Sidling Round the Subject of Fakery

No one should doubt that truth hurts the BBC. In the matter of framing photos, faking photos, carrying partial views, the BBC have been taking some hits recently. From posing little kids beside bombs, to claiming whole towns destroyed while shielding the viewer from untouched areas, to admitting basically that they accepted without demurr limitations imposed on them by terrorist minders.

Now the Beeb sigh a world weary sigh and say they’ve seen/heard it all before. This article is a classic in the Ecclesiastical genre that’s pulled out whenever the Beeb come under fire for declining standards- “there is nothing new under the sun”.

In doing so, much to my irritation, they compare apples with pears and oranges, claiming equivalence (implicitly) between the kind of thing that’s been in the news recently concerning posing with babies and children in bombed out buildings, and the iconic shot at Iwo Jima.

The thing is, I implacably disagree with the writer’s view that “In some ways it does offend sensibilities that we may have been gently hoodwinked.”

For one thing I hate insincere writing- who exactly is “we” in this instance? For another: No, I rather enjoy entering into the spirit of patriotic photography. I despise the antics entertained by the BBC and others during Hezbollywood’s extravanganza.