It has been seen as a daring raid by crack Israeli troops to rescue dozens of their countrymen held at the mercy of hijackers.
But newly released documents contain a claim that the 1976 rescue of hostages, kidnapped on an Air France flight and held in Entebbe in Uganda, was not all it seemed.
A UK government file on the crisis, released from the National Archives, contains a claim that Israel itself was behind the hijacking.
“Contains a claim”, the weasel words so good they used them twice. Here is the claim as reported by the BBC:
An unnamed contact told a British diplomat in Paris that the Israeli Secret Service, the Shin Bet, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) collaborated to seize the plane.
So if you get that far you discover that a junior diplomat chappie in, er, Paris, where they know all about events in Uganda and really know how to live, heard another chappie in Paris tell him that the Hand Of Israel was behind it all. The junior diplomat chappie then wrote it all down, writing down tedious gossip being what junior diplomat chappies are paid to do so that they can eventually become Ambassador to Belgium.
A little more info about the second chappie will be revealed later in this post, but even as it stands, this is pathetic. In its domestic reporting the BBC is painfully careful to avoid engendering prejudice, so careful in fact that it sometimes defeats its own object – but when Israel can be made to look bad it will grab any old mouldy leftovers from the back of the fridge and serve them up to its audience. The BBC is in no way excused by the fact it was not the only one. It is the only one I am compelled to pay for.
Hat tips to commenters Pounce and Ashley Pomeroy. The latter wrote,
“Inevitably this will be passed around the internet as the gospel truth, because it’s on the BBC. I can picture the arguments on Wikipedia in my head. “It is widely known that the Israelis faked the Entebbe crisis – even the BBC admits this” they will say.
Under the subheading “Ugandans killed” – not “Uganda soldiers killed”, just “Ugandans killed” – we learn that: “Two Israeli civilian hostages died in the shooting, and a third died later in a Nairobi hospital.”
The third hostage was an old woman who was strangled at the orders of Idi Amin, in revenge for his humiliation by the Israeli commandos. The report doesn’t say that. “A third died later” is incredibly misleading. It implies that the hostage was wounded in the shooting and expired of these wounds in hospital, whereas in reality she had been removed from the hostages before the rescue took place.”
Indeed. Dora Bloch, a 75 year old widow with dual British-Israeli nationality, was on her way to her son’s wedding when the plane was hijacked. The BBC has form on this use of “died” to mean “murdered while Jewish.” It played the same game when describing the murder of Leon Klinghoffer.
Now, about that second chappie, described as unnamed by the BBC.
The Times reported, but the BBC did not, that this mysterious person was “A contact Euro-Arab Parliamentary association”. The Times seems to have lost an “in the” at some point, but that’s nothing compared to the BBC losing a whole Euro-Arab Parliamentarian. Talk about Arab voices being silenced in the media, eh? Never mind, he did get a mention in Guardian, the Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post (Hat tip: Biodegradable for the JP) and practically every other outlet other than the BBC.
It would be nice to think that the BBC avoided mention of the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association because unlike the sheep in the Guardian / Times / Telegraph all copying the same news agency report, the ever-diligent BBC had bothered to ascertain that there is no such body. There is a Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation. But I have a feeling that someone at the Beeb just didn’t think that an Arab (OK, OK, it could have been a Euro, only I don’t think even the Foreign Office wallahs see Luxembourgian rumours about the Israelis as worth recording) … where was I? Oh, yes, someone at the Beeb just didn’t think an Arab claiming that bad things done by Arabs were really the work of duplicitous Jews had news value.
The BBC story ends,
The file does not make it clear how seriously the government took the claim that Israel also may have aided the hijackers.
And, in the great tradition of Yellow Journalism everywhere, neither does the BBC.
korova,
I believe that Haloscan only makes IP addresses available to administrators (you and your comments on your blog). That enables you to monitor and if required ban users by their IP address.
Haloscan does not make those IP addresses public by default. It takes a human hand to do that.
Fair do’s, but as I understand the law, from the links provided by yourself, they are also in breach of that law. Again, according to the links, Site Meter doesn’t breach the law as it doesn’t reproduce the full number. Halo Scan, on the other hand, does.
Anyway, I’ll hold my hands up to that and walk away.
as I understand the law, from the links provided by yourself, they are also in breach of that law.
