A newspaper that had opposed the war would not tolerate "positive reporting" from Baghdad. One young British reporter who didn't understand that was surprised to see himself shifted to Paris to become a European correspondent. He had made the mistake of reporting that Iraq looked almost like a success, given where it had come from.OK, fella. Which one? The Murdochs - the Times, Sunday Times, Sun/NOTW - supported the war. The Telegraph was at the peak of its Conrad Black/Charles Moore phase as a solo neocon faction in the Conservative Party. The Rothermere papers supported it. So did the Express.
That leaves the Independent, which relied on Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and Kim Sengupta, none of whom were transferred to Paris, the Guardian, whose Rory Carroll wasn't transferred until after his kidnapping in Iraq some years later, and the Financial Times, which wasn't opposed to the war so much as protected by its institutional scepticism.
It don't look good now, does it? Then again, he's yet to say sorry for inventing the story that Iranian Jews were going to be forced to wear a yellow star.
No comments:
Post a Comment