James O'Brien pursues a line...

If there's one thing I picked up on earlier (from commenters on Twitter and at Biased BBC, Guido Fawkes, The Spectator, etc) is just how strongly James O'Brien stood out today for pushing a particularly aggressive line on the Nice atrocity on his LBC programme.

He provoked considerable ire for so doing (as befits a shock jock). 

Cutting off at least one caller (apparently), he ranted for ages (apparently) on the subject of why it's wrong to blame Muslims for such things as the Nice massacre (a matter that - apparently - mattered to him above all else).

newspapers and Questionnewspapers

Put crudely: Why does Newsnight now include a left-wing 'shock jock', James O'Brien, among its regular cast of presenters? 

Meanwhile (and in contrast), right-wing 'shock jock' Jon Gaunt says he got 'bumped' by the BBC this afternoon for holding 'the wrong views':

newspapers and James O'Brien pursues a line...newspapers

If there's one thing I picked up on earlier (from commenters on Twitter and at Biased BBC, Guido Fawkes, The Spectator, etc) is just how strongly James O'Brien stood out today for pushing a particularly aggressive line on the Nice atrocity on his LBC programme.

He provoked considerable ire for so doing (as befits a shock jock). 

Cutting off at least one caller (apparently), he ranted for ages (apparently) on the subject of why it's wrong to blame Muslims for such things as the Nice massacre (a matter that - apparently - mattered to him above all else). 

Of course, as an LBC presenter, he's entitled to rant as much as he likes. (It's partly what he's there to do.) But, having read so much today about how far he'd gone in being biased today, I seriously gulped when I saw that he'd be presenting tonight's Newsnight tonight...of all nights. 

Would his very open bias at LBC (where he's allowed to be out-and-out biased) feed into his presentation of Newsnight? Or would be hang up his views (Hugh Sykes-style), as required, on the BBC's coat-peg of 'impartiality'?

Well, Newsnight first invited on Alain Richard, a French socialist. James O'Brien, respectfully, asked him (without interruption) why France has been hit more than other European countries and how divided he thinks his country is. M. Richard said he didn't want France's Muslim community to be discriminated against/opposed by the rest of French society. And that was that.

JO'B then talked to a man from the French National Front, Marc Etienne Lansade. The video connection was absolutely terrible, so M. Lansade really struggled to even hear JO'B's questions tonight. The interview soon collapsed.

That, of course, didn't stop J'OB from pursuing (in full voice) a particular line of questioning with M. Lansade - a line of questioning curiously 'of a piece' with the line he'd (allegedly) been taking so very strongly at LBC:

You just heard, I hope, the former defence minister Alain Richard suggest that Islamic State want to see more division in France and would particularly like to see French Muslims discriminated against more. Do you agree with him? 

I'll have one more attempt. My apologies to you, monsieur. Alain Richard, the former defence minister, suggest that Islamic State want to see French Muslims discriminated against more. Do you agree with his analysis?

I understand your answer although the question really was about the response politically in France to people not perhaps responsible for the spread of Salafi-ism (sic) or Wahhabism. Do you feel French Muslims feel less safe now, because not only are they are the risk of being victim to terror attacks, they are also, in some quarters perhaps, at risk of being blamed for them? 

I think the technology has defeated us....

Hmm, very much still pushing a line I think (on the 'impartial' BBC).

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P.S. Controversial Newnight reporter Secunder Kermani's report then stressed how questionable are the claims of an Islamic motive for Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel (not religious, liked alcohol). There's "no concrete evidence" that his attack was jihadi-inspired.

So Newsnight as a whole seemed to be pushing a line here.

newspapers and Will 'More or Less' give James O'Brien a fisking?newspapers

If you recall, I found last Friday's Newsnight - the one with James O'Brien - to be deeply biased. 

David Keighley at News-watch doesn't just agree, he's also put a huge stick of dynamite under the programme's deeply dodgy use of statistics. 

It's a must-read post. 

Newsnight and Ipsos MORI had co-operated on a post-Referendum poll and that night's Newsnight gave its take on the findings. 

Here's an extract from James O'Brien's introduction:

And what about buyer�s remorse? All those voters who supposedly want to change their minds? Well, maybe not. 92% of respondents said they would definitely vote the same way. But of them, 5% of Leave voters did say they would now change their vote, compared to just 2% of Remain voters. 

