a BBC ‘world affairs correspondent’ or an ordinary Iraqi who is telling what the media seems quite hesitant to share?
Do you believe the BBC’s media partner in the Arab world, al-Jazeera? Some things are just unbelievable–as Andrew Sullivan observes.
“His killers shouted “Allah is great” before holding what appeared to be a head up to the camera.” What appeared to be his head? Who do they think Zarqawi is: Penn or Teller?
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)
It wasn’t really a head, Kerry. It was a “head.”
yes the BBC can never abstain from a little stealth editing.
And of course negative reporting.
why were we not told that Nick was jewish and this was a repeat of the slaughter of Daniel.
Personally I don’t believe the testimony of any individual can be arbitrarily applied across the board, good or bad. Some US troops are exceptional professionals, some are abysmally trained violent morons. Some Iraqis have been well treated and are grateful, some have been shockingly treated and are pining for Saddam.
The best (albeit flawed) indication of Iraqi feelings remains the opinion poll of a couple of months ago – cheers for getting rid of Saddam, we’re quite looking forward to the future, now please f*ck off asap and leave us alone.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens after June.
Hope I’m not straying off the point too much but did anyone hear BBC R5 between 9AM and around 10.15AM yesterday-12 May? A journalist, Neil Clarke, was equating Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland with that of the allied occupation of Iraq. I was absolutely disgusted that this man was given, at licence-payers expense, a platform to peddle such complete rubbish. I didn’t catch for whom Mr Clarke works or if he is a freelancer but he seems to have all the credentials for a career at the Beeb.
It isn’t just the BBC you know. Kirsty Hasbeen (Lang?) on Channel 5 TV News introduced the item on the sawing off of Nick Berg’s head by Islamists with something along the following lines:
“Last year the Americans executed 60 of their own citizens but now they are up in arms about the execution of one man ina foreign country.”
Roughly translated that means:
1. We are not going to allow viewers the chance to feel too much sympathy for these Yanks so let’s remind them about their liking for teh death penalty which we civilised Europeans no longer have.
2. We are going to ignore the difference between a painless lethal injection after due process and the sawing off of teh head of a man who committed no crime and had no chance to defend himself.
3. We are raising the status of a brutal and cowardly murder to that of “an execution”.
Sick.
David
David – that account from Channel 5 is truly disgraceful. I think ITV & Channel 4 are little different.
However we come back to the BBC being a forced levy. We can choose to ignore Channel 5 without cost & if we were not obviously in a minority, influence their editorial stance by not watching. That said the very low level of adverts within Channel 4’s news implies that the station is little bothered by lack of viewers/customers for advertisers.
The BBC & others tried to condemn the government for “sexing up by omission” during the Hutton evidence.
Humphry’s on R4 “Today” was twice guilty of that sin in an article on the Mirror fake photos.
He allowed both Mirrorfolk Pilger & Greenslade to state that the government had lied over the WMD matter.
Greenslade then stated that the government had covered up cases of mistreatment of Iraqis.
Humphrys didn’t ask for substantiation of the lie accusation.
Humphrys did not point out that commons & press had received reports on mistreatment last February. Humphrys surely would have known – he has plenty of information when he wants to use it.
rob
Arguably, John Humphrys is more of a viallain than Gilligan. He helped set up the Gilligan lie that the Government had lied, and has been remorseless in keeping it going. He is still acting in an out-of-editorial-control manner, pursuing his own agenda, giving an easy ride to those who agree with him.
The Beeb website says:
Video ‘shows US man beheaded’
Why the quotation marks? I’ve seen the video myself, and it clearly shows a man’s decapitation.
My God. I’ve just read Churchill’s biography, and if this is what the BBC has come to in a mere 50 years, then Britain is dead. Dead with a PC stake through her tragic heart.
All just part of the BBC being in denial. In their view the West visits evil on the Middle East – they simply don’t see it as the religious and political culture of the Middle East visiting evil on the rest of the world.
Is it that the romantic heroes of the West spent so much time b*ggering Arab boys and ‘worshipping’ Bedouin bandits?
Another use of sneer quotes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3722855.stm