Over two years ago I wrote a short blog entry on ‘black American conservative writers’, and ended the piece with ‘A prize for anyone who ever gets to hear one of them on the BBC’.
Well, I’ve checked my mail and no-one’s written in, so I’ll have to drink the prize myself. For yesterday morning, the voice of Deroy Murdock was heard on Radio Four – admittedly as the last item (RealAudio) on the Saturday edition of the Today Programme, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Alright, he was introduced as writing for a ‘conservative’ journal, whereas the Guardian’s Gary Younge, whose ‘personal view’ prefaced the interview, was not apparently a writer for a ‘liberal’ or ‘left-wing’ publication (other guest Alvin Hall is a BBC favourite) – but hey, a step at a time – it’s difficult for these guys.
Let’s hope the BBC show more respect for intellectual diversity in future, and we get to hear from people like Thomas Sowell and John McWhorter. The BBCs usual spokespeople for black America are more in the mould of Bonnie Greer, a writer and long-time UK resident. In December 2001 BBC TV ran two documentaries, looking at the 9/11 attacks from a pro and anti-American perspective. At the time I wasn’t blogging, but I made a few notes.
“A couple of nights ago BBC2 featured a documentary by Bonnie Greer, who started by saying what a patriot she was (she left the US for Britain some years ago) before trawling her immediate family (who to a man or woman thought ‘the chickens were coming home to roost’) then various Chicagoans for their views. She nodded wisely when people said ‘what goes round, comes round’, but those who, like the solemn 10 year old boy, said ‘these people should be put to death’ were pointed out as examples of US ‘insularity’ and lack of empathy with the Muslim world.”
I remember discussing the programme at work the following day, and saying that I hoped the pro-American show, to be broadcast that evening, would redress the balance.
“What do you mean ?” said a colleague, “that WAS the pro-American view !”
UPDATE – Commenter David H points out that the linguist Professor John McWhorter, unknown to the BBC (other linguistics professors are luckier), has a long piece in today’s Sunday Times.
UPDATE 2 – Clive Davis with the understatement of the year.
“It’s not often you hear a black conservative like Deroy Murdock given a chance to speak his mind.”
I can’t bring myself to read the Face of the week article on Nagin.
Can someone tell me how bad it is?
Rob
He’s a hero. I commented on it in the previous post at 10.29am.
Via our friend DaveT at “The Cabarfeidh Pages” –
The Beeb Easy
By Val MacQueen
http://www.techcentralstation.com/090905A.html
You have read these Beeb/Katrina tales here, but still worth another take, e.g.
Back home in London, the prestigious current affairs show Newsnight weighed in. Moderator and inquisitor-in-chief Jeremy Paxman, under normal circumstances possessed of a sharp intelligence, suffers, like so many other on-camera BBC employees, from a form of Tourette’s syndrome whenever President Bush’s name is mentioned
Re Nagin: “Today, as he fights his own battle with a Republican White House and 25,000 body bags are delivered to his devastated city, Ray Nagin may well be reflecting on the lessons of Louisiana’s history.” Or, actually, he may not. How does the BBC know what Ray Nagin is reflecting on?
And just because 25,000 body bags were delivered does not mean they are needed. Sorry, BBC, to dash your high hopes for more ammunition against George Bush, but it looks now as though – although it is horrible that even one poor soul drowned – the numbers of drowned are comparatively few. Way, way fewer than the “thousands” estimated.
And here comes the predictable, torturously cliché-ridden standard BBC wrap-up: “And Ray Nagin, once the bright hope of this run-down, murder-ridden, place may yet see his own political career washed away with so much else in the city.”
Their facile, agenda-laden journalism makes the skin crawl.
The “heroic” Mayor failed to evacuate the patients from the NO hospitals. They are a priority cse for evcation in his city’s emergency plan.
Which led to some doctors being forced to euthanasia :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=361980&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5
The Mayor’s plan and the state plan also mentioned the need to evacuate the elderly in nursing homes. 70% were not evcuuated, with some gruesome results that people will have seen on TV.
I have also seen mention of Amtrak offering special late-evening train. The Mayor or his emergency officials refused the offer of 850 seats, so the train left empty.
