Roundup.

I’m rather busy at the moment, so here are some quick links on several subjects all in one fell post.

Coming Anarchy (a blog with the intriguing tagline “Speak Victorian – Think Pagan”) wasn’t impressed with the economic assumptions behind a BBC article called Living in Somalia’s Anarchy.

Norman Geras agrees with many complainers that Jeremy Paxman and other media interviewers are too rude and dismissive to many political interviewees, including George Galloway. Anyone who reads Normblog knows that he isn’t saying this out of any fondness for Gorgeous George.

Dash Riprock is one of many who comment unfavourably on this article by Tim Butcher, “Stigma of life in “Traitors’ Village.”

JC Keiner wrote a formal complaint to the BBC about the same article, copied to us. She cited the way in which reprisals including plucking the eyes out of a corpse were described as “Old Testament-style brutality”. An extract from her letter of complaint:

“It is surely anti-semitism to attribute these brutal atrocities committed by non Jews to Jewish religious law, based on a gross misrepresentation of it. Your web site compounds this by using the words “Old Testament-style Brutality” as a subhead. It is not excusable to defend this as an example of a correspondent’s personal perspective, since the BBC undertakes to avoid anti-semitic or otherwise racist content.”

“Lazy Student” says that this piece on the French Referendum makes “a no vote sound like the end of the world.” (UPDATE 18 May: PJF reports that the phrase “So a No [vote] looks like bad news all round.” has been stealth edited out of this article.)

ADDED LATER: The Newsweek allegation about a copy of the Koran and its fateful consequences have been the subject of a blogswarm. Paul Reynold’s article “Koran story brings US journalism crisis” rounds up this and related stories.