posted on September 16, 2005 05:39:38 PM new
Reporter apparently sought critical remarks after speech
Posted: September 16, 2005
1:34 p.m. Eastern
An ABC News reporter who apparently expected hurricane evacuees to criticize the president after his speech last night, instead heard words of praise for Bush and blame for local officials.
Dean Reynolds, in the parking lot of Houston's Astrodome, spoke with black evacuees from New Orleans, but "not one of the six people interviewed on camera had a bad word for Bush – despite Reynolds' best efforts," said the Media Research Center in a report on the segment.
"You talk about a major big media backfire, folks, this is it," commented radio talk host Rush Limbaugh during his show today.
Reynolds asked Connie London: "Did you harbor any anger toward the president because of the slow federal response?"
"No, none whatsoever," she said, "because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in."
London pointed out: "They had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that was just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people."
Reynolds asked Brenda Marshall: "Was there anything that you found hard to believe that he said, that you thought, well, that's nice rhetoric, but, you know, the proof is in the pudding?"
She replied, "No, I didn't," prompting Reynolds to marvel to anchor Ted Koppel: "Very little skepticism here."
Reynolds pressed another woman: "Did you feel that the president was sincere tonight?"
She affirmed: "Yes, he was."
Reynolds asked who they held culpable for the levee breaks – a problem national media have blamed on Bush-mandated budget cuts:
One evacuee said, "They've been allocated federal funds to fix the levee system, and it never got done. I fault the mayor of our city personally. I really do."
The full text of Reynolds interviews is as follows:
"I'd like to get the reaction of Connie London who spent several horrible hours at the Superdome. You heard the president say repeatedly that you are not alone, that the country stands beside you. Do you believe him?"
Connie London: "Yeah, I believe him, because here in Texas, they have truly been good to us. I mean-"
Reynolds: "Did you get a sense of hope that you could return to your home one day in New Orleans?"
London: "Yes, I did. I did."
Reynolds: "Did you harbor any anger toward the President because of the slow federal response?"
London: "No, none whatsoever, because I feel like our city and our state government should have been there before the federal government was called in. They should have been on their jobs."
Reynolds: "And they weren't?"
London: "No, no, no, no. Lord, they wasn't. I mean, they had RTA buses, Greyhound buses, school buses, that was just sitting there going under water when they could have been evacuating people."
Reynolds: "Now, Mary, you were rescued from your house which was basically submerged in your neighborhood. Did you hear something in the President's words that you could glean some hope from?"
Mary: "Yes. He said we're coming back, and I believe we're coming back. He's going to build the city up. I believe that."
Reynolds: "You believe you'll be able to return to your home?"
Mary: "Yes, I do."
Reynolds: "Why?"
Mary: "Because I really believe what he said. I believe. I got faith."
Reynolds: "Back here in the corner, we've got Brenda Marshall, right?"
Brenda Marshall: "Yes."
Reynolds: "Now, Brenda, you were, spent, what, several days at the Superdome, correct?"
Marshall: "Yes, I did."
Reynolds: "What did you think of what the President told you tonight?"
Marshall: "Well, I think -- I think the speech was wonderful, you know, him specifying that we will return back and that we will have like mobile homes, you know, rent or whatever. I was listening to that pretty good. But I think it was a well fine speech."
Reynolds: "Was there any particular part of it that stood out in your mind? I mean, I saw you all nod when he said the Crescent City is going to come back one day."
Marshall: "Well, I think I was more excited about what he said. That's probably why I nodded."
Reynolds: "Was there anything that you found hard to believe that he said, that you thought, well, that's nice rhetoric, but, you know, the proof is in the pudding?"
Marshall: "No, I didn't."
Reynolds: "Good. Well, very little skepticism here. Frederick Gould, did you hear something that you could hang on to tonight from the President?"
Frederick Gould: "Well, I just know, you know, he said good things to me, you know, what he said, you know. I was just trying to listen to everything they were saying, you know."
Reynolds: "And Cecilia, did you feel that the President was sincere tonight?"
Cecilia: "Yes, he was."
Reynolds: "Do you think this is a little too late, or do you think he's got a handle on the situation?"
Cecilia: "To me it was a little too late. It was too late, but he should have did something more about it."
Reynolds: "Now do you all believe that you will one day return to your homes?"
Voices: "Yes" and "I do."
Reynolds: "I mean, do you all want to return to your homes? We're hearing some people don't even want to go back."
