The BBC Blunder
As 'The Princes and the Press' draws more negative criticism, will the BBC admit their mistake?
The public have complained about the biased views portrayed in ‘The Princes and the Press’, the media have thrown knives at the BBC and the presenter (Amol Rajan), most of the contributors to the show have dissed the show and the presenter, and the Royal Family have turned their backs on the BBC due to the biased opinions presented. The question is, who actually thought it was fair and responsible reporting? Only the Sussex supporters it seems, and whoever was tasked with writing the standard letter to all the complaints they received.
I had to chuckle when I read the reply that some readers forwarded to me, because it is obvious that they are trying to justify their actions, and have claimed that BP had the opportunity to be interviewed. That’s not what they said, so who is fibbing? The podcast that was supposed to accompany the series appears to have been put ‘on hold’, probably for good, as Rajan keeps a low profile. The backlash is unanimous and is real – how will the BBC cope with Bashir 2.0? They had the opportunity to pull the show before it aired – the trailers indicated there was Sussex bias, with the addition of Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Clarence House all stating that they had not been offered an adequate right of reply to the content in the show, but they chose to back their ‘blunder boy’.
Meanwhile, the complaints continue to trickle in, and the BBC should know by now that most of the complaints that they dismissed with now find their way to Ofcom. I’m pretty sure that more than 1000 people complained about the show, or did the staff at the BBC have a case of lapsus memoriae, where they forgot to count all the complaints, only counting the ones they considered valid?
At the same time, Parliament doesn’t seem to be too happy with how the Court of Appeal handled the ANL case, although they can’t criticize the judges directly, they can slip in the fact that judges are meant to interpret the laws as Parliament intended, and that they don’t appear to have done so in this high profile case.
Will the BBC Blunder Boy return with the ill-advised podcast that seems to have died a sudden death before it even began? Surely by now, the BBC can see that supporting the Sussexes comes with the death knell? Looks like they must eat more humble pie, and while Bashirgate is still raw, they may as well add Rajangate to the blunder pile. The least they could have done was have constructed a half decent reply to the complaints, but it is they who are the losers – they have lost their respectability, and their core audience (the attempt to tempt the younger generation failed dismally). How sad and disappointing that the BBC has ended up on the ‘harkled’ heap – a victim of their own arrogance. It is apparent that their learnt little from Bashirgate.