Sinead Rocks, editor of Newsround, the BBC’s new service for children, has written about the ongoing controversy over BBC Newsround’s 9/11 Guide on the BBC Editors Blog.
Unfortunately she hasn’t addressed the issues I raised in my blog post late last night, opting instead to confuse matters further.
I’ve posted the following comment on her blog post at 2.30pm today:
Sinead, your response to recent complaints about CBBC Newsround’s 9/11 ‘Guide’ is far from adequate.
There are a number of questions about CBBC’s coverage and your response that I’ve asked about at Biased BBC (see here, here and here for specific posts, including the original content of your CBBC pages).
I emailed you last night to alert you to my blog post and these questions about your respoonse, and invited you to give a full, honest and public account about when these pages were really written, when they were really last updated and when they were really last reviewed, and to explain, if they were supposed to have been purged from your system, when was that supposed to have happened, and who’s at fault for Newsrounds’s failure to purge the pages.
Unfortunately, it seems that you’re trying to fob off tellytaxpaying parents again without giving us a full and proper explanation.
Even more curiously, having retrieved the original guide on 11SEP2007, watched it disappear on 12SEP2007 (page not found) to reappear as a sanitised single page version, it now seems today that the 11SEP2007 guide version is back online (compare with versions retrieved from Google’s cache at Biased BBC) – or is it still not fully purged from your systems (even though the timestamps have been updated to say 12SEP2007)?
What gives?
Let’s see if it gets published, and whether or not we get any clearer response about just what CBBC Newsround thinks it’s doing.
Excellent.
My gob is truly smacked. The power of the web.
I think, with a few tweaks, the answer provided is based on the same template they used to a complaint I made about a competition on Working Lunch last year. And for BBC Breakfast dropping one line in three of a opinion to make yes into no. And..
‘No it wasn’t. If it was it didn’t really matter. If it did matter we’re not really sorry but we won’t do it again. And if we do, who really gives a…?”
I can see no excuse for this happening in the first place, being allowed to stay as long as it did, or any aspect of the defence/justification that is now being attempted (Quick, how did we get out of the Newsnight thing? Get the manual!)
Beyond the horrible effect this has on an already dire level of credibility, there still seems no appreciation at any level that as a business/corporation, a considered complaint is the most valuable thing you will ever get, and should be treated as such with all the respect it deserves.
Not a cookie-cutter fob-off like this. Especially with so many gaping holes to be shot through, as already highlighted.
When do we get the senior guys (who do what, exactly?) rolled out for a day to say that: ‘some untrained (why?), unusupervised (why?) staff made a small boo-boo of little import, and we’re looking into sending out a memo about training sessions in not making fiction out of fact’.
Just when is anyone going to be held to account in an effective manner? Until they are, there is simply no reason why this stuff will not get repeated.
No matter what truths you put to the BBc, they will simply ignore it. They live in a different Universe (The Universe of the Guardian reader) and that does not relate in any way to the real world.
What it does show is just how crap the BBC is and how we can’t even trust them to get the most basic facts right.
I just wish I had a name like Sinead Rocks.
I’ve complained to the BBC before about the extreme right-on outlook of CBBC and got the brush off.
I’ve got a young son and it seems that the only choice for him is braindead american cartoons on all the digital channels (ITV has cancelled kid’s TV as unprofitable) or lefty indoctrination from the BBC.
He deserves better.
Rockall, you’ll probably find that DVDs of stuff from when we were young will go down a storm with your little nipper – there’s a ton of great stuff available for different age groups, for example:
– Mary, Mungo & Midge (complete with excellent Richard Baker narration);
– The Sooty Show (Sweep the wonder dog gets them every time);
– Rainbow (with Zippy, Bungle, Rod, Jane & Freddy);
– Trumpton, Chigley & Camberwick Green;
– Magic Roundabout;
– Ivor the Engine;
– The Wombles;
– Rentaghost;
…and so on (I’m sure others will come to mind) – that way you know what they’re getting (no ads, no call in phone lines, no PC crap, clear diction and so on!) and the content is great quality (which is much more important than having it in the digital hi-def surround sound technology that the BBC always seems desperate to push).
