Murdoch - Blair felt BBC Katrina coverage anti-American

Televisionpoint.com Team
British prime minister Tony Blair has complained privately to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch that the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina carried an anti-American bias, Murdoch said at a conference in New York.

Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, recounted a conversation with the British leader at a panel discussion on Friday hosted by former president Bill Clinton, media reports say.

"Tony Blair, perhaps I shouldn't repeat this conversation, told me on Friday that he was in Delhi last week. And he turned on the BBC World Service to see what was happening in New Orleans," Murdoch was quoted as saying in a transcript posted on the Clinton Global Initiative website.

"And he said it was just full of hate of America and gloating about our troubles. And that was his government. Well, his government-owned thing," he said of the publicly owned broadcaster.

Murdoch went on to say that anti-US bias was prevalent throughout Europe. "I think we've got to do a better job at answering it. And there's a big job to do. But you're not going to ever turn it around totally," said Murdoch, one of three media magnates who spoke at Clinton's 'Global Initiative' forum on peace and development.

The former US president, who held his conference to coincide with the UN summit in New York, agreed that the BBC's coverage was lacking. "There is nothing factually inaccurate. But... it was designed to be almost exclusively a hit on the federal response, without showing what anybody at any level was doing that was also miraculous," Clinton said.