Dear Mr Sucker,
Thank you for contacting us about our coverage of (insert relevant topic).Please accept our apologies for the delay in sending this boilerplate reply. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response but we prefer wait till they’ve lost interest. BBC News is aware of (insert issue.) We have looked into the matter ourselves and on this occasion we didn’t consider it merited a complaint.Your complaint has been included in our overnight report of audience feedback. Please be assured that it has been disregarded.Thank you again for raising this matter.Yours sincerely,
BBC Complaints
The BBC is having you on! Do they expect you to believe that codswallop?
“BBC News is aware of the video material said to show Mr Hussen at a rally in 2012 and we have looked into the matter ourselves.”
Like anyone else who happened to be awake and conscious at the time, BBC News is aware of that video, but “We didn’t consider it merited a report on its own”.
What? When the BBC had spent hours on end blanket-covering a parliamentary hearing in which Hussen, Fahmida Aziz, Sahima Begum and Solicitor Tasnime Akunjee sat before Keith Vaz accusing the police, the school and everyone but themselves for the baffling defection from the Bethnal Green Academy of ‘the three girls’ as they made their way to Syria to become Jihadi brides?
What? When the BBC considered that
Syria girls: Families 'cannot stop crying’ (22nd Feb)
Tracking Britain’s Jihadists (25th March)
Syria girls: Shamima Begum used older sister's passport (23 February)
did merit reports “on their own”?
It seems impossible to believe that this important revelation, which made fools of everyone concerned, and which made the headlines on every conceivable news organ imaginable, the Daily Mail, the Spectator, The Express, and oh, I can’t be bothered to list them all, didn’t “merit” a mention on one of the BBC’s millions of portals or whatever you call them? Not even on days ‘one, two, miss-a-few, ninety nine, one hundred’?
“but it was included in a TV piece due to run on the evening of Friday, March 27th. Unfortunately, because of other news priorities, including the court verdict in the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher case, it didn’t make it to air. “
How unfortunate. Unfortunate? It was a bit more than unfortunate. It was unbelievable. Preposterous.
What kind of fools do they take you (us) for? Did they think you’d be fobbed off with that excuse, that some unsensational news about Amanda Knox whose fate, let’s face it, most people had long since ceased to care about was more important than the BBC’s total character misjudgment of the Hussen family and that dodgy solicitor?
It reminds me of this. "Something more important" happened, therefore we missed it out - and the next day and the day after that? !
Come off it.
That boilerplate thing they do is rude and very, very patronising. The ubiquitous apology for the delay with no explanation.
“Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and are sorry you’ve had to wait on this occasion.”
On this occasion? These occasions are more than commonplace. They’re the norm. Why does there need to be a delay?
“Your complaint has been included in our overnight report of audience feedback that is sent to news teams and senior management within BBC News. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure that your complaint has been seen by the right people quickly.Thank you again for raising this matter.
Who are these ‘right people’? Name one. Get one to respond!!
Splendid & stirring stuff Sue - keep it coming!
ReplyDeleteJeremy
I've just noticed Guido Fawkes is showing a clip in which a member of Miliband's entourage throws a cameraman filming her leader to the ground. The attack appeared to be unprovoked. &, given the weight of even modern cameras, his landing must have been very painful. My point is that this is yet another instance of suppressio veri by the BBC - can anyone doubt tthat, if the perpetrator had been a Tory, this would have been a major item on the 6pm news? As it is, there has been no mention.
ReplyDeleteI've just noticed Guido Fawkes is showing a clip in which a member of Miliband's entourage throws a cameraman filming her leader to the ground. The attack appeared to be unprovoked. &, given the weight of even modern cameras, his landing must have been very painful. My point is that this is yet another instance of suppressio veri by the BBC - can anyone doubt tthat, if the perpetrator had been a Tory, this would have been a major item on the 6pm news? As it is, there has been no mention.
ReplyDeleteThe expression 'played for fools' springs to mind here too.
ReplyDeleteMore than a worry who is doing the playing, given who are the unwilling fools.
These templates propping up the inexcusable will one day come back to haunt them.
The Sykes Principle in effect, I'm afraid, Sue. Well said, though.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sue for putting it how it is !!! We had five years of this treatment from the BBC ( see some examples on netanyalynette.blogspot.co.il ) but if more people got involved in challenging them they would be forced to capitulate .
ReplyDelete