The Beeb, the Archbishop and the Media Feeding Frenzy
Wardman Wire has done a forensic job in pointing out that the BBC, both online and in news headlines, trailed the interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the World at One in sensationalist and misleading terms, i.e. his giving assent to the view that accepting the rule of Shariah law in some parts of Britain was “inevitable”. This was a complete distortion of what the ABC actually said on Thursday, 7th February, either in his interview or his speech later on that evening. There is good evidence that the BBC therefore set the tone for the tabs, the Sundays and the broadsheets. (Of which more, hopefully, later.) It also tells us something about the need for responsible reporting in the light of the 17,000 complaints the Beeb received in the subsequent twenty-four hours that were hostile to its original misrepresentation.
Sunny Hundal of Pickled Politics has rightly written to the Corporation to complain. Perhaps we ought to write too.
