Unquestioning loyalty does BBC no favours

Robin Grant commends our dogged hounding of the BBC over its coverage of the red shirt protests. Thank you. 

Concerning multiple truths, as a regular reader of The Nation I have always taken it for granted there is only the one truth – Robin’s truth.

However, on this occasion his accusation could not be further from the truth.

He accuses us of wanting our “version [of the truth] to prevail”.

We are a campaign group of some 300 participants from Thailand and around the world and we span the whole gamut of political persuasion. If we were all looking for our own version of “the truth” there would already have been utter chaos within the group. There hasn’t been because that’s not what we’re about.

Actually, our “truth” involves facts, and the verifying of facts, and we have been clear on that from the start.

For example, is there more than one truth in an inaccurately translated broadcast statement?

Is there more than one truth in the mysterious disappearance of the recording of an all-important interview?

Is there more than one truth in the BBC’s refusal (so far) to admit publicly that senior editors apologised to former PM Abhisit as the result of a false allegation?

Is there more than one truth in a BBC correspondent admitting to an attempt to silence our campaign?

Mr Grant makes known that “for all its faults and shortcomings, I’ll stick with the BBC every time.” Me too, but that doesn’t mean we should mollycoddle. In fact, in a previous communication with the BBC Trust I quoted a Thai fellow-campaigner who surmised that many people wish to see the BBC remain the world’s top inter-national news provider and commentator, widely recognised as reliable and fair .... “hence the necessity of weeding out anomalies or apologising when there are lapses in accuracy. The BBC is too reputable to adopt the siege mentality.”

I know that is the sentiment of us all in the BBC campaign group and the reason why we continue to pursue this complaint. Some might call it “tough love”! It’s important to keep what we cherish as much up to the mark as possible.

John Shepherd

Bangkok