Comments on: BBC: Dog Whistle

By: ad

ad — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:54:05 +0000

How do you know that the editing was misleading?

And if it was not misleading, why should they not edit like that?

By: Margin4 Error

Margin4 Error — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:52:02 +0000

Robert

I think this is less likely to be a deliberate signal to particular viewers, and more a reflection of the homogenous nature of the bbc’s staff.

The fact is that the beeb, for all of its strengths, is still a bastion of the white middle class. As such thre is a fair chance that the people putting that segment together have experience of people like Suzanne Holdsworth other than from reporting on them from time to time.

That lack of association and lack of personal understanding often makes people less sympathetic in their outlook even where no real malice exists.

By: V Profane

V Profane — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:43:02 +0000

I’m guessing that’s the custody photo, so it seems perfectly reasonable to use it in this context. It’s not the BBC’s job to give rough looking people a make-over so nobody judges them harshly. Why use a photo in this post at all? Seems like you’re doing the same thing you’re complaining about. Or maybe I am.

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:53:54 +0000

There’s a chance it might have been the most flattering available!

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:29:48 +0000

Now I think of it, I’m not sure that its a concsious thing. I am more inclined to think that it is edited like that because it is simply so easy to do so. Editing in a cut-away to someone’s idiosyncracies can be a useful documentary tool, if its done right. But this portrayal was not flattering.

Then again, there’s always the possibility that maybe the only one who heard the dog-whistle is me. Of all the photos that could have been chosen to portray a person of as yet unproven guilt, what do others think of the one that was chosen (above)?

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:09:40 +0000

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances” – Oscar Wilde.

Having said that, we employ someone who looks exactly like this as a house-sitter.
Completely reliable.

But what exactly is the BBC’s motivation here?
Why are they “dog whistling” to the middle classes?
After all, for the most part, they are abandoning the middle classes and dumbing down like mad (viz. Sunny’s complaints).