Any administrator of any web site can see and log IPs of his visitors through his admin interface.
That is not illegal as long as he doesn’t make that information public.
I run my own domain on another server and can see the full IP address of my visitors. There is nothing illegal about that as long as I don’t make that info public.
‘You mean that Gaza was part of Egypt and the West Bank was part of Jordan?’
To be fair only because those countries took them over.
No ‘someone told me down the pub’, boycotts, and Pilger propaganda then though.
Biodegradable | 04.06.07 – 5:08 pm
It begs the question why has the BBC not covered that angle (Pally terror supported by the nasty Ruskies)
where were you in the cold war?
It ran morning, noon and night.
Re: Ralph | Homepage | 04.06.07 – 8:30 pm | #
——————————————————————————–
.
.
I think the term you are grasping for is ‘occupied’ – glad to help.
Eeeh-bah-gum, occupied for 19 years and not a peep from the International community, who’d a thought it.
But then again it was those dusky muslim folk doing the occupying – so no problem there then.
.
.
I think the term you are grasping for is ‘occupied’ – glad to help
Didn’t Jordan and Egypt say they’d ‘annexed’ the West Bank and Gaza? And not only was there no peep out of the international community – there was no peep out of the ‘Palestinians’ either. Mind you the PLO was formed in 1964 – but that was just to exterminate Israel -and of course it was set up by Nasser.
I see John Reith is harrying TPO. Ironic since Reith hasn’t responded with any URLs for BBC coverage of the Nigel Wrench story.
It begs the question why has the BBC not covered that angle (Pally terror supported by the nasty Ruskies)
where were you in the cold war?
It ran morning, noon and night.
John Reith | 04.06.07 – 8:35 pm |
Whoa jr – you know what he means.
I’ll be back in the morning with a lovely vignette on immigration (the nice sort and a nice immigrant who I met)
A LESSON FOR KORKOVA
when you make a mistake in life .. instead of lying about it and remaining in self denial …
Sorry, that was just a random set of numbers I posted earlier. I have no objections to it being deleted.
it best to recognise your mistake, own up to it and make amends …
Fair do’s, but as I understand the law, from the links provided by yourself, … Anyway, I’ll hold my hands up to that and walk away.
just wish you were as sensible about withdrawing your support for the the BBC which backs the Islamic Republic regieme and whitewashes their consistent outrages against human rights …
its all a part of growing up … Bio helped you grow up a little today
Anonymous:
I see John Reith is harrying TPO. Ironic since Reith hasn’t responded with any URLs for BBC coverage of the Nigel Wrench story.
Anonymous | 04.06.07 – 10:37 pm |
No – thank you for your concern but I think you misunderstand him – it’s journalistic curiosity. He thinks I have a story. Maybe one day I will have one for him.
Off to bed now – I’m knackered.
It begs the question why has the BBC not covered that angle (Pally terror supported by the nasty Ruskies)
where were you in the cold war?
It ran morning, noon and night.
John Reith | 04.06.07 – 8:35 pm
I meant now, currently, like this week Clever Dick.
TPO understood what I meant, why didn’t you?
I’ll ask again; why isn’t the BBC covering the Russian angle this week as part of its remembering the Six Day War?
I alone of all the commentators on this blog has seldom responded to the trolls. So let me sum up,
Dave Hunt = Stupid Man Boy and being paid by the BBC to try and discredit the biased BBC readership.
Korova = Terrorism sympathiser who posted someones IP in a blast of bravado and immedifykuvbnf ghj
t-
who cares
Biodegradababble:
I’ll ask again; why isn’t the BBC covering the Russian angle this week as part of its remembering the Six Day War?
Perhaps because the Russian plotting described by JR started in 1970, three years later.
Or perhaps, because Entebbe, the whole point of this thread, occurred six years later than that.
“Tonight on Newsnight, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 war… and the 31st of the raid at Entebbe.”
Doesn’t really have the right ring, does it?
Biased BBC: We really do want the whole of Israeli history dragged up every time you mention the Middle East.
Apologies. New Browser. That’s me just above…
Who whoul have thought this of the Dutch, surely not the BBC:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180960607527&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Anonymous | 04.06.07 – 11:16 pm
How’s this for an angle?
