BBC Shows Its Slip
Posted on September 20, 2006
Filed Under Error and bias |
Falling standards at the major broadcasters are giving impetus to new media. Last night the BBC in the UK broadcast an investigation into corruption in the national sport - soccer - and it was a baddy.
The investigation was embarassing and flimsy. A year long investigation nailed not one piece of obvious corruption and probably had the effect of making corrupt agents and officials all the more wary and careful in future.
There was no excuse for what the BBC turned out other than low standards. The whole world of journalism needs the BBC to perform better because when they set standard so low other people are going to think they too can peddle innuendo as incriminating evidence. We need investigative journalism back but not in this form.
This was billed as an undercover investigation (hush hush, know what I mean) using a secret camera. the commentary continuously talked-up the findings which amounted to little more than a bunch of opportunist businessmen sounding out… opportunities.
More than anything the BBC’s attempt to create a narrative and put itself at the heart of ti was wrong - it was a moral mistake and not the only one. It was ill-advised and just poor story telling but it says something about the need editors feel to self-aggrandise.
You can feel the pressure for them. But there is now a skills’ gap at major broadcasters. The film itself was poor quality often not even showing the people who were supposedly talking.
I’ve seen better on the web.
The judgment of the London Times was anyway that the Beeb was chasing the wrong suspects - soccer agents. The biggest scandal of recent years was when independent broadcaster ITV reneged on a £350 million payment to the football authorities. The guys responsible for that, says the Times, are still in positions of power. As I recall one alsobecame a media professor and currently pontificates on where the industry is headed.
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