In April of 2018 article BBC Hard Talks host sounded more like the Ethiopian apartheid regime’s mouthpiece I wrote;
The BBC Hard Talk host Stephen Sackur recent interview with the Ethiopian Patriotic-Ginbot 7 Movement’s Public Relation Head Nemin Zeleke is a tragedy for the old good BBC brand that once pride itself as Free Press.”
Two month later, another BBC Hard Talk host Zeinab Badawi, a Sudanese-British TV host ambushed again the recently released General Secretory of Patriotic-Ginbot 7 Movement Andargachew Tsege on June 13, 2018 interview with a caption;
“The new Ethiopian government is making dramatic reforms in the country: the state of emergency had been lifted, the military and intelligence chiefs have been replaced and opposition politicians have been released en masse from prison. One of those released is Andargachew Tsege a prominent opposition leader from the organization Patriotic Ginbot 7. He’d been on death row in an Ethiopian jail for four years. Will his group renounce violence and will he go back to Ethiopia to help build the country’s future?”
As tragic as it sounds for a BBC host not to distinguish a new Prime Minster from “the new government”, the host indictment of her fellow British citizen on behalf of the rogue regime was worse than what her collogue Stephen Sackur did to Nemin Zeleke in April interview.
No one knows when stemmed BBC reporters with long experience in journalism took the word of a 27-year-old brutal ethnic apartheid regime to accuse or vindicate its victims like Tsege and 100s of thousands of Ethiopians? Nor who gave them authority what method of struggle one choices to fight an apartheid regime?
Badawi, throughout the interview, Badawi’s attempt to paint regime peaceful as oppose the Movement as violent needing to renounce it methods sounded reminiscent of what many western medias did in the 80s to ANC and its leader Nelson Mandela during the struggle against the South African Apartheid regime.
What was even more disheartening, Badawi appears she did any background research on the atrocities and corruption of the regime in the last 27 years of its rule before she invited the newly released political prisoner. If she did, she wouldn’t take the word of the regime at face value to badger him.
Her opening statement; “will it renounce violence act and go back to build the country future” referring to Patriotic Ginbot 7 Movement itself speaks volume on her unbecoming a journalist of major news Media outlet.
Similarly, her colleague Sackur was badgering Zeleke as if it is standard producer of BBC interviewing opposition figures of rogue regimes. Like Sackur, Badawi not bother to mention anything about the regime responsible for unspeakable crimes many Wester government including its stanch supporter UK government of the regime choice to ignore.
As the credibility of the establish Free Press like BBC erodes faster as they adapt the popular political and economic trends than hard news, the future of Western democracies are being eroding faster in favor of the political elites.
Wikipedia revile; “Badawi is founder and chair of the Africa Medical Partnership Fund (AfriMed), a charity which aims to help local medical professionals in Africa”.[6]. Whether a journalist covering Africa should go in Fund raising charity in African ruled by brutal dictators influence her ability to make them accountable is not clear. But, experience reviles charity, Media and business mixing up with ruling regimes showed, the people loss.
Badawi would be better off picking one or the other to have any credibility as a journalist.
