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

Tuesday 8 April 2003

The bizarre nature of some Google searches

I just noticed, when scanning through some of the IPs of those who have surfed to my little 'blog' (for which many thanks!), that amongst the most popular searches at the moment is 'Rageh Omaar', a BBC journalist currently reporting from Baghdad. Amongst the searches, however, is one that struck me as particularly curious as the search engine (a marvellous tool) was asked the query 'Rageh Omaar gay'; I expect Google alighted on me because in my self-intro at the top of this page I indicate I am gay.

For the record, I neither know nor care if Rageh Omaar is gay - frankly, I'm amazed that anyone has got the time to put such pointless searches into 'Google' or that they care one way or the other. I do think he is a pretty good reporter, however, and whilst like every other journalist I expect he makes bad judgement-calls from time to time, it is my view he tries his best to be objective in his reporting, telling viewers just what he sees and hears, no more and no less.

Luckily, he sees it as his job (I suspect) not just to mouth what it would be convenient from a US/UK government point of view for him to say. The same can be said for the other BBC reporters covering Iraq at present, and I would add the same for the excellent coverage from Iraq at present by the other main British news gathering broadcasting service, ITN/ITV, for example by John Irvine (also an excellent reporter) - I've just been watching him on the lunchtime news, telling us about the current situation in Baghdad, as he sees it.

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