Note the 'maybe' in "maybe not" there and the big "But". And note the statement that "5% of Leave voters did say they would now change their vote, compared to just 2% of Remain voters" - a 'finding' highly relevant to the programme's later discussions about overturning the 23 June referendum, perhaps with a second referendum.

Newsnight used the following graphic to illustrate the point: 

Here's how David outlines the problem: 

Third � and even worse, perhaps � two separate statistics of polling information were conflated so as to overemphasise the numbers who said they would change their vote. 

92% of the Ipsos Mori respondents said they would not change their minds if asked to vote in a second referendum (with 4% saying they would change their vote, 3% saying they didn�t know, and 1% saying they wouldn�t vote) 

Newsnight presented this 92% figure in the graphic shown above. However, O�Brien then introduced an additional statistic: that 5% of Remain voters and 2% of Leave voters said they would now change their vote. Two smaller circles were duly placed on the chart to reflect this, despite these numbers having no direct correlation to the initial 92% figure. Therefore, the graphics and commentary suggested 7% wishing to change their votes, whereas the Ipsos Mori data itself had given a figure of just 4%. 

Further, the two smaller circles of 5% and 2% cannot even be fairly compared to each other, given that more voted to Leave in the referendum than voted to Remain. The only way to have fairly reflected this difference would have been to have introduced a second chart, showing the overall numbers of Leave and Remain voters, and how potential shifts in voting intention might have affected the totals. 

A closer inspection of the Ipsos Mori data also reveals that, to produce the 5% and 2% figures, two responses were combined: those who would �definitely� change their vote, and those who �probably� change their vote. 

Had Newsnight focused only on those who were certain to change their votes, then the chart and commentary would have been even less striking: only 1.1% of those polled would definitely change their Leave vote, and just 0.4% would definitely change their Remain vote � a far less dramatic statistic than the one selected. 

Put another way � bringing in the unweighted sample size of 935 voters who were actual consulted to reach these findings �  only FIVE  people told Ipsos Mori that they would definitely change their mind from �remain� to �out� and two people said they would definitely switch from �remain� to �leave�. On that highly tenuous basis, Newsnight told its viewers, in effect  that 5% of total �leave� vote of 17.4m was considering changing sides. This was a preposterous extrapolation.

Please read the polling results for yourselves. You will see that David is correct. 

Q3 is specific. As you can see for yourselves, only 1% of Leave voters said they "would definitely change their vote". 

So when James O'Brien told Newsnight viewers that "5% of Leave voters did say they would now change their vote", he wasn't giving them an honest representation of the poll's actual results. 

What he should have said is:

And what about buyer�s remorse? All those voters who supposedly want to change their minds? Well, almost certainly not. 92% of respondents said they would definitely vote the same way, 4% said they would change their vote, 3% said they didn't know and 1% said they wouldn't vote. And a separate question revealed that just 1% of Leave voters would definitely change their vote and 0% of Remain voters would change their vote. 

Once you've read those Ipsos Mori findings for yourself, wouldn't you agree that my re-write of James O'Brien's spin on the results is much closer to the reality of those results?

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And another thought that struck me is that - were Newsnight biased in the other direction - they could (and with more justification) have spun the findings of Q2. which asked, "And as you may know the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Do you think that was the right decision or the wrong decision for the United Kingdom?" 

The curious result of those findings is that 4% of Remain voters now say that it's the "Right decision" and 3% Leave voters now say it's the "Wrong decision" - a result that could very easily be spun to show that it's actually Remain voters who are suffering buyer's remorse.

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Was the conflating of 'apples and pears' in that graphic merely sloppy or proof of bias?

Was the hyping and distorting of the 'buyer's remorse' findings merely sloppy or proof of bias?

Was the failure to point out the curious finding of Q2 merely sloppy or proof of bias?

All I'd say is that I've heard and seen how James O'Brien spun it on Newsnight and I've read the very careful Ipsos Mori presentation of the findings and, to my mind, Newsnight presented the findings in a reckless fashion. 

On top of the extraordinary levels of anti-Brexit bias recorded on this very blog last week, I'm far less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt that I might have been before. 

This is shoddy journalism either way though.

newspapers and Theresa May; a counterbalancing postnewspapers

I sent a message to Craig about Newsnight. I made some derogatory comments about Theresa May, and he said I should post it to counterbalance his moderately positive take on her. 

I was going to hide it btl  in case I disagree with myself tomorrow. Precautionary measure. But the article in question has moved so far down the page due to Craig�s astonishing productivity that I have been forced to post it up front.

