[Media-watch] C4 news April 11

[Zahera Harb]

It is a relief to know other people have noticed that  
Karl Dinnen's report on the miraculous appearance of a
poster linking Saddam Hussein & the twin towers "was just not 
credible" as Liz Curtis put it. I would like to add that lack of 
credibility became obvious when the reporter recorded false 
translation from Arabic. There was few Arabic words written on the 
banner just beside Saddam's face and the twin towers translates "God 
save Iraq and Saddam" and Karl Dinnen translated it as "for Iraq and 
its people". Another wrong translation was recorded when he 
identified the written words on the top of a training shooting target 
in one of Saddam's army training centre as, "this is a Jewish" and 
the accurate translation is " this is a Zionist". For most Iraqis and 
Arabs there is a big difference between the two. The first relates to 
the religion and the other relates to a political and militarly 
movement. To sum it up the translations he used to base his argument 
of a link between the Islamic fundamentalists and Saddam's regime 
were false.
I e-mailed channel 4 news on this, but no response till now.
I do agree with Liz that Lindsay Hilsum has been great. As an Arab 
watching and trying to compare between the Arabic satellite channels 
coverage of the war and the British ones, channel 4 news has been so 
far the most credible unbiased source of news on British TV. 

Zahera Harb
School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies 
Cardiff University
Bute Building
King Edward VII Ave
Cardiff
Wales, UK
CF11 3NB
Fax: 029 2023 8832