‘Soviets engineered Six Day War’
Try this link:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708610161&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Biodegradable | 04.06.07 – 11:05 pm
Sorry, didn’t mean to come across as a clever dick.
But you’ll understand that the suggestion that the BBC might have ‘failed to report’ this or that aspect of Soviet intrigue throughout the cold war would be par for the course at B-BBC.
After all – over on the open thread Crazy Bryan is portraying John Simpson as an un-reconstructed commie bent on dragging us all down the road to serfdom.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/2959682555847920330/#358504
That’s the John Simpson you can find writing in the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator when he’s not on the BBC.
Funny how the editors of those publications seem to have overlooked Mr Simpson’s fifth-column activities.
But then the Establishment missed Philby.
Nothing though gets past Crazy Bryan.
JR,
My point is that the BBC fails to mention at any time the role the USSR played in promoting “Palestinian” terror, thus reducing the “narrative” to one of “the Israelis are the aggressors, what else can the poor ‘Palestinians’ do?”
You yourself pointed out the Russian role in Entebbe. If it is a known historical fact then ommiting it is bias and disinformation, specially when combined with the rumour seeded by what turns out (no thanks to the BBC) to be a pro-Arab group in Paris.
Biodegradable | 05.06.07 – 12:16 pm
The problem is – once you get started on the role of the USSR, where do you stop?
What about the role of the USSR in the foundation of the state of Israel?
The Soviet Union also voted for the Partition Plan….The Soviet Union was hoping that the Jewish State would become part of a Soviet zone of influence in the Middle East. The Zionist encouraged the Soviet Union in this belief: ..the majority of the Zionist movement called themselves ‘socialists’…….
…..The UN Security Councilwas again debating the Palestinian question. The Soviet Union insisted on the immediate implementation of the partition resolution. The USA, on the other hand, proposed a postponement of partition. It now wanted Palestine to become, temporarily a United Nations trust territory. All Zionist organizations fiercely attacked this proposal.
A. Frangi, the PLO & Palestine pp 76-9.
John Reith:
Biodegradable | 05.06.07 – 12:16 pm
The problem is – once you get started on the role of the USSR, where do you stop?
What about the role of the USSR in the foundation of the state of Israel?
Fine, bring it on!
But all of it, the truth and nothing but the truth. No more bias by omission please.
How the release of the FCO papers concerning the Entebbe raid where reported by the Daily Telegraph and the BBC
Telegraph
Israeli agents ‘helped Entebbe hijackers’
An extraordinary claim that Israeli intelligence may have had a hand in an airline hijacking before sending in commandos to rescue the hostages at Entebbe was made to the Foreign Office.
It came via David Colvin, the first secretary at the British embassy in Paris, according to a newly released National Archives file.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=XYTNNK3CAVINVQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/01/nhijack01.xml
BBC
Israel hijack role ‘was queried’
It has been seen as a daring raid by crack Israeli troops to rescue dozens of their countrymen held at the mercy of hijackers.
But newly released documents contain a claim that the 1976 rescue of hostages, kidnapped on an Air France flight and held in Entebbe in Uganda, was not all it seemed.
A UK government file on the crisis, released from the National Archives, contains a claim that Israel itself was behind the hijacking.
.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6710289.stm
Note the word ‘extraordinary’ in the very first sentence of the Telegraph report. Extraordinary to me means ’highly unusual’ or ‘remarkable’. No such qualifier on the BBC report which is a little odd as, in the past, when bizarre releases have come from the National Archives, particularly those that do not accord with today’s PC, the BBC has been quick to add some scoffing adjunct.
No matter. Lets actually look at what has been reported (for some reason I’m having problems accessing the original documents at the National Archives at the moment).
‘David Colvin, the first secretary’ Well that’s SIS ruled out as Colvin is first and foremost a career diplomat with no training in intelligence gathering. Although a ‘high flyer’ having got Paris I suspect that Colvin was in his late twenties and relatively inexperienced, especially when dealing with such a ‘source’ as a contact in the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association.
http://www.medea.be/index.html?page=2&lang=en&doc=1020
Nowadays this would have set alarm bells ringing. The first rules are (1) What is the motivation of the contact? (2) What does the contact hope to gain? (3) Is this the first time that the contact has given information? (4) If not, has the contact proved reliable in the past, if first time can his reliability be assessed. (5) What grading can be put on the veracity of the information.
