Tuesday 31 March 2009

Deliberate liars or compulsive liars?

Gordon Smart:
...I was disappointed when I heard that Mr PETER DOHERTY, a fine upstanding member of his local community, was meeting BBC bosses on Tuesday for a job interview.

And that job is as a writer, apparently. According to Gordon's source at the BBC, they (BBC) want a pilot episode of a Skins type drama, and if it's a good 'un, they'll commission a whole series. Very nice, Mr Doherty. Best get cracking.

Only Pete isn't going to be writing a series, or even a pilot show for the BBC.

The Quietus [my emphasis]:
...the Beeb has rubbished the rumours as “completely false”, telling The Quietus that The Sun knew there was “no truth whatsoever” in the story – published in Gordon Smart’s ‘Bizarre’ column today – before they went to print.

I don't know The Quietus too well and I am very good at making an idiot of myself, so I thought I would confirm what the Corporation had been quoted as saying, by going to the Corporation.

I asked for the the BBC to confirm or deny if i) Pete Doherty is or isn't going to be writing/co-writing, or in negotiations with regards to writing a drama for the BBC and if ii) The Sun or Gordon Smart of the The Sun knew the story to be untrue before publishing it (if the story is untrue, obviously).

And a spokesman for the BBC confirmed that i) Pete Doherty isn't going to be writing a drama for them and ii)
They [The Sun] had our response in advance but didn't put it in.

Gordon Smart/The Sun knew the was story untrue, but still ran with it. Which means they are either compulsive liars and couldn't help themselves or they ran with it, looking at the language used, just to have a dig at the BBC to keep things ticking over until the Beeb give them a bigger target.

4 comments:

Tim said...

"The Sun knew the was story untrue, but still ran with it."

I know another story that this applies to, but my lips must remain sealed for a time.

Hard to believe, but The Sun's standards are slipping even deeper into the sewer lately. There was a time when they would make the effort to bullshit their way around such a problem, but now they just lie outright.

Sim-O said...

My source at the Beeb (sounds grand that, don't it :-)), also said that it isn't just a problem with the Sun, but with all of the media.

The question is, in the race to the bottom is the Sun leading by example or following the crowd? I know where I would put my money.

Tim said...

I'd definietly place them in the lead, if not setting the pace.

Meanwhile, as mainstream media quality takes a dive, blog-cheating whores like Iain Dale (and even Paul 'silhouette' Staines lately) are appearing in it more and more, and they think it's because they're on the way up. Bless.

Uponnothing said...

The fact is that their readers don't really want the truth. People just want their prejudices and ignorance reinforced - if they didn't we wouldn't have tabloid newspapers.