Like it or loathe it, what’s done is done
Fri ,23/10/2009So now the furore has died down (at least outside the BBC Studios) and both the protestors and the BBC Question Time (#bbcqt) panel have gone home.
Like it or loathe it, what’s done is done.
Looking back, I think Diane Abbott MP made a fair point on This Week (the show that follows #bbcqt) when she said that if a member of the public who wasn’t particularly into Politics, or wasn’t a regular viewer of #bbcqt and equally didn’t know the format was viewing because of the news coverage that individual would’ve watched an entire audience and panel with host gang up one panelist. That panelist, in this instance Nick Griffin may have gained support or sympathy from that member of the public.
What Diane says is correct and in my opinion the BBC were quite wrong to make the entire show based around the BNP instead of other issues of the week with the odd question on immigration.
It also seemed that a larger than normal representation of the audience was in Nick Griffin’s terms ‘non-indigenous’ compared to every other week.
I wholeheartedly agree that Nick Griffin should have been allowed to represent his party on such a high level. He is an elected MEP whether people like it or not.
Last time I looked we were still a Democracy unless Gordon has sold that too recently and therefore we have the right to FREE Speech although protestors outside Westminster may to choose cite a different version of events.
However, that said, the damage is done and the job of the media today is to wrap up the job that the BBC has started.
There are whole swathes in this country who rely totally on what their best mate tells them down the pub and recites that line as though it were his own. There are entire groups that gain their views from Page 6 of The Sun ‘The SUN says’ or similar.
‘The SUN says’ is an editorial, the vast majority who read it do not realise this. As an editorial this is just one person’s view and is not necessarily factual but these people take it as factual content and repeat the words later at work, in the cafe or in the pub to their best mates and so the cycle continues.
I believe the job of the British Media today is to report accurately and to report well on how Nick Griffin was defeated on issues of policy and debate not on how he was gagged or almost muted by the establishment.
