Author Archives: Ed Thomas

what happened on Last Night’s BBC News at 10pm. No one who saw that should feel the BBC gave the US or the new Iraq a fair deal yesterday.

A Telegraph reader responds to yesterday’s BBC coverage:

.Re: A wonderful coup

Date: 15 December 2003

Sir – Saddam’s trial will reveal the shocking truth about the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, just as the Nuremberg trials did about Nazi Germany. His capture is a wonderful coup for the allies that will place the justification for the war beyond doubt.

Yet the treatment of this event on BBC News 24 can best be described as muted. Correspondents spoke approvingly of Tony Blair’s lack of American-style “triumphalism”, as if such a reaction would itself have been a crime. We were 20 minutes into one news bulletin before Saddam’s atrocities against the Iraqi people were mentioned.

The BBC’s coverage of the war in Iraq and the subsequent occupation has frequently been defeatist and biased against the allied forces. The discovery of mass graves, containing 300,000 bodies, has received far less coverage than the non-appearance of weapons of mass destruction. Yesterday’s unsatisfactory reporting once again raises serious questions about the political agenda of the nation’s public broadcaster.

From:

John Townsend, University College, Oxford

And so say all of us.

. Glenn Reynolds has captured some BBC reaction– reaction I also caught live on TV. At times like this there’s so much to take in, and nothing much can take the edge off things for me over the capture of Saddam. On a serious note though, I also heard Saddam’s capture described by the BBC as a ‘propaganda coup’. I often feel that, as when someone calls someone else a liar or a cheat, there are words you can’t take back- they’re beyond balancing. Update. I thought I’d add Glenn’s link to the BBC reporters log here, so everyone can find their ‘favourite’ bits more easily. Update 2: As Glenn says, Tim Blair’s on a roll (scroll away).

A GOOD NEWS story from Iraq by the BBC.

Somehow I don’t think a critical template was applied to this recent article about a conference in Geneva where the correspondent saw ‘vintage’ Robert Mugabe, whose speech ‘stood out’. As Natalie said about Ethiopia, to be fair the BBC do have some critical coverage- in this case some angles on how bad Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is. But why don’t they hold him to account personally, instead of permitting an article to fawn over him just because he stands out from the other leaders? Yes, he does stand out, amazingly enough in a continent with such corrupt and ‘colourful’ leadership. Maybe those leaders weren’t performing the ‘old classics’ about inequality and colonialism for their Swiss hosts because they still care about being included in a sane and potentially lucrative political discourse.

They wouldn’t take this ‘neutral’ a stance at the BBC if the vast bulk of their reporters didn’t look to blame ‘the West’ (and in this case us, the British) first, or if the vast bulk of reporters had any sympathy with the real deprivations of Zimbabwe. Where there is blame to be laid, you can guarantee it won’t be understood, let alone tolerated, by an intemperate despot like Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean Head of (a suffering) State. If you take any lead from such a man, the real story is already lost to you.

nb. I am aware the BBC has been banned from Zimbabwe by Mugabe- which in theory would limit their coverage. This only increases the bizarreness that the BBC are willing to talk of ‘vintage Mugabe’- the same vintage Mugabe that banned them I suppose. And by the way, no mention either of Mugabe’s travel ban (part of EU sanctions intended to affect him personally). A big thank you to the Swiss then, with an assist to Chirac who set the trend by inviting Mugabe to Paris- but didn’t shake his hand in a very, er, French compromise.

reported a demonstration of about 200 former Iraqi army personnel in Basra today. They were protesting over what they said was the failure to pay them pensions over the last few months. They lit tyres and made plenty of noise. This incident made the headlines.

Are the BBC in the business of mocking the thousands of people that marched against terrorism several days ago in Baghdad, without so much as a mention on any BBC News report that I’ve heard of? Of course, one of the negative Beeb’s key themes of the moment is the strife over the dismantlement of the Iraqi military, and the US’ attempts to revive it in a much smaller form (- not that they’ll examine that foundational reality until they’ve squeezed some negative headlines out of it). But in the meantime, why allow facts on the ground to spoil a good story, or two?

:

Dos and donts

Good Luck!

