BBC Complaints: The link you need!

Saturday 6 February 2010

CRICK JUST CAN'T HELP HIMSELF

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The prosecution of 3 Labour MPs and a Conservative peer was reported on by Michael Crick on last night's Newsnight.
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Crick is incapable of not trying to spin a story against the Conservatives (as all my long series of sometimes very long posts about him have, I believe, conclusively shown. Please click on the label Crick for much, much, much more).
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Though most of his report could hardly fail to concentrate on the charging of the Labour MPs, nor acknowledge that this would look especially bad for Labour, Michael Crick just couldn't help himself. After listing the three Labour MPs - Messers Morley, Chaytor and Devine - he turned to the Tory, Lord Hanningfield and, after outlining the allegations against him just as he had outlined the allegations against them, spun this additional sentence: "He's the most senior politician of the four, serving until today as leader of the Tories' flagship Essex Council and as a Tory frontbench spokesman in the Lords". (He just loves that word 'Tory', and can't repeat it often enough - especially when he talking scandal!)
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Technically, of course, he's correct but - as I'm sure he's very well aware - putting it like that makes it sound as if the Tory case is the most serious. Elliott Morley is far more high-profile and was a Labour minister from 1997 to 2006.
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Crick has committed far worse infringements of the laws of impartiality than this particular minor example, but even master criminals drop litter from time to time.
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