UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has accused the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina of being "full of hatred of America" and "gloating" at the country's plight, it was reported on Saturday.
Blair allegedly made the remarks in private to Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, which owns BBC rival Sky News.
Downing Street yesterday refused to comment on the report in the Financial Times. The BBC insisted that its coverage was "committed solely to relaying the events fully, accurately and impartially."
Murdoch, a long-standing critic of the BBC, was addressing the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York.
He chuckled, "I probably shouldn't be telling you this," before recounting a recent conversation with Blair. He said Blair was in New Delhi when he made his objection to the BBC's coverage of the catastrophe in New Orleans: "He said it was just full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles."
Bill Clinton, the former US president who was hosting the conference, also attacked the tone of the BBC's coverage during a seminar on the media. He said it had been "stacked up" to criticize the US federal government's slow response.
Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation and a former head of CBS News, said he had been "nervous about the slight level of gloating" by the BBC.
The disapproval will come as a blow to BBC executives who had declared themselves delighted with the hurricane coverage, led by Matt Frei. They believed they had learnt the lessons from the Dec. 26 tsunami in Asia, when the BBC was regarded as being slow off the mark.
Yesterday Blair's comments were strongly rejected by Martin Bell, the former BBC war correspondent and ex-member of parliament. He said: "Assuming it's accurate -- it may of course be that Tony Blair was simply telling Rupert Murdoch what he thought he wanted to hear. If he really does have a gripe with the BBC coverage, there is no shortage of forums in which he can say so publicly. But the last time he picked a fight with the BBC, as I recall, the government came off rather badly."
Bell added: "I think Matt Frei's reporting was absolutely immaculate and reflected the fact that one of the things the BBC is there for is to report events as they happened rather than as politicians may want them perceived to have happened. If Tony Blair does want to confront the BBC over this, I'd be surprised -- because he would find absolutely zero support, except perhaps among his usual henchmen."
Charles Wheeler, the veteran former US correspondent for the BBC, said: "I don't believe Murdoch actually said that. It doesn't sound like Blair to me. The coverage I saw was extremely good and got better and better. Matt Frei was very good. He got quite angry, which is what might have annoyed people. I don't see why people should be unemotional; I never was. You have to tell people what you feel and what you hate -- that's part of legitimate reporting."
A spokesman for the BBC said yesterday: "We have received no complaint from Downing Street, so it would be remiss of us to comment on what is reported as a private conversation."
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS