From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Mar 10 2010 - 08:47:41 EST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/09/bob-geldof-world-service-ethiopia
Bob
Geldof: My rage at this World Service calumny
Rageh Omaar's defence of the discredited BBC report on Band Aid beggars
belief. He ignores the total collapse of standards at the World Service
-
- *Bob Geldof*
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 March 2010 23.00 GMT
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Rageh Omaar's piece "Even Band Aid is not above criticism" is ridiculous.
It is of course not about me, or Band Aid, but rather a defence of
journalistic exceptionalism, and the now thoroughly discredited BBC World
Service programme that "sexed up" a claim that nigh-on the entire
humanitarian relief effort by all aid agencies was diverted to arms in
Tigray province in 1985.
He allies himself with the programme's dubious technique of using a "star"
name to attract attention to an otherwise unexceptional or dubious point of
view in the hope that it will gather attention.
So let me first say that far from being above criticism, should Rageh or the
World Service colleague he seeks to protect have done the basic journalistic
gig of doing a teensy bit of research before they write their stories by,
say, doing something basic like maybe Googling my name, he would immediately
be overwhelmed by a 35-year torrent of vituperation and condemnation of
everything about me – from my suspiciously foreign-sounding name to my
shaving and bathing habits, hairstyle (fair enough!), my partners, children,
domestic life, temperament, driving habits, political views, attitudes,
clothing, style, music, driving and on and on. No, Rageh, rest assured, I am
definitely not above criticism – but again, please, for the sake of
veracity, and again, I extend this to the wretched Martin Plaut, your fellow
journalist, stop venturing palpably untrue statements dressed up as fact.
And how arrogant you are, how self-important, that you should deign to
lecture on the implied assumption that you, and by extension all journalists
– and specifically in this case the BBC World Service – are above the
criticism that you are so busily wagging your finger at me for, and which I
(clearly getting above my station) have last weekend meted out to your
incompetent mate and his associates at the Beeb. Get it straight, pal – you
are not. Either as individuals or organisations. It's about time a little
humility was allowed into your closed self-regarding little media world. But
like the bankers and the MPs these days, you lot just don't get it, do you?
As for Band Aid, well, as a trustee said to me, sickened upon seeing the
shameful Times cartoon which accepted the BBC story as gospel (of course)
without asking any questions: "We've taken it on the chin for 25 years and
never said anything. Not this time." Definitely not this time. The Band Aid
Trust is reporting BBC World Service to Ofcom and the BBC board of
directors, and we have requested transcripts of all interviews from the show
in question from the deputy chairman of the BBC. We will also take a view on
what legal action we may take both against the journalist in question and
World Service in general. Criticism, no problem, Rageh. Calumny, no.
Band Aid, too, Mr Omaar, has been a constant target over the years, had you
but had the decency to bother checking before uttering your pathetic
interpretation of press freedom as allowing any clown carte blanche to
interpret reporting as an excuse for half-truth, distortion, and innuendo
and unsubstantiated claims. The journalism of "making it up".
As you probably know anyway, but it just doesn't fit into your pompous guff
this time, Band Aid has been under the most intensive scrutiny since and
most particularly during the mid-80s. Quite rightly, too. We have an
obligation to all those who entrusted us with their money and more
particularly to those in whose name it was given. That is what I and my
fellow trustees have been doing for the last 26 years. Same guys, same
trust. And we ain't stopping now. Pretty weird, however, that not one, not a
single one of the dozens of journalists of record and others who have
travelled with me or covered Band Aid "discovered" Martin Plaut's "story"
(and story is indeed what it is). Some feel the press has a right to lie.
Rageh, no such right exists.
The real story of this sorry saga is the intense systemic failure of the
World Service, that cherry on the cake of the BBC's reputation. It's a
rotten old cherry these days. And I am as bereft as a jilted lover. Of all
the taxes I pay, I pay only one gladly – my licence fee. I *am* Mr World
Service. I have done ads promoting the BBC, I have written and spoken in its
defence, it is indeed the BBC who started me and others on this African
journey; I believe it must, at all costs, be retained very similar to what
it is now, albeit cutting away the deadwood and slack. But basically: "I
Want My BBC!"
