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I agree that Mike's remark about your friends was sarcastic and insensitive, but perhaps he was suggesting that they, and his own friends who work on the Guardian and the Manchester Evening News, all come under the same journalistic umbrella and, as such, are deemed by him as people he simply cannot trust.
Thanks JonR. Absolutely spot on. I do have a tendency toward sarcasm when I can't believe what I am reading and I am utterly insensitive to anyone who will defend the indefensible. Mathew has exemplary music taste; a love of all the right sports and "interesting" views. What's a boy to do?
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As to this issue of the BNP riot at Manchester Town Hall, I cannot believe such an event would not be considered newsworthy enough by anyone for it not to be reported on the night that it happened. Are you really suggesting that the BBC spiked it in their own interests so that it could be shown subsequently on Panorama a few weeks later? And even so, surely other media organisations would have reported it, even the Beeb's local news service?
Even so, the implications are serious. In this scenario what we are faced with IMO is a situation where no-one can trust the reporting of events because the journo's involved are operating some hidden agenda. Then why should we bother buying newspapers, or watching the news at all?
Well now. I don't recall saying it was just the BBC and I am afraid that anyone who belives that stories don't get spiked for journalists own ends is being a little naive.
More importantly, if you can find a single report of the events outside Manchester Town Hall that came out between the night in question and the broadcast of the Panorama programme then there is a drink waiting for you in Manchester/Salford.
The BBC were broadcasting outside and inside the town hall and the MEN and other journalists present were promised certain things if they kept schtum. Others involved on the night were also aware of this and actively encouraged the suppression for their own ends i.e. it would look bad for Manchester etc. My journalist friends denied any knowledge of this despite my partner having witnessed the full horror on the night. After the broadcast, they came clean.
Sometimes the things we don't want to believe are the things we ought to start believing
a) because they're true, and,
b) because then we might get an inkling of just how corrupt the whole thing is.
Cracking example in the past two days. A journo friend of mine asked to run patently false stories on Beckhams' marriage because there is a clamour by certain people to get him out of the England team now he's abroad and thus weaken Sven's hand. Who asked him to run it? A "friend" at the FA? What did she do? Passed the story onto a tabloid that ran with it despite no evidence whatsoever other than the say so of another journo.
Ho hum.
Another example, a player at the club I support (Wrexham) had his career virtually ended after a night out in Manchester when he was attacked by players from a Premiership club. The journos picked up the story but dropped it because the club threatened to cut off access to all players.
Does anyone actually just take the "news" as a given nowadays without asking questions about what they are reading and why???!!!
Mike
