Friday, September 14, 2007
Peter Horrocks: Everyone else's Madeleine McCann coverage is biased, the BBC's isn't
Link to story
You might have thought that Peter Horrocks would have steered clear of this story on his blog on the bbc.co.uk website. The previous time he brought the subject up, most of the comments were pretty negative (my comment is #19), but this time the response was even more so.
The BBC don't appear to be using my comment, so I'll make the same points here instead.
If Peter Horrocks really thinks the BBC's coverage of this story has been up to standards, then he should resign immediately as he clearly isn't up to the job. It might have been better than GMTV's, ITV's or Sky's, but that isn't saying much and being better than third-rate competition isn't good enough for me. The BBC should be aiming to be light years ahead of that lot.
He is also deluding himself if he thinks that the BBC's coverage hasn't been biased. My comment to his post of 10 August demonstrates this. Portuguese newspapers had been carrying stories that Gerry and Kate McCann (or simply "Gerry" and "Kate" as Jane Hill likes to refer to them) were involved in their daughter's death. The Portuguese police's official spokesman (or "head of the investigation" as Hill calls him) was interviewed and said that they were "at the moment, they are victims not suspects."
The clueless BBC completely failed to understand his comment and simply lead with a "we're glad we're not under suspicion" statement from Team McCann (obviously, "we're devastated at the possibility that our daughter might be dead" took second place to "phew, they don't think it was us then").
Let's look again:
"at the moment" - i.e. for now, the situation might change [as it did]
"victims and witness, not suspects" - this reflects the formal suspect ("arguido") status in Portuguese law. Until declared a suspect, anyone involved in a case is simply a witness. This is not the same as saying that the police didn't have their suspicions about the McCanns or that they weren't following certain lines of enquiry.
Basically, the police statement merely restated the McCanns position AT THAT MOMENT - witnesses, not arguidos.
Instead of having umpteen reporters topping up their tans in Portugal, the BBC might have been better off having kept one of them back in London to follow the case and explain what this statement meant. It certainly didn't mean that the Portuguese police didn't have their suspicions about the McCanns, although the spokesman was very careful with his words.
Unlike the BBC. What didn't appear on Peter Horrocks' blog this time around relates to shockingly bad reporting last weekend, that was either sheer incompetence or a desire to follow the McCanns' agenda.
On Friday night, BBC reporter Richard Bilton voiced over a report showing Kate McCann returning for questioning that morning before being made an arguido. "We now know," declared Bilton, "that she'd already been offered a deal - admit accidentally killing Madeleine and get a two year sentence."
Except that Bilton didn't know this at all. What he had was comments from Team McCann that a deal had been offered.
The story seemed to emerge as follows:
Early in the evening, Gerry McCann's sister Phil appeared on TV as part of the British media's policy of giving Team McCann free airtime to tell us what great parents he and Kate are (leaving their children alone in the apartment every night is apparently "responsible parenting"). During this broadcast on behalf of the Team McCann Party, it was claimed that Kate McCann had been offered the aforementioned deal. This was worked up a bit by Jon Corner, another member of the Party, into something approaching a plea bargain. Yet in interviews earlier that day Corner had made no mention of the alleged deal, despite later claiming that he'd heard from Kate McCann in the early hours of the morning.
What's that about "if you fail to mention something that you then rely on in your defence"?
Bilton ran with the deal story despite it being only a claim from a source who is far from impartial. Yet, according to him, it was a FACT.
At the very least, he should have made clear that this was only a claim, but Phil McCann's previous unreliable reporting on the story makes her not just a biased source, but an unreliable one.
During an appearance on The Richard & Judy Show a few weeks earlier, Phil McCann had claimed, without ambiguity, that one of the McCanns' friends had seen Madeleine "being abducted".
This appears to be either a deliberate distortion or a misunderstanding of the evidence given by the McCanns' friend Jane Tanner.
After initially not bothering to report anything unusual, Tanner had claimed to have seen a man carrying a bundle on the night of 3 May. After a couple of interim stages, this then becomes a man carrying a blonde child wearing pink pyjamas [although Madeleine's pyjama bottoms were actually white]. Again, this is unreliable evidence and not supported by anyone else, but Phil McCann had not only repeated it, but the sighting was now definitely of Madeleine.
