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A Weblog monitoring coverage of environmental issues and science in the UK media. By Professor Emeritus Philip Stott. The aim is to assess whether a subject is being fairly covered by press, radio, and television. Above all, the Weblog will focus on science, but not just on poor science. It will also bring to public notice good science that is being ignored because it may be politically inconvenient.

Monday, June 07, 2004

Killing the messenger.....

What can one say? The shooting dead of the BBC camerman, Simon Cumbers, and the serious injury to the BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner, in an attack in Riyadh last night is a dreadful tragedy and a yet another terrible witness to the evils of the world in which we live ('Two BBC men shot in Saudi capital', BBC Online Middle East News, June 7). The two men were filming the house of an al-Qaeda militant who was killed last year. Cameramen are too often the unsung heros of television reporting, being regularly exposed to enormous danger in the course of their work. Frank Gardner is also one of the best of the BBC correspondents and he has striven tirelessly throughout the current conflicts to present genuine insights into most complex issues. His commentaries have been, for me, models of fairness and precisely what is required from the BBC. We can only express our strongest outrage at the gratuitous ambush of these independent reporters and messengers, express our deepest condolences to Mr. Cumbers' family, and pray that Mr. Gardner recovers swiftly. We owe them both.

Philip.

[New counter, June 19, 2006, with loss of some data]


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