Trash your country and live. Now I get it…the BBC is only trying to survive.
NEW YORK — BBC World Service and Global News director Richard Sambrook on Tuesday took the U.S. news nets to task on their own turf for “wrapping themselves in the flag” and not asking the tough questions about the Bush administration’s reasons for going to war in Iraq.
Sambrook, speaking at Columbia U.’s Graduate School of Journalism, warned that such perceived partisanship of the news media may be playing a part in exposing journalists covering Iraq and other trouble spots around the globe to danger. “Journalists are now at a greater risk than they have ever been before. Where once their neutrality was widely recognized and respected, today they are targeted and sought out, seen as high-profile representatives of their countries or cultures,” Sambrook said.
Question for Richard: Why, then, didn’t it go well for your reporter in Saudi?
(via Drudge)
He’s preaching to the choir here. I know the U.S. media is always complaining that they were intimidated into following the Administration line but I was there and I sure didn’t notice any ‘wraping themselves in the flag’ or softball questions.
In fact American Journalists questioned whether they should wear our flag and whined unendingly about how Saddam should be given one more chance, the war was going to be a disaster, etc. ect. ect.
“Richard Sambrook on Tuesday took the U.S. news nets to task on their own turf for “wrapping themselves in the flag” and not asking the tough questions about the Bush administration’s reasons for going to war in Iraq.”
Clearly his foaming at the mouth, entrenched left wing views are warping his judgement.
CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, NYT etc all run with an anti-war bias. Many US (and British) troops have compained that the mainstream media is not telling the truth about Iraq – embelleshing and sensationalising everthing that goes wrong anywhere, and completely blacking out everything that has been achieved.
There are significantly more murders in South Africa than in Iraq. Do the BBC run reports and documentries about the new south africa ‘spiralling out of control’ ? of course not. They run images of Nelson Mandella doing a silly dance, paint a rosy picture of this multicultual ‘utopia’ and propagandize former terrorist and visceral, senile mouthpiece Mandella (and his corrupt buddies) as living saints.
The only news network (in the world) that has actually made any effort to portray the Iraqi campaign in favour of the US and UK is Fox News, but even they run negative stories – they simply put them into perspective alongside good stories.
The whole ‘right wing US media’ ‘New Mcarthyism’ charge is an absolute load of bollocks. Only a delusional, out of touch, hyper arrogant, Noam Chomsky reading BBC liberal could look at the slanted liberal media in the states (whiich has effectivly been campaigning for Kerry since the Primary season) and come to such an utterly perverse conclusion.
It is a sad reflection of just how ultra left the BBC has become.
I am heartily sick of journalists moaning about how dangerous it is for them now.
For soldiers and civilians, it has always been dangerous.
There is an element of elitism in Sambrook’s comments; he, like many in his profession, regards journalists lives as more important than mere soldiers and civilians.
As I have said before, the Left, which once sympathised with the working classes, has now become a fully-fledged elite, regarding itself as superior to the “uneducated masses”.
One could call it a “Bloomsbury Mindset”.
“Sambrook, speaking at Columbia U.’s Graduate School of Journalism, warned that such perceived partisanship of the news media may be playing a part in exposing journalists covering Iraq and other trouble spots around the globe to danger.”
I can only conclude that its the discipline and decency of our (US, British and other) troops that has prevented them from targetting Journalists themselves. The crew of HMS Ark Royal jammed the BBC’s signal in the lead up to the war in Iraq because of the bias in its reports.
Zevilyn – exactly right. They (the BBC, the Guardian etc) do regard themselves as the superior elite.
Fuck’em.
Yep, journalists should examine the beam in their own eye.
Isn’t it the craven attitude to terrorists around the globe that is in very large part to blame for the rise in terrorism?
When did we last hear a BBC journalist ask say Gerry Adams whether he accepted the IRA had abused people’s human rights and keep repeating it 14 times the way Paxman did with Michael Howard over a very minor matter of public administration? They CAN do it – but not when it comes to the armed bullies.
If journalists had for the last thirty years been investigating extremist Islamic groups, illegal immigration scams and failure of the authorities to penetrate terrorist groups, wouldn’t the world be a safer place now?
The elite has always had contempt for the masses – it’s jsut a different elite now. The democratic revolution has yet to happen.
David
David Field,
We don’t need a democratic (majoritarian) revolution, we need more individual rights, and I don’t mean entitlements either.
Paxman made that silly over and over comment to Howard simply because nothing else would come into his head. Nothing new there then Jezzer!!!!!!!!!!!!
Paxman is a huge Statist. Just read his books!
Funnily enough, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Paxman give a classic terrier-like grilling to anyone from the Lib Dems. Labour and Conservatives, yes, Lib Dems, no.
There are lots of studies to show that US media and journalists are overwhelmingly liberal/left. And Columbia is nototiously so.
Who paid for Sambrooke’s trip and his fatuously inaccurate remarks ?
James –
To be fair to El Paxo, he did humiliate Charles Kennedy with the
(pretty outrageous) probing about alleged out of control alcohol consumption.
David
it is despicable to imply that Frank Gardner got shot ‘despite’ supposedly being a biased leftwing journalist, Sambrook said the flag flying ‘journalism’ harmed ALL journos, left or right wing.
Gardner is now most likely paralysed and in a recent story said he had not been able to hold his two children for months because of his pain. And this is not to mention the sad death of his colleage. Crowing over their pain is despicable.
Anonymous,
You most certainly mistake my intent if you think I’m crowing over what happened to Mr Gardner. Those who committed the violence against him and his colleague are completely at fault and I do not rejoice in his pain. My prayers are with him and his family.
My point was over Sambrook’s ridiculous implication that somehow reporters whose networks are not perceived to be ‘neutral’ enough are at greater risk. If this is so, why were BBC reporters they attacked?