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Utterly disgraceful and disgusting BBC interview of Jody McIntyre

Disgusted Citizen | 14.12.2010 14:07 | Repression | Social Struggles

The BBC News interviews Jody McIntyre, the man who was pulled from his wheelchair at the last fees demo.

The BBC made an utterly disgraceful interview of Jody McIntyre. Jody has cerebral palsy, has limited use of his arms and legs, and needs to pushed in his wheelchair. The interviewer is Ben Brown.

The interviewer repeatedly badgers Jody McIntyre and implies that he was - could possibly be - a physical threat to a line of riot police in riot gear. The interviewer implies that he may be responsible for being pulled from his wheelchair and dragged along the ground by a policeman. It's sickening.

The interview is here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXNJ3MZ-AUo&feature=player_embedded

----------------------------
COMPLAIN HERE:

The BBC Complaints page, which is here:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/

Ben Brown is also a member of the National Union of Journalists. The contact page for them is here:

 http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=73

And finally OFCOM:

 http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/tv-and-radio/a-specific-programme/

Disgusted Citizen
- Homepage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXNJ3MZ-AUo&feature=player_embedded

Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

This is the unreality of the BBC

14.12.2010 14:36

Jody is immensely articulate and shames the BBC coverage. The thing is this is standard BBC misbehaviour, not an isolated incident, just like it isn't 'one bad cop' who'll never be charged. Next time you see a BBC face in a crowd, bear this interview in mind. Make the streets of Britain a no-go area for the state propagandists.

Danny


Actually-

14.12.2010 17:09

Fair enough interview:
the questions asked were defended and deflected in line with a person with nothing to hide.
The police are made to look really really poor and the questions posed by the interviewer ensured that the excuses they made/will make for their actions were put to him for comment to…be rigorously defended making the police look very very bad…

It will and has been implied that this incident is the fault of the victim. The interviewer asked the questions that allowed him to answer his detractors.

James Sinclaire.


TARGET THE POLICE AND BBC

14.12.2010 17:15

TAKE ACTION NOW!

A


@James

14.12.2010 19:02

Really, you think the interview was fair? How can you not see that this is a biased and offensive line of questioning from the start?

"These pictures APPEAR to show Jody MacIntyre..being dragged out his wheelchair"
Appear? I can't remember the BBC saying these pictures +appear+ to show the Royal Car being attacked.

"There is a suggestion that you were rolling towards the police in your wheelchair, is that true?"
What's the relevance of that question James? Is rolling in a wheelchair an act of violent provocation deserving of a beating?

Danny


jody is a legend.

14.12.2010 19:20

yh he fuckin is! alot of anger towards the bbc, tories will go after them next and then we will learn the value of having the bbc. wish they had some guts over there in white city tho.

the anonny mouse


more details please

15.12.2010 00:47

i certainly want to complain, but i don't know the exact date this was broadcast, can anyone clarify? i'm assuming this was from bbc news 24?

i actually think jody would make a great spokesperson, his media skills are top notch, and it enabled him to stay focussed on his messaging whilst highlighting the absurdity of some of the questioning. it's unsurprising, but it was biased to the point of being ludicrous. the imperious and disdainful intonation i'd expect from someone like brown, but questions like "were you throwing missiles at the police?" and "were you rolling towards the police?" to a cerebral palsy sufferer who has limited use of his arms, and using the fact jody had used the term 'revolutionary' on his blog as a precedent for police to attack him would be laughable if it weren't so outrageously offensive.

i hope a lot of people complain about this and support jody by keeping his case against the police as high profile as possible.

anon_33


Bollocks for Brains Chumps!

15.12.2010 01:08

The BBC will always do this type of thing.

They have been doing this for years. Its all part of speaking truth to...an invisible non existent audience. The idea is that the interview is coached in a manner that the viewer is encouraged to believe that the "normal" audience is aggressive, juvenile, attention-deficit and inclined toward being right wing in outlook. Each member of the public sits in their living room thinking they are special for being outraged but are disinclined to speak out because they think they will be "going against the normal view". Its all psychological and is something the BBC and its elitist chronies are very proud of. Psychological control over the people in return for government and corporate favours and behind the scenes bungs in future.

Its all part of the BBC "newspeak" agenda and is all part of keeping the people under control by dissolving state propaganda with "impartial" broadcasting.

When challenged they start spouting guff about balanced reporting and "putting the facts first". Its utter tosh and piffle.

The BBC is the British state broadcaster. Its function is to exercise government control. Its why you go to prison if you do not pay the state for the pleasure of being "exposed" to it.

The BBC is psychological warfare against the people.

Whenever there is a terrible event manufactured by some government, the BBC are immediately on the case lining up government spokespeople to churn out their propaganda so they can "call in the favours" a little while later in private.

You will NEVER GET A FAIR DEAL from the BBC! they are not there to be fair to you. They are there to hijack you and to make a public spectacle of you.

Longbow


No big deal - this is a standard interviewing practice

15.12.2010 03:08

I saw the interview and Jody did come across very well, but this kind of questioning where they almost accuse you of doing something bad is just standard journalistic interviewing practice. No need to get worked up about it.

If anything it works in your favour because some Daily Mail readers might have been watching thinking maybe he had some fireworks stashed in his wheel chair or was ramming into the cops or whatever. By directly asking him this question and allowing him to answer it, they remove this doubt and allow the audience to realise this wasn't actually the case. It isn't anything personal or sinister, it's similar to legal adversarial questioning. You just have to remember this and keep your cool.

If the media really wanted to cover this up they would have just not mentioned the incident at all. The BBC and other media have their faults (e.g. showing photos inviting people to grass up protesters) and for this they deserve severe retaliation, but this incident isn't worth worrying about.

There was another student representative on some show (can't remember the link or who it was) and he came across very well too. They kept trying to get him to "condemn the violence against the police" and he was brilliant at refusing to fall into the trap of doing this, and pointing out the real violence was being done by the government and the police.

anon


@Anon & Anon_33

15.12.2010 12:23

Anon,
To dismiss this as 'adversarial questioning' would be fine if the BBC also employed adversarial questioning against police spokesmen or politicians. They do not. Various university studies of media coverage of the run-up to the Iraq invasion show that the BBC had a much higher ratio of pro-war rather than pro-peace than any other TV channel. Even this year, the BBC website carries the official US explanation of two massacres of civilians while ignoring the exposes in the Times by journalist Jerome Starkey that prove that they were massacres and cover-ups. In such a fashion the BBC consistently rewrites history and manipulates public opinion rather than informing it.

Anon_33,
 kevin.bakhurst@bbc.co.uk
Kevin Bakhurst is the controller of the BBC News Channel and the BBC News at One and the deputy head of the BBC Newsroom, and he invited comments on the MacIntyre interview so feel free to let him know how you feel, just don't expect that your complaint will be taken seriously.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/12/interview_with_jody_mcintyre.html

MediaLens, whose alerts are often posted here, do a great job in analysing and challenging media bias. Their message board as many comments on the MacIntyre interview, starting with the comment "nice to see this young protester give the BBC man a going over".
 http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/

Danny


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