[Media-watch]

[YvonneMarshall]

A personal view in response to Kev's earlier message today regarding Richard Sambrook :


Richard Sambrook, along with all other senior BBC figures, should be supported loudly right now. Yes, Sambrook made decisions, issued directives to regional editorial staff in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq which were circulated, criticised and debated on this forum and many others, but right now he should be defended, shielded from the govt's bloodlust. Sambrook may have provided documentary evidence (and for that, if nothing else, he should deserve thanks) of the seldom-pondered notion that someone, somewhere, HAS to decide what strictures apply to journalists and editors 'in time of war', but we can only wonder what type of person might fill his shoes if the govt continues to use the dodgy set of scales provided by Lord Hutton to decide that yet another pound of flesh is needed. Put bluntly - this battle demands that a set of white hats be given to one side, black hats to t'other, and according to the CH4 poll tonight, 90% of (approx 34,000) UK callers decided that the white bunnets belong to Auntie Beeb.  One can only ponder the identity of the 10% who felt moved enough to register their faith in the Judiciary.

(George Orwell was a BBC employee, and he was responsible for writing and disseminating crass war-time propaganda - via the Far East network - which he himself despised. Should that fact devalue his other work ?) 

Most people, at some point in their lives, recognise when they are being lied to, either by loved ones or via crude mass-media propaganda. How people recognise this varies - for some, only a clinical examination of facts will provide the 'evidence' needed to reach such a conclusion, but for most people, in their daily lives, in their personal dealings and relationships with other people, the recognition must, necessarily, be much simpler, perhaps bordering on the visceral.  The realisation that one is being lied to by another human being is so unpleasant that most people prefer not to acknowledge it, and it is easier, more 'human' and charitable to give that other person the 'benefit of the doubt'. Liars know this, and use it to operate effectively, but masking the act of lying is not easy - only certain people possess such ability, but if the use of deception is rewarded, the 'natural' if not inevitable result is dependence on it as a sure method of achieving desired results. This may sound like Skinneresque psychobabble of the worst kind, but its practical application is encountered every day by most of us, be it from cold-callers to dodgy quotes for car-servicing to potential burglars saying 'sorry missus, I've got the wrong door.'  Opportunists and liars do not make an 'easy' living when dealing with ordinary folk - perhaps 90% of potential victims will tell them to get lost, but it's still worth the effort to get the one-in-ten.

In everyday, ordinary encounters with liars - especially 'good' ones - there is something which they have in common. It is in the eyes. They manage to look at you without really looking at you. They see you, but their eyes don't really establish contact with yours - they are trained to maintain eye contact, to appear steady and earnest and focussed, but what they are focussed on is getting the signature, feeling the texture of currency between their fingers. They too have children to feed and mortgages to pay, and they need exercise little justification to 'part fools from their money' when they feel they are 'working' hard to get it.

But most folk can identify that 'look', that excited gleam in the slightly averted eye, see it in the carefully rehearsed, toned body language, the marginally too-warm smile, the concerned frown. On this instinctive level, relying on no more than 'first impressions' and whatever previous experience they may have had, the vast majority of people know when they are being lied to and act accordingly - the door is shut, the phone is replaced on the receiver, the flyers are emptied directly from the Sunday newspaper into the bin before the headlines are even scanned. 

We all have our own experiences of dealing with liars, and we all know that 'look'. I was a cab-driver in Glasgow for a short time, seven, eight years ago. I can remember the eyes of a young man who, very effectively, persuaded me to take him from the Southside to the West End with a promise that he would get cash from his Mum to pay the fare. Of course, he disappeared up a close. The look in his eyes was exactly the same as that of the double-glazing salesman who almost had us signing, but couldn't quite close it. Suddenly - the sheen on his eyes suddenly brightening as he scanned the cornicing - he 'remembered' that they were doing a special deal for houses over 100 years old, and our tenement might qualify. The same look was in the eyes of other important people in my life who turned out to have been more than 'economical with the verite', but with much more personal and bruising results. 

Once that 'look' has been learned, becomes recognisable, it is unforgettable and instantly sets alarm bells ringing. 

That same 'look'  - the look of the liar - can often be glimpsed in Blair, Campbell, Hoon, John Reid, Brian Wilson, Eric Joyce, George Foulkes, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, George Tenet, Negroponte, Richard Perle, and many of the pro-war mouthpieces who now stand squarely responsible for the deaths of a 'never-to-be-counted' number of civilians and hundreds of 'coalition' troops. (It might be politically-incorrect to include congenital idiots in such a listing, hence the reluctant omission of Bush.)

But they're all still in their jobs, and are, apparently, prospering. John Reid's performances on Newsnight, the Today Programme and other outlets in the past few days must be kept and treasured as academically important prima facie examples of how the sanctimoniousness of a 'political heavyweight' increases in direct proportion to the gravity of the lie he has just succeeded in perpetrating. Brian Wilson's exchanges with Alex Salmond on last night's Newsnight Scotland should also be preserved for posterity, as should the utterings of Eric Joyce and Jim Wylie of Aberdeen University in the past year, many of which were carried by BBC Scotland's Riddoch Show.

In the last interview before his death, the writer Dennis Potter told Melvyn Bragg - in between swigging from a bottle of painkiller - that he would, if given the opportunity, put a bullet into the head of Rupert Murdoch. He felt able to state the truth of what he felt because he knew that any litigation would not affect him. Intimidation, regardless of where he imagined it might come from, had simply ceased to be a concern for him because he knew he didn't have long to go. Most of us, thankfully, do not know what that  fleeting 'freedom' feels like, and every word written or uttered - in our personal or professional lives -  is, to a greater or lesser extent, self-censored before release.

Can any of us imagine such freedom ? The freedom to say what you really feel, knowing for sure that exposing, revealing such truths will not result in personal harm, damage to career, family etc ? Wouldn't it be wonderful, at the end of a productive and creative life, to have that chance - that one chance ! - to lash-out at the bastards who you KNOW are responsible for misrepresenting you and your compatriots, the ordinary fellow humans who will never have access to any media, whose voices will never ever be heard ?

What stops us clamouring for the imprisonment of these people who are responsible for sending our armed forces into an illegal war ? Why are these people still in their jobs ? Will Samantha Roberts ever be invited again, by CH4 or anyone else,  to explain her campaign against Geoff Hoon ? (She was so close last week to getting Hoon out - a widow, alone, demanding an explanation, but the Tuition Fees/Hutton build-up shifted her brave effort off the agenda. One woman !!)

Yes, Potter knew he was about to croak it and made full use of that freedom to state what Orwell referred to as 'unpleasant facts' - the way he did it was shocking because it revealed a deep hatred of someone who, to most people, is nothing more than a rich media-magnate. But he had to know that his outburst, if broadcast, would have a deep effect on those who admire artists and creative people, and follow their lead, seek to pursue the 'truth' pursued in  their work. 

How long do WE all have to go ? Will we, against the promise of a quieter, hassle-free life, accept that liars can celebrate - and continue to be PAID BY US to lie to them - knowing that no-one, even an organisation as historically important as the BBC, will dare challenge them ? 

Yes, Kev, there is a demo in Glasgow Queen Mgt Drive tomorrow. I probably won't make it, but I hope you and thousands of others will, because the liars have to get the message that they are not getting away with it any more. The alternative is something that the disillusioned BBC employee, Eric Blair, went on to write about with some effect.

Regards to all,

Ian Brotherhood

 
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