The obvious railroading of the case by the judge is becoming more and more obvious…
And a little reminder of why wikileaks is so important
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/#OPCW-DOUMA%20-%20Release%20Part%204
The OPCW leak was conspicuously not reported by the BBC.
The Assange extradition hearings are conspicuously not being reported by the BBC.
In another thread, you were asking what we could do.
I’m pretty useless, I’m afraid. On Thursday 23 May 2019, I complained to the BBC about their non-reporting of the OPCW leak. It was 67 days later, on Monday 29 July 2019, that the complaint reached the end of the first or second stage of a frustrating two-, three- or four-stage process, with this boilerplate reply:
We’d like to explain that there a range of factors when putting together our news bulletins including: Is it breaking news, or a dated story? Does it follow on from a recent event, or change our understanding of things? Is it unusual, or attracting national interest? We consider these things and also put great importance on verifying events and building up a clear picture - before reporting in a reliable and trustworthy way.
BBC News is independent of any political or commercial interests, and our news agenda would never be influenced by any outside organisation.
Having offered the previous response and the above, I’m afraid we cannot correspond with you further at this first stage of the complaints process. If you are still dissatisfied, you can contact the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). The ECU is stage 2 of the BBC’s complaints process. Details of the BBC complaints process are available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/ where you can read the BBC’s full complaints framework.
If you wish to contact the ECU, please write to it directly within 20 working days of receiving this reply. Please explain to it why you believe there may have been a potential breach of standards or other significant issue for it to investigate. You can email ecu@bbc.co.uk, or write to: Executive Complaints Unit, BBC, Broadcast Centre, London W12 7TQ.
Although I read the relevant documents, of which I think the most important are to be found here:
I’m ashamed to admit that, for reasons nothing to do with politics, I was too depressed and exhausted to take the complaint to the next stage before the 20-day deadline was reached. (This still rankles; I’m still kicking myself.) If I had managed to take it further, even that would probably not have been the end of the process: next would come a complaint to Ofcom.
I think the very least I can do (apart from contributing to Craig Murray’s financial support) is make a similar complaint about the BBC’s non-reporting of the hearings. I’ve been meaning to do it for days, but it almost goes without saying that I’ve been too tired and depressed to face the job! More important than my mental state, though, is the question: even though in almost all respects it is probably futile to make such a complaint, does it nevertheless serve some purpose, and wouldn’t be just awful not to even try to make the BBC live up to its professed standards?
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Writing letters to the BBC was what brought me to Media Lens in the first place. My experience was exactly the same as yours.
I’d like to continue to explore ways of making a difference with the good folk who hang out here. Maybe there are things that we can do.
Maybe…
I found Dahr Jamail’s comments on naivety over on this thread interesting, if somewhat depressing.
Thanks for your thoughts
I actually thought of quoting that passage in my post. For reference, here it is now:
Because protests weren’t doing the job. I was going to protests in Anchorage. I was doing civil disobedience. I was writing letters to senators. I was doing all these things that the dominant culture tells us that we are supposed to do if we want to affect change in a so-called democracy. And, of course, it was early on in my politicization process, so I naively still thought that that stuff was going to make a difference. Of course, it did nothing.
As I said, “in almost all respects it is probably futile”. Most importantly, by the time the BBC complaints process has lumbered to its predictably useless conclusion, Assange might already be buried alive in some hell-hole in the USA. Yesterday morning I actually had an absurd but vivid mental image of my weedy self struggling with burly police officers to physically stop them dragging him away! Of course, not only would I never attempt such a thing, but it would also be futile. Almost anything one can think of seems to come down to one of three things, (a) try to persuade someone with more power than oneself to change their mind, (b) try to use force against the might of the State (or two states, in this case), or (c) try to change public opinion. Both (a) and (b) seem utterly hopeless. (A letter to my MP about Assange last year didn’t even get a boilerplate reply.) As for (c): if the BBC were to report these hearings, then surely public opinion would change. Also, the BBC has a statutory duty to report the hearings. So I feel I have a duty to try to make them do their duty. Of course they’ll find a way to wriggle out of it, and it’ll turn out to be as hopeless as everything else, but at the very least I can make them wriggle, force them to try to defend the indefensible. Conceivably the mind of someone with a bit of influence at the BBC might be changed. Mustn’t I at least try? I cannot motivate myself (I’m really depressed about lots of things), but isn’t it at least clear that it’s the right thing to do, if I can do it? Or do you have experience of going all the way through the process, as far as Ofcom, and getting nothing but boilerplate responses the whole way? If that is what happens, if no-one at the BBC (or subcontracted to them) ever engages their mind, then perhaps the futility is absolute.
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I don’t know if any of this is still relevant. It all looks rather daunting (as I remember feeling at the time). I’ll need some more sleep and some coffee before I can even look at it again:
I read the first one and thought “right! 18 May - I could go down to London for that…”
Then I remembered that we’re almost in October! What a weird year this has been…