One morning in February 1982 I turned on BBC Radio 4 and was unsurprised when it led an item to do with the Press Complaints Commission.
Some nine months previously THE TIMES lead story read “The Roman Catholics
buried Robert Sands yesterday as Protestants lamented their 2,000 dead from 12
years of Terrorism……..the 2,000 victims of his (Sands’) collaborators….”. . I had
telephoned the paper and spoken to its Managing Editor to advise him that the total
number of people killed in the conflict, including Catholics, was about 2,000 and that
the killers included Crown Forces and Loyalist Protestant paramilitary forces as well
as Republican paramilitaries. Getting no satisfaction from that Gentleman and Scholar
(an ex Officer and Balliol graduate) I had complained to the Press Council.
After writing about twice a week to the Council it grudgingly censured THE TIMES
and its adjudication was released for publication that very day. A Mr. McDermott in
Paris had independently complained to the Press Council about the paper’s “mistake.”
But that was not the subject of the BBC bulletin. Two tabloids had just published photographs
of an attractive young pregnant woman on a beach. She had been had been very publicly married about seven months. There was nothing indecorous nor scandalous about it. But Buckingham Palace had immediately complained to the Press Council.
I bought THE TIMES that day and it carried the Press Council adjudication. But not a
single British paper did.
That evening I turned on ITV and witnessed TIMES EDITOR Harold Evans being
hailed as EDITOR OF THE YEAR by his fellow editors including an old fellow traveler
of mine on the Hill of Howth tram, the Editor-in-Chief of THE OBSERVER, Conor
Cruise O’Brien.
Whilst the British Government is complicit in the genocide in Gaza the British media
are as cowardly as ever.
are as cowardly as ever.
Part 2 will follow shortly
In 1982 THE PRESS COUNCIL was the supposed custodian of press ethics.
The BBC led with the story of the BIKINI clad pregnant Princess Diana.
Fair play to you, some of the fairy tales told by the English media about the conflict were and still are incredible. I complained to Simon Jenkins a few years ago after he wrote an article putting the boot into Gerry Adams over his lack of input to the peace process whilst heaping praise on Hume and Trimble. To be fair to him he did reply, not sure now what rationale he gave but it was a typically British myopic view of the Irish situation.
For the first time since the Flight of the Earls in 1607 the aboriginal inhabitants of Ulster have a share in
its running, Hume and Trimble together could not have managed that, Seamus Mallon asked Tony Blair
why he talked with Republicans and was told it was because they had Guns. REALPOLITIK FOR SLOW LEARNERS. Adams, Martin McGuinness and the Republican leaders proved constructive
statesmen. Simon Jenkins is not too bright. He predicted the demise of Sinn Fein and the the
political burying of Gerry Adams after 9/11. Most British commentators and cartoonists are in a time
warp.