[Media-watch] FW: ACTION: Iraq - BBC reporters gagged

[david Miller]

Maybe a bit late?  But wouldn't hurt to complain.


Subject: Fwd:ACTION: Iraq - BBC reporters gagged


To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: [campeace] ACTION: Iraq - BBC reporters gagged

ACTIONS AT BOTTOM - please forward on.

Protest against BBC gagging of reporters!

Senior editorial staff and BBC news presenters have been instructed not to
join a demonstration against possible war with Iraq.

An article in the BBC's internal magazine Ariel states:

"The BBC's deputy head of news, Mark Damazer, said that there was a 'need to
balance a respect for civil liberties with the BBC's need to be impartial.'

'The view taken by the BBC about this weekend's peace march is that senior
editorial decision makers and people who present the BBC's news programmes
should not attend the march,' he said."

This talk of "balance" is nonsense.

There was no such ban on presenters taking part in the Countryside Alliance
march in September.

This is purely an attempt to intimidate senior news staff from challenging
t! he government on Iraq. Run by Tony's cronies, BBC staff are under pressure
from the government to back the war drive.

Reporters with political views critical of the establishment often generate
the finest investigative reporting, precisely because they ask penetrating
questions.

Good reporting does not depend on a journalist's political views, but on
their ability to present key facts and opinions clearly and to probe each in
a rigorous and critical manner.

Moreover, it just so happens that BBC 1 will, at 12.05pm on Saturday -- just
as the anti-war march is starting -- be going live to the Arsenal vs Man Utd
match. What's more important? 11 people on a football pitch or millions on
the streets across the world and the half-million casualties in Iraq that
the UN calculates will result from war?

Please send your comments on this blatant censorship to
Mark.Damazer at bbc.co.uk

Or phone him at the BBC on 020 7240 3456! .

Dave
For Media Workers Against the War
www.mwaw.org
tel 07801 789 297