Most documentaries about the grooming scandal are about dishonest reporting

[Justwrong68]

x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1875847368656167394?s=46

This is so despicable. Has anyone watched it, I couldn't bear to.

www.channel4.com/press/news/channel-4-commissions-expectation-make-three-part-documentary-series-exploring
Drawing on a rich seam of online archive, and with exclusive access to the men accused and a host of other key players – from internet sleuths to duped charity workers and local Asian restaurant owners – this is a stranger-than-fiction tale of how a shocking lie sparked a devastating wild goose chase, heaping pressure on the police and exposing a dark underbelly of racism in the process. WEB OF LIES: The Barrow Grooming Ring Scandal (w/t) is a multi-perspective and multi-layered story, full of conflicting emotions and morality. In the wake of the Rochdale and Rotherham grooming ring scandals, it offers a unique lens on how gossip and innuendo can be weaponised against Asian men in overwhelmingly white communities.

From the twitter feed OP posted. (They make me sick)
It looks like the BBC have only ever aired a handful of documentaries about the scandal. At least two are not accessible, and of the those that are, they are all about a girl who lied and how that attracted the far right. And now Channel 4 has made a series about the same girl.

I don't know about most documentaries, but certainly a significant proportion of threads on MN are about dishonest reporting.

Some of them are really strange.

Eg there's one running at the moment where the OP says "how did I not know from the 2013 trials that girls were tortured?".

Gets lots of replies that the media were deliberately hiding it from us.

However on the first page, someone links three stories in major outlets from 2013 and 2014 covering the trials, most of which use the word "torture". By the end of the first three pages there are links to many more stories, with horrific detail, in major outlets from 2013 and onwards and to the documentary "Three Girls" (2017) and a R4 documentary (2020).

What's very odd is a lot posters are skating straight past those posts, like they're not there.

The posters that do admit the existence of the reporting say, "but nobody told me the girls were tortured. I just thought the girls thought they had older boyfriends who gave them gifts."

Despite the fact there are stories linked which explicit about torture and give examples.

So there's certainly something odd going on.

I'm sorry if you're finding some BBC docs inaccessible, @Imnobody4 .

Does this link work for you:
Three Girls
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08r8pvh/three-girls-series-1-episode-1
(I'm sorry, I can't test this one at the moment)

Groomed, abused and put in prison: Rochdale’s untold story
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kv7v
(Have tested and this link works.)

Those are two documentaries I had to hand, but you may know of more.

(Neither is about Ellie Williams, the woman in Barrow who as you say lied and attracted the far right.)

Appalling.

Thanks @PerkingFaintly and I agree, Three Girls is outstanding. Will watch the other. The rest just reinforces the BBC's misogyny.

The posters that do admit the existence of the reporting say, "but nobody told me the girls were tortured. I just thought the girls thought they had older boyfriends who gave them gifts."

That is what many people thought and still think. You could maybe try not assuming everyone posting who you disagree with is some sort of far right bot.

What the heck? Where on earth did that come from?

You could maybe try not assuming everyone posting who you disagree with is claiming everyone else is some sort of far right bot.

I can easily believe there are people who thought it was only about girls thinking they had older boyfriends.

I know that I've been aware it was much more appalling than that for more than a decade, because I'd read the reporting back in 2013. (In the same way that you'll know what your own level of knowledge has been at different points.)

This thread is specifically about media coverage. It is not odd that some people missed important media coverage from major outlets going all the way back to 2013. That's sadly a completely normal occurence.

The oddity is that some people are now doggedly claiming – in the face of links to articles from 2013 shouting about what was happening – that the contents of these articles weren't reported; and adding for good measure that it must all have been a deliberate attempt to keep said articles from them.

I do not know why this behaviour is happening.

While I'm ever aware that on the anonymous internet one doesn't know who anyone is, I really don't suspect everyone on that thread is a bot – far right or otherwise.