Mary: "I want to go back."
Reynolds: "You want to go back."
Mary: "I want to go back. That's my home. That's all I know."
Reynolds: "Is it your home for your whole life?"
Mary: "Right. That's my home."
Reynolds: "And do you expect to go back to the house or a brand new dwelling or what?"
Mary: "I expect to go back to something. I know it ain't my house, because it's gone."
Reynolds: "What is the one mistake that could have been prevented that would have made your lives much better? Is it simply getting all of you out much sooner or what was it?"
Mary: "I'm going to tell you the truth. I had the opportunity to get out, but I didn't believe it. So I stayed there till it was too late."
Reynolds: "Did you all have the same feeling? I mean, did you all have the opportunity to get out, but you were skeptical that this was the really bad one?"
Unnamed woman: "No, I got out when they said evacuate. I got out that Sunday and I left before the storm came. But I know they could have did better than what they did because like they said, buses were just sitting there, and they could have came through there and got people out, because they were saying immediate evacuation. Some people didn't believe it. But they should have brung the force of the army through to help these people and make them understand it really was coming."
London: "And really it wasn't Hurricane Katrina that really tore up the city. It was when they opened the floodgates. It was not the hurricane itself. It was the floodgates, when they opened the floodgates, that's where all the water came."
Reynolds: "Do you blame anybody for this?"
London: "Yes. I mean, they've been allocated federal funds to fix the levee system, and it never got done. I fault the mayor of our city personally. I really do."
Reynolds: "All right. Well, thank you all very much. I wish you all the best of luck. I hope you don't have to spend too much more time here in the Reliant Center and you can get back to New Orleans as the President said. Ted, that is the word from the Houston Astrodome. And as I said, when the President said that the Crescent City will rise again, there were nods all around this parking lot."
posted on September 17, 2005 10:14:26 AM new
Gosh, not only did they not fault Bush - one actually took responsibility and said it was his own fault for not getting out!
I'm surprised ABC even aired it - must have been live!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Caroline
posted on September 17, 2005 10:36:56 AM new
The funny thing is that I don't really see where the reporter was trying to get them to blame Bush. Of course if you hate ABC you would see that but it seems to me that the questions were an attempt to see how current criticisms that are coming from the media, politicians, and the uninvolved public rate among those that were actually effected.
What did you expect them to ask? Anyone that has every done or seen an inpromptu interview knows that you cannot ask questions like "so what did you think.... you end up with answers that go off the reservation (like the slave ship interview mentioned earlier this week). Is "Do you think he was sincere" really such an unreasonable question?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on September 18, 2005 08:57:00 AM new
Having viewed the clip it looks like a handpicked sample of seven or eight people sitting in blue chairs in a parking lot. I suspect there were another six people somewhere nearby who would have said Bush sounded like he was smoking crack, but they weren't picked for the interview.
posted on September 18, 2005 09:13:24 AM new
Only wish I could have seen the reporters face as answer after answer wasn't what was expected. LOL....must have been a REAL surprise. They can't even see their own bias.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 18, 2005 12:28:28 PM new
No, the media has to report the news.
Personally, I'd rather know if something as important as FEMA has been eviscerated, and by whom. Not to mention the fact that the person placed in charge of it had absolutely no qualifications for the job. I also think the public should be made aware when the goverment--Republican or Democrat, local, state or federal--drops the ball.
Merely saying "Big hurricane. City flooded." isn't enough.
As an Independent, I have no vested interest in either of the two major parties. What I have observed is this: when a Democrat does something wrong, the Republicans & right-wingers in general have absolutely no problem with talking, haranguing & attacking about it forever. But when a Republican does something wrong, and the Democrats or liberals in general do the same, the Republicans scream bloody murder about it.
edited to add an all important "c"
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
[ edited by bunnicula on Sep 18, 2005 12:30 PM ]
posted on September 18, 2005 01:17:37 PM new
Yes, fenix, I'm very much aware of my own bias. But your question does not address that the media is not supposed to be. Their job is to report the news....not set it up....not put a 'twist' on it....not lie....not print things before they have verified them.
Report the news....only the news.
-------------------
And now the mayor is fighting with those in charge of the rescue efforts...the idiot mayor wants people allowed back in....while those still trying to deal with the aftermath don't.
And I heard the mayor of NO talking about repairing it asap because he's missing the 'livelyhood' of the place. But then I'd heard he'd moved his own family out of state and bought a house there. Go figure that one.
