[Media-watch] Fw:
Darren Smith
d.j.smith at stir.ac.uk
Tue Mar 25 12:52:51 GMT 2003
That's a great letter Ian! Notice the ridiculous answer from Mosey: "I
do not believe that anyone who has consumed all our output - from BBC
FOUR News to News 24, from Newsnight to the One O'Clock News - could
honestly believe that to be the case."
Who could do that? All BBC output? That's so absurd. I've sent a letter
in also. Perhaps this is a clue to how they think. If they screw up on
the prime BBC TV news, they can sneak in a correction sometime during
the middle of the night. This is the classic fallacy of a straw-man
argument.
On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 11:53, YvonneMarshall wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Roger Mosey
> To: YvonneMarshall
> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 10:43 AM
> Subject: RE:
>
> (private)
>
> Dear Ian
>
> Thank you for writing.
>
> The point I was responding to was the apparent allegation that BBC
> coverage is systematically going in for "misinformation" or
> "propaganda". I do not believe that anyone who has consumed all our
> output - from BBC FOUR News to News 24, from Newsnight to the One
> O'Clock News - could honestly believe that to be the case.
>
> I do hope people understand that we have brave and honest
> correspondents who are doing their best to report on, and interpret, a
> complex and ever-changing story. I also know that my editorial
> colleagues here in London have a determination, as do I, to reflect
> the widest possible range of opinion and to assess information as
> fairly and as accurately as we can; and we will continue to do so.
>
> Best wishes
> Roger
> -----Original Message-----
> From: YvonneMarshall
> [mailto:Brotherhoods at stevenston4.fsnet.co.uk]
> Sent: 25 March 2003 00:17
> To: Roger Mosey; INF Reply; media-watch at lists.stir.ac.uk;
> Caroline Pacitti; billy clark; Neil Ferry
> Subject: Fw:
>
>
> 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: YvonneMarshall
> To: 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
>
>
>
>
> BBCi at http://www.bbc.co.uk/
>
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--
djs1 at stir.ac.uk
DON'T ATTACK IRAQ!!! www.edinburghstw.org.uk
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