Meanwhile, far removed from this sparring, Instapundit presents some sensitive observations on the US media coverage, or lack of coverage of Iraq. I wonder how much Greg Dyke’s criticisms of the media there have impacted on their approach recently. Come to that, I wonder how much the BBC’s attitudes generally have proved trendsetting. Do they [those attitudes] run deeper [and have more influence] than the [typical liberal] US media reluctance to back their Republican leader? [To clarify, have the US media been unwarrantably ‘shamed’ by Dyke’s comments and specious statistics about what I believe he called ‘flag-waving’ US coverage of the ’21 days’ conflict?] Another, British, commentator, has his own reflections on Iraq somewhat contrary to the BBC in-crowd (thanks to Donald Sensing for the link). [update. I’ve updated some of my comments in brackets, because I was beginning to forget what I meant by them! Blogger’s prerogative, I trust.]

. As Tim Blair reports, Iraq’s anti-terrorism demonstrations are ‘all over the internet’. Sadly, as well as missing out on coverage in newspapers, the demonstrations have somehow eluded our national broadcaster’s World edition website, renowned though the BBC is for its World Service. When you think of how they like to get the opinions of ‘real’ Iraqis, it’s strange they haven’t interviewed any of the marchers to see why they were risking their lives by defying the vicious Baathist losers. Funnily enough, this ‘crucial’ story hasn’t missed out, and nor has this opportunity to paint the USA in its usual colours. Update. To reinforce the picture, Nicholas Vance presents us with a good round up of what was not, and what was, the Ten O’clock News on the BBC last night (10 Dec. post).

. There is a difference of opinion between BBC journalists John Simpson and Nick Gowing over the deaths of journalists in Iraq- and it’s worth noting. When Simpson says that any journalists not ’embedded’ with troops became ‘potential targets’, he does not mean that they were deliberately targeted. Nick Gowing does- he believes in an Orwellian kind of conspiracy to ‘take out’ journalistic opponents. No steps are taken to separate the two forms of accusation that are currently circulating- presumably in order that the mud should stick more effectively. Simpson calls it, strikingly, the ‘ultimate act of censorship’. I suppose that would lead me to question whether in fact there is a disagreement between the two men, since they are happy to create the same impression through differing arguments in different outlets.

A month or two back I watched Simpson’s lengthy, atmospheric documentary about being the target of friendly fire in Northern Iraq. He did not spare to mention that the BBC failed to provide enough flak jackets to give protection to his Kurdish assistants. What he didn’t examine was whether he himself was culpable for trying to emulate his march into Kabul during the Afghan campaign, or whether they were sensible to be so near contested territories that they could be indistinguishable from the military when viewed from a distance- or whether they might have unwittingly contributed to the incident by expanding the convoy they joined. There was an old-fashioned high minded arrogance that the journalists are indispensible to the proper conduct of a conflict, and that the professional journalist ‘knows best’. There was a corresponding kind of patronising contempt for the honesty and integrity of the military. With such a frankly low opinion of the authorities and their men and women, I honestly wonder why Simpson put himself and his crew in the way of their ignorant sights. I also wonder why he thinks we should listen to him, and in fact how he can show his face at all.

Finally, I can’t help wondering what the BBC think they’re doing allowing journalists (often the same people that pick up Baftas and present television shows for extraordinary fees) to claim and define for themselves an exalted status and security in any warzone they might wish to enter. Can the same people who routinely parade errors of judgement and accuracy for the world to see persuade us that, far from being unlucky, or targeted, they themselves didn’t contribute to their own downfall? Meanwhile, their antagonists, soldiers, are ordinary people on ordinary pay, fighting- a thing that isn’t attractive or tidy. And anyway, Mr Simpson, try selling this spiel to the North Koreans, the warring Sudanese or Somalis next time you drop in on one of their military camps unannounced to check on the uprightness of their conduct. (Thanks to PJF for the Guardian article, and for his fine comments following my ‘more caterwauling’ post).

. According to a recent Guardian article about the Beeb’s plans to pay their journalists to keep their peace instead of blabbing in newspapers, Greg Dyke (aka Boss Hogg) believes that managing journalists is like ‘herding cats’. Spare a thought then for the military trying to look after, or look out for, journalists in a battle zone, or an ‘intifada’, especially when some decide that ’embedding’ is just not real enough (and doesn’t make anyone famous). Much like a cat, you can guarantee they’ll blame you when things go wrong. Trust? Trust is for the dogs.

I wonder whether Nick Gowing’s caterwaulings would be neutered by Greg’s new policy? If so, is this progress? Once again thanks are due to Tim Blair.