Monday, May 14, 2007

Trial by Media

This is hilarious and sickening at the same time.

I'm sitting in the Telegaph newsroom, listening to an unnamed news channel gradually turning a half-Portuguese translator into a child abductor.

It started with Breaking News: Villa searched in hunt for Madeleine McCann

Nice and innocent and unspecific.

Within 15 minutes we had the poor guy's name being trumpeted aloud by triumphant newsreaders.

Another 10 minutes go by and one of his school 'friends' is saying something along the lines of 'Well, who'd have thought, and he seemed like such a nice guy. He does have a glass eye though...so, who knows?'

If it turns out that this poor man had nothing to do with it, that will no longer matter. His name (which i am purposefully omitting) will be ruined.

That's the problem with this particular channel, it is always so eager to be first that it tramples willy-nilly over acceptable standards of ethics

I'm predicting that their next report will begin with a photograph and the sombre voice-over:-

"This is the sick, twisted face of the as-yet completely innocent child molester...."

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