Ciao!

Hm, that surprises me; I've always considered the BBC to provide fairly comprehensive, accurate reporting.

Actually, over the years, I've found their Latin America coverage to be subpar at best. They really only have 4-5 narratives they keep packaging over & over again, regardless of what's going on. I particularly find it ironic that the BBC — a network established to support the British empire, and still maintained as the publicly-funded arm of British media — should try to present itself as a critic & bulwark against globalization.

It's no surprise to me. A while ago I pointed out a factual error in an article at the Economist.

After a few days I received and e-mail which basically said, if you don't like it don't read it.

It seems to me that when the news are about a country like Bolivia, the big news agencies take some liberties in reporting. It is clear that thoroughness and accuracy is not the highest priority.

Miguel, don't hold your breath over the BBC backtracking on biased information for misinformation is their raison d'etre. They do it with Bolivia, Venezuela, the US, Israel, France, the UK...

Got you linked here, Miguel: http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3193

Think VCrisis has you linked here, too:

http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200509251614

Really good work, Miguel!

BBC gets Latin American stories wrong for the same reason it gets stories from the USA wrong.

the BBC has a hard-left, pro-socialist, pro-communist, pro-marxist agenda. that translates to an anti-capitalist, anti-American agenda.

in any foreign news story covered by the BBC (or domestic news story, for that matter), which is factually wrong (like the one above), the inaccuracy will always be to the benefit of the communists & to the detriment of the capitalists.

there's a word for this kind of inaccuracy. it's called "bias".

Well, I'm not holding my breath. But if the BBC has any ethics at all, they should at least correct factually erroneous information. They can spin all they want, it's their right. It's their public & ethical duty (especially as a publicly funded news organization) to correct any mistakes made in reporting basic facts about a story, any story.

I tend to agree with you that it was an error probably due to translation/language problems. I doubt that it is some secret plot to make sure that Evo Morales is Bolivia's next Communist President.

"the BBC has a hard-left, pro-socialist, pro-communist, pro-marxist agenda. that translates to an anti-capitalist, anti-American agenda."

Honestly, that is a very silly thing to say. The BBC is about as "pro-marxist" (heheheheheh) as Burger King. Bland and uninspiring it may be but "pro-communist" is just nuts.

And the BBC funding is voluntary, it isn't paid for from government funds. You purchase a licence with your TV, it doesn't come from the exchequer. If you don't want TV you don't pay, it also pays for the upkeep of transmitters and so on as well as sports (not enough), radio, local TV and radio etc.

The BBC is basically centre right and were bigger cheerleaders for the Iraq war than Rupert Murdoch's Sky...

To the 'British person' (???) commenting above: please share with us one url of a BBC article/report celebrating in any manner the Irak war.

to "A British person":

"BBC funding is voluntary"?????????

British taxpayers are forced to pay for it!

How is that voluntary???????????

you say: "if you don't want TV you don't pay." ha! you're right - that sure is fair - not!

see here, e.g.:

http://sortapundit.typepad.com/sortapundit/2005/09/imagine_if_you_.html

and thanks - you discredited everything else you said with that one!

and, yes, there's a phrase for forcing TV owners to pay for a TV channel whether they want it or not. that's called "state-sponsored propaganda."

just because you agree with the propaganda doesn't make it right to force people to pay for it.

Miguel...don't be naive about the importance of bias..."A British person" is spot on...this is pure and simple leftist spin...the "truth" be damned...!!! To them news = propaganda, pure and simple. If it isn't usable as it, change it or make something up.

Let's put it this way--If you can find a way to misread "Fuck you, Miguel!!" as "I find you to be a Fine person, Miguel!!"...well then it was simple BBC incompetence. jt

WHOOPS!!!!...I meant I agree with demosthenes (I saw the opening line of the british person and missed the quotation marks...jt

I completely agree that bias is important, and should be noted. But my point was merely that IN THIS INSTANCE I'm not talking about whether or not the BBC is biased (I, of course, happen to think it often is). My point was that this was clearly a factual error they made (for whatever reason). Had the BBC reported that the capital of Bulgaria was Walawala, I'd be equally upset. A major international news organization should get the BASIC facts of a story correct. If it's ideologically biased, that's fine, people will either agree w/ the bias or not and decide whether they want to trust that source, on that basis. Why? Because bias/spin is noticeable; but we need to at least accurately know the very basic central facts of a story.

Yah, I think people are straying away from your topic, Miguel.

