Saturday 14 November 2015

"Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé"

The video of fans leaving the Stade de France last night singing "La Marseillaise" must have reminded many of the following clip from Casablanca:


There's absolutely no point in my adding anything to what conservative and right-wing commentators are saying about last night's slaughter of utterly innocent young people in one of the world's most beautiful and civilised cities - especially when so many victims are still in a critical condition. The best pieces I've read today were Iain Martin's "Face it: Islamist fascists want to destroy Western civilisation" on CapX, here; Douglas Murray's "Will politicians finally admit that the Paris attacks had something to do with Islam?" in the Spectator, here; Katie Hopkins's "Is Britain just going to sit and wait for its own day of reckoning or is it going to remember what we value and start fighting to save it?" in the Daily Mail, here (she's not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but this, to mix metaphors, is solid stuff); and, finally, because several people tweeted a link to it, there's Graeme Wood's long, brilliantly informative, and utterly terrifying  article, "What ISIS really wants", from the March edition of The Atlantic, here. (You have an hour to complete your reading, after which there will be a written test. Candidates will not have access to the internet. Anyone using the phrase "religion of peace" or "clash of civilisations" will be automatically disqualified for idiocy.)

I'll confine myself to commenting on television coverage of the unfolding events. I sat down to watch the BBC's Ten O'Clock News at about ten minutes past the hour. Reference was made to terrorist attacks in Paris a few minutes later (first we'd heard of it) and there was a report at the end of the programme and an interview with a Paris-based BBC reporter sitting in a studio - and then we were told that there would be more about the attacks on Newsnight over on BBC Two (no, thanks). Now, I'm not a huge fan of hijacking the main channel for rolling news, and, true, the BBC has its own 24-hour news channel - but, as we were obviously in the early stages of an absolutely massive unresolved Islamic terrorist attack (or series of related attacks) on a city which, for millions of Britons, is a lot closer than Edinburgh or Glasgow, and given that Muslim immigration and terrorism are near the top of many Britons' list of major concerns, I would have thought this was one time when sticking with the story was more than justified. Or were the bosses determined to keep Children in Need on the air? Why not just cancel Newsnight and shift CiN over to BBC2?

I popped across to the BBC News Channel, to be confronted by one of its dreariest female presenters faffing around - so I began channel-hopping between the BBC and Sky. Sky was livelier, more authoritative, and more willing to give us new information and pictures as soon as they received them: I got the impression that the BBC was at least five minutes behind on developments - sometimes more - for the next three hours. I was on Twitter for the first two of those hours, and no sooner would something appear on my feed than Sky would report it. It's an old problem for the News Channel, because the BBC has tougher rules when it comes to floating news for which there's only one source (at least, that used to be the rule). That policy pays off in the long run - for instance, the BBC's consistently more conservative estimate of the number of deaths turned out to be closer to the truth than the 158 that both Sky and Fox were announcing when I went to bed at 2am - but their caution means they tend to miss significant developments, and it can make them seem sluggish compared to the competition.

Our iPad ran out of juice at around 12.30, so I was forced to rely entirely on the news channels, which had me hopping over to Fox to see how they were handling the story. They'd evidently ditched their normal schedule and Shepard Smith was acting as sole anchor. They were mostly broadcasting pictures from Sky News, and relying on Smith himself for a running commentary. I found some rude comments about his performance on Twitter later, but, from what I saw, he was doing an excellent job: he looks weird, what with his dyed hair and eyes that might have been surgically enhanced, but he's extremely experienced - and it showed. He had authority, and, for the first time since the story broke, here was someone able to convey its sheer heft, its significance: the way he intoned "the worst terrorist attach on French soil since World War Two" brought the enormity of the outrage home, as did his description of young people out and about enjoying themselves in a city that is a symbol of Western civilisation being slaughtered by vile barbarians. Whatever his faults as a news presenter, Shepard had weight. Not only that - he was also pretty damned quick on his feet: he was marginally ahead of Sky on the French security forces storming the concert hall - and miles ahead of the BBC. Not only that, but he also had a female journalist on board who was coming up with interesting angles (I'm sorry - I know I sound heartless, but, remember,  I was a TV news journalist for years, so the mechanics interest me). For instance, she was busy working out how many terrorists and how many helpers must have been directly involved in order for the successful planning and execution of so many simultaneous attacks.  

As is usual with a story as fast-moving and momentous as this one, by the time I woke up this morning the BBC was slightly ahead of its competitors in terms of polish, tone and gravitas: Fox had Kay Burley barging around Paris in search of "human interest" interviewees, while Fox was getting medieval on Obama's ass (not that he doesn't deserve it, of course). But, for me at least, it was too late - the BBC should have stuck with Fiona Bruce on BBC One and relaxed its rules on reporting what was appearing on Twitter, albeit with the usual health warnings: a lot of it turned out to be accurate.

I really hope there won't be too many multiculti enthusiasts postings photographs of themselves looking compassionate while holding bits of paper with trite hashtag phrases expressing their solidarity with the French people in general and Parisians in particular on social media over the next few days: given that depraved fascist barbarians are killing civilised Westerners, the last thing we need is yet more virtue-signalling gestures from self-serving fantasists whose sole motive is to publicise how morally superior they are to the rest of us. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to a full-throated rendition of this from the whole crowd at the England v. France game at Wembley on Tuesday: 



8 comments:

  1. Thank you for a very good post and for your links to various articles. It is refreshingly different from all the usual emotional guff doing the rounds . All the world leaders are sharing their "thoughts" and sending out their "hearts" and the "Diana Mob" are piling up the blooms and being emotional for the camera. Famous TV person Ben Fogle summed up this tendency nicely in a tweet : " Is that rain or is heaven crying to-day # Paris ?". Ben, I think it is probably rain.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I honestly thought you must have been mistaken about Ben Fogle posting anything quite as asinine as that, SDG - but I checked his Twitter feed and he actually, really, genuinely did. I apologise for doubting you.

      Delete
  2. And lo, it came to pass that the medial (both social and mainstream) were filled with virtue-signallers.

    Vomitous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What's really worrying me is that this might distract world leaders from dealing with the real threats to our security - i.e. global warming and people expressing right-wing opinions on college campuses.

      Delete
  3. De Gaulle's Empty EEC Chair19 December 2015 at 06:04

    The French obviously appreciate a charismatic leader and it is mildly surprising, given the French enthusiasm for film, that a cinematographic icon has not filled the political vacuum . Pepe Le Pew is not to be sniffed at.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1960. Life was different then. It was black and white. And there was no sound. Here is a film of M le Général visiting my school. Or is it a star turning up at the Oscars ceremony in a big car and giving a speech?

      Delete
    2. I kept scanning the crowds on the look-out for Edward Fox!

      Delete
    3. You don't think those men in white hats are chefs, do you. No, they took out old Jack Calthorpe in Queensberry Mews.

      Delete