Reply #28: Is anyone reading this?

[ParanoidPat]

From http://www.saag.org/papers10/paper948.html

South Asia Analysis Group

IRAQ WARS-WESTERN MEDIA PROPAGANDA ARMS OF GOVERNMENTS AND CORPORATE INTERESTS

Paper no.948 12. 03. 2004

by K. Gajendra Singh “Demand a broader view.“ BBC

BBC’s Director General Greg Dyke, who resigned after Lord Hutton “white wash” of the British government role in the spat over correspondent Andrew Gilligan (in a Channel 4 News poll last week 90% thought Hutton was unfair), said that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s top spin doctor Alastair Campbell had written letter after letter throughout the conflict. “What Alastair Campbell was clearly trying to do was intimidate the BBC so that we reported what he wanted us to report as opposed to what we wanted to report,” he said. Dyke had attacked American television reporting of Iraq war "For any news organisation to act as a cheerleader for government is to undermine your credibility," he said. "They should be... balancing their coverage, not banging the drum for one side or the other." He added that research showed that of 840 experts interviewed on American news programmes during the invasion of Iraq, only four opposed the war. "If that were true in Britain, the BBC would have failed in its duty."

How ever, BBC itself gave in its over all coverage a mere 2% time to opposition’s anti-war voices, which was really the majority view of the British people. It was the worst of the leading broadcasters, including US networks, according to Media Tenor; a Bonn-based non-partisan media research organization. So much for the most hyped pristine western media outlet. ABC of USA with 7% was the second-worst case of denying access to anti-war voices.

In a 4 July, 2003 comment in “ the Guardian” titled “Biased Broadcasting Corporation”, Justin Lewis, Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University confirmed the above result while refuting the anecdotal view that BBC was anti-war in its coverage. “ Just the opposite was the truth”. A careful analysis by the university of all the main evening news bulletins during the war, concluded that of the four main UK broadcasters - the BBC, ITN, Channel 4 and Sky, BBC’s coverage was the worst in granting anti-war viewpoint. The BBC had "displayed the most pro-war agenda of any broadcaster." Matthew d'Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph described how "in the eyes of exasperated Blairites - the BBC whinged and whined, and did its best to sabotage the war effort". But the pattern that emerges from their study was very different.

The supposed “impartiality” of the BBC did not fool many opponents of the war, who correctly saw it as a voice of the government. On March 29, 2003 for example, a demonstration by 400 anti-war protesters was held outside the BBC’s office in Manchester and criticised the BBC for its pro-government and anti-Iraq coverage.

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