[Media-watch] keep up the great work

[YvonneMarshall]

Dear Lesley Riddoch & Colleagues,

This message is too late - today's programme has now moved on to the pressing issues of Euro-Cobblers and Wheelie-Bins in Edinburgh after an hour of discussing the images from an Iraqi Prison.

I'm writing to support the call made by your last caller 'James', who asked if Eric Joyce could be called upon for his views on all of this. I've repeatedly asked if Joyce could be invited back onto the LR Show to defend the numerous statements he made in the run-up to the invasion, and have received not one response from any of you apart from the usual automated acknowledgement of receipt. Other well-kent names frequenting your studio (way back then when the Coalition mouthpieces were relatively sanguine) were Jim Wylie and George Foulkes. 

In the interests of fair and balanced journalism (remember that ??) please consider inviting any or all of those men onto your show a.s.a.p. to face the questions of your regular listeners -  your show has also featured regular contributions from a female ex-US Air Force pilot, Zin Someone-or-other who seemed to delight in winding-up other contributors with her abrasive views on US objectives and methods. Where is she now ?

For those BBC Scotland listeners who opposed the 'war' well in advance, and did their level best to air their concerns by joining civilised debate on-air, the content of the LR Show these past few months has been as frustrating as it has been enraging - I cannot speak for others, but it seems, Post-Hutton, that your show has been content to focus attention on domestic matters which, while 'important', pale into trivia compared to what is happening - in our name - in Iraq. 

Radio could never hope to convey the impact of 'seeing' those photographs - all the more reason why speech-based current-affairs coverage is so important. The first hour of today's programme, while instructive in parts, was almost entirely reactive, assumed general awareness of the images, and no-one who has NOT yet seen those photographs would have been able to reach an accurate awareness of what was going on, why they are having such an enormous impact. 

Amnesty International has today stated that they are 'shocked but not surprised' by the images - many who have followed this tragic saga since '9-11' will identify with that reaction. It is a cliche that radio 'paints better pictures' - can those working on the LR Show honestly say that a blind listener somewhere in, say, Barra, depending exclusively on BBC Scotland to form their 'pictures' of the world, would have been able to concur with the AI statement ? Has the BBC in general, and the LR Show in particular, made any effort whatever to prepare viewers/listeners for this 'shock' by providing them with the basic facts which would help make it all slightly less surprising ?

For the benefit of the blind listener in Barra, perhaps you would like to take the time to properly and accurately describe the photographs now causing such a furore. Perhaps you will have to draw straws to decide who will undertake the task of describing the delight on the faces of the torturers - some apparently female - as they pose alongside heaps of tethered, terrified prisoners. 

I have worked in a slaughterhouse. The animals know why they are there, and so do the workers. The task, unpleasant as it is, is done with no sense of joy, there is no procrastination involved. The spilt and emptied carcasses are dealt with so swiftly that the muscles are still twitching even when the beast has been skinned, decaptitated and halved.

Those men in the photographs - in the same moment that their tormentors were happily saying 'cheese' -  would have known nothing aside from raw, mind-ripping fear, unable to explain to themselves or one another what was happening, and why.  Why ? They were stripped, humiliated and sexually abused so that some GI's could get some 'good snaps', some souvenirs. 

Shocking !! Appalling !! Mind-bending !! 

Yes indeed, but wait a wee minute, just a wee tick there, yeah, that's it - don't you remember, about a year ago, talk of British troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners, hoisting them in nets etc etc, some squaddie had sent back a film for his folks and the local 'Boots' had picked up on it ? Remember that ? Maybe I just imagined it all - sure enough, no photos ever emerged, nothing was done...must've been a figment.

Okay, that's enough. I suppose the point of this message is to ask, with all due respect, that all involved with the production of the LR Show have a long and serious think about things and where to go next - it might, just might restore some faith in the quality of your programme if you get the pro-war shills mentioned above and allow listeners the opportunity to 'ask them some questions'.

One final point. My understanding is that all terrestrial broadcasters are required to retain their tapes for at least two years. If that is the case, what procedures exist for accessing those tapes ? I would like to know the details of the LR Show's broadcasts over the past two years i.e. what 'guests' were featured. Is there a form I should fill in to request such access ? I really do want an answer to this question, and will press for one if ignored, so please do respond. 

Like dozens, nay hundreds of others, I look forward to tomorrow's show - what's the latest on the Uist hedgehogs ? Is Robbie the Pict still at large ? Did our First Minister wear matching pin-stripe underpants or not ?

Keep up the great work,

Regards,

Ian Brotherhood 

 


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