Imo, he and that governor should be recalled....NOW!!! Before they do further damage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
[ edited by Linda_K on Sep 18, 2005 01:20 PM ]
posted on September 18, 2005 01:39:24 PM new
And speaking of bias....here's an AP article where Tony Blair, Murdock AND clinton agree that the BBC, a source helen often uses to make her leftist points, IS BIASED, in their opinions too. Anti-American.
-----
Blair calls BBC coverage 'full of hate of America': Murdoch
Sat Sep 17, 6:35 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) -
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair has complained privately to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch that the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina carried an anti-American bias, Murdoch said at a conference here.
Murdoch, chairman of the media conglomerate News Corporation, recounted a conversation with the British leader at a panel discussion late Friday hosted by former president
Bill Clinton. "Tony Blair -- perhaps I shouldn't repeat this conversation -- told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week. And he turned on the BBC world service to see what was happening in New Orleans," Murdoch was quoted as saying in a transcript posted on the Clinton Global Initiative website.
"And he said it was just full of hate of America and gloating about our troubles. And that was his government. Well, his government-owned thing," he said of the publicly owned broadcaster.
Murdoch went on to say that anti-American bias was prevalent throughout Europe.
"I think we've got to do a better job at answering it. And there's a big job to do. But you're not going to ever turn it around totally," said Murdoch, one of three media magnates who spoke at Clinton's "Global Initiative" forum on peace and development.
The former US president, who held his conference to coincide with the United Nations summit in New York, agreed that the BBC's coverage was lacking.
While the BBC's reports on the hurricane were factually accurate, its presentation was "stacked up" to criticize President George W Bush's handling of the disaster, Clinton said.
"There is nothing factually inaccurate. But ... it was designed to be almost exclusively a hit on the federal response, without showing what anybody at any level was doing that was also miraculous, going on simultaneously in a positive way," Clinton said.
posted on September 18, 2005 05:09:11 PM new
Murdoch cares only about the almighty buck, and would go after Bush & Co. in a New YOrk minute if it suited his pocketbook better. The following article shows just how quickly Murdoch changes loyalties. It also shows how entwined he is with Tony Blair--and also what a lapdog Blair has become to the US.
BTW, the BBS is not "anti-American." It simply refuses to march lockstep with us. Why should we expect it to? The real truth in this matter is that Blair hates the fact that the BBC is unwilling to spout party line and perversely insists on telling things like they are.
What Tony said to Rupert - and why it speaks volumes
The PM's extraordinary attack on the BBC has reopened old wounds and raised questions about his special relationships. By Andy McSmith
Published: 18 September 2005
It may have been a throwaway remark during a private conversation with Rupert Murdoch, but what Tony Blair said about the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina speaks volumes about where the Prime Minister's loyalties lie.
Not with the publicly funded BBC, an old established corporation that has served Great Britain through peace and war - obviously.
There are, rather, two transatlantic special relationships that have dominated Tony Blair's 11-year leadership of the Labour Party. One is with the US government; the other is with the naturalised US citizen Rupert Murdoch.
In one comment - that the BBC reports illustrated it is "full of hatred of America" - the Prime Minister managed simultaneously to tell Murdoch something that he wanted to hear, send out a message of succour to his friend George Bush, and whack the BBC. Again.
The remark was uttered less than a week after the PR consultant Tim Allan leaked to The Times a transcript of indiscreet political remarks made by the BBC journalist John Humphrys.
The Blair-supporting Times is, of course, owned by Murdoch. Allan used to work for BskyB, controlled by Murdoch, having gone into that job directly from Downing Street, where he was deputy to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's press adviser. The many threads connecting Murdoch and New Labour go back to the day Blair ascended to the party leadership in 1994. Before this, the picture was very different.
Twenty years ago, Murdoch's journalists were banned from Labour Party press conferences, in solidarity with the printers and other employees sacked when Murdoch moved his operation to the its current headquarters in Wapping.
It was party policy that a Labour government would break up the Murdoch operation by forcing him to sell at least one of his national daily papers. The only contact between the Labour leader Neil Kinnock and Murdoch's largest-selling daily, The Sun, was through libel writs.
The paper retaliated by setting out to destroy Kinnock, ending with its famous boast, after the 1992 election, that "It was The Sun wot won it" . That all changed one day in 1994, when a car glided into Wapping taking Blair's advisers, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, to a secret meeting with the editor of The Sun.