Hello BBC ???????
I’m glad I evacuated my eyeballs from the BBC site in time. Otherwise there would have been a disaster!
Luckily for me I have enough Blogs stockpiled to rescue me from wading through neckdeep collectivist muck flooding out of the BBC.
How strange that the Beeb didn’t mention this great American tradition of coming swiftly to the aid of strangers: “The University of Houston Law Center will be hosting the Loyola-NO School of Law in exile for the remainder of the Fall semester. They will relocate their faculty and 1L’s, as well as some upper division students to our campus, where they will run a parallel law school on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Information about the arrangements is posted at their emergency web site: http://www.jaceebergeron.com/loyola/.”
From The Volokh Conspiracy http://volokh.com/
An entire law school in Texas making room for another whole law school from the stricken area to be their guests and continue their education uninterrupted. Hmmm, I guess BBC News missed that one …
Laban, I do once remember that there was an interview with Ward Connerly on Radio 4 a few years ago.
But that’s all I remember.
O/T
Japanese election seems to indicate that another world leader who was helpful in the removal of Saddam, Junichiro Koizumi, will be back in office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4232988.stm
Blair, Howard, BUSH (yeah!) were also re-elected, with Aznar the casuality with his botched response to 11 March 2004.
Next up, Germany, with a leader who was unhelpful in the removal of Saddam facing the electorate.
NEW PHRASE ALERT, which I got off Protein Wisdom in a wider context , but is an accurate description of the Beeb’s performance over this: Hurricane porn.
http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/18977/
Off Topic:
Personally, I am waiting for all the media ho- ha on Katrina to die down.
Looks like an internet blogger is doing a better job of balanced reporting (through a photo gallery that he took himself over the five day period), than any reports I have seen in the MSM, then again he’s probably not trying to get the tragedy to fit his own agenda…he was just there.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=r9nmta5.b147fdut&Uy=hbb8p1&Ux=1
OT
The BBC has finally got round to reporting the attack on a Christian Palestinian village by several hundred Muslims from a neighbouring village over an alleged illicit relationship between a Muslim woman and a Christian man.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4229136.stm
The excellent Adloyada has a pretty thorough fisking of the BBC website piece
http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2005/09/bbc_avoiding_th.html
comparing it unfavourably with the Jerusalem Post story of last week. The BBC as ever plays down the context of this event – the ongoing threats to Palestinian Christians from Islamists in the PA which have resulted in the mass exodus of Christians from the PA in recent years. Lucy Williamson, for the BBC describes the incident as a “family feud” between two villages, in spite of this quote from an elderly Palestinian Muslim “In Palestinian tradition,” he says, “when you make a mistake like this, you pay with your blood.” This old charmer then goes on to say. “It doesn’t mean we’re not brothers. The people of Taybeh and the people of Deir Jarir are one family.” Ooooh. I’d love to belong to THAT family!!
Adloyada wonders what the BBC would have made of this had there been a similar attack upon a Palestinian Christian village by IDF forces. I think we know the answer to THAT one, don’t we dears?
OT:
Anyone noticed how the trailers for the Radio 4 programme on Angela Merkel say that she has been “branded” the German Margaret Thatcher? Rather than “labelled” or “called”.
But why use a neutral term when you can let your prejudices flood out.
John McWhorter, mentioned by Laban Tall, has a very good article in today’s Sunday Times: White do-gooders did for black America.
Somehow, I think this is one black commentator we won’t be hearing too much from on the BBC.
His name doesn’t even feature on a search of any of their webpages. I expect it will stay that way, unless he would be involved in some sort of scandal.
The sad fact is, what he says makes a lot of sense.
Don’t you think so Paul Reynolds?
David H – No. And oddly enough we never hear anything at all from William Raspberry or Thomas Sowell on the Beeb, either.
BBBC readers may want to get an alternate black take on the Katrina floods from group blogs like Booker Rising, or from individual bloggers like Cobb and Baldilocks.
Laban: it isn’t just the BBC in this case… I was around the folks tonight, and as the channels were flipped in lieu of cricket action, I’m sure I spotted the Reverend Hisself, Jessie Jackson, on ITN.
