A Time to Remember Basic Values?

The British Broadcasting Conspiracy exposed by a Children's Programme and an Anachronism!

At last, the lying nature of the BBC propaganda machine has been exposed in the full glare of publicity. The event that has triggered this is, in my opinion, of very little consequence and by focusing on it and other petty issues it appears that, true to form, the BBC is trying desperately to distract our attention from the elephant in its living room.

Nevertheless, with the Controller of BBC 1, Peter Fincham, squirming and wringing his hands at the suggestion of his resignation, it has provided us all with an opportunity to see the BBC as simultaneously grovelling, pompous and in denial.

The BBC has been forced to apologise publicly for having made a promotional video of the Queen where she is seen to lose her rag and snap at a celebrity photographer, Annie Liebowitz, and storm out. It was later discovered that the scene of her storming out never took place and that the film clip was out of sequence.

Only in Britain! This incident has led to BBC reporters having to grovel in front of the TV cameras and make statements such as, "It's an image that goes completely against how the public sees Her Majesty ... hugely embarrassing for the BBC."

Image, what image? What assumptions the BBC makes on behalf of the British public! But then the BBC habitually makes assumptions about most things, especially regarding Britain's imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where never a day goes by without us hearing it tell us lies by government decree.

Whereas it is free to lie and brainwash us all about the wonderful job "our boys" are doing out there in the name of freedom 'n' democracy it really has to watch its p's and q's when reporting about royalty. Here are some of the statements I copied down from news recordings. While reading these I would invite the reader to bear in mind the relatively insignificant incidents they arose from and to contrast their pettiness with the farrago of lies, disinformation and misinformation the BBC produces daily over matters such as British military aggression.

"[An] apology was quick in coming and perhaps not surprisingly, given the issues of audience trust and confidence in broadcasting," after an incident where on a children's programme, Blue Peter, a fake winner was announced and the BBC was later fined £50,000.

If a lie of that gravity deemed a fine of fifty grand then I am left to ask what kind of fine should be meted out concerning the BBC's compulsive lies about almost a million killed in a war crime which it refuses to own up to? In that instance no fine would be large enough. Instead the BBC should be wound up and every reporter and manager complicit in lies about Britain's war crime should be tried at the Hague.

Returning to its recent misdemeanours:

"This is a hugely embarrassing affair for the BBC and while it's been quick to minimise the damage there has been which will no doubt prompt a great deal of internal soul-searching."

Soul searching? So the BBC has a soul, has it? Where has it been all this while when it has been enthusiastically acting as the conduit for Government propaganda in Britain's murdering, militaristic adventures abroad and in Ireland?

It has been all to do with trust, the news minions assure us, the audience's trust in broadcasting. Hugely embarrassing. Oh give over, how petty and mediocre these little cogs in the BBC's wheel are!

Yesterday's BBC lunchtime news was of slightly more interest. And, precisely because it was, not repeated later on in the day. It's reporter, Paul Sillitoe:

"Given that the BBC had to pay a fine for misleading the public over a Blue Peter programme, this latest event is deeply embarrassing and comes just as an enquiry is launched into when it [the BBC] has deceived the audience in any other programmes."

Deeply embarrassing, hugely embarrassing, a general squirming and wringing of hands, and then it slips out there is to be an enquiry into the BBC's credibility. Oh? And were we informed about this before this ridiculous incident? No.

BBC reporter, Nick Highams, from Buckingham Palace:

"This is particularly embarrassing for the BBC which has always set enormous store by not misleading the audience, by telling the audience that they can trust whatever the BBC broadcasts."

On which planet does Mr Highams live? Certainly not on mine where the BBC is on par with Big Brother and the former Soviet Union's controlled media. C'mon Mr Highams, you know that's bullshit you're getting paid to regurgitate. On the planet of privileged, highly-paid apparatchiks, have you no sense of shame?

"Now today the Director of News, Helen Boaden, has written to all her staff --this is apparently a BBC News only initiative at the moment-- asking them to to look into all programmes since January 2005 where they believe there is a risk that the audience may have been misled. And she wants to hear, even if it's only a hunch, about any programmes like that so she can take the appropriate action."