These are basic principles when dealing with information sources, especially at this level.
I would also look at why Colvin, out of all the people that could have been approached, was picked to be the vehicle of such a ‘revelation’
I would be amazed and appalled if Colvin’s contact notes did not have some form of assessment attached to it. Without getting into the National Archive I cannot see if there is one or not, but neither the Telegraph nor the BBC make any mention of such a rider. I’m guessing that there isn’t one, which would lend weight to the report being dismissed out of hand King Charles Street.
Who was the source, speculation on my part but I would venture a French national within the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association, and probably in the pay of the Soviet Union. The USSR had a track record of using disinformation to achieve its goals.
Amazing though, given the impact of the event, the National Archive have no documentation originating from JIC, SIS or GCHQ, just a bummer from a diplomat based in Paris. But then again they wouldn’t would they.
From what I can find out the author of the report, D H Colvin was still in the FCO in 1997 and was involved in trade formalisation between Britain and Belgium over a gas pipeline treaty.
John Reith,
Re: The Soviet role in support of the partition plan.
What’s your point?
Okay • let me start the ball rolling.
It is total tosh.
John Reith | 04.06.07 – 4:58 pm |
Further to what I posted above, I think for once we are as one on this one jr.
The first rules are (1) What is the motivation of the contact? (2) What does the contact hope to gain? (3) Is this the first time that the contact has given information? (4) If not, has the contact proved reliable in the past, if first time can his reliability be assessed. (5) What grading can be put on the veracity of the information.
These are basic principles when dealing with information sources, especially at this level.
TPO | 05.06.07 – 1:46 pm
These are very similar to the guidlines I’ve been using for some years when reading or hearing news.
1) Who is tellng me this?
2) Why are they telling me this now?
3) What would they like me to believe?
I have a few other guidlines but they’re classified information 8)
These are very similar to the guidlines I’ve been using for some years when reading or hearing news.
Biodegradable | 05.06.07 – 2:26 pm |
When it comes to the BBC I always treat it as a first time scenario with a grading of X,5,5. The lowest you can get.
When it comes to the BBC I always treat it as a first time scenario with a grading of X,5,5. The lowest you can get.
TPO | 05.06.07 – 3:26 pm
My grading for the BBC has been steadily dropping over the years. It’s currently in negative numbers so the answers to the other questions need to be very positive in order to bump up the overall score. 😉
Re: The Soviet role in support of the partition plan.
What’s your point?
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 2:04 pm
My point is that the BBC is criticised here for not mentioning the hidden hand of the USSR every time it alludes to Palestinian terrorism in the 70s……BUT…..everyone seems quite content that the BBC refrains from using the following formulation every time it alludes to the founding of the state of Israel:
Israel, whose foundation in 1948 was sponsored by Stalin against the express wishes of the United States….
yet Soviet sponsorship of terrorism and Stalin’s sponsorship of Israel’s birth are both ‘true’. Or, at least, true-ish – in that – in both cases – the Russky angle is only part of a more complex story.
From this I am hoping that you will extrapolate the more general lesson – that harping on about what the BBC has, according to one or another interested party, ‘left out’ or ‘failed to report’ is not a good indicator of any imagined bias.
These events have so many dimensions that no individual account can be definitive.
The most common critique of BBC stories here from the pro-Israel crowd tends to be of this ‘bias by omission’ – failure to be definitive sort.
It’s a waste of time.
So, chuck it!
The most common critique of BBC stories here from the pro-Israel crowd tends to be of this ‘bias by omission’ – failure to be definitive sort.
It’s a waste of time.
So, chuck it!
John Reith | 05.06.07 – 4:44 pm
It so much depends on what the BBC chooses to omit, and what the overall effect of that omission is on “the narrative”. Don’t you think?
Biodegradable | 05.06.07 – 4:56 pm
No. Every report cannot contain ‘the whole story’ even when the story is only half so convoluted as the Israel/Palestine one.
Far better to call for a breadth of different kinds of coverage drawn from many perspectives, complemented by discussion, debate and analysis.
The technique of subjecting each and every programme to a scrutiny that finds it wanting because it ‘missed out’ this or that may be clever propaganda but it does not serve the cause of truth, nor is it in any way ‘fair’.
