Rapid Response Media Alert: Targeting Iran – The BBC Propaganda Begins

[Barking_Mad]

I think given the topic of discussion re: the media, this debate between Chomsky and Andrew Marr is worth reading, again!

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9602-big-idea.html

 

[editor]

Interesting article!

 

[Barking_Mad]

So you'd like reporters to preface their reports with an introduction about their hotel arrangements and/or walk around and face near-certain death or kidnap instead?

I've seen more than enough footage shot by the BBC in dangerous conditions so the notion that they rarely leave their hotels room or are cocooned from any danger is plain rubbish. Have you forgotten that they lost Terry Lloyd - one of their most respected journalists - in Iraq?

What do you expect these journalists to do? Isn't this long list of killed reporters long enough for you?

Jesus, dont fucking take what I said out of context. Try READING THE POST!

Ive no beef with anyone who doesnt want to walk the streets of Iraq, but they should stop the myth that all the reports come from the journo's themselves, as they dont. And dont tell me Im wrong, because I have the e-mail from Richard Sambrook (BBC News) to prove it.

If the BBC (or anyone else) were prepared to say that under Saddam's rule their reports came with restrictions on them, then they should do the same now. Or are you saying being stuck in a hotel and getting 'Iraqi stringers' and the US and Iraqis authority to report news to them is somehow condusive to giving viewers an accurate portrayal of events inside Iraq?

Just because the BBC has footaghe doesn't mean that they shot it, much is from Reuters employed Iraqi reporters and camera men. Oh and Terry Lloyd worked for ITN, not the BBC.

 

[editor]

Oh and Terry Lloyd worked for ITN, not the BBC.

Is there any reason why you felt the need to repeat something that has already been pointed out to me by two other posters half an hour ago and something that I have already acknowledged nearly twenty minutes ago?

Some people might suspect that you're simply trying to score cheap points here.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Is there any reason why you felt the need to repeat something that has already been pointed out to me by two other posters half an hour ago and something that I have already acknowledged nearly twenty minutes ago?

Some people might suspect that you're simply trying to score cheap points here.

Sorry it was unintentional. Im at work and dont have the time to flick back through posts to read what everyone else said. Ill take your silence on the rest of my points as some sort of tacit agreement?

 

[pk]

Just because the BBC has footaghe doesn't mean that they shot it, much is from Reuters employed Iraqi reporters and camera men. Oh and Terry Lloyd worked for ITN, not the BBC.

Reuters cameras make up part of the feed material, Al Jazeera provides pool feeds as does APTN and Euronews.

The footage compliments the reports - it is almost never shot to fit the script in a war zone.

Sounds like I'm stating the obvious, but when you consider only a minority of reports, i.e. the top stories, are assembled on location, you have to bear in mind the journos based in London writing scripts based solely upon news wire reports provided by the above. All of which have to be independently checked before going out.

So when those scripts get to the edit, mostly the pictoral content is derived from numerous sources, not just Reuters or whoever, certainly in the case of war coverage, six or seven different video sources might be used.

 

[pk]

they (the BBC) should stop the myth that all the reports come from the journo's themselves, as they dont. And dont tell me Im wrong, because I have the e-mail from Richard Sambrook (BBC News) to prove it.

So, Barking Mad, I'll expect you'll be happy to either provide us with a credible link or post the contents from this email then?

I'd be interested to read it if it says, as you seem to be claiming, that BBC journos don't write their own reports, yet take credit for them...

 

[editor]

Im at work and dont have the time to flick back through posts to read what everyone else said. Ill take your silence on the rest of my points as some sort of tacit agreement?

I don't suppose you see the hypocrisy in you completely ignoring my posts and then insisting that my failure to address every one of your points can be read as an "implicit agreement"!!!

I've never claimed that all footage shown on the BBC is entirely created by the BBC because that would be a very stupid thing to say,

 

[pk]

Good post.
I fear you are correct in your analysis.(Re: Bigfish)

I doubt if he's ever had any direct contact with the BBC past what he's read on Conspiraloons'r'Us.
I have and know he's talking utter bollocks.

In which case - the title of the thread should be changed IMO, to remove reference to the BBC, an organisation that Bigfish knows nothing about, other than they make the Teletubbies...

 

[redsquirrel]

Interesting article!

Interesting as in interesting or interesting as in the DrJazz type interesting?

 

[maomao]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, following Chomsky's model of media ownership, using outsourcing and freelancing journalists would actually work to increase the bias of the BBC because journalists would only file reports that they felt would be used, that is the pressure to conform to the agenda would be higher.

Dirty bombs don't exist?

What crap is this?

