Monday, December 29, 2008

A tale of two interviews

I am watching the BBC rolling news coverage of the Gazan intervention, and its highly cringeworthy. About an hour ago, a female presenter interviewed Hanan Ashrawi. Ashrawi went on and on and on for ages, unfettered by anything as impolite as a question, until she started repeating herself. Yup, she had so much leeway she actually ran out of indignant posturings. Towards the end, she finally got a few questions, which were so soft I suspect she actually wrote them on a bit of paper beforehand.

Just now, a male presenter interviewed Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The interviewer treated him with complete disdain, not allowing him to finish a single sentance. When Mr Prosor mentioned the 8,000 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the last three years, the presenter asked 'And can you remind me how many people that has killed?' Think about the morality of that question for a moment. If you fire thousands of rockets at civilian targets but don't kill any, then thats just fine. Carry on! However, if you bomb a legitimate military target and kill two hundred people, thats a war crime! You see, its all to do with effectiveness. If you are good at killing your enemies, you are evil. If you are very inefficient, you are justified and righteous.

I really really wish I could record off the TV (our video is broken), because within the space of one hour of 'news' the BBC put to the sword its own supposed impartiality.

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