BBC news places footballers above dead soldiers and families

Got an email today from my Dad, who complained to the BBC about a news item a soldiers charity being cut in favour of footage of Everton players laying flowers for Rhys Jones.

I've attached the original complaint and the response from the BBC - their attitude seems to be that the public are more interested in footballers than anything else. What planet are the BBC on?

(Sorry for dodgy formatting!)

Original

Whilst watching BBC News 24 this morning I was interested in an item about an organisation set up to remember and support British troops who are in harms way world-wide. In the middle of the interview with the woman who founded the organisation the broadcast was interrupted to return to the studio for the breaking news that Everton players had turned up to lay flowers in memory of Rhys Jones, followed by extensive live coverage of this event.

I fully understand that the country shares a sense of shock at the murder of a child but this flower laying did not need to be shown live and certainly not at the cost of showing enormous disrespect to service personnel - alive and dead - and their families, by simply trampling over a sensitive and moving report.

It is typical of the culture of responding to 'breaking news' whether or not anything is actually known, whether or not the audience gains from the very limited information available at that stage, and regardless of the anxiety caused to those who have loved ones who might be involved
but have only vague details to feed their fears.

Reply:


Thank you for your e-mail regarding BBC News 24 on 27 August.

I appreciate you are extremely concerned that an interview regarding British service personnel was interrupted to show live footage regarding Rhys Jones as you feel that the live news was not urgent enough to merit such an action.

If I may explain, the choice of news stories to report in our programmes and the amount of time to devote to each of them is frequently very difficult. BBC News is more than aware that a report that is of great interest to one part of our audience may be of little interest to another.
The order in which reports are given in the news has more to do with whether it is news that has just come in and needs immediate coverage, how unusual it is and how much national interest there is in the subject matter. The choice has to be selective and no matter how carefully such
decisions are made, news editors are always aware that some people may disagree with them.

Nevertheless, I appreciate you feel strongly that in this case the 'breaking news' was not urgent enough to merit such an interruption and that as a result it was extremely disrespectful. Therefore please be assured I have registered your complaints to the BBC News team and senior
BBC management. Feedback of this nature helps us when making decisions about future BBC programmes and your comment will play a part in this process.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us.

Regards

Erika Graham
BBC Information

 

The BBC is little more than the propoganda wing of the Liarbour Party. Yet another once great institution that has been destroyed by our corrupt liberal elite.

Even conceeding the point that the tragic death of young Ryhs is a major story, could they not have returned to it?

On a related note, the BBC also cut away from a story about Rhy's murder to show Tim Henman retiring!!

They really are a bunch of cnuts.

The head of news stated publicly that the racist murder of white people is not newsworthy FFS and they continue to give the shooting deaths of gang members more airtime than the deaths of soldiers!

As for the term "British"

Can anyone spot what group of people are missing from the politics page on their website?

SCOTTISH POLITICS
Huge rise in Scottish drug deaths

NORTHERN IRELAND POLITICS
DUP and SF accused of hypocrisy

WELSH POLITICS
Assembly focuses on 'early years'

???????

 

Unfortunately this is precisely the sort of thing one would expect from todays BBC...

 

WELSH POLITICS
Assembly focuses on 'early years' of how to make cheese on toast more exciting.

However back to the thread they are a bunch of cnuts - totally agree, bliars legacy still lives on in the form of some porridge wog called gordon brown.

 

The Cad pretty much nailed it on the head with his response.

The BBC has helped this country move towards the 'celebrity obbsessed' culture, where a story is more newsworthy if a celebrity has undertones of involvement.

If the BBC had to choose between a soldiers death and 'Beckham pays his respects to Rhys', I have no doubt in my mind which story they would run, but then any story over a celebrity story is always shunned.

Really sad, I am a member of the public, and I can't stand half the crap in the papers and on the news these days.

An american newsreader had the right idea when she refused to do a story on Paris Hilton I think, more like her i say.

 

You're spot on Cad...The BBC are a disgrace. I havn't got much time for David Cameron's Tories but if he said that he would put an end to the antiquated concept of a TV license and stop forcing us to bankroll such a blatantly biased left-wing propaganda machine he would be assured of my vote at the next election rather than it going further to the right as it might well do the way things stand...

 

Plus there's no page for Cheshire on their news website....bastards!!

 

Good on your dad, but sadly the BBC's response is merely hot air. I (as well as several other ARRSErs) complained about the BBC coverage of David Beckham's resignation from the England squad taking precedence over the coverage of the deaths of servicemen and they whittered on in the same vein in their replies. It's contempt, pure and simple, but they hide behind the argument that they need to cater to demands for 'pop kulchar'.

 

That's because half the population of the county are Scouse or Manc infiltrators (or worse, Jocks ).

 

Whilst getting the de rigeur parking ticket in Brighton the other day someone referred to the BBC as the"barely british corporation". During the same conversation very few would admit to watching BBC TV anymore.

 

With you all the way on this LE - not before time. They forfeited their right to public funding a long time ago.

 

Quote - "The order in which reports are given in the news has more to do with whether it is news that has just come in and needs immediate coverage, how unusual it is and how much national interest there is in the subject matter."

Now without taking anything away from the murder of an 11yo child and the grief felt by the parents/family, can anyone explain to me WHY a group of over priced oxygen thieves laying flowers is 'breaking news' and considered more important than a report that can help to bolster the moral of British Troops abroad ???

PS - did they have the website/address for the adopt a squaddie campaign as the OH works with a bunch of Nursery Nurses and no doubt 1 or 2 of them would be more than happy to stalk a squaddie

 

'Pop Culture' thats just it, whos requesting it. Everyone I know couldnt give two hoots about Beckham moving, Poshs new haircut, just how much of a mong Jade Goody is etc etc.

But they sell that crappy news and people buy it. Me being one of them.

What exactly is a TV licence for? Is it just for the BBC or is it for all channels.

 

LOL! Which one are you C_S!!

P.S. are you coming? http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=76049.html

 

The TV licence exists solely to provide funding for the BBC...it is an antiquated left over from the days when the BBC was the only broadcaster...ridiculous isn't it??