http://www.thebusinessonline.com/Stories.aspx?StoryID=7A661262-08BA-4CA5-BBC5-916FA8594257&SectionID=F3B76EF0-7991-4389-B72E-D07EB5AA1CEE
Murdoch reveals PM's fury at 'hateful' Katrina coverage

 By : Ian Watson and Allister Heath

September 18, 2005

TONY Blair has re-opened the government's long-standing row about BBC bias 
by describing the corporation's coverage of the aftermath of the havoc 
caused to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina as being "full of hatred of 
America".

The UK Prime Minister's comments on the BBC's coverage have been revealed by 
Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corporation. Murdoch also claims 
that Blair thought the BBC was "gloating" at the slow response of the 
federal and local authorities in helping and evacuating the hundreds of 
thousands of victims made homeless and the dead who were left lying 
uncollected where they had fallen for days.

Murdoch, a long-time critic of the BBC, who controls rival Sky News, claimed 
the Prime Minister had expressed criticism about the BBC's Katrina coverage 
in a private conversation with him in New York last week.

Downing Street made no attempt to deny the story when contacted by The 
Business on Saturday evening. An official spokesman for the Prime Minister 
said: "There is not much I can say. The Prime Minister has not expressed 
these views personally to me."

Bill Clinton, the former US president, and Sir Howard Stringer, chief 
executive of Sony Corporation, also criticised the tone of the BBC's 
coverage during a seminar on the media at the Clinton Global Initiative 
conference in New York.

Murdoch said Blair first turned on the BBC's coverage of New Orleans 
flooding disaster during a recent visit to New Delhi. "He said it was just 
full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles," Murdoch claimed.

On Saturday evening, BBC executives appeared to be unaware of the British 
Prime Minister's criticism of its coverage and of Murdoch's comments. When 
contacted by The Business, a BBC spokesman said: "We have received no 
complaint from Downing Street, so it would be remiss of us to comment on 
what has been reported as a private confirmation. However, it would appear 
opportune to underline the fact that the BBC's coverage of the Katrina 
devastation was committed solely to relaying the event fully, accurately and 
impartially, an approach we will continue to take with this and other 
stories."

Former US president Clinton said the corporation's coverage, while factually 
accurate, had been "stacked up" to criticise the federal government's slow 
response to the catastrophe without focusing on any of the other relief 
efforts or the magnitude of the task.

Sir Howard Stringer, a former head of CBS News, said he had been "nervous 
about the slight level of gloating" in the BBC's coverage of the devastation 
caused by the hurricane and the response from the federal authorities to the 
plight of the victims. But he noted that the tone changed after two days and 
that other news outlets and the government had underestimated the effects of 
Katrina.

Clinton invited Stringer, Murdoch and Dick Parsons, chairman and chief 
executive of Time Warner, to debate the role of the media in a global 
economy as part of his three-day gathering to discuss pov-erty, religious 
conflict and climate change.

Murdoch made reference to Blair's remarks during a discussion of US foreign 
aid and the role of private philanthropy in which he claimed that the rest 
of the world was "jealous" of the US.

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this," the media tycoon chuckled, 
before re-counting his conversation with Blair. The government's 
relationship with the BBC hit a low point in 2003 with the row over "sexing 
up" of the dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Hurricane Katrina has been described as the worst natural diaster to hit the 
United States. It hit New Orleans, Louisiana, early in the morning of 29 
August and breached the levees that protected New Orleans from Lake 
Pontchartrain and flooded most of the city.

The hurricane also damaged huge areas of the coas-tal regions of Louisiana, 
Mississippi and Alabama. The death toll has so far topped 800 and left 
hundreds of thousands homeless. Damage to the oil platforms in the Gulf of 
Mexico sent world oil prices soaring.

Last Friday, President Bush promised to rebuild New Orl-eans after admitting 
that there had been severe failures in the federal and local authorities 
reponses to the disaster. "Through the area hit by the hurricane, we will do 
what it takes," he said. The government had failed to repsond adequately to 
the calamitity, Bush admitted.

The storm made landfall at 6.10am local time and three hours later breached 
sections of the levee system, flooding New Orleans.

Federal disaster declarations blanketed 90,000 square miles of the United 
States, an area almost as large as the UK. The hurricane left an estimated 
5m people without power and it may take up to two months for all power to be 
restored. On 3 September, homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff 
described the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as "probably the worst 
catastrophe, or set of catastrophes" in the country's history.


	
	
		
___________________________________________________________ 
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com