The Private Thoughts of a BBC Fellow

I don't pretend to understand all the minutiae of Twitter, this post notwithstanding. A few minutes ago I stumbled upn an oddity I hadn't been aware of. A British journalist named Hugh Naylor tweeted something about Oxfam, and I responded. When you respond to a tweet and others have responded before you, you see the entire conversation; in this case, part of what had gone on there before my arrival was that a second British journalist, Roland Hughs, had been chatting with Naylor about how dangerous it is in Gaza. Hughs signed off with a comment about how he, unlike Naylor, wasn't in an area where Israeli warships are firing at random in Naylor's direction.

I responded sharply (There aren't Israeli warships firing randomly in anyone's direction, anywhere. Get a hold of yourself). Then, when I came to retweet Hugh's tweet so people could see the lazy comments of a BBC reporter, Twitter blocked me. It seems Hugh's Twitter account is protected, perhaps to give him the ability to chat without being listened in on. Except that I hadn't been listening in; as a matter of fact, until half an hour ago I didn't know Roland Hugh even exists.

But now that I know, I find it instructive that a BBC World News journalist, when he's got his guard down and is chatting with a friend, describes IDF actions in language not much different than Hamas does. Or, in the ranking I posited here, he's a category two antagonist.

Update: a number of readers have sent me screenshots of Roland's tweet. Here, for example.