The following July, Blair and senior aides flew across the world and back to address an annual conference that Murdoch and his senior executives were holding at the Australian resort of Hayman Island.
He had also struck up a friendship with the columnist Irwin Stelzer. Stelzer is so close to Murdoch that - as the political editor of The Spectator, Peter Oborne, memorably put it - he "stands in the same kind of relationship to Murdoch as Suslov did to Stalin".
Soon after one of Stelzer's many visits to Downing Street last year, Blair made the unexpected announcement that Britain would not sign up to the proposed EU constitution until the people had voted for it in a referendum. Stelzer has denied that he was sent by Murdoch to give Blair his marching orders.
Another social tie that linked Murdoch to the future Prime Minister was the west London dinner circuit, in which Mandelson sat down to eat with Elisabeth Murdoch, the media mogul's daughter.
In 1997, The Sun carried a piece by Blair headlined "I'm a British Patriot", drafted by Campbell, promising that Labour would not allow Britain to be absorbed into a European superstate.
The piece played excellently to Murdoch's well-known opposition to the EU, and the very next day, Labour landed the big prize: The Sun, with its 3.3 million-a-day circulation, threw its support behind Labour.
The Sun has been amply rewarded ever since. Its political editor, Trevor Kavanagh, was able to report accurately the date of the 2001 general election before the information had been imparted to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.
When The Sun's rival, the Daily Mirror discovered that Cherie Blair was pregnant, she immediately shared the information with the editor of The Sun, Rebekah Wade.
More seriously, in March 1998, when Murdoch made a £4bn offer to buy an Italian television station from Silvio Berlusconi, a Turin newspaper reported that Blair had contacted the Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, to ask if the government in Rome would block the deal.
To say the least, it was odd that the British Prime Minister should concern himself with an Australian-American billionaire's interest in an Italian television station. When Alastair Campbell was asked about it, he described the report as "crap". That was because Blair was reported to have telephoned Prodi, when, in fact, it was Prodi's office that placed the call. The rest was true.
As an astonished News International executive told the Financial Times: " Rupert's access to the Prime Minister is pretty amazing. We were bowled over."
That "amazing" access was in evidence again this month, as the Prime Minister and the media mogul chatted amiably on a trade visit to Delhi. Keeping away from the cameras, they discussed the tragedy in Louisiana, and to judge from Murdoch's account of the conversation, it was not the fate of the victims that worried Tony Blair.
It was the thought that people watching BBC news at home might think that the United States is a divided society and that its government was slow in coming to the aid of those too poor to escape the hurricane.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
Tony Blair's press adviser, 1994-2003. One of the most powerful and outspoken political advisers any prime minister has had, never slow to attack Blair's enemies in the media.
Since stepping down, has signed a contract with his favourite newspaper, The Times - owned by Rupert Murdoch - to write a regular sports column and articles on politics.
TIM ALLAN
A political adviser in the early 1990s, when Tony Blair was shadow Home Secretary, he returned as a press officer in 1994. Blair tried to bring him back into Downing Street this year.
From Downing Street he went to BskyB - owner, Rupert Murdoch - as head of communications, where his tasks included writing speeches for Elisabeth Murdoch.
IRWIN STELZER
He knew Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before they were in government, and gives advice freely. He allegedly persuaded Tony Blair not to sign the EU constitution without a referendum.
A regular columnist for The Sunday Times, a confidante and personal emissary for Rupert Murdoch. The Spectator said he played " Suslov to Murdoch's Stalin".
ELISABETH MURDOCH
She enjoyed dinners with Peter Mandelson and arranged for BskyB to sponsor the Millennium Dome to the tune of £12m, when Mandelson was the minister in charge of it.
Her father made her managing director of BskyB when she was 30, but she left in 2001 to run her own production company. Murdoch says his daughter is welcome back.
Labour vs the BBC: three years of vicious spats
Publish or be damned
August 2002: The BBC was challenged to publish the findings of internal investigations into claims that Downing Street had hacked into the corporation's computers to monitor its news coverage 1997. Tony Blair's office dismissed as "complete drivel" the allegations by John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor. A number of BBC journalists were said to have passed on concerns about apparent breaches of computer security to senior editors, who were said to have investigated.
