Yes \u2013 Because it\u2019s Happening Now.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cEverybody would say, \u2018what evidence have you got?\u2019 I would say, \u2018well I don\u2019t have enough evidence to ever prove to anyone that he\u2019s guilty\u2026I just feel that I have huge responsibility, a huge need, to go and ask a lot of questions\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n David Walsh, the journalist who, in 1999, first questioned Lance Armstrong\u2019s remarkable performance in the Tour de France. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n At a moment when the BBC is being forced to confront the toxicity of its intrinsically compromised \u201cnetworked\u201d and \u201cclub-like\u201d nature \u2013 in which uncomfortable facts can be hidden in plain sight if that\u2019s what suits a number of people \u2013 I was most interested to read a parallel story; one which has echoes of the BBC\u2019s omerta.<\/span><\/p>\n On the 11th<\/sup> October, the Press Gazette carried an interview with sports journalist David Walsh, who was the first person to publicly question the plausibility of the startling performance of cyclist Lance Armstrong. What struck me most about Walsh\u2019s story was not so much that he was a person who walked a lonely and demanding path, against the groupthink of the day (there are always a few) but, rather, his grounds for doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t leaked dynamite information \u2013 he didn\u2019t obtain access to secret medical reports \u2013 he had no \u201cdeep-throat\u201d source back then, in 1999. Instead, he coolly observed what he was witnessing \u2013 and asked himself the plain and obvious question: \u201cis this plausible?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He didn\u2019t think so. Following Armstrong\u2019s victory in the 1999 Tour, Walsh wrote \u201cThis afternoon I will be keeping my arms by my side because I\u2019m not sure this is something we should be applauding.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> His only ground for writing that provocative opinion in the Sunday Times, was his intuition for the plausible.<\/span><\/p>\n Walsh incurred widespread damnation for his comments. But as he said in the Press Gazette article, \u201cEverybody would say, \u2018what evidence have you got?\u2019 I would say, \u2018well I don\u2019t have enough evidence to ever prove to anyone that he\u2019s guilty\u2026I just feel that I have huge responsibility, a huge need, to go and ask a lot of questions\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n And David Walsh carried on doing that thing which is actually surprisingly rare amongst the journalistic profession \u2013 he went to his subject \u2013 and simply asked the obvious questions.<\/span><\/p>\n Lance Armstrong invited Walsh to interview him in 2001; \u201cHe rang me because he knew I was asking a lot of questions and he thought that if I come along, and he\u2019s really nice to me, and he gives me a one-on-one interview, I\u2019ll be as happy as every other journalist and I\u2019ll become his friend,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Walsh says.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t feel any desire to be his friend because I had a sense of what he was like, and I felt there were lots of questions that needed answering.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Walsh\u2019s first words to Armstrong when he arrived at the hotel were: \u201cI don\u2019t believe you\u2019re clean, but this is why I\u2019m here, because I have questions. But the only questions I want to ask you are about doping. I won\u2019t be asking you one question about cycling outside of the context of doping.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n David Walsh had those suspicions \u2013 and he simply went, and bluntly asked the obvious questions. And carried on asking them. And he was right.<\/span><\/p>\n Now that so many people in the BBC are mumbling about how the conduct of Jimmy Savile was so widely suspected \u2013 and that there were so many rumours \u2013 and, indeed, actual victims to be spoken with, as we now know \u2013 why did no BBC journalists go and ask \u2013 and persist in asking \u2013 the plain and obvious questions of Jimmy Savile \u2013 and ask the same obvious questions of those who had employed Savile, and those who persisted in enabling him to be around children?<\/span><\/p>\n What is it \u2013 about that simple foundation-stone of journalism \u2013 just asking the damn question \u2013 that is so difficult for 99% of today\u2019s journalists?<\/span><\/p>\n Well, as an example of the modern phenomena that so increasingly threatens the entire relevancy of traditional hacks \u2013 a citizen\u2019s media journalist \u2013 I am going to ask some damn questions.<\/span><\/p>\n Some obvious questions \u2013 arising out of things that sit in plain sight, yet which go unremarked, uninterrogated.<\/span><\/p>\n For example \u2013 why are BBC journalists still \u2013 this very day \u2013 silently permitting the scandalous and corrupt concealment of decades of child-abuse to go unquestioned?<\/span><\/p>\n What are their motivations \u2013 their reasons \u2013 for doing that?<\/span><\/p>\n Could it be – like the use of performance-enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong \u2013 the most plain and obvious explanation?<\/span><\/p>\n That corruption is widespread amongst BBC staffers?<\/span><\/p>\n Indeed \u2013 I\u2019m asking – I\u2019m pointing at the elephant in the room \u2013 and asking the question: \u201cis, in fact, corruption endemic in British journalism?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n That is my gut-instinct \u2013 just as Walsh had his about Armstrong.