The furore over Jimmy Saville and the BBC is just a re-run of the tactics used over weapons of mass destruction and the subsequent death of Dr David Kelly.   The public are being ‘slid’ into believing that trust in the BBC is the major issue, whilst the really astounding cover-up of the failures of the powers elite are ignored.

‘The BBC’s uncovering of its own cover-up was uncovered by the BBC’s Panorama after it uncovered a cover-up by the BBC’s Newsnight which it is alleged was attempting to uncover a cover-up which was eventually only uncovered by ITV’. Pride’s Purge

Meanwhile, reporting has all but disappeared of the many children who were sexually abused in hospitals, Children’s homes, Broadmoor, approved schools and in the wider community, by a man who hobnobbed with royalty; spent Christmas at Chequers with the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; was appointed by Edwina Curry to be an advisor about Broadmoor; was allowed to wander at night, unsupervised in Leeds Infirmary and so on …. not to mention twice honoured by the Catholic church … and now suggestions of a powerful paedophile network linked to the very top in society* (see update below)

Just as it was, with David Kelly and his leaked information about the lack of weapons of mass destruction, the blanket coverage of the inadequacies of the BBC, is acting as a distraction from a wholesale abrogation of responsibility for children across a whole range of the establishment, police, journalists, and the Westminster bubble.  Just as the Hutton Inquiry was essentially set up to avoid discussing the lies on which the horrific, catastrophic, illegal decision to follow the Bush administration into Iraq was based … the BBC is yet again acting as the fall guy.

To talk about cancelling the Saville programme, as being the biggest crisis in the history of the BBC because of the loss of public trust, is just risible…. The BBC has already lost public trust because of the non-reporting of the privatisation of the NHS, the Welfare Reform bill, Gove’s education reforms … the anarchic dismantling of public services; the lack of analysis or investigation of any of the policy implications; the unbelievably inadequate reporting about the economy; and the uncritical regurgitation of palpable government lies and sleights of hand.

These are the far greater reasons for the BBC to worry about a loss of public trust than their complicity with the repugnant behaviour of Saville and his ilk decades ago, and the suppressing of a programme which clashed with another of their output.  The independence of the BBC and their impartiality are far more compromised by their lack of rigour in deconstructing the Tory/LD government’s policies than the current ‘scandal’.  But perhaps the real reason for the craven capitulation of the BBC (again) is a fear of what ‘revenge’ government might take against their ‘independence’… what a conundrum.

“Even if the [media] does not mold our every opinion, it does mold our opinion visibility; it can frame the perceptual limits around which our opinions take shape. Here may lie the most important effect of the news media: they set the agenda for the rest of us, choosing what to emphasize and what to ignore or suppress, in effect, organizing much of our political world for us. The media may not always be able to tell us what to think, but they are strikingly successful in telling us what to think about … the media teach us tunnel vision conditioning us to perceive the problems of society as isolated particulars, thereby stunting our critical vision. Larger casualties are reduced to immediately distinct events, while the linkages of wealth, power and policy go unreported or are buried under a congestion of surface impressions and personalities.

In sum, the media set the limits on public discourse. They may not always mold opinion, but they do not always have to. It is enough that they create opinion visibility, giving legitimacy to certain views and illegitimacy to others … This power to determine the issue agenda, the information flow, and the parameters of political debate so that it extends from ultra-right to no further than moderate center is, if not total, still totally awesome.”

Inventing Reality Michael Parenti

* Update:  Tom Watson MP has asked a question in PMQs which suggests a powerful paedophile network linked to the very top in society.  He used parliamentary privilege to refer to a paedophile ring linked to a previous British prime minister:

“The evidence file used to convict paedophile Peter Righton, if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring. One of its members boasts of its links to a senior aide of a former Prime minister who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad.”

“The leads were not followed up but if the file still exists, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and Number 10.”

Tom Pride at Pride’s Purge, reports that Cabinet office has sent defamation notices to blogs ordering them to remove the name of a high ranking member of the present cabinet who has been named as a paedophile by Ben Fellows, the child actor.

Cabinet Office Shuts Up Blogs Naming High Profile Tory In Savile Scandal

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/bbc-panorama-investigates-bbc-newsnight-over-bbc-scandal-of-bbc-cover-up-over-bbc-scandal/

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourbeeb/oliver-huitson/how-bbc-betrayed-nhs-exclusive-report-on-two-years-of-censorship-and-distorti 

https://think-left.org/2011/11/11/inadequacies-of-bbc-coverage-of-the-eu-financial-crisis/

https://think-left.org/2012/02/11/who-pulls-the-strings-at-the-bbc/

https://think-left.org/2012/10/08/the-puppeteers-at-the-bbc-more-dishonesty-disharmony-and-broken-strings-from-the-bbc/

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/cabinet-office-shuts-up-blogs-naming-high-profile-tory-in-savile-scandal/#comments