But this BBC story was neither about me nor Band Aid. By disingenuously
posturing as "serious" reporting, it pretended the total failure and
negligence of all the great humanitarian workers and their organisations in
the worst famine in modern times, and how miraculously not one of them
spotted that no one was getting food despite everyone supplying it!
It beggars belief that anyone would take that seriously. Where were all the
dead people then? If no one was getting food, why was nobody dying? That
would have been one of the first questions I'd have asked. But they weren't
dying because they *were* getting help, and massive amounts of it. But of
course no one did ask where the bodies were at the World Service. That and
many, many, other unasked questions.
No, this story here is of the total collapse of standards and systems at the
World Service, which has a special and particular duty of care to the truth.
Why? Because in hundreds – perhaps thousands – of small rooms in the many
dark spots of our planet people huddle secretly and in great danger to hear
the reality and the truth behind their situation. Because in deserts and
jungles, I have listened to the world tell its story to me through this
miraculous brave station. And to tabloid all that away of an instant? Tragic
beyond measure.
Where were the producers and editors and seniors? Why was Plaut allowed to
go mad on his pre- and post- media interview circus around the world with
bonkers wild accusations? Just to get an audience? Did he and the World
Service for one second comprehend the enormous damage and danger he
immediately put every humanitarian worker in? Particularly the huge, brave
and brilliant Red Cross? Did he not consider, for one microsecond, the
consequences of accusing them, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, that
they had handed over 95% of their cash to purchase arms?
It literally beggars belief at the enormity of the consequence had his lie
not been nailed immediately and with as much vehemence as could be mustered.
How appalling the utter and total disregard or incomprehension of the result
of his actions. What if the Red Cross, now compromised in their neutrality,
were ordered away from war zones, or forbidden access to the deepest
dungeons, or concentration camps? What then, Rageh Omaar and Martin Plaut?
What then of your smug certitudes and thin pieties? Then you could report on
the blood on your own hands rather than falsely smear it over the hands of
others. How dare you, Rageh Omaar, attempt to defend the awful indefensible.
Just for that alone, Plaut should be fired. You people, you self-important
mediators of "news", should wise up and accept a little humility rather than
attack the aid agencies and their workers for being above criticism and ask
yourself, as I do, who the hell are you to lecture?
Just as the Ross-Brand affair exposed the systemic weaknesses of the BBC in
the area of entertainment, so this now does in the news sector of the World
Service – albeit with far more drastic consequences. Where were the editors,
subs and producers? As the Independent rightly asked, "Did the bells not go
off" early on in this sorry tale? Where were the checks, balances,
neutrality, even-handedness? They all failed at the World Service. Worse,
they inconsistently and continuously contradicted themselves in their
ludicrously pompous Rorke's Drift-type face-saving insistence on "sticking
by their story". Well, they were right in the use of the word "story".
Despite the on-the record refutation of everything in Plaut's report by very
senior White House advisers, high-level UN delegates, senior British
ex-ambassadors and diplomats, *all* the aid agencies, the leader of
*rest*the Tigrayan relief group at the time, the prime minister of
Ethiopia and
rebel leader at the time, and me, and without a single shred of evidence,
not one iota of evidence, they cannot bear to acknowledge the grim reality,
the actual *truth* – that they were wrong. The BBC World Service is so far
off the rails it quite literally cannot recognise or acknowledge
*truth*when it encounters it.
Martin Plaut, Andrew Whitehead and Peter Horrocks should be fired. There
should be an immediate investigation into what went wrong; steps should be
taken to rectify the identified faults; and the World Service must work
very, very hard to re-establish its glorious trust and hard-won reputation
as *the* world broadcaster of excellence.
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