I think the most offensive part of the way they handled this is the fact that they basically told you to bugger off with your correction, and then a few days later quietly and without notice corrected the story. Not even so much as a thank you very much! What's that British expression ... Wankers!

factual mistakes should be corrected of course, but this part of your post doesn't make any sense:

"Because of the context of the story, the BBC makes it seem as if the court decided (for no given reason) to take seats away from regions likely to vote for Evo Morales. The quote about an alleged "conspiracy" against the MAS candidate, then, makes sense. Bias? Or just plain incompetence? I suspect the latter."

but you say yourself that "legislators from Santa Cruz... would receive more seats under the 2001 figures", so... the court's ruling was indeed a setback for Morales and MAS. and the quote about the alleged "conspiracy" is not confusing at all. everyone knows the crucenos are bigoted against cholos. it's common knowledge.

reasonable people can disagree about policies but it is silly to suggest that MAS suspicions do not make sense.

Kazu:

Well, SOME cruceños are bigotted against kollas, but I'd be careful not to assume that ALL are. But, yes, you make a good point.

Some people are still not understanding my complaint. Yes, the finding hurt MAS (they'll loose seats, most likely). But I don't think the ruling was UNREASONABLE since the law does dictate that the newest census should be used. It just so happens that population changes have increased the potential legislators for Santa Cruz (and Cochabamba) at the expense of La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí.

Was the decision made DELIBERATELY to hurt Evo Morales? I don't know. I do know the decision was made in accordance to some very old laws regulating that legislative representation should be on the basis of population -- so that a vote in Santa Cruz is worth about the same as a vote in Oruro, no more, no less.

My complaint was that the BBC, by getting the story wrong, made it appear that the courts ruled against Evo deliberately against stated constitutional law by refusing to use the 2001 census. This is not what happened; the BBC got the facts of teh story wrong. Citing that Evo complains about this as a "conspiracy" against him is fine, since that's Evo's position (and I'm sure many will agree w/ him).

But citing -- in a news story -- that a court declared X when it declared THE OPPOSITE, is something that needs to be corrected (and it has been).

yes, correction of errors is of course good. but beyond that your complaint makes no sense. you say "My complaint was that the BBC, by getting the story wrong, made it appear that the courts ruled against Evo deliberately against stated constitutional law by refusing to use the 2001 census." but you also say that using the 2001 census is disadvantageous to Evo Morales and MAS: "The seat distribution, everyone knows, will only hurt Evo; it can't help him."

so how could any erroneous claim of the court "refusing to use the 2001 census" be presented as a ruling against Evo Morales? clearly these two positions are logically incompatible. obviously a ruling favorable to X does not create the appearance of a conspiracy against X, and neither would erroneous reports of such a ruling.

Kazu:

I think you misunderstand something here. Or maybe I do.

Yes, the ruling hurts Evo. I've made that clear (as you point out). The BBC reported that the ruling hurt Evo (as I pointed out). But the BBC report ORIGINALLY (in its incorrect form) made it seem that the court rules against using the 2001 census ... the court in fact rules to use the 2001 census (as the law states, but the current election was set up to ignore). Because of this mistake, the story made it seem as if the court had ruled WITHOUT justification to merely hurt Evo in an unfair way.

Read the newly posted BBC story, and the original paragraph (I posted it above) and think how a key fact in the story is: a) incorrect, which b) changes the tone of the story.

The court ruled TO UPHOLD CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, which states that all elections must be districted according to the most recent census. Thus, the 2001 census should (legally) be the basis for the 2005 election. There was a previous debate about this BEFORE the election was declared, and parliament decided to make the election based on the 1991 census. A group of legislators from Santa Cruz filed a petition w/ the constitutional tribunal (which decides on the constitionality of laws) and the court found the 2005 election as unconstitutionally constructed, ordering the legislature to enforce standing constitutional law and use the 2001 census.

By framing the story as if the court had decided to NOT USE the 2001 census (the story, as such, didn't specify either why or what census should otherwise be used) the story made it seem as if the court made a last minute decision to trip Evo w/o any semblance of legal precedence or standing.

Thus, the tone of the story was quite different, and seemed like a real conspiracy against Evo at the highest level. Are there people who don't want Evo to win? Of course! It is a contested election after all. But Evo's people don't want other candidates to win, either. All sides are maneuvering to make the rules of the game favor them, and not other candidates. That doesn't make it right.

I, for one, SUPPORT the court's decision because it's based on standing law. Each department gets a percentage of seats in the legislature that fits their percentage of the national population. Anything else is gerrymandering.

CORRECTION: I mistakenly have cited a 1991 Bolivian census, the last census before 2001 was carried out in 1992. I apologize for the mistake.