Post Your Gulf War Media Gaffes Here
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Don't expect any graceful admisions of being wrong from the media, either in theater or the studio , we have just had a lingering report on how terrible things are in the Baghdad hospitals.
We can look forward to weeks of
"Where are the weapons of mass destruction"
"Was it necessary to bomb this target or that target"?
"Couldn't it have been done differently"?
Brits criticize Americans troops, Americans troops criticize Brit forces, anything to spread poison.
Piss on the news media and all who sail in her.
We can look forward to weeks of
"Where are the weapons of mass destruction"
"Was it necessary to bomb this target or that target"?
"Couldn't it have been done differently"?
Brits criticize Americans troops, Americans troops criticize Brit forces, anything to spread poison.
Piss on the news media and all who sail in her.
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Wonderful watching the Chater wimp dripping on the tele this morning. He was going on about how the (formerly lovely) Iraqis are stealing things like cameras from journalists - the poor little luvvies. He couldn't understand why the Marines were holding off 6 blocks away instead of coming to save his pathetic little ass. Let's hope his Iraqi friends get to him first - one less biased hack to p*ss us off. I think it was wonderful when some of those in higher authority, last night made the point that these hacks are in a war zone, and war is dangerous. They're there entirely from their own choice (unlike most of those on whom they make their biased reports), so if they don't like it they should go and search employment as nannies or personal assistants to George Galloway.
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17 pages of fun... who provided the material... ooh yeah jorno's in a war zone, I know they are, quite literally, an easy target, but if you think you can do any better - off you go.
Rolling news coverage is extremely difficult to sustain and is a bit more challenging than 'good morning my very good friend Trevor will be flying you down to Alicante today...'
Of course I'm totally biased as my partner is a senior BBC News Editor and whilst I appreciate its nothing like what our troops are going through or Iraqi civilains for that part, it would have been nice to see him for more than 3 hours in a week.
Comments like' wouldn't piss on them...' or 'first against the wall...' drag this topic down to gutter level. Have a laugh by all means, but can the vitriol.
Rant over, ready to receive incoming friendly fire.
Rolling news coverage is extremely difficult to sustain and is a bit more challenging than 'good morning my very good friend Trevor will be flying you down to Alicante today...'
Of course I'm totally biased as my partner is a senior BBC News Editor and whilst I appreciate its nothing like what our troops are going through or Iraqi civilains for that part, it would have been nice to see him for more than 3 hours in a week.
Comments like' wouldn't piss on them...' or 'first against the wall...' drag this topic down to gutter level. Have a laugh by all means, but can the vitriol.
Rant over, ready to receive incoming friendly fire.
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Radio 4 this morning.
Reporter talking about the fact that minders and information minister hadn't turned up for work and that potentially this was a sign that they had given up and fled. Reporter in best attempt at putting the other side of the coin....
"....of course it's possible that maybe they just overslept or are having a meeting..."
Now call me cynical, but I somehow doubt that on a day when 10,000 US troops are running around Baghdad and the Iraqi regime is crumbling that the Iraqi information minister and his cronies are likely to have slept through their alarms.
I can picture the scene...."oh no, Saddam's going to give me a stern talking to when he finds out I'm late for work"
Reporter talking about the fact that minders and information minister hadn't turned up for work and that potentially this was a sign that they had given up and fled. Reporter in best attempt at putting the other side of the coin....
"....of course it's possible that maybe they just overslept or are having a meeting..."
Now call me cynical, but I somehow doubt that on a day when 10,000 US troops are running around Baghdad and the Iraqi regime is crumbling that the Iraqi information minister and his cronies are likely to have slept through their alarms.
I can picture the scene...."oh no, Saddam's going to give me a stern talking to when he finds out I'm late for work"
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Incoming Friendly Fire !
You asked for it tonyt ! You have to admit that it would take a blind man on a galloping horse at midnight to miss the political bias and leanings of "Auntie" Beeb (Anti ?) these days. Can't you find a nice partner at Sky - they get home more often ! :-)
The doom and gloom merchants were at it before the Falklands, GW1, Kosovo etc etc and have been consistently proven wrong whilst undermining the efforts and morale of the British Armed Forces with less than balanced attacks on the very people who guarantee freedom of speech. Nobody says the Forces shouldn't be held to account but you can understand the animosity towards a media which is so wide of the mark so often, and often takes a very critical stance towards our commitment.
TB got it right this time and his actions will be vindicated, but I suspect he will never be applauded for his moral stance by his erstwhile media critics who should now crawl into the woodwork having been proven wrong, but won't.