Mr Reynolds
The BBC showed lots of footage about people trapped at the Convention Centre and the Superdome. Distressing footage.
We know (even though the BBC has never told us) that they should not hve been there in the first place. They shoild have been bussed out, as per the SPECIFIC emergency plans of the city and the state. The Department of Transportation statistics show that there are 21,000 buses in the state of Louisiana. Going way beyond the number of buses in NO itself, where there had been many hundreds. Maybe as many as 2000.
But there was also clear access over the bridge from where those thousands of people were suffering, day after day.
But even after several days of the distress in extreme heat of all those thousands of people, they were also being BLOCKED from simply walking over the freeway bridge to the safe parish on the other side. The local police were sending people back. Threatening them.
When is the BBC going to run the real story ? That there was a gross lack of control by the Louisiana Governor and her people – they were and still are the legal power. They had the jurisdiction, not FEMA. And they abused it. They would not let the people escape – nor would they escort the Red Cross and Salvation Army in with food, water and sanitary supplies.
I believe that the Mayor of NO and the Governor are going to be facing legal suits for the deaths the local actions or inactions caused. Especially the deaths in the hospitals and the nursing homes. And suits for heavy damages from many of those thousands of people trapped at the Superdome and the Convention Centre.
Here is further mention of the police blocking the safe side of the freeway bridge :
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2748
And here is some harrowing video from the bridge and from the the Convention Centre just below, run by Fox but posted at a leftwing blogsite :
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Hannity-Colmes-Smith-Rivera-freak-in-NO.wmv
Has anyone else heard the rumour that the people in charge of the World Service are now planning to rename “Bush House” to “Lenin House”? It might be true… 😉
Orla seemed to be doing her best to support the Hamas line that they forced the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
In her BBC1 News item she stated that the Israeli tanks had “melted away in the night”. (A variation of the old joke about Italian tanks, perhaps?)
How is it that Orla is still on the British licence-payer’s payroll? She’s married to a Palestinian, isn’t she? Did I read that right somewhere? How many Jewish licence payers are forced to pay her salary? And expenses?
Close the BBC down. It is not worth preserving, even as a fee-paying entity because the market is already saturated. There is no room for it these days. The moment has gone.
As expected the Beeb are now advertising the “New look Guardian” (or BBC News in print as I call it):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4236098.stm
I like the new format. Easier to flush down the toilet together with a copy of the koran…
……..is it going to sold in a roll?
Verity:
Although OG reports as if she were herself a palestinian or married to one, according to this article she is not maried to a palestinian.
http://www.davidrowan.com/2003/12/interview-orla-guerin-bbc-middle-east.html
SiN: The Guardian’s on a roll? I hope not! Nice one though 🙂
OT, but in the same vein, another story that’s going around, and is probably already on the BBC website, is about how Bush’s business cronies are getting the contracts for the Katrina clean-up
Firms with White House ties get Katrina contracts
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/
One of the companies mentioned is Shaw Group. What CNN, Reuters, etal aren’t telling is that Shaw group’s CEO is Jim Bernhard, Chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party.
http://www.theind.com/political2.asp?CID=-1975237869
gfh
Thanks for the link to the article on Orla Guerin. The nationality of her husband certainly ought to be irrelevant. However, her arrogant dismissal of the many complaints of her biased and inaccurate reporting certainly is not.
As the article states, “Even before she has sipped her caffe latte, Guerin has questioned Israel’s claim to be a democracy, compared its press freedom with Zimbabwe’s, and accused its officials of paranoia.
…..In fact, she explains in a Holland Park cafe, its very decision to boycott BBC reporters last summer shows how undemocratic Israel has become. “I can’t imagine any other government thinking like that – Zimbabwe is the comparison ..”
Excuse me? Zimbabwe?? Are BBC reporters banned from Israel? Has Israel’s government declared war wholesale on its Arab citizens, rigging elections, demolishing their houses and businesses wholesale? Are Likud’s supporters given food when other parties’ supporters are not? Etc Etc.
