{"id":262,"date":"2007-02-10T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-10T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=262"},"modified":"2007-02-10T08:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-10T14:06:00","slug":"jon-gilberts-friendly-fire-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/02\/jon-gilberts-friendly-fire-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Gilbert’s ‘friendly fire’ report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Disclosure: ITV News<\/i><\/b> reporter Jon Gilbert<\/b> is a friend and former colleague.<\/p>\n

Some of the YouTube<\/i> comments on Jon’s piece regarding the journalism are below. Of 87 comments at time of posting, only four dealt with the reporting of Eldon Anderson<\/b>‘s remarks:<\/p>\n

…one question is, how many people that sounded intelligent and onhappy [sic] with the situation did ITV interview and then NOT show? 70-75% of the US pop is pretty pissed about the war & how it came about.<\/p>\n

It looks like they went out of their way to find the nutjobs. That’s journalism for you.<\/p>\n

What a disgrace to the British media for exploiting Mr. Hull’s death by creating reactionary pieces like this. That ignorant man spouting that nonsense about the UK is in no way representative of most American’s opinions of either the UK or this incident in 2003. It’s sad to see the British media is just as exploitative as the US media is.<\/p>\n

The night before the same journalist interviewed another neighbour. Yes, she was another blind American ‘proud’ patriot who showed no remorse for the situation. But AT LEAST she didn’t unjustly criticise the British Forces or come up with some BS about us ‘sucking our thumbs in WWII’.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Local paper, the Idaho Statesman<\/i><\/a> says: <\/p>\n

On Friday, Anderson told the Statesman that there’s more to the story than what British TV viewers saw.<\/p>\n

British reporters had been hounding Anderson and other neighbors of the A-10 pilot earlier this week. “I was upset with the British reporters. The way they were behaving, camped out up and down the street,” said Anderson, who called the police.<\/p>\n

Anderson said he flies an American flag in front of his house each morning. He went out one morning this week, and British reporters had returned. When they approached him, Anderson said, he responded in the heat of the moment.<\/p>\n

“We have been bombarded by the British press. I was pissed off,” Anderson said. “That’s what started this. I was so upset about (my neighbor). Here he spends four or five months over there flying and he gets this kind of crud. That’s not right.<\/p>\n

“He’s a hero and a friend. I just don’t think we ought to treat our heroes like that.”<\/p>\n

Anderson said he contacted the British news station to clarify his comments. He said his statement had been directed at British foreign policy and leaders, not members of the British military.<\/p>\n

“My comments were not against the people themselves, it’s against the foreign policy of Europe today, of not really helping us in the war on terror,” Anderson said. “I have the same problem with our own government, but not our military. They are the greatest people I know, and I thank God we have them.”<\/p>\n

“I offer no apology, just a clarification to my remarks that were not prepared.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So media “hounding” was to blame? Hmmm. Interestingly, the “hounding” seems to have come from outraged ITV News<\/b><\/i> viewers and YouTube<\/i> posters who circulated a phone number and a number of fairly offensive comments about Mr Anderson.<\/p>\n

Another local Idaho website under the headline Ignorant Boise man insults us all<\/i><\/a> had this to say: <\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that the ITN reporter said that Boiseans seeeehe pilot as a hero, in a tone implying that we hold this pilot in some special regard because of the friendly-fire incident. Left out was the cultural interpretation that many, if not most Americans regard all members of the military as heroes just for serving. The reporter\u2019s tabloid-style performance was in typical ITN fashion, according to a friend of mine in London.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gilbert prefaced Anderson’s remarks with the line “…in a neighbourhood that regards his [Matty Hull’s] death as unfortunate, war as inevitable.”<\/p>\n

No doubt about it, the words were Anderson’s, Gilbert provided a platform for them with no adornment. Some British viewers decided what they made of those words and reacted strongly. Is that irresponsible journalism? No. Is the reaction irresponsible or intemperate? That, of course, is for you to decide…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclosure: ITV News reporter Jon Gilbert is a friend and former colleague. Some of the YouTube comments on Jon’s piece regarding the journalism are below. Of 87 comments at time of posting, only four dealt with the reporting of Eldon Anderson‘s remarks: …one question is, how many people that sounded intelligent and onhappy [sic] with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[19,16,119,120,258],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists","tag-itn","tag-itv-news","tag-uk-journalism","tag-us-journalism","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}