Clearly any claim by Phil McCann should therefore have been treated with the utmost caution, but Bilton didn't bother with that, nor did he bother checking to see if plea bargains are possible under Portuguese law (it would appear that they are not).
Although I have no way of knowing whether or not the following is true, I believe the following COULD have happened:
During her questioning, the police told Kate McCann that the minimum penalty for negligent homicide was 2 years, and that any court would look favourably on a suspect pleading guilty rather than not guilty. The sort of thing we've all seen in dozens of cop shows - tell us you did it and the court will go easier on you than if you plead not guilty.
Phil McCann then either misunderstands this or deliberately exaggerates and the plea bargain story is born, worked up a bit by another member of Team McCann.
None of this appears to have occurred to anyone at the BBC, who were happy to run with Bilton's "we know there was a deal" report for hours.
On Sunday, the News24 ticker was still showing this story, although at least it was now attributing "I was offered a deal" to a quote from Kate McCann. But even this wasn't true, as the couple's lawyer was quoted in The Observer as saying this was a "misunderstanding" during the questioning.
The BBC continued to run this story until at least 7pm on Sunday, 20 hours or so after the lawyer's quote first appeared in print. I've yet to see them retract this story, despite running it for the best part of two days.
Obviously in a fast moving story, mistakes are made, but for the BBC to run a story based on no more than a claim from one party in a story (and an unreliable one at that) is, at the very least, a demonstration of its appalling journalistic standards in this story, with a complete acceptance of Team McCann PR pieces as FACT.
Too many reporters, including the BBC's, appear to have got too caught up with Team McCann and all its hangers on and seem to have forgotten that they should be reporting impartially. Instead we get "Kate" and "Gerry", whereas mentions of the only other arguido, Robert Murat, were accompanied by that old trick of slowed down footage to make him look more sinister.
I'm not sure whether the BBC's bias is deliberate or just shoddy journalism but once this story is over the BBC needs to take a long hard look at its coverage. In the meantime, Peter Horrocks would do well to remember a certain proverb about stones and glass houses before he starts criticising other broadcasters' coverage.
Theirs might have been worse, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't put his own house in order first.
Link to story
You might have thought that Peter Horrocks would have steered clear of this story on his blog on the bbc.co.uk website. The previous time he brought the subject up, most of the comments were pretty negative (my comment is #19), but this time the response was even more so.
The BBC don't appear to be using my comment, so I'll make the same points here instead.
If Peter Horrocks really thinks the BBC's coverage of this story has been up to standards, then he should resign immediately as he clearly isn't up to the job. It might have been better than GMTV's, ITV's or Sky's, but that isn't saying much and being better than third-rate competition isn't good enough for me. The BBC should be aiming to be light years ahead of that lot.
He is also deluding himself if he thinks that the BBC's coverage hasn't been biased. My comment to his post of 10 August demonstrates this. Portuguese newspapers had been carrying stories that Gerry and Kate McCann (or simply "Gerry" and "Kate" as Jane Hill likes to refer to them) were involved in their daughter's death. The Portuguese police's official spokesman (or "head of the investigation" as Hill calls him) was interviewed and said that they were "at the moment, they are victims not suspects."
The clueless BBC completely failed to understand his comment and simply lead with a "we're glad we're not under suspicion" statement from Team McCann (obviously, "we're devastated at the possibility that our daughter might be dead" took second place to "phew, they don't think it was us then").
Let's look again:
"at the moment" - i.e. for now, the situation might change [as it did]
"victims and witness, not suspects" - this reflects the formal suspect ("arguido") status in Portuguese law. Until declared a suspect, anyone involved in a case is simply a witness. This is not the same as saying that the police didn't have their suspicions about the McCanns or that they weren't following certain lines of enquiry.
Basically, the police statement merely restated the McCanns position AT THAT MOMENT - witnesses, not arguidos.
Instead of having umpteen reporters topping up their tans in Portugal, the BBC might have been better off having kept one of them back in London to follow the case and explain what this statement meant. It certainly didn't mean that the Portuguese police didn't have their suspicions about the McCanns, although the spokesman was very careful with his words.
Unlike the BBC. What didn't appear on Peter Horrocks' blog this time around relates to shockingly bad reporting last weekend, that was either sheer incompetence or a desire to follow the McCanns' agenda.
