Jeremy Bowen hasn’t been spooked by the BBC’s recent misfortunes.
The recent dent in the BBC’s omnipotence hasn’t affected Jeremy Bowen. He still has plenty of attitude, and confidently emotes overt and subliminal anti-Israel signals in his reporting.
Perhaps he’s unaware that the destabilizing effect of the Newsnight affair reaches far beyond the episodes in question. It raises questions about the BBC’s impartiality as well undermining its reputation for integrity.
Even the government’s antisemitically inclined foreign office has shown that it holds Hamas responsible for the current situation in the Middle East, yet the BBC continually, repeatedly, refers to the ‘assassination’ as the trigger for the recent escalation. Israel started it.
The BBC’s Middle East clique are showing their true colours. They and their colleagues should be Getting a Grip and taking a cool look at themselves. The departure of Entwistle hasn’t fixed anything. They should all be under extra scrutiny, for slapdash journalism, inaccuracy and bias, and if they persist in tailoring the news to fit their agenda they should be caught, reprimanded or despatched forthwith.
Jeremy Bowen’s latest antics are set out in detail at BBCWatch, and by Robin Shepherd at the Commentator. Meanwhile, if we watch BBC News 24 we are subjected to a succession of ‘activists’ and Israel-hating academics who are introduced as ‘Middle East experts’ who bestow their one-sided wisdom upon us. A dire shortage of background knowledge severely hampers the BBC anchor person’s ability to play Devil’s Advocate.
“Israel’s upcoming elections, settlements, peace process,” we hear time and time again, but rarely a challenge to Palestinians’ claims that their rockets are somehow designed to protect their civilians, all of which is in the name of ‘resistance’. What are they resisting? Israel’s existence of course.
Bowen explains that things have changed now that Israel has lost its ‘reliable friend’ Mubarak. That's Mubarak the tyrant who we were glad to topple. Israel and Mubarak, both dastardly allies against the poor Palestinians? I think not. Mubarak was not a true friend of Israel, but he was as afraid of Islamist extremism, just as anyone who acknowledges the reality of Islamist extremism would and should be. Unlike the Arab Spring fantasists of the BBC.
Jeremy Bowen must be near retirement age. Well, he looks it. Get rid.
The BBC should replace him with Sky's Tim Marshall, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThe 'analysis' from Jeremy Bowen, so ably fisked by Hadar over at BBC Watch, contrasts sharply with the piece Tim wrote for the Sky website. It begins:
"Israel's dramatic escalation of the situation in Gaza was inevitable.
The rocket fire from Gaza into Israel had been steadily increasing, not just over the past two weeks, but the past three years.
In the aftermath of Israel's punitive ground and air offensive in Gaza in 2008 the rate of missiles fired into Israel, which had been increasing, fell away substantially.
In 2009, 310 missiles were fired, in 2010 there were 400, in 2011 - 850, and so far this year around 1,200.
The 2012 statistic is similar to the level in 2008 which triggered Operation Cast Lead."
http://news.sky.com/story/1011517/hamas-must-make-a-deadly-israel-calculation
In contrast, all Jeremy Bowen can find to say about that is:
“This is why Israel says it’s attacking Gaza: to stop Palestinian rocket fire."
He then goes on to say it's all about the Israeli government trying to look tough in time for the election.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20334981
One is a class reporter. The other is Jeremy Bowen.
If I were writing in public, say on Biased-BBC instead of here, Craig, where only you and I are around, I’d hesitate to say this, in case such praise would count against him, but Tim Marshall is head and shoulders above Bowen. Bowen’s reporting is 99% fact-free.Total yogurt. His analysis this morning was on the level of ”pub”. The only “fact” was a reiteration of the erroneous view that the violence started when Israel assassinated Jabari.
Delete“Bowen can’t be very bright. In comparison to Sky’s Tim Marshall.” A commenter said somewhere. He just doesn’t seem very bright to me either. I could never see why the BBC holds him in such high regard. But they do, worryingly.
He seems to have a remarkably superficial grasp. His insight is on the level of man-in-pub. Added to which he has a lamentably unsophisticated vocabulary, a slightly slurred mid-Atlantic drawl and a lisp. Oh, and he’s openly pro-Palestinian.
“Look! Israel’s rocket landed close to this school!”
Says Wyre Davies drawing attention to what he thinks is Israel’s utter disregard for children, and not asking why it had to land there. Stupid boy!