Now you're really asking for trouble Ms Boaden. I hope you've bitten off more than you can chew this time. I hope your staff have the courage to tell you the truth about the monstrous lying-machine that masquerades as the BBC News services. You won't like to be equated with Big Brother, Goebbels and the former Soviet Union but that is a widely-held view which is gathering, not losing, momentum both in Britain and elsewhere. You, Ms Boaden, have a long history of covering-up for the BBC as subscribers to investigators like Medialens know all too well. You and your cronies are responsible for having created a bubble of unreality in which, like all good apparatchiks, you have insulated yourselves from the real world. A bubble that has been burst by, not the forces of democracy, but by an age-old anachronism.

This is what the former Chairman and ITV's current Chief Executive, Michael Grade had to say:

"We're all in this together. I made a speech about this a couple of weeks ago, about trust in broadcasting: it's an issue for all of us. I am deeply concerned that there is a generation of programme-makers around the place, at the BBC, independent producers, in ITV who do not begin to understand the cardinal golden rule of broadcasting is do not ever deceive the audience."

Sillitoe again who claims that restoring trust is the BBC's Number One priority. We shall see, I'm not optimistic:

"This is not just a restoring of trust with the Palace but a wider issue between broadcasting and the public."

Today, the BBC together with its Controller, the squirming Peter Fincham, is fighting off calls for his and other resignations. If you think this is bad wait till the revolution, boy, we'll have you be a night soil carrier. Something which, in your present job, you already know how to do well.

Michael Grade again:

"This incident will only add to the public's distrust of broadcasters. What's of greater concern is that viewers' trust in broadcasting as a whole has been severely shaken, not just by what's happened on the BBC but on ITV, GMTV, Channel Five, Channel Four. There is a serious issue of trust. The values of British broadcasting have somehow got diluted with the new generation of programme-makers. We have to restore it with a policy of zero tolerance towards anybody who sets out deliberately to deceive."

Now here is an intelligent man who understands the need for the Establishment he represents to reform its ways. But will it, can it do so? One major reason for the deterioration of reporting standards has been directly caused by the subsuming of British foreign policy within Washington's. In every sense of the word, our reporters with a few honourable exceptions, are well and truly embedded in the US war machine. To get out of that deceitful and poisonous web is going to require nothing less than a peaceful revolution and this country's declaration of independence from the new King George and his successors. What chance is there of that happening?

Nina Nannar, ITV News:

"With recent incidents where viewers have been misled by faked competition results and scandals over phone-ins, whatever the BBC chooses to do about this latest incident it is clear that broadcasters as a whole are facing a serious issue that goes to their very core: how to maintain the trust of their viewers."

Well, Nina, you're a big girl now. You should know the score. Journalists and reporters are simply going to have to go back to the honourable old traditions of reporting news as objectively as humanly possible. We're all biased in different ways but there is a, perhaps unattainable, standard called Truth which in days gone by many of us were educated to try and maintain and never to cease striving for. It had something to do with a quality of humanity and a willingness to see the world as it really is, not as our rulers would have us see it. It was and is about the courage to stand up for one's beliefs and to risk having to pay the price for doing so in an increasingly corrupt and decadent society. And where possible to band together in solidarity in order to defend basic human values from being destroyed by rulers who don't give a damn for either us or them.

It's also about regaining our self respect and our refusal to become servile minions to a modern Moloch. Do you and your colleagues possess the courage to face that reality or will you continue to betray yourselves and your people to a false god?

The BBC has certainly tripped-up over a relatively insignificant issue. Who'd have thought its innate corruptness would end up exposed by a children's programme and an anachronism? So the Emperor has no clothes on and is facing a potential broadcasting revolution. Will it now succeed in stifling that revolution by continuing to distract us with trivia whilst ignoring the elephant which just won't go away?

Well, that's up to the BBC. Folk like me only watch it to record the lies so don't confuse our numbers in your audience ratings.

Meantime, we in the alternative media, the blogosphere, together with the upcoming truth reporters in places such as Independent World Television, Telesur and so on will carry on a revolution which, so far, has been little televised.

If you wish to complain about the BBC's disgraceful news reporting, send an email to HelenBoaden.Complaints@bbc.co.uk