Relations worsen
May 2003: In a 6.07am broadcast on Radio 4's Today programme, reporter Andrew Gilligan, right, appeared to suggest that the Government had known that there was no basis to the claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, but went ahead with it anyway. Even then, there was no furore until Mr Gilligan suggested in a newspaper article - still quoting his anonymous source - that the person responsible for inserting the 45-minute claim was Alastair Campbell.
June 2003: Mr Campbell demanded an apology, as the Government ordered an inquiry into the source of the leaks. Mr Gilligan and Mr Campbell appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Mr Campbell and the Government demanded an apology from the BBC. The BBC refused.
July 2003: The Iraqi weapons expert David Kelly told the committee he didn't believe he was the source for Mr Gilligan after he was named in the media. Three days later Dr Kelly took his own life. Lord Hutton was asked to investigate.
November 2003: TheToday programme was at the centre of a fresh row after it emerged that Margaret Hodge, the children's minister, had written to Gavyn Davies, the BBC chairman to complain about one of its investigations. Ms Hodge claimed that a BBC reporter, Angus Stickler, was conducting a " concerted campaign" to link her with cases of child abuse in homes run by Islington council, of which she was leader from 1982 to 1992. She said that this amounted to "deplorable" sensationalism, and accused Mr Stickler of basing a report on evidence from an "extremely disturbed individual".
January 2004: The Hutton report cleared Tony Blair and Mr Campbell and blamed the BBC for just about everything. Mr Davies, the director general Greg Dyke and Mr Gilligan all resigned.
February 2004: A leaked copy of a BBC legal report said that Lord Hutton's report was "wrong in law".
August 2004: Mr Gilligan claimed the BBC is "going soft" on the Government, fearing a backlash from No 10. Speaking in Edinburgh. he said that Today "does seem to have lost at least half of its reporters and there seems to be a trend of moving story-breaking journalism off daily news programmes and into less-watched programmes in current affairs".
No respite for the Beeb
January 2005: A year after leaving the BBC, Mr Dyke, writing in The Independent, said: "Knowing what we now know, the saga has an unreal quality because, today, there is no doubt that the BBC story, which led to our departures, was fundamentally right when it said that Downing Street had sexed up the case for going to war in Iraq."
February 2005: Mr Campbell was branded an "out-of-control nutter" after sending an obscene email to Newsnight journalist Andrew McFadyen, which ended "Now f*** off and cover something important you t***s".
September 2005: Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys was rebuked by the BBC for his unguarded remarks at a PR event, including: "All you've got to do is say 'John Prescott' and people laugh".
It may have been a throwaway remark during a private conversation with Rupert Murdoch, but what Tony Blair said about the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina speaks volumes about where the Prime Minister's loyalties lie.
Not with the publicly funded BBC, an old established corporation that has served Great Britain through peace and war - obviously.
There are, rather, two transatlantic special relationships that have dominated Tony Blair's 11-year leadership of the Labour Party. One is with the US government; the other is with the naturalised US citizen Rupert Murdoch.
In one comment - that the BBC reports illustrated it is "full of hatred of America" - the Prime Minister managed simultaneously to tell Murdoch something that he wanted to hear, send out a message of succour to his friend George Bush, and whack the BBC. Again.
The remark was uttered less than a week after the PR consultant Tim Allan leaked to The Times a transcript of indiscreet political remarks made by the BBC journalist John Humphrys.
The Blair-supporting Times is, of course, owned by Murdoch. Allan used to work for BskyB, controlled by Murdoch, having gone into that job directly from Downing Street, where he was deputy to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's press adviser. The many threads connecting Murdoch and New Labour go back to the day Blair ascended to the party leadership in 1994. Before this, the picture was very different.
Twenty years ago, Murdoch's journalists were banned from Labour Party press conferences, in solidarity with the printers and other employees sacked when Murdoch moved his operation to the its current headquarters in Wapping.
It was party policy that a Labour government would break up the Murdoch operation by forcing him to sell at least one of his national daily papers. The only contact between the Labour leader Neil Kinnock and Murdoch's largest-selling daily, The Sun, was through libel writs.
The paper retaliated by setting out to destroy Kinnock, ending with its famous boast, after the 1992 election, that "It was The Sun wot won it" . That all changed one day in 1994, when a car glided into Wapping taking Blair's advisers, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, to a secret meeting with the editor of The Sun.
The following July, Blair and senior aides flew across the world and back to address an annual conference that Murdoch and his senior executives were holding at the Australian resort of Hayman Island.
