23 Sep 10 | Uncategorized
The BBC has flagrantly breached its duty, under the Communications Act 2003 (s.319) to present news with “due impartiality”. For four days, sixteen hours a day, its news reporting of the papal visit has been grovelling and entirely uncritical.
The Pope is a political figure (hence his “state” visit) and no significant critic or opponent was invited to balance the parade of biased interviewees, inevitably biased because they were almost all Catholics. Even on Saturday, when up to 15,000 citizens marched to Downing Street, the protest was largely ignored by the BBC. Their speakers included Richard Dawkins, whose important speech refuting the Pope’s claims about atheism causing the Holocaust was entirely ignored. This was biased and unbalanced censorship of news, for which Ofcom must hold the BBC’s Catholic editor-in-chief Mark Thompson responsible. The BBC became a vehicle for endless and mindless Catholic propaganda.
One of Britain’s leading media law experts, Geoffrey Robertson QC, author of Robertson & Nicol on Media Law (fifth edition) and also author of The Case of the Pope said, “This breach of the due impartiality requirement was blatant and deliberate, and a disgrace to British broadcasting.”
13 Sep 10 | Uncategorized
Index contributor Malu Halasa was talking about free speech and hip hop on BBC Radio 5 live’s show Up All Night last Saturday, September 11, with editor Jo Glanville. You can listen on BBC iPlayer here, 38 minutes in. 5 live’s Up All Night will be dedicating another half-hour show to Index’s new issue on music and censorship, Smashed Hits 2.0, on Saturday 18 September at 0130am, with musician and writer Khyam Allami.
Don’t miss Fari Bradley‘s show, also on 18 September, 2300-0100, on Resonance FM. She’ll be playing protest music and music from countries where censorship is rife, to tie in with the publication of Smashed Hits 2.0.
Listen to Index’s playlists on Spotify and iTunes here. All tracks chosen by contributors to the music issue, including Radiohead‘s Colin Greenwood, jazz musician Gilad Atzmon and veteran rock manager Peter Jenner.
10 Aug 10 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Reports from Khartoum state that the Sudanese government has suspended BBC radio stations over alleged smuggling offences which included bringing satellite equipment into the country. The stations broadcast in Arabic to around four million people in the north of the country.
Recently the government demanded that journalists in the country provide private information regarding political views, friends, addresses, bank details and floor plans of their houses. The deadline for the return of this information was August 5. Since then the government has announced that it’s official censorship of newspapers has ended, but despite this, some newspapers remain closed and intimidation continues.
20 Jul 10 | Uncategorized
The news that Cardiff councillor John Dixon could face disciplinary action after implying in a tweet that the Church of Scientology was “stupid” has caused consternation online. But Scientologists often complain about representations of them in print, broadcast and online (as is their right).
My own experience of this came in winter 2003/2004, when I was working at New Humanist magazine.
We ran an article by young radio journalists Sam Washington and Phil Kemp. Sam and Phil had made an radio documentary about alleged abuse within the Church of Scientology. The programme had won the BBC File on 4 Investigative Journalism Award.
Sam and Phil had been students of New Humanist Associate Editor Sally Feldman, and approached her suggesting they turn their research into a print article. Being a magazine dedicated to critiquing religion, we were happy to accept.
When the Scientologists got wind of the publication, all hell broke loose. The Scientologists repeatedly called the office making demands. They asked for a retraction, and threatened to report us to the Press Complaints Commission; they accused the journalists of skulduggery. They requested we pass on contact details of the two young reporters. When we called File on 4, they told us they had been subjected to a similar barrage after they had recognised Washington and Kemp’s work with the award. At this point, Sam Washington was actually working at File on 4.
Kemp and Washington insisted they had presented their findings to Graeme Wilson, the public affairs director of the Church of Scientology, and offered him an opportunity to make a representation in the article (in which he is quoted).
New Humanist eventually reached an agreement with Wilson, and ran a letter from him in which he variously described Washington and Kemp’s work as “disingenuous”, threw doubt on the reliability of their sources, and talked up the church’s astounding success.
This put New Humanist in an awkward position, as we were publishing a letter casting doubts on our own contributors’ professionalism. We were fortunate that they understood and didn’t leave NH caught between two complaints.
Read the original article, Bridge to Freedom, and Graeme Wilson of the Church of Scientology’s response, here
