The objective news reporting coming out of the UK in the aftermath of the London attacks has been very impressive. I wrote a column about that very topic last week (link). Some people at Fox News seem to be thinking though that straight reporting is “pro terrorist” and accuse the BBC of spreading “anti American” sentiments.
FOX News does not offer complete transcripts of the O’Reilly Factor, the show that made most of the allegations. The Guardian, the UK paper that was also accused of being “anti-Bush,” has some of the more outlandish quotes, though:
O’Reilly wondered whether the BBC would change its “anti-Bush… bash America” agenda following the London attacks.
“Will things change now? Don’t count on it. That’s because media like the BBC won’t stop at spin… The only way to defeat worldwide terrorism is for the world to unite and overcome differences in support of that greater good. Maybe the London killings will help in that effort. What say you, BBC?,” O’Reilly said in his regular Talking Points Memo feature.
On his Fox News show, O’Reilly also said: “What good does it do al-Qaeda to alienate the BBC and all of these major organisations that have basically not dealt with the threat in a realistic way?”
This prompted a guest to add: “In certain respects, the BBC almost operates as a foreign registered agent of Hizbullah and some of the other jihadist groups.”
(…) O’Reilly has also laid into the Guardian since Thursday’s bombings, asking one guest: “Have you read the Guardian lately? I mean, it might be edited by Osama bin Laden. I mean, that’s how bad the paper is.” Guardian
It’s ridiculous to suggest that a news organization such as the BBC is “pro terrorist” just because they report straight facts. Apparently Fox News is annoyed that the BBC will not label people as “evil” across the board and do not report unsubstantiated rumors. The same goes for The Guardian.
The head of the BBC TV news department responded in a column in the Guardian:
(P)eople have asked about the flow of information - and in particular whether the BBC was more cautious than other news sources. Let’s be clear that the BBC does not withhold known facts. We always want to be first with confirmed news, and it is non-negotiable in our journalism that we supply information as soon as we have it.
However, we will not report mere rumour and nor will we run casualty figures, as the most obvious example, without being able to verify them. At times last Thursday we were seeing other news sources running figures well above any official estimates, and in some cases those reports exceed the known death toll today. That isn’t the way the BBC operates, so on very rare occasions our information will be “later” than some of our rivals: accuracy is more important than speed, though we want to achieve both. This approach has been praised by commentators here and in the United States - where the LA Times and the Baltimore Sun are among the newspapers approving of the BBC’s restraint.
(…) A contributor to Fox said after the London bombings that “the BBC almost operates as a foreign registered agent of Hezbollah and some of the other jihadist groups”. On the Fox website today there is an opinion piece, “How Jane Fonda and the BBC put you in danger”. I am writing this in a building which was bombed by Irish terrorists. My colleagues and I are living in a city recovering from the wounds inflicted last week. If I may leave our customary impartiality aside for a moment, the comments made on Fox News are beneath contempt.
Roger Mosey, head of BBC Television News in The Guardian
The UK has more experience with terrorism than we should hope the U.S. will ever have. That is probably the prime reason why a terrorist attack on the U.S. was met with such hysteria and lack of regard for civil liberties.
FOX News reporters who suggest that the press in the UK is spreading “anti-American” sentiments by reporting straight facts shows yet again how certain American journalists forget that their first allegiance should be to deliver solid information, not to acting as an extension of a particular government.
Those who point out shortcomings in government policy are in the long run helping raise the bar. Shooting the messenger under the guise of “patriotism” will only limit the freedom of the press that took centuries to establish. And it really doesn’t matter if this happens while flags or waving or not, the effect will be detrimental either way.
