Readers/viewers will have to make up their own mind as to what, or who, is “entirely accurate” with their reporting. To do this we share some e-mail correspondence between Channel Television and Team Voice.
There is an argument to be had that the official – party - line (helped by the “accredited” media) is that Brian Napier QC, “concluded” in his report that there was no plot to oust the former Chief of Police Graham Power, therefore the public will swallow that stuff if it is repeated enough times, which it has been!
But the “facts” are quite different, but when have the “accredited” media allowed “facts” to get in the way of the party line?
We have redacted, or changed the authors’ names in the e-mails. On the part of the Team Voice representative, this is because of the death threats he has received, along with the threats of physical violence against him and the threats to harm his children because of his speaking out against Child Abuse.
In the case of the CTV representative, we have redacted the name, as we would like the issue to remain on a professional rather than personal level and would be reluctant to publish any personal attacks.
As you will note by the e-mails below, we at Team Voice believe that CTV have misled their readers/viewers by their less than factual/accurate reporting. On the other hand CTV believe that their report is “entirely accurate”………………………………what do you think?
to broadcast@channeltv.co.uk
date Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 2:42 PM
subject Misleading.
mailed-by googlemail.com
hide details Oct 9 (6 days ago)
Dear CTV.
We are contacting you in the hope that you will right a wrong.
On Channel Report last night Jess Dunsden said that “the Napier Report has concluded there was no plot to oust him” (Graham Power QPM). When the “fact” is Mr. Brian Napier QC, in his Report said “I have found no evidence of a “conspiracy” to oust Mr. Power for some improper reason".
The key word being “evidence”. There is, we are sure you would agree, a big difference between what was said By Miss Dunsden and the facts.
Furthermore we have noticed on your website you have published this “But the report has concluded there was no plot to oust the police chief” Again this is factually incorrect as explained above.
Either intentionally or otherwise your readers and viewers have been misled. This is evident in some of their comments that you have published, for example one commenter says this “I think the main point here is that there was no conspiracy to have him removed. This has been echoed throughout the Net for nearly two years now and its ended up being proven as a 'porky pie'.
To put this into perspective, if on the PDF Napier Report one types in the search of your reported words “there was no plot to oust” then there are no “hits”, that is to say that it doesn’t exist in that document. On the other hand if one types in the words “have found no evidence of a “conspiracy” to oust” then you are taken directly to paragraph 111 on the final page.
We very much hope that you will right this wrong, possibly by way of an apology, for misleading your viewers (intentionally or otherwise) on Channel Report and indeed as is evident on your website.
There are those of us that believe the reason Mr. Brian Napier QC. Was unable to find any “evidence” of a conspiracy to oust Mr. Power QPM for some improper reason, was because it looks like a part of his original Terms of Reference have disappeared, that being
(d) Review all information relating to the original suspension procedure, including relevant sections of the published Affidavit from the suspended Chief Officer of Police.
Moreover we believe there is a story to be had there, which we will be pursuing ourselves.
In conclusion there is evidence that your viewers/readers have been misled by yourselves mis-reporting the “facts” and we hope that you will apologise for this both on your website and on Channel Report.
Kind Regards.
Team Voice.
from Name Redacted.
to voiceforchildren@googlemail.com
date Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:25 PM
subject Re: Fwd: Misleading.
Dear VFC (name changed)
Thank you for your email. Our journalists paraphrase reports and information as part of their job. It is obviously important that this is done in a way that is clear and accurate. I have viewed the report to which you refer both in Channel Report and online and I am satisfied that the information in both stories was entirely accurate.
Should you wish to take your complaint further, you may contact the regulator, Ofcom, at
Ofcom
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA
Tel: 0300 123 3333 or 020 7981 3040
Or they may be contacted online through www.ofcom.org.uk
Yours sincerely, (name redacted)
from voiceforchildren
to CTV
date Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 1:43 PM
subject Re: Fwd: Misleading.
mailed-by googlemail.com
hide details Oct 11 (4 days ago)
Dear CTV (name changed).
Thank you for your response. We thought we had demonstrated adequately that at least one of your readers had been misled by your report on channelonline.
We maintain that "the Napier Report has concluded there was no plot to oust him"
is wholly inaccurate, as Napier "concluded" no such thing. With fear of sounding repetitious the words he (Napier) used were I have found no evidence of a "conspiracy" . therefore he hasn't "concluded" there was no conspiracy, he has "not seen evidence".
