Interview: Orla Guerin, BBC Middle East correspondent (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
FOR an award-winning BBC foreign correspondent, Orla Guerin attracts more than her share of critical newspaper commentaries, scurrilous internet rumours, even the occasional death threat. She has faced frequent accusations that, as the corporation's Middle East correspondent, she is instinctively hostile towards Israel. And nothing she tells the Evening Standard today is likely to convince her accusers otherwise.
Even before she has sipped her caffe latte, Guerin has questioned Israel's claim to be a democracy, compared its press freedom with Zimbabwe's, and accused its officials of paranoia. As one of her own television reports might conclude, the attack is bound to prompt Israeli hardliners to demand swift retaliation.
Guerin, in London to collect a Women in Film and Television award for her reporting, does not appear unduly bothered by the intensive diplomacy that recently persuaded the Sharon government to drop its "non-co-operation" policy towards the BBC. In fact, she explains in a Holland Park cafe, its very decision to boycott BBC reporters last summer shows how undemocratic Israel has become. "I can't imagine any other government thinking like that - Zimbabwe is the comparison," she says. "I'm absolutely stunned that they think it's appropriate."
When she arrived from the Balkans three years ago, Guerin, 37, was "genuinely amazed" at how accommodating Israel was to journalists. But latterly there has been "an increasing knee-jerk tendency" to make life as difficult as possible - restricting reporters' movements, cancelling her Palestinian colleagues' press accreditation, and trying to force the BBC to hire Israeli camera crews. "Israel talks regularly - at this point, in my view, with less justification - about being the only democracy in the Middle East," she says. "But how can you still be a democracy and try to harass the press? This is not how a democracy behaves."
These are strong accusations to lay against a nation whose neighbours are notably less tolerant of dissent. Guerin accepts that "comparatively speaking they are way ahead regionally", and that press freedom remains "a fairy tale" in many Arab countries. But she adds: "You are either a democratic state or you're not, and they're toying with that thinking - trying to have it both ways."
SHE identifies "a huge degree of paranoia in the official psyche", which results in a tendency to blame the messenger. Certainly the Israeli Government Press Office has been targeting verbal missiles at the BBC (as well as other news outlets), accusing its reports of "verging on the anti-Semitic" and seeking to "demonise" Israelis. Guerin rejects any such suggestions. There is, she says, "a supersensitivity about anything perceived as critical comment - and objective reporting will on occasions fall into that category".
Guerin has been the subject of complaints to the BBC's governors of alleged bias and "wildly inaccurate" reporting, but none has been sustained. She has received numerous emailed death threats, and some websites falsely attribute her alleged "slant" to her marriage to a Palestinian - a claim she dismisses as "completely outrageous" and deeply racist. Actually, in September Guerin did get married - but to Michael Georgy, a Reuters correspondent currently working in Baghdad, whom she met in Bethlehem. "And he's not Palestinian."
Yet newspaper commentators too, including Norman Lebrecht in the Standard and Barbara Amiel in The Daily Telegraph, have condemned Guerin's reporting - alleging a preference for the "tear-jerking shot at the expense of impartial reason", and a reliance on "anecdotes about how frightening it was to be stopped by Israeli soldiers". Yes, she says, showing the human toll of conflict is a useful way to keep viewers' attention. But she says she is careful to reflect the grief and raw emotion of both sides equally.
Other accusations concern perceived sympathy towards Palestinian victims of aggression, such as one report in which the mother of a suicide bomber described her son's death as the "best day of my life". Guerin also stands accused of emphasising Israel's violence when reporting the deaths of its civilians.
And by failing to report on everyday life, it is claimed, she also presents a picture of a nation focused disproportionately on an aggressive quest for vengeance.
The claims, she says, are all nonsense. Amiel's "hilariously inaccurate" comments, in particular, she dismisses as "ranting". "I would only be concerned if it was established that I made a mistake about a matter of fact," she says. "People's subjective perceptions of me I pay no attention to. They will hear what they want to hear. What people are saying is not, 'We want you to be fair and impartial', but, 'We want you to be on our side'. And we're not on anybody's side."
