As with most Western media, BBC’s coverage of the pogrom in Kosovo has been spotty at best, and at worst a deliberate lie. Its three “in-depth” photo essays are a virtual study in spinning away inconvenient facts.
First there is the five-photo set from March 17,“Mitrovica clashes” . Photos clearly show an Albanian attack on Serb-inhabited norrthern Mitrovica, but one of the captions says: “The clashes followed the shooting of a Serb teenager and the drowning of at least two Albanian children in a river, with both sides blaming each other for those incidents.” Great way to spread the blame, chaps.
The March 19 essay, “Tension in Kosovo”, takes the prize for understatement. Leading off with a picture of an Albanian girl walking under the graffito on the ruins of a Serbian church: Morto i Serbi! – Death to Serbs.
Other photos show Serbs being evacuated by KFOR, even suggesting some “wait for the peacekeepers to escort them back to their homes,” which never happened. But this is not the greatest pogrom since 1999, oh no – it’s “tension”, “violence”, and “clashes” – all with no perpetrators.
And the March 23 essay, misguidedly titled “Kosovo mourns” is more of the same. Captions repeat the description of the pogrom as “clashes”; that the violence was planned – a charge put forth by Serbs as well as the UN, NATO, and even some Albanians – is dismissed as an accusation by “Serb leaders”; displaced Serbs are shown cheerfully drinking, while the attacking community is represented by tearful Albanian women.
These photo essays may be labeled “in depth,” but things don’t get any shallower.
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