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BBC Newsnight: how its guest choices distort the reality of war
After the fall of Kabul, the BBC's flagship news programme chose to interview only those who were likely to sympathise or feel complicit with the failed 20-year occupation — but it is also who they didn't speak to that reveals the state broadcaster's agenda, writes IAN SINCLAIR
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“WATCH Newsnight tonight.” This was the response from BBC Newsnight’s Policy Editor Lewis Goodall to someone tweeting on August 12, “Who should I follow to understand the contemporary situation in Afghanistan? Feel like the media in the UK not covering it enough/from all angles.”
How well has Newsnight been reporting on Afghanistan? In an attempt to gain some insight into this question, I made a list of the people the BBC news programme directly interviewed about Afghanistan in August, when Western military forces were compelled to hastily withdraw and a crisis ensued in and around Kabul airport.
This amounted to 118 people interviewed either from the studio or as part of a video report (this figure includes multiple appearances on different days by the same person). I didn’t include pooled news clips of speeches and interviews — those shared with other outlets — which were largely of US-British government and military figures.
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