Hacked off by blind bias - By Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill is disgusted with her fellow journalists’ ‘self-loathing’ attitudes to Israel
I once remarked, just after 9/11, that many British hacks, both in TV and print, are so self-loathing and Arab-loving that if they were to witness the sight of their own dear mother being roasted by Saddam Hussein at one end and Osama bin Laden at the other, they would promptly point the finger of blame at poor old mum and squeal: “The Whore of Babylon tempted the noble soldier of Allah!”
A grotesque example of this almost brainwashed level of bias can be seen on the official BBC Religions website, where that “peace be upon him” eyewash is going on like crazy while other religions are coolly commented on in a strictly “objective” way.
The conflict has sent this tendency into overdrive, with not just the usual Masochist Hacks For Mohammed such as Robert Fisk (beaten up by Islamists, says they were right to do it) and Yvonne Ridley (kidnapped by Islamists, then became one) getting their chadors in a twist about big swarthy men treating the West mean and keeping it - in their case at least - keen.
Even the women’s magazines have got in on the act, with lots of first-person eye-witness accounts of British citizens fleeing the Jewish jackboot. (My favourite was in First magazine: “Beirut’s Hopes of Becoming a Top Tourist Destination Lie in Ruins” And you lot thought you’d had it tough! What next? “Lebanon’s Eurovision Song Contest Dream Shattered”?) Then turn the page and you’ll often find a shocked article about honour-killing or forced marriage.
-more-
I once remarked, just after 9/11, that many British hacks, both in TV and print, are so self-loathing and Arab-loving that if they were to witness the sight of their own dear mother being roasted by Saddam Hussein at one end and Osama bin Laden at the other, they would promptly point the finger of blame at poor old mum and squeal: “The Whore of Babylon tempted the noble soldier of Allah!”
A grotesque example of this almost brainwashed level of bias can be seen on the official BBC Religions website, where that “peace be upon him” eyewash is going on like crazy while other religions are coolly commented on in a strictly “objective” way.
The conflict has sent this tendency into overdrive, with not just the usual Masochist Hacks For Mohammed such as Robert Fisk (beaten up by Islamists, says they were right to do it) and Yvonne Ridley (kidnapped by Islamists, then became one) getting their chadors in a twist about big swarthy men treating the West mean and keeping it - in their case at least - keen.
Even the women’s magazines have got in on the act, with lots of first-person eye-witness accounts of British citizens fleeing the Jewish jackboot. (My favourite was in First magazine: “Beirut’s Hopes of Becoming a Top Tourist Destination Lie in Ruins” And you lot thought you’d had it tough! What next? “Lebanon’s Eurovision Song Contest Dream Shattered”?) Then turn the page and you’ll often find a shocked article about honour-killing or forced marriage.
-more-
posted by sickboy | 3:46 PM
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