Can you account for all the missing plutonium from the former USSR?

Can you say that it is not feasable for a load of it to be stuck in a regular fertiliser bomb?

Well everything that I've ever read suggests a bomb of this construction wouldn't be very effective and wouldn't leave a lot of concentrated fall out. Could be useful in creating a panic but not much else.

Despite this, I think Steeplejack said it best when he said.

to reject out of hand virtually everything the BBC puts out is as cock eyed as slavishly believing all their reports as the objective, impartial truth. At the heart of this is the (I believe) naive view that there should be such a thing as perfect, flawless, selfless news organisations. Sadly, I think that's impossible in the 21st century.

 

[pk]

I'm sorry, but you'll have to go a long way to convince me that powdered weapons grade aluminium blown into a huge cloud over a major city using a conventional bomb would be "ineffective".

Sounds like anti-panic propaganda to me.

Surely if this were true, then the multi-billion dollar industry concerned with the safe disposal of radioactive material would be broken in two overnight!
Hey, just blow it up!

The science for a dirty bomb is as simple as ABC, and I'm not talking dodgy haircuts and Poison Arrow.

 

[maomao]

I'm sorry, but you'll have to go a long way to convince me that powdered weapons grade aluminium blown into a huge cloud over a major city using a conventional bomb would be "ineffective".

Sounds like anti-panic propaganda to me.

Surely if this were true, then the multi-billion dollar industry concerned with the safe disposal of radioactive material would be broken in two overnight!
Hey, just blow it up!

The science for a dirty bomb is as simple as ABC, and I'm not talking dodgy haircuts and Poison Arrow.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html

And that's from the US nuclear regulatory commission no less. If you're knowledge contradicts this please elaborate.

 

[editor]

Interesting as in interesting or interesting as in the DrJazz type interesting?

'Interesting' as in watching the two minds engaged in an intellectual battle!

Chomsky came over a little arrogant though, IMO.

 

[editor]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, following Chomsky's model of media ownership, using outsourcing and freelancing journalists would actually work to increase the bias of the BBC because journalists would only file reports that they felt would be used, that is the pressure to conform to the agenda would be higher.

Not necessarily.

I worked for a very large media organisation and had a completely free hand to slag off the products of their major advertisers.

I've also written commissioned articles for major newspapers and have been at absolute liberty to slag off the government, if I so chose.

(Admittedly, the stakes weren't as high as the war in Iraq, but I hope you get my drift!)

 

[maomao]

Not necessarily.

I worked for a very large media organisation and had a completely free hand to slag off the products of their major advertisers.

I've also written commissioned articles for major newspapers and have been at absolute liberty to slag off the government, if I so chose.

(Admittedly, the stakes weren't as high as the war in Iraq, but I hope you get my drift!)

As a freelance? The point is that a journalist with a contract and employment tribunals to back him up has less pressure to conform than a freelance journalist.

Edit to add: I'm not clear whether a 'commissioned' article comes under freelance or employed. I'm not up to date on journalists' terms of employment, sorry.

 

[pk]

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html

And that's from the US nuclear regulatory commission no less. If you're knowledge contradicts this please elaborate.

No need to - your link proves my point adequately.

most radioactive material employed in hospitals for diagnosis or treatment of cancer is sufficiently benign that about 100,000 patients a day are released with this material in their bodies.

However, certain other radioactive materials, dispersed in the air, could contaminate up to several city blocks, creating fear and possibly panic and requiring potentially costly cleanup.

That's pretty effective if you ask me.

And that website refers only to low grade radioactive material - NOT weapons grade, such as the type that the former Soviet Union managed to "misplace" by the truckload.

So, again, you need to convince me a lot better than that if you're going to state that a dirty bomb is an ineffective method of delivering widespread chaos and terror to potentially millions of people.

 

[pk]

a journalist with a contract and employment tribunals to back him up has less pressure to conform than a freelance journalist.

Precisely why Bigfish is talking crap.

Many of the BBC in-house journos are freelance, and they aren't directed by news editors other than deciding the topic they are meant to be covering.

 

[redsquirrel]

So, again, you need to convince me a lot better than that if you're going to state that a dirty bomb is an ineffective method of delivering widespread chaos and terror to potentially millions of people.

Eh nobody has said that it won't.
These weapons have an immense terror value, largely beacuse they have been talked up by the media/government. What people are arguing is that they are capable of killing thousands of people (above a normal bomb).

 

[maomao]

So, again, you need to convince me a lot better than that if you're going to state that a dirty bomb is an ineffective method of delivering widespread chaos and terror to potentially millions of people.

Like I said, good for creating a panic, not that great for actually killing large amounts of people or anything.

