only to come up empty-handed once more. Yes, friends, the BBC has a story about Iraq the Model, a pro-western blog by Iraqis (and sometimes linked on B-BBC of all strange things). Now, however, such hopeful news is clouded by this ‘revelation.’ (Hmm, the Beeb must read the New York Times once in a while.)
The fight has raised the issue of identity and misrepresentation in weblogs, where often it is nearly impossible to verify if the person “blogging” really is who they claim to be.
The BBC online article makes much of a supposed rift between the three Iraqi blogger brothers. Ali, started a blog called Free Iraqi. Now that the BBC has highlighted this supposed conspiracy, check out what Ali has to say about some members of the press.
I feel I should give my opinion on the NY times article about me and Iraq the Model that has created some variable reactions on the blogosphere. The article was, despite Ms Boxer’s kindness, a bad piece of journalism. I had around 45 minutes long phone call with the reporter about my journey with Iraq the Model, my new site, the elections, the general situation here in Baghdad but she (or the paper) seems to have a certain agenda and managed to change the whole issue into a very silly gossip (going as far as quoting trolls!) that is way beneath any respectable paper and certainly beneath me so I won’t give it more attention but lesson learned and I won’t make the mistake of talking to anyone from the NY times again. It’s important to note though that my feelings of respect, gratitude and love for the American people have never and will never change.
Just face it. Every last one of us works for the CIA.
UPDATE: I just noticed that InstaPundit points to Chrenkoff on this smear of Iraqi bloggers.
This was good (from NZ Bear):
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/archives/2005/01/18/pathetic_journalism_provokes_nausea_and_revulsion.php#001641
“When I telephoned a woman named Sarah Boxer in New York last week, I wondered who might answer. A DNC flack? A hack posing as a journalist? Someone paid by The New York Times to craft hatchet-jobs on Iraqis who dare to express thanks to America for deposing Saddam? Or simply a lazy writer with some confused ideas about fact-checking and objectivity? Until she picked up the phone, she was just a ghost on the page.”
off topic sorry but i just had to laugh at this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4190659.stm
‘The former Labour MP’s axing from the BBC had just come through and – freed from the constraints of balance and impartiality – he was looking to get involved in politics again.’
brian wheeler wheels out a classic.
‘The former Labour MP’s axing from the BBC had just come through and – freed from the constraints of balance and impartiality – he was looking to get involved in politics again.’
Good god, jx, you just made me spurt Dr. Pepper all over my monitor. “Freed from the constraints of balance and impartiality”? Lord how they delude themselves, that is the funniest thing I am likely to hear all day today. I’m STILL laughing as I type this.
PS — the Beeb has shown itself that it not only passes off left-wing Internet rumors as legitimate news stories, but it also cribs those same Internet rumor stories from the NY Times! All that money and they still have to crib from other “news” sources. What a pack of incompetents.
“the Beeb has shown itself that it not only passes off left-wing Internet rumors as legitimate news stories”
Susan: I hope you didn’t agree with Pete that the BBC should have covered the “CIA reckons EU will fall round our ears in a bit” rubbish? That would be a terrible, terrible, pit of irony to fall into. I’ve already baited the trap for Pete methinks…
The most serious thing about the NYT story was her idle speculation that one or all the brothers might be CIA agents. In Iraq, that is really playing with people’s lives, setting the guys up as targets. Even if the journalist is an idiot, any decent editor should have spiked that remark or even the whole lazy story.
redken
Sorry, that went way over my head. You’ll have to spell it out for me. Do bare in mind that I did not state that the BBC SHOULD have covered the story, I stated that if the CIA had stated that if the EU economy in 15 would make the US economy look like Mongolia’s, the BBC would of course have reported it.
No sneer quotes for this headline on BBC News website:
Zimbabwe rejects US tyranny slur
Most people understnad slur to mean an inaccurate defamatory attack on one’s character. How can anyone characterise Zimbabwe today as anything other than a tyranny.
Mugabe is the tyrant and the MDC is being tyrranised. That’s not a slur.
David
Mugabe has the good fortune to be a black tyrant (or is that ‘tyrant’) who fought against the white oppressor. This makes him a hero of the left.
OT:
Radio 2’s coverage of the Yorkshire Ripper’s day out was a classic. They deceided that the best person to speak to for the victims perspective was the husband of someone who escaped a ripper attack in 1975. Needless to say, he opined that the victims had ‘moved on’ (presumably not including the dead ones), put it behind them, blah, blah, blah.
Why and how this guy was qualified to speak for the families was not explained, but note that, yet again, the person interviewed ‘for balance’ turns out to be relentlessly on-message.
