The BBC, like many other MSM outfits, has reported very uncritically Giuliana Sgrena’s version of the shooting by American soldiers of the car she was travelling in, in which an Italian secret service agent lost his life, and her claims that the Americans did (or may have done) this deliberately.
(BBC stories: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; claims that the shooting was deliberate here, interview here. Original BBC stories of the kidnapping: 1, 2, 3).
First of all, along with many other media outfits, the BBC virtually never mention the fact that she works for a Communist newspaper Il Manifesto. The BBC merely says in some of its stories that it is left-wing. (The only exception is this story, although it’s otherwise a hagiography).
The BBC has failed to report that in all likelihood her release was paid for by the Italian government – to the tune of £3-4 million, according to The Times, which reports that Giovanni Alemanno, the Italian government’s agriculture minister, saying this was very probable (not that this stopped him saying, according to The Telegraph, that “Italy must defend its honour. We may be trusted allies, but we cannot give the impression of being subordinate”).
This money, of course, will go directly to funding terrorism.
(It hasn’t, of course, been provedthat a payment was made, but then the BBC saw fit to report on Sgrena’s speculations about the motives of the American soldiers without the slightest bit of supporting evidence).
The BBC has never said anything at all about some of suspicions surrounding the kidnapping of various hard-left reporters who were later released. Perhaps there was never anything in these suspicions, but why give Sgrena’s speculations a free run? For example, the BBC says:
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has said she cannot accept US troops
accidentally fired on her car after her kidnappers freed her in Baghdad.Ms Sgrena told the BBC Americans guarding Baghdad airport might not have been
informed about her arrival, but their actions could not be excused.Earlier, she suggested US troops might have deliberately tried to kill her.
A lot of analysis has appeared on Little Green Footballs (LGF posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). LGF points out that:
She doesn’t have any explanation for the fact that she is still alive — because if the soldiers at that checkpoint had really been trying to kill her and her companions, there would be nothing left of her car. Or her.
The BBC reports on the claim that 300-400 rounds had been fired at the car:
Ms Sgrena’s editor, Gabriele Polo, said he was told by Italian officials that
300 to 400 rounds were fired at the car.
(The Guardianalso reports on this claim, although they have Sgrena as saying it).
So we’re supposed to believe that the US were deliberately trying to kill her, and that they fired 300-400 rounds at the car, yet few bullets entered the car, and only one person was killed (by the same bullet that injured Sgrena)? How can the BBC take this seriously? Either this many rounds were not shot, or that they were, but into the engine block in order to stop the car. (The Telegraph reportsthat the Americans say they did fire into the engine block).
(There have been some claims made since that the “300-400 rounds” claim was a mistranslation).
Sgrena’s own story is a little hazy. She initially claimed that the car was not going particularly fast, a claim that was widely reported. Yet now in an interview with her own newspaper Il Manifesto, translated by CNN, she gives the impression that the car was going fast enough they were almost losing control as they swerved to avoid puddles:
The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell.
As LGF say, this was an area they knew to be swarming with American troops, and which Calipari, the dead SS agent, regarded (says the LA Times) as the most dangerous place in Baghdad. Yet it doesn’t sound like they were going at an average speed to me.
The original claimthat they weren’t going “particularly fast” sounds a little fudgy to me anyway – sounds like it means “We were going fast, but not absolutely flat-out top-speed, but I don’t want to admit to that in so many words”.
In fact, the LA Times has her saying that the car “was not going especially fast for a situation of that type”. (The Australian has her saying: “We weren’t going very fast, given the circumstances”). A situation of that type? What type? Getting away from kidnappers? In other words, “We weren’t driving as fast as you might expect given that we getting away from kidnappers, a situation in which most people would drive like a bat out of hell, but we were still going fast by ordinary standards“.
Elsewhere, though, CNN report her saying that “Our car was driving slowly”, and The Australian saysthe claim was that they were going about 40mph. So which is it? Driving slowly, at 40 mph, or not especially fast for a situation of that type, or going fast enough that when swerving to avoid puddles they were almost losing control?