John Reith said:
‘No. Every report cannot contain ‘the whole story’ even when the story is only half so convoluted as the Israel/Palestine one.
Far better to call for a breadth of different kinds of coverage drawn from many perspectives, complemented by discussion, debate and analysis’
Er…you mean as in the BBC’s coverage of:
1.Hurricane Katrina and Matt Frei’s attacks on the Bush administration’s handling of the crisis while whitewashing the (Democrat) Mayor’s role in the affair or
2. The Lebanese Army’s possible Human Rights abuses when fighting Islamists in the camps in Lebanon?
Just two examples that come to mind.
John Reith:
Biodegradababble has a point, though.
It so much depends on what the BBC chooses to omit, and what the overall effect of that omission is on “the narrative”. Don’t you think?
Can we have a guarantee that in future every BBC reporter who mentions an underage Muslim girl does the absolute professional minimum and questions robustly whether or not she is subject to sexual exploitation by adult in-laws?
BioD gave us a clear steer on this earlier:
He has not shown me where in the article he’s talking about it states that the 13 year old girl is not married to the interviewee’s brother.
I think we’re all aware that BBC News is staggering under financial cuts, but a little professionalism never goes amiss, does it?
Resist the temptation.
Please do not feed the troll.
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 5:20 pm
To the best of my knowledge Matt Frei has never “attacked” anyone.
He may have reported criticisms made in the US media, the corridors of the Capitol etc.
You guys really need to start distinguishing between the reporter and the subject matter.
The Katrina stuff was debated every which way on Newsnight as I recall…down to semantic distinctions between overlapping, overbrimming and breaching or whatever.
I am not aware of the Lebanese Army behaving particularly badly. Are you?
I know they were blamed for hitting that food convoy – much disputed and probably an accident.
Cautious lot – generally. To a fault sometimes.
I am not aware of the Lebanese Army behaving particularly badly. Are you?
I’m not aware that the IDF behaved particularly badly last summer in Lebanon, but that’s certainly not how it was reported.
I know they were blamed for hitting that food convoy – much disputed and probably an accident.
Compare with similar incidents involving the IDF in Lebanon last summer.
“although the IDF said it was an accident”.
or, “the Israelis claim it was an accident”.
The Lebanese army is given the benefit of the doubt, the IDF is not.
semantic distinctions between overlapping
10ft of water is more than a semantic difference. & Bush being warned about “overlapping” is not the same as being warned about a breach – ignoring the difference allowed Ms Walk to call Bush a liar on the matter.
The BBC’s Justin Webb reporting from Washington said the footage did the president no favours.
It shows plainly worried officials telling Mr Bush very clearly before the storm hit that it could breach New Orleans’ flood barriers.
It said no such thing very clearly, or at all. Webb & the rest of the BBC allowed their ears to play tricks on them, resulting in this ridiculous “correction” in the very same article
Earlier the Associated Press said Mr Bush had been warned of the levees being breached in the video. (only because AP had also deliberately misheard the warning in the video)
But subsequently it issued a clarification which said that the president was warned about water overrunning the levees rather than breaking them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4765058.stm
John Reith:
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 5:20 pm
‘To the best of my knowledge Matt Frei has never “attacked” anyone.
He may have reported criticisms made in the US media, the corridors of the Capitol etc.
You guys really need to start distinguishing between the reporter and the subject matter.’
For heavens’ sake JR! I remember watching the TV news broadcasts nightly during Katrina and Matt Frei would ALWAYS preface/lead into his report with some sneering remark attacking Bush or some other member of the Administration. I refer to his broadcasts not the Beeb website.
And to parrot crticism of the President by Democrats who a la Mandy Rice-Davies ‘would say that, wouldn’t they’ is pathetic behaviour for a journalist.
This had nothing to do with reporting what the Democrats said or didn’t say.
That was very Orwellian on your behalf JR.
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 8:43 pm:
Here’s a little something that supports your last post:
The BBC admits it is dominated by homosexuals and ethnic minorities and dresses to the Left. It is absurdly pro-Europe and wilfully underplays immigration as a story. And we only need to see Washington correspondent Matt Frei’s lip curl when he mentions George Bush to see its anti-American bias.
Trevor Kavanah, The Sun, October 23rd 2006
.
Exactly, JBH.