WHEN she reports on a suicide bombing, it is her duty at that time to mention any clear Israeli plans for retaliation. "We're going to talk about it - because, although suicide bombings kill civilians, the retaliation undertaken by Israel will often kill civilians as well. I don't accept that anybody has the right to say, tell this part of the story and not that part." The great problem, she says, is "people are not listening with objective ears".
Can she understand how Israelis' numerous internal and external enemies may encourage this supposed "paranoia"? "The two things to me don't connect," she says in the stern, fast-talking manner in which she would report a suicide bombing. "The fact that Israel faces, or feels it faces an existential threat does not give it the right to try and silence the press." The remarks have not gone down well at the Israeli Embassy. "To compare Israel with dictatorships shows a lack of understanding," a spokeswoman responds carefully.
"There is only one Middle Eastern country that gives free and open access to information, and tolerates a wide variety of opinions, and that's Israel. That is why Israel is so likely to be criticised."
Guerin is no ingenue. She has reported from Grozny and Moscow, covered the Kosovo war until she was expelled at gunpoint, and was nominated for a Bafta for her work in Spain's Basque region. She also stood unsuccessfully as an Irish Labour Party candidate in the 1994 European elections - an unpleasant experience, not least because of false rumours put about by her opponents of a sexual relationship with Dick Spring, the party leader.
Shots were fired towards her in April 2002 while covering a demonstration in Bethlehem - deliberately, she claims. A formal BBC complaint has not yet been answered. "That wasn't a huge surprise," she says. "It's indicative of the overall lack of accountability."
In person, with her long hair down, Guerin is chatty, friendly, occasionally chuckling. Could relations improve now that the BBC has just appointed Malcolm Balen as its first Middle East editorial adviser, charged with monitoring accusations of bias? Guerin is not convinced that the rapprochement will last. "I don't believe in ceasefires," she says with a half-laugh. "I've seen too many of them come and go."
(Evening Standard, December 10 2003)
FOR an award-winning BBC foreign correspondent, Orla Guerin attracts more than her share of critical newspaper commentaries, scurrilous internet rumours, even the occasional death threat. She has faced frequent accusations that, as the corporation's Middle East correspondent, she is instinctively hostile towards Israel. And nothing she tells the Evening Standard today is likely to convince her accusers otherwise.
Even before she has sipped her caffe latte, Guerin has questioned Israel's claim to be a democracy, compared its press freedom with Zimbabwe's, and accused its officials of paranoia. As one of her own television reports might conclude, the attack is bound to prompt Israeli hardliners to demand swift retaliation.
Guerin, in London to collect a Women in Film and Television award for her reporting, does not appear unduly bothered by the intensive diplomacy that recently persuaded the Sharon government to drop its "non-co-operation" policy towards the BBC. In fact, she explains in a Holland Park cafe, its very decision to boycott BBC reporters last summer shows how undemocratic Israel has become. "I can't imagine any other government thinking like that - Zimbabwe is the comparison," she says. "I'm absolutely stunned that they think it's appropriate."
When she arrived from the Balkans three years ago, Guerin, 37, was "genuinely amazed" at how accommodating Israel was to journalists. But latterly there has been "an increasing knee-jerk tendency" to make life as difficult as possible - restricting reporters' movements, cancelling her Palestinian colleagues' press accreditation, and trying to force the BBC to hire Israeli camera crews. "Israel talks regularly - at this point, in my view, with less justification - about being the only democracy in the Middle East," she says. "But how can you still be a democracy and try to harass the press? This is not how a democracy behaves."
These are strong accusations to lay against a nation whose neighbours are notably less tolerant of dissent. Guerin accepts that "comparatively speaking they are way ahead regionally", and that press freedom remains "a fairy tale" in many Arab countries. But she adds: "You are either a democratic state or you're not, and they're toying with that thinking - trying to have it both ways."