On a thread specifically about media coverage, I'm absolutely not going to apologise for noticing this oddity.

Kellie Jay Keen has posted this full Channel 4 documentary made by Trevor Phillips. It's very interesting, about 38 minutes in it talks about the problems of walking on eggshells around race/culture in relation to the Victoria Climbie case in 2000, then about the grooming gangs with Ann Cryer MP and Andrew Norfolk, the Times journalist who did a lot to bring it into mainstream media.

(He then also goes to a UKIP conference and interviews Farage and Blair)

x.com/theposieparker/status/1875513230371807689

Trevor Philips was suspended from Labour for allegedly "Islamophobic" remarks he made about grooming gangs.

www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2020/3/9/trevor-phillips-suspended-from-labour-over-alleged-islamophobia

I know that I've been aware it was much more appalling than that for more than a decade, because I'd read the reporting back in 2013. (In the same way that you'll know what your own level of knowledge has been at different points.)

This thread is specifically about media coverage. It is not odd that some people missed important media coverage from major outlets going all the way back to 2013. That's sadly a completely normal occurence.

I read the reporting back then too, as I remember the details of these crimes weren't exactly all over the news as much as you might expect, and someone googling a few newspaper articles now reporting on specific court cases doesn't prove anything.

I also think it's not fair to berate people for not understanding the horrific details. Not everyone reads sexual assault court reports.

The only media "shouting" about it was right leaning media. The Guardian etc regarded it with obvious distaste. They covered the court cases. And they leapt on anything playing down the race/culture element as a "myth" and promoted that view.

If Channel 4 is going to imply that the takeaway we all need to have about grooming gangs is that some girls and women lie, then perhaps they should also show the documentary about grooming gangs in Bradford that they commissioned and pulled from the schedule in 2004, because

"local police warned the programme could inflame racial tension in the city."

amp.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/20/channel4.broadcasting1

I also think it's not fair to berate people for not understanding the horrific details. Not everyone reads sexual assault court reports.

Yes, I agree strongly with that.

I don't really understand the rest of your post.

Both of you and I read about it at the time. When posts are claiming the torture, violence and appalling threats weren't reported on at the time, it is relevant for us to say we remember it was, and it is relevant for someone to add links to articles.

I didn't specify that any links were to the Guardian. I said the media were shouting about it – which you agree with.

As it happens, some of the links given were to Guardian articles – and those were shouting about it too. I can't agree with your charactisation of those Guardian articles: they have no mention of myths, and they do have lots of mention of race and systemic issues. New mind distaste, in measured language they show aghast horror of what was done to the girls.

Anyway, rather than me bang on, here are just a couple of the articles from 2013.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/14/oxford-abuse-ring-social-services

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/14/oxford-gang-guilty-grooming-girls

I'm bothering with this because of the claims being made hither and yon that the media didn't cover what these men had done. I think the press printing the word "torture" gives most of us a good idea of the seriousness and horror.

Some of this feels like a version of that cliche where, when a woman says something, everyone pretends she didn't speak. When a man repeats it, suddenly everyone can hear him. Didn't Bindel write on this recently?

I'm bothering with this because of the claims being made hither and yon that the media didn't cover what these men had done.

Perking I remember it at the time too, and I don't agree with your characterisation that the media clearly reported it all fairly without trying to deflect from the race issue. People have been saying that it's a myth that there are any racial elements to these crimes as long as I can remember. Or denying that they are a specific phenomenon.

Do you think the people on Mumsnet you are scathing about are only saying these things because they want to make up a false narrative? Your pointed comments about those threads and the people on them, and your assumption that people aren't in good faith just because they have a different memory to yours about it suggests that you're not entirely without bias here.

There are lots of Guardian articles, you are cherry picking. Here's one I find pretty disgraceful.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/19/home-office-report-grooming-gangs-not-muslim

A powerful modern racial mythh^ has been exploded. What started as a far-right trope had migrated into the mainstream, meeting little resistance along the way. In 2011, the Times and its chief investigative reporter, Andrew Norfolk, claimed to have uncovered a new ethnic crime threat, shrouded until then in a supposed “conspiracy of silencee^”.