The doom and gloom merchants were at it before the Falklands, GW1, Kosovo etc etc and have been consistently proven wrong whilst undermining the efforts and morale of the British Armed Forces with less than balanced attacks on the very people who guarantee freedom of speech. Nobody says the Forces shouldn't be held to account but you can understand the animosity towards a media which is so wide of the mark so often, and often takes a very critical stance towards our commitment.
TB got it right this time and his actions will be vindicated, but I suspect he will never be applauded for his moral stance by his erstwhile media critics who should now crawl into the woodwork having been proven wrong, but won't.
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I don't recall the media "harming morale" during GW1. In fact, I seem to remember the pictures they provided gave us all a boost! Lovely shots of PGMs hitting HASs and tanks rolling across the dessert heading north.
OK, so some have a bit of a bias - but are we all not supposed to be intelligent enough to take it with a pinch of salt and read between the lines? I have said before, having BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Donald Rumsfeld and Comical Ali gives us enough information to make up our own minds.
If you do not have the intellect to sift out the cr@p - watch SKY, at least that way you are sure that it is ALL cr@p!
OK, so some have a bit of a bias - but are we all not supposed to be intelligent enough to take it with a pinch of salt and read between the lines? I have said before, having BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Donald Rumsfeld and Comical Ali gives us enough information to make up our own minds.
If you do not have the intellect to sift out the cr@p - watch SKY, at least that way you are sure that it is ALL cr@p!
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Moggie
There wouldn't have been a GW2 if we had been allowed to finish the job. All the bleeding heart luvvies thought it was despicable to gub the Iraqis too comprehensively in case it upset "sensitivities". The media couldn't wait to expose every blue on blue and drive wedges wherever they could and the Anti American bias is always too close to the surface for my liking. (At the same time we had our fair share by the way - Challenger v Warrior etc)
I can sort out the crap but the buckets are all full here now.
There wouldn't have been a GW2 if we had been allowed to finish the job. All the bleeding heart luvvies thought it was despicable to gub the Iraqis too comprehensively in case it upset "sensitivities". The media couldn't wait to expose every blue on blue and drive wedges wherever they could and the Anti American bias is always too close to the surface for my liking. (At the same time we had our fair share by the way - Challenger v Warrior etc)
I can sort out the crap but the buckets are all full here now.
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All this talk of victory just because we have taken most if not all of Baghdad is worrying I
You just mark my words, the nasty battle will be for Tikrit. If we get that without a fight we should have a national days holiday.
T'aint all over yet. I do hope I am wrong as I have some very good friends over there.
You just mark my words, the nasty battle will be for Tikrit. If we get that without a fight we should have a national days holiday.
T'aint all over yet. I do hope I am wrong as I have some very good friends over there.
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Back to topic, from the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation today
Ragi in Baghdad 'There, it's starting to topple.' some 20 mins before the statue moved a single centimetre.
Then...
We are now speaking live to Gp Capt Al Lockwood (Captioned Group Captain Al Lockwood, British Army Spokesman).
Honestly, it's the simple things that annoy me (and I don't mean navigators this time
). I can put up with the ones where a stick of 8 JDAMs smack in to a target and the reporter claims they're Tomahawks - but it doesn't take a specialist to tell whether the statue in front of them is moving or not!
Ragi in Baghdad 'There, it's starting to topple.' some 20 mins before the statue moved a single centimetre.
Then...
We are now speaking live to Gp Capt Al Lockwood (Captioned Group Captain Al Lockwood, British Army Spokesman).
Honestly, it's the simple things that annoy me (and I don't mean navigators this time
). I can put up with the ones where a stick of 8 JDAMs smack in to a target and the reporter claims they're Tomahawks - but it doesn't take a specialist to tell whether the statue in front of them is moving or not!
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Not quite a "media gaffe", but relevant online petition:
PetitionOnline.com
Huw Edwards surrenders.
To: BBC TV
This is a petition to the BBC to give the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, his own TV show, where he can lie about all sorts of things like "The UK won the Cricket today" and "Dale Winton is not gay, he is trembling in his boots, the coward".
Please don't take this comedy character away from us.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
This is a petition to the BBC to give the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, his own TV show, where he can lie about all sorts of things like "The UK won the Cricket today" and "Dale Winton is not gay, he is trembling in his boots, the coward".
Please don't take this comedy character away from us.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Huw Edwards surrenders.