SHE identifies "a huge degree of paranoia in the official psyche", which results in a tendency to blame the messenger. Certainly the Israeli Government Press Office has been targeting verbal missiles at the BBC (as well as other news outlets), accusing its reports of "verging on the anti-Semitic" and seeking to "demonise" Israelis. Guerin rejects any such suggestions. There is, she says, "a supersensitivity about anything perceived as critical comment - and objective reporting will on occasions fall into that category".
Guerin has been the subject of complaints to the BBC's governors of alleged bias and "wildly inaccurate" reporting, but none has been sustained. She has received numerous emailed death threats, and some websites falsely attribute her alleged "slant" to her marriage to a Palestinian - a claim she dismisses as "completely outrageous" and deeply racist. Actually, in September Guerin did get married - but to Michael Georgy, a Reuters correspondent currently working in Baghdad, whom she met in Bethlehem. "And he's not Palestinian."
Yet newspaper commentators too, including Norman Lebrecht in the Standard and Barbara Amiel in The Daily Telegraph, have condemned Guerin's reporting - alleging a preference for the "tear-jerking shot at the expense of impartial reason", and a reliance on "anecdotes about how frightening it was to be stopped by Israeli soldiers". Yes, she says, showing the human toll of conflict is a useful way to keep viewers' attention. But she says she is careful to reflect the grief and raw emotion of both sides equally.
Other accusations concern perceived sympathy towards Palestinian victims of aggression, such as one report in which the mother of a suicide bomber described her son's death as the "best day of my life". Guerin also stands accused of emphasising Israel's violence when reporting the deaths of its civilians.
And by failing to report on everyday life, it is claimed, she also presents a picture of a nation focused disproportionately on an aggressive quest for vengeance.
The claims, she says, are all nonsense. Amiel's "hilariously inaccurate" comments, in particular, she dismisses as "ranting". "I would only be concerned if it was established that I made a mistake about a matter of fact," she says. "People's subjective perceptions of me I pay no attention to. They will hear what they want to hear. What people are saying is not, 'We want you to be fair and impartial', but, 'We want you to be on our side'. And we're not on anybody's side."
WHEN she reports on a suicide bombing, it is her duty at that time to mention any clear Israeli plans for retaliation. "We're going to talk about it - because, although suicide bombings kill civilians, the retaliation undertaken by Israel will often kill civilians as well. I don't accept that anybody has the right to say, tell this part of the story and not that part." The great problem, she says, is "people are not listening with objective ears".
Can she understand how Israelis' numerous internal and external enemies may encourage this supposed "paranoia"? "The two things to me don't connect," she says in the stern, fast-talking manner in which she would report a suicide bombing. "The fact that Israel faces, or feels it faces an existential threat does not give it the right to try and silence the press." The remarks have not gone down well at the Israeli Embassy. "To compare Israel with dictatorships shows a lack of understanding," a spokeswoman responds carefully.
"There is only one Middle Eastern country that gives free and open access to information, and tolerates a wide variety of opinions, and that's Israel. That is why Israel is so likely to be criticised."
Guerin is no ingenue. She has reported from Grozny and Moscow, covered the Kosovo war until she was expelled at gunpoint, and was nominated for a Bafta for her work in Spain's Basque region. She also stood unsuccessfully as an Irish Labour Party candidate in the 1994 European elections - an unpleasant experience, not least because of false rumours put about by her opponents of a sexual relationship with Dick Spring, the party leader.
Shots were fired towards her in April 2002 while covering a demonstration in Bethlehem - deliberately, she claims. A formal BBC complaint has not yet been answered. "That wasn't a huge surprise," she says. "It's indicative of the overall lack of accountability."
In person, with her long hair down, Guerin is chatty, friendly, occasionally chuckling. Could relations improve now that the BBC has just appointed Malcolm Balen as its first Middle East editorial adviser, charged with monitoring accusations of bias? Guerin is not convinced that the rapprochement will last. "I don't believe in ceasefires," she says with a half-laugh. "I've seen too many of them come and go."
(Evening Standard, December 10 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, December 10, 2003
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