He had also struck up a friendship with the columnist Irwin Stelzer. Stelzer is so close to Murdoch that - as the political editor of The Spectator, Peter Oborne, memorably put it - he "stands in the same kind of relationship to Murdoch as Suslov did to Stalin".
Soon after one of Stelzer's many visits to Downing Street last year, Blair made the unexpected announcement that Britain would not sign up to the proposed EU constitution until the people had voted for it in a referendum. Stelzer has denied that he was sent by Murdoch to give Blair his marching orders.
Another social tie that linked Murdoch to the future Prime Minister was the west London dinner circuit, in which Mandelson sat down to eat with Elisabeth Murdoch, the media mogul's daughter.
In 1997, The Sun carried a piece by Blair headlined "I'm a British Patriot", drafted by Campbell, promising that Labour would not allow Britain to be absorbed into a European superstate.
The piece played excellently to Murdoch's well-known opposition to the EU, and the very next day, Labour landed the big prize: The Sun, with its 3.3 million-a-day circulation, threw its support behind Labour.
The Sun has been amply rewarded ever since. Its political editor, Trevor Kavanagh, was able to report accurately the date of the 2001 general election before the information had been imparted to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.
When The Sun's rival, the Daily Mirror discovered that Cherie Blair was pregnant, she immediately shared the information with the editor of The Sun, Rebekah Wade.
More seriously, in March 1998, when Murdoch made a £4bn offer to buy an Italian television station from Silvio Berlusconi, a Turin newspaper reported that Blair had contacted the Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, to ask if the government in Rome would block the deal.
To say the least, it was odd that the British Prime Minister should concern himself with an Australian-American billionaire's interest in an Italian television station. When Alastair Campbell was asked about it, he described the report as "crap". That was because Blair was reported to have telephoned Prodi, when, in fact, it was Prodi's office that placed the call. The rest was true.
As an astonished News International executive told the Financial Times: " Rupert's access to the Prime Minister is pretty amazing. We were bowled over."
That "amazing" access was in evidence again this month, as the Prime Minister and the media mogul chatted amiably on a trade visit to Delhi. Keeping away from the cameras, they discussed the tragedy in Louisiana, and to judge from Murdoch's account of the conversation, it was not the fate of the victims that worried Tony Blair.
It was the thought that people watching BBC news at home might think that the United States is a divided society and that its government was slow in coming to the aid of those too poor to escape the hurricane.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
Tony Blair's press adviser, 1994-2003. One of the most powerful and outspoken political advisers any prime minister has had, never slow to attack Blair's enemies in the media.
Since stepping down, has signed a contract with his favourite newspaper, The Times - owned by Rupert Murdoch - to write a regular sports column and articles on politics.
TIM ALLAN
A political adviser in the early 1990s, when Tony Blair was shadow Home Secretary, he returned as a press officer in 1994. Blair tried to bring him back into Downing Street this year.
From Downing Street he went to BskyB - owner, Rupert Murdoch - as head of communications, where his tasks included writing speeches for Elisabeth Murdoch.
IRWIN STELZER
He knew Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before they were in government, and gives advice freely. He allegedly persuaded Tony Blair not to sign the EU constitution without a referendum.
A regular columnist for The Sunday Times, a confidante and personal emissary for Rupert Murdoch. The Spectator said he played " Suslov to Murdoch's Stalin".
ELISABETH MURDOCH
She enjoyed dinners with Peter Mandelson and arranged for BskyB to sponsor the Millennium Dome to the tune of £12m, when Mandelson was the minister in charge of it.
Her father made her managing director of BskyB when she was 30, but she left in 2001 to run her own production company. Murdoch says his daughter is welcome back.
Labour vs the BBC: three years of vicious spats
Publish or be damned
August 2002: The BBC was challenged to publish the findings of internal investigations into claims that Downing Street had hacked into the corporation's computers to monitor its news coverage 1997. Tony Blair's office dismissed as "complete drivel" the allegations by John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor. A number of BBC journalists were said to have passed on concerns about apparent breaches of computer security to senior editors, who were said to have investigated.
Relations worsen
May 2003: In a 6.07am broadcast on Radio 4's Today programme, reporter Andrew Gilligan, right, appeared to suggest that the Government had known that there was no basis to the claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, but went ahead with it anyway. Even then, there was no furore until Mr Gilligan suggested in a newspaper article - still quoting his anonymous source - that the person responsible for inserting the 45-minute claim was Alastair Campbell.
