BBC Scotland Can't Strike Rangers Balance - TRS

[Guest DietofWorms]

Chris makes a great point, for a show about us why would the Beeb fell the need to have 2 Celtic bloggers on and I don't believe for a minute they didn't know who they were.

Yes...I look forward to the celtit season review special with panel members Limmy and David Leggat.

[pete 2,499]

Should Jim Traynor not be appearing on these panel shows in order to get the facts across, is that not what he is paid handsomely for? Seems a bit incredible that this all falls on the shoulders of Chris. Whilst Chris always comes across well in these situations, Traynor is the heavyweight (in every sense of the word) in these matters.

 

I would imagine he would have to be invited.

[lenzEK 0]

I certainly hope so and look forward to the day he is able to attend. All very well writing articles on the official website but he needs to tackle these people head on and show them up for what they are.

[Mountain Bear 0]

I listened to Spence's comments on the same show Chris refers to and was shocked that he was getting away with such a relentless tide of negativity, misrepresentation and slanted questions.

 

Cosgrove often irritates me with his smugness (count how often he says "the truth of the matter is..." when he's actually only giving an opinion) and Spiers usually looks and sounds like he's been violated whenever he has to discuss the Gers (at one point in a recent TV show he referred to "unfortunately" having followed Rangers' fortunes for 40 years), but Spence is just so blatant in his dislike of our club, it's embarrassing he's allowed to get away with it on a publicly funded station.

 

Keep up the good work Chris.

[amms 0]

Should Jim Traynor not be appearing on these panel shows in order to get the facts across, is that not what he is paid handsomely for? Seems a bit incredible that this all falls on the shoulders of Chris. Whilst Chris always comes across well in these situations, Traynor is the heavyweight (in every sense of the word) in these matters.

 

Traynor represents the club not the support, it's an important distinction. Whilst nobody can represent the entire support, people like the author and a few others identify themselves as Rangers supporters, rather than professional journalists or sport's broadcasters or indeed heads of communication.

The important point in this piece for me at least is that BBC Scotland feel a show about Rangers must include several Celtic supporters. It's this thinking that needs challenged, again and again.

 

It was interesting that Scotland Tonight on STV, after the EBT findings, invited Chris Graham, a Rangers supporter, Neil Patey a financial expert and Graham Speirs a sports journalist who has claimed to be a Rangers supporter in the past and is heavily involved in writing about us. They saw that as a balanced 'panel', an expert, a supporter and a journalist who has been very critical. No need for Celtic bloggers or Dundee Utd's PR mouthpiece.

 

The Rangers Standard continues to impress me, engaging with the BBC is a great move. Well done all involved.

[ian1964 10,416]

ANTI RANGERS BIAS BREACHES BBC CHARTER

 

BBC Scotland now appears, to many, to be so biased, so bigoted, so overtly anti Rangers, that there is a strong foundation for the case being made that it is in breach of its Charter.

 

Take, for instance, the way events played out last Thursday as BBC Scotland bosses got themselves in the fankle to end all fankles when trying to plan for a discussion about Rangers and the year since Craig Whyte imploded, sending the club into administration.

 

Here is how events unfolded.

 

On Wednesday BBC Scotland made a belated attempt to invite somebody from the Rangers side of affairs onto a programme which they said would examine the story from the social media side.

 

Stuart Cosgrove, a self confessed football hooligan and a man perceived by many as a Rangers hater, was to host the programme. Also invited was shamed lawyer Paul McConville, a man whose blog drips with hatred towards all things Rangers. He was to be joined by Andy Muirhead, whose Scotzine blog somehow contrives to make McConville seem balanced and fair.

 

When BBC Scotland approached the Rangers Standard’s Chris Graham and invited him to appear, he asked who else was going to be on the programme and the above line-up was relayed to him. No mention was made of Odious Creep.

 

Chris politely declined. He was later contacted again by BBC Scotland who told him McConville had been removed from the line up. Chris refused to re-consider. Despite the token change it was clear to him what the mindset of those planning the programme had been from the off. Anti Rangers. Again, no mention was made of Odious Creep.

 

By Thursday morning BBC Scotland bosses saw where their best laid schemes were heading and decided on another change. Stuart Cosgrove was removed from hosting the programme, but stayed as a guest and Jim Spence was ordered to hot foot it south from Inverness, where he had been covering a game, and fill the chair.

 

Next came a call to the publisher of the Rangers Historian and author of around twenty books about Rangers, Robert McElroy. He too refused. Again, no mention was made of Odious Creep appearing.

 

Spence then called McElroy again and offered to do a one-to-one interview with him on the telephone, to be inserted into the programme. At which time Odious Creep’s name surfaced. McElroy, once again, declined.

 

By the time the BBC Radio Scotland programme was broadcast the line up consisted of Jim Spence, a man who Rangers supporters see as being bitterly anti their club, plus Cosgrove and Creep, who later that night, on television admitted to being sad that he had spent 40 years in and around Rangers and their supporters.

 

Now, there may be some who believe either Chris Graham or Robert McElroy should have accepted the invitation to put the Rangers perspective on the programme. I disagree. For BBC Scotland bosses, by the initial inclusion of shamed lawyer Paul McConville and Scotzine’s Rangers hater, Andy Muirhead, showed a clear bias right from the off.

 

My belief if that had Chris Graham accepted the original invitation, McConville and Muirhead would have appeared and together with the highly experienced broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove, acting as ringmaster, they would have ambushed the Lone Ranger.

 

However, the way events played out and the major and minor players who took part, provides illumination into the mindset of BBC Scotland and, in my view, calls into question whether or not BBC Scotland fulfils the BBC Charter.

 

Which is why it is time for people to act to do something to have these and other actions, along with such people as Odious Creep and Stuart Cosgrove, put under the microscope.

 

The man to do that is the member of the BBC Trust with responsibilities for Scotland. His name is Bill Matthews and he can be reached at The BBC Trust Unit, 180, Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QZ or at trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

 

It is high time the rabid republican zealots and Rangers haters who run BBC Scotland were made to answer for their actions.

 

There is no other way to call them to account, as the BBC is not a commercial organisation, accountable to shareholders or at the mercy of market forces.

 

On a related subject, the BBC National Union of Journalists’ strike yesterday. This has been given a great deal of prominence on the Twitter site of well known and officially acknowledged bigot, Philmacgiollabhain.

 

Philmacgillabhain of course is eligible to take expense money from the NUJ, meaning, in his official role with the NUJ in the Republic of Ireland, he is able to pocket his share of NUJ members’ £300-a-year membership fee. Of course there may very well be many National Union of Journalists’ members here in Scotland who are fighting for their jobs, who are quite happy for that to happen.

 

Though I suspect there are many rank and file NUJ members – even at BBC Scotland where there was strike action yesterday – who are uncomfortable with this situation.

 

I suggest they take the matter up with the man the man whose life is completely funded by their NUJ membership fees, the National Union of Journalists’ full time Scottish organiser, Paul Holleran.

 

Indeed, since the Press Complaints Commission endorsed the Scottish Sun’s view that Philmacgiollabhain, a leading figure in the National Union of Journalists’ hierarchy is tarred with the brush of sectarianism, we haven’t heard a whimper or a growl on the subject from Paul Holleran.

 

Funny, that!

 

posted by leggoland