"will this story receive any attention this side of the Atlantic? Would any media source dare print it? Would anyone like to accuse the Brits of lying? "
News is a cut-throat business. If there is any meat to this story, it’ll get it’s due. Maybe not from the networks that ran a “Saving Priate Lynch” special*, but there are others, as well as lots of print media. Don’t worry. Bush hasn’t taken over the news outlets. Yet.
*Which, by the by, I thought was a pretty dang cheesy thing to do.
John Mace: News is a cut-throat business. If there is any meat to this story, it’ll get it’s due.
Gee, and here I keep hearing that the dread “liberal media” prevent the public from getting unbiased information. Nice to know that I don’t actually have to worry about that!
The only source for this information is a couple of Iraqui nationals who just may be a little pissed at their army’s defeat? They are to be believed instead of other sources?
The only person who talks about the ambulance story is the alleged driver? Now there’s impeccable information!
Why are these new sources to be considered “right” and the U.S. press automatically lying?
I’ll have to have better sources before I believe the Iraqui’s (long after the fact) version.
JCoM,
The documentarty is being made by Journalists who were there. I’m going to watch it on Sunday and see exactly what evidence and reports they have.
Boo:
Well, you don’t have to worry too much about that happening in thios programme, as it is made by Field Journalists.
How did a doctor and a waiter become sore loser iraqi nationals. Y’know, some people were happy to see Saddam and his army lose. I know. I saw it on the news.
I’m going to hope that noone here will deny that the news from the war was spun. It’s called propaganda. The Jessica Lynch story is simply moreso.
I’m wondering why, if the military was so concerned about safety, did they go in guns a blazin’ and risk Jessica’s life; and why send in a soldier armed primarily with a camera. Doesn’t seem like SOP.
Maybe they were hoping for a Chris Rock style “Oh shit! It’s the media! RUN!!!”
The BBC doesn have field journalists? All major news organizations have/had reporters “in the field.” I think you meant free lance journalists?
No, I think he means that the docu was made by those field journalists.
Normally what you see is edited stuff based on what is sent in from the field.
But then, you’re a space hamster so probably you know best.
well, who were expecting to make it then, the tooth fairy? Gee, journalists making a documentary…who’d have thought.
Now I’m confused about your confusion.
You mentioned that the BBC was criticized by its own field journalists for displaying an inaccurate account of their reporting.
This programme is made by Field journalists, possibly including the field journalists who did the criticizing.
The BBC was crititicized by one of its own field reporters in Iraq, yes. If I recall correctly (I’ve not been able to google up the report I had in mind), the criticism wasn’t for intentionally biased reporting, but for trying to keep up with public demand for news ‘all the time’. This was during the days when after an early thrust, progress seemed to have slowed because nothing newsworthy was happening over a couple of days.
The field journalist pointed out that wars rarely have things happening all the time and one doesn’t have to overly speculate on news when none is expected. I don’t remember if this had anything to do with that port city being taken by allied forces 9 times in a 24 hour period.
The BBC did respond well to (at least some of ) the criticism received. acknowledging that they’d made mistakes in their coverage.
Bear all this in perspective though - it is one thing for a news source to make mistakes here and there, and quite another for it to have a systematic policy of reporting one side of the story. I’m thinking about Fox, though doubtless many others will think of al Jazeera (which, may I add, was formed by former employees of the BBC Arabic service?).
Whatever the case, as TwistofFate pointed out, the program in question, From Our Own Correspondent, is made by BBC journalists in the field, not by editors in London or somewhere else far from the action.
Indeed, rather a weak case to support Boo’s strident allegations. In fact, after reading the guardian article he linked, I have as good an impression of the BBC as I had before, and I suggest he try read the piece with a bit more comprehension. It annoys me to no end when posters try to impugn an extremely useful medium like the BBC on such poor grounds.
Errors in reporting occur in every medium. The BBC does a good job of acknowledging and minimizing such errors, as the Guardian link demonstrates. And in this case we’re talking about a field report, as has been already pointed out.