BBC News 24 this afternoon, US forces help topple Saddam Statue and clever link man running out of things to say as Raggi was somewhere else "oh yes, we can now see the American engineers tractor".
Mr BBC Bloke, I live in Shropshire and that aint no tractor you Townie.
Mr BBC Bloke, I live in Shropshire and that aint no tractor you Townie.
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Below is an extract from the always very funny Patrick Cook’s column in the weekly Australian ‘Bulletin’ magazine. Given that it’s a fellow journalist’s ‘take’ on the BBC’s performance over the last few weeks, I think it says it all. (I've wondered on more than one ocasion whether Hiliary Anderson wasn't taken aside after Week One and told how dangerous the walk to the latrines could be in the dark?)
Cook then goes on to deliver a positively wonderful pisstake on Rumsfeld that should leave the gentleman and even his most ardent supporters squirming.
Blue Wolf, I have to agree with your comment on the Iraqi Disinformation Minister’s being a Peter Sellers clone. (What was the name of the main character he played in ‘The Mouse That Roared’? I mean the young bloke who lead the chain-mail wearing troops who defeated the USA. The Disinformation Minister must certainly have watched the movie repeatedly to learn Sellers’ every move).
He’s been the highlight of my day over the last week. I particularly liked his last performance in the courtyard, assuring the world that his lads were ‘slaughtering and repelling’ the infidels… meanwhile all the journos in the background have their heads turned 90 degrees to camera right straining to see (presumably) the Yank tanks across the river.
Maybe the Americans should employ the bloke to put as positive a ‘spin’ on their efforts to win the peace in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world over the next twelve months +. I really hate to say it, but I fear they’re going to need someone with as much unbridled enthusiasm and total commitment to ignoring any bad news as this bloke has shown over the last three weeks.
General, is this what you expected?
Up to a point. Frankly, no amount of training could prepare us for the reality. That sudden whine that tells you “Incoming!” Then the moaning. Then the anti-American slogans everywhere. We didn’t think they’d stay so loyal to Saddam for so long.
You’d never actually met BBC reporters before? Didn’t you suspect some of them might be Saddamites?
We thought it was a misprint. And who would link them wills a Baath Party? Their tactics surprised us also. Thu think you can recognise a BBC unit from 3000 metres, from the dentistry alone, in time to take cover, but they often work as irregulars. They come at you disguised as correspondents for CNN, CNBC, freelancers of all kinds. You think you’ve
got a malarial mosquito in your ear, and then you recognise the accents.
The time factor has surprised you, hasn’t it?
0h, sure. A BBC unit turns up, says they’re just staying for the weekend, but it turns into weeks. It could be months. And these Brits are moaning the whole time, eating up valuable supplies, whining: “Are we there yet?” “Why aren’t we there yet?” like you’ve got an irritating English relative in the back seat. We asked our Australian friends how you handle them back home. They said: “Hide the spare bed and the fridge and say they re in for servicing.” We don’t have that option. You Australians might have warned us earlier. And when the BBC infiltrators run out of gloomy superlatives and they’re down to sharing the same footage of a food riot at an aid centre day after day, they blame us.
Was it wise to “embed” BBC reporters with your formations?
In retrospect, no. We’ve had to rotate whole divisions, just to spare the troops the stress of explaining why the army, after a hopelessly chaotic start, isn’t yet bogged down in the Baghdad quagmire to prolong civilian suffering.
How’s the war going on the other fronts?
Who knows? We’re here in our foxholes, surrounded by ululating BBC correspondents demanding our surrender and lots more carnage. You’ll have to ask Don Rumsfeld.
Up to a point. Frankly, no amount of training could prepare us for the reality. That sudden whine that tells you “Incoming!” Then the moaning. Then the anti-American slogans everywhere. We didn’t think they’d stay so loyal to Saddam for so long.
You’d never actually met BBC reporters before? Didn’t you suspect some of them might be Saddamites?
We thought it was a misprint. And who would link them wills a Baath Party? Their tactics surprised us also. Thu think you can recognise a BBC unit from 3000 metres, from the dentistry alone, in time to take cover, but they often work as irregulars. They come at you disguised as correspondents for CNN, CNBC, freelancers of all kinds. You think you’ve
got a malarial mosquito in your ear, and then you recognise the accents.
The time factor has surprised you, hasn’t it?