Just face it. Every last one of us works for the CIA.
Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I think he’s from the CIA.
OFF Topic –
“Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, has indicated that the government will reject calls to reduce the length of the BBC’s royal charter from 10 years to five.”
– Financial Times.
Today, the main problem in relation to Britain’s public broacsting policy is Tessa Jowell herself.
Tessa Jowell is the responsible minister. The BBC is formally accountable to the UK parliament through Ms. Jowell.
The worst examples of BBC lies, distortions and suppression of information (most frequent) has occurred while under her oversight. I’m sure David Kelly would back me up on this one, if only he could.
Ten more years of an unregulated BBC is simply not an option. Tessa Jowell must resign – the sooner the better.
The ability to charge all households according to hours of usage by use of digital technology looks likey to be achieved across Britain by about 2010.
That is the time when the BBC Royal Charter and the whole principle of the licence fee should be reviewed. Therefore the Char6ter should be renewed for, say, 7 years.
The Tories ought to jump on Tessa Jowell’s intransigence and offer a further review in 5 years’ time. With strong hints of a slashing cut to the licence fee, if not outright opposition. Say £50 per annum as the first step down towards abolition, except for households watching more than X hours of BBC channels per month.
OT The Telegraph says the BBC Charter will be revised to include specific requirement for fair and balanced news. Go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk, the story is listed among K home news. And at the foot of the story is a link to the December story where the Gerald kaufman’s Commons media committee was calling for a five-year ct of parliament instead of a 10-year Royal Charter. We will all get a chance to comment on this when the Green Paper comes out soon.
“
JohninLondon
“Also yesterday Michael Grade, the corporation’s chairman, said BBC television and radio channel controllers would be fired or have their budgets cut if they failed to meet their public service obligations.”
All the more to keep up the flow of complaints.
Nice piece by Norm Geras on the Radio 5 report of Iraqis voting in Manchester this morning: http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2005/01/preparing_to_vo.html
Notice how the reporter tries to do everything to air his own prejudices and discredit the Iraqi elections. And how dignified the Iraqi voter is in response.
Yes, that radio report has a lot of suggestions of “when did you stop beating your wife” about it, doesn’t it?
The Beeb is shameless.
Today’s Telegraph has an article saying that an internal BBC review of coverage of Europe makes a lot of criticisms. But it looks as though as though some of these are very PC.
On the right of the article (go to telegraph.co.uk, click on Home News and check down the list) is a link to an hilarious Internet Explorer error-notice. Here is the link :
http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Various/BBC_Charter.html
It reads :
Justification for BBC Charter renewal cannot currently be found. The corporation might be experiencing difficulties defining public service broadcasting, or the public may be sick of funding it. (contd)
BBC “error-notice” continued :
”
Please try the following:
Click the Privatise the BBC button, or switch to Sky.
If you typed £2.6 billion in the Budget bar, make sure that you did not add an extra zero by mistake.
To improve the BBC’s efficiency settings, click the Tools menu, and then click Efficiency Options. On the Bureaucracy Control tab, click Settings. These have been provided by successive Director Generals (DGS) and are still set to “unacceptably high”.
If your Conservative Party is enabled, you may find that the BBC automatically shuts down when it fails to activate the Charter Renewal module.
To find out what the BBC did with the last £2.6 billion, click Detect Value for Money
Some programmes require 128-bit journalist verifiction. Click the About Hutton menu and then enable Andrew Gilligan in order to find out more about this option.
If you want to work for the BBC, make sure your Eurosceptic settings have been disabled. To confirm, click the EU Consti
contd
If you want to work for the BBC, make sure your Eurosceptic settings have been disabled. To confirm, click the EU Constitution menu, and then click Yes Please. On the Advanced tab, scroll to the Iraq section and delete Resolution 1441 to change default language to French.
Click the Back button to return to the BBC’s golden age.
(this link nactually leads to a normal “Can’t find the webpage” error notice
The BBC continue to downplay the Iraqi elections using some bogus numbers.
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/01/iraq-low-turnout-for-iraq-expat-vote.html
Interestingly enough, coverage this morning by their reporter in Glasgow on the Iraqi elections up there was unbiased, and also alluded to residual (from Saddam days) Iraqi mistrust of what could be done with the polling records should the bad guys get hold of them. Overall, the reporting was balanced and fair.
Then they voided the balance completely by having a follow-up discussion with one Iraqi academic who is boycotting the election because he doesn’t recognise the legitimacy of a US-sponsored vote and an Iraqi academic who will not be voting because he thinks expats are over-represented…Sheesh. That was balanced…Yeah…Right!