On Friday night, BBC reporter Richard Bilton voiced over a report showing Kate McCann returning for questioning that morning before being made an arguido. "We now know," declared Bilton, "that she'd already been offered a deal - admit accidentally killing Madeleine and get a two year sentence."
Except that Bilton didn't know this at all. What he had was comments from Team McCann that a deal had been offered.
The story seemed to emerge as follows:
Early in the evening, Gerry McCann's sister Phil appeared on TV as part of the British media's policy of giving Team McCann free airtime to tell us what great parents he and Kate are (leaving their children alone in the apartment every night is apparently "responsible parenting"). During this broadcast on behalf of the Team McCann Party, it was claimed that Kate McCann had been offered the aforementioned deal. This was worked up a bit by Jon Corner, another member of the Party, into something approaching a plea bargain. Yet in interviews earlier that day Corner had made no mention of the alleged deal, despite later claiming that he'd heard from Kate McCann in the early hours of the morning.
What's that about "if you fail to mention something that you then rely on in your defence"?
Bilton ran with the deal story despite it being only a claim from a source who is far from impartial. Yet, according to him, it was a FACT.
At the very least, he should have made clear that this was only a claim, but Phil McCann's previous unreliable reporting on the story makes her not just a biased source, but an unreliable one.
During an appearance on The Richard & Judy Show a few weeks earlier, Phil McCann had claimed, without ambiguity, that one of the McCanns' friends had seen Madeleine "being abducted".
This appears to be either a deliberate distortion or a misunderstanding of the evidence given by the McCanns' friend Jane Tanner.
After initially not bothering to report anything unusual, Tanner had claimed to have seen a man carrying a bundle on the night of 3 May. After a couple of interim stages, this then becomes a man carrying a blonde child wearing pink pyjamas [although Madeleine's pyjama bottoms were actually white]. Again, this is unreliable evidence and not supported by anyone else, but Phil McCann had not only repeated it, but the sighting was now definitely of Madeleine.
Clearly any claim by Phil McCann should therefore have been treated with the utmost caution, but Bilton didn't bother with that, nor did he bother checking to see if plea bargains are possible under Portuguese law (it would appear that they are not).
Although I have no way of knowing whether or not the following is true, I believe the following COULD have happened:
During her questioning, the police told Kate McCann that the minimum penalty for negligent homicide was 2 years, and that any court would look favourably on a suspect pleading guilty rather than not guilty. The sort of thing we've all seen in dozens of cop shows - tell us you did it and the court will go easier on you than if you plead not guilty.
Phil McCann then either misunderstands this or deliberately exaggerates and the plea bargain story is born, worked up a bit by another member of Team McCann.
None of this appears to have occurred to anyone at the BBC, who were happy to run with Bilton's "we know there was a deal" report for hours.
On Sunday, the News24 ticker was still showing this story, although at least it was now attributing "I was offered a deal" to a quote from Kate McCann. But even this wasn't true, as the couple's lawyer was quoted in The Observer as saying this was a "misunderstanding" during the questioning.
The BBC continued to run this story until at least 7pm on Sunday, 20 hours or so after the lawyer's quote first appeared in print. I've yet to see them retract this story, despite running it for the best part of two days.
Obviously in a fast moving story, mistakes are made, but for the BBC to run a story based on no more than a claim from one party in a story (and an unreliable one at that) is, at the very least, a demonstration of its appalling journalistic standards in this story, with a complete acceptance of Team McCann PR pieces as FACT.
Too many reporters, including the BBC's, appear to have got too caught up with Team McCann and all its hangers on and seem to have forgotten that they should be reporting impartially. Instead we get "Kate" and "Gerry", whereas mentions of the only other arguido, Robert Murat, were accompanied by that old trick of slowed down footage to make him look more sinister.
I'm not sure whether the BBC's bias is deliberate or just shoddy journalism but once this story is over the BBC needs to take a long hard look at its coverage. In the meantime, Peter Horrocks would do well to remember a certain proverb about stones and glass houses before he starts criticising other broadcasters' coverage.
Theirs might have been worse, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't put his own house in order first.
Labels: BBC, Madeleine McCann, Peter Horrocks
