Orla Guerin. Two words that one instantly associates with BBC bias at its very worst. Here Biased BBC’s Alan provides us with a little amble down memory lane with the oh-so-selective Orla,
‘Israel says its troops are here to crush the militants, to stop the suicide bombers. But Palestinians in Jenin say civilians are paying a high price. Before we could see too many more scenes like this the army hustled us away.’
Orla Guerin, BBC News, Jenin 2002.
BBC News headlined a report on April 18th as “Jenin Massacre Evidence Growing.”
UN says no massacre in Jenin
1 August
A United Nations investigation rejects claims that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in Israel\’s attack on the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin.
However all this did happen…..
Militants bomb Israeli bus
21 October
An explosion rips through a bus in northern Israel, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 30 others. The Israeli Government blames the Palestinian Authority, but Yasser Arafat condemns the bombing. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.
Another suicide bomb rocks Jerusalem
19 June 2002
A suicide bomber kills seven people in Jerusalem, the second such attack in two days. The explosion occurred at a commuter bus stop on a busy road in the French Hill neighbourhood. US President George Bush put his new peace plan on hold as a result of the attack.
Nineteen dead in Jerusalem bomb blast
18 June 2002
Many commuters and school children died in a suicide bomb attack on a bus during morning rush hour in Jerusalem. The bomber was among the dead. The incident comes as US President George W Bush prepares to announce a strategy to relaunch the Middle East peace process.
Suicide bomber kills 16 Israelis
5 June 2002
The bomber pulled up alongside the bus at Megiddo junction, near the West Bank, during the rush hour, before detonating the explosives in his car. The bus was reduced to a scorched metal skeleton and 16 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed along with the bomber.
Bomb shatters Israeli calm
19 May 2002
A suicide bomber strikes in the Israeli coastal resort of Netanya on Sunday afternoon, killing four people, including himself. The Palestinian Authority has moved quickly to condemn the attack.
Suicide bomb disrupts Sharon visit
07 May 2002
At least 16 people are killed in a suicide bomb attack on a crowded social club on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv. The blast went off as Ariel Sharon was beginning a meeting in Washington with President Bush. The Israeli Prime Minister returned early to Israel.
Israel struck by bus bomb
10 April 2002
Ten people are killed and more than a dozen injured in a suicide attack on a bus near the Israeli city of Haifa. Israel calls off any further military withdrawals from West Bank towns saying the anti-terror operations it is conducting there are not yet complete.
Israel hits back after suicide attack
10 March
Israel helicopters and gunboats have totally destroyed the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Gaza. The operation came early on Sunday morning, hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 and injured more than 50 at a busy cafe in West Jerusalem.
Suicide bomber strikes Orthodox district
2 March
At least nine people are killed – including several children – in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem. Dozens of others were injured in the blast which happened on the edge of Me’a She’arim, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish district which borders on Arab East Jerusalem.
Female suicide bomber kills two
27 January
Police are working on the basis that the bomber was a Palestinian woman. If so, this would be the first time a woman has carried out such an attack. The bomb went off in one of Jerusalem’s busiest shopping streets.
Party attack kills seven
17 January
Israeli police say seven Israelis have been killed and at least twenty wounded in a Palestinian suicide attack in northern Israel. Eyewitnesses say the man entered a crowded wedding hall in the town of Hadera and tried to detonate explosives strapped to his body.
And of course this continued year after year along with thousands of rockets being launched at Israel….which is why in 2009 Israel launched its assault on hamas in gaza and built a security barrier to keep out the suicide bombers..
And yet the BBC presents Israel as the aggressor in its coverage.
The content of ‘journalist ” Guerin’s ‘scoop’ is of course pure and simply ‘crap’.
Guerin’s reporting from Israel was a disgrace – her coverage of the 2006 Lebanon war was a particular low point.
However, credit where it’s due – her report last week on acid attacks in Pakistan was good (if one ignores her irritating journalistic style).
nobody does misery like Orla Guerin
I wouldn’t believe Ms Guerin if she told me I was English and that I live in Cheshire.
“They came in their thousands, people from all over England, ragged and desperate, many of them homeless, overcoming hunger in the name of one cause – to declare that John was English and he lived in Cheshire….”
Give us a sign!
***claps***
Where does the BBC say that Orla has a scoop? I couldn’t see it.
It wasn’t Orla alone who was responsible for ignoring the terrorism that preceded Jenin. She was working for the BBC, probably one of many reporters, and it was undoubtedly an editorial decision to focus on one side and not the other.
Orla is a good reporter, even though she tends to catastrophise everything. Angel of doom. She’s a consummate professional, even if she is biased against Israel in the customary manner.
I’m really wondering if somebody has hijacked Sue’s name for these posts.
Otherwise I’m amazed that anybody could put the twisted and ugly reality that Guerin presents as truth in regard to the Middle East conflict as ‘good reporting’. Most especially if it really is OUR SUE.
Think probably Jim Dandy, who also might post as ‘Pah’….same style…..supports BBC then finishes with a little dig at BBC just to show he’s not a complete lackey.
Yeah that would explain it.
I saw at least one other post supposedly by her that I thought was somewhat uncharacteristic.
I hope Sue will confirm this, and that ASE will be able to implement a block on having same usernames here.
Orla Guerin is a crime against humanity waiting to happen.
What a flattering photo.
Orla could do with a happy pill or two. She always sounds tremendously gloomy in her reporting, no matter what the context.
