Afterthoughts

 

Whatever you might think of his campaign (and I don't support it), anti-lockdown activist Professor Richard Ennos told an interesting anecdote this week about an encounter with a BBC reporter back in April:

The first time I ever spoke...I went along to a meeting which was of concerned people which was in April and it was at Holyrood Park and it had already been smeared by the Scottish government. The First Minister had said that people shouldn't go along, it would just be a load of anti-vaxxers, etc. Anyhow I went along and I had to speak because there was no one else there to speak, and I said my piece. I was critical of the BBC at that time. There was a BBC reporter there who came up to me afterwards and they said, "I'm sorry. I work for the BBC and I need to keep my job. I can't report what you've just said. I've been sent along here to get pictures of you not socially distancing so that we can smear you, and that if that goes any further, above that, I won't get my report through".

He added:

I can't reveal who they are. That's off the record, and I guess I don't want to damage their career. 

It certainly would damage their career. They'd be out of the door quicker than you can say 'Naga Munchetty'.

The contrasting ways in which the BBC reports protests merits serious study. 

What would a truly open-minded, genuinely impartial study of the way the BBC has, for example, covered protests by Extinction Rebellion, anti-lockdown campaigners, Black Lives Matter, and anti-illegal immigration activists on the Channel coast reveal? 

Having heard more than enough already, I can very easily guess.