Author Archives: Laban

This time on journalists.

Israeli rocket hits Reuters car

The air strike was one of several in Gaza on Saturday night An Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City during a security operation has injured a Reuters news agency cameraman and a local journalist. At least one rocket hit the car as the cameraman was filming, knocking him unconscious, while the second man received serious leg wounds. The Reuters car was clearly marked all over as a media vehicle.

The Power Line blog (of Dan Rather fame) raises a question or two. In the interests of balance, Hot Air considers a missile attack possible.

Ambulance Update – as Melanie Phillips reports, the Lebanese Red Cross, whose high resolution photo of the ambulance has been used as evidence against the missile attack claim, have removed the image from their website. (I don’t agree with her btw that the affair demonstrates “unprecedented proportions” of hatred. It demonstrates a journalistic mindset, part bias, part laziness, that takes as gospel every story it’s fed by one side, without ever asking of its sources the famous Paxman question.)

Reuters Update – the Confederate Yankee blog had the bright idea of asking some armoured van manufacturers for their views. In their opinion, probably not a missile.

In creating the post on the amazing ambulance attack fraud, I inadvertantly overwrote the post on Saturday’s edition of Radio Four’s “Excess Baggage”, the comments of which are now on the ambulance post.

If anyone has the cached text of the post, could they add it to the comments so that I can recreate it ? Ta.

In his August 10 despatch from Tyre, Jim Muir described “Walking in fear in Lebanon’s no-drive zone”. Even ambulances, he said, were in danger of Israeli air attack.

Ambulances in danger

Around the corner is the Lebanese Red Cross. Lots of ambulances outside, immobile. Then the sound of an engine, and one moves.

“Don’t worry, I’m just parking!” shouts the driver. He is Kassem Shaalan. He knows what it is like to be hit by a rocket.

Red Cross vehicles face destroyed roads as well as direct hits

On the evening of 23 July, he and two other medics answered a call to rendezvous with an ambulance from Tibnin, in the hills to the east, to relay three civilian patients down to Tyre.

Both ambulances were struck precisely by separate rockets as they were stopped at the roadside near Qana for the transfer.

It was 2230 at night. There was nothing else on the road. They were clearly marked, and lit up with flashing blue lights and illuminated Red Cross flags.

Kassem, his two colleagues, the three medics in the other ambulance, and the three Lebanese patients, were all injured.

One of the patients, 38-year-old Ahmad Fawwaz, lost his leg in the ambulance. His mother Jamileh, 58, and son Ahmad, 8, were both seriously injured.

We get many calls from villages saying they have injured people, but there is no permission to go Kassem Shaalan Lebanese Red Cross

But they all survived. And Kassem is back at work.

“Until now, we don’t understand why they did it,” he says now. “It has confused us. But it will not stop us. I’m still wearing the Red Cross uniform, and if they tell me to go, I’ll go and help.

“Because of the Israeli warning, every movement we do goes through the International Red Cross,” he says.

“They ask Israel for permission. If we have it, we go. If we don’t, we can’t. We get many calls from villages saying they have injured people, but there is no permission to go. Yes, people could be dying because we can’t get to them in time. If you don’t get treated within one hour, you are much more likely to die.”

A sad state of affairs indeed, reinforced by the BBC’s picture (picture 7) of the damaged ambulance, complete with “in this incident one patient lost a leg“.

Unfortunately the story appears to be complete nagombi from beginning to end, from the precisely targeted ambulance, through the drivers injuries, to the mysterious missing leg.

Zombietime has details which comprehensively demolish the BBC version (one example – the hole in the ambulance roof is by strange chance exactly the right size to take the red domed vent cover fitted to Lebanese ambulances. Even the BBC photo shows the screw holes).

Now I’m sure Jim Muir doesn’t go out to concoct a story which will put Israel in a bad light. But such a story, presented to him by Lebanese sources, has two characteristics which appear to have resulted in an absence of even the most basic fact-checking, such as “is this what a vehicle hit by an Israeli missile looks like ?“

One – it fits the BBC worldview.

Two – it’s just such a good story. Why ruin it by fact-checking ?

Drinking From Home notes Sandi Toksvig’s response to a complaint about her dewy-eyed BBC portrait of that popular holiday destination, Sudan.

Toksvig responded:

“I think that you can’t necessarily choose your country to visit because of its human rights issues. If we were to all do that we would be pretty limited in our choice of countries to go to. For my money it would almost certainly exclude the United States…”

I think “moral equivalence” is the phrase we’re all looking for.

The BBC once again fails to distinguish between the nations of the United Kingdom when it comes to university top-up fees. Alfie at Waking Hereward gets cross.

This isn’t evidence of bias, more lack of evidence of disinterested coverage.

