A big thank you to Guy Goma: the wrong man in the right place

20 May 2006

Rod Liddle salutes the Congolese man interviewed by mistake on the BBC, who revealed an uncomfortable truth about the way the media works

Deliberate misrepresentation is one thing — obviously avoidable and eminently punishable. But I wonder how much of our understanding of the world — and our reactions to what we hear via our televisions and radios or read in our newspapers — is based upon glorious misconception, a mistake on the part of some underling, or merely misinterpretation of nuance or tone or differences of language. During the first Gulf war I remember getting an English translation of an especially bloodthirsty speech by Saddam Hussein from the BBC’s monitoring service at Caversham. We then tracked down the original speech in Arabic and ran clips of it to illustrate the story. But, as ever, there had been some mix-up. It was actually the Arabic commentary to a golf tournament — as an Arab listener drily pointed out the following day. But even if we had run the correct clips, there would still have been a question about interpretation: the euphuism and hyperbole of Arab satraps is just that: hyperbole and euphuism. It is not meant to be taken literally. Even when we get things literally right, we can still get them wrong.

So thank you, Guy Goma and News 24, for reminding us of our infinite fallibilities and of the chasm between what is said and what is understood. We should treat everything we see, hear or read with measured scepticism — and when it emanates from people breathlessly described as experts, all the more so.