It is unfortunate that you are unwilling to have your viewers/readers (for the sake of a couple of words) that much better informed, and appear content with them to be somewhat misled.
Thank you for pointing us towards OFCOM but we have been down that route previously and have come to learn that it is a waste of time.
You might want to ask yourself, are the amount of Jersey Blogs/Bloggers any kind of reflection on the quality of local "accredited" media?
We have come to learn that rather than writing to OFCOM, our complaints/observations are better aired on our Blogs. With that in mind, we shall be sharing this correspondence with our readers/viewers.
Team Voice.
Why dont they just come out and say They themselves as a broadcasting company in the Channel Islands CTV Have concluded. That is what they CTV are concluding they are broadcasting to the public Those are their own words not Mr Napiers.
ReplyDeleteHere is me, thinking Brian Napier had himself concluded that there was no plot to oust the former Chief of Police Graham Power this thinking came about as a result of watching CTV.
ReplyDeleteIn actual fact he did not conclude this at all. Why would CTV try and push their opinion on the Jersey public.
Did Mr Napier really ''conclude'' did he really? naughty naught CTV playing with words on serious issue having implications for children in Jersey.
ReplyDeleteMr Napier did not conclude 'there was no plot to oust him'.
ReplyDeleteHe stated:
"I have seen no evidence to support the claims (which, if substantiated, would certainly point to a need for further investigation) that these were part of some plot or conspiracy within the public service to frustrate police investigation in Jersey."
You see he was not called upon to investigate such evidence. Not only that, but he may well have concluded there was a conspiracy to remove Graham Power, but for other reasons rather than to frustrate police investigation in Jersey, it may have been personal, for example maybe Frank Walker didn't like him and wanted revenge for not respecting his way of doing business, who knows!
Paragraph 111, at the end of the report could indeed be interpreted that Mr Napier was choosing his words very carefully to say that he had found no evidence but was not excluding that there was some which he had not seen, or even that he had seen or found some suggestive information which was not strong enough to be classified as evidence.
ReplyDeleteHere is the beginning of 111.
I do not see a need to investigate these matters further. As I have
already said, I have found no evidence of a “conspiracy” to oust Mr Power for
some improper reason.
However, look at what he "already said".
Paragraph 89 seems to state rather unequivocally that - "There was no conspiracy to act against Mr Power because he was seen as a threat to the political status quo and to the vested interests of people of influence within Jersey".
That leaves open the possibility that there could have been a conspiracy against Mr Power because someone didn't like him personally. Also Napier's words could, at a stretch, mean that there might have been a conspiracy "because he was seen as a threat to the political status quo" OR "to the vested interests of people of influence within Jersey". The use of "and" rather than "or" could be thought of as Mr Napier trying to communicate that he believed there was no conspiracy because of bothy reasons, but there may have been one for one of the reasons. Warning! Trying to analyse words to this degree can lead one up the garden path. The only way to find out what was really meant would be to specifically ask Mr Napier to clarify the ambiguity.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteWhole paragraph quoted below
----------------------------------
89. My own view, having considered the available evidence and interviewed the
main protagonists in the affair, is that there were, in the period leading up to
the decision to impose suspension on 12 November, serious doubts as to Mr
Power’s professional competence on the part of Mr Ogley and Mr Lewis,
based on a belief that he had not properly managed the historic abuse enquiry
and had, in particular, failed to exercise proper control over DCO Harper.
These doubts were not without foundation. Both Mr Ogley and Mr Lewis
were in possession of information emanating not only from Mr Warcup but
also from the meetings of the Gold Group which indicated that serious
mistakes had been made. There were indications that Mr Power had not done
his job well. But that is as far as it goes. There was no conspiracy to act
against Mr Power because he was seen as a threat to the political status quo
and to the vested interests of people of influence within Jersey. Neither is
there any evidence that Mr Ogley or Mr Walker sought to exercise improper
influence on Mr Lewis who, as the new Minister, alone had the power to order
suspension and the commencement of disciplinary proceedings.Mr Lewis
himself, in my opinion, took his responsibilities seriously, and did his best to explore alternatives to suspension in the run-up to the meeting of 12 November.
Assignment:
ReplyDeleteEssay of 3 - 5 double spaced typed pages, listing 3 sources, including the printed story on CTV website. Cite and analyze coverage most favorable and least favorable to the former police chief in recent mainstream Jersey media accounts of Napier Report. Do not include op/ed.