 

[Streathamite]

Don't expect the BBC to give you the truth, you know they failed once already! Duelfer's report on the fact that there were no WMD in Iraq didn't even make it to the front pages of the UK's broadsheets!

errm....given that the BBC - of all media outlets - had the biggests et-to with the Govt. over Iraq (one which, moreover, claimed the scalps of the chair of Governors, the DG, and the head of news) - which news media would you trust more?

Now the BBC, whose credibility is already in question, begins once more to build a case for war with Iran based on imaginary nuclear weapons but we know for a fact that Israel developed nuclear weapons and is estimated to have over 200. These are not imaginary weapons. They are real, existent weapons.

I grant you all you've said about Israel; thanks to the Sunday Times, this is not in doubt.
But on what, precisely, do you base the extraordinary claim that the Beeb is banging the drum for war?

 

[editor]

As a freelance? The point is that a journalist with a contract and employment tribunals to back him up has less pressure to conform than a freelance journalist.

Yep, I was working as a freelance writer (for 6 years).

 

[maomao]

Precisely why Bigfish is talking crap.

Many of the BBC in-house journos are freelance, and they aren't directed by news editors other than deciding the topic they are meant to be covering.

I'm going to point out before saying this that I think the BBC is not only incredibly biased but also one of the least biased media outlets in the world (hope that makes sense.)

A freelance journalist presumably has to turn in work that his boss is going to like if he wants to get more work right? That's what I meant by 'increasing bias'.

 

[Streathamite]

As a freelance? The point is that a journalist with a contract and employment tribunals to back him up has less pressure to conform than a freelance journalist.

Edit to add: I'm not clear whether a 'commissioned' article comes under freelance or employed. I'm not up to date on journalists' terms of employment, sorry.

not necessarily. a freelancer with a good contacts book and a good reputation is in a better position to pick and choose work, and publishers, than a career-minded staffer who is therefore in less position to tell the editors, and the party line, to knob off.

 

[Barking_Mad]

So, Barking Mad, I'll expect you'll be happy to either provide us with a credible link or post the contents from this email then?

I'd be interested to read it if it says, as you seem to be claiming, that BBC journos don't write their own reports, yet take credit for them...

I didn't said they didnt write the reports, I said much of the the information from within them comes from Iraqi stringers, who do the news gathering for them, or Iraqi politicians or US officials in the Green Zone. Apologies if what I wrote before was 'misleading'.

This goes back to my original point that being unable to leave the Green Zone due to non-existent security is a restriction, a restriction which is not mentioned in reports. Im not having a go at journo's for not wanting to die, Im simply saying that the BBC and other organisations should say sopmething along the lines of,

"Due to the lack of security in Iraq, our journalists reports are mainly restricted to reporting from the Green Zone". But they dont. The information is fed under the false understanding that they have free access to information and to the Iraqi people. At least under 'Saddam's restrictions' they were free to move about the city and see for their own eyes what was happening. Now, most of them simply dont. (See Fisk's report I linked above)

I have the e-mail from Mr Sambrook but I cant reproduce it right now as access at Yahoo Mail at work is blocked. Ill fish it out when I get home - providing its not the one he asked me not to reproduce anywhere else!

 

[Streathamite]

I understood from a BBC editor that Sambrook's been shunted sideways into a non-job...?

 

[Barking_Mad]

I don't suppose you see the hypocrisy in you completely ignoring my posts and then insisting that my failure to address every one of your points can be read as an "implicit agreement"!!!

I've never claimed that all footage shown on the BBC is entirely created by the BBC because that would be a very stupid thing to say,

Oh give over, you completely misread and misunderstood my original point (did you bother to read the Robert Fisk article?) which was that the restrictions under which the journalists are reporting are not being conveyed to the viewer in his or her home.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I understood from a BBC editor that Sambrook's been shunted sideways into a non-job...?

He was moved to another job, something to do with international news I believe.

 

[pk]

BBC news carried a piece about dirty bombs despite the fact that TPON showed that such a thing didn't exist.

As I see you've edited your contentious post, I'll take that as an acceptance that you were, in this case, talking crap.

Dirty bombs may well exist - no evidence can be provided to the contrary.

And if you think the effects of a truckload of plutonium or uranium 238 would not cause a serious crippling of a major city, worthy of serious media attention to the viability of such an attack, then you must be on the same planet as Bigfish!



(With respect, Redsquirrel... you're not nearly as clueless as Bigfish - I know that.)

 

[Pickman's model]

I do hope you're not going to make a habit of ignorantly answering questions asked to others because it's rather a waste of time.

no, i'll leave that to the experts.