Arzu argues that the normalisation of the TalkTV journalist’s behaviour in a recent interview should be too much even for institutionally racist media companies to stomach.
The video of Julia Hartley-Brewer ‘interviewing’ Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti last week is doing the rounds. Rightly so. It is a shocking piece of invective, and people are angry. I have posted it here. I have also posted a comparison* circulating of how JHB – as she is known – spoke to Douglas Murray on current events in Gaza (who is now it appears a journalist alongside her at TalkTV). In short, she repeatedly claims that Barghouti isn’t used to a woman speaking – meaning he as a Muslim is so misogynistic well, he cannot cope with JHB. As it happens, if you watch this to the end, he is the model of dignity, an example of how to deal with what appears to be raw and unbridled hatred from the host.[post continues after video]
Talk TV anchor departs from journalistic norms, turning an interview with MP Mustafa Barghouti into a chance to insult the guest based on anti-Arab tropes. pic.twitter.com/e6r1kcd9lw
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 5, 2024
For the sake of my mental wellbeing I have a list of things to avoid – animate and inanimate – and JHB as she is known has been on that list a good while, well before the existence of the equally to be avoided TalkTV. But events since the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa flood, and the genocide launched by the Israeli regime in response, have found TalkTV’s videos circulating widely. They creep into your newsfeed: Piers Morgan in particular. Not so easy to avoid anymore. JHB’s diatribe against a dignified and patient Barghouti has become an exemplar of the media doublestandard that has long characterised the coverage of Palestine, its liberation and related issues, including the endless genocidal campaign waged by Zionists for some hundred years.
The doublestandard of interviewing pro- and anti-Palestinian voices whether on Talk TV or other (more) mainstream media is nothing new. It’s the basis of academic papers and books e.g. Greg Philo and Mike Berry’s book ‘Bad News from Israel’ from 2004 for some forensic analysis. Even Owen Jones – not the most radical commentator – has something to say about this using Lietava and Najjar’s recent study on BBC reportage.
Doublestandard is a polite term for what is structural racism. At a time of genocide that racism becomes part of the genocidal narrative – a justification of extreme crimes. Of the tropes used – as with JHB – that of gender, and specifically the myth that Muslims denigrate women and that Islam holds women in an unequal status, is one of the key narratives of Islamophobia identified by the Counter-Islamophobia Toolkit project of 2018 ( see e.g. the first UK report in that series of which I am the author**). It works thus – those who devalue women are not worthy of equal or respectful treatment, and further still deserve the violence – in this case genocidal – meted out to them. Nothing subtle or unconscious here, JHB has deliberately targeted someone with a racist slur. She does it to devalue anything he has to say, even when what he has to say is (literally) “peace for both peoples”. This alone of course should be enough for her to be sacked.
There is something more. It is already out there and (surprisingly) gaining currency on the pages of the mainstream press. That small part of me that still hasn’t been able to shake the idea that, having been born and brought up, I am British and that British journalism, with all its biases, isn’t one where presenters scream, gesticulate, shout and abuse. Forget systemic change and the bringing down of institutional racism in the media for a moment (but just for a moment). JHB’s poor acquittal of herself in the Barghouti interview is not simply rude and aggressive, it undignified and ultimately humiliating for her and TalkTV. Really humiliating.
That should be enough for her bosses to wonder whether it’s time to ask her – politely – to clear her desk. Please do contact them – feedback@talk.tv – and encourage them along those lines.
* A comparison
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** See also:
