‘The Long View’ on R4 this morning discussed nations who ignore carnage and human rights violations in other countries because they support the country committing the violence.
The examples compared were Syria today and Putin’s Russia blocking moves to change regime there, and the Ottoman Empire attacking Bulgaria in 1876 whilst Britain turned a blind eye because the Turks were a buffer preventing Russian encroachment into the Balkans and the Middle East.
That’s almost by the by and all very interesting but there was another thread…that of the effect of the media on government policy….The British ‘Daily News‘, a liberal paper reporting on atrocities from Bulgaria made it difficult for the British government to carry on ignoring events and eventually they were forced to intervene.
The Syrian ‘civil war’ is perhaps an unusual choice. The Syrian conflict has only been going for a few months and therefore there has been relatively little historic media coverage and seen little commensurate change in public opinion and government policy…unlike say in Israel.
The war against Israel has been continuing for over 60 years and in that time the effect of media coverage is perhaps one of the most striking aspects of the conflict.
The media coverage itself is highly controversial and has sparked many inquiries…such as the BBC’s secretive Balen Report.
It is odd that a very recent conflict such as Syria’s should suddenly be the subject of a BBC discussion on the power of the media when there is a much more obvious and powerful example in Israel.
BBC reporter Paul Wood told us ‘What a powerful medium television is…a single image can change people’s perceptions…it can change the whole conversation.’
He was asked ‘Do you attempt to move Public and Political opinion?’
He replied ‘You become a government employee, a propagandist if you do so’…but he was happy if his reporting had an impact…‘and we are all shallow egotists…we try to be impartial but we like to make an impact.’
He went on to say that in Yugoslavia there was a false report of a massacre that went out on the news services….but once established as false it is too late…‘People forget the attribution but they remember the ‘massacre”
…and of course I suspect some news services know this and publish regardless because they know even after a retraction the image or idea is still out there in the minds of viewers and readers…that little suspicion that always makes them doubt.
His final point was ‘Crucially you have to get it right.’
The problem of course is that so often BBC journalists don’t get it right…don’t even attempt to get it right…no one can forget Orla Guerin’s pro Palestinian propaganda from Jenin.
The effect of French TVs showing of the staged death of Muhammed al Durra and blaming Israeli soldiers, but likely killed by other Palestinians and not Israelis, set the scene for the second Intifada and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza….which then, due to adverse media coverage, led to massive anti-Jewish feeling around the world.
The BBC’s coverage of Israeli actions has been unremittingly hostile to Israel and highly critical whilst ignoring or downplaying Palestinian atrocities.
This plays out into the wider world and is why schools in the UK have to have security guards, security fencing and bomb proof glass….in contrast the BBC panders to Muslim sensibilities and fails entirely to challenge Muslim assertions and explanations about their actions.
When a single image can change people’s perceptions and ‘the whole conversation’ it is crucial that they get it right and not start off a violent chain reaction resulting from either a single careless image or deliberate misreporting.
People die because reporters lie.
“You become a government employee, a propagandist if you do so”. Which governments does he have in mind, I wonder.
Having recently returned from a holiday in Israel I was shocked at the number of Israelis who thought that the British hatred them. I soon corrected them and told them the truth, that the liberal media and in particular the BBC hated them for numerous reasons, all unjustified. Israel, and the Israelis should be an inspiration to us on how to succeed against the odds and against the bullies of the world.
Seven million people in plucky little Israel surrounded by 350 million Arabs. Now why would bBC journalists prefer to see the world through Arab eyes: jobs in Al Jazeerah anyone?Nothing more profound than the unholy alliance between Islam and the Left. My friend’s enemy is my enemy.
Israel is credited with the invention of high technology diagnostic imaging, Islamic with exploding underpants and checkered tea-towel scarves. But why take my word for it, lets ask a pop star authority, “Annie Lennox, ….
“
Pastor Youcef Nardarkhani has now spent 1000 days in jail and has been sentenced to death.
http://vinienco.com/2012/07/07/pastor-youcef-nardarkhani-1000-days-jail-court-date-video/
The propagandists at the b-bbc’s news department weep and wail at the death of every Islamic terrorist yet there has been a complete news blackout about this brave man.
It’s the bbc’s attitude towards people like Pastor Nadarkhani that makes the whole organisation contemptible. I wonder if it has ever occurred to the muslim in charge of religious broadcasting at the bbc to make contact with his fellow muslims to try to intercede on Mr Nadarkhani’s behalf. In contrast to all the wailing and gnashing of teeth when their man, Mr Johnston, was abducted by the arabs in the land called Palestine.
Humphf! Johnson.
The only arab ‘captive’ to put on weight during his captivity.
Fattening stuff that hummus.
He’s Christian. The BBC hate Christians.
After Turkey joins the EU there’ll be coverage of the odd Greek atrocity against the millions of Turks flooding westwards, but nothing the other way around, just as Turks get away with murder in Germany and elsewhere (like here) now.
Ah yes, Turks in the UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18741847
While not as insidious as the poor terrorist angle the bbC has become renowned for. Here is a perfect example of how the bbC spreads scaremongering lies about why people may die and instead of targeting the real cause they blame junk food.
Viewpoint: Ban junk food sponsors from Olympic sports
On a recent visit to Newham, home of London’s Olympic village, I was shocked to learn that in the past 10 years the incidence of diabetes there has more than doubled. Dr Chandra Gowda, a local GP, told me that nowadays 40%-50% of all consultations in his practice are either a new diagnosis of diabetes or its complications, such as heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure. He believes this surge is directly related to the diet of the local population: “There is overproliferation of fast food restaurants in the area and it’s almost every second shop,” he said.