The BBC is routinely criticized by governments, including the British government. That results from the willingness of some governments to object to the BBC’s famous standards of objectivity. Whether it’s the bombing of Serbia or coverage on Zimbabwe, harsh government criticisms of the BBC are usually unwarranted, or at least exaggerated. Citing them as evidence against the BBC’s objectivity or quality of reporting is hardly a useful exercise.
Regarding the bias of the BBC, I find some of the comments on the BBC site interesting when you consider that the comments are pre-moderated, meaning the BBC takes in comments, reads them and then decides which ones to print:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/read_your_comments/3034009.stm
I suppose special forces should have just rang the bell and asked for their soldier back? She was captured, then we found her. End of story. If the United States is the first country to ever us PR/spin during a war, please give us a medal.
Eirik Johnson New Orleans, USA
I find it interesting that you only use the quotes of two former Saddam Hussein Iraqi doctors and allowed for no rebuttal by Americans or even the lawyer, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, that aided in the rescue.
Vincent Guinnane, San Jose, CA
I find it is most interesting that none of your facts contradict anything said by American military officials yet you present the story as though it is a revelation of contradictory evidence.
The only evidence presented is the word of the doctors and staff in the hospital. These folks worked for the Saddam Hussein regime in the Saddam Hussein hospital. Yet their every word is presented as though it were a new Gospel.
Bill Fishburne, Asheville, NC USA
Having given the stories of the two Iraqi doctors, have you also interviewed the doctors in Germany that took care of Private Lynch or even the doctors in the USA when she got back there.
If there is a conspiracy it would be smart to at least get both factual sides and let the facts fall where they may.
Dr Jules Schwager Fountain Hills, AZ, USA
I’ve just read “Saving Private Lynch story flawed” on the BBC internet site. The problem is for me, whose story is flawed? The Pentagon’s version or the bias anti-war BBC’s version. Neither has the edge with me on which is true because unfortunately neither organization is very credible when it comes to telling the truth unvarnished from its own pre-conceptions and pre-dispositions. It’s a very sad situation.
Allen Dale Winchester, Virginia, USA
The poor girl was so badly injured, psychologically and physically, that she is still in hospital, and you have the nerve to print this pack of lies.
Greg Fitzgerald, USA
t is well-known that the US media is very liberal and that if any of the events happened as you have described them here, the Democrats and American media would have jumped all over it and splashed it everywhere.
Amy McCrate, USA
Jessica Lynch is our treasure and everybody involved with getting her back should be honoured not ripped apart.
Joe Parks, USA
What next - President Bush secretly hiding Elvis in the rose garden?
Robert Thomas Reilly, Amherst, MA USA
An outside critic would find it passing peculiar that the BBC, steeped in objectivity, chose to focus on the comments of two Iraqi individuals with obvious self-serving motivation, while rejecting without explanation the official statements of the American government and the informal comments of the soldiers actually on the scene. Surely the BBC is capable of reporting in a less obviously prejudiced fashion.
Donald Harvey, USA
AFAIK the BBC only moderates postings in regard of language and legal considerations, which is different from deciding which ones to print.
Nice to see a load more informed views from yet more people who haven’t seen the programme (I assume given that it is not airing for another hour and 45 mins).
I don’t think so. I have several times commented on fairly innocuous matters that wouldn’t have any legal considrations and without using bad language yet have not been printed.
Have actually checked now and it says:
“Because of the high volume of correspondence we receive, we cannot guarantee to publish every single e-mail.”
Having seen the programme, am really not sure what the fuss is about. The US officials interviewed basically admited that there was a large dollop of propaganda involved in the Jessica Lynch story (Pentagon refused to release the full video, the guy from the Defense Dept refused to answer questions about Jessica’s injuries and the resistance met at the hospital with a smile, basically saying “yeah we egged it up a bit”). That was quite a small portion of the programme, rest of it was mainly about media management at Doha and with the embedded reporters. Really not very controversial.
Move on people, nothing to see here…
Well, it did reveal that much of Doha was one big propaganda show and that the embedded journalists were closely watched by their ‘mediators’. All in all it showed how big a finger the authorities had in the war coverage.
“Move on people, nothing to see here…”
Yes, that’s pretty much how I thought it would prove out when I first read the OP the other day. shrug