0h, sure. A BBC unit turns up, says they’re just staying for the weekend, but it turns into weeks. It could be months. And these Brits are moaning the whole time, eating up valuable supplies, whining: “Are we there yet?” “Why aren’t we there yet?” like you’ve got an irritating English relative in the back seat. We asked our Australian friends how you handle them back home. They said: “Hide the spare bed and the fridge and say they re in for servicing.” We don’t have that option. You Australians might have warned us earlier. And when the BBC infiltrators run out of gloomy superlatives and they’re down to sharing the same footage of a food riot at an aid centre day after day, they blame us.
Was it wise to “embed” BBC reporters with your formations?
In retrospect, no. We’ve had to rotate whole divisions, just to spare the troops the stress of explaining why the army, after a hopelessly chaotic start, isn’t yet bogged down in the Baghdad quagmire to prolong civilian suffering.
How’s the war going on the other fronts?
Who knows? We’re here in our foxholes, surrounded by ululating BBC correspondents demanding our surrender and lots more carnage. You’ll have to ask Don Rumsfeld.
Blue Wolf, I have to agree with your comment on the Iraqi Disinformation Minister’s being a Peter Sellers clone. (What was the name of the main character he played in ‘The Mouse That Roared’? I mean the young bloke who lead the chain-mail wearing troops who defeated the USA. The Disinformation Minister must certainly have watched the movie repeatedly to learn Sellers’ every move).
He’s been the highlight of my day over the last week. I particularly liked his last performance in the courtyard, assuring the world that his lads were ‘slaughtering and repelling’ the infidels… meanwhile all the journos in the background have their heads turned 90 degrees to camera right straining to see (presumably) the Yank tanks across the river.
Maybe the Americans should employ the bloke to put as positive a ‘spin’ on their efforts to win the peace in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world over the next twelve months +. I really hate to say it, but I fear they’re going to need someone with as much unbridled enthusiasm and total commitment to ignoring any bad news as this bloke has shown over the last three weeks.
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Dog's Breakfast
Natasha Kipinski on BBC Breakfast this morning, to their man in Qatar, remarking on the speed of the "victory" against (their own) previous gloomy predictions:
"..so, only 21 days to take Baghad, how can the intelligence have been so wrong?"
To his credit, their man slapped her down good, but with questioning of such bovine stupidity.......
"..so, only 21 days to take Baghad, how can the intelligence have been so wrong?"
To his credit, their man slapped her down good, but with questioning of such bovine stupidity.......
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Pilgrim101-
I thought we didn't finish the job in GW1 because the septic's M1A1s ran out of fuel before they got close to Baghdad.
Never realised that the BBC made them stop so that we could get back to watching repeats of "Lovejoy".
I thought we didn't finish the job in GW1 because the septic's M1A1s ran out of fuel before they got close to Baghdad.
Never realised that the BBC made them stop so that we could get back to watching repeats of "Lovejoy".
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Pilgrim101 and Moggie,
Strange, but as far as I recall WE did finish the job in GW1.
The job was to liberate Kuwait and secure its border with Iraq to prevent future invasion. Nowhere did the UN or coalition mandate anything along the lines of taking control of Iraq or eradicating the Iraqi regime. Indeed, had we gone further the coalition would almost certainly have fallen apart and the other Arab nations would almost certainly have withdrawn their support and facilities to those nations remaining.
I too would love to have seen The Butcher of Baghdad eradicated in '91 and the Iraqis freed from tyranny, but that was not what we were there for. I just wish people would get that into their heads and stop the stupid comments that "we should have finished the job in GW1"!
MadMark!!!
Strange, but as far as I recall WE did finish the job in GW1.
The job was to liberate Kuwait and secure its border with Iraq to prevent future invasion. Nowhere did the UN or coalition mandate anything along the lines of taking control of Iraq or eradicating the Iraqi regime. Indeed, had we gone further the coalition would almost certainly have fallen apart and the other Arab nations would almost certainly have withdrawn their support and facilities to those nations remaining.
I too would love to have seen The Butcher of Baghdad eradicated in '91 and the Iraqis freed from tyranny, but that was not what we were there for. I just wish people would get that into their heads and stop the stupid comments that "we should have finished the job in GW1"!
MadMark!!!
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Not a media luvvie for once, but a stunning performance last night from Herr Rumsfeld:
"This man has now taken his place among the fallen dictators; Hitler, Lennon, Stalin... Kochetskoo"
Watch out you Scousers, either rename EGGP or expect some unscheduled movements.
"This man has now taken his place among the fallen dictators; Hitler, Lennon, Stalin... Kochetskoo"
Watch out you Scousers, either rename EGGP or expect some unscheduled movements.
