Geldof to receive apology over BBC Band Aid claim

[Newsjock]

Source: The Independent (UK)

The BBC will today (Thursday) broadcast a comprehensive and humiliating apology for the allegations it made eight months ago that millions of pounds of Band Aid and Live Aid money was diverted into arms sales. The money had been raised during the Ethiopian famine of 1984/5 in the biggest fundraising event the world had ever seen.

The BBC will admit that the claim was “misleading and unfair” and “should not have been broadcast”.

The BBC will also admit to “breaches of editorial standards” and apologise to Sir Bob Geldof, the founder of Live Aid, “for implying that he had declined to be interviewed because he thought the subject too sensitive to be discussed openly."

... And the complaints unit has confessed that the BBC’s TV, radio and online news summaries of the claims were even more unfair. It will apologise “unreservedly” for the false accusations which were repeated, and exaggerated, by news organisations all around the world.

... The apology will be the first ever simultaneously broadcast across all three BBC services – TV, radio and online. It will be heard on BBC1, BBC News 24, World Service radio, Radio 4, and posted on the BBC website.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/geldof-to-receive-apology-over-bbc-band-aid-claim-2124576.html

[peacebird]

1. sweet!

[Demeter]

2. Imagine

If Fox ever had to apologise for anything....

[Blue_Tires]

3. now that i think about it, it seems like forever since i've seen any apology in the media

[unblock]

4. imagine the u.s. media apologizing like that

not any time soon....

[tblue37]

5. Wouldn't it be nice of our lying media had to apologize for spreading lies? nt

[krkaufman]

6. Fox News would need to buy a couple more channels ....

... to have the bandwidth to broadcast similar apologies for all their lies.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. An interesting sidepeice on timing the burying of news items

Broadcaster 'tried to rush out' retraction on busy news day

The BBC tried to bury its apology to Band Aid by broadcasting it on a heavy news day, the former chairman of the BBC and Band Aid trustee, Michael Grade, claimed yesterday.

"On a number of occasions the BBC tried to rush out an announcement, on heavy news days," said Mr Grade, a former Controller of BBC1 and chief executive of Channel 4. "They tried to bounce us into making an announcement, in terms that weren't agreed, on the day the Chilean miners were released and then on the day the public spending cuts were announced. They said it was just coincidence. But it was a bit too much of a coincidence, if you ask me."
...
Yet the BBC had been terribly slow in owning up to the mistake it had made. "The Band Aid trustees are all experienced campaigners," said Michael Grade. "We know the media, how it works, the people, we know the levers to pull. Yet this whole process has been a nightmare for us. So what chance does the ordinary person have of getting redress from the BBC. It is very worrying.

"Everybody makes mistakes. It's how quickly you put them right that counts. What we discovered is that there is a large degree of arrogance in the BBC on the journalistic side that doesn't believe it can be wrong. And most of the time it isn't. I've been on the other side. And I know there are many times where powerful people put pressure on you to drop the story or alter it and you check it out and find out its true. So it's understandable that their first response to us was that we were just trying to put pressure on them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/broadcaster-tried-to-rush-out-retraction-on-busy-news-day-2124577.html

[naaman fletcher]

8. but it was.

Please buy books about Ethiopia.. almost any book. Everyone but people who rely on the western media knows that the famine was caused on purpose by the Ethiopian government to kill their enemies, and that all of our aid simply went to the Ethiopian government.

This apology is solely about the west not wanting to know that we were all scammed.