Shame on the BBC

From many years now my opinion of the news media has been dropping lower and lower. It started dropping in the mid-80s when I met a newspaper reporter who told me how he wrote exactly what he was told by his editor and if it happened that what his editor wanted didn't match the facts then the facts came off second best. At the time I was shocked because I had the rather naïve idea that the news media reported facts. Nowadays I rarely believe anything I read in the mainstream media.

However, despite that I still had a naïve faith in the BBC. I grew up with the BBC and when I came over to the US and saw the poor quality of news reporting here; it gave me a sort of nationalistic pride to know that the good old "Beeb" would still tell the truth no matter the consequences.

Well, my last small shred of naïve belief in the news media has just been well and truly trampled into the uncompromising mud of reality. The BBC has now proven itself to be just as corrupt as all the rest.

Watch this documentary on the BBC and their "ace reporter" John Sweeney and you'll have to agree with me.

• The complete documentary: Shame on the BBC: Panorama Exposed
  

OR in parts:

• Panorama Exposed Part 1
  
• Panorama Exposed Part 2
  
• Panorama Exposed Part 3
  

And other snippets:

• John Sweeney – A BBC Reporter At Work
  
• John Sweeney – Swapping his criminal conviction with a sex offender
  

As a side-note, John Sweeny is aptly named, if you know anything about the story of "Sweeny Todd." Perhaps the main difference between them is that Todd used a razor on his victims and Sweeney uses a "hatchet" (in the journalistic sense of the word).