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Tuesday 20 August 2019

Defending Journalism

Years ago membership of the NUJ came with a declaration that the applicant would report fairly and impartially, without omission, distortion or misrepresentation. I've no idea whether it's still there but I think it improbable, given that much national 'journalism' in the UK is now openly partial, and extremist polemicists from Owen Jones to Yaxley-Lemon now masquerade as journalists.

A piece in the Guardian has a BBC film crew complaining that they were shouted at by objectors who called them "BBC paedo scum" and "fake news wankers". Fair comment, I would have thought. The BBC's problem lies in its dishonesty; broadsheet papers still distinguish between news reporting and Op-Ed and Polemic pieces; the BBC still pretends that all of its news output is just news reporting, when eight out of ten viewers and listeners know this to be false. And they did act institutionally to actively hide the activities of several child sex abusers they sheltered, and you only have to read a few posts down to find a prime example of Newsnight fake news.

Unfortunately for the BBC, which has now proven itself as the PR department of the new pro-globalist, metropolitan, privileged, elitist establishment and political class, a journalistic reputation is like virginity; once it's gone, it's gone. There is no way back for the BBC and I expect, once Brexit is over, a sustained campaign to decline to renew the BBC's charter in 2027, allowing them time to develop a pay-to-view or commercial model in good time for the ending of the licence fee in seven years time.

The true test for the BBC, and one that it failed spectacularly, was the mass child sex abuse in our old industrial towns and cities that went on almost openly for many years. Sure, the BBC, like the police, social services, pub landlords and local papers knew all about it - but didn't think it worth reporting. Not, I think, as many of you will believe because of the BBC's partiality towards a certain faith group, but because the BBC, in common with the police and local government, simply didn't think that the lives of poor working-class children were worth much. Plus ça change.

I miss my old drinking chum Sandy Fawkes. Not only did she report the Yom Kippur war and cross the continental USA with a mass murderer, her proudest accomplishment was getting an unpopular story run. Back when she was working for the Daily Express in the Lubianka days. The killing of Maria Colwell by her stepfather was doing the rounds of Fleet Street, but none of the papers was biting. Her editor killed the story saying "no one's interested in reading about some slum kid getting killed". Sandy had a stand-up blazing row with him and was ready to walk. Her passion and indignation persuaded him that there just might be some public interest there, ran her piece and the rest is history. That was the job of newspapers. That was the job of journalists. Sandy's Telegraph Obit actually understates her character. Emily Maitlis and Cathy Newman are talentless pygmies in comparison.

Steady in the comments please - usual restrictions apply.

Sandy in the French, about 2003

16 comments:

Stephen J said...

I met my sister for the first time in months recently, and oddly the French House came up in the conversation.

She had worked there for several years and was recently in for a drink, she said it was like looking at a mouthful of broken teeth to see the old faces, gradually falling by the wayside and leaving a black hole behind.

Sackerson said...

"The new pro-globalist, metropolitan, privileged, elitist establishment and political class."

Bobo:

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/may/28/focus.news1
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/17/twilight-of-the-elites-christophe-guilluy-review

Sorry to cite the Guardian, not attempting to provoke, but I think this is a term that hasn't really caught on here, and maybe should.

DiscoveredJoys said...

@ Sackerson

To press the analogy further... Bobo the clown. Brightly made up faces, flashy clothes, dying inside, and slightly creepy. Plus an endless number squashed inside the gravy train.

Dave_G said...


I watched an interview with Marc Morano recently who explained, quite clearly and with numerous examples, how scientists are 'coralled' into following the political line on the subject of climate change.

https://youtu.be/bpxAIYrtGLw

The methods used to silence critics of CC are identical to those used to close down real reporters across the globe who, I suspect, are fuming internally at the corruption foistered onto them in order to create the right 'path to enlightenment' the globalists crave.

It would take a concerted, combined and simultaneous effort by all true journalists to make a course correction and, even then, it would require co-operation from their editors to get it passed for publication.

What are we to do? The internet is the last bastion of reporting freedom and even that is now under serious attack so before too long we'll be fully under the whip and become a true Orwellian society where the likes of JPM can join his 'masters' and continue to push the BS globalist line.

We truely are fucked.


JohnofEnfield said...

Correction. “Mass child abuse” STILL goes on.

RAC Esq. said...

"....when eight out of ten viewers and listeners know this to be false,,,," Yes in this country.
What about the World Service ? What damage is that doing to our standing if people abroad think that it is representative of our views as a whole when it most certainly is not.
I'm glad you chose this topic for today. Last night I fell asleep withe the radio playing and woke up some hours before dawn. Some news current affairs program (hard to differentiate) was on and the left wing globalist slant was incredible. It was parroting the socialist Dem propaganda broad brush approach tying the Trump agenda in with White supremacists and the shooting outrages. Makes one wonder if it is to deliberately drive a wedge in between us and America.

Dave_G said...


@RAC - it probably doesn't matter who knows/doesn't know about the BBC slant on facts globally. A whole swathe of the planet - the bit the BBC aims at - is peopled by a type that believes in sky fairies and kiddy fiddler leaders so could be made to believe/accept anything as 'fact' regardless of any alternative evidence presented to them.

The saddest thing about this is that our own society is slowly sliding down the scale of critical thought that allows such ideals to prevail.

