A few days back, the US Congress froze cash to Hamastan. B-BBC reader Edna notes;
Consider how the BBC reports the story.
The article only gives the view that the freeze is terrible. There is not oneexplanation of why Congress decided to do it. It seems the Palestinians werewarned that this would happen if they reneged on negotiations, and decided toact unilaterally.
Consider how another media outlet provides context.
It doesn’t take a lot of journalistic powers to discover this, but the BBCdecides to keep it a secret from the public. No mention of any of this:-
“A number of US representatives and senators on both sides of the aisle,however, have been very firm in their determination to block funding to the PA– particularly in the fiscal year 2012, should it continue to pursue unilateralstatehood.
After Abbas formally requested UN membership on September 23 in New York, Ros-Lehtinen said: “Abu Mazen’s speech further demonstrated that the Palestinianleadership is not a partner for peace. There must be consequences forPalestinian and UN actions that undermine any hope for true and lasting peace.”
In June, the Senate approved Resolution 185, which warned that Palestinianefforts to gain recognition of a state outside of direct negotiations wouldhave implications for continued US aid.
Representative Kay Granger (R-Texas) who chairs the House AppropriationsSubcommittee on State and Foreign Operations and committee member Nita Lowey(D-New York) both warned Abbas this summer that such a move would occur if hecontinued to pursue unilateral statehood.”
Odd how those highly paid BBC journalists somehow managed to miss all of this…. it’s almost as if they chose not to provide context lest it interfere with their slavish devotion to Hamastan?.
Par for the course. How I laughed yesterday when – re the 2000 job cuts announced – some jerk off was on spouting how it is the biggest setback in 2 generations for the BBC and their news gathering would be hit…yes people would notice the difference: mark my words, from next year all this BBC shite that BBBC has highlighted over many years will be blamed on cuts that haven’t happened yet!
The cuts will not all happen immediately – the cuts extend over several years, there is a tapering. The BBC and its unions are exaggerating the immediate finacial impact.
The manpower cuts are proportionately way less than ITV suffered, than independent TV producers have suffered, than most of the private sector has suffered. And allowing for normal labour turnover, retirements etc (no-one at the BBC ever gets sacked) – 2000 fewer jobs probably means just a few hundred redundancies.
The BBC has no right to whine and whine using the airwaves we pay for. It is NOT being hard done by. We are, by being forced to pay for its gross inefficiencies and overmanning, for its biased journalism, for its waste of money on a bloated website and on TV and radio channels that are unnecessary.
Well said, Edna. The BBC, of course, will explain that the piece is meant to be read in the context of all their coverage of the issue, and so don’t have to provide every background detail in every piece. That’s not a straw man, but what we were told by a couple of Beeboids a while back. On the other hand, the BBC always feels the need to remind everyone that the settlements are illegal under what they believe to be international law, as well as the ghoulish body count of Israel’s clashes with either Gaza or Hezbollah. Those background details are in every report. The BBC quite likes context when it suits them.
Having said that, I await the cries of “collective punishment” over the US withholding cash from the wealthy Palestinian elite.
They are intentionally cutting the most popular programmes – to ensure that the public swing against the cuts.
The whole of BBC2 is re-runs anyway, I don’t know why they don’t just make one programme and rerun it 24X7….