This entry was posted on
Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 at
8:59 am and is filed
under Christ….
Ofcom have ruled on the broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera.
(Heads-up via Scaryduck.)
You can read their findings here (PDF). You’ll find the JS:TO report under ‘Not in Breach’.
Media Watch Watch have made a few comments and are kind enough to bring us a HTML version of Ofcom’s findings.
It’s pretty much what you would expect, but does bring up a new player in the game that I previously wasn’t aware of – the Premier Media Group.
Later today, you can expect a response from John Beyer and Stephen Green (who via a sudden rush of publicity and/or funding, has found the resources required to give his site a professional makeover – you can see what the site used to look like here).
They’re sure to reject the report and find Ofcom at fault. Then our political leaders will get the blame, then our moral leaders, and – finally – God. I doubt they’ll ever get time to wonder if they were in any way wrong about this.
But here’s what really sticks in my craw…
This deeply irresponsible campaign – that began with this email and was aided by forces from the Christian right and alarm-loving media outlets such as The Sun and the Daily Mail – caused needless anguish in the minds of Christians, put lives at risk, and wasted a considerable amount of licence-payers’ and taxpayers’ money.
And it’s likely to happen again.
This is why I’m greatly disturbed that there doesn’t appear to be an official IT-savvy body with a remit or ability to deal with kind of thing and investigate aspects such as the nature, intention and source of the email and the possibility that many ‘individual’ complaints came from web users using multiple identities.
By mediawatchwatch.org.uk May 10, 2005 - 10:34 am
Click-thru campaigners account for 50% of complaints
According to Ofcom’s report, 50% of the 8,860 post-broadcast complaints were the result of a campaign by the Premier Media Group, owners of Premier Radio, a “Christian” radio station (sarcastic speech marks by Ekklesia). These were also the ones who co…
By mww May 10, 2005 - 10:41 am
I really think Stephen Green’s role in all this has been much overrated. He got notoriety for publishing the addresses of the BBC execs, but the original email circular had nothing to do with him, and the majority of complaints were a result of the rather more web-savvy Premier Media Group, who used Politicalwizard to enable their members to complain easily. There will definitely be more campaigns like this and record-number complaints will continue to rise. But they won’t be such big news as people get wise to the methods.
By Wolf Solent May 10, 2005 - 2:22 pm
Interesting to note that the news section of Beyers site is full of (a) plugs for Sky, that famous source of all good taste and decency and (b) material from the Daily Express, which I seem to recall is published by a pornographer of many years’ standing (oo-er).