Read these gems, but please hold your laughter!
Why the BBC ‘has let down Bahrain’s people’
By Arthur Macdonald, GDN, Posted on » Wednesday, November 02, 2011
MANAMA: The British Broadcasting Corporation moved from being a globally respected news organisation to joining the ranks of the yellow press during the unrest in Bahrain.
That is the view of Akhbar Al Khaleej Editor-in-Chief Anwar Abdulrahman.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Bahrain Chapter of the International Advertising Association meeting yesterday at the InterContinental Regency Bahrain, in Manama, Mr Abdulrahman said that the BBC had let down the people of Bahrain with its coverage.
“I have respected the BBC in the past but they seem to have had a mental change,” he said.
“What they said over the unrest turned them into yellow journalism. I suppose they were in competition with the Sun at that level of coverage and now we have a BBC that we can no longer trust.
“I hope we, as human beings, learn and repair our standards because the coverage of the BBC was damaging to Bahrain in the eyes of the world.”
He added: “The BBC broadcasts its news bulletins in every language. If only a few Bahraini teenagers burn tyres in the streets to hinder traffic, for the BBC this is big news.
“However, when the house of the most distinguished Bahraini woman journalist Sameera Rajab was attacked with Molotov cocktails last week, the BBC did not utter a word.
“I seriously question its integrity.”
To illustrate the differences in perception between the Arab world and the West, Mr Abdulrahman related the incident of a Bahraini student staying in the UK who one day found that the lady serving them in the cafeteria had disappeared.
On enquiring, he was told that she was facing some family problems. So he decided to visit her.
“Thank you for coming to visit me,” she said. “I am facing enormous problems. My husband has run away with another woman and, secondly, my 18-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant. These are facts of life I have to face.”
Suddenly she started crying and said: “But what is really tragic is that my dog has died.”
I don’t particularly give a damn for Anwar Abdulrahman being at the head of not one but two so-called “newspapers” in Bahrain. What I do give a damn about; however, is that an organisation like the IAA not only gives him the time of day but provides him with a platform from which he spreads his filth. The IAA must’ve been desperate for a mediocre comedian to entertain them during one of their lunches. What they have done with him being there is miserably failed their members and wasted yet another opportunity to raise the level of their Chapter and its membership with something worthwhile to listen to and learn from.
This joker entertained his crowd by branding an ancient and one of the most respected media edifices in the world as yellow journalists, then he goes on to contend that “the coverage of the BBC was damaging to Bahrain in the eyes of the world“. I suppose on Planet Moron™, in which he is a founding member, that would be a believable contention, on Planet Earth; however, it just leads to hilarious, rolling on the floor, leg-cicking mirth. What does damage this country’s reputation in the eyes of the world is him and his likes obfuscating the truth and creating such tall stories to support their unsupportable positions. The damage that Anwar Abdulrahman & Co have done to this country is untold, and time, being the merciless judge it is, will one day serve them their deeds in life or chiseled on their headstones for eternity.
But Anwar being on a roll doesn’t stop at those ridiculous contentions of course, oh no, he continues by insulting the Western world in general and the the UK in particular by what he believes to be a “funny and poignant story” which he typically attributes it to yet another of his imaginary sources to bolster his tenuous position.
Journalism? Ethics? Truth? Humanity? Those facets are as far away from him as they could possibly be, but in Planet Moron™, he’s the dog’s bollocks!
Comments
Hahahahaha I loved this article!!! Great job! Anwar effectively brought himself down to a new low with these comments and has damaged his already fragile “journalism” reputation with such insults towards the BBC! Should the whole world just watch btv then?
Before we go ‘Gaddafi’ all over the poor old chap, we may need to consider this article:
“BBC Arab spring coverage to be examined for impartiality”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/26/bbc-arab-spring-coverage-impartiality?newsfeed=true
Let’s hope BBC gets out of it without any issues, considering its image and stature as a globally trusted news source.
We could also make use of such examinations locally with our newspapers every now and then. It is quite healthy to do this after all.
Every news organisation must be watched and be answerable to its public and every news story or article you read you must do so with a healthy amount of skepticism. The irony I found is someone like this guy who publishes economical versions of the truth in his papers questioning the BBC. Ironic no matter how ‘Gaddafi’ you want to be!
The old adage comes to mind “Who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”. As for the BBC, last time I looked, they were answerable to the UK licence fee payers, not regimes in the Gulf or anywhere else. The inquiry Abdulla mentions is an INTERNAL BBC ONE, so “the BBC getting out of this” doesn’t come into it. As the Guardian article makes clear, the context of it is complaints from “lobbyists”, in Bahrain’s case Qorvis, et al. AA’s rant in the GDN kind of gives the game away!
It was during the conflict in Kuwait that I first questioned the BBC’s impartiality; we had access to more than just the BBC for our news thanks to satellite TV. It was apparent that the news stations coverage had a different slant from one another. Contrasted against one another, editorial control became apparent and I started to question the news the BBC was providing. Currently with so many news stations from Al-Jazeera to Russia Today I honestly don’t know who to believe. The BBC does have a world view though and reports from that standpoint and it is not always impartial.
There have been a lot of incidents in the UK that the BBC have exaggerated one point of view and have not given fair voice to the other. As far as coverage of Bahrain, it was eclipsed by Egypt and Libya. The Saudi intervention was portrayed as a good thing with a neighbour helping out a stricken ally. This has not been the feeling I read in these pages.
Then again, we do have freedom of the press and maybe I’m being a bit spoilt criticising the BBC but it didn’t gain the moniker Blair & Brown Corporation for its impartiality. 🙂
I agree with you in that context, but for Abdulrahman essentially comparing his rags to the BBC is a bit too mug to stomach.