Here�s the gist of it:

�I keep falling asleep as soon as Newsnight comes on, so I missed the last couple of editions. The episode you describe sounds super-bad. It really is as though they've cast all pretensions of impartiality aside. In for a pound in for a penny, they must have said.
Evan is becoming ever more cadaver-like. He was unwatchably aggressive with Crispin B. the other night and next minute he was attentive and interested while interviewing Jonathan Freedland and (surprise) Melanie Phillips. 

 I can't fathom the reasoning behind Newsnight hiring James O'B. either. He's ugly and his delivery is totally devoid of authority. A third rate shock jock. 

Newsnight is slowly poisoning itself to death. Maybe not slowly. Put it out of its misery, I say.  

 By the way, have you read all the negative stuff about Theresa May? Doesn't it put you off her?  I never liked her, ever since her early appearances on QT. She used to wear jackets that looked as if they were made out of polystyrene, and her comments were feeble, dull and unimaginative. Always. And Theresa, if you become PM, please, no more above the knee skirts and for god's sake put yer tits away.  

The thought of her as PM is deeply depressing. Soft on Sharia, and one of the deluded politicians who insist Islam is the R.O.P.  - and I.S. is nothing to do with Islam. Since Islam is one of the greatest threats we face at the moment (coupled with economic melt-down) I don't feel optimistic. If the BBC can't be impartial it should be 'talking us up' instead of sabotaging us. If you must be biased at least use the bias constructively, why not.( Maybe I shouldn't be talking down Theresa in that case. Maybe, if elected, she'd rise to the occasion.)

polystyrene-wear

I blame David Cameron for plunging us into this unnecessary instability. While people are publishing avalanches of �gotchas� about those contradictory statements made by Michael Gove, why don�t they push some of Cameron�s misleading and dishonest assurances about �not being quitters� and so on.  Eh?

newspapers and "And who will speak for the 48%?"newspapers

Considerably more about this tomorrow (possibly), but tonight's Newsnight took this past week's levels of anti-Brexit bias and simply multiplied them. My jaw dropped even more.

Bed beckons, so this is merely a sketch of what I've just witnessed and been appalled by.

The closing discussion, debating the post-Brexit situation, featured a pro-Remain Lib Dem, a pro-Remain Blairite and a pro-Remain far-left former BBC reporter (close to Jeremy Corbyn's circle).

That discussion was prefaced by Newsnight presenter James O'Brien explicitly making the case for the 48%. "Who will speak for the 48%?" was his question. 

Before that came a report from France which featured voice after voice after voice expressing regret and despair at Britain's Leave vote - except for a short section on the Front National, which was immediately qualified by an academic putting their views in context. Given that I've read reports about polls showing a majority of French people wanting a referendum on French EU membership, it surely can't just be 'the far-right' who aren't weeping over our Brexit vote, can it?

And before that came an unchallenged interview with (Remain-supporting) The Remains of the Day author Kazuo Ishiguro, bemoaning (with James O'Brien's help) the consequences of the Brexit vote for Britain's multiculturalism. He sees "Neo-Nazism" as resulting from the result. Some Leave voters are racist, he says. He wants a second referendum.

And before that came a report from Burnley on why people there voted Leave, and what they think now. Minor-key music provided the background. Ordinary people spoke, some still backing Leave, a few still backing Remain, some sounding equivocal. Someone said, 'we're not stupid'. The next 'vox pop' sounded as if she hadn't a clue. I felt deeply suspicious of it.

And to start things off we had some questionable-sounding spin on polling 'evidence' from Ipsos MORI for the BBC.

Please watch and judge for yourselves. I will rewatch it tomorrow, just in case my initial impressions have misled me.

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"And who will speak for the 48%?"

Here was James O'Brien's framing of the final discussion:

Lose by 4% in a general election and you find yourself in strong opposition with a fighting chance of halting legislation and embarrassing the government. Win 48% of the vote in a referendum and you find yourself with absolutely nothing. Politically your position is, in many ways, no stronger than if you'd won 0%. With all the Conservative leadership candidates now fully committed to Brexit and the winner, of course, guaranteed to govern, what will opposition even look like? And who will speak for the 48%? 

****** 

P.S. Here's a comment seen elsewhere that strikes a chord with me (given what I've seen):

Evan Davis, all this week on Newsnight (BBC2) (and James O�Brien last night on the same show), seems to have refashioned the flagship current affairs programme as both a progressive pro-EU safe space and as a working group dedicated only to bad-mouthing Brexit and seeking ways (any way) to undo it.