If a so-called modern society can call for climate skeptics to be jailed/strung up where do we go from there? Next stop is the Spanish Inquisition.

Anonymous said...

"Though we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light"

Come out of these obscure, shadowy corners.

John Brown said...

As you say the BBC’s problem is that they continually pretend to be unbiased when it is clearly not the case, particularly over Brexit where the number of Brexit supporters and their airtime is a fraction of the figures for those who support remaining in the EU.

Newspapers do not suffer the anger as they are not expected to be unbiased.

The BBC should be compelled to offer different views to the public by requiring them to employ different people with differing views for their regular news & political programmes.

The BBC is not acting as a public service broadcaster by employing the same people to front, edit and produce these programmes year after year after year, employing brothers and partners.

If a radio station, much smaller than the BBC, such as LBC, can manage to broadcast programmes with completely different viewpoints, then so can the BBC.

BTW, as I've mentioned before, if it weren't for the EU funded BBC's pro EU bias giving the false impression that the country was pro EU TPTB would never have allowed a referendum to take place.

Sobers said...

"Not, I think, as many of you will believe because of the BBC's partiality towards a certain faith group, but because the BBC, in common with the police and local government, simply didn't think that the lives of poor working-class children were worth much. "

It was a mix of both. If middle class white girls were being abducted from music festivals and raped and assaulted, or in middle class university towns, then it would have been highlighted, regardless of who the culprits were and what religion they might follow. Equally if gangs of identikit white paedophiles were identified as abusing anyone on the scale that it was going on, it too would have been shouted from the roof tops. Especially if any Tory councillors or golf club types could be drawn into the mix.

But when you have brown skinned people abusing poor white chavs, then its the perfect storm for the Leftist white middle class types who run State services almost universally. The middle class Left don't like the working classes, they have such awful racist, sexist and nationalistic views dontcha know! And they are sh*t scared of being called a racist, its like kryptonite to them. So they had every reason to pretend it wasn't happening. The victims 'probably wanted it anyway' and those doing it were untouchables, so best to let all those sleeping dogs lie.

Anonymous said...

You, Raedwald, wrote:

..and extremist polemicists from Owen Jones to Yaxley-Lemon now masquerade as journalists.

then this:

The true test for the BBC, and one that it failed spectacularly, was the mass child sex abuse in our old industrial towns and cities that went on almost openly for many years. Sure, the BBC, like the police, social services, pub landlords and local papers knew all about it - but didn't think it worth reporting.

Yaxley-Lennon became a citizen journalist to fill the void left by those who 'didn't think it worth reporting' - no different really to John Pilger (Vietnam), or Vannesa Beeley (Syria).

ibid:

Sure, the BBC, like the police, social services, pub landlords and local papers knew all about it - but didn't think it worth reporting. Not, I think, as many of you will believe because of the BBC's partiality towards a certain faith group, but because the BBC, in common with the police and local government, simply didn't think that the lives of poor working-class children were worth much.

If you fully understood the relationship that has existed between Her Majesty's Government and the British Broadcasting Corporation since its inception you would not have come to that conclusion.

As it stands today those who govern us are shit-scared of the Muhammadans kicking off - indeed as they are inclined to far more than the now busted ranks of the white working class - remember the Government is the alpha and omega of that sorry tale.

Churchill's The River War (1899):

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity were sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."


Steve

Anonymous said...

Investigative journalism AND PROPER JOURNO'S, where did they all disappear to?


The UK needs a constitution and whereby free speech is enshrined within the law of the land.

fat chance of it though.

OUT of the Empire: it's our only hope.

Dioclese said...

The barracking and heckling of journos that had the affront to question Corbyn at his recent major speech was appalling and reminded me - in one word - of 'Hitler'

These are exactly the tactics used during the rise of Nazi Germany along with taking opponents of the great leader quietly aside and kicking seven bells out of him or her. Momentum clearly studied their history well and have seem quite happy to use the maxim that "if it ain't broken, then don't fix it"

1984 becomes more reality every day and we have Corbyn and Alexa to thank for it. I fear for my grandchildren's freedom...

Anonymous said...

Internet next.

an aside maybe but calls in the football world for shutting down of comment albeit it uncalled for criticism of melanistically pigmented footie stars and the children shouting ya boo at the very well paid children, gives 'em the excuse PRETEXT and the nails and hammer to shut the door, will it never end?

Footballers and the very nature of the vicissitudes of the game set themselves up for criticism, since the pigskin was first booted across the turf, catcalling and derision it's part of the very fabric of game. For crying out loud and it is way past time to cease pandering to, CATERING TO THEIR EVERY WHIM, the ever so sensitive little darlings, these extraordinarily overpaid prima donnas.

And then, streth! leave the internet alone, if you don't like what you read.

Plantman said...

John Brown @ 11.23 said
"Newspapers do not suffer the anger as they are not expected to be unbiased"

May I suggest that it's much more fundamental than that. I would never spend money on buying, for instance, the Guardian, not even for toilet purposes if there was a world wide shortage of that essential commodity. However having said that I believe in freedom of expression (perhaps because much of the content of that expression is such a load of tripe that it acts to reduce the credibility of the absolute old cock that it is trying to promote!)

With the BBC however I am forced, by law and the persecution of hired bullies, to fund the BBC even if I choose not to consume its outpourings.

THAT's what makes me mad.

JPM said...

We have a good, few, like Carol Cadwalladr, Anon.