Class Discussion:
Would you be surprised to see or hear Jersey media coverage favorable to Mr. Power? What alternative wording would you propose for neutral coverage, if that was your ethical reporting objective? How does that compare with past bias documented in source citations? Review today's CTV response to VFC blog. Does CTV provide an acceptable explanation for the appearance of bias? Would a reasonable person conclude from the CCT account that the Napier Report primarily assured the public there was no conspiracy?
Research:
Is Jersey media bias consistent in an easily observable slant against Mr. Power? Can you cite examples within the past year of mainstream media slant in favor of Mr. Power's view?
OCR
When the time is right or we have the time there must be an in depth look at the Comedy that is the local media.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think this lot are getting away it
THE LOCAL MEDIA
rs
OCR.
ReplyDeleteWould you be kind enough to post some/any of the students work on this? And thanks for taking an interest over the pond. It's encouraging.
CTV like the JEP has become an irrelevance.
ReplyDeleteI have long lost respect for local media. I now no longer buy the JEP and have re-programmed my SKY box to pick up another trust-worthy itv region.
Advertising drives both the JEP and CTV and advertisers need viewers, both media outlets need to remember that before its to late
VFC
ReplyDeleteIt would be our pleasure to provide you with an overview of class findings and to quote samples of written student work if it is compatible with your comments policy.
We are beginning our third full year of using the example of Jersey media to study critical thinking about media and the effects of media on the balance of powers and public policy. Jersey has provided us with an extremely rich source of evidenced bias, and has inspired some of our high school class graduates to further pursue the topic on their own with college level research. We also know of at least four other school programs which feature Jersey media similarly, one inspired by the popularity of our class.
We were less cautious about public communications during our first year of adding Jersey media to the curriculum, believing an island so physically close to EU countries and tied to UK would be as safe to openly engage as any democracy on Earth. Now we are strictly anonymous because concerned school administration and parents have registered fear of possible retribution from Jersey. This has resulted in an increasingly tightened privacy policy on the topic of Jersey regarding public communications and any individual student and school identification, including email.
We can only post comments from the class via separate authorization for each posting. However, we can obtain such authorization fairly easily if not always quickly. In addition, as our students graduate from high school, a number of them do comment regularly. I recognize their writing at times.
Monday's class assignment will be to format an overview of our findings, with selected quotes from original student work which we will submit to you through this comments section.
Thank you as well, for your interest in our work.
OCR
OCR.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for your paricipation. I would be more than happy to publish any, or all, of the students work or a guest posting from yourself as a Blog of it's own.
1 Accuracy
ReplyDeletei) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and - where appropriate - an apology published.
iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
iv) A publication must report fairly and accurately the outcome of an action for defamation to which it has been a party, unless an agreed settlement states otherwise, or an agreed statement is published.
Press Complaints Commission
According to some reports in the financial media around 80% of ITV programming is "commissioned" through channel TV something to do with tax I think.So they are not likely to shake the tree are they?
ReplyDeleteHi VFC.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting coments from OCR, It will be nice to see what they make of our biased news reporting that we get over here.
It is a shame that we do not get any other news channel that does local news. ie Sky or Channel 4.
They say "Now we are strictly anonymous because concerned school administration and parents have registered fear of possible retribution from Jersey. This has resulted in an increasingly tightened privacy policy on the topic of Jersey regarding public communications and any individual student and school identification, including email." What on earth is going on, has our good leaders (that do no wrong) Frightened a American High School for being interested in the goings on in our little old Jersey.
How sorry is that, but if the American students come back with a report that proves us right, then we will know that its not just our imagination.
Well done VFC, our Government under estimates the power of Blogging.
TJW.
It was a surprise to me too when Channel TV were fined over the fixing of the ITV Comedy Awards back in 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8286784.stm):
ReplyDelete"Channel TV was not knowingly involved in the incident but was responsible for making sure guidelines were followed."
Mr. Le Sueur regularly issues caution to his underlings never to his superiors. This all stinks
ReplyDeleteHave CTV ever appologise for misleading viewers into believing that Mr. Napier concluded
ReplyDeleteThere was no plot to outst former Chief of Police?
As far as I am aware CTV still do not believe that their readers/viewers were misled and their report was "entirely accurate".
ReplyDelete