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AIBU?

To want the BBC to explain wreathgate properly

123 replies

Hingeandbracket · 12/11/2019 08:12

The BBC has apologised for cutting a section of 2016 coverage of Boris laying a wreath into the coverage of Sunday.

But they haven’t provided a proper account of how or why they did it.

I would like to know.

This was not a simple or easy mistake.

OP posts:
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Am I being unreasonable?

372 votes. Final results.

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You are being unreasonable
23%
You are NOT being unreasonable
77%
Roussette · 12/11/2019 13:18

Oh please. Corbin didn't even bow his head properly. Insulting behaviour. It would be better if he didn't go at all

You obviously didn't watch the same footage as me (i.e. I watched it live). He was smart, he bowed his head. Now.... maybe you would've wanted it bowed lower but bearing in mind he was stood next to a PM who looked like an overstuffed pillow who couldn't lay a wreath properly.

As for BBC bias, I just don't trust them any more. There have been too many gaffes, bias, false facts. How can I trust a news source who has the likes of Nigel Farage on to their flagship political show BBC QT 44 times whilst ignoring others.

Also don't forget this. BBC last year doctoring Corbyn to make him look like a russian stooge. I may not like JC but that was unforgiveable.

twitter.com/UK_LDC/status/974706602447122433

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catsmother · 12/11/2019 13:21

I wasn't talking about anyone else, I was talking about the bowing part specifically and I noted how disrespectful he had been while watching it. I would have felt the same had it been Jo Swinson that didn't bow. He is the leader of one of our main political parties and for him to be so disrespectful is disgraceful.

Funnily enough I've just gone to the trouble of watching that part of the ceremony again - on BBC iPlayer ironically, and whilst the depth of Jeremy Corbyn's bow isn't as great as some others, you cannot possibly claim that he didn't bow at all. In fact, it didn't appear to me that Jo Swinson's bowed head any further than his did. There was a variety of bowing across the main political party reperesentatives there.

To illustrate the point of biased reporting however, JC's 'non bow' has been seized upon by some parts of the press , such as the headline in the Express which stated 'Outrage as Corbyn accused of failing to bow in respect to war dead...'. By contrast whilst the Express also headlined 'Boris Johnson left red face at two awkward gaffes at Remembrance Sunday ceremony' there was no suggestion of disrespect in either that headline, nor in the reporting which followed. Furthermore they showed BJ respect by using his full name, whereas JC was disparagingly referred to as 'Corbyn'.

Words matter. Reporting matters. There is a very distinct difference in the way the two reports I've mentioned above were conveyed to the public. One is intended to criticise (JC), the other is far more forgiving (BJ). In absolute fairness, I very much doubt that either JC or BJ intended to cause any offence by their actions or appearance on Sunday. After all, there is no rule book that I'm aware of stating how far you should incline your head on such an occasion. There's also no rule book about appearing smart and tidy although convention in the UK dictates that that is what's usually expected at important and solemn events and therefore perhaps a little more care from BJ might have been wise. Similarly, his laying the wreath upside down would surely not have been intentionally disrespectful, though again, a little more care would have been appropriate.

Yet in spite of the above, it is Jeremy Corbyn who has been castigated - both in the press and on this thread - for being 'so disrespectful', which is utterly disingenuous. You @KatherineJaneway might as well say that Boris Johnson was also 'so disrespectful' for laying his wreath upside down, or for stepping out to do so slightly sooner than he should have done (he must surely have been briefed about timings and cues). You could argue that it was 'so disrespectful' for BJ not to have paid enough attention to that brief, or not to have practised turning the wreath around so it was laid correctly. In the interests of being ultra fair - as opposed to assuming that BJ is pompous enough a character to have believed he 'knew it all' - I am willing to accept he made a couple of genuine mistakes without intending to offend. But obviously Hmm Jeremy Corbyn isn't capable of similar human error in not getting his bow quite 'right' (inverted commas because there is no accepted standard) and he must have had a far more sinister intent!!

The point remains that the respective appearances of both BJ and JC have been scrutinised in the media very differently and unfairly. And there remains a significant question mark over apparent BBC attempts to show BJ in the best possible light.

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Roussette · 12/11/2019 13:23

Words matter. Reporting matters

Exactly. Totally agree with all your post catsmother

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SouthWestmom · 12/11/2019 13:23

How odd. Jeremy appeared to be disguised as a Tory and still attracts criticism?

Smart - tick
Correct wreath laying - tick
Lengthy pause and bowed head - tick

OTOH Boris stumbled up, chucked the wreath upside down, kept gawping round and staggered back.

Jeremy and Megan appear to be the same whipping boys for some weird agenda.

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DuckWillow · 12/11/2019 13:35

God forbid Corbyn has made the gaffes Boris did. He'd have been crucified and the BBC would have made no fucking mistakes in the footage they showed. Forgive my cynicism but I've lost it with our media.
It's not independent.

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Kolo · 12/11/2019 13:47

The clips from 2016 covered up the fact that BJ laid the wreath the wrong way round this year, right? And looked a complete mess.

JC was crusified for 'looking scruffy' the other year. BJ seems to have got away unscathed for far worse. And if the BBC deliberately used old footage to cover up the fact that BJ put the wreath the wrong way round, then they're not independent or unbiased and they're not fulfilling their remit.

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MintyMabel · 12/11/2019 14:10

It was a mistake. Somebody sent the wrong clip. It's not rocket science.

And maybe Corbyn has a neck problem and can't bow his head so deeply.

