Scraping Spurners Assuaging Ciphers,

Everyone is looking for a way to criticise the BBC. As I’ve said before, the BBC has all the best people; from Dick Strawbridge to Janice Long - they are worth paying a license fee for. I think the rest of the media realises this, they’re eager to knock the BBC’s reputation at every opportunity.

The furore over the decision not to broadcast the charity appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee to benefit the victims of the conflict in Gaza is another example of the rest of the media attempting to discredit the BBC. Political opinions on the morality of Israel’s behaviour over the past month or so should be ignored when forming an opinion on whether the BBC’s refusal to broadcast any advert. I can not remember any similar broadcast on the BBC for aid to victims of war or natural disasters – the BBC has always stuck rigidly to its programme schedule with no adverts; exceptions are only made for the likes of party political broadcasts. The BBC could have handled the situation better by reminding people of this in their official statement, all this rubbish about impartiality fuelled the debate. The BBC run charity appeals like Comic Relief and spokespeople for charities often appear on news programmes, perhaps the DEC can send a spokesperson onto Breakfast with Bill and Sian, I think the BBC would agree to this, although I guess Tony Benn’s rant on News 24, where he gave out the charity’s address, has already pre-empted this step.

Secondly, would the broadcast of the tape result in any more money being raised and forwarded to civilian victims? Are the people who are currently aggravating and claiming to be upset by the BBC’s decision willing to donate to the charity appeal?

The media should now move on, the DEC have generated more publicity for this appeal than any advert on the television ever could, I wouldn’t be surprised if their PR department deliberately organised this controversy, the media’s contempt for the BBC would have been an easily usable tool.