Local BBC Radio Jersey and the BBC in general come in for a bit of stick regarding their "Journalism". I would like to share with you a little bit of their "Journalism" at work.
Below is an interview with Senator Terry Le Main conducted by one Gwyn Garfield Bennett of the local BBC. This was on the day Senator Terry Le Main held on to his seat as Housing Minister, narrowly beating Senator Alan Breckon. Also the same day as Deputy James Reed was elected as Minister for Education Sport and Culture who was kind enough to allow me an interview here from what I can gather, the said reporter had waited outside the States building, all morning, to say to Senator Le Main "you must be pleased"
So effectively the BBC licence fee payer are paying a "Journalist" to wait outside a building all morning just to state the bl00dy obvious! This is the sort of shoddy, sloppy and downright laziness the BBC expect us to accept as "Journalism"
What I don't get is what was the point of paying a "Journalist" a mornings wages just for her to say "you must be pleased". What was she expecting him to say? "no i'm pretty gutted really, i'm incompedent, haven't got a clue what i'm doing and Senator Breckon would have been a much better Minister and I only put myself forward for the crack".
Unfortunately this is the sort of thing a lot of people have come to accept as "Journalism" over here. When in reality it is just a little bit of a soundbite that fills a little bit of air time and requires no research or preperation, in fact it could have been done over the phone in a matter of seconds.
Christ even the filthy Rag and CTV are starting to look a little bit like "Journalists" these days. If the BBC want to be taken seriously they are going to have to come up with a bit better than this. They are going to have to start giving the licence fee payer value for money and that also means stop sh1tting themselves when Senator Syvret phones up the phone in and cutting him off.
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He's pleased! so pleased to talk to the BBC, but quick to do a runner when he knows he will get a more in depth 'grilling'!
ReplyDeleteBlimey, we've got two Tel Boys to contend with!!
ROFL Good one!
ReplyDeleteTypical. I just sent your link to Private Eye, maybe they will investigate him a little more intensively?
You cannot really call what the BBC have been doing as anything but shameful.
Oh,dear, Citizen Journalism at it's worst - selective, biased and uninformed.
ReplyDeleteBefore I decided to take my pension I spent over 30 years as a journalist. I remember having three words drummed into me by the people who trained me and by the editors and sub-editors I worked for - ACCURACY, FAIRNESS and SUBSTANTIATION!
Anyone who knows anything about how journalism works and the pressures every working journalist faces every day will tell you that no journalist in any medium, has the time to wait outside a buildings all morning just to grab a single ten-second soundbite.
What they do is work on other stories and arrive on site just in time to get the people they want as they leave whatever meeting they've been attending.
You're talking nonsense. Meetings like your States have agendas. It's easy for a journalist, or anyone else, to calculate when a meeting will end and arrange their workload accordingly. Were you outside the building all morning?
Where's your evidence for the BBC reporter being outside the building all morning? If you have it, publish it. If not you're publishing material based on what you believe, or want to believe happened. Supposition has no place in journalism - even Citizen Journalism.
And do you honestly expect anyone to believe that the reporter went there just to interview this Terry Le Main? It was the day all your ministers were elected, so I'll bet she was sent to get quick reaction from a number of successful candidates as well as some "losers" to be used in a round-up package.
This is easy to prove - Just ask the BBC what was in their ministerial election piece that evening. All the media keep detailed archives. I think you'll find it contained a number of sound-bites, gathered by the same reporter, who probably spent no more than 15 to 30 minutes outside the building to gather them. Some may even have been pre-arranged. Again, selectiveness used to promote a biased view has no place in journalism.
I don't care what your personal beef with the BBC is - you obviously have one - but I do object to your calling yourself a journalist; and I find it deeply offensive to myself and my profession that someone so clearly uninformed and with such an obvious negative agenda has the gall to use totally biased and unprofessional "journalistic" methods to pass judgement on any member of my profession.
I trained for years. I sat and passed the National Council for the Training of Journalists compulsory examinattions in Law, Public Administration and the rest - including Tee-Line shorthand. I had a fulfilling and successful career, working with some great journakists. I made mistakes - we all do, but throughout my career, everything I wrote was based on those three words - ACCURACY, FAIRNESS and SUBSTANTIATION.
If you ever want to be regarded as anything more than a biased ranter with several huge chips on his shoulder, I suggest you do the same.
I remember (a few weeks ago) seeing G.G-B waiting outside the States for an hour or two, and there was only the brief soundbite on the TV bulletin that evening. It didn't seem like a good use of someone's time. And no, she wasn't working on anything else, just standing there looking bored.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to harp on about ACCURACY, FAIRNESS and SUBSTANTIATION then perhaps you should get your facts straight first?
You say you are retired - perhaps standards have slipped since?
(I am not part of Team Voice)
"ACCURACY, FAIRNESS and SUBSTANTIATION"
ReplyDeleteDo you not read The Sun, Star etc?
These are written by members of your esteemed profession.
Most of your post in defence of your profession is based as much on speculation as that of the writer you critisise. You do not know what this reporter was doing with her day either.
Do you live in a glass house Mr ex-journakist (sic). So much for your accuracy.
ACCURACY, FAIRNESS and SUBSTANTATION - qualities our local RAG are sadly lacking.
ReplyDeleteSELECTIVE, BIASED AND NOT UNINFORMED BUT ECONOMICAL WITH THE TRUTH qualities our RAG have in abundance.
And...for all your training Mr Ranting Journalist, you did not learn to spell very well.
I today posted a comment relating to a comment in the JEP which I felt reflected everything that they had not got quite right and suggesting that they might rightly be accused of being an Establishment mouthpiece. I reproduce it here, because unsurprisingly they totally omitted to print anything after 'please leave Stuart Syvret out of the equation this time'.
Agree with 1 and 2. I cannot understand why this paper always has to justify someone's actions if Stuart Syvret is involved. Mr Perchard is a grown man, politics are cut and thrust and his words and behaviour were WRONG, regardless.
No conscience involved in his resignation, just an easy way out of humiliation. If conscience were involved he would have resigned straight away rather than squirm, wheedle and blame at every opportunity.
Two wrongs do not make a right and if Mr Perchard were a man of stature he could choose to ignore what he perceives as provocation, which some people rather look at as a bit of honesty.
Please leave Stuart Syvret out of the equation this time, he did not utter the words, the foul language and most importantly the lies.
Your comment therefore only serves to show that those who see the JEP as the Jersey Establishment Press are not too far wrong.
Did you hear what deputy le claire said about matthew price in the states yesterday? BBC should sack price along with denzil dimwit
ReplyDelete