red face day

Yesterday the BBC admitted further cases of fake phone-ins involving high profile programming such as Children in Need, Sports Relief and Comic Relief. Today the written press had a field day.

BBC Shame… Charities caught up in BBC phone scandal… Bear faced cheek…

As I do everyday I visited Young’s Stationers and Newsagent on Ballymoney Main Street. As I do everyday I read each and every paper’s front page to see which I want to pay good money for. As I do everyday I selected The Independent. I couldn’t get over the force of the anger directed at the BBC. Even the Daily Express decided against putting their usual Princess Diana story on the front page in favour of a story about Muslims not being terribly grateful for all the help they receive from the British Police… oh, and PHONE-IN SCANDAL AT THE BBC. The only paper without a front page comment on the controversy was The Independent (well, and The Star which had its obligatory Big Brother story.) Is it any wonder I’m a liberal?

I must admit that I am disappointed in the way programme bosses feel the quality of output overrides any sense of honesty in programme making. I despair that an organisation which places the word “trust” so high in its list of priorities has shown up so many flaws. But in all honesty I can’t say I’m overly surprised. In a media-savvy world where we are sold “sexed-up” stories on a daily basis, where presentation is a greater part of professionalism than content, where cynicism is a prerequisite for an evenings viewing; in a world like this it is hardly surprising that someone took the decision to create a fake contestant rather than admit that technical difficulties had ruined the competition. We live in a world where it is better to cover yourself and get away with something than it is to acknowledge weakness. The only problem occurs where we get found out; and that’s only a problem if enough people actually care. Unfortunately for the BBC, no matter what they do, millions of people care.

And so we find Auntie Beeb’s woes splashed over the front pages, and given ten minute slots in ITN’s news coverage (and possibly Sky’s – I don’t know, I don’t have Sky) Even the BBC themselves seem to be glorying in their own misfortune. FiveLive phone-ins have been dominated by the story, Newsnight had a special report and I can’t wait to see what Nolan has to say about it all. Meanwhile other, more important, stories are slipping through on pages eight and nine. Other media stories that I, personally, find more worrying.

There is no doubt that it has been a bad, BAD week for the BBC but did you notice, for instance, that reports have been disclosed (under the Freedom of Information Act) showing the close relationship between a certain Mr Murdoch and a Mr Blair during the run up to the Iraq War? Requests for this information had been blocked for four years until, as The Independent puts it, “the Government backed down in a surprise change of heart the day after Mr Blair resigned last month.” It’s hard not to imagine the paper’s Political Editor smiling as he typed that line.

Anyway I found the correlation between the Murdoch/Blair phone conversations and the content of The Sun’s comment page fascinating and a lot more shocking than people being defrauded out of their 10,000-1 chance of winning a flat screen TV by spending twenty minutes on a premium rate phone line after watching Richard and Judy – call me harsh but sometimes I think people deserve to lose. It worries me that Mr Murdoch (once described as the 24th member of the Blair cabinet) had such an apparent influence on our elected leader during the most controversial period of his premiership. When you read comments like this:

No big decision could ever be made in No10 without taking account of three men, Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Rupert Murdoch. On the really big decisions, anybody else could safely be ignored.Alastair Campbell’s Diaries

It makes you wonder if maybe, just maybe, Murdoch’s babies, The Times and The Sun, might possibly be publishing their attacks on the BBC with as much genuine relief as genuine outrage.