It is now 5 [actually 6] days on and still no BBC coverage on what should be a major story alleging, as it does, a longstanding Saddam-Osama link. As for the press, the lockstep we see up ’til now is impressive. Where is the BBC on this? As Jack Shafer writes (for a non-Murdoch outlet by the way!):
Everybody knows how the press loves to herd itself into a snarling pack to chase the story of the day. But less noticed is the press’s propensity to half-close its lids, lick its paws, and contemplate its hairballs when confronted with events or revelations that contradict its prejudices….
Help me! Many a reporter has hitched a ride onto Page One with the leak of intelligence much rawer than the stuff in Feith’s memo. You can bet the farm that if a mainstream publication had gotten the Feith memo first, it would have used it immediately—perhaps as a hook to re-examine the ongoing war between the Pentagon and CIA about how to interpret intelligence. Likewise, you’d be wise to bet your wife’s farm that had a similar memo arguing no Saddam-Osama connection been leaked to the press, it would have generated 100 times the news interest as the Hayes story.I write this not as a believer in the Saddam-Osama love child or as a non-believer. My mind remains open to argument and to data both raw and refined. Hayes’ piece piques my curiosity, and it should pique yours. If it’s true that Saddam and Osama’s people danced together—if just for an evening or two—that undermines the liberal critique that Bush rashly folded Iraq into his “war on terror.” And if it’s true, isn’t that a story? Or, conversely, if Feith’s shards of information direct us to the conclusion that his people stacked the intel to justify a bogus war, isn’t that a story, too? Where is the snooping, prying, nosy press that I’ve heard so much about?
Where is the BBC, supposed leader of this pack? Or is it just part of the herd after all? As James Taranto observes, the fact that the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate has asked for an investigation of the leak though the Defense Department has tried to discount it, ought to count for something.
UPDATE: Stephen Hayes now has a compelling response to the Defense Department’s attempts to knock this story down. What will it take to interest the BBC?
Off topic I’m afraid but, I heard from somewhere that Channel 4 is partly state funded as well as the BBC. If that is true, it is an utter disgrace because C4 are so biased to the left wing, they make the BBC look like the BNP!
Actually I’ve just found out. It’s not funded by the public but it is owned by the public. See here: http://www.channel4.com/about_c4/information.html
Still, for a publicly owned broadcaster, you would expect a certain degree of impartiality. Oh well.
This may be a bit off topic as it is David Frum’s experience on Newsnight
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary111903.asp
It’s True About the Beeb
“Before the three of us got to business, “Newsnight” broadcast an introductory video clip. It was that clip that was my perfect moment of news slanting.”
The thing is that this memo is really nothing al that new. Since right after 9/11, there were reports out of the Czech Republic noting the Czechs though there was a connection between Atta and Iraqi intelligence.
This does NOT mean that Hussein called up bin Laden and told him to attack the US. But it shows that the terror networks have deep connections.
Slate has an article about Atta in the Czech Republic.
As the blogger said, time to welcome Slate to the VRWC.
It’s breaking, slowly but surely.