Sunday, July 20, 2003
I was running a bit behind this morning and hungry so rather than do myself some food I went to McDonalds instead (please don't be angry, I couldn't bear to think you would be disappointed in me as I contemplate my slightly higher risk of stomach cancer from eating the Bic Mac) but while I was eating I flicked idly through their copy of the News of the World.
It's not on their website but page eight is given over to moralising about the whole sorry affair of Doctor Kelly, and my eye was drawn to this paragraph:
Isn't it the BBC, and in the first instance their reporter Andrew Gilligan, who should be asking of themselves if they are the guilty ones? For ultimately it was their misuse of that gentle man that drove him to the edge.
Now, expecting fair reporting of Murdoch's empire is a waste of time. Apart from anything else he hates the BBC and the license fee that funds them. So this isn't surprising, but it is worth pointing out, as anyone who has stayed abreast of developments for the last week or so, that it was Dr Kelly that approached Gilligan initially, the Government that released his name and the Foreign Affairs Committee member who angrily called him 'chaff'. So where is the BBC's mistake? Is the News of the World suggesting that the BBC should have released his name sooner so that other journalists could start badgering him earlier over the affair?
But then, page nine has an article 'Becks in Kidnap Alert No 2':
David Beckham is the target of a sensational new security alert, just eight months after his wife and children were at the centre of a kidnap drama
A kidnap drama it was thought the News of the World had a substantial part in creating, if memory serves, when the trial of the would be kidnappers collapsed a month or two back...
It's not on their website but page eight is given over to moralising about the whole sorry affair of Doctor Kelly, and my eye was drawn to this paragraph:
Isn't it the BBC, and in the first instance their reporter Andrew Gilligan, who should be asking of themselves if they are the guilty ones? For ultimately it was their misuse of that gentle man that drove him to the edge.
Now, expecting fair reporting of Murdoch's empire is a waste of time. Apart from anything else he hates the BBC and the license fee that funds them. So this isn't surprising, but it is worth pointing out, as anyone who has stayed abreast of developments for the last week or so, that it was Dr Kelly that approached Gilligan initially, the Government that released his name and the Foreign Affairs Committee member who angrily called him 'chaff'. So where is the BBC's mistake? Is the News of the World suggesting that the BBC should have released his name sooner so that other journalists could start badgering him earlier over the affair?
But then, page nine has an article 'Becks in Kidnap Alert No 2':
David Beckham is the target of a sensational new security alert, just eight months after his wife and children were at the centre of a kidnap drama
A kidnap drama it was thought the News of the World had a substantial part in creating, if memory serves, when the trial of the would be kidnappers collapsed a month or two back...
