Yesterday, Mon 12JUL04, BBC News Online published a story headed History spurs anti-English tirade.
The first version of the story, online for five and a half hours, was simply about a moronic tirade by a moronic councillor, thrown out of a Scottish pub for being obnoxious to English patrons during the recent England/Portugal football match.
On reading it, I wondered why such a moron was being given coverage on the BBC. What was the point of the story? It was simply “Obnoxious man behaves obnoxiously. Ends”. Embarrassing for those of us who hail from Scotland, but hardly a major news item, either in Scotland or across the UK.
Indeed, were he, say, a visiting Islamic cleric with a penchant for supporting suicide terrorism, wife-beating, gay-bashing and the murder of apostates, I expect his views would have been downplayed a bit – “Mr. Leggatt, a respected peace-loving community leader, expressed his enthusiasm for football as the English team struggled against the better armed Portuguese team, with their, according to an insider, superior American-backed* ability to kick the ball straight”. (* their coach is Brazilian after all!).
Then last night, the story was heavily amended, doubling in length to its current size. The original story ended at the “Their fans are a disgrace… Motson should be put up against the wall and shot” paragraph, followed by the paragraph about the Battle of Culloden, that now sits rather oddly further down among the newly added paragraphs.
The new paragraphs are all the stuff that should have been in the original story for it to even have qualified as a potential story – Fife Council’s reaction, codes of conduct, Commission for Racial Equality (Scotland) etc.
For good measure, although the URL shows the story is part of the BBC’s Scottish coverage, for a chunk of yesterday morning, it was listed in the England section of the UK home page, before later being moved to the Scotland section.
I wonder why the original non-story was published? What prompted it to be modified so heavily? (i.e. was the original story half-finished, or did the CRE get in on the act later?). Is any of it news (beyond the weekly free-sheet variety) anyway? How did it come to be listed under England rather than Scotland for a time yesterday?
P.S. Lest we forget that we’re really all Brits together, I
suppose
it
could
have
been
much
worse!
Off Topic:
The BBC view of the cutting back of big government:
“A bleak reading of Gordon Brown’s spending review suggests we are about to witness lines of ex-civil servants queuing up outside job centres around the country.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3889133.stm
How terrible. A massive army of wasters is going to have to go out and look for real jobs instead of leeching off of the wealth creating part of the country.
Though you can see why a BBC correspondent might find that a bleak prospect…
.
I don’t think so. 500000 extra jobs as fresh fruit coordinators since 97 to get the unemployment figures down a la Soviet planning. These 104000 jobs will be natural wastage etc – dear old Gordie with his smoke and mirrors! Check out the Adam Smith Institute blog – thay have a very good article about this.
For once the BBC was able to get the facts correct:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/geo_battle_culloden.shtml
Facts right until, that is, you look at the caption on the picture – it reads “English soldiers in close combat with an unseen enemy”.
Perhaps it should really read “A re-enactment of British government soldiers in close combat with an unseen enemy”.
Or, in current BBC-speak “British soldiers brutally oppress militant insurgents”.
Of course, someone could always e-mail Wee Wullie:
cllr.wullie.leggatt@fife.gov.uk
and set him straight.
I liked the way they called him ‘Wullie’ (like, I presume that’s what he calls himself), as if he were a knitted jumper.
A.OK
‘I wondered why such a moron was being given coverage on the BBC.’
Yea, had a similar question watching a report on the U.S. President.
Very clever a.user. There’s a bit of a difference between the President of the USA and Cllr. Wullie Leggatt’s drink-fueled football abuse, don’t you think?
I think I know both of the answers to that question. Nonetheless, do feel free to come here and debate with people, but at least try to debate the points at issue rather than wasting other people’s bandwidth with your own political prattle – if you want to do that, go set up your own blog – then your speech can be as ‘free’ as you like.