Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Thursday 27 March 2003

Iraq and propaganda - Andrew Sullivan continues his idiotic anti-BBC 'crusade'

Whenever I send a constructively critical (well, I would say that, wouldn't I?) e-mail to Andrew Sullivan, soon after up pops an even more blatant example of selective news analysis - this is one of the 'best' I've read for some time.

Of course, he carefully doesn't quote other very relevant paragraphs from this BBC article by Rageh Omaar (an excellent news journalist, whom I've been watching for some years now):

The targeting in the air strikes has not been indiscriminate but, as in all wars, there are mistakes and there are civilian casualties.

That seems to have been what has happened here, but the political price of such mistakes in this war will be much more costly.


Finally, and most seriously (and frankly, unforgivably), he neglects to mention the all-important final 'health-warning', very relevant when someone reporting on behalf of an invading army's national broadcasting service is reporting from the invaded country's capital:
"The movements of those reporting from Baghdad are restricted and their reports are monitored by the Iraqi authorities"

The man persists in writing about the Middle East when he is pig-ignorant on the subject, and he is shameless in distorting reporting he doesn't approve of. He writes good stuff, sometimes (specially in the past, if truth be told ... sigh), but it's difficult to remain dispassionate when faced with this kind of nonsense.

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