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| Anna Holligan |
There's something I heard on Radio 4 the other day that's been worrying me.
I'm not a foreign reporter and I can only guess how foreign reporters might feel when confronted with something harrowing, but I've also become deeply cynical when a BBC reporter seems to be using something harrowing to make a point.
I'm not a foreign reporter and I can only guess how foreign reporters might feel when confronted with something harrowing, but I've also become deeply cynical when a BBC reporter seems to be using something harrowing to make a point.
I was listening to this week's Sunday on Radio 4 and heard BBC reporter Anna Holligan being interviewed about the terrorist attacks in Brussels. As the discussion neared its close she began spontaneously talking about an experience she'd had this past week.
She'd interviewed a distraught mother who didn't know whether her daughter had survived the attack on the airport, and it turned out that the young woman hadn't survived it.
That must be distressing for a reporter, but...
Anna - who must have subsequently checked social media sites for the murdered woman - then recounted how the murdered daughter had made a comment on Facebook following last November's Islamist atrocities in Paris. She said she'd found what the daughter wrote to be "so poignant".
What the poor young woman had written, which Anna chose to highlight, was (in its entirety):
The ignorant spreading of anti-Muslim sentiment and propaganda does nothing but benefit ISIS.
I'm pretty sure Anna Holligan meant us to take that as a reason not to engage in "anti-Muslim sentiment and propaganda" but, instead, I took it as, alas, proving that however good-hearted, liberal-minded, trusting and well-disposed towards Muslims you might be (whether you're a random victim of terrorism or a BBC reporter), your good will (or naivety) still won't protect you against the kind of people you seek to 'understand' - the fanatically-religious Muslim terrorist.
Whatever way you look at it, that is poignant.
Whatever way you look at it, that is poignant.
HI Craig.
ReplyDeleteDid a full critique of this 43 minutes of tripe on Sunday in your honour.Reckoned with clocks going forward etc, you`d be ready for a rest.
God knows how you do it every week-bloody awful, really was.
Anyway wrote it for you-then blow me , there`s only so many characters allowed and I went way over that.
So-will send it to you another way if you like-and be less verbose, a tall order for me!
Pointed out her wish to march in solidarity later that day, but police said there were not enough of them to mind the teddies.
How sad-but, as we saw there were over 1500 with water cannons immediately to hand when Pegida types wished to do something more that "rebaptise" teddies from Muhammad to Anjem for those inclusive shrines that double as portaloos.
Standing astride the not-yet-cold body of a murder victim and exploiting her to promote an agenda is so very BBC.
ReplyDeleteLooking at her Twitter account, apart from the usual self-promotion, Anna Holligan was almost running her own news wire service during the demolition of the illegal migrant camp at Calais. Very engaged and concerned with the illegal migrants but not the residents of Calais or UK lorry drivers or people on UK social housing lists. Otherwise it's just the usual BBC obsessions such as the allegedly racist dearth of black ballet shoes.
ReplyDelete