The BBC strongly defended itself Sunday against accusations of anti-US bias after British Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly complained to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch about the public broadcaster's coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
The BBC told AFP that it had received no complaint from Blair's office and said that its coverage of last month's natural disaster "was committed solely to relaying the event fully, accurately and impartially". Downing Street meanwhile refused to comment. One major British newspaper and a former leading BBC journalist hit out also at the criticism which Murdoch, chairman of the media conglomerate News Corporation, attributed to Blair.
Murdoch told a seminar hosted by former US president Bill Clinton Friday in New York that Blair had described the BBC World Service radio's hurricane coverage as "full of hate" towards the United States.
"Tony Blair - perhaps I shouldn't repeat this conversation - told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week, and he turned on the BBC World Service to see what was happening in New Orleans," Murdoch said.
"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," Murdoch said of the BBC, in a transcript posted on the Clinton Global website.
The alleged remarks come at a time when Blair's Labour government and the BBC are already struggling to rebuild a relationship deeply damaged following a row over Iraq. The Independent on Sunday newspaper meanwhile called the charges over Katrina "simply wrong". It said the BBC had been joined by US media in implying criticism of the Bush administration over its response to the hurricane, which ravaged the south-eastern city of New Orleans on August 29.
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