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THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF STORY-TELLING: BBC BIASED AGAINST AZERBAIJAN
Ekho
Nov 13 2012
Baku, Azerbaijan
[Excerpts translated from Russian]
People in the British Isles are discussing yet another high-profile
scandal: after the BBC broadcast what London was forced to admit
was an untruthful report, the director-general of this TV company,
George Entwistle, resigned.
[Passage omitted: details of the Newsnight report]
However, at the same time one cannot help noting that the discussion
of carnal pleasures in Wales was by far not the first instance of
"unacceptable journalistic standards" observed in BBC broadcasts.
Let us recall: it was the BBC that tried to stir up a scandal around
Azerbaijani boxers in 2011. It was purported that in exchange for
securing Azerbaijani sponsorship, officers of the International
Boxing Association "promised" that Azerbaijani boxers would win
"gold" at the London Olympics. Here is an interesting detail! - this
"sensational piece of news" appeared in the same Newsnight programme.
Scandals around International Boxing Association, Eurovision
This needs to be clarified. First of all, Azerbaijan is an oil-rich
country with a successfully developing economy and today Baku
is extending sponsorship to many international organizations and
various international projects, from schools in the African Republic
of Benin to the restoration of Roman catacombs. Secondly, it will
suffice to look at Azerbaijan's "medal statistics" - since it gained
independence - in the Olympics, or world boxing championships, to
understand that our team is among the major competitors for "gold"
in this type of sport. However, once you link the two facts in one
news report and provide a few references to "independent sources" -
the scandal is there. Even if the International Boxing Association
and Azerbaijan demand that journalists provide evidence to support
the allegations that have been broadcast and the investigation fails
to expose anything - who is going to remember the details when the
"hot headlines" in the news have already faded away.
At around the same time, as Baku was gearing up for the Eurovision
song contest, the European Broadcasting Union admonished the BBC for
its biased attitude towards Azerbaijan.
London Olympics
Later, during the Olympics, the BBC started to methodically spin a
new scandal around Azerbaijan: it appeared that somebody who had an
Azerbaijani flag wrapped around his shoulders, was illegally selling
games tickets. In response, members of the Azerbaijani delegation
said that they had been allocated insufficient tickets, that a
relevant application they had submitted years before the opening of
the Olympics had been badly fulfilled and that the company which was
supposed to sell tickets had failed to fulfil its duties.
Nevertheless, the BBC played down this story. They thought these
"standards" were pretty acceptable too.
Azerbaijan's aid to Mexico
This autumn, the BBC in unison with the "Armenian lobby" set
about...[ellipsis as published] creating a scandalous atmosphere
around the financial support that Azerbaijan had extended to the
municipal authorities of the Mexican capital. As our newspaper has
already reported, in consequence of this, a park to commemorate
Azerbaijani-Mexican friendship and a monument to Heydar Aliyev,
appeared in Mexico City. In addition, a monument to the victims of
the Xocali tragedy [reference to an incident in which hundreds of
civilians were killed in the town of Xocali in Azerbaijan's breakaway
Karabakh in February 1992] was erected on Tlaxcoaque Square and the
Mexican parliament officially recognized [the tragedy] as a genocide
of the Azerbaijani people.
Quite understandably, the monument to the victims of the Xocali
genocide seriously perturbed relevant Armenian figures: unlike the
much hyped "genocide of the year 1915" [referring to the killing of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey], here we have to deal with actual facts,
rather than with falsities and myths. Most importantly, perpetrators
of this crime are not only alive and well, but even occupy leading
positions in Armenia.
Nevertheless, they decided to target Heydar Aliyev's monument. And
then BBC journalists sent questions to the Azerbaijani ambassador
to Mexico. These questions had nothing in common with journalistic
standards or with standards of civilized conduct in public for that
matter: "How much did you pay to the Mexican government? In what
form did you pay? What if Azerbaijani citizens think that the money
was spent on the improvement of their living conditions? Do not you
think that the monument is reminiscent of the 'Stalinist' style?" ,
and so on and so forth.
At the same time, BBC journalists never thought of going onto the
streets of Baku with microphones and asking Azerbaijani residents
about the promotion of the interests of their country abroad.
