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Latest Alert

Posted by John Hilley on November 7, 2009, 11:08 am

Great work again, Eds.

A request to Newsnight Editor, Peter Rippon.

---
Dear Peter

The Editors at Media Lens have just published a most revealing set of comments from Jeremy Paxman suggesting that he was “hoodwinked” over Colin Powell's “so-called evidence” during his UN presentation in support of waging war against Iraq.

http://medialens.org/alerts/index.php

Paxman's statements are not only an admission of serious journalistic negligence, but an illustration of how the words of the powerful are more routinely accepted without investigation or qualification. What impression does it suggest for BBC viewers accustomed to the claim that BBC journalists are scrupulous in their enquiries?

Media Lens have shown that the evidence contradicting Powell was all there in the public domain. Millions of non-journalist citizens were also able to see through Powell's claims. So, why do you think a senior presenter like Paxman was so trusting in this “intelligent, thoughtful man, and a sceptical man”? And how does his admission reflect on Newsnight's own credibility?

In this spirit of apparent 'openness', will Newsnight, which served to amplify Powell's false evidence, now respond in similar kind by featuring Paxman's admissions and using them to discuss the state of BBC journalism?

Paxman also said:

“Next time I see a presentation from the American State Department, or the CIA, about, I don’t know, Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, I shall look on it differently to the way that I looked upon their presentation of the so-called presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Can we, likewise, look forward to Newsnight running a feature on the current media scaremongering over Iran's alleged WMD, perhaps prefaced by Paxman's own words?

I look forward to your thoughts.

Best wishes

John Hilley

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Re: Latest Alert: "Paxman has the reputation of being a rottweiler amongst interviewers" --

Posted by Rhisiart Gwilym on November 7, 2009, 7:05 pm, in reply to "Latest Alert"

-- Richard Keeble, quoted in the Alert.

This is a gross libel, even on the softened-down Rottweilers now pretended to be the real thing by the pedigree-dog-show dreamworlders in Britain and the other over-rich countries. Thinking back to the truly formidable original merchants' guard dogs of mediaeval Rottweil, it's a grotesque joke.

It's much more accurate to think of Jeremy as a highly-filtered pussy-cat, with a matinee-idol's profile, but with a slightly tetchy temper. That's the combination, I suspect, which got him the 'leading-journalist' position on Newsnight: a 'journalist' like the modern show-Rottweilers -- all show and no substance. And shrunken away in size from that of the original bruisers, to boot.

Jeremy's remarks and answers to questions, as quoted in the Alert, suggest that his cognitive dissonance about his own current mindset and about his adequacy for the position which he holds at the beeb is still much too extreme to be breached by mere rational argument, particularly when emanating from us amateur proles.

Seems that J is an excellent text-book example of the power of early-life indoctrination on a suitably susceptible personality. Of such stuff are Marr-ish goodthinkers made....

Good luck to all the optimists who hope to get through that armour to the human soul beneath, with a view to persuading him to see things a little more clearly, and maybe -- whisper it! -- have a Jonathan Cook road-to-Damascus experience. Despite his moaning about the poor pay (Sic? Sick!) I suspect that his gelt-encrusted income will ensure pretty certainly that he won't see any of that.

That's not to say, though, that the patient drip-drip from the courteous, reasonable dissidents onto the minds of the goodthinker hacks within the belly of the corporate beast isn't having its water-on-stone effect. It must be, I think. Just that I haven't the patience or the diplomatic self-restraint to make a contribution myself to that careful work on such as J and his editors. Respect to all you good folk like John and the Eds. who still have. Excellent Alert, Dafyddau.

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