BBC Employees Upset?


marshac
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BBC employee criticised after PRs hand deliver Mormon documentary complaint | Media | guardian.co.uk

The member of staff is understood to have allowed two representatives from the PR and lobbying firm APCO Worldwide, which represents the Mormon church into the BBC Media Centre at White City. One of the PRs was said to be James Acheson-Gray, APCO's managing director.

They approached Lucy Hetherington, the series editor of the BBC2 This World current affairs documentary strand, and took the unusual step of delivered a letter in person complaining about The Mormon Candidate, made by reporter John Sweeney, which is to be broadcast on Tuesday evening.

So two people show up to delivery a complaint letter... which is then described thusly

"I was flabbergasted that the PR operation for the Mormon church found it necessary to invade our office. Even Scientology didn't invade the offices of the BBC and people say they can walk through walls."

A journalist should know better than to describe what happened as an invasion-

in·vade/inˈvād/

Verb:

(of an armed force or its commander) Enter (a country or region) so as to subjugate or occupy it: "Iraq's intention to invade Kuwait".

Enter (a place, situation, or sphere of activity) in large numbers, esp. with intrusive effect.

Yeah... sensationalism at its best. Clearly this guy has an ax to grind against the church- especially with his comparison to scientology. It's possible i'm missing something here (more facts perhaps?), but I just don't get it...

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The BBC did a rather scathing expose of Scientology some time ago. That particular group tends to defend itself rather enthusiastically. My guess is that the comparison had more to do with that recent history, than with any theological similarities.

This is yellow journalism at its worst. The attempt is to draw a line of similarity between Scientology and the LDS Church. The very idea of delivering a letter of complaint constituting an "invasion" is so preposterous that it gives any fair-minded person insight into the true nature of what they are doing. Such people disgust me.

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Describing a letter delivery as an invasion is kind of like describing an interview that you granted in your own office as an ambush.

Why? If you invite someone into your office for an interview and they proceed in a manner utterly unlike what they had represented beforehand, you don't think that might fairly be described as an "ambush"?

Now, in what possible sense does delivering a letter to an office constitute an "invasion"?

The two are not comparable.

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This is yellow journalism at its worst. The attempt is to draw a line of similarity between Scientology and the LDS Church. The very idea of delivering a letter of complaint constituting an "invasion" is so preposterous that it gives any fair-minded person insight into the true nature of what they are doing. Such people disgust me.

I'm boycotting BBC news unless they decide to issue an apology.

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Why? If you invite someone into your office for an interview and they proceed in a manner utterly unlike what they had represented beforehand, you don't think that might fairly be described as an "ambush"?

Now, in what possible sense does delivering a letter to an office constitute an "invasion"?

The two are not comparable.

I've never considered Elder Holland a coward to tough or hard questions. If he described it as an ambush, I'm thinking some kind of misrepresentation happened.

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This is yellow journalism at its worst. The attempt is to draw a line of similarity between Scientology and the LDS Church.

I'm not endorsing the BBC's reaction or tactics. On the other hand, the organization was not saying the two religions are similar. Rather, they were communicating their sense of de ja vu at once again being pressured for broadcasting a negative documentary about a religious group. Scientology has a reputation for pushing back hard--I'm guessing they did not expect any from LDS, and were surpised when they got some.

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I'm boycotting BBC news unless they decide to issue an apology.

I wouldn't bother. The BBC News section of the BBC website gets ~14,000,000 unique visitors each week, so unless it caused a global outcry (unlikely, seeing as only the guardian have published anything at all about this), it's not going to hurt them.

Besides, this is the guardian we are talking about that pubished this. They are almost as bad as the daily mail (and well known for) when it comes to sensationalism, yet funnily enough, those are two of the most linked to British news websites from this forum.

Edited by Mahone
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I wouldn't bother. The BBC News section of the BBC website gets ~14,000,000 unique visitors each week, so unless it caused a global outcry (unlikely, seeing as only the guardian have published anything at all about this), it's not going to hurt them.

Besides, this is the guardian we are talking about that pubished this. They are almost as bad as the daily mail (and well known for) when it comes to sensationalism, yet funnily enough, those are two of the most linked to British news websites from this forum.

It is not that big of leap for me since I don't go to their site anyway.

I don't think a global outcry would be necessary to cause damage, just a Latter-day Saint one. It won't happen but it would hurt them.

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My only response, is that we Mormons should prepare for a bajillion gazillion more incidents just like this, happening everywhere, all the time.

You might as well be civil and take the high road and not be offended, because otherwise you'll have to clone yourself a hundredfold just to have enough bandwidth to be properly outraged at every instance.

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