EDITORIAL

I must admit I am amazed at all the fuss over the BBC's coverage of the war on Iraq. Throughout the UK Sunday newspapers there were columns of criticism and support for the BBC which as usual is in the firing line for allegedly being pro-Iraqi. I have probably watched more TV news bulletins than most in Majorca during the Iraqi crisis and as far as I am concerned the BBC was not an issue. I simply did not watch it because I found their coverage poor and muddled and instead stayed with Sky News who did a first rate job with a fraction of the BBC's budget. Sky News has been superb with up to the minute news and analysis and not too many arm chair generals. The little I did watch of the BBC I found completely muddled because they were trying to be too balanced. Also, Sky's programmers got it right. There was 24 hour coverage of the war on their news channel but they did not change programmes on their entertainment channels to include more coverage of the war. The BBC, apart from having their own news channel still decided to alter the listings to BBC1 and BBC2 to include more war coverage and comment. In other-words I think they completely misjudged the situation. Families of servicepeople in the Gulf are told to watch the morning and evening news bulletins because as far as the military is concerned what is in-between will just be re-runs and speculation. The BBC should watch how Sky covered the war and it came as no surprise to me that Murdoch's 24 hour news channel won their second Bafta on Sunday. I am no supporter of Mr. Murdoch but as far as I'm concerned the BBC needs to have a long hard think about their coverage of the war.