This is the one about Ellie Williams: Liar: The Fake Grooming Scandal: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001vfd7

Tens of thousands, possibly more girls have been abused by grooming gangs. A couple were murdered. Why all the focus on one girl who made up allegations? Is it really proportionate for broadcast media to represent that multiple times? When Channel 4 got cold feet about showing their own documentary showing the reality of the rape gangs operating 20 years ago? But of course, it makes the point that "gossip and innuendo can be weaponised against Asian men in overwhelmingly white communities. "

By the way, many thanks for links to other articles and documentaries.

I remember the 2015 Trevor Phillips one coming out, but didn't remember the 2004 one about Bradford, Edge of the City, which was eventually shown on 26 August 2004.
Edge of the City, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1095179/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_2

Clearly the Guardian "covering up the issues" again by reporting on C4's postponement of the showing. <shrug>

The Guardian article you linked led me to a follow-up 2004 Guardian article which is explicit about race, about children being raped, and about criticism of the different authorities. NB I'm sure there will be articles in other papers around the same time for those who don't want to read the Guardian, although this one is an interview with the director.

'The BNP hijacked my film'
Anna Hall was devastated when her Channel 4 film, which investigated allegations that young white girls in Bradford were being groomed for sex, was used as rightwing propaganda.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/aug/09/channel4.otherparties

Perking if you're a fan of the Guardian that's ok, you do you. I gave up reading them after the disgraceful way they minimised women being mass sexually assaulted in Cologne by immigrants on NYE 2015.

<Shrug>

I don't agree with your characterisation that the media clearly reported it all fairly without trying to deflect from the race issue.

It's just as well I haven't made such a characterisation, then.

We deal daily with the fact that the Daily Mail, Times and the Daily Telegraph can produce good, informative articles about important issues which affect women, for example, alongside other content which is appallingly misogynistic and sometime very harmful.

There isn't something special about the Guardian which makes it different from this.

I'm the OP of that thread. I was at university in 2013 in a different country. I've been in the UK for not quite five years and following UK news for a few years before that in anticipation of my move, mainly the Guardian and BBC at that point before I was radicalised into the far right by JK Rowling

Media reporting is not just about whether articles existed but how they were presented, what stories took precedence, what surrounding narrative there was.

I definitely remember a lot of stories about how white men actually make up almost all sexual assault perpetrators for example. If you read one article about Asian grooming gangs and ten articles about how the moral panic around Asian grooming gangs is problematic, with a side helping of several stories about rape gang liars...

I'm not a bot, for anyone interested.

I agree with you that it shouldn't be broadcast disproportionately often.

Just seen @OneAmberFinch 's post above mine.

Yes, my post is basically me agreeing with you that context and proportion of stories matter, and create a perception.

Not to mention the relentless focus on Tommy Robinson. I would say there has been a very concerted effort to make the link "grooming gangs are a Tommy Robinson conspiracy theory - do you really want to bring this up in polite conversation and risk someone thinking you're a fan?"

I almost didn't want to add this post because I worried it would be too risky to appear to defend him or that it would detail the thread with nonsense about "why are you supporting Stephen Yaxley-Lennon". Which is ridiculous. I'm not, for the record - I'm commenting on the way the media worked very hard to create that link and therefore push down the issue, in much the same way they did with the documentaries referenced by OP. It all acts to muddy the waters and make people not want to look too closely.

It all acts to muddy the waters and make people not want to look too closely.

Yes! I've been concerned about exactly this.

Not just about Yaxley-Lennon/Robinson, who's a comparative newcomer (to me, anyway).

Urgh, I started trying to write something, but I don't have the energy to articulate what I want to, as this is a big topic I've been angry about for years.

Let me try to get a short version together.