June 2003: Mr Campbell demanded an apology, as the Government ordered an inquiry into the source of the leaks. Mr Gilligan and Mr Campbell appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Mr Campbell and the Government demanded an apology from the BBC. The BBC refused.
July 2003: The Iraqi weapons expert David Kelly told the committee he didn't believe he was the source for Mr Gilligan after he was named in the media. Three days later Dr Kelly took his own life. Lord Hutton was asked to investigate.
November 2003: TheToday programme was at the centre of a fresh row after it emerged that Margaret Hodge, the children's minister, had written to Gavyn Davies, the BBC chairman to complain about one of its investigations. Ms Hodge claimed that a BBC reporter, Angus Stickler, was conducting a " concerted campaign" to link her with cases of child abuse in homes run by Islington council, of which she was leader from 1982 to 1992. She said that this amounted to "deplorable" sensationalism, and accused Mr Stickler of basing a report on evidence from an "extremely disturbed individual".
January 2004: The Hutton report cleared Tony Blair and Mr Campbell and blamed the BBC for just about everything. Mr Davies, the director general Greg Dyke and Mr Gilligan all resigned.
February 2004: A leaked copy of a BBC legal report said that Lord Hutton's report was "wrong in law".
August 2004: Mr Gilligan claimed the BBC is "going soft" on the Government, fearing a backlash from No 10. Speaking in Edinburgh. he said that Today "does seem to have lost at least half of its reporters and there seems to be a trend of moving story-breaking journalism off daily news programmes and into less-watched programmes in current affairs".
No respite for the Beeb
January 2005: A year after leaving the BBC, Mr Dyke, writing in The Independent, said: "Knowing what we now know, the saga has an unreal quality because, today, there is no doubt that the BBC story, which led to our departures, was fundamentally right when it said that Downing Street had sexed up the case for going to war in Iraq."
February 2005: Mr Campbell was branded an "out-of-control nutter" after sending an obscene email to Newsnight journalist Andrew McFadyen, which ended "Now f*** off and cover something important you t***s".
September 2005: Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys was rebuked by the BBC for his unguarded remarks at a PR event, including: "All you've got to do is say 'John Prescott' and people laugh".
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"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on September 18, 2005 10:23:53 PM new
::Because the media have to politicize EVERYTHING.::
The Media is the guilty party? Replay - do you ever read the threads here?
I could post a story about a 5 year old piano virtuso.... within four posts someone would call his parents artsy fartsy liberal freaks and someone else would say that many more 5 years olds could unlock these hidden talents if Bush would only increase funding to the arts.
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An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on September 18, 2005 10:25:34 PM new
Linda - I'm willing to bet you that I can find at least 5 articles you have posted in within the past week from WorldNetDaily so do you really think you should be calling someone on the biase of their sources?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on September 19, 2005 05:40:45 AM new
Isn't funny that PM Blair is called a "lapdog" for being friends with the US. Makes you wonder how people who say those things actually think.
Europeans are just a bunch of jealous do nothings, I wouldn't place any stock in what they have to say about us, good or bad. We need to concentrate with getting Katrina cleaned up, not worry about what some Brits several thousand miles away think.
Linda, all papers pander to something or they wouldn't sell.
posted on September 19, 2005 07:20:47 AM new
Okay fenix - I'll accept that bet.
Now prove what you've just stated. A week is 7 days....so lets see those five times when I've used WND as a source.
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Ron - I agree with your statement about the 'lapdog'. Several liberals here have said the same thing, like there's something wrong with agreeing with American policies in their minds. But oh boy....when these countries disagree with American policies, when EU leaders are against us, they'll be sure and point out to us how America is doing everything wrong because they said we were.
And I know what you're saying about each media source has it's own positions....but they refer to ours as 'rags' and theirs, even though time and time again they've been shown to have lied, falsely printed something, etc....their just the 'cat's meow' and to be accept as 'factual'.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 19, 2005 10:01:38 AM newIsn't funny that PM Blair is called a "lapdog" for being friends with the US. Makes you wonder how people who say those things actually think.
I said lapdog, and I meant it. There are many countries who are our friends, but their leaders don't feel the need to march lockstep with our policies. Who don't feel the need to lie themselves blue in the face to help Bush & Co. in their bid for war. That's just pitiful.
But, of course, actually having the nerve to say such things is a Bad Thing these days. We are in a time when many conservatives are striving to become Thought Police; they yell from the rooftops that any ideas that our country isn't absolutely the most perfect thing in the world makes the thinker "un-American." They turn red in the face & jump up and down chanting "you hate America!"
