05 Feb 09 | Uncategorized
Index on Censorship editor Jo Glanville and contributor Kenan Malik will be discussing the fallout from Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence on Salman Rushdie on BBC Radio 3’s Night Waves tonight.
Here’s the blurb:
Matthew Sweet presents a Night Waves Landmark dedicated to one of the most politically controversial novels of recent times: Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. On Valentine’s Day 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death, forcing the novelist into hiding and creating an international cause célèbre, the reverberations of which can still be felt today. 20 years on, Matthew and a roundtable of guests from all sides of the dispute discuss the legacy of the Rushdie Affair. They explore the broader issues it raised: the value of freedom of expression, the question of whether art can offend, and the place of Islam and multiculturalism in British society.
The panel of guests are the film-maker Navid Akhtar, whose documentaries include Young Angry and Muslim; Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censorship; Priyamvada Gopal, who teaches English at Cambridge University, and is the author of a new book, The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration, the writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik, author of a new study called The Rushdie Affair – from Fatwa to Jihad, and the inter-faith theologian Martin Palmer.
You can listen online here
05 Feb 09 | Uncategorized
On Tuesday, Index on Censorship news editor Padraig Reidy wrote this article for the Guardian‘s Comment is Free site, pointing out a rather unfair and even dangerous edit of an interview with a striking worker at Lindsey:
…A voiceover by the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, (about 12 mins in) told us: ‘Beneath the anger, ministers fear, lies straightforward xenophobia.’ Cut to woolly-hatted worker telling BBC reporter: ‘These Portugese and Eyeties –– we can’t work alongside of them.’ There we are: northern white bloke refusing to work with foreigners. Case closed.
Except, watch Paul Mason’s report on Newsnight, featuring the same interview (about 4:30 in):
These Portugese and eyeties –– we can’t work alongside of them: we’re segregated from them. They’re coming in in full companies.
Even taking into account the dodginess of the use of ‘Eyetie’ to refer to an Italian person, one has to admit that it would be very difficult to portray the second, full quote as racist or xenophobic. It’s a statement addressing basic workplace issues –– British workers literally cannot work alongside foreign workers, as they are separated. There really is no excuse for editing and presenting a quote in such a misrepresentative manner, unless one is setting out to prove something –– namely, that working-class people are racists.
According to the Telegraph, the BBC has now issued an apology for the report:
A BBC spokesman said: ‘While the striking worker described foreign workers in a way that some regard as offensive, the edit gave viewers the impression that he was not prepared to work alongside others from Italy and Portugal when in fact his full quote said companies were responsible for segregating workers from different nationalities.
‘There was no intention to deliberately mis-represent his views but we accept the edit on the 10 o’clock news gave the wrong impression, for which we are sorry.’
04 Feb 09 | Uncategorized
Did Carol Thatcher know that the BBC’s taste and decency guidelines apply off air as well as on air?
And that any ill-judged, politically incorrect comments that may fall from her lips at any moment could cost her her job? We don’t know the full context or exactly what she said, only that she used the term ‘golliwog’ to describe a tennis player in the green room at the BBC and that presenter Adrian Chiles challenged her on her remarks.
Golliwog is a derogatory, racist term and even though Thatcher claims it was a joke, her uninhibited use of the word places her clearly in a certain generation — with a striking insensitivity and lack of awareness. Yet the problem with BBC management’s response to Thatcher’s comments is that it extends the broadcaster’s expectation of its contributors to unacceptable lengths.
Does this now mean that if someone catches Jonathan Ross making a tasteless comment in the local pub, and reports it, that the BBC will censure him? Or does this only apply when presenters are on BBC premises? If the Beeb wants to ensure that its presenters are gaffe free, it’s not only going to have to police them, but vet them for their political and personal views on sex, race and religion. That’s the implication of their decision to remove Carol Thatcher from The One Show.
29 Jan 09 | News and features
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said he will not grant interviews to the BBC following its refusal to broadcast an appeal for aid for the Gaza Strip.
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