(the blog, not the news) is on a roll. In these three posts the author examines BBC reports from one of their stringers in Iraq, Fadil al-Badrani. He is not without sympathy:
Iraqis working with the foreign news media are in grave danger — unless, that is, they report stories in a manner to the liking of the insurgents and terrorists. For example, Iraqi journalists sometimes get tips on upcoming atrocities so they can be on the scene and tell the world about the chaos and misery that have engulfed the country since the Americans arrived. The more frightening the images and story, the better it is for the reporter’s well-being. All this is especially true for a stringer working in a town like Fallujah — a stringer like Fadil al-Badrani.
Nonetheless he wants highter standards from the BBC than this:
On Monday, Newsnight interviewed Fadil al-Badrani who, we were told, lives in central Fallujah. We were not told Mr al-Badrani’s occupation. Nor were we told how the BBC managed to find him and arrange a telephone interview. The viewer was left with the impression that Mr al-Badrani was merely an unfortunate civilian trapped in the city. He described an apocalyptic scene. The Americans have turned Fallujah into “hell,” he said.
On Tuesday, Mr al-Badrani was back on the telephone — this time identified as an Iraqi journalist.
(Via Blithering Bunny and LGF.)
also worth pointing out the BBC seems all too ready to point out that its reporters with the US military are subject to ‘restrictions’ – thus preventing them slagging off Coalition Forces as they usually seem to want to do
Yeah, they seem to ask coalition members rhetorical questions, usually relating to violence and death to lift up their biased agenda again.
How can you be ‘too ready’ to point out that a report is subject to restrictions?
When you imply reports from the enemy camp are not restricted or manipulated in any way and so more reliable.
They allow any individual (without any screening or filtering whatsoever) to go onscreen and list the most amazing stories of personal victimhood.
Half of them are just b*llshit.
For example I remember a few months back hearing a fat old lady in a burka moaning “Man from helicopted throw bomb through my roof”.
To be fair, I don’t which channel this was on, but it is typical of what the BBC has become accustomed to airing.
If you put the name al-Badrani into media databases you will find that the very first reference to Fadil al-Badrani – with the first name spelt Fadel – is from 25 September 2004. It was carried by the Reuters news agency. It’s a story about a US airstrike in Falluja. So he’s been a journalist – or, at least, a journalist working for a western news organisation – for all of two months.
However, on 2 January 2004 US forces detained, and then held for three days, three Reuters employees and one NBC one near Falluja. They had attended the scene of a downed US helicopter. They were allegedly abused by US troops during their captivity. Reuters protested about the alleged abuse subsequently. The names of the four detainees? Salem Ureibi, Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani, Sattar Jabar al-Badrani and Ali Mohammed Hussein al-Badrani.
… cont:
Oh, and in July 2003 Reuters carried a story from Falluja quoting ‘real estate agent [!] Mohammad al-Badrani’ as saying “Saddam is an Iraqi, he’s of our flesh and blood, but these foreigners are intolerable. We are suffering.”
I wonder whether any of these al-Badranis are by any chance related?
Probably not given that it’s a pretty common family name. Or maybe all these people called Smith who crop up frequently are part of a sinister family plot?
Dear THFC
Maybe. But if you put the name al Badrani into the media database I used you get only 400-odd articles mentioning that name. These refer to about ten different people, mostly Iraqis. That doesn’t make it ‘pretty common’.
And I think it’s at least possible that the thee journalists called al-Badrani detained and allegedly beaten up by US forces near Falluja in January, and the man called al-Badrani in Falluja criticising the US occupation in 2003 (and Dr al Hakim al Badrani of Falluja hospital, who also features in media reports) are related to the fadil al-Badrani now reporting for Reuters from Falluja. Which, I think, suggests that Fadil may not be quite the impartial and objective observer he is represented as being by the BBC and others.
THFC: You don’t seem to appreciate the importance of the clan structure in Sunni Iraq.
If all/some of these people are from the al-Badrani clan, then it might go someway to explaining the reporting of the Beeb’s man in Fallujah.
Either way, the “journalist” makes out that all was sweetness and light in Fallujah. Yeah – like it was swwetness and light in Afghanistan under the Taliban.