More Interviews With #Flotilla Members Should Be Conducted This Critically

Just Journalism gives examples of how the media has uncritically interviewed Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign--with at least one interview even mentioning her association with the PSC.

But there is one interview with Colborne that did ask real questions--on the BBC Today programme with anchor Sarah Montague.

Here is the transcript from Just Journalism, with JJ comments in brackets:

[In the following exchange, Colborne revealingly avoids the BBC journalist’s question about whether or not the passengers attacked the soldiers and implies that she did not actually see Israeli commandos open fire:]

Sarah Montague: Are you saying that Israeli soldiers who boarded that ship opened fire and there was no provocation for it?

Sarah Colborne: That’s what I am saying, yes.

SM: You saw that. You saw them fire when there was no attack on them.

SC: I saw them, well, I saw them, what I saw was them coming down from a helicopter onto the roof, I saw them trying to board the boat via dinghies.

SM: Were they attacked by those on board?

SC: They – the people on board, as you can see, were trying to stop…

SM: Hitting them with metal bars.

SC: Well, we need to see the entire footage. I believe to give a perspective on what was happening. They were shooting, they were shooting civilians, they were using gas bombs on the ship. The truth is we were in international waters, Israel committed a piracy offence.

[Sarah Montague also challenged Colborne’s contention she had ‘heard no warnings whatsoever’ that the Israelis were going to raid the ship, saying, ‘How can you not have known or how can those on board the ship… because we know from what the Israeli side is saying that there were plenty of warnings?

The BBC journalist finally broached the subject of the professed desire for martyrdom on the part of some of the participants who had died:]

‘Let me, let me put something to you. The Turkish newspapers yesterday quoted family members of two of the dead men as saying that they had wanted to be martyrs.’

[Sarah Colborne, once again, flatly denied being aware of any such aspirations of her co-travellers:]

‘Well, I – I have no idea. I didn’t speak to anyone who wanted to be a martyr.’

Considering the documentation provided by both Israeli video--and the security camera footage of members getting ready to attack the Israeli soldiers--one would almost think that Colborne was actually speaking about the other ships: all of which were boarded without incident.

Technorati Tag: Gaza Flotilla and Sarah Colborne.