).

At around 7.50 two lawyers - Labour's Baroness Helena Kennedy and former government lawyer Carl Gardner - discussed the legal issues around Brexit and agreed that Article 50 isn't a guillotine. If the UK government and all the other EU governments agreed to stop it after it had been triggered then the UK could remain in the EU. Baroness Helena Kennedy ending by hoping we'll "step back" from leaving. Both Baroness Helena Kennedy and Carl Gardner are strongly pro-Remain. 

Then at around 8.30 two economists - Sir John Gieve and Labour advisor Anastasia Nesvetailova - talked austerity and Brexit. They both sounded a gloomy note on the economic effects of Brexit. They are also both strong Remain supporters.

Five ardent Remainers and no Leavers then, all steering the debate in one direction - three of them steering us towards (somehow) either staying in or quickly rejoining the EU.

That really is quite something, isn't it?

Of course, we weren't told that most of these people are strong opponents of Brexit - though listeners ought to have been able to work that out from what they actually said. I had to Google most of their names to find out if their strong anti-Brexit views are publicly-known - and, yes, they are (so Today should have known that too).

newspapers and On Orlandonewspapers

The other horror this past week (happening while I was too busy) was the appalling Islamist terrorist attack on gay people in Orlando.

That was another atrocity which it didn't feel remotely right to post about at the time - despite the rest of the world seeming to rush in regardless.

Bloggers are too often guilty of rushing in, abruptly judging and then fulminating furiously about things. It's a regrettable tendency, and - despite trying my best - I've not been entirely innocent of it myself over the years. (Sue, in contrast, has been entirely innocent of it).

And when it comes to blogging about BBC bias, the even-more-regrettable tendency is to end up, in the wake of every major atrocity, sounding as if we think the guiltiest party of all is the BBC and then, 'as a result', making feverish claims about the BBC's utter wickedness.....

.....such as one (genuine and confident) prediction I saw from a seasoned anti-BBC, anti-Islam blogger firmly asserting that the BBC would "tell us" that the victims, being gay, "deserved it, {as} they so offended Muslim sensibilities".....

.....thus, I fear, risking the entirely reasonable charge that 'we've' completely lost any sense of perspective.

Looking back as coolly as possible, I'd say that the BBC's initial coverage - as the story broke - was 'fair enough' (or at least the little bit I saw of it).

I monitored it at the time and found that - though the corporation wasn't first off the mark - the BBC was quite quick to report that the police suspected the killer of having "leanings" towards Islamic terrorism.

And, despite the subsequently pulling by the BBC of the 'the BBC has learned' card (after many other internet outlets had pipped them to the post by around half an hour), the BBC was also fairly quick to report the killer's (Muslim) name.

Plus, as I also recorded at the time, that night's main BBC One evening news bulletin) did repeatedly report the killer's possible links to Islamic groups, including Islamic State, and mentioned the killer's Afghan heritage.

And when the BBC reporter, inevitably, brought in Donald Trump at least she did it with a modicum of 'balance':

And as people call for calm after this devastating attack we have heard from Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, who said that this all proves that he was right about Islamic terrorism. Now, some people say that Mr. Trump is just stoking fear and playing politics at a tense time in America; others say that he has a point and that more needs to be done to contain the terror threat on home soil.

The next morning's Today, however, did largely hunker down onto 'safe' BBC issues such as gun control (a subject I've not heard dwelt on in the BBC's coverage of the murder of Jo Cox) - though, that said, Marco Rubio did appear on the programme to raise 'uncomfortable' questions about the Muslim angle (the programme's one concession to that angle).

I hadn't (and haven't) the time to monitor anywhere near enough of it to judge, so the question stands: Was the BBC biased in its coverage of the Orlando massacre of gay people by a Muslim fanatic?

I'm willing to stand corrected.