17 February 2010

Newswipegate - An update

After yesterday's post - and the censorship of a Starsuckers clip that was due to go out after the NOTW/Terry segment, an update has been published today on the Starsuckers blog.

It provides a fantastic timeline of the events surrounding the News of the World, and its attempts to censor information from the British public.

This is a very interesting section -

-Last week we were told categorically that the Starsuckers piece would be in Tuesdays Newswipe

-On the day of transmission we were told by the production team that the segment had been cut for pressures of time, just hours before broadcast.

-Further calls elsewhere in the BBC told us that the segment was cut as it was fraught with legal problems and that the beeb did not want a lengthy battle with News International, a view further supported by messages we have received once it kicked off on Twitter.

-Since then we've had categorical denials of this from several members of the Newswipe team and from Brooker himself (someone who I greatly admire). Brookers tweet suggests that they may use the piece in the future, which will now have to be in the next series. This seems unlikely given that it's a topical news program and that the next series will be going out nearly a year after the original story.

-I have learned that doll in Adam Curtis' short was deliberately blacked out as a form of protest against the BBC for blanking out practically every other face in the doc.

Make your own mind-up. Not seen the film - so can't wait to watch it and the banished clip - but banning anything because you don't want the public to see your true values and principles is worse than John Terry and Ashley Cole put together. Imagine that, would that make the front page?

No comments:

Post a Comment