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Comment by asplake | Hacker News Reader

Tweeted on a closely related subject earlier today. Where is the BBC’s coverage of the Assange hearings? I wouldn’t describe myself as a supporter but still the seeming lack of news seems very odd. Unless it’s just me missing it somehow...

https://twitter.com/asplake/status/1308021654975643656?s=21

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Here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54060427

Very limited what they reported on to be sure. AP News has more in depth reporting: https://apnews.com/hub/julian-assange

Wow so it sounds like the BBC hasn't attended the hearing at all and is just reporting what is on the court docket.

Since the report has direct quotes from Assange's QC inside the court and from supporters outside of the court, that seems an odd assessment.

It's consistent with the BBC acting as a propaganda arm of the British state - something that had become more true ever since the Hutton enquiry and the raft of new political appointees at the head of the organization.

And yet you'll find that twitter only marks Russian and Chinese accounts as "state media".

I guess you can’t mark something they didn’t report as fake or misleading.

Sounds a lot like wikileaks itself ;)

To be fair, the name of the state is in BBC itself.

Twitter's been fairly open about their decisionmaking process here, so we know that's not the relevant factor - they say they don't label BBC because it has editorial independence.

Sounds hand-wavy. How is editorial independence measured?

I agree with your skepticism of the objectivity here. Twitter says only that they "consulted with a number of expert groups": https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-label...

Twitter is wrong then. They used to have editorial independence before the Hutton enquiry.

Any editorial independence they have now is purely nominal.

And this is the issue with social media being able to moderate and curate content as they choose.

Makes me wonder about Mccain and the CDA.

> To be fair, the name of the state is in BBC itself.

As opposed to RT ?

Last time I was in the U.S. I watched Good Morning America on the American Broadcasting Company network

No, it's consistent with news sources in the UK having to obey the law about reporting restrictions on cases currently before the courts.

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/the-sub-judice-...

> Matters are considered to be sub judice (Latin for 'under judgment') once legal proceedings become active.

> Criminal proceedings are deemed active once a person is arrested, a warrant for arrest has been issued, a summons has been issued or a person has been charged and remain active until conviction. Civil proceedings become active, in England, when the hearing date for the trial is arranged and, in Scotland, when the parties' pleadings have been finalised and the record is closed.

> Publication of material which is sub judice comprises contempt of court, a crime which is punishable by a fine of unlimited amount and/or imprisonment for up to two years. Third party costs orders may also be awarded against the media organisation, enabling the courts to recover the costs of any trial aborted as a result of the prejudicial reporting.

Dear lord.

Zero articles in the past two weeks. If you've been following the case at all, there's been a Hell of a lot to report, from Amnesty and EU ministers despairing at having their monitor access revoked at the last minute, to Khaled El Masri's absolutely jaw-dropping testimony [1].

They have a front page post right now about "concern" over a "fan invasion" of the pitch in a GAA game (Gaelic Athletics Association). And another about some celeb confirmed to be on the next "Dancing with the Stars".

If anyone reading this is the type to blame people for being uninformed, please take this into account.

[1] https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/18/khaled-el-masri-stands-up...

Holy shit. They sodomized him. They abducted, tortured and raped him. And Assange is going to jail for life because he offered to help crack a password. What a farce.

It's fairly typical for the BBC to hold fire until the trial concludes and the legal restrictions around reporting are lifted.

I'm not sure I see the AP as having more "in depth" reporting, it just has a greater quantity of rolling reporting. Stories like "court case pauses for Covid alarm", "court case resumes", "Assange told to stop interrupting witnesses", "lawyer says Assange could be in prison for a long time" are not, let's be honest, adding to the total sum of understanding around the topic.

Why are you ignoring “Assange lawyer says Trump offered deal to avoid extradition” and “Lawyer says Assange charged under broad, contentious US law”. Not really sure what your definition of depth is by which these add less depth than the BBC’s literally zero coverage in the last two weeks.

> It's fairly typical for the BBC to hold fire until the trial concludes and the legal restrictions around reporting are lifted.

Simply not true, look at the coverage for the Johnny Depp libel trial on the BBC site, dozens of articles following the case day-by-day. The fact is they have become a celebrity news channel and don't want to rock the boat.

> Simply not true, look at the coverage for the Johnny Depp libel trial

Are the legal and practical issues on a civil trial like that really identical to a criminal trial or criminal extradition?

The post above was in response to a post that claimed the BBC tends not to post regarding a “trial”, and showed a counter-example. Shows that it is not as simple as the original poster suggests but not very clear exactly what criteria the BBC are using.

They are not identical but do not preclude extensive reporting as is demonstrated by Craig Murray who single-handed has put the BBC to shame

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

I guess more and more people will hopefully notice that the BBC is completely biased in its news "reporting".

The UK is known for frequently having a large number of media gag orders in operation.

Who taught me that?

Julian Assange.

> I wouldn’t describe myself as a supporter but still the seeming lack of news seems very odd.

From a logical perspective it seems quite odd, but from a pattern recognition perspective it seems quite normal, the pattern being that certain types of news stories seem to get a full court/spectrum press, and other stories (often arguably more substantial) get what seems like the bare minimum required to not raise eyebrows. It sometimes makes one wonder if there might be more going on here than meets the eye.

"Why is my state run media outlet ignoring one of the biggest whistleblowers in history?"

> lack of news seems very odd.

Why does it seem odd? Go watch/read news from a variety of sources. You'll notice that "news" is quite different from country to country and region to region. The same goes for history. The BBC is a government funded state propaganda machine. They cover and then spin whatever benefits the state. Easily the best in the world with reach in almost every one of their former slave colonies which constitute the british empire/commonwealth today.

Half the country seem to think the BBC is a tory mouthpiece. The other half think it's a commie plot.

Like all organisations, BBC editors have to decide where to focus their limited resources. They have covered Assange, lots. Yesterday they put a hell of a lot of coverage into the HSBC etc leaks, this morning the lead story on the website was the 'Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin linked to $8m Putin ally funding' story [0]

The BBC has been criticised for left wing bias in newsnight (indepth news program on about 2240), in the editor really digging into the current government [1], in the presenter really digging into the PM's chief advisor. The BBC's new chief used to be a local Tory Party deputy chairman [3], and the head of Radio used to be an elected Labour party minister, and was set for the top job at one point [4]

15 years ago the BBC DG resigned after the whole David Kelly affair put the corporation at loggerheads with the government [5]

Saying the BBC is biassed, one way or another, is a simplistic and wrong view. Saying it's not biassed is equally simplistic and wrong.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54228079 [1] https://www.theweek.co.uk/107867/bbc-newsnight-editor-lewis-... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/emily-maitlis... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/05/bbc-appoints-i... [4] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-plot-to-stop-james-p... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)

The BBC is not government funded, and it regularly, in fact constantly, reports things that do not benefit the government

> The BBC is not government funded

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

But you probably knew this already.

> and it regularly, in fact constantly, reports things that do not benefit the government

And? I said it was government funded "state propaganda". Government != state. Also, the best propaganda superficially "reports" on government to create an illusion of impartiality. It great a duping the dumb masses.

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