A couple of weeks ago I accused the BBC of bias in its Middle East coverage. Now I am wondering if I made a mistake.
Hear me out.
A couple of days ago the social psychologist Robert Cialdini went to 10 Downing Street to discuss environment policy. The main thrust of his remarks concerned what he calls "descriptive social norms". One of the stories he told his audience was this:
Not long ago, a graduate student of mine visited the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona with his fiancée—a woman he described as the most honest person he’d ever known, someone who had never taken a paperclip or rubber band without returning it. They quickly encountered a park sign warning visitors against stealing petrified wood, “OUR HERITAGE IS BEING VANDALIZED BY THE THEFT OF 14 TONS OF WOOD EVERY YEAR.”
While still reading the sign, he was shocked to hear his fiancée whisper, “We’d better get ours now.”
What could have spurred this wholly law-abiding young woman to want to become a thief and to deplete a national treasure to boot? I believe it has to do with a mistake that park officials made when creating that sign. They tried to alert visitors to the park’s theft problem by telling them that many other visitors were thieves. In so doing, they stimulated the behavior they had hoped to suppress by making it appear commonplace—when, in fact, less than 3% of the park’s millions of visitors have ever taken a piece of wood. Park officials are far from alone in this kind of error.
Indeed. For isn't this the mistake I was making by accusing the BBC of bias?
People take their cue from others. They behave as they think they are supposed to behave. Say that I argue that Jeremy Bowen's memo blaming the Hamas-Fatah violence on Israel is typical of the BBC. He is biased, like all the other correspondents. What am I saying? That bias against Israel is the social norm in the BBC, that if you are work for the BBC that is how you are supposed to be.
This might make the problem I am fighting against, worse.
What might work better? To say that Jeremy Bowen is letting down the BBC with his rare memo. That most employees of the BBC strive hard to be fair and that Bowen is departing from the norm.
Just a thought.
The tragic story of a young boy who was run over while wearing Heelys has produced a predictable response. Wearing shoes that turn into roller skates is dangerous, we are told. I predict that within days the news will be full of Heelys accidents. 