Reith has no intellectually honest riposte to the evidence of Al-Beeb’s systematic bias.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt QC:
Here’s a little something that supports your last post:
The BBC admits it is dominated by homosexuals and ethnic minorities and dresses to the Left. It is absurdly pro-Europe and wilfully underplays immigration as a story. And we only need to see Washington correspondent Matt Frei’s lip curl when he mentions George Bush to see its anti-American bias.
Trevor Kavanah, The Sun, October 23rd 2006
Mornington Crescent, my rt hon friend. Mornington Crescent!
All these months everyone labours away trying to pin down just what’s wrong with the BBC. Point by point, nitpick by nitpick as al Beeb squeals and squirms.
Now you’ve nailed it in one.
Trevor Kavanagh! In The Sun! Rupert Murdoch’s Sun! Brilliant!
Gotcha, Beeboids.
Rupert – never crawls to Americans. Ever.
Kavanagh. Never does what his boss demands. Ever.
News International. Never politically opposed to the BBC. Ever.
News International. Never direct competitors of the BBC. Ever.
The Sun. Never dismissed as a comic for cretins. Ever.
Biased BBC: Not a comic for cretins. Ever.
Hillhunt:
Er, I was about to respond to your inane, vacuous riposte – but then I realised that this would merely be “feeding the Troll”, and so I thought better not to do so.
(No offence meant. But you are indeed a Troll, and to respond would indeed be feeding you.)
John Reith | 05.06.07 – 10:31 am,
Hmmmm, you’re on quite a roll here John Reith. Playing the man, not the ball – as you so often do.
Tell you what, I’ll admit I was wrong about Simpson (though not about the BBC in general re its love affair with communism, or at least socialism.) if you admit that Alan Little’s Inside the Red Cross is grossly anti-Israel or, if you can’t bring yourself to do so, that David Gregory didn’t have the slightest intention of engaging honestly with JBH:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/2631215756320160181/?a=45559#350313
I noticed that Gregory made a feeble attempt at self-justification before disappearing like greased lightning after JBH challenged him.
People on this site are bright enough to see through your game. Do you really think you are doing your beloved BBC any good by resorting to underhand tactics?
You and other BBC apologists can’t or wont take an honest look in the mirror. If you did you would see your bias reflected back at you, and then you might be able to do something about it. But self-knowledge is tough. It’s so much easier to pretend that it’s all OK, isn’t it.
Bryan:
Hmmmm, you’re on quite a roll here John Reith. Playing the man, not the ball – as you so often do.
No need, Bryan. No need.
JBH QC is an own-goal specialist out there on his own.
A BBC-Guardian-Conrad Black axis of evil? But of course…
A provably bogus political controversy that helped bring down the last Conservative government? Which not one of the BBC or the Guardian’s many media rivals and enemies has ever thought fit to publish.
Or the Conservative Party to pursue…
Then there are the innocent damned as corrupt. Guilty conspirators feted as heroes. Decent rare, non-leftie journalist who uncovered truth ignored for 10 years.
Amazing, really, in a dog-eat-dog media market.
JBH: Woodward & Bernstein. Not.
Bryan | 05.06.07 – 11:45 pm:
You’re right to notice David Gregory’s quick exit and you’re right to stick by me. Now that Gordon-Bennett, Billyquiz, and others have left these shores, it seems you are in a minority, so thank you. My work and the BBC’s sustained refusal to assess it and broadcast news about it remains the most powerful documented example of BBC bias there is, or ever could be.
In order to fend off interest in my work the Trolls can do no more than characterise the media-wide news blackout of it as an absurdly unlikely organised conspiracy. I’ve never said it was and it isn’t. It’s merely a manifestation of tribal solidarity among journalists and news organisations, bolstered by the leftist bigotry that permeates the industry, coupled with dollops of self-interested reluctance to air a story by a couple of northern freelances, for crying out loud, that exposes like nothing else ever could just how dangerously homogeneous and sheep-like the British media really is.
But my experience is not the only one. The media reacted with the same universal silence to the Mail on Sunday’s “Cheriegate” splash of 1 December 2002 about convicted fraudster Peter Foster’s financial dealings with the PM’s wife – that is, until the Daily Mail ran several follow-up headline stories and several op-eds castigating the wall of silence that greeted the MoS’s story. For an illuminating insight into the British media’s tendency to act as one to suppress a major story, download and digest “My shame over a craven, cowed British media” from 3 December 2002; and “How Downing Street’s spin was swallowed by a supine media” from 5 December 2002, both from the Daily Mail.
