Tony Blair’s Washington visit and the curious case of a disappearing BBC s

[bemildred]

On Friday 26 May, just hours after Tony Blair and George Bush began talks in Washington on the “progress” of their occupation of Iraq, a curious article appeared on the BBC’s website. Headlined “Iran FM begins first Baghdad trip”, it was posted at 0617 GMT. Penned by one Pam O'Toole, it painted a faux-objective, strangely upbeat, picture of the Iranian foreign minister’s impending visit to Iraq.

This was all the more extraordinary because the US and British governments, through compliant sections of the media – including the BBC which is now virtually the official mouthpiece of the Blair government – have been engaged in a propaganda campaign demonising the Tehran government in preparation for an aerial assault on Iran.

In short, the article was strikingly out of tune with the anti-Iranian chorus which continues to insist that Tehran is almost incomprehensively evil and the mainstay of most world terrorism.I picked up a link to this article while browsing the rather selective “1st Headlines” site (http://www.1stheadlines.com). Within hours, it had disappeared from the BBC’s website, although O’Toole’s articles appear to be comprehensively archived there, some dating back to the late 1990s.

I haven’t followed O’Toole career, but on the evidence of this article she’d have been right at home scribbling for the Stalinist regime of the old USSR. To make this point a little clearer I couldn’t resist adding a few words (bold in square brackets) and deletions (struck through) and with those changes her report could be something one might have read in Pravda in the 1960s.

PNN

[Ghost Dog]

1. Well done, many thanks bemildred.

The BBC (especially World Service - always under FO (Foreign Office) control) was the first pretty damn obvious casuality (re. Hutton) post Dr. David Kelly's apparent assasination.

[bemildred]

5. Speaking from the USA:

It's become more like PBS, that is concerned about the consequences of being too candid about political issues, which is not a good thing IMHO. There has been an increase in the occurrence of the sort of stilted cant spewed by the state propaganda organs, as this fellow alludes to. I tend to think there are still professional people working at BBC, and they do what they can, but the shortening of the leash in the last couple years seemed evident to me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I think Gavin Gatenby reads too much into this

The BBC regularly, but annoyingly, updates articles, sometimes comprehensively, on their website, replacing the old version with the new one, when the information changes.

Do a Google News search for the headline and it comes up on the BBC site:

Google search

Follow the link, and you get Iran puts US Iraq talks on hold

The article has changed from "Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, is due in Iraq for talks with top Iraqi officials" to "Iran's foreign minister has said Tehran has rejected for now a US offer for direct talks on Iraq. On a visit to Iraq, Manouchehr Mottaki said the US tried to exploit the issue for propaganda and create a negative atmosphere by raising other issues"

When the visit actually happened, they replaced the old, speculative article with one based on what the FM actually said.

I can't work out what Gatenby thinks he's proved that by rewriting an article, you can make it sound 'Stalinist'. You can read the pre-visit BBC piece without his wordplay here.

[sweetheart]

3. You mean the BBC does not lie for bliar?

You mean that no laws were broken?.. gosh, the brainwashing power of a "trusted" liar.

Its sick, and the british people should be ashamed that they are war criminals
thanks to the BBC's cowardice and Tony's devious lies.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I think the BBC is more cowed by the government than pre-Hutton

which is bad; and they do assume the state is right, if there's doubt, so they're not a perfect objective news source. But Gatenby appears to claim (his argument seems to wander, but I think this is what he's saying) is that Number 10 gave O'Toole a piece that was more conciliatory to Iran, and that O'Toole dutifully presented it under her own name without rewording it in any way; that a few hours later, Washington had severe words with Blair, saying he had to toe the line on Iran being evil, and that Blair quickly had a different piece written for the BBC website, and told the BBC to erase the old one and pretend it didn't exist. No, I don't think that the BBC website is that directly controlled by Number 10; if it were, the BBC would put out far fewer stories critical of his government. I also don't think that Washington regards the BBC website as being the precise mouthpiece of Blair either.

[bemildred]

4. In some respects.

His speculations about the "purpose" of the story and its "withdrawal" are just that, and not convincing to me. His comments on the stilted rhetorical style of government propaganda and on the unusually sympathetic exposition given in this particular story to Iran's point of view seem well argued. That it is British government propaganda is unproven.

I think it would not be an arduous exercise to come up with a similar version resembling US government propaganda.

It is certainly reasonable to wonder why Tony would take such a circuitous route as this fellow suggests to telling Bush that we are screwed in Iraq. But it is also reasonable to notice that this story differs from the normal stream of pro-occupation babble. I thought it was thought provoking enough to be worth posting, without necessarily treating it as gospel.