[article] Blair Blasts Beeb over Katrina Coverage

mike65

Hey i should be a tabloid sub-ed!

http://www.thebusinessonline.com

TONY Blair has re-opened the government’s long-standing row about BBC bias by describing the corporation’s coverage of the aftermath of the havoc caused to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina as being “full of hatred of America”.

The UK Prime Minister’s comments on the BBC’s coverage have been revealed by Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corporation. Murdoch also claims that Blair thought the BBC was “gloating” at the slow response of the federal and local authorities in helping and evacuating the hundreds of thousands of victims made homeless and the dead who were left lying uncollected where they had fallen for days.

Murdoch, a long-time critic of the BBC, who controls rival Sky News, claimed the Prime Minister had expressed criticism about the BBC’s Katrina coverage in a private conversation with him in New York last week.

Downing Street made no attempt to deny the story when contacted by The Business on Saturday evening. An official spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “There is not much I can say. The Prime Minister has not expressed these views personally to me.”

Bill Clinton, the former US president, and Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation, also criticised the tone of the BBC’s coverage during a seminar on the media at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York.

Murdoch said Blair first turned on the BBC’s coverage of New Orleans flooding disaster during a recent visit to New Delhi. “He said it was just full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles,” Murdoch claimed.

On Saturday evening, BBC executives appeared to be unaware of the British Prime Minister’s criticism of its coverage and of Murdoch’s comments. When contacted by The Business, a BBC spokesman said: “We have received no complaint from Downing Street, so it would be remiss of us to comment on what has been reported as a private confirmation. However, it would appear opportune to underline the fact that the BBC’s coverage of the Katrina devastation was committed solely to relaying the event fully, accurately and impartially, an approach we will continue to take with this and other stories.”

Former US president Clinton said the corporation’s coverage, while factually accurate, had been “stacked up” to criticise the federal government's slow response to the catastrophe without focusing on any of the other relief efforts or the magnitude of the task.

Sir Howard Stringer, a former head of CBS News, said he had been “nervous about the slight level of gloating” in the BBC’s coverage of the devastation caused by the hurricane and the response from the federal authorities to the plight of the victims. But he noted that the tone changed after two days and that other news outlets and the government had underestimated the effects of Katrina.

Clinton invited Stringer, Murdoch and Dick Parsons, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, to debate the role of the media in a global economy as part of his three-day gathering to discuss pov-erty, religious conflict and climate change.

Murdoch made reference to Blair’s remarks during a discussion of US foreign aid and the role of private philanthropy in which he claimed that the rest of the world was “jealous” of the US.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” the media tycoon chuckled, before re-counting his conversation with Blair. The government’s relationship with the BBC hit a low point in 2003 with the row over “sexing up” of the dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Dunno what to make of this, the coverage struck me as accurate, sure much was made of the failure of the Federal government but then there was plenty of critisise. Kinda suspect Blair feels he can give Auntie a slap as he sees fit since Hutton.

Mike.

OfflerCrocGod

mike65 wrote:

Dunno what to make of this, the coverage struck me as accurate, sure much was made of the failure of the Federal government but then there was plenty of critisise.

That was the goverments problem with the coverage....the fact that it was accurate and fair. It showed up the US the UKs great 'ally'. It was simply Yet Another US Goverment Failure; the fact that the Beeb showed that annoyes the people in power. The whole disaster was a huge embarrassment to the US goverment.

finfacts

The response of Federal Government was without doubt very bad ( FEMA Hurricane Pam simulation in 2004 forecast catastrophic flooding of New Orleans ).

There is always the tendency to see faults in others that we should see in ourselves - Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern criticised the reponse but remember his party colleague Joe Jacob's laughable reponse to what we should do if there was a catastrophic explosion at Sellafield?

Alongside the humanitarian stories and FEMA's failures, was the focus on George Bush being cut down to size.

Journalists love the blood sport of the political impact and the BBC had a lot of this including a question from Jeremy Paxman on Bush and future "history books."

When there is a disaster like Katrina, TV inevitably focuses on the emotional impact of individual stories. Issues such as local corruption and the granting of building permits in high-risk flood areas, Federal funding in Lousiana going to "pork" projects, why the levees had not been built up prior to 2001 etc are more complex ones to cover.

Michael Hennigan

billy the squid

In fairness even George W Bush said the response was unacceptable, )albeit probably after being told by his advisors to say so) the BBC did a pretty good job of it.

Compare that with rupert murdoch's Fox news coverage. was watching an NBC show during the time and it stated that Geraldo Rivera was sent by Fox News to rescue a 71 year old woman, which he did, but because they didnt get the right shot of him carrying to old lady's dog into the shelter after rescueing her, they made her go back out and take the shot again.

Fox news is to News what the WWF is to wrestling.

flogen

as Billy said, even Bush has been blatently honest in his governments faults. There were times I felt as if the BBC were being a bit anti-America, I'll admit but once you put it into context they were really just reporting it as it is, and I would say they portrayed more surprise at the failure of the US, they didn't gloat, that's rediculous.

Murdoch really should learn to keep his private conversations private, if this did take place (and as has been said, Blair doesn't like the BBC because they don't buy into New Labour spin and he can attack them ever since that horrible Hutton result), Murdoch would be more than happy to tell everyone about it, slagging the BBC off is easier than trying to equal them professionally.

jrey1981

I just read this on the Independent on Sunday website, and am not in the least surprised. As if we needed another insight into the Blair/New Labour mindset and the cosy relationship with Murdoch.

The clique at the heart of NL remains fundamentally insecure about the damage the media can do to them and long for the day when they have a compliant media full of ex spin doctors who will happily do as they are told while begging for more from some of the more incestuous members of the Westminster media/PR/political village. Anyone who read about the Tim Allan & John Humphries bust-up in The Times will know this only too well.

Hobbes

FEMA are trying hard to put not a spin on the situation but to stop people from reporting bad things that happened out of N.O.

There have been reports of reporters threatened in N.O. that if they reported certain incidents they would have been escorted out of the zone.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/13/MNG3HEMQHG1.DTL

Even people being hired by FEMA are to "give a positive image" of the situation.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0907051fema1.html

Zebra3

“He said it was just full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles,” Murdoch claimed.

Isn't Murdoch from Australia?

flogen

Zebra3 wrote:

“He said it was just full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles,” Murdoch claimed.

Isn't Murdoch from Australia?

Nope, and you'd be a fool and a communist for thinking otherwise.

Seriously though, he became an American citizen in 1985 as US law says that only US citizens can own television channels. That's how much money means to him. Read here.

Lump

Ah.... the BBC have plenty of Lawers

John

whiskeyman

I guess he's accusing the BBC of "sexed-up" coverage of the devastation caused by Katrina.....