I have now been a journalist 40 years ago. The forces ranged against my profession that was not very strong George Monte
R.I joined the BBC on the first day of the professional press – 40 years ago this week – it cannot be recognized today. Whereas, in most of its history, the company had greatly defended the status quo, under the general manager at that time, Asir Millen, sometimes allowed its journalists to stick to power. This, I think, is what the press should do – and rarely do.
As a student, I was giving up the doors of the BBC’s natural history, and insisted on having a large gap in its coverage: investigative environmental reports. If they took me, I got, I can help them fill it. The phone rang while I was leaving the house for one of the final tests. He was the head of the unit, saying: “You are very continuous, I got the job.”
My direct manager, the head of the radio, ordered me to “get bastards”. Investigating journalists were more free after that. It was easier to obtain permission to create a fake company, put it as a buyer and penetrate criminal networks and unethical companies.
We broke some big stories. On one occasion, we collected strong evidence indicating that the oil leakage ship on a sensitive coast has been intentionally. This program won the Sony Award. On the other hand, I had the head of customs in Abidjan, on Ivory Coast, and offered to sell me the chimpanzee for experiments. He was holding and felt in particular: we can see the difference we spoke. This was all I wanted to do at all, and I thought I was prepared for life.
On January 29, 1987, a disaster was struck. The BBC investigations had angered the Tatcher government, especially Secret community The series, which revealed secret decisions and the hard -line Panorama Mail program, claiming the distant right -wing views of the senior conservatives (who denied). The BBC Council forced the resignation of Al -Assad Millen. The next day, when my manager came to the office, he told me: “That’s all. No more investigative press.” How can you get the press if you are not an investigation, it has been received. “Don’t tell I Which – which. It comes from the top.
It was not only my career that struck the temporary stores: my view of the world was. I naively believed that the problem of humanity was a inability to information. Light and change will follow. Now, I began to see, while the pen may be stronger than the sword, the wallet is stronger than the pen.
I was recruited at the end of the tail of “Great pressure”: A radical period Low inequality. The two world wars destroyed a large part of the political power of the capital, allowing very high taxes to the wealthy, and the creation of a welfare state and a spectrum of expansion of politics and opinion. Since then, the wealthy money and power has doubled again, the governments that support them have sought Crush the opposition. This process is accelerating, as indicates the comment of Jimmy Kimmel and excluding ABC from the Trump press conference in the United Kingdom.
When Millen was dismissed, I have been working on our biggest investigations so far: in the immigration program in Indonesia run by Soharto dictato – funded by the World Bank, indirectly, American governments and the United States. The policy included the transfer of hundreds of thousands of people to the country’s outer islands, to compassion and decline in the local population. The genocide scheme, in the west of Babua, was in the west of Babua. I sold the story to a publisher instead. But I felt that I was not ready, so I took a six -month job in the production of ongoing affairs in the BBC global service. It was an excellent education in global politics, but I realized that I could never prosper in the newsroom. On a slow day, we were discussing the lead of our program from among many faded options. Ten minutes before the transmission, the editor went up in the studio, applied his hands and announced: “Great – 110 dead in Sri Lanka!”
I spent the next six years in independent work in tropical areas, investigating some very dangerous stories, and took a living by writing books and making radio programs from time to time. When I came back, I found that BBC and other broadcasters became strongly hostile to environmental programming. I decided to try printing.
I enjoyed another naive belief: I must only work for the right -wing press, as I have reached people who have never seen such stories. She managed to put a few articles in the telegraph, although they were severely cut and retreated to the rear pages. I knew a young, sympathetic editor in the Daily Mail newspaper, who cost me, for three years, to write 21 articles. Everyone except for one has been increased by the elderly. Finally, one posted one, on the effects of car pollution. My suggestion discussion, the editor asked me: “So what is the solution? More research?” No, I answered, “stronger organization”. When reading the published article, I discovered that the solution was “more research.”
I finally saw the bleeding clearly: you cannot speak the truth to power if the authority controls your words. I was lucky to take the trustee. It remains among the very few ports, anywhere, through which you can criticize the real elite freely.
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Three weeks ago, after a long absence, I It appeared on the BBC moral mazeTo discuss the media force. I was shocked to discover how much things went. Tim Stanley, the column writer in Telegraph, argued that the media could not be often right, because GB News says he was “arrested by LONY Left”. The oath described Innger Fulparin Iman the idea that billionaires affect the media they have “a big conspiracy” and “false awareness”. These people are now so dominant that they are no longer logical.
Power is the rock that the founders of the truth. You will always find the executors who wish: no one has lost money by telling billionaires what they wanted to hear. The main media, with a few exceptions, is a single -issue lobby group, and its purpose is to confirm capital rights.
But the earth may change. Citizen press blooms, through Side Airlines Networkand OpenDOCRCYand Double news and Novaraand Raising and DesmogEspecially at the local level. Most local newspapers created are a cemetery for good journalism. But it is paid aside by innovative new ports, such as Bristol cableand Glasgow belland Digital display In Belfast, Manchester Millthe Leicester Gazetteand Western countryside sounds and Send Birminghamthe Oxford Clarionthe Independentthe WalTham Forest Echoand Inside Croidonthe Sheffield Tribune and Liverpool Post.
Something raises something that can become very large – citizens rebellion against power propaganda. We fight for the day when the pen outperforms the wallet.