I was surprised to see a clip on the BBC news the other evening purporting to show Iranian armed men hunting for an American serviceman whose plane had apparently been shot down in their country. I found it unsettling that the BBC chose to air this footage. I wondered if they would have done the same if the technology in World War Two had allowed them to get hold of some footage of Wehrmacht or SS officers setting out to hunt down Allied airmen shot down in enemy territory.
In Children of Men, PD James points out that “you don't need to manipulate unwelcome news; just don't show it.” Most evenings, the BBC follows this advice very closely. Huge events it doesn’t care for are ignored or get the briefest of coverage, while tabloid nonsense pads out the half hour. To me that makes the decsion to show viewers footage that I suspect comes direct from the Iranian regime’s propaganda machine particularly mystifying.
What do others think?
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