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'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)

Posted by Mark Doran <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Mark+Doran+66' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 22, 2024, 10:43 am

If anyone can go back and hear last night's Radio 4 programme on the BBC LiePlayer, I recommend it: 'The most contentious story Jeremy Bowen has covered' inevitably sees him cough up some of the most disgustingly fraudulent equivalences ever presented on radio.

M.

Re: 'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)

Posted by Keith-264 <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Keith-264' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 22, 2024, 12:20 pm, in reply to "'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)"

He was a rather louche and entertaining correspondent until he got a promotion and handed in his integrity. I'm glad that you take notice of CommercialPrivateEquitybbc because it means that I don't have to.

The last working-class hero in England.

Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018
Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021

Re: 'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)

Posted by Mark Doran <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Mark+Doran+66' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 22, 2024, 12:50 pm, in reply to "'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)"

I genuinely don't know how Bastard Bowen lives with himself. (Maybe that salary bordering on a quarter of a million quid helps?)

The programme was full of attempts, by him, to paint what is the simplest moral issue of his lifetime as a case of 'they're both as bad as each other' (with a self-pitying side-order of 'what's an impartial journalist to do?') Thus we heard about what 'the Palestinians say' (about their right to resist) and what 'the Israelis say' (about their supposed 'right to defend themselves') -- in a situation where what 'the Palestinians say' is actually what international law says. But that's how Bastard Bowen rolls: make it seem just a case of 'he said ... she said' -- 'impartiality' by erasure -- and leave the listener to give up in boredom at the 'intractability' of it all...

M.

Re: 'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)

Posted by Keith-264 <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Keith-264' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 22, 2024, 1:42 pm, in reply to "Re: 'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)"

Perhaps Mme Merteuil was right that the shame is like the pain, you only feel it once.

The last working-class hero in England.

Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018
Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021

If he were anything other than a mediocrity he wouldn't hold that 250,000-quid position.

Posted by Morrissey <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Morrissey' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 22, 2024, 1:49 pm, in reply to "Re: 'Frontlines of Journalism' with Jeremy Bowen (spine not included)"

It's vital that Bowen, and Frank Gardner, and John Simpson, and Steve Rosenberg and all the rest of those preposterous talking heads are there, even if they have nothing to say. If they weren't there to use up all the air time, people like these eight BBC dissenters might be able to cause trouble...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/23/as-israel-pounds-gaza-bbc-journalists-accuse-broadcaster-of-bias

Re: If he were anything other than a mediocrity he wouldn't hold that 250,000-quid position.

Posted by Mark Doran <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Mark+Doran+66' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 22, 2024, 2:13 pm, in reply to "If he were anything other than a mediocrity he wouldn't hold that 250,000-quid position."

Indeed.

Actually, what I think makes Bowen and Simpson especially toxic is the manner of their delivery, over and above the poisonously power-serving content: both of them have perfected a plodding, world-weary tone whose effect is to paint utterly simple crimes and immoralities as rooted in things that are -- [sigh...] -- so 'complex' and 'intractable' that one can only shake one's head at the 'sad inevitability' of the suffering...

The disgusting Orla Guerin operates in very much the same way. It's exactly the way news has to be done -- in a situation where the puppet master US empire can never actually be accused of anything, not even the stuff everyone knows it is doing...

M.

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