The BBC Coverage of Katrina

Tony Blair is right about the BBC. The corporation's coverage of Hurricane Katrina has indeed been tinged by an unnecessary sense of gloating, as the Prime Minister told Rupert Murdoch.

It is not that BBC correspondents have been inaccurate - although they tended to quote the figure of 10,000 dead, almost certainly an exaggeration, with relish. But, in their reports, one heard a whining undertone, like a bagpipe's drone. How could this have happened in such a rich country? Do the Americans really believe they can sort out Iraq with this in their own backyard? Will they finally learn some humility?

Even if these were legitimate sentiments, the aftermath of a tragedy would be no time to express them. Just imagine, by way of illustration, if, following the tsunami, the BBC had focused on the civil wars of Sri Lanka and Aceh, arguing that victims were, in a sense, reaping what they had sown, since those conflicts had destroyed the infrastructure that relief workers needed. Doing so would have been poor news judgment as well as poor taste. Yet the BBC dwelt endlessly on the deployment of a few hundred Louisiana guardsmen in the Gulf of Mexico.
Especially striking has been the determination of BBC correspondent Matt Frei to hang the blame around George Bush's neck. The officials who had the most direct responsibility for local services - notably the clownish mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin - were reported mainly as articulators of anger against the President, with almost no analysis of their own role.

Well said, then, Prime Minister. But why unload your frustration on Mr Murdoch? It is, after all, up to you to decide whether to renew the BBC's charter. If you really wanted to do something about its ingrained partiality, you could tell them first. Moaning behind the BBC's back to a rival news organisation is both pointless and unmanly.