Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC slander

[P.L.Hayes]

On Friday 06 February 2004 14:54, Tom Chance wrote:


> Could you post your letter here before you post it off? People in the UKCDR
> are quite interested in this too. Perhaps the AFFS and the UKCDR could come
> together and do a bit of a letter campaign, or a joint formal letter, to
> Ofcom?

* This is for the complaint form to go to the PCU.
* There is a textbox in the form at http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/contactus/
serious_form.shtml labelled:
* 'Outline of your complaint and why you believe our Producers' Guidelines 
were seriously breached'

----
In making this complaint I wish to make reference to the "Values, Standards 
and Principles" document, one of the set of documents entitled "Producer's 
Guidelines" available from the BBC website. I refer in particular to sections 
1 (General) and 2.2 (News programmes) of part 1 of chapter 2: "Impartiality 
and accuracy" and section 4 (Accurate Language) of part 2 of that chapter.

 The article entitled "Linux cyber-battle turns nasty" by Stephen Evans, is 
neither accurate nor impartial. The editor, Tim Weber, received many 
complaints by email about the gross inaccuracies and defamatory accusations 
in the article on the day of it's publication but has chosen not to take any 
action. The article seeks to link the emergence of the "MyDoom" virus with 
the 'open source' software developer and GNU/Linux user communities without 
any reasonable justification and cannot be considered fair and impartial. The 
article is at odds with the general consensus in the industry about the 
origins and motivations for the virus that was extant at the time of it's 
publication (and still is) and presents an extremely misleading view of the 
issues it addresses. It cannot therefore be considered as accurate reporting 
either.

More seriously still; the language used in the article is emotive and 
defamatory, making extensive use of derogatory terms such as "zealot" and 
"devotee" and clearly expressing value judgements in a way that shows an 
utter lack of journalistic objectivity. Section 2.2 of part 1 of chapter 2 
states: "A reporter may express a professional, journalistic judgement but 
not a personal opinion. Judgement must be recognised as perceptive and fair." 
Perceptive and fair? It is neither. The article is not presented as an 
opinion piece and will be regarded as straight news reporting or analysis by 
the naive reader. In fact Mr. Weber, in his reply claimed that the article is 
indeed "an analytical look at major events and business trends in the United 
States". But this article is no "analysis"; it is a scurrilous and 
unwarranted attack by one side of a controversial debate upon the other. It 
might well be acceptable as an interview with an openly antagonistic 
representative of the anti-Linux movement but to represent it as an 
analytical piece by a BBC staff reporter is contemptible.

 Mr. Evans himself is described above the article as a 'BBC business 
correspondent' yet he has clearly presented his personal opinion in the most 
extreme and rebarbative language as though it were fair and factual 
reporting. The response from Mr. Weber was wholly inadequate, ducking the 
points made by the many complainants and even supportive of Mr. Evans' 
attempt to mislead and bamboozle the naive reader:

 "In his piece he wanted to draw the attention of BBC News Online's audience - 
many of whom are unlikely to know the ins and outs of the Open Source debate 
- to the rapid spread of Linux as a commercial application, SCO's attempts to 
cash in on this fact, and the deep anger that SCO has caused within the Linux 
community through its legal actions".

 Quite, and by reading the article, the naive audience is invited to equate 
GNU/Linux and open source users with malicious internet "hackers" and even 
"vandals and arsonists"  - by a senior BBC reporter. This is damaging to both 
the business community that sells services and products based on GNU/Linux 
and open source software and to the reputations of individuals in the general 
community who themselves use and promote the use of such software. I hope you 
will agree that for the BBC, this is unacceptable.
----

Presumably, the PCU people will read the complaint and the article and quickly 
decide whether or not they intend to take it seriously. If they do, then they 
may request further specific details relating to the accuracy of the article 
but I've emphasised the extreme defamatory nature of the language as the 
clearest and most serious breach of the guidelines. I'd welcome any comments 
before I despatch this missive. 

Cheers,

Paul.