It happens that I love my country, but I can also see that we are not perfect. We make mistakes as much as anybody else does. And that, sadly, some of what we try to force on the rest of the world is just plain wrong.
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"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on September 19, 2005 11:08:50 AM new
It's the term "lapdog" that I disagree with. But that is your opinion. Do you call your friends "lapdogs"? Isn't a friend supposed be somewhat loyal and supportive?
But then again I hope Chirac dies a horrible death, so we all have our opinions.
posted on September 19, 2005 04:42:37 PM newIt's the term "lapdog" that I disagree with. But that is your opinion. Do you call your friends "lapdogs"? Isn't a friend supposed be somewhat loyal and supportive?
I don't call my friends lapdogs because they are clearly not. Nor do I expect them to be.
Now, if each of my friends felt that, in order to BE my friend, they had to hold the exact same beliefs, like & dislike all the same things or people or had to look to me for approval for the way they run their lives and personal business, that would make them "lapdogs."
Case in point: my very best friend in the world. She is someone I can & have trusted with my innermost secrets, who will drop everything on a moment's notice to help me if I need it. I can place absolute trust in her word. And she can say the same of me, as I have helped her through some dire moments in her life. For over 20 years we have been this close. However, we do not march lockstep. I am an Independent, while she is the staunchest of right-wing Republicans. I am an athiest, while she holds devout religous beliefs. We are diametrically opposed in our stance on many, many issues. And we each feel free to stand up for our own beliefs.
By your way of thinking, she could not truly be called my friend because she doesn't slavishly adhere to all my beliefs.
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"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on September 19, 2005 04:55:47 PM new
Nor does Tony Blair agree with everything our President does. To even suggest that is laughable. They disagree in several political areas.
And outside of the fact that they're both political representatives of two different countries....I don't think even that 'makes them friends'. They just agree with a lot of things the other does.....like forcing saddam to abide by the UN resolutions, by believing him to be the threat even clinton agreed saddam was....etc....etc....etc.
We're really talking about two countries who have almost always supported the others actions as we're both free, democratic nations. And I hope we always will be. BUT to pretend that Blair is a lapdog to President Bush....is nothing short of being absurd. He also had a GREAT relationship with clinton.
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Oh an fenix.....I'm still waiting for your proof. I accepted your bet.
Linda - I'm willing to bet you that I can find at least 5 articles you have posted in within the past week from WorldNetDaily so do you really think you should be calling someone on the biase of their sources?
Want to either post those links or admit you were wrong?
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 19, 2005 05:05:05 PM newHe also had a GREAT relationship with clinton.
Of course he did. It has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat. It has to do with his attitude toward our country & its power. His own people have criticized him for this.
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"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on September 20, 2005 06:50:49 AM new
Well I don't see P.M. Blair as a "lapdog" nor does he lockstep everything the US does.
But I can see how someone that would agree with President Bush would be labeled as such if the person doing the labeling hated President Bush.
The British have ALWAYS been close friends and allies through history. But most especially since WWII, because they unlike some other European countries knows who came and saved Europe from Germany.
So you call him "lapdog", I 'll continue to call him a true friend of the US.
But then again his party did win reelection so the majority of the British people must not agree.
No bunnicula, by your own definition any true friend you have would be a lapdog. I am glad I don't share your definition.
posted on September 20, 2005 12:34:37 PM new
to be accurate, the British haven't always been our friends (witness our two wars with them), though they have been our staunch allies since WWI.
I must say, Ron, that you just demonstrated a typical twist. You read my words, then totally ignored them and put your own "meaning" onto my words.
edited to add a needed "c"
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"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
[ edited by bunnicula on Sep 20, 2005 12:54 PM ]
posted on September 20, 2005 01:52:40 PM new
No, what is triing is people who expect the readers to understand their unclear comments and then get upset when they preceive they have not been responded to properly.
You have not made clear what your definition of a true friend is. So you have left it to the readers to make their own determinations based on their own values.
posted on September 20, 2005 05:36:07 PM new
Baloney. My post was very clear, Ron.
I had thought better of you. However I see now that you belong to that group of people that simply can't hold a reasonable conversation or debate with others but instead chooses to hide behind meaningless word games and ploys. Pity.
Oh well, there are plenty of other people here to talk to and I needn't bother with your posts any longer.
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"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
Caroline 