Unfortunately I don’t have the Mail’s clout. But one day someone will broadcast my research. Maybe Israeli TV. And then the story will explode and the entire British media will be in the dock, with the supposedly impartial, fact-seeking, all-points-of-view-airing, truth-telling, public service(sic) broadcaster the BBC taking up most of the room. And not before time either.
If the Trolls have a pop at you again over your support for me, take a breeze through some of the testimonials of my work. You’ll find them, together with profiles of their authors, here. I assure you they won’t like you quoting from these one little bit.
One day other contributors to this blog might spurn the Troll ridicule and join you. Then things will really start to happen. Just maybe.
JBH QC on his BBC/Guardian magnum opus:
Trolls can do no more than characterise the media-wide news blackout of it as an absurdly unlikely organised conspiracy. I’ve never said it was and it isn’t. It’s merely a manifestation of tribal solidarity among journalists and news organisations, bolstered by the leftist bigotry that permeates the industry
Y-e-e-e-s.
Let’s see: All those bulging-veined articles in your own collection from Paul Dacre’s Mail attacking the BBC ethos? They reek of tribal solidarity, don’t they?
But consider the following…
The Sunday Times’s sustained assault on Thames TV’s Death On The Rock.
The Mail (and many others) going for the BBC’s jugular over Maggie’s Militant Tendency.
The Mail & Telegraph leading a widespread charge against the Guardian and World In Action after Aitken’s “Sword of Truth” speech. (Reversed only after his libel disaster)
The News of the World’s demolition job on the journalistic standards of ITV’s Cook Report.
The Guardian’s disembowelling of Carlton TV over the fictititous Cocaine Connection documentary. (Record £2m fine from the ITC resulted)
The Sunday Telegraph’s full-frontal assault on the reputation of Donal MacIntyre’s investigative programmes.
Not a lot to show how dangerously homogeneous and sheep-like the British media is there, either.
As for the northern freelances whinge… journalism is full of freelances, many of them northern. It’s largely a freelance profession.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt QC: The Wilderness Years Go On.
JBH 06.06.07 – 7:35 am,
John Reith et al could make a small start in the direction of transparency and accountability by taking an honest look at the exchanges on this site between David Gregory and yourself as well as my comments as someone looking in from the outside. The debate is on this thread:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/2631215756320160181/?a=39896#350305
Gregory was caught red-handed in his dishonesty. You and I picked it up immediately. But neither he nor John Reith are big enough to admit it. They would prefer to let it fade quietly into the past. But I’ll be reminding them of it from time to time on this blog because it is so typical of the BBC.
JBH,
I had no love for the Major Conservative government.
I never voted for them.
I never advocated their policies on many issues.
So you might say I was a disinterested party.
But I have seen much in your investigation that is valuable and whilst some of what you say is in my opinion unproven or it is true but unlinked the general thrust and point of your case seems sound.
Whether it is another Zinoviev I’m not sure but most certainly it is a serious investigation that deserves answers not cover ups.
Don’t let infantile no-balls trolls like ill*unt dissuade you from continuing to pursue your story.
My offer to meet ill*unt for a face-to-face full and frank exchange of views in Sandwell stands, whether before or after Waterloo station.
At least that might get some sense out of him as clearly written english seems not to work.
ill*unt 9-50
‘Trevor Kavanagh! In The Sun! Rupert Murdoch’s Sun! Brilliant!
Gotcha, Beeboids.
Rupert – never crawls to Americans. Ever.
Kavanagh. Never does what his boss demands. Ever.
News International. Never politically opposed to the BBC. Ever.
News International. Never direct competitors of the BBC. Ever.
The Sun. Never dismissed as a comic for cretins. Ever.’
So News international bad?
ill*unt 10-28
‘The Sunday Times’s sustained assault on Thames TV’s Death On The Rock.’
‘The News of the World’s demolition job on the journalistic standards of ITV’s Cook Report.’
So News International good?
ill*unt doesn’t need blair’s 45 minutes, he only needs 38 minutes to prove himself a plonker.