• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

would you interview Osama?

andyandy

anthropomorphic ape
andyandy
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
8,377
Taken from http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/10/hypotheticals_would_you_accept.html

the questions were composed as a BBC seminar topic for "impartiality in the digital age." They posed the following hypothetical questions to a panel comprising of media presenters/broadcasters.....

Here are the hypotheticals:

1) You have hired a female newsreader, who is Muslim. She's a great success. A few months later, she returns from holiday in Lahore wearing a hijab that she insists on wearing on screen. What do you do?

2)
a) Sacha Baron Cohen records an episode of Room 101. It's a great show. He nominates kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bible for inclusion in Room 101. Are you happy to broadcast this?

b) Late breaking news: he also includes the Qur'an. Are you still happy to broadcast it?

3)
a) Osama bin Laden agrees to an interview. The only pre-conditions are that it will be an hour long and you'll broadcast the entire interview. Do you agree?

b) As the interview ends Bin Laden insists on keeping the reporter "as a guest" until the interview is broadcast, so that he can ensure there's no back-pedalling on the conditions. Do you agree?

c) Do you inform the appropriate anti-terror authorities of the interview before broadcasting it - including the location where it took place?
Click to expand...

You can read their opinions here http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,,1885170,00.html

What do you think?
 
Last edited:
I'd have to agree on the Osama interview, provided the rules of the interview matched those of the 2001 interview with Ahmad Shah Massoud,
 
Darth Rotor said:
Fire her. If she is afraid to show her face on TV, she isn't worth having on payroll.

What is Room 101?


DR
Click to expand...
You probably couldn't fire her under the UK's anti religious discrimination legislation. Unless you could prove that showing her face was a "genuine occupational requirement".

Room 101 is a UK TV chat show, where celebrities nominate things which they whish to see consigned to hell (or Room 101, names after the torture room in 1984)
 
sorry room 101 is a uk show - people have to nominate things which they wish didn't exist/hate to put in room 101....

more specifically, it's taken from Orwell's 1984

"You asked me once," said O'Brien, "what was in Room 101. I told you that you know the answer already. Everybody knows. The thing in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."

Room 101 is a torture chamber in which a prisoner is subjected to his own worst nightmare. Such is the omniscience of the state in the totalitarian society of Nineteen Eighty-Four that even a citizen's nightmares are known to the authorities. The nightmare — and therefore the threatened punishment — of the protagonist Winston Smith is to have his face gnawed by rats. Smith saves himself by begging the authorities to let his lover, Julia, have her face gnawed out by the ferocious rodents instead. The torture—and what Winston does to escape it—utterly crushes the feelings between himself and Julia, destroying their youthful idealism, their dreams for the future, and their feelings for each other. It should be noted that the book never suggests Julia is actually subjected to the rat torture (although it is strongly implied she was threatened with her own worst nightmare), and the original intent of threatening Winston with the rats probably wasn't actually to go through with the act, but to force him into betraying the only person he loved and therefore break his spirit.
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101
 
brodski said:
Room 101 is a UK TV chat show, where celebrities nominate things which they whish to see consigned to hell (or Room 101, names after the torture room in 1984)
Click to expand...

damn you brodski and your quick fingers! Damn you to room 101 where rats will nibble your face! :D
 
Last edited:
brodski said:
You probably couldn't fire her under the UK's anti religious discrimination legislation. Unless you could prove that showing her face was a "genuine occupational requirement".
Click to expand...
How is showing one's face not an occupational requirment for a TV news caster in an open society? I'd like to hear that one.

DR
 
1) it depends on how hot she is.
2)
a) yes
b) yes
3)
a) yes
b) That's up to the reporter, but I would discourage.
c) yes
 
1) You have hired a female newsreader, who is Muslim. She's a great success. A few months later, she returns from holiday in Lahore wearing a hijab that she insists on wearing on screen. What do you do?
Click to expand...

Let her. No reason not to.

2)
a) Sacha Baron Cohen records an episode of Room 101. It's a great show. He nominates kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bible for inclusion in Room 101. Are you happy to broadcast this?

b) Late breaking news: he also includes the Qur'an. Are you still happy to broadcast it?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be happy to broadcast it anyway. That's crap TV.

3)
a) Osama bin Laden agrees to an interview. The only pre-conditions are that it will be an hour long and you'll broadcast the entire interview. Do you agree?
Click to expand...

No, because it won't be an "interview," it'll just be him making a speech. $%^& that. He's got Youtube.

b) As the interview ends Bin Laden insists on keeping the reporter "as a guest" until the interview is broadcast, so that he can ensure there's no back-pedalling on the conditions. Do you agree?
Click to expand...

Just goes to show his "interview" is a speech. Double hell-no.
 
Darth Rotor said:
How is showing one's face not an occupational requirment for a TV news caster in an open society? I'd like to hear that one.

DR
Click to expand...
So, a woman reading the news with a veiled face is somehow less effective at reading the news because of that veil? How?
Is a man wearing a turban and a full beard less effective at reading that same news?
 
c) Do you inform the appropriate anti-terror authorities of the interview before broadcasting it - including the location where it took place?
Click to expand...
Absolutely. In fact, I inform them before the interview where and when it's going to take place. What's the reward up to these days? More than enough to buy my integrity, I know that much.
 