House of Wheels says there are other things in her story that seem inconsistent. It’s hard to know whether this is due to bad reporting and translating, but there’s been no hint from the BBC of these concerns. For example, The Guardian reports that Sgrena said that her car had been through several checkpoints already. Yet here she is reported as saying:
We hadn’t previously encountered any checkpoint and we didn’t understand where the shots came from.
And in some places she says there was absolutely no warning before the shots, and that no lights had been flashed at them, but in other places she says that they was a light flashed into the car beforehand.
For example, she told the BBC
We had no signal. We were just on the way to the airport. They started to shoot at us without any light or signal. There was no block, there was nothing.
And CNN say
in an interview with Italy’s La 7 Television, the 56-year-old journalist said ‘there was no bright light, no signal’.
But in the same CNN report, we get this:
Italian magistrate Franco Ionta said Sgrena reported the incident was not at a checkpoint, but rather that the shots came from ‘a patrol that shot as soon as they lit us up with a spotlight’.
And The Australian reports her as saying:
It wasn’t a checkpoint, but a patrol that opened fire straight after it shone a beacon on us.
Sounds to me like contrary to the impression created originally by Sgrena, and perpetuated by the likes of the BBC (and AP), the Americans did shine a warning beacon. Perhaps they didn’t give enough of a warning, but that’s a different matter to not shining any light at all. (Although given that the area was an incredibly dangerous one where many soldiers have been killed, I wouldn’t blame them for that – in fact, that they left survivors at all is rather extraordinary).
So the communist reporter can’t be said to be a particularly reliable witness. And the BBC has chosen to present a rather one-sided account (just as it did when reporting so credulously on claims that insurgent groups had shot down that Hercules in January, which they’ve admitted todaywas probably not what happened).
Cross-posted at Blithering Bunny.
Update:I thought BBC News 24 had stopped reporting on this story, but they’ve just had another report on the funeral where all the same claims are again made.
Update 2: More from Instapundit, Powerline, Washington Times, The Washington Post (which says this sort of thing is common), Joe Gandleman (who has a lot of links), and The Christian Science Monitor, which reports on the confusion that often surrounds the checkpoints.
If you’d read the bloody story about the Hercules coming down in Iraq you linked to, you’d see that if anything it adds credence to the missle theory! Where it says”But BBC defence correspondent Paul Adams said the “pretty comprehensive” list of possible causes ruled out by investigators left a missile strike as one of the few remaining possibilities.”
Yes, I did mess-up there. (That’s actually a good example of well written and researched BBC article.)
Hmmm…as if the US military would fail to kill her if she were truly a target. The likely explanation is, you speed through a checkpoint in a seriously dangerous part of town, you takes your chances. You wouldn’t catch me trying it, but then, I like my life. Why the hell do these journalists persist in traipsing around in a war zone anyway, getting themselves kidnapped and abused, which will be broadcast world wide via video, resulting in public/grieving family/partners clamor for their release, in turn forcing their governments/employers to pay enormous ransoms they’ll deny paying, further encouraging more of the same old same old since it works, with said ransoms ultimately padding the pockets of the local terrorists? I mean, surely there must be more original ways of stirring the anti-American pot, this routine is getting old. And I’ll be seriously ticked off if one single soldier gets the slightest bit of grief over this crap.
I think someone has already touched on this…Its funny how, in the MSM worldview, the US military is able to bring down lethal and accurate fire at will like the hand of God on Italian hostages and western journos but when faced with an armed Jihadi they become bumbling fools who can only shoot women, kids and innocent passersby.
“Its funny how, in the MSM worldview”
Er.. the point being made by the media that this a cock up similar to that of accidentally shooting Iraqi innocents.
I’ve yet to see a bulletin that describes the US soldiers as pinpoint snipers in this case.
“What do we get for our licence fee money? A few bloggers who are paid nothing have managed to discover more than the BBC ever did with just a few spare hours in front of the computer.”
Exaggeration = shot credibility.
Unless you genuinely mean it. In which case you are barking.
Yet anon. details have been published here that haven’t made it into the BBC.