Why does everything have to be a conspiracy.

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Alsohuman · 12/11/2019 14:17

It definitely wasn’t a mistake, any more than Kuenssberg’s biased tweets are mistakes. The BBC wants a Tory government, simple as that.

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Roussette · 12/11/2019 14:19

It's not rocket science

Exactly. It's not rocket science so how can they make such a balls up?

Everything doesn't have to be a conspiracy but I'm rapidly losing faith in the BBC's impartiality. You only have to look at their Political Editor's twitter feed, yesterday was a case in point.

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Roussette · 12/11/2019 14:20

Alsohuman we're echoing each other Grin

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Grimbles · 12/11/2019 14:21

@KevinsCarter

Saw what you did there... Grin

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CactusAndCacti · 12/11/2019 14:24

Go and find a real issue to be concerned about

Like the opening times of Tesco? That is very important.

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Alsohuman · 12/11/2019 14:26

We are @Roussette, makes a change, normally nobody agrees with me!

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Roussette · 12/11/2019 14:39

Ditto Also I'm a bit of a lone voice too sometimes!

Just now...
www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/25-complaints-made-to-ofcom-over-bbc-old-wreath-footage-mistake-1-6371278

Taken from the article..
Some people who saw the show claimed it was unlikely that gathering archival footage from 2016 was a mistake, with one person on Twitter saying: "To think that anyone could believe one of the World's preeminent broadcasters could make such basic mistake is contemptible."

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Pumpkinpie1 · 12/11/2019 14:44

I used to be proud of the bbc but no longer. These incidents are happening with depressing regularity. Whatever happened to just reporting the news and letting viewers make up theirs own minds, isn’t that what should be happening?

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HiHoToffee · 12/11/2019 14:45

Thanks to twitter I found the apology in the Entertainment and Arts section Confused

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HighNetGirth · 12/11/2019 14:45

I wouldn’t assume that either conspiracy or cock-up was a ‘BBC’ matter as opposed to a small group or individual within it doing it off their own bat.

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MaMaMaMySharona · 12/11/2019 14:47

Is it really that much of an issue?

Assuming you didn't read the thread before posting this. Yes, it is an extremely big issue for our 'non-biased' press to be 'accidentally' broadcasting things covering up a reasonably large mishap from our PM during election time.

Obviously.

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EagleVisionSquirrelWork · 12/11/2019 15:45

Well, I'm on Twitter and I thought the producer's "explanation" of the spliced footage was the lamest pile of transparently crap baloney I've ever heard, and so did about a thousand other people, judging by the comments, including some from other TV professionals. It was a naked attempt to cover up the fact that once again Johnson has behaved like the national disgrace he clearly is. While turning up to the Cenotaph dishevelled and underprepared isn't as bad as, say, suspending parliament unlawfully, suppressing reports into national security or lying to the nation about... well, just about everything, the BBC's willingness to cover it up without hesitation is something we should all be worried about.

Furthermore, if you believe that this was somehow a genuine mistake, the fact that so many people don't is worrying in itself. The Johnson/Gove/Farage/Banks/Cummings matrix has derived a great deal of its slippery power from encouraging people to mistrust key public institutions - be that the BBC, parliament, the judiciary or 'experts' - and facilitating situations that seem to justify that mistrust. The fact that this thread even exists is evidence of the success of their project.

So yeah, you could say it's an issue.

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cabingirl · 12/11/2019 15:52

@HighNetGirth I wouldn’t assume that either conspiracy or cock-up was a ‘BBC’ matter as opposed to a small group or individual within it doing it off their own bat.

Exactly - it was a huge cock up but it was one isolated programme within BBC News that made the mistake - whether that was one person accidentally doing it or deliberately and it's shocking that no one caught it before it went out on air. However... at the same time this old footage was happening the correct footage was going out all over the rest of the BBC

The video on the website, the regular TV news bulletins, the world new TV programmes etc etc. they all had the correct footage.

So whatever the reason for the error I'm 100% sure it's not some BBC wide conspiracy to make Boris look good.

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WitheredfromtheLake · 12/11/2019 16:01

YANBU. It does feel sinister.
The PM looked like a burst mattress as usual.
And the BBC chooses to substitute the clip with one of him carrying a GREEN instead of a red wreath? How stupid do they think their audience is?
I think they are laughing in our faces.

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Roussette · 12/11/2019 16:01

well, just about everything, the BBC's willingness to cover it up without hesitation is something we should all be worried about

Yes. The BBC stood for impartiality and I used to always stick up for them. I used to work there. Times have changed AFAIC

This is what they say they stand for...

"Trust is the foundation of the BBC; we are independent, impartial and honest

We’re truthful and fair in all our dealings. We make decisions based on our values, stick by them and take responsibility for them. We behave with integrity and do what we say we’re going to do."

I'm afraid those days are gone. I think this will be the beginning of the end of the BBC to be honest. Sad but true

Laura Kuenssberg has disappointed me greatly, especially recently. She's on £250,000 FFS. She has to be impartial, she isn't, and I'm sick to death of her quoting 'anonymous sources'.

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HelenaDove · 12/11/2019 16:09

"While not as biased as channel 4 (with the execrable Jon Snow who should have been pensioned off years ago"


Very ageist. And also extremely excrutiatingly hypocritical considering a Tory think tank doesnt think people should retire until 75.


The hypocrisy of the right never fails to astound me.

I well remember the thread about Corbyns anorak on here last year AND the speed that it filled up.

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