[Media-watch] Fw:
YvonneMarshall
Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk
Tue Mar 25 00:03:06 GMT 2003
Dear Roger Mosey,
This is surely a very busy time for you,
but I hope you will have found some quiet moments to reflect on the
comments you made during this morning's debate (during the Lesley Riddoch Show,
hosted by Alex Bell) in which you dismissed the claim, asserted by David Miller,
that the BBC's reporting of Scud missile attacks was inaccurate and misleading -
in the absence of any subsequent corrections or qualifications to those reports,
the BBC's 'official' record remains untruthful. You have
been challenged by David Miller to refute such claims and I look forward to
hearing such a rebuttal, although I dare say that (unless you deliver
it from a far-flung place wearing a flak-jacket ) it will not have the same
impact on the mass-consciousness as the original reports by Ben Brown et
al.
I listened to the show, and Alex Bell accurately
dictated an e-mail message I had sent in regarding the Richard Sambrook Feb 6th
memo which, although in the public domain very shortly after it's
issuance, has merited scant debate.
It is disheartening to hear the Head
of BBC Television News dismiss reasoned and analytical
observations (are these not meant to be the stock-in-trade of the
experienced and trustworthy journalist ?) with such flippant and
patronising remarks, although it is understandable that, with the argument
so clearly lost, some element of panic may have disturbed one's
normally scruplulous manners.
I've attached a message I sent to the
Lesley Riddoch Show last May. It was never acknowledged, although I'm
sure - the BBC being the caring and attentive creature that it is
- that it was noted. If you have read this far then I would urge you to
go 'the extra mile' (just as our politicians did with regard to 'Saddam')
and read it. It might not be comfortable, but then, 'radio' is not your
current concern as you clearly have bigger proverbials to fry.
To save you the trouble - many people get
their 'news' of the world from outlets other than TV. I'm sure this
does not come as a surprise to you, but judging by your unprofessional and,
frankly, rude performance on the Riddoch Show today, the extent of 'real'
general-knowledge among the populus has not been conveyed to you.
Please take some sincere advice from someone who
has spent considerable time writing this - watching his words carefully
- and also has the benefit of being able to back-space, take out
expletives, correct mistakes etc. You didn't have that advantage today on
the Riddoch Show, and in that sense I sympathise with you and the situation
you were in - it was uncomfortable listening and you did not come out of it
at all well, so I can't imagine how it must've felt being on the receiving
end of it. But please, please have the good grace and common sense to
admit that you were wrong because, let's face it, you were clearly
wrong. Also, it would be nice to hear you issue an apology to David Miller for
your patronising dismissal of his legitimate queries.
Most importantly of all, and following-up on David
Miller's most recent message to you : please do address the issuance
of misleading/false statements by BBC Foreign Correspondents as a matter of
urgency. (That is, I believe, your job ?) A clear editorial statement from
you is needed, right now, to assuage deep concerns among peoples all over this
planet that the BBC can no longer be trusted to provide impartial coverage of
World Events.
I look forward to a statement from you. Please
don't bother to reply personally - a televised (and, if you deign to grant it)
radio-version of a clear statement on your current overall editorial-policy
regarding the invasion of Iraq will do just nicely.
(And, by the way, do try to keep up - perhaps you
should spend more time on-line ?)
Regards,
Ian Brotherhood
----- Original Message -----
From: <A
title=Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk
href="mailto:Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk">YvonneMarshall
To: <A title=lesley at bbc.co.uk
href="mailto:lesley at bbc.co.uk">lesley at bbc.co.uk
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 10:23 PM
Dear Lesley & Colleagues,
This is not a response to any particular item - it
is a general observation, a 'fan-letter' if you like, and I would be grateful if
someone would please read it and, at least, acknowledge its safe
receipt.
I've been listening to The Lesley Riddoch Show
since it started, and only ever missed it when I was working day-shifts in
various factories, pubs etc. I'm 39, have contributed to the show with
calls and e-mails maybe seven or eight times. I'm a father of two, and a
moderately successful fiction-writer. My C.V. is not relevant to what I have to
say, but I guess that I'm probably typical i.e. intellectually, of the audience
you reach.
Tonight I tried to call my Dad, but the line was
busy because he'll be on the Net. He uses it to get his 'news' rather than watch
it on the box or listen to radio, which he always did previously. I tried to
call my sister, but that line was also engaged, and I've no doubt that she was
researching for her uni-essay, her husband was downloading music, or one of
their two sons was chatting to friends via their own website. I'll try them
again in another hour or so, but chances are the lines will still be
busy.