“details have been published here that haven’t made it into the BBC”
Fine, accept the limitations of the media and blogs. LGF, in common with blogs left and right, can publish much more quickly and at length on a single issue. Good for them. But:
1) They aren’t primary news gatherers (except in very few circumstances) and talk of MSM vs blogs ignores the reality that without a feed of information from journos, blogs would be very limited in their ability to collate, dissect and disseminate primary news and analysis.
2) Most high profile blogs are terrible at correcting errors. Poorer than any of the MSM, even including Rathergate, Hutton etc. One small but indicative example. When the Jewish woman in Paris was assaulted by anti-semites, LGF and the comment board here rang with cries of bias as it was reported slightly sceptically. Yet where were susbsequent corrections? She made the story up.
It’s not a right-left issue. Blogs are highly partisan, let’s not pretend otherwise: it’s their USP. They often sacrifice accuracy for verification, completeness for exploration of a sub-issue. But they still feed off the MSM.
The notion that the blogosphere is a self-correcting paragon of truth is a fiction, perpetuated by interested parties in the blogosphere (I.e. Hugh Hewitt flogging his book).
A hostile appraisal of this site shows a significant majority of the content is based on selective presentation of information and a highly skewed form of criticism.
E.g., the micro “criticism” that the BBC should label Il Manifesto as communist rather than left wing…
.. and yet, no mention whatsoever of the political affiliations of endorsed “news sources” such as Washington Times, Powerline etc etc.
It’s your site, your rules: if in doubt, blame it on bad faith at the BBC etc. *You* can be partisan, incomplete etc because you’re free.
Nonetheless, this is an echo chamber. Thoughtful dissenters have no place here when they dispute the prevailing credo as get eventually painted as a dumb pinkos or trolls. For the record, the bias allegations on this site are getting more spurious and regular commenters sound increasingly like cheap knockoffs of popular right wing blogs than anyone making a serious or systematic appraisal of left wing bias at the BBC.
Interesting article about the imminent conquest of Europe Andrew. Here is an even scarier one:
http://www.harrysnews.com/tgTriumphOfTheEast.htm
This is by far the biggest issue in politics today, but it is completely blacked out by the media.
Monkey,
If you have nothing bigger to worry about than Muslims taking over the world then I envy you.
That’s it cockney. You just keep your head in the sand. Never mind those pesky Demographic statistics, they mean absolutely nothing.
Nothing better to worry about? Are you kidding? I’m a lazy p*sshead student. I’ve got loads of things to worry about. 😉
Demographic statistics are terrifying things aren’t they? I wouldn’t worry – we’ll probably all have been conscripted by the Chinese army, starved to death under the socialist economics of a European superstate, or forcibly converted to evangelical Christianity by neoconservative neoimperialists by the time it turns serious.
What the hell do students have to worry about apart from how best to waste my taxes? A degenerate chimpanzee could get a 2:1 these days.
I don’t know about degrees, but they are good tool users, so we could train them as plumbers. They couldn’t be any worse than half of the spanner monkeys in the Yellow Pages.
Anonymous – “”Its funny how, in the MSM worldview”
Er.. the point being made by the media that this a cock up similar to that of accidentally shooting Iraqi innocents.”
What all media? Segrena herself seems to be touting the view that it was deliberate shooting and other media have been willing to buy into that. Which was my point.
The Italian journalist lies, some blogs pick it up. The BBC fails to correct the lies – indeed does it even know that the car was virtually unscathed ?
Yes, the blogs are often faster. But they are also often self-correcting. If they post something factually wrong, they are quickly picked up on it by other blogs. There is better self-balancing.
These days, anyone wanting a reasonable overview of the news can sample a MIX of the MSM and the blogs.
Cockney…”or forcibly converted to evangelical Christianity by neoconservative neoimperialists by the time it turns serious.”
You ARE aware of the fact that the Church of England is the Big Granddaddy of all of the Evangelical churches, aren’t you?
Evangelical=concentrating on the life of Christ as told in the Gospels by the Four Evangelists (get the connection now?), Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Most mainstream Protestant churches are Evangelical… Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc.
