- Craig Oliver
- 24 Jul 06, 03:00 PM
Here are some stark statistics:
• Around 30 to 40 people are killed every day in the current Israel/Lebanon conflict.
• About 100 people are killed every day in the violence in Iraq.
• And 1,200 people are killed every day in the war in the Congo.
All three of these stories are due to appear on tonight's Ten O'Clock News. They will probably run in that order - with the Middle East getting by far the most attention.
Does this say something about how we value human life? It's a fair question and one I worry about.
Here is our reasoning for not reversing the order. The war in the Congo has been going on for decades - it is desperately important (as we will reflect tonight), and a story we will keep returning to. Similarly the Ten has led the way in attempting to show the scale of the violence in Iraq in recent months - we have regularly led the programme with stories from there, and the 大象传媒 is the only British broadcaster with a full time commitment to being there.
The Middle East needs more time and space for a variety of reasons:
• The sheer complexity of the situation requires space to help provide context and analysis.
• The current conflict plugs into so many other stories around the world, from what Tony Blair and George W. Bush call the "War on Terror", through to the price of oil, even the situation in Afghanistan.
• Many people fear the consequences of conflict in the Middle East more than anywhere else, and it is our job to help people understand a "scary world".
In short, our judgement is that Middle East is currently the biggest story in the world - by a wide margin - and it has the greatest implications for us all.
Craig Oliver is editor of the Ten O'Clock News
Craig Oliver is editor of 大象传媒 News at Six and 大象传媒 News at Ten
- Adam Curtis
- 24 Jul 06, 02:00 PM
News developments in the Middle East routinely attract the attention of vigorous lobby groups on both sides. The conflict that has erupted so suddenly in Lebanon is no exception.
We are accused of all sorts of twists and spins, such as: "Why do we say that Lebanese have 'died', but that Israelis have 'been killed'?" Or: "Why do you focus on the suffering of Israelis when the Lebanese are suffering in greater numbers?" Or: "Why do you paint the Lebanese as victims when it's their failure to disarm Hezbollah that lies at the root of the trouble?" Or: "Why don't you state openly that the Israeli bombing/Hezbollah rocket attacks are war crimes?"
Readers with strong views about the rights and wrongs of the conflict sometimes read into our coverage a bias or prejudice that is not there. The accusations come from both sides.
The truth is that, in maintaining 24-hour a day coverage of a complex, fast-moving story such as this - constantly updating and reshaping our reports - it is a huge challenge to ensure that we are maintaining absolute balance and impartiality. Undoubtedly, there are times when we don't get it quite right. But we do pay attention to feedback, and we do make adjustments when it seems right to do so.
One of the most difficult issues surrounds the pictures that we use to illustrate our news stories. We come under pressure from some quarters to publish photographs that reflect the full horror of the casualties being inflicted. Such images certainly exist and are freely available on a number of websites.
Our job, as we see it, is to make a judgement about what our audience is likely to feel is appropriate. On the one hand, we do not believe in sanitising the news. On the other, we believe we have the ability, through our reporting, to convey the horror of events without shocking and possibly outraging our readers by showing gruesome images of mutilated corpses.
On occasions we are aware that we come close to crossing the line as to what is acceptable. In such circumstances, we may, like our colleagues in television, adopt the policy of warning our readers that the images they are about to see are likely to be distressing.
But what if the available images of casualties on one side are more harrowing than those on the other? And should we publish more pictures of Lebanese casualties because there are more of them?
In practice, we look at the agency pictures available at any one time and publish a selection that we feel reflects reality. We have no agenda other than to give our readers as accurate a sense as we can of what is happening on the ground.
In doing so, we take note of the 大象传媒 guideline on impartiality, which says in part: "It requires us to be fair and open minded when examining the evidence and weighing all the material facts, as well as being objective and even handed in our approach to a subject. It does not require the representation of every argument or facet of every argument on every occasion or an equal division of time for each view."
Adam Curtis is world editor of the
Adam Curtis is world editor,
A guide to words and names in the news, from Catherine Sangster of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.
"Today's pronunciation is for the English town .
"Our recommendation, based on the advice of people who live there as well as published sources, is CHEST-uhr-li-street - the first part rhymes with 'westerly'. Most English placenames with 'le' in them are pronounced in this way, rhyming with 'me' rather than the French-sounding 'luh'."
(.)
Among the audience reaction received by the 大象传媒 in the past 24 hours were comments that "there are not enough interviews from the Lebanese" and "Israel is not getting equal coverage". We also received these e-mails:
I wish the 大象传媒 would stop banging on about blogs. I want quality journalism from intelligent people. Blogs are 99.999999% self-indulgent ramblings from people whose opinion I have no interest in.
Can the 大象传媒 news teams, when quoting statistics in news broadcasts, not make a mockery of our language? It is ludicrous to state, for example, that "In the UK, 30,000 people die of lung disease every year". No, they don't! Once they've died, those people can't die again the following year ! Do you not see that the better way to quote that (fictional)statistic would be: "Every year, lung disease is responsible for 30,000 deaths in the UK"? If 大象传媒 London were to tell me that "Somebody is mugged on the tube every 38 minutes", my immediate reaction would be "and he's getting really fed up with it now".
The Independent: Reporter Ian Burrell spends a day in the 大象传媒 News 24 newsroom. ()
The Times: Columnist Stephen Pollard attacks the 大象传媒's coverage of the Middle East crisis. ()
The Guardian: "Panorama's return to a primetime weeknight slot could make or break the current affairs programme." ()
