BBC infallibility wins through - or does it?
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The Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust has now issued its final report regarding a collective complaint against the standard of news coverage during the red-shirt protests from March to May 2010.
Over 100 illustrations of BBC bias, factual inaccuracy, gross distortion and sensationalism were included in the initial critical document.
The 16-page judgement can be located at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/
bbctrust/our_work/complaints_appeals/index.shtml.
Though in total disagreement with the findings, we are not surprised at the outcome. This is the product of an organisation that investigates itself through its own complaints system, and the report bears all the hallmarks of a cover-up. The adjudication, concerning a news story lasting for three months, that has taken almost two years to achieve, ends on a note of wicked irony: “The committee agreed that the appeal [and therefore presumably the entire complaint] did not raise a matter of substance.”
The chink in the BBC’s armour appears to be a previously unacknowledged personal apology to then prime minister Abhisit by an editorial delegation. This implies that any or all of the BBC’s statements of denial should be taken with a considerable pinch of salt.
Our task is now complete. Please draw your own conclusions.
John Shepherd
Bangkok