Cockney (cont)…
So you see, you don’t have to wait for conversion by the neoconservative neoimperialists. England was already forcibly converted to Evangelical Christianity by the Big Mama of imperialists, Elizabeth I ;).
Blogs are self correcting and if they are not they lose readership.
The blogs that I read update and correct as more information accrues. Their mistakes are left for all to see along with the corrections. This is how they maintain their credibility.
There is no stealth editing. It’s a shame that the same cant be said for the Beeb.
I have PDF files of Beeb stories that have been stealth edited without comment, apology or any indication that the edits were made.
Feel free to email me for examples.
Oops, it appears that the email doesn’t appear as a link any more. My email addy is StinKerr(at)Yahoo.com
mamapajamas
The left here (or anywhere I suppose) really doesn’t know much about religion. Following the US election campaign, during which the BBC and others employed the terms evangelical, Christian and right wing in any particular order, ‘evangelical’ is taken to mean ‘Christian fundamentalist’ by the left. That way they can equate those who simply are Christians with Islamic terrorists. To be Jewish is rapidly becoming verboten in the west and these are the first stirrings of the same treatment being handed out to Christians. Needless to say Muslims get a free pass all the way.
mamapajamas,
I am aware of that. My comments were not serious. I was attempting to illustrate the bonkersness of the previous poster’s comments.
Re: Blogs – you’re kidding yourself if you genuinely think that they are remotely credible. They are entertainment, a forum in which to have an entertaining argument. Sure they can pick up on lies and contradictions from on high but Private Eye has performed this function for years so it’s hardly radical.
This is why there are no popular blogs with a centrist, realist, rational political standpoint, it would be too boring. If you disagree show me a successful blog putting forward a political philosophy which would have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning a UK election – ever!
“Blogs are self correcting and if they are not they lose readership.”
That’s cant. I’ve read literally hundreds of blog posts, left and right, containing factual errors or uncorrected innuendo. These blogs are among the most popular precisely *because* they are partisan.
If they held up their hands and acknowledged and said “we were wrong” every time they were or “hey, chaps, there might be another side to this story” they would hemorrhage readers.
Show me a popular, non-partisan political blog and it’ll either be an extreme rarity or a fiction.
On that note, I don’t suppose the lovely Susan, who spent so long accusing the BBC of bias for ignoring the *obvious* evidence of extremist arab involvement in the murder of coptic Christians might care to offer a correction or two:
“The upstairs neighbor of an Egyptian Christian family found slain in their home in January was charged along with another man Friday in the killings, and authorities said the motive was robbery, not religious fanaticism, as some had feared.” [AP, March 4th]
Similarly, will Susan and her cohorts howl with outrage at the BBC ignoring a more important story of extremists in the US murdering a judge’s spouse and mother?
Perhaps not, because the omission can’t be neatly boxed with the allegation that the story “doesn’t fit the typical left wing worldview” rather than the more obvious explanation that it can’t cover *every* story.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/04/judge.bodies.ap/index.html
and
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/03/03/schuster.column/index.html
Latest news is the Lefkow murders had nothing to do with White Supremicists but were the work of a disgruntelled plaintiff who Judge Lefkow had ruled against.
Anon. (give us a name, sweetie)
I hope you don’t work in the law; there actually was evidence of Islamic involvement in the murders, it may yet be proven that there was Islamic involvement, because neutered police cite ‘robbery’ that alone is no proof of ‘robbery’. My instinct (nothing more, ok!) tells me there is an Islamic angle to this. It just doesn’t smell right.
Which extremists murdered the judge’s husband and mother? Your links indicate that no arrests have been made yet. You wouldn’t be guilty of the crime of which you accuse Susan, would you, namely of jumping the gun and ‘howling with outrage’?
Anonymous:
Well, first of all the Beeb didn’t ignore the Lefkow murders (which I noted days ago) so there’s no reason for me to howl with outrage, is there?:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4307513.stm
They still haven’t reported anything about the Armanious murders as far as I know. Their evil twin al-Guardian did report on the Armanious murders — but only after the arrests of the suspects seemed to exonerate an Islamic connection. Why didn’t they report the story when the murders first took place?