Sadly it doesn’t look likes there’s any going back to Newsround a la John Craven – so much better than the current glitzy version.
A couple of oldies but goodies that I yearn to see on DVD are Johnny Ball’s ‘Think’ series (various versions) and, so help me, Rod Hull and Emu’s Broadcasting Company…
i dont get it – the page blaming America for 9/11 is still up there!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1610000/newsid_1612600/1612612.stm
here’s another one to add to “plumber”, “militant” , “activist”, “misguided criminals” :
armed people
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1610000/newsid_1612600/1612612.stm
Archduke, that’s the new stealth edited version of the page (at least the one I’m seeing) – timestamp says May 4th 2006 on it – i.e. a stealth edit, natch.
If it’s the original page it’ll look like the screenshot I posted.
The new version still leaves a lot to be desired, but at least it’s not as bad as the original version.
Andrew,
John Craven is still doing Newsround, only it’s called Countryfile now. “Hello, children, here’s a butterfly…”
We got out a video of the Goodies, sat down with the children to watch it and died a thousand deaths at how AWFUL it was!
“Al-Qaeda hopes its attacks will make Western countries treat Muslims differently in areas like the Middle East, the Balkans and Chechnya .”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_2520000/newsid_2529200/2529243.stm
What bilge – you couldn’t make it up. Well I guess you could if you were a Beeboid reading the latest Seumas Milne column whilst enjoying a latte at a north London cafe.
Chuffer
You are correct about the Goodies, I fear. Young Miss Deschain is something of a Bill Oddie fan from the Springwatch programmes so it seemed a good idea to get hold of a “Best of the Goodies CD”. The CD had to be quietly “lost” when she came down the stairs singing “I’ve thrown up over Indians, I’ve thrown up over Jews”. Mrs Deschain was not happy.
Sometimes we look back at programmes of our youth through rose-tinted spectacles, Andrew.
Apology ‘retracted’ it seems….
Appropriate language
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/09/appropriate_language.html
Seems to me ‘Newsround’ is geared to the seven and under crowd not twelve year olds.
I am quite sure our President has never said ‘aeroplane’ in his entire life. On this side of the pond they are ‘airplanes’.
I note there is no mention of the heroic efforts of the passengers of flight 93 – the plane just ‘crashed’.
Apology ‘retracted’ it seems….
Appropriate language
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ theed…e_language.html
Ritter | 13.09.07 – 2:59 pm | #
Please tell me that there is a rational explanation for all this???! Are they trying to commit institutional hari-kiri? Or is it that in this Memorex-ediited age truth not only doesn’t need to be answered, but even get considered as an aspect of coherent societal behaviour?
I had to write, mosly as a plea to recognise what is being done to the BBC that I have valued so much all my life:
‘There’s no event in a brewery the shambolic clowns running this show couldn’t organise.
For heaven’s sake, guys, the corporation’s reputation is hanging by a thread already and THIS is the best you can do by way of handling what is another very bad situation, much less addressing the culture that creates it ???!
Whatever one may think, say or throw toys around about Biased BBC, those who run it and contribute usually do so on the basis of fact, with clear, attributable links. And too often the ‘dismiss them, they are beneath us’ (or, if you prefer, unreasoned rants) comments seem to be issued from the BBC’s bowels…. unless you can prove otherwise.
And, may I remind you, they are not a national, publicly funded media organisation who seem to have trouble with how reality gets portrayed these days. Or, if challenged, fail to come up with pretty convincing stuff in defence of their claims.
So as it seems they have the reputation to ask good questions that get answered quicker than others, I’d really like to hear what you have to say in response to Post 5.
Almost none of what I read from Ms. Rocks can be explained away by what I have also read in Andrew’s links.
Please, no more bunker mentality.’