BBC gag their senior staff and presenters
Ivan Agenda | 14.02.2003 12:22
Senior editorial staff and BBC news presenters have been instructed not to join a demonstration against possible war with Iraq.
Protest against BBC gagging of reporters!
An article in the BBC's internal magazine Ariel states:
"The BBC's deputy head of news, Mark Damazer, said that there was a 'need to balance a respect for civil liberties with the BBC's need to be impartial.'
'The view taken by the BBC about this weekend's peace march is that senior editorial decision makers and people who present the BBC's news programmes should not attend the march,' he said."
This talk of "balance" is nonsense.
There was no such ban on presenters taking part in the Countryside Alliance march in September.
This is purely an attempt to intimidate senior news staff from challenging the government on Iraq. Run by Tony's cronies, BBC staff are under pressure from the government to back the war drive.
Reporters with political views critical of the establishment often generate the finest investigative reporting, precisely because they ask penetrating questions.
Good reporting does not depend on a journalist's political views, but on their ability to present key facts and opinions clearly and to probe each in a rigorous and critical manner.
Moreover, it just so happens that BBC 1 will, at 12.05pm on Saturday -- just as the anti-war march is starting -- be going live to the Arsenal vs Man Utd match. What's more important? 11 people on a football pitch or millions on the streets across the world and the half-million casualties in Iraq that the UN calculates will result from war?
Please send your comments on this blatant censorship to
Mark.Damazer@bbc.co.uk
Or phone him at the BBC on 020 7240 3456
An article in the BBC's internal magazine Ariel states:
"The BBC's deputy head of news, Mark Damazer, said that there was a 'need to balance a respect for civil liberties with the BBC's need to be impartial.'
'The view taken by the BBC about this weekend's peace march is that senior editorial decision makers and people who present the BBC's news programmes should not attend the march,' he said."
This talk of "balance" is nonsense.
There was no such ban on presenters taking part in the Countryside Alliance march in September.
This is purely an attempt to intimidate senior news staff from challenging the government on Iraq. Run by Tony's cronies, BBC staff are under pressure from the government to back the war drive.
Reporters with political views critical of the establishment often generate the finest investigative reporting, precisely because they ask penetrating questions.
Good reporting does not depend on a journalist's political views, but on their ability to present key facts and opinions clearly and to probe each in a rigorous and critical manner.
Moreover, it just so happens that BBC 1 will, at 12.05pm on Saturday -- just as the anti-war march is starting -- be going live to the Arsenal vs Man Utd match. What's more important? 11 people on a football pitch or millions on the streets across the world and the half-million casualties in Iraq that the UN calculates will result from war?
Please send your comments on this blatant censorship to
Mark.Damazer@bbc.co.uk Or phone him at the BBC on 020 7240 3456
Ivan Agenda
e-mail:
Mark.Damazer@bbc.co.uk
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
NoT 2 Mention
14.02.2003 12:33
the fact that there are likely to be tens of millions of people marching around the world.
They an the rest of the corporate media will edit out wide panoramic shots and stick to close ups of ten or twenty people. and some of them still take themselves seriously, as supposed journalists ....
cnnsor
Sad but not unexpected
14.02.2003 12:48
The nasty regimes around the world will not let their people go on a protest.
Regime
Living In A Dictatorship Can Be Dangerous
14.02.2003 21:44
and control that "New Labour" have steadily been creating,not only with the BBC but with imported Blair sycophants who also believe in the New World Order,at the expense of democracy and freedom.
Almost three years ago I found that a Labour Local Council
had £27.5 million direct financial investments in a Landowners pocket,but placed through a small third party Company in the back streets of Manchester.
This Landowner and the Council has fought for 13 years non stop against 35,000 residents to develop the last green lung in East Manchester where Air Pollution is rife.
I began finding further serious scandals in this Labour Council in Tameside,and forwarded all the documented and confirming evidence to Blair and his Ministers.
The Council Leader and his mafia group administrate a
£6 Billion Investment Fund,but still after 2 Public Inquiries I was not permitted to expose with many documents the facts I unearthed any of the facts,and even with well constructed factual dossiers given to local press papers,they were to scared to publish the 100% confirming proof.
Funny how in September 2000 not long after my findings,that aq padded envelope arrived at my home,which contained 8 blood filled syringes taped on a substantial card with the obvious intent to harm or create a deadly injury.
5 months later after the Police on the day concerned,had taken the package away for investigation and forensic tests,
I found that the crime had not been recorded,the package had been stuffed away in a cupboard,and the blood contents were no longer in 6 syringes when the Police Investigation located the package and found no entry for the crime.
Because of my insistance of an investigation 3 Police Officers pleaded guilty at the Police Copmplaints Inquiry,
yet nothing else occured except an official letter from a senior officer stating the Hearing result (it was shown on the Government Police Complaints Authority press releases in January 2002)and simply stating it was just a blip in the officers conduct.
At the risk of further intimidation I have persued this case with the European Court of Human Rights,and a case ref
has been allocated.
Not one Solicitor out of 8 in the Manchester Area would take this case on,all offering the same excuse "we do not have the knowledge to persue such a case".
So there we have a serious incident occuring to two disabled elderley people (67-65)only after exposing concerning findings regarding a local Labour Council by an elderley man who had never stuck his neck above the parapet of domestic life other than this instance.
This corrupt, rotten, and manipulative Country that the UK now is,requires its own marches to stave off the looming
dictatorship ahead.
Sincere Regards
Jogn D.Hall
John D.Hall
e-mail:
gadema@btinternet.com