Mind you, if I were stationed in Pakistan at the moment, what with avalanches, plane-crashes, etc., I would be a bit depressed.
she is married to a pally
not that that would ever influence her view of Israel or anything like that whatsoever
probably
“she is married to a pally”
I am married to a Roman Catholic Irishwoman but I am no left-footer. I can’t stand Riverdance, Daniel O’Donnell or Clannad.
It’s somewhat harsh to judge someone by one’s spouse, don’t you think?
Orla is no friend of Israel – as she has made clear – and her reporting in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war made little attempt at impartiality but overall she’s a decent hack and working her patch in Pakistan pretty well. I do wish she’d inject some life into her voice, though.
And don’t get me started on Lyse ‘Strangled Cat’ Doucet…
It’s somewhat harsh to judge someone by one’s spouse, don’t you think?
I’d agree with you if we were talking about a mindset that on the whole could be considered even and balanced. The more extreme the likelihood of the spouses mindset to be, the more likely it is that it will affect what will or won’t be reported.
Enough to know that she has never said anything positive about Israel.
That list of things Orla Guerin and the BBC failed to report from 2002 was copied and pasted from this website –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2001/tv_and_radio_reports/1741600.stm
Video reports on some of the stories Alan notes that Orla Guerin failed to report can be found there. Such as the ones for 27 January, 2 March, 19 May and 5 June by Orla Guerin. As Alan says – pure and simply ‘crap’.
I think you missed the point: DV is NOT claiming those other events weren’t reported. Merely that, in addition to mis-reporting the Jenin “massacre”, Orla also failed to mention the context of the Israeli action which she was mis-reporting.
If you would like an example of BBC bias by omission, then look no further than the fogel murders – with zero coverage on the BBC TV news. I remember this well because I had read about the murders online and was wondering when the BBC were going to cover them. They never did. Although they did find time that day to report at length on some lefty report on local government spending. So not as if it was a busy news day. Pure bias by omission.
The way Orla Guerin used to report from Israel it wouldn’t suprise me if she was helping to smuggle in explosives herself for suicide bomb attacks.
Whenever I`m told that Ireland is full of laughter, stories and song….my thoughts go straight to Orla Guerin and it know it`s not so.
Sinead O Connor without the voice, the looks and the charm.
Those Magdalene nuns were a bit too soft at times if you ask me…
My wife points out that this is the same “journalist” who went into such a transport of hyperbole that she culminated a natural disaster report with the unfortunately cognitively dissonant phrase, “corpses, many of the dead”…
A true classic.
Guys, I’m struggling to make sense of this post. I hold no brief for Orla Guerin, as it’s evident she is implacably anti-Israel, but what’s the point of a long list of terrorist atrocities against Israelis with Guerin’s name appended to it?
I see there is no link to clarify the post. Can someone enlighten me here?
“Op-Ed: The BBC’s Widespread Antipathy Towards Israel.”
[Opening excerpt]:-
“Trevor Asserson: On the basis of my interviews with present BBC journalists and those who have recently left, Israel is a hated state by many in the organization. ”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11550
Asserson’s ‘BBCWatch’ reports:-
http://bbcwatch.com/reports.html
I read Sue’s post, April 22, 2012 at 7:59 pm.
I don’t know why anyone imagines it’s not her comment. It’s her style, and there is nothing unreasonable about the observations she makes. She did point out Guerin’s anti-Israel bias
Years ago on this esteemed site I pointed out that we should pat the BBC on the back when it gets it right. An example was the Panorama programme on the Mavi Mamara – rare to seee the BBC not in instant attack mode against Israel, but there it was. (I imagine the video showing the “peace activists” beating the Israel to the deck with metal bars had something to do with the BBC’s balanced approach to to the incident.)
If we cannot occasionally veer away from the constant attack on the BBC to point out some positives, hard though they may be to find, then we simply come across as knee-jerk critics and lose credibility.
Yes, certainly is always amazing how Guerin’s BritishBrainwashingCorporation head scarf blows over her eyes whenever her and flatulent Jeremy ‘Al’ Bowen’s beloved Palestinian terrorist brothers and sisters blow up Israel’s.
Ah, Guerin!
What a boost for the blood pressure!
In 2001 or 2002 I was doing research in various archives in Edinburgh and nipped back to my hotel room for a break (and an M&S sandwich or two) between the day and evening research shifts. I vividly remember putting the TV on and seeing a grotesque piece of Guerin demonisation of Israel complete with a lone old Palestinian woman in a wheelchair in the background. This doleful woman in the wheelchair had every appearance of being a staged prop, just too convenient, literally wheeled out by the BBC and placed into position to enhance Guerin’s propaganda.
A few days, or maybe a week or two, later there was another truly egregious biased piece about Israel from Guerin.
So I sent an official complaint to the BBC, something I’d never done before. I did it via email.
In response, and speedily at that, the Beeboid official in charge of complaints told me dismissively that they would not proceed with my complaint because the fact I had complained about two separate alleged cases of bias by Guerin within a short time of each other suggested that the “problem” lay with me, not her!!!
Needless to say, I remonstrated, but all I got for my efforts was a prompt, sarcastic and impudent reply from the same ego-bloated official, and when I protested I received another that basically said, in tones of discourteous and gloating triumphalism, “complaining to a higher authority than me in the BBC won’t get you anywhere”.
“complaining to a higher authority than me in the BBC won’t get you anywhere”.
At least you finally got a bit of truth out of the biased leftie crackpots then!
Well, that’s one way to look at it! I’m still waiting for their response to the complaint I made about aspects of Jezza Bowen’s Diary that was online during Cast Lead.