Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World BBC reporter cried for Arafat
Douglas Davis, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 7, 2004
Senior editors at the BBC are understood to have remonstrated with their correspondent, Barbara Plett, over her "misjudgment" in revealing on air that she had cried when Yasser Arafat's Jordanian helicopter carried him away from Ramallah en route to hospital in France.
The BBC has received some 500 complaints about Plett's broadcast, which was broadcast on its Radio 4 program, "From Our Own Correspondent."
In her report, Plett said: "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry . . . without warning."
She went on to reflect that, "in quieter moments since I have asked myself, why the sudden surge of emotion? I suppose there was a pathos about the strong contrast between this and other journeys Yasser Arafat has made."................
"I know what it is like to stare at the same four walls and find them staring back; to watch tanks swing their turrets outside my window; to scan rooftops for snipers during brief hours of freedom between curfews. I could understand why Palestinians responded to Mr. Arafat then the way they did."................
It is thought that such sentiments will fuel accusations that the BBC is incorrigibly pro-Palestinian, despite the October 2003 appointment - with support from Israel's Foreign Ministry - of an ombudsman to oversee its reporting of Middle East affairs......
This is not Barbara Plett's first brush with controversy over her alleged bias in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Three years ago, she was the subject of an Israeli embassy protest to the BBC over Palestinian celebrations following the 9/11 attacks. The then-press secretary D.J. Schneeweiss charged that Plett and her colleague, Orla Guerin, "went to great lengths to put the pictures 'in context' and insisted that the celebratory pictures did not reflect the sentiments of the majority of Palestinians."
"My question," he wrote, "is whether these blatant and apparently coordinated attempts to guide the British audience away from making its own judgments about the pictures on their screens did not derive from the BBC's correspondents bowing to Palestinian pressure.
Douglas Davis, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 7, 2004
Senior editors at the BBC are understood to have remonstrated with their correspondent, Barbara Plett, over her "misjudgment" in revealing on air that she had cried when Yasser Arafat's Jordanian helicopter carried him away from Ramallah en route to hospital in France.
The BBC has received some 500 complaints about Plett's broadcast, which was broadcast on its Radio 4 program, "From Our Own Correspondent."
In her report, Plett said: "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry . . . without warning."
She went on to reflect that, "in quieter moments since I have asked myself, why the sudden surge of emotion? I suppose there was a pathos about the strong contrast between this and other journeys Yasser Arafat has made."................
"I know what it is like to stare at the same four walls and find them staring back; to watch tanks swing their turrets outside my window; to scan rooftops for snipers during brief hours of freedom between curfews. I could understand why Palestinians responded to Mr. Arafat then the way they did."................
It is thought that such sentiments will fuel accusations that the BBC is incorrigibly pro-Palestinian, despite the October 2003 appointment - with support from Israel's Foreign Ministry - of an ombudsman to oversee its reporting of Middle East affairs......
This is not Barbara Plett's first brush with controversy over her alleged bias in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Three years ago, she was the subject of an Israeli embassy protest to the BBC over Palestinian celebrations following the 9/11 attacks. The then-press secretary D.J. Schneeweiss charged that Plett and her colleague, Orla Guerin, "went to great lengths to put the pictures 'in context' and insisted that the celebratory pictures did not reflect the sentiments of the majority of Palestinians."
"My question," he wrote, "is whether these blatant and apparently coordinated attempts to guide the British audience away from making its own judgments about the pictures on their screens did not derive from the BBC's correspondents bowing to Palestinian pressure.
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