PS — Islamic websites were discovered to be cheering the murders of the Armanious family — something that was never reported by the MSM.
Just like the White Supremacists in the Lefkow case. At the very least both are guilty of malice and incitement to violence of not violence itself. And both were legitimate suspects – but Islamist connection was played down and the Supremicist angle played up. That’s the bias.
Indeed, Roxana, why didn’t the Beeb report the Armanious murders at all, while they prominently played up the Lefkow murders (with a scary photo of Matt Hale, yet!)? True, the Lefkow case involved a judge, but the Armanious murders involved children, so the news value was roughly the same.
The fact is, the Beeb’s editors would rather gargle with glass than report anything negative connected with their teacher’s pet, the “I” word.
“Well, first of all the Beeb didn’t ignore the Lefkow murders”
One article. Can you have it both ways? Commenters and posters here consistently use arguments along the line of “the BBC NEVER said” when there is an online article or “the article is BURIED on the website.”
Be honest: if this was an extremist islamic cult fingered for murdering a judge’s family, would you consider it appropriate for a single article buried in the midst of the BBC’s website?
Why, if this story plays to a raft of stereotypes you claim the BBC has [Americans, right wingers, religious types etc etc] is there such minimal coverage?
“Islamic websites were discovered to be cheering the murders of the Armanious family”
Why should the MSM comment on it any more than the rest of cyberspace? LGF commenters have at various times called for annihilation of all muslims, the annexing of France, celebration of the death of Rachel Corrie.
Cyberspace is vast, unregulated and full of big talk. If the media reported every extremist or tactless comment that fitted a certain stereotype, it would descend to the he said/she said parochialism of parts of the blogosphere.
“but Islamist connection was played down and the Supremicist angle played up. That’s the bias”
That’s *your* interpretation, both that Islamic involvement was unduly downplayed and white supremacy accentuated, and that bias has defined the reporting.
It’s more plausible that the evidence has defined the balance of reporting, and that the murder of a judge’s family is more important than the murder of an ordinary family.
Anonymous:
Lots of false equivalencies, where do I begin.
1.) The murders of the Armanious family were not just “cheered” on the Islamic website — they were cheered on an Islamic website that posted photographs, threats and addresses of other “uppity” Arab and Coptic Christians who dared to criticize Islam on Paltak along with members the Armanious family.
2.) Lefkow murders: as I recall, the story did appear on the frontpage of the Beeb’s Americas page when the Lefkow murders were first reported. (The story is time-stamped March 1 so that was quite a while ago.) That’s a pretty prominent placement, especially considering the fact that the Armanious family murders weren’t reported at all.
3.) As I said before, the Lefkow murders are basically the same news value by US standards: the adult family members of a prominent judge versus a whole family that included two children, one of whom was only 8 years old. Believe it or not, the murder of an entire family, including an eight-year-old, is not an every day occurrence here in the bad old USA.
4.)
“That’s *your* interpretation, both that Islamic involvement was unduly downplayed and white supremacy accentuated, and that bias has defined the reporting.”
That would be both my and Roxana’s interpretation, based on long experience of observing how the MSM handles news related to Islam (one example: the shameful attempts to cover up the fact that the Washington sniper was a convert to Islam, or the routine way that UK media always refers to Islamic-background criminals as “Asians” when everyone knows it is not Sikhs and Hindus they are talking about.)
Hi Anonymous, you seem rather well informed and rather interested in defending the BBC.
Rather than criticise the more speculative thoughts of some of the commenters here (as if that qualifies as an attack on us all), why not address the substantive issues raised by those who post on this blog – Natalie, Ed, Scott, I and others – there are a number of good recent topics that you could address – your justifications or otherwise for the BBC’s actions will be read with interest.
“Rather than criticise the more speculative thoughts of some of the commenters here (as if that qualifies as an attack on us all)”
An admirable notion, Andrew. However, speculation on the motives behind editorial decisions and hypotetheses on what the BBC *might* do in some circumstances is key feature of the criticism here. If the evidence and the speculation were distinct, I’d address only the evidence.