Imagine a pro-Palestinian Israeli, accused of passing information to West Bank ‘militants’, being shot to death in front of a cheering crowd of right-wing zealots. People gather round the body, taking mobile phone shots, before the mother of an Israeli killed by ‘militants’ is led from the crowd to stamp on the head of the corpse. Finally the crowd are allowed their turn, stamping the body flat into the dust.

I’d think the BBC would cover it – almost certainly with a voice-over or editorial comment about Old Testament vengeance under the skin of a supposed modern, civilised democracy. Don’t you think they would ?

(via DFH)

UPDATE – talking of suppressio veri – a lovely little (domestic) example here. BBC sub-editors can do this sort of thing without even thinking.

At the Social Affairs Unit blog William D. Rubinstein, Professor of Modern History at Aberystwyth, mentions the appointment by Australia’s Howard administration of a ‘revisionist’ historian, Keith Windschuttle, to the board of the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Commission.

“Alas, no Tory Prime Minister here has ever had the nerve or intelligence to make similar appointments to the Board of the BBC, which continues to be a free-to-air version of the Guardian.”

Yesterday’s Radio Four and Five news bulletins featured the story of a prolific burglar, one Gavin Gibson, who was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to seven counts of burglary and asking for a further 420 offences to be taken into consideration. The recorder stated that the unusual leniency of the sentence was a reward for ‘the unprecedented help given to police following his arrest’.

By amazing chance the BBC had a reporter, Valerie Jones, in court to hear the obscure case of a small-time though prolific crook. She reported that, after being arrested ‘Gibson decided to come clean. Over the next month he confessed to another 420 burglaries. He says he stole to fund his drug addiction and now wants help. The recorder said that if he were to jail Gibson, the public would be protected for a few years – but if he could conquer drugs, Gibson might never offend again’.

What an uplifting, hopeful tale. And how well it fits with the BBCs institutional bias towards the anti-prison lobby. Frances Crook (RealAudio) of the Howard League must be able to find her way to the Today studio blindfold by now.

Let’s just imagine a more cynical, alternative view of the above. Nothing like this could ever happen, of course :

Nicked villain confesses to three-quarters of the burglaries committed in his area (most police forces have an abysmally low clear-up rate for burglary). Such crimes are then considered to be ‘cleared up’, even if no-one is convicted for them, and the police force’s detection rate rises accordingly. Happy police.

Police agree with defence counsel to put in a good word for said villain. Happy defence counsel.

Defence counsel get a broad steer from the recorder that a non-custodial is a possibility – and get in touch with the BBC, alerting them to the possibility of a happy non-custodial story for BBC news.

BBC reporter gets to court, happy story is duly procured, and happiness is general. Except perhaps among the residents of Hatfield and Welwyn.

UPDATE – it appears that such things certainly happen in Essex. From the Police Oracle forum :

And dont get me going on the PPO who coughed 490 odd thefts of and burglaries only to be told thanks for the detections, we will strike a deal to keep you out of prison. This resulted in a male with 50 odd convictions and being bang to rights for 3 thefts of and two burglaries getting 18 months suspended for two years.

Today’s anniversary of the 7/7 bombings poses the BBC an interesting challenge – to provide wall-to-wall coverage without mentioning the “I-word” or the “M-word”.

No one wants to hold an entire community responsible for the sins of an extreme minority. The reponsibility for 7/7 lies with the evil-doers who planned and executed it. But given that the bombings were explicitly carried out in the name of Islam, not to mention the fact seems perverse.

The Today programme devoted most of the half-hour between 7 and 7.30 to the anniversary. As Sarah Montague so perceptively pointed out, today is the day when “four British men blew themselves up” (an Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman and a Welshman ?), but it was 7.23 before the M- or I-words were mentioned – when Church of England Bishop Tony Robinson told us that the bombers ‘weren’t Muslims at all’ !

It remains to be seen how the rest of the day’s coverage will pan out – but the Today programme does like to think that it sets the agenda.

Back in March 2004 the BBC were bigging up the launch of Air America, billed as the “liberal answer to the right-wing shock-jocks which fill the U.S air-waves”. and “regime change radio“. News stories, the Today programme, Front Row (the show that gives ‘liberal arts’ a bad name) were all on the case.

Fiona ‘Fi’ Glover and the Radio Four “Broadcasting House” team even moved to New York to present March 28th’s edition.

“We’re in New York for a special programme examining the launch of new, multi-million dollar, US radio network. ‘Air America’ wants to challenge the dominant right-wing talk shows in the US with a new brand of liberal political shows. We talk to the main players involved and ask can ‘Air America’ succeed ?”

Well, two years on, there are plenty of Air America stories around – mostly negative and on the lines of ‘how long can they survive ?’. Their president has just resigned after a year. The wikipedia entry, while sober, is not a cheerful read. Yet the BBC don’t seem to want to revisit the story on which so much money was lavished two years ago. Can’t imagine why. Come on, Justin, Matt. Come on, Fi !