This woman is so blind that she cannot tell the difference between the actions of a democracy which has been fighting for its survival against hostile States for its entire existence (Israel) and a state which exists under no threat from its neighbours but whose government is permitted by its neighbours to do what the hell it likes to its citizens who oppose it (Zimbabwe).
However, as long as her masters share her vile world view, she will be allowed to spout her anti-Israeli rubbish and be rewarded for it.
John
The Today programmme this morning is again bashing FEMA and Michel Brown, still running the untruth that HE was in overall charge of dealing with the emergency. The real executive authority not only for initial response but also for continuing response, is the state Governor.
The Shaw story has not been picked up yet by the BBC, as far as I know, although it was mentioned in an Observer story that focussed on Haliburton.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1567102,00.html
Here is another story that shows how close Shaw is to the Louisiana Governor. As well as the Chairman of Shaw being Chairman of the Louisiana Democrtic Party, its CEO was the Governor’s campaign manager :
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1567102,00.html
Nothing untoward, of course. All pure as the driven snow. The BBC won’t be telling us anytime soon how corrupt Louisiana’s politics have been. There won’t be any cosy item on From Our Own Correspondent, for example.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:qI3OPaoR6OIJ:www.wbrz.com/stories/010705/new_blanco001.shtml+blanco+bernhard+shaw+group+helicopter&hl=en&client=firefox-a
How do Humphreys and the Today programme (8.55am this morning)handle Sir Iqbal Sacranie and the question of whether Holocaust Day should be “altered” to include others (in other words, also include Palestinians and Iraqis who have been the subject of “genocide” by Israel and the USA)?
Why, with kid gloves of course.
Indeed, the real reason that muslims like Sacranie are doing this is to “soften” the Holocaust and so delegitimise the reason for the creation of Israel. Of course, Humphreys completely avoids this issue, in a way that only the Today programme can.
Maybe Guerin was married to a Palestinian. He could have been a suicide bomber, that’s one way for a marriage to end. It’s odd in any case because I read in a couple of places that she was married to a Palestinian. And what an arrogant woman she is! Critics are ‘hilariously innacurate’, ‘ranting’, they ‘hear wnat they want to hear’ and ‘people are not listening with objective ears’. Pot, kettle and black darling!
Her comparison of Israel to Zimbabwe is deranged and shows she is not a fit and proper person to report on Middle East affairs.
Well check this out, old england football manager Bobby Robson, who recently toured CHina with the Blairs, is now standing up for Erikson, who the Blairs supported in the first place…
And they say politics hasnt entered football?
On a more light hearted, note
me and my housemates now refer to the BBC News as the “communist party”.
“Lets have a look what rubbish the communist party is broadcasting today”..
Often to our surprise, the BBC holds up well, its new title that is…and never fails to deliver the usual brainwashing material to the masses
OT
***** Program Alert *****
Set your VCRs to channel 5 on 20 Sept at 7:15 pm
Dan Snow, son of BBC veteran Peter Snow, made a documentary on America.
If the write up is anything to go by, it’s clear why the BBC isn’t airing the program.
I haven’t been able to find the write up online. My wife found it in one of the sunday magazines and cut it out for me. Unfortunately she doesn’t know which magazine or paper it is from. The cutting only says “Night&Day” at the bottome of the page. The heading says “Them and US” in red white and blue.
The name of the program is “Don’t Get Me Started! Dan Snow on God Bless America”.
Quote
“Let’s be serious about the fundamentals. America’s massive economy is the engine of global economic growth and ensures that nearly all of us, not just in the West, enjoy higher standards of lving than ever before. America’s championing of democracy has led to the extension of political rights and freedoms to millions worldwide. Her military might guarantees our securiy and provides us with essential hardware and intelligence.”
And
“Its foreign policy aims are simple: stop the spread of nuclear weapons, foster international growth and free trade and promote democracy. All of these, of course, promote American interests. Buth why not? This system enriches Americans, but it enriches us, too. And what is wrong with promoting democracy in the Arab world? They did it successfully in western Europe, Japan and South Korea; why not in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq?”
Words you will never hear on the BBC.
It’s called bias by omission.
Guerin being hitched to a Palestinian sounds like an urban myth to me. You may have been thinking of Yvonne Ridley – she really was hitched to an officer in the PLO.
