Insulting a white sports star OK on the BBC?
Now if she had been a homosexual or a Muslim or a black .....
"Olympic swimming champion Rebecca Adlington [above] has formally complained to the BBC that it let comedian Frankie Boyle off with 'a slap on the wrist' over jokes that caused her deep hurt. The double gold medal winner at last year's Beijing Olympics has demanded an explanation from the BBC Trust over why it chose not to punish the comic for 'outrageous' slurs that left her 'humiliated'.
During an episode of BBC2's satirical show Mock the Week last year, soon after Miss Adlington's Olympic triumph, Boyle said she resembled 'someone looking at themselves in the back of a spoon' and followed up with sexual innuendo.
The comments sparked 75 complaints, but although the BBC Trust criticised 37-year-old Boyle and agreed that his remarks were unfair and offensive it took no further action such as barring him from its programmes for a period....
Miss Adlington's manager Rob Woodhouse said last night: 'The BBC needs to take more responsibility for the people it employs to ensure that they uphold the highest of standards. To say what Frankie Boyle did about Rebecca, who was only 19 at the time, was disgusting....
The BBC Trust said last night it had received Miss Adlington's letter and would consider it, but added: 'At this stage we have no plans to review the finding'.
Source
15 comments:
Not much help for the lady, but it might be of some comfort that I don't know anybody that watches BBC.
"Now if she had been a homosexual or a Muslim or a black ....."
..... The article on this blog would have ridiculed her for having no sense of humor and blog commentators would have blamed homosexuals or Muslims or Blacks in general for their over protected status.
Why do I get the feeling that you support the idea of punishing Frankie Boyle even more? All he did was tell a few jokes for God's sake!
And by the way, I bet 75 complaints is below average when it comes to late night shows with comedians in them...
I'd hit that!
Larry - so the people you know are a good cross-section of the world population? You do know that BBC tv channels are seen globally? - or perhaps you don't.
The people Larry knows are probably typical Americans who prefer to watch only American tv as they are immersed in their own cultural bubble and find foreign accents and foreign ways too alien, even if American tv is mostly adverts that fragment the news, discussions and other shows into disjointed segments.
Where did I say anything about the quality of the cross section?
The bright people I know don't watch much television at all, and wouldn't watch BBC unless they wanted to see if people are allowed to be at home with their children, or has that problem been solved?
American tv news is extremely parochial, almost on the trivial level, and if it ever goes outside the US it is entirely angled at how that news relates to the US or affects the US.
One would also think that only US troops were involved in Afghanistan and that policy in that war was entirely a US one, whereas (of course) it is a NATO operation, where other countries have lost soldiers in proportional degrees. There is never a mention of them!
Someone told me that according to a survey 'The Daily Show' was the number one news source among Americans under 25, and it ranked quite high in other demographics as well. Now I've only seen that show once but that was enough to convince me it's not a good source of information =). If I was American I'd be worried that someone actually lists it as a news source in a survey...
BBC generally has good news coverage on international matters. They cover a lot more subjects and have more variability than American channels. It's probably because of the whole Empire thing and the fact that BBC is followed globally.
But to really get an idea of what's going on one needs to look even further. French public national media has good coverage as well and because of their opposite stance on many issues they offer something different to the mix. Al Jazeera is also worthwhile.
So basically local national media with CNN, Fox News, BBC News, France24, Le Monde (leftist) and Al Jazeera and you're good to go.
Anon 3:53: "One would also think that only US troops were involved in Afghanistan and that policy in that war was entirely a US one, whereas (of course) it is a NATO operation, where other countries have lost soldiers in proportional degrees. There is never a mention of them!"
And do you think the fact that the US has more troops involved than the rest of NATO combined has anything to do with that? Or maybe because the US is about to double the number of soldiers we have committed in Afghanistan. But maybe your right, maybe news about the war should be slanted to the 350 solders Norway has in the ground in Afghanistan?
"slanted"? Why not "balanced" to mention some of the other countries contributing, and whose soldiers are also dying.
The population of Norway is only 4 million and the population of the US is about 260 million. Should Norway find the same number of soldiers and support as the US? And the other countries in NATO are similarly much smaller than the US.
8:10AM You just relect the arrogance and self-absobed mentality of Americans!
It's not about the size of the US contribution (which should correspond to the country's size and resources), it's about the attitude of the US media and public that only the US matters. In other words - yes - totally self-absorbed!
I wonder how much mention there is of the American contribution ins say, France (more lately), Norway, and all.
And I wonder where the notion comes from that Americans are getting credit for anything but murder and mayhem from the press here came from.
For obvious reasons American affairs are covered in depth in the media of other NATO countries and their public is generally very well informed on all that goes on in the States, whether politics, celebrities or whatever.
Post a Comment