I’m listening to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Feedback’ and many people are complaining that Justin Webb, BBC US correspondent, is way too partial to the US, and particularly to the Republicans – complaints based mainly on an outburst of his recently when someone pointed out that the US, given it’s current behaviour, is hardly in a position to lecture anyone on human rights, and also on his previous US political reporting.
In the clip Webb loses his temper at this relatively mild criticism and launches into a ‘You’re all America-haters’, Limbaugh-style tirade… transcript courtesy of Drinking From Home:
Stephen Sackur: “One fascinating insight into human rights attitudes around the world I had in recent weeks was chatting to Mary Robinson who ’til very recently was the UN chief running the human rights commission. She said the problem is that because of what has happened post-Iraq in particular with Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib , extraordinary rendition, a whole host of other things she listed – it is impossible now for countries like America which basically are democracies which many people around the world have always looked up to, the problem is now they cannot take the moral high ground and lecture other countries on how they should impose human rights values. It doesn’t work any more.”
Justin Webb: “That’s absolutely ludicrous though, isn’t it? I mean the view in America of that kind of comment is just to throw your hands up and say for goodness sake, look at the facts on the ground, look at the way that Iraq was run before the invasion, look at Iran now, and then look for instance at America and can you seriously say that there is some kind of moral equivalence between the way they treat their own people and the way Americans treat theirs, the way they behave on the world stage? There isn’t.”
Stephen Sackur: “Justin hang on , it’s all about perception though Justin'”
Justin Webb: “Oh, that’s a different matter…”
Stephen Sackur: “That’s very important. What I want to know…”
Justin Webb: “…what Americans want to know is why someone who is in the position that Mary Robinson is in, where it shouldn’t be just about perception, it should be about a knowledge of the facts on the ground. That kind of thing is what so annoys people in this country, and not just Republicans – Americans of all political stripe who just say to the rest of the world for goodness sake look at us without your soft anti-Americanism, or your dislike of McDonalds, or whatever else , or your dislike of big people, powerful people, successful people, just look at the facts on the ground. America is a very, very free country and around the world it does an awful lot of good. I tell you – can I just give you an example of this?”
Stephen Sackur: “You can as long as it’s quick because I’ve got a question for you. Hurry up!”
Justin Webb: “Ok. Well I prefer my example to your question at the moment, and as someone who is living in America I kind of feel the right just to speak my mind on this subject and the rest of you will have to be quiet for a second.”
Stephen Sackur: “Get it off your chest.”
Justin Webb: “Here we go. Just look, and I put this to Carrie Gracie (China Correspondent), look at the support and help that China gave to tsunami victims a year or so ago and look at the help that America gave. Compare and contrast the behaviour of these nations on the international stage is what the White House says, and then come back to us and talk about whether or not we do bad around the world. It is exactly as someone said – a matter of perception. It isn’t reality.”
“…What the Americans say to the rest of the world is just look at China, look at China’s friends – look at their friends in Zimbabwe, look at Sudan, look at Venezuela, and then ask whether it is right that all the criticism is heaped on America and none on other nations that are big players in the world.”
Stephen Sackur: “But Justin nobody I think around this table is in any way using equivalence, thinking about moral equivalence, but what I’m interested to tease out is whether, actually, things are beginning to change a little bit in America and maybe there is a recognition that some of the things I mentioned in terms of failings on human rights committed by those wearing American uniform for example…”
Justin Webb: “Yes, absolutely”
‘
Stephen Sackur: ” have been damaging. And also look at the Patriot Act, which is only being extended for one more month and looks now as if it may not have much of a political future inside George Bush’s America.”
Justin Webb: “And when you think of all those things in the context of a nation that genuinely feel itself to be under imminent threat of catastrophic attack at any minute of every day then isn’t that an amazing testament to the almost innate sense of longing for freedom that there is in America. It is incredible that the White House has been beaten up so badly on the subject of torture by its own supporters, by Republicans.”
One of the Feedback complainants said that Webb sounded like a Fox news shill. That certainly resonated with me. Despite everything that is happening in the US at the moment- for example the fact that it’s on the verge of its biggest ever consitiutional emergency as Bush makes a naked power-grab – Webbs modus operandi in his political reporting has been to parrot Republican talking points, and never ever gainsay his new buddies in the Washington media establishment, because then he’d lose what paltry access he has and likely his inside-the-beltway social life, poor love.
He’s as bad as any other GOP media hack in that respect, but he also lacks the nous to realise that we are perfectly able to go to the sources ourselves, and we know those talking points he packages so debonairly are mostly lies.
Does he really believe this shit, or is it the typical arrogance of the institutionalised BBC reporter of a certain age, who hasn’t really got to grips with the burgeoning information democracy and thinks he’s still the gatekeeper to esoteric knowledge? Or has he just gone native?
The BBC need to get him the hell out of there now. Any pretensions to impartiality on US issues he may have had, thin as they were, are now nonexistent after that broadcast.