I followed that story with interest, because it’s an example of suppression of a relevant fact. It’s not that there is anything wrong with her marrying a Palestinian, any more than with her marrying an Israeli, which she also later did. It’s just that the umpteen accounts of her *discovering* Islam through being treated nicely by her Taliban captors cannot be true.
Guerin is ‘hitched’ to my wallet. That’s all I need to know, and all I want to change. She’s just one of thousands of BBC News staff playing middle-class sixth form politics with my money.
Simon
That post put me in mind of the James Thurber cartoon of a fencer deftly striking off his opponent’s head.
Captioned “Touche”
Pete_London – V funny! Maybe they had an explosive relationship.
gfh – Thanks for the link. “Guerin has been the subject of complaints to the BBC’s governors of alleged bias and “wildly inaccurate” reporting, but none has been sustained.” Because none has been investigated, other than, “Orla, some licence paying ignoramus has said your report is wildly inaccurate. Is that true?”
Orla lets out a wild ululation. “Ooops! Sorry! No.”
BBC: “Case closed.”
Orla: “Thanks. Latte?”
……..is it (The New Guardian) going to be sold in a roll?
Socialism is Necrotizing | 12.09.05 – 1:47 am | #
😆
Guerin being hitched to a Palestinian sounds like an urban myth to me.
Correct. Guerin’s spouse is Michael Georgy of Reuters, a man whose reporting has also come under scrutiny:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/164jnzjb.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/164jnzjb.asp?pg=2
Off Topic – Yet again, today’s You and Yours has me reaching for the nearest blunt object with which to beat my radio to a pulp. Today they have been inviting listeners to call in to air their views on America “What do you think of America? Has Hurricane Katrina destroyed forever the world’s view of America as a can do nation or has it confirmed what you already know?” is how they put it on their web page. Or rather, ‘please call us to indulge in some gratuitous Yank and Bush-bashing dressed up as objective comment’. It was so unbearably smug and self-satisfied (You and Yours? Surely not?) that I couldn’t force myself to listen to the whole thing, so I’m afraid I can’t report whether anyone called with a more objective perspective. So please, someone with a stronger stomach than me, do take a listen and let us know.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/
“Has Hurricane Katrina destroyed forever the world’s view of America as a can-do nation or has it confirmed what you already know?”
Well, actually, BBC, it has confirmed what I already knew. That America can rise to any occasion and can mobilise faster, with more manpower and better equipment than any nation in history. I know it will break their hearts and motivate them to kick the furniture to read this, but actually, the response to Katrina was the fastest in the history of the United States. They were in Mississippi practically before Katrina touched down. It was an outstanding performance.
It could have happened in Louisiana, which only got the tail of Katrina anyway, if the Governor and the Mayor, aka Laurel and Hardy, hadn’t f—ed up large. Plus if the levees had been well maintained and if the city pumps had actually worked, all that would have happened in NO would have been loss of power, lots of trees blown down and a lot of windows blown out. It was human failure right there in New Orleans that caused this tragedy (as in turning the Red Cross, its manpower, equipment and emergency supplies, away for starters).
We never get ‘Has (disaster of your choice)confirmed forever the world’s view of (country’s name) as a can’t-do nation or has it confirmed what you already know?”
The BBC is desperate for any US failures in the same way it is desperate for successes elsewhere despite all the evidence that they aren’t happening. That’s why the BBC venerates the EU, the UN and ideas such as multiculturalism. For the BBC, these ideas can work and must work. On thw whole, the US does work, and the BBC hates that. They know that can’t be right – it’s against all they know to be true.
Simon – That is a very good point. The Beeb venerates the three great failures of our age: the UN, the EU and “multiculturalism”. Oh, and let us not forget a branch of “multiculturalism” – mass immigration of Muslims into an enlighted, Western society based on Judeo-Christian principles.
If it’s a failure, you can bet the BBC is out there rooting for it, even if they have to tell lots of lies.
The real irony is that in the US, leftists would heckle Bonnie Greer and call her an ‘oreo’ until she towed the Marxist revolutionary line, at least in private.