My point is this - no-one uses carrier-pigeons or
Morse-code in everyday life anymore because they have more efficient means of
accessing 'the news'. Radio has survived the onslaught of telly by playing to
its strengths i.e. talking directly and honestly to people who eschew the
predominantly moronic material presented on television. But the 'alternative'
News services now easily available via the www are upping the stakes as far as
'delivery of truth' is concerned - no-one who has access to the Net can have
failed to realise that there is, virtually at least, another 'world' of news out
there , and it isn't always biased or party-political. Okay, there's a lot of
rubbish in the ether, but it doesn't take long to learn how to dig your way
through the dross, and more and more people are doing it. What they're turning
up is, often, a total scunner - I'm not going to give examples
because anyone online with an interest in world affairs knows
what I'm on about.
If The Lesley Riddoch Show wants to maintain the
reputation it has established then it is going to have to deal with the fact
that 'them out there' will often be as well-informed, if not more so, than the
guests being invited to provide 'expert' analysis, and many of us have opinions
which test the limitations of conventional 'knowledge'. That's not to say
that all of us have the means, the inclination or the ability to convey those
opinions within the format of the show, but there must be many listeners, like
me, who trust that the editorial decisions regarding 'suitable' subject-matter
will be honest, responsible, perhaps at times even bold. Going to Edinburgh
to talk to folk about potholes is all very well, but to do it on the same
day that India and Pakistan were positioning themselves for a (potentially
nuclear !) square-go and Dubbya's buddies were insisting that really,
honestly, he didn't know a thing about any terrorist threat of that kind in
advance of 9/11... ?!
I'm not going to sign off as 'Disgusted,
Stevenston', because I'm not. I understand that it must be difficult to tackle
everything. Jeezo, I remember Norman Tebbit admitting that yes, every government
needs a mouthpiece, and yes, the BBC, at times, fulfills that function.
Okay. Big deal. But I think you've got a wonderful programme with a one-off
presenter, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to see
it all slide off into oblivion as your audience increasingly goes
online - that's precisely what will happen unless you start to address
issues with the the same openness that makes online news-coverage so
irresistible to the truly curious.
I didn't write this to have a go at anyone. I heard
somewhere that the show received a Sony Award. That's great - congratulations to
all concerned. (I also won an award recently. It was the Robert Louis Stevenson
Memorial Award. I was paid to stay in France for six weeks working on a
novel.) Prizes and plaudits aside, the end-result is the work that is
done, the best possible use of the medium in question - is The Lesley Riddoch
Show really being as cutting-edge, as challenging and responsible as it could be
? I've devoted a chapter of the novel to a 'fictional' second-hour of a day-time
topical radio show. The presenter is called Cal. It is, I should stress, a piece
of fiction, but it does involved an exchange between Cal and an MSP called
Sally Youngmother, a 'discussion' during which a question is aksed (but
never answrered) nine, maybe ten times, and ends up with a contribution from a
caller who reveals that her son's blatantly sectarian murder was effectively
buried by the authorities. Fiction ? Yes, ' it is fiction', but to
any informed reader/listener/viewer, the lines between fact/faction/fiction are
now so blurred that it's becoming impossible to have a discussion among friends
unless they've all read/heard/viewed the same material.
I make assumptions in my 'fictional' story about
where editorial responsibility lies with something like TLRS - of course, it
bears no resemblance to persons living or dead and no such resemblance
should be inferred let alone stated, but there is a 'spin-doctor' in the
story who lingers about in the studio like a bad smell and is eventually
expelled by the bold Cal. There's also the suggestion that these people, whoever
they are, manage to undermine the efforts of public-servants who were,
at one time, in some place, well-intentioned individuals who really
believed that they could make a difference.
Understanding why these poor souls end up being
little more than high-profile appartatchiks has always, it seems to me, been an
underlying mission of TLRS. If any real understanding is to be gained then
the whole of available knowledge must be acknowledged. Right now, it isn't - why
not get into the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the circumstances
behind Hugo Chavez's 'Jack-in-the-box' presidency ? This is stuff that
anyone with a mouse and a half-enquiring mind will already have sussed. The
very fact that TLRS doesn't mention certain 'facts' does immeasurable
damage to the reputation of the show amongst those who are making the most
effort to keep abreast of what's really happening.
I'm almost 40. We were brought up with telly. Some
of us abandoned 'the box' a long time ago as a reliable source of 'news'. Some
of us turned to the 'papers', but they've been so monpolised and compromised
that they too have to be viewed with great wariness. The www offers so much, so
fast, that all other media are under threat. I still can't get through to my Dad
or my sister, and this is two hours after I started writing this - I don't
know what they're doing, but the lure is stronger than telly, radio or telephone
can provide. Just as well it's not that important !
Best wishes to you Lesley and all of the people who
make it possible to do what you do. I hope you will remember that you have
many supporters, ''fans' if you will, but that some of us are worried that you
are not being allowed, or are not taking full advantage of, the freedom of
speech you seem to hold so dear.
Best Regards,
Ian Brotherhood
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