The DEC rolls on....

Good piece by Keith Dovkants in the Standard which recounts the recent problems for the BBC and Israel in the past.....

Also AP is now reporting that the IAEA head has refused to do an interview with the BBC in protest at the BBC's refusal to do the Gaza appeal.

More DEC....

Good account of what has been going on for the last week here in the Guardian......

DEC cont'd...

The DEC row rolls on, becoming increasingly bad-tempered in parts. 

There is an interesting line tucked away in Patrick Foster's account in the Times this morning in which it appears correspondence between DEC chief exec Brendan Gormley and the BBC has been leaked. Cui bono?

It says that Gormley wrote to the BBC on the 13 January admitting little of the aid would go to Israel and thus  "this state of affairs would conflict with the BBC's editorial need to be impartial".   

I'm wondering however in what context these words appear because it would seem unlikely to me the DEC would continue to push the BBC for an appeal if they had accepted the BBC would be unlikely to consider one. Particularly in the light of the problems over the 2006 Lebanon appeal that never happened where impartiality was a key issue, mainly because the original idea for the appeal had included Gaza as well.

It's also interesting that Sky has come out late in the day saying it won't run the appeal either.

The appeal itself I think is different to the usual, where different personalities depending on the channel 'front' the appeal. The version I saw on Channel 4 was only footage and no one on screen voicing it.  

It also seems there is no one who hasn't written a piece on this. Interesting stuff from Martin Bell on the crisis of confidence at the BBC -and also Iain Martin in the Telegraph on the truth about covering the Middle East if you are a news organisation.

Re Iain Martin's piece, this is the elephant in the room that Mark Thompson refused to address in his Today interview: the rules are different when it comes to the Middle East. Or as one person said to me 'it seems when it comes to appeals set in politically contentious situations, Africa, there's no problem, Asia be more careful and Middle East - forget it'

(PS It's also worth noting that while there has been a lot of criticism of the BBC publicly from journalists, politicians and humanitarians, a majority of comments on the Times forum appear to support the BBC's stance.)

The BBC and the DEC

Hugely interesting to see the fallout over the BBC's refusal to broadcast a DEC appeal for Gaza

It seems the BBC has form in this area. In 2006, the DEC wanted to set up an appeal for Lebanon; at that time the BBC and other broadcasters turned down the ask, as the Guardian reported at the time (it's worth noting that the other broadcasters said they did agree with the BBC on that occasion compared to this time where Sky for one basically passed the buck by saying the DEC appeal could not be launched if everyone did not agree and as the BBC had taken that decision then it was out of their hands).

It is also worth remembering that the Balen Report of 2004 into the BBC's coverage of the Middle East was said to have been prompted by criticism of anti-Israeli  bias. The BBC is in an unenviable position.

There are three criteria that have to be met for a DEC appeal: if it is large and urgent enough; if help can get in to whichever area is to be the subject of the appeal and if there is enough public awareness.

The BBC has talked about the need for political impartiality and sensitivity; the issue as its critics have pointed out is that many DEC appeal do end up dealing with areas where there are political dimensions; the Darfur appeal, or the Burma appeal. Perhaps the message is that some places are more impartial and sensitive than others.

Facing up to Facebook




Having predicted doom and gloom for aid agencies who are turning to social networks (sort of), I was inundated with emails defending Facebook's relevance in 2008 and now comes a report from the Centre for Policy Studies (see disclosure below) that analyses how it will force politicians to be more open. Robert Colvile's theory (headline grabbing stat: the BNP's website has the same market share as all of the other major political parties combined) is that so far politicians in this country have failed to take advantage of the web, which will prove just as revolutionary to politics as TV and radio did in the 20th century.

His argument is that technology transformed politicians from masters of rhetoric (Gladstone, Pitt commanding the Houses of Parliament) to communicators able to project an intimate image on television (Wilson, Thatcher, Blair).

Web 2.0 and its successors means this will change again: politicians won't worry so much about facing down Paxo as being more responsive, more interactive - and more open, due to Google's ability to keep on record previous remarks/policies that may come back to haunt them (although the Sunday Times reports there are already companies working on cleaning up your internet profile; useful for those who may fear Facebook indiscretions could stymie them).

Aid agencies could certainly consider these lessons. How to target appeals in future; will the old style DEC still work? Probably for the tsunami style natural disasters, but not so much for the long term chronic ones.....how they will be put under pressure even more quickly if they fail to deliver (those guerilla aid workers were keen on blogging). And whether they, like politicians, will be put under pressure from activists - Facebook already has groups criticising Amnesty's abortion policy.



*Disclosure: I sit opposite Robert when I work in the Telegraph and he has been known to buy me cups of tea and vice versa.


Lent update: These are the things I now really want to buy currently and can't: a stopwatch that means I can change tracks on my iPod while running (I didn't even know such a thing existed until a week ago, but now am convinced it will change my life); the DVDs of Cold Feet after reading a James Nesbitt interview in the Observer; tracksuit bottoms with a mobile phone pocket in them (so I can call my brothers to jeer at the end of the Liverpool half marathon in two weeks); a copy of Fateful Choices, by Ten Decisions that Changed the World by Ian Kershaw. I feel this attempt to combat consumerist thoughts isnt really working.

The Girl Who Came In From the Cold

This week I have been rained on three times cycling into the office. There have been moments when my commitment to a green lifestyle (organic vegetables, no car, recycling paper, trying a bit to stay away from cheap clothing stores) has been severely questioned. London in November - was there ever a more depressing three word phrase.
In the meantime, I have been taken by two pieces in the Independent: first Steve Connor's piece on birth order . Birth order fascinates everyone; the truth is if you are the oldest of four (like me) then basically you are doomed. Conservative, conventional, neurotic and swotty - these are the adjectives that get bandied about. Not for the eldest the freethinking creativity, the lateral thinker, the sociable party goer that everyone wants. No, you're the person who decides to be an actuary at age 11 and spends the next 15 years in a library (apologies to all first born actuaries who are fun loving creatives freaks).
What's interesting about Connor's piece is that it concludes that in the end birth order doesn't really make any difference at all. Which means I could have spent the last 15 years being a freewheeling creative sort instead of being conditioned to think that the world will come to an end if I don't do my homework on time.
So that was one myth quashed. The other is that Jonathan Brown notes a new North/South divide. Northerners like dogs; southerners like cats. I like cats. So I've either lived away from the North for too long or was always a spiritual southerner. A southerner second born.....maybe it's time to enbrace a new life.
In the meantime, I'm watching closely the new DEC appeal for Bangladesh to see what kind of stories come out of it following my fly on the wall stint for the last one; reading Adrian Monck on Andrew Marr and for pleasure as always John Kelly whose voxford blog always cheers up a November day.....