Ok now on first reading the above you would naturally side with the article. But here is what the bBC isn’t telling you:
Newham has the highest young population and one of the lowest White British populations in the country according to the 2001 Census. Approximately 38% of the population is Asian, of which 10.2% are Indian, 7% are Bangladeshi, 13.9% are Pakistani, and 5.1% are from other Asian backgrounds. Approximately 20% of the population is black, of which 6.5% are Caribbean, 12.4% are African, and 1.1% are from other black backgrounds. In addition, 1.6% of the population is Chinese, and 2.6% are from other ethnic groups.[8] Newham has the highest fertility rate in the country at 2.87, as of 2009, compared to the national average of 1.95.
Well this silly blog isn’t allowing me to post the rest of my post.
In a nutshell the NHS states:
People from South Asian, African and Afro-Caribbean communities living in the UK are more likely to need a kidney transplant than the rest of the population: Black people are three times as likely as the general population to develop kidney failure The need for organs in the Asian community is three to four times higher.This is because people from these communities are more likely to develop diabetes or high blood pressure, both of which are major causes of kidney failure
Pounce – sorry to read you are having trouble posting your comments as I always like to read your them – have you thought of becoming a contributor?
How do I know this. Because everytime I go for a medical (work related) I am asked if I am diabetic , when I say no, the med staff are always surprised, until I inform them that I eat a mainly vegetarian diet , But I also have no problem going to McDonalds now and again (it’s a treat) But here’s a killer, one of the main causes of diabetes in Asians. Eating lots of rice. Which is why I very rarely eat it.
Eating white rice could increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, Harvard researchers claimed. Each large serving of white rice was linked to an 11 percent increased risk, scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health concluded from an analysis of four studies carried out in China, Japan, Australia and the U.S.The study authors wrote in the British Medical Journal, “We found that higher white rice consumption was associated with a significantly elevated risk of Type 2 diabetes. This association seems to be stronger for Asians than for Western populations.”
And instead the bBC bang on about banning junk food.
Reporters don’t need to just lie they can also keep quiet about inconvenient truths. For example, let’s take the BBC’s coverage of Thailand, a country visited by millions of Britons every year. When an essentially rural-led movement (The Red Shirts) occupied parts of Bangkok and clashed with the army about two years ago, the BBC rightly covered this comprehensively on its news coverage. Of course, since this fits in with their international leftist agenda, the BBC had no qualms about it. Now lets take another long-running and on-going story from Thailand, namely the Islamist jihad in the south where Buddhists are killed, bombed and beheaded on an almost daily basis. Buddhist school teachers, including women, are hacked to death in class rooms by Islamists, Buddhist rubber tappers are beheaded with notes pinned to their bodies about them being infidels and a festival of roadside bombs to rival Iraq and Afghanistan is in full play. But how much of this does the BBC report? The answer is almost none of it despite the fact that they have a permanent correspondent in Bangkok. Why the fixation with Palestinian deaths but almost no mention of Buddhist deaths at the hands of Koran-inspired maniacs. A similar story is taking place in the south of the Philippines, where kidnappings and beheadings in the best traditions of Islam are also very frequent..
I suspect that the BBC, overwhelmed by the daily carnage of violence explicitly carried out in the name of Islam, feels the need to ration its reports on Islamist violence lest the news become so deluged with reports from Nigeria to southeast Asia that simply can’t be explained away by the narrative that the violence revolves around the Palestinian-Israeli conflict . They are afraid that the casual listener might begin to join the dots.
The clue is in your second sentance. The BBC might be able to sell people on terrorists as striking against Yankee Imperialists and Palestinians as desperate refugees, but millions of people have met enough Thais that the BBC can’t possibly convince anyone that they’re somehow asking for it.
Jeremy Bowen gave the answer to that in War Stories. The BBC journalist is incapable of functioning without local fixers to translate, find people to interview and keep him alive. These fixers are either members of terrorist groups, locals who are quite aware of what would happen to them or their families should they fall foul of these groups or in rare cases local members of the opposing ethnicity who support the terrorist group. The third group supposedly adds balance but generally adds more bias. Without knowledge of the local languages, cultural references or contacts the foreign correspondent would be totally adrift.
Add to this a BBC/Guardian/NUJ viewpoint that sympathised with the terrorists even before the first word is broadcast and it is small wonder that reports mimic the terrorist talking points or ignore information to balance the story from the other side.
Thailand and Israel are very cushy gigs. First world amenities while covering a third world conflict. Who wants to mess that up?
The spoiled leftist radical
Op-ed: Provocative foreign activists exploit Israel’s tolerance and comfortable lifestyle
Contrast & Compare:
Olmert convicted by Israeli court
Former PM Olmert acquitted on central corruption charges
No prizes for guessing which is the BBC version…
One more:
Olmert exonerated of corruption charges
(Not the BBC) 😉
More pro-Paestinian/anti-Israel propaganda from al-Beeb:
West Bank barrier threatens villagers’ way of life
Israel is being urged to reroute its controversial West Bank barrier away from the lands of an ancient Palestinian village with a unique agricultural system. The BBC’s Wyre Davies visited Battir, whose inhabitants fear their traditional way of life will disappear.
Some facts Mr. Davies omits from his report:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battir
Battir is the site of ancient Betar. The modern Arab village is built around the ancient site “Khirbet el-Yahud” (Arabic, meaning “ruin of the Jews” ) and “is unanimously identified with Betar, the last stronghold of the Second Revolt against the Romans, where its leader, Bar-Kochba, found his death in 135 CE.”[2][3][4] “A modern agricultural terrace follows the line of the ancient fortification wall”.
[…]
In 1970 two Katusha rockets were fired from the village vicinity toward Jerusalem
[…]
Sister cities
United Kingdom Luton, United Kingdom