<\/span><\/p>\n Gaby Hinsliff, former Political Editor of the Observer, wrote in a tweet at 1.37 on Friday 12th<\/sup> October, \u201cWhatever failings of BBC management, BBC journalists are doing an exemplary, unflinching job of reporting Savile case.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Really?<\/span><\/p>\n Well \u2013 now that it is safe and undemanding to do so \u2013 maybe a number of BBC hacks are reporting the sordid details of Savile\u2019s conduct. But are they asking THE important \u2013 the plain and obvious questions, a la David Walsh?<\/span><\/p>\n Are they questioning the very \u201cculture\u201d of the BBC as a traditional institution \u2013 and all the baggage that brings?<\/span><\/p>\n Are they asking \u2013 \u201cis corruption and concealment a common currency in the BBC?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Or \u2013 \u201cwhy has the BBC played the role it has, in so strongly assisting the Jersey establishment to cover-up child abuse \u2013 including abuse by Savile?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Well, let\u2019s hope one or two them might be planning to do that, though I haven\u2019t yet seen any sign of it. And to help any budding David Walshes in the BBC \u2013 I\u2019m going to\u00a0assist, by laying out some of the stark and extraordinary matters that require \u2013 that demand – questions.<\/span><\/p>\n And the failure of the BBC to deal competently or honestly with current child-abuse scandals in Jersey is one of those matters that demands interrogation. Consider yourself to be a serious and ethical BBC journalist? Then come to Jersey \u2013 and ask the damn questions of the BBC management and staff here.<\/span><\/p>\n The plain and obvious questions.<\/span><\/p>\n In the previous posting \u2013 I wrote of the \u201ccurrency of concealment\u201d<\/em><\/strong> in respect of child-abuse.<\/span><\/p>\n But the currency of concealment applies to most walks of life \u2013 most situations. Let\u2019s face it \u2013 knowing stuff \u2013 embarrassing stuff \u2013 or problematic stuff \u2013 about people \u2013 having done them favours, or they having done you favours, by keeping schtum about certain matters \u2013 and helping each other up the career ladder, is how influence is peddled in Britain; it is how the nation \u201cnetworks\u201d \u2013 and, frankly, it has been for hundreds of years. Corruption, and the concealment of corruption, is endemic in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n And in so many ways \u2013 the way the traditional media has worked, is simply a giant, technicolor, unsubtle cartoon version of that workaday custom \u2013 that way of \u201cdoing business\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t take my word for it. The journalist who broke the phone-hacking scandal, Nick Davies, said at the Leveson inquiry, \u201cjournalism doesn’t begin with checking facts, it’s about selective decisions on what to cover\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s as good a one-sentence description of how journalism works as you will ever find.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s something I noticed, when my career was in politics; journalists look down on politicians with contempt. And, in most cases, you couldn\u2019t blame them. But lacking in the perspective of those journalists, is the realisation that they too float down the same gutter, perhaps clinging to a fractionally more elevated turd. And maybe not even that.<\/span><\/p>\n The blunt truth is that most journalists are lazy, uncourageous and useless. 95% of them are unspeakably crap \u2013 yet without even in mitigation, the self-acceptance that you might find amongst most politicians. The smug self-regard of broadcast journalists in particular is a revolting wonder to behold when you have the misfortune of attempting to work closely with them.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the questions that must be asked, is actually, \u201cdo we need to re-assess what we think journalist are for?\u201d <\/em><\/strong>Our customary answer to that question might have been \u2018reporting important news\u2019, or, \u2018holding power to account.\u2019 But in reality, today \u2013 hell, for decades, the real function of most of the mainstream media has been to act as a \u2018filter\u2019, a kind of \u2018control-mechanism\u2019 on public discourse. As Nick Davies said, journalism is \u201cabout selective decisions on what to cover\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n And there can be fewer more pertinent examples than the corrupt concealment of child-abuse in Jersey \u2013 and the concealment of that corrupt concealment, by the traditional media \u2013 the BBC in particular.\u00a0 The unacknowledged key, power of the traditional media \u2013 that of omission \u2013 has been both exposed, and rendered redundant by Jersey bloggers.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the things the media, even at a national level, still does not seem to have grasped, is that their major power (and perhaps their most serious cultural failing) namely the power of omission, is dead.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear \u2013 the power of the British media is simply immense, absolutely immense.<\/span><\/p>\n For all the fears, some justified, some not, the British media has of a post-Leveson world, in order to be reasonably confident of retaining their freedom, influence \u2013 and respect \u2013 the mainstream media has to wake up to a whole new paradigm.<\/span><\/p>\n That paradigm is this:<\/span><\/p>\n The editorial \u201cfreedom\u201d that the media used to enjoy – to pick and chose what stories it would not<\/em> run \u2013 that freedom to \u201comit\u201d \u2013 that great power to filter\u00a0 the very type of stories to be published, and thus control the terms of debate \u2013 is gone