Here are the hypotheticals:

1) You have hired a female newsreader, who is Muslim. She's a great success. A few months later, she returns from holiday in Lahore wearing a hijab that she insists on wearing on screen. What do you do?
Click to expand...

It depends on a few things, for instance does the channel have a dress-code for its news readers that they agree to as part of their contract of employment. Do they have a prohibition about religious symbols? If so then again it depends if this is in breach of it.

2)
a) Sacha Baron Cohen records an episode of Room 101. It's a great show. He nominates kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bible for inclusion in Room 101. Are you happy to broadcast this?
Click to expand...

Yes.
b) Late breaking news: he also includes the Qur'an. Are you still happy to broadcast it?
Click to expand...
Yes.

Both of those "yes" answers have to very unfortunately in the UK be somewhat qualified in case they would breach the incitement to religious hatred laws - we have been assured that jokes about religions are still OK given this new law and Room 1010 is a comedy show. (Have to add seen plenty of recent comedy shows still taking the Micheal out of religions such as Islam and Christianity so I'm assuming the TV channels are reasonably certain such jokes do not contravene the new legislation.)

3)
a) Osama bin Laden agrees to an interview. The only pre-conditions are that it will be an hour long and you'll broadcast the entire interview. Do you agree?
Click to expand...
Yes, and then decide afterwards if I want to use all the interview or not. I mean he's not going to pursue me in the civil courts for breach of contract is he?
b) As the interview ends Bin Laden insists on keeping the reporter "as a guest" until the interview is broadcast, so that he can ensure there's no back-pedalling on the conditions. Do you agree?
Click to expand...

If he isn't going to enforce it then no - if he is then I'd just leave it up to the authorities as the best course of action.
c) Do you inform the appropriate anti-terror authorities of the interview before broadcasting it - including the location where it took place?
Click to expand...
Of course.
 
ok....my own opinions

1) if it's a hijab then that would be acceptable....but a burka would not be.....
if an arbitrary line has to be drawn then it should be done so over burkas and their misogynistic symbolism.....

2) yes
b) yes

3)hmmm.....a toughie but yes. As long as the journalist is up to the task and it is conducted as a proper interview - ie with the journalist in charge to prevent soap-box rhetoric. If one believes (as most of us I'm sure do) that the al-quaida ideology can not stand up to close scrutiny, then one should be willing to expose those inconsistancies to as many people as possible. The BBC hardtalk program does this for all sorts of characters - Ann Coulter and the head of Hamas (not that i'm claiming equivilence) were two such people who were taken to pieces - I'd believe that Osama would be too.

b) no. He's changed the conditions of the original agreement. You should not be willing to place a hostage in a position of barter.

c) yes of course. But if osama did agree to an interview he'd be unlikely to send out an invitation with his address....more likely you'd be told to meet at a location, searched, then blindfolded, then taken to the meeting.
 
1) You have hired a female newsreader, who is Muslim. She's a great success. A few months later, she returns from holiday in Lahore wearing a hijab that she insists on wearing on screen. What do you do?
Click to expand...

Ship her off to Gitmo.

2)
a) Sacha Baron Cohen records an episode of Room 101. It's a great show. He nominates kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bible for inclusion in Room 101. Are you happy to broadcast this?
Click to expand...

How is he going to appear on Room 101 if he is in Gitmo?

b) Late breaking news: he also includes the Qur'an. Are you still happy to broadcast it?
Click to expand...

This is a good sign that the inquisitors of Gitmo have rehabilitated him.

3)
a) Osama bin Laden agrees to an interview. The only pre-conditions are that it will be an hour long and you'll broadcast the entire interview. Do you agree?
Click to expand...

I will broadcast the interview of Osama from Gitmo with pleasure. Of course, the script for his responses will be provided to him, so that he may not pass on any coded messages to his followers.

b) As the interview ends Bin Laden insists on keeping the reporter "as a guest" until the interview is broadcast, so that he can ensure there's no back-pedalling on the conditions. Do you agree?
Click to expand...
If Osama wishes to pretend the interviewer is the guest at Gitmo, that's okay with me.

c) Do you inform the appropriate anti-terror authorities of the interview before broadcasting it - including the location where it took place?
Click to expand...

Nonsense question. Seeing as how the interview would take place at Gitmo, the anti-terror authorities would already know.
 
brodski said:
So, a woman reading the news with a veiled face is somehow less effective at reading the news because of that veil? How?
Click to expand...
Deaf viewers would be unable to lip-read her, which would almost certainly put the TV station - if it's in the UK - in breach of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
 
sophia8 said:
Deaf viewers would be unable to lip-read her, which would almost certainly put the TV station - if it's in the UK - in breach of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
Click to expand...

Not so, especially as subtitles are now standard. If being unable to read lips of a presenter put TV stations in breach of the DDA, then full, bushy beards would be banned along with voiceovers of VT reports.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom