From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) National Union of Journalists (NUJ) | 28 January 2004 The Hutton report’s criticisms of Andrew Gilligan and the BBC are “unfounded”, the NUJ said today. The union’s General Secretary Jeremy Dear said that blaming the BBC and its reporter for the trouble his broadcasting caused the government was “a threat to independent journalism.” Jeremy Dear said: “I have spoken to Andrew Gilligan today and I believe the report does him and his story a grave injustice.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Joe Wakim | Herald Sun | 18 February 2004 It is flabbergasting to hear your own words about anti-Arab films echoed by someone else. Especially when that someone else is a Jewish films-maker. Rabbi Marvin Hier, recipient of two Academy Awards as co-producer of Genocide (1981) and The Long Way Home (1997), is also leading the public campaign against Mel Gibson's new movie The Passion of Christ.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Rupert Cornwell |The Independent | 3 December 2003 For years they have been taking it on the chin, from motor-mouth talk-show hosts, take-no-prisoner conservative authors and all-knowing Republican pundits. Now liberal Democrats are fighting back, with best-selling books, a new Washington think-tank and probably their own radio network. The network idea has failed before. But in today's acutely polarised US political climate, and the "
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Iason Athanasiadi |The Guardian | 17 November 2003 Yvonne Ridley, the former Express journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan and subsequently converted to Islam, has been sacked as editor of al-Jazeera's English-language service. "Until I know why I've been fired, or given written notice, I can't say anything other than that I'm completely devastated and puzzled," Ridley told the Gulf News. Sources close to Ridley said she intended to fight her dismissal and had already been in contact with lawyers.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Michelle Goldberg | Salon.com | 1 December 2003 Bill O'Reilly wants its nonprofit status revoked. Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie sees it as part of the "Democrat plan to subvert campaign finance laws." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's office plays phone pranks on its staffers. A piece in David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine worries: "It could bypass the mainstream media, sneak around campaign spending limits, and become its own powerful channel for Leftist communication, indoctrination and mobilization.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Helen Thomas | San Francisco Chronicle | 28 November 2003 Washington -- THE RAID by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials on an Arab television network bureau in Baghdad and the ban on its broadcasts hardly fits my idea of how to spread democracy in the Middle East. Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Alan Read | The Times Higher Education Supplement | 4 April 2003 In this time of war, we must reclaim from celebrities our right to make significant gestures and voice opinions in the public arena, argues Alan Read The cliché "theatre of war" has been tripping off strategists' lips in recent days as though it describes something self-evident and uncontestable. But it's worth pausing to consider the association between the two ends of the phrase before leaping into battle armed with a metaphor that is as likely to expose the irrationalities of violent action as to conceal them.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Ciar Byrne | The Guardian | 11 November 2003 The BBC has created a new senior editorial post to advise on its Middle East coverage, as the corporation continues to come under fire for alleged anti-Israeli bias. Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the BBC's Nine O'Clock News, has been appointed "senior editorial adviser" based in London but working closely with the corporation's Middle East bureau in Jerusalem.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Tom Leonard | Daily Telegraph | 11 November 2003 The BBC has appointed a "Middle East policeman" to oversee its coverage of the region amid mounting allegations of anti-Israeli bias. Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the Nine O'Clock News, has been recruited in an attempt to improve the corporation's reporting of the Middle East and its relationship with the main political players. Mr Balen, who left the BBC three years ago, will work full-time with the official title of "
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Bernard Josephs | Jewish Chronicle | 14 November 2003 The BBC's appointment this week of a top broadcasting figure to oversee its Mideast coverage was welcomed by Israeli and Jewish community leaders as a recognition of their protests over alleged anti-Israeli bias. In and unprecedented move, the corporation name Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the "Nine O'Clock News," to monitor its coverage of the region.