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<P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Dear
Media-Watchers <BR>I think it's important that we share at least the detail of
our correspondence with the likes of the BBC. I believe that the media is
ultimately sensitive to public opinion, especially if enough people write; and
encouraging - even co-ordinating - such action surely must be one of the
purposes of Media-Watch. </FONT></P>
<P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">The BBC has had
a hard time recently off the right wing press for being too liberal,
anti-American and ant-war (despite the glaring evidence to the contrary).
</FONT><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Such discourses of derision are effective in
molding public opinion and in the long term potentially threaten our democratic
freedoms. Just look at the USA in the run up to and aftermath of Iraq - I think
I read in one of the media sources highlighted here that for some time the US
ceased to be democratic and became a propaganda state at this time - and I seem
to remember that this was said by no other than Dan Rather, that bastion of the
mainstream media (I may be wrong on this). </FONT></P>
<P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">I came across
the following quote on a website - <A
href="http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/USA.asp">http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/USA.asp</A></FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS"><BR><EM>'George Seldes, a reporter for over seventy
years, points out that there are three sacred cows still with us today:
religion, patriotism, and the media itself... Patriotism, defined as taking
pride in one's country, allies the masses of this ongoing control. The media
refuses to discuss its consistent failure to inform the masses of this ongoing
control. It has been in place for so long that few are aware of how it came
about or that it is even still there. But many people are intelligent, moral,
and idealistic; if the media would discuss the true history of these three
sacred cows, that control would quickly disappear.'<BR><BR>-- J.W.
Smith, The World's Wasted Wealth 2, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994),
p. 11.<BR></EM><BR></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS">Much of the
mainstream media are clearly unwilling to do this. The New Statesman reported
last week that the activist group MoveOn had been denied advertising space by
CBS for a 30 second piece attacking the Bush administration - another warning
perhaps of the need to be vigilant and active in challenging media distortion,
omission and censorship, even where it is unwitting, as I think was the
case with the BBC report yesterday on the topic of the illegal immigrant
murderer/rapist. I have written to Richard Sambrook about this - my letter is as
follows:</P>
<P dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"></FONT><BR><EM>Dear Richard<BR><BR>I have
not written to you for some time, as I appreciate the difficulties you have
faced post-Hutton. However, I must express my reservations about the reporting
of the rape and murder of a 12 year old girl on last night's 10pm
bulletin.<BR><BR>The immigration status of the murderer was mentioned several
times. he may have been an illegal immigrant, but I wonder how relevant this was
to the specific crime, which could easily have been committed by a British
national. The prominence given to this issue, especially coming as it did after
the reporting of the Home Office/Romania affair, can only serve to feed the
increasing paranoia and moral panic on the issues of immigration and asylum,
whipped up as they are by the tabloid press. Surely the BBC has a moral duty to
exercise care in its reporting, so as not to contribute to this.<BR><BR>As ever
I would welcome your comments.</EM><BR><BR><EM>Mark
Priestley</EM><BR><BR></P></FONT></BODY></HTML>