When speculation of bias is presented without robust accompanying evidence, how else to argue the point than by addressing the speculation?
“why not address the substantive issues raised by those who post on this blog – Natalie, Ed, Scott, I and others”
OK. In all seriousness, I’d love to see this blog deal with some of the really meaty, substantive questions which must underpin some of the BBC’s editorial policy:
a) Where the “centre line” is when you talk about left and right. How do you reconcile, for example, different US, European and UK perceptions of “hard left”, “centre left”, “centre right” and “hard right”?
b) How you think the BBC is better or worse than other comparable media organisations
c) Whether this blog sees reporting of claims/comments as endorsement of claims
d) How this blog would resolve in a watertight way some of the recurring issues (e.g. the use of the term “militant” and “terrorist”)
e) How you define “balance” – is it always equal reporting of argument and counterargument. Should evidentially strong and weak viewpoints be reported neutrally?
“- there are a number of good recent topics that you could address – your justifications or otherwise for the BBC’s actions will be read with interest.”
I’d be glad to, time permitting. However, since many of the claims here of bias automatically assume bad faith or cultural/political dogma on the part of the BBC, we may not agree on the original premise nor the delimitations of the evidence.
One final point – “you seem.. rather interested in defending the BBC”
If you genuinely want to read a defence of the BBC, *where merited*, don’t trot out the hackneyed, and unfounded, inference of vested interest. Perhaps we can debate the points, rather than speculate on the motives for making them.
This blog must really be getting under the BBC’s skin if they are sending anonymous employees over here to press their case.
Anonymous
An answer to a couple of your questions :
1 The BBC should call a spade a spade. should use the word “terrorist” for people who attack civilians. People who blow up Iraqi funeral gatherings are TERRORISTS on any reading of the word, they bare not “militants” or “insurgents”. Even Kofi Annan in his Madrid speech was saying that – and he is wet as dishwater.
2 When the BBC reports claims – eg the Ttalian journalists LIES bout hundreds of bullets hitting her car, a deliberate attempt to kill her – they give credence to the lies. Which is de facto endorsement. people expect the BBC to use proper investigative methods – its called JOURNLISM. And it is clearly biased in the claims it publishes as against the claims it ignores. Just look at how it treated Rathergate or the Swift Boat Veterans.
3 You use Jesuitical sophistry in asking about different nations’ perceptions of “right and left”. Try sticking to “anti-coalition, anti-capitalism, anti-Israel, anti-Christian and the avoidance of any criticism of Islam.” That is the tenor of BBC news – in the UK and worldwide.
“This blog must really be getting under the BBC’s skin if they are sending anonymous employees over here to press their case.”
Susan, it may feel you warm and fluffy inside to think I’m from the BBC or have worked for them, but it ain’t so.
I’ve read this blog long enough to know it’s the standard accusation: that anyone bothering enough to debate with you mob must be “one of them” but the truth is more prosaic, I’m afraid: Ipop by intermittently. Sometimes I mildly agree or disagree, and some things in this blog I find sufficiently bafflingly obtuse or factually wanting to make me comment.
Anonymous
This thread was about the LIES made by an italian journalist and given credence or respectability by the BBC. They have totally mishandled this story, and fail to report that this was a total cock-up by the Italians from the off – they even failed to tell the US military that a hostage release was happening :
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004041.php#comments
It is the Italians that should be put in the hot seat by the BBC – NOT the S military who appear to have been following established procedure and strict rules of engagement.
Anonymous:
Did I say I suspected you personally of being a BBC employee? My, my aren’t we paranoid!
The fact is, we’ve had them here from time to time (remember “The Insider”?)
It’s hardly “mob” paranoia to point that out!
The Italian Justice Minister is now effectively saying that the Itlian journalist was lying :
http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,11965-4190767,00.html
Finally the BBC is catching up with the story online. But the damage was already done by their acquiescence in her lies. And they are not broadcasting any corrections to the lies they put about.