A Place to Stand

I finally received a reply yesterday evening from the BBC about my detailed accusation that for the last 16 years they have deliberately lied & censored for the purpose of helping people & groups whom they know be Nazis publicly committed to genocide in former Yugoslavia. (Full article in my archive 30th April)

Dear Mr Craig

Thank you for your e-mail. Please accept our apologies for the delay in
replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and we
are sorry you have had to wait on this occasion.

I note your concerns regarding our reporting of the Bosnian War and the
Srebrenica massacre. However, without specific dates, times and channels
of broadcast or BBC News Online addresses, we are unable to address your
specific concerns.

Please be assured, however, that your comments have been fully registered
on our daily audience log. This internal document will be made available
to the News team and Senior BBC Management.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Regards

Damian Whyte
BBC Information

This is a small response for such a long gestation period. When Richard Nixon was president his repeated reaction to questions about Watergate & other things was to issue what was called a Non-Denial Denial. Namely he, or his spokesman wouls say that such & such was an outrageous suggestion/mere speculation/I have no evidence of this/communist propaganda/unworthy of a responsible journalist etc but when it was finished you were expected not to notice it hadn't actually been denied. I must admit I had expected that any BBC reply would have been of that nature. Instead what we have here is non-denial non-denial. No attempt whatsoever by Damien (a name to conjur with) to suggest that it was in any way untrue. Indeed the "can you tell us when we mentioned Srebrenica or which particular didn't we didn't report the Dragodan Massacre smells very much like this has been put to a lawyer who has advised them that any legal action on the BBC's part would only work if something I accused them wasn't actually true.

I replied

Dear Damian,
Thank you for your email. I regret, but cannot claim to be surprised that the BBC find it impossible to deny having corruptly lied, over a period of 16 years, to assist people you know to be Nazis to engage in genocide.

I am not exactly sure, for example, what part of the phrase "2 months prior to the Kosovo bombing the BBC evening news regularly reported as fact as 1st or 2nd item, allegations of atrocities by the Yugoslavs. In fact you clearly knew that our government considered that the majority of murders were actually of Serb civilians by the KLA" is to unspecific to identify but I must accept your word that you have been unable to do so.

I will get back to you to assist you further.
Regards
Neil Craig

& will do so shortly.