Last night BBC2 showed this documentary in the Correspondent series, going behind the scenes at Al-Jazeera, the Arabic news TV station, during the Gulf War.
There’d been a lot of controversy over this screening seeing as it featured footage (albeit pixilated) of dead British and American soldiers that Al-Jazeera had screened. The Sun lead – and indeed is still leading – the outcry, publishing phone and fax details in today’s edition to persuade readers to bombard the BBC. To what end I don’t know.
It must be said, that the footage aired was no less strong than that which we saw of dead Iraqis. You do get the feeling that it’s as much about the fact that troops were dying, as it is the fact that they were identifiable on camera.
But then the Americans did manage to once again bomb Al-Jazeera’s offices in Bagdhad, as they did in Kabul, killing a correspondent.