Moreover, it never even struck them to do a little bit of web-browsing:
all details regarding the financial help Azerbaijani authorities
extended to the Mexico City Hall to renovate the Tlaxcoaque Square
and Reforma Avenue, were published on the Internet and are accessible
from the websites of the appropriate agencies.
Despite the insulting tone of the BBC questions, the ambassador
clarified that Azerbaijan had paid attention to Mexico because the
latter had been one of the first countries to recognize Azerbaijan's
independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "This monument
does not seek to improve anybody's reputation," the diplomat said. He
then patiently spelled out simple truths to the journalists of the
respected British TV company, saying that the money had not been
handed over directly to anybody, that the district in question had
been neglected and required improvement. The journalists reluctantly
mentioned that as he addressed the opening ceremony of the monument,
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard emphasized that over the past 16
years, none of the 180 diplomatic representations in Mexico City had
extended such financial assistance to the capital. However, the BBC
journalists were underwhelmed by this. Whether or not "acceptable
journalistic standards" were on display here probably needs no
further explanation.
[Passage omitted: more about Azerbaijan's help to Mexico City]
"Shoddy journalism"
Wise people say that it is quite possible that one incident is
nothing but a very sad accident. Two incidents can be regarded as
a coincidence. However, if "unacceptable journalistic standards"
are displayed on three or more occasions, this is already a tendency.
Nobody is going to argue with the now former head of the BBC that
despite the fact that Newsnight did make serious mistakes that
constitute examples of "unacceptable shoddy journalism", many talented
and decent people still work at the BBC. [However, it is a fact]
that all too often they diverged from [journalistic] standards. It
is another matter that Azerbaijan did not have the opportunity that
Lord McAlpine had to "pressurize" the leadership of the BBC and one
of the employees decided that it was possible not to "bother" checking
facts what mattered was to sound sharp and make loud headlines.
For the sake of justice we would like to note that Azerbaijan is not
the only country that no longer believes in BBC's impartiality. The
democratic Israel, and a lot of other countries have no less impressive
lists of "unacceptable standards of journalism".
Ekho
Nov 13 2012
Baku, Azerbaijan
[Excerpts translated from Russian]
People in the British Isles are discussing yet another high-profile
scandal: after the BBC broadcast what London was forced to admit
was an untruthful report, the director-general of this TV company,
George Entwistle, resigned.
[Passage omitted: details of the Newsnight report]
However, at the same time one cannot help noting that the discussion
of carnal pleasures in Wales was by far not the first instance of
"unacceptable journalistic standards" observed in BBC broadcasts.
Let us recall: it was the BBC that tried to stir up a scandal around
Azerbaijani boxers in 2011. It was purported that in exchange for
securing Azerbaijani sponsorship, officers of the International
Boxing Association "promised" that Azerbaijani boxers would win
"gold" at the London Olympics. Here is an interesting detail! - this
"sensational piece of news" appeared in the same Newsnight programme.
Scandals around International Boxing Association, Eurovision
This needs to be clarified. First of all, Azerbaijan is an oil-rich
country with a successfully developing economy and today Baku
is extending sponsorship to many international organizations and
various international projects, from schools in the African Republic
of Benin to the restoration of Roman catacombs. Secondly, it will
suffice to look at Azerbaijan's "medal statistics" - since it gained
independence - in the Olympics, or world boxing championships, to
understand that our team is among the major competitors for "gold"
in this type of sport. However, once you link the two facts in one
news report and provide a few references to "independent sources" -
the scandal is there. Even if the International Boxing Association
and Azerbaijan demand that journalists provide evidence to support
the allegations that have been broadcast and the investigation fails
to expose anything - who is going to remember the details when the
"hot headlines" in the news have already faded away.
At around the same time, as Baku was gearing up for the Eurovision
song contest, the European Broadcasting Union admonished the BBC for
its biased attitude towards Azerbaijan.
London Olympics
Later, during the Olympics, the BBC started to methodically spin a
new scandal around Azerbaijan: it appeared that somebody who had an
Azerbaijani flag wrapped around his shoulders, was illegally selling
games tickets. In response, members of the Azerbaijani delegation
said that they had been allocated insufficient tickets, that a
relevant application they had submitted years before the opening of
the Olympics had been badly fulfilled and that the company which was
supposed to sell tickets had failed to fulfil its duties.
Nevertheless, the BBC played down this story. They thought these
"standards" were pretty acceptable too.
Azerbaijan's aid to Mexico
This autumn, the BBC in unison with the "Armenian lobby" set
about...[ellipsis as published] creating a scandalous atmosphere
around the financial support that Azerbaijan had extended to the
municipal authorities of the Mexican capital. As our newspaper has
already reported, in consequence of this, a park to commemorate
Azerbaijani-Mexican friendship and a monument to Heydar Aliyev,
appeared in Mexico City. In addition, a monument to the victims of
the Xocali tragedy [reference to an incident in which hundreds of
civilians were killed in the town of Xocali in Azerbaijan's breakaway
Karabakh in February 1992] was erected on Tlaxcoaque Square and the
Mexican parliament officially recognized [the tragedy] as a genocide
of the Azerbaijani people.
Quite understandably, the monument to the victims of the Xocali
genocide seriously perturbed relevant Armenian figures: unlike the
much hyped "genocide of the year 1915" [referring to the killing of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey], here we have to deal with actual facts,
rather than with falsities and myths. Most importantly, perpetrators
of this crime are not only alive and well, but even occupy leading
positions in Armenia.
Nevertheless, they decided to target Heydar Aliyev's monument. And
then BBC journalists sent questions to the Azerbaijani ambassador
to Mexico. These questions had nothing in common with journalistic
standards or with standards of civilized conduct in public for that
matter: "How much did you pay to the Mexican government? In what
form did you pay? What if Azerbaijani citizens think that the money
was spent on the improvement of their living conditions? Do not you
think that the monument is reminiscent of the 'Stalinist' style?" ,
and so on and so forth.
At the same time, BBC journalists never thought of going onto the
streets of Baku with microphones and asking Azerbaijani residents
about the promotion of the interests of their country abroad.
Moreover, it never even struck them to do a little bit of web-browsing:
all details regarding the financial help Azerbaijani authorities
extended to the Mexico City Hall to renovate the Tlaxcoaque Square
and Reforma Avenue, were published on the Internet and are accessible
from the websites of the appropriate agencies.
Despite the insulting tone of the BBC questions, the ambassador
clarified that Azerbaijan had paid attention to Mexico because the
latter had been one of the first countries to recognize Azerbaijan's
independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "This monument
does not seek to improve anybody's reputation," the diplomat said. He
then patiently spelled out simple truths to the journalists of the
respected British TV company, saying that the money had not been
handed over directly to anybody, that the district in question had
been neglected and required improvement. The journalists reluctantly
mentioned that as he addressed the opening ceremony of the monument,
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard emphasized that over the past 16
years, none of the 180 diplomatic representations in Mexico City had
extended such financial assistance to the capital. However, the BBC
journalists were underwhelmed by this. Whether or not "acceptable
journalistic standards" were on display here probably needs no
further explanation.
[Passage omitted: more about Azerbaijan's help to Mexico City]
"Shoddy journalism"
Wise people say that it is quite possible that one incident is
nothing but a very sad accident. Two incidents can be regarded as
a coincidence. However, if "unacceptable journalistic standards"
are displayed on three or more occasions, this is already a tendency.
Nobody is going to argue with the now former head of the BBC that
despite the fact that Newsnight did make serious mistakes that
constitute examples of "unacceptable shoddy journalism", many talented
and decent people still work at the BBC. [However, it is a fact]
that all too often they diverged from [journalistic] standards. It
is another matter that Azerbaijan did not have the opportunity that
Lord McAlpine had to "pressurize" the leadership of the BBC and one
of the employees decided that it was possible not to "bother" checking
facts what mattered was to sound sharp and make loud headlines.
For the sake of justice we would like to note that Azerbaijan is not
the only country that no longer believes in BBC's impartiality. The
democratic Israel, and a lot of other countries have no less impressive
lists of "unacceptable standards of journalism".