Saturday, January 31, 2004
AND HOW ABOUT THIS LOOSE CANNON?
Last Night's BBC News illustrates how the BBC's news problems extend well beyond Andrew Gilligan's broadcast just after 6 AM, on May 29, 2003. Consider this "report" from the Middle East by -- of course -- Orla Guerin, on January 28:
. . .Guerin begins her report with the image of an Israeli tank firing a rocket at an unseen target, creating the impression that the IDF started the shooting (when in fact the opposite was the case) which left between 8 and 13 Palestinians dead. She states: "Israeli tanks on Palestinian streets targeting 'militants', the army said."
Note the disbelieving tone of Guerin's report. And who does she think the IDF is really targeting?
She explains: "But look at this young boy [lying down on the street covering his head]. We think he survived."
Guerin knows full well that he survived because if he didn't the Palestinians would have shown their friends in the news media (most especially Orla Guerin) his body.
She continues in full sneer mode: "Israel says that it came here to hunt down gunmen and reduce the number of attacks. But now people here have new dead and new reasons to hate." Then she credulously interviews a woman who claims that her husband, a "fighter", was killed today. "'I'm one of the women who want to be a suicide bomber' she told me."
Guerin is no fool. She understands that these wailing women on a street corner holding up pictures of their allegedly dead husbands are part of an elaborately organised spectacle. These demonstrations are staged for naive, or in Guerin's case, dishonest western reporters.
Guerin concludes: "If Israel killed some enemies today it bred more in the next generation."
This isn't reporting, it's an editorial on some metaphysical "cycle of violence" (always initiated by the Israeli military) that seeks to explain, and justify, Palestinian violence, i.e., terrorism.
One of Lord Hutton's central criticisms of the BBC in the Andrew Gilligan scandal was the organisation's appalling lack of editorial control over its reporters. Oral Guerin's relentlessly dishonest reporting from the Middle East is just another example of a problem that isn't about one misstatement by one journalist at 6:07 am on May 29, 2003. The BBC's problem is deeply-rooted and structural. It extends from the very top of the organisation to its bottom: all too often the BBC wants to be a political party rather than a news organisation.
Absolutely. ¶ by Robert, Saturday, January 31, 2004
Last Night's BBC News illustrates how the BBC's news problems extend well beyond Andrew Gilligan's broadcast just after 6 AM, on May 29, 2003. Consider this "report" from the Middle East by -- of course -- Orla Guerin, on January 28:
. . .Guerin begins her report with the image of an Israeli tank firing a rocket at an unseen target, creating the impression that the IDF started the shooting (when in fact the opposite was the case) which left between 8 and 13 Palestinians dead. She states: "Israeli tanks on Palestinian streets targeting 'militants', the army said."
Note the disbelieving tone of Guerin's report. And who does she think the IDF is really targeting?
She explains: "But look at this young boy [lying down on the street covering his head]. We think he survived."
Guerin knows full well that he survived because if he didn't the Palestinians would have shown their friends in the news media (most especially Orla Guerin) his body.
She continues in full sneer mode: "Israel says that it came here to hunt down gunmen and reduce the number of attacks. But now people here have new dead and new reasons to hate." Then she credulously interviews a woman who claims that her husband, a "fighter", was killed today. "'I'm one of the women who want to be a suicide bomber' she told me."
Guerin is no fool. She understands that these wailing women on a street corner holding up pictures of their allegedly dead husbands are part of an elaborately organised spectacle. These demonstrations are staged for naive, or in Guerin's case, dishonest western reporters.
Guerin concludes: "If Israel killed some enemies today it bred more in the next generation."
This isn't reporting, it's an editorial on some metaphysical "cycle of violence" (always initiated by the Israeli military) that seeks to explain, and justify, Palestinian violence, i.e., terrorism.
One of Lord Hutton's central criticisms of the BBC in the Andrew Gilligan scandal was the organisation's appalling lack of editorial control over its reporters. Oral Guerin's relentlessly dishonest reporting from the Middle East is just another example of a problem that isn't about one misstatement by one journalist at 6:07 am on May 29, 2003. The BBC's problem is deeply-rooted and structural. It extends from the very top of the organisation to its bottom: all too often the BBC wants to be a political party rather than a news organisation.
Absolutely. ¶ by Robert, Saturday, January 31, 2004
