A Place to Stand

 The News of the World's hacking of  private individuals is, we are told, the big "news" today. Yesterday the first half of the BBC's 10 O'clock News was given over to it and virtually all of Newsnight - a total of almost an hour. The Guardian, which enjoys a very close relationship with the BBC since they are both essentially government financed (BBC through the licence fee, Guardian through disproportionate government advertising) were the first to run with this. Here is my open letter to the editor:

Dear Editor,
                    I notice that Guardian has been heavily promoting the story of the News of the World having  illegally hacked members of the public's electronic communication. Such things should indeed be exposed and condemned. However you have repeatedly suggested that by doing so the NoTW have fallen short of the highest standards to which the Guardian and indeed the British press as a whole aspire.

   For this you owe them a public apology since you know that the Guardian also engage in this practice.

   On March 15th 2000, in an article by Ed Vulliamy, the Guardian said 

This is the text of an email that came my way from Kekic to Hoey, written after the Nato bombardment of 1995 that produced the Dayton agreement:
....................
. The message was sent from Kekic's electronic address at the Economist Intelligence Unit on September 14, 1995, at 10.11am. Others in the series of emails involve chatter about gainful contact with David Owen and friendly journalists at the BBC and Observer.

     This was clearly obtained and published without the owner's consent and appears to be a criminal act.

     As you should know, at the time I put a complaint about this to the Press Complaints Commission who officially represent the highest ethical standards of the British press and who, despite it being a flagrant breach of their "Code of Practice" [Sect 10 "The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices; or by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails"] declined even to investigate, on the grounds that  I was not the author of the emails.

     We both know that the PCC, while officially representing the very highest standard of honesty to which British journalists ever aspire is willing to repudiate any commitment to any form of integrity, even its own "code of practice", to protect those who pay it. Having once repudiated its code on the grounds, not allowed by the "code", that only the author may bring a complaint. It will be interesting to see if the PCC having, dishonestly repudiated their "code" will repudiate the repudiation in the case of Milly Dowler who will not be putting in her own complaint thereby bringing their lack of integrity full circle.

  However, whatever from of dishonesty the PCC adopt it remains the fact that the NoTW have done nothing which is outwith the practice of the entire British press. Indeed they have not gone to the extreme of publishing selected extracts from these recordings as is obviously the Guardian's practice. You therefore owe them a public apology, taking up as much space as the original allegations confirming that, however heinous intercepting people's private communications may be they have not only done nothing worse than, or even as bad as the practice of the Guardian and indeed the official highest standards of the British press.

Neil Craig

  This has gone out to the Guardian editor and the PCC. If they feel capable of defending their actions i will be happy to publish.
 
   The original article mentioned was a follow up to the ITN/LM "trial" where the judge told the hury that just because everything LM said about ITN faking their "concentration camp" video was "essentially true" they should still still find for ITN (it having been previously said that these lies were justifised because they were in the "western interest". I had put in a previous complaint to the PCC saying that a Guardian claim that anybody who didn't support our Moslem Nazi friends was "anti-semitic" as breaching their rules on racism, as well as truth, but they decided that the "code's" stricture against racism and lying didn't matter either.
 
    Also to, the BBC
 
Sir,
       I note that last night the BBC gave the first half of your evening news over to the NoTW hacking scandal, heavily reported by the Guardian, and virtually the whole of Newsnight too. A total of 1 hour as opposed to 15 minutes for the rest of the universe. 
 
    I know that the BBC take no serious interest in maintaining you legal duty of "due balance" in your reportin where it involves lying or censoring to support state policy or even to promote particualr political parties or factions within parties, however this unbalanced reporting and in particular the repeated mention of the "Murdoch press" is an abuse more directly promoting BBC vested interests. The BBC is currently fighting to get the government to prevent Mr Murdoch taking full control of Sky which, while it would not give his organisation, anything close to the media semi-monopoly the BBC holds, would give you a minor but significant competitor.
 
    The conflict of interest in singling out the "Murdoch Emore" as, in some way falling short of the normal standards of the British media is disgraceful. As you know the Nazi-supporting Guardian, about which the BBC never says a rude word, also hack private communications, indeed more heinously than the NoTW.
 
     If the BBC is to achieve the "due balance" you are legally required to show you must now spend an hour on tonight or tomorrow's evening news' equally denigrating the Guardian's publication of hacked emails.
 
     I await seeing if you will demonstrate the remotest trace of integrity or whether you will continue censoring and propagandising to promote BBC fascism.

Labels: British politics, Media, Yugoslavia