Monday, March 25, 2019

Forgetting Your Job, Forgetting Your Role, Former BBC Chief Tony Hall’s House of Lords speech laments the growing distrust in “the establishment” as an “assault on freedom of expression”, the role of the BBC is to offer up the whole truth, not engage in exercises of “managed opinion” on the public, if they want trust back, they have to earn it



Dear All

If there is one universal truth is that we all don’t like getting lied too. And we especially don’t like getting lied to when it is an institution that previously held the nation’s trust. One term has surfaced in recent years is that of ‘fake news’. The term was popularized by President Donald Trump to describe some reporters and American news outlets. The term however is not just an American phenomenon; it has found its way to the UK. When we expect the truth, we expect the whole truth and nothing but the truth from our media.

Anything less is unacceptable.

Two recent examples of fake news stick out for people.


The Tommy Robinson farce which didn’t cover the BBC in glory.

And of course, the Trump farce in America, a concentrated effort to remove a President by any means by the Democrats.


We live in an aged where ‘managed opinion’ is dressed up as news by reporters who work to their own agenda. Is it any surprise that the public have turned away from what is termed ‘mainstream media’? Of course not; it is ‘no surprise’, to learn the truth; you have to look at different sources and information. When I was younger, there was a golden age of reporting and investigative reporting. We had shows like World in Action, Weekend World and Panorama.


This is an episode of what is missing in our current media.

Panorama, used to be a flagship programme, but after the Tommy Robinson farce, it is tainted, Panorama owes the British people an apology, and whether you like it or not, Tommy Robinson is owed an apology. The criteria for investigation is, one standard for all. You could try and pass the buck for what happened solely for what happened onto John Sweeney, the reporter, but that would be a mistake.

Former BBC Chief Tony Hall says the use of term ‘Mainstream Media’ Is ‘Assault on Freedom’, the question that follows from this is, what type of freedom is he talking about? Clearly the mainstream media uses more than one definition. In describing the erosion of press freedom, he cites growing distrust in “the establishment”.

So, question, who are the establishment who operate in the shadows?

Hall also mentions that the effects of globalisation have fuelled a “progressive erosion of trust in … all those perceived as expert or elite”. How many times has someone been held presented as an independent expert only to be found to be biased? How many times has one of the elite been shield and then finally exposed as corrupt? Is journalism under attack from “a crisis of faith in our traditional institutions”?

The crisis is inside, the problem is inside; the gatekeepers who are supposed to protect our national broadcaster the BBC have been asleep at the wheel or worse guilty of neglect on an industrial scale.

Trust has to be earned, and the coinage is truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth, not clipped, no added too, not enhanced.  In a speech in the House of Lords, the peer said, he could remember a time when journalists could command attention and respect of a whole country with the quality of their craft.

Yes, the golden age as I mentioned before, we aren’t living in a golden age of journalism.

We live in an age of people in institutions attempting to force an agenda onto us, just today as I write this article, a friend said to me, why did the mainstream media cover the murders in New Zealand of Mulsim worshippers but there is next to nothing about the murder of Christians in Nigeria.


One of the problems is that the press, academia, the establishment and politicians are all in bed together, all promoting the same agenda.

John Sweeney did a quote about the Labour Party not doing its job properly, hence the rise of Tommy Robinson as a public figure. I would have liked to hear more on that statement, are people in social classes supposed to be “managed” by certain parties?

And for whose benefit?

Finally, it would be wrong to tar everyone with the same brush, but the media brought a lot of what has happened on themselves, deliberately, not by accident, not by mistake, not by being duped. We hold politicians to account; we should also expect and demand the same high standard from our press. Trust in the press is broken, can it ever be fixed; well there is a question for Lord Hall. Reporters must be brave, fearless in their search for the truth; I look at John Sweeney of the BBC in the pub getting blitzed on our taxpayer cash and feel sorry for him.

Because there is a man who lost his credibility and unlike the wine, that can be refilled by a barmaid!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

3 comments:

  1. It's a terrible shame, George. I've always been a fan and admirer of Sweeney's work but to see this is disappointing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Having read this I thought it was extremely enlightening.
    I appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this informative article
    together. I once again find myself spending a significant amount
    of time both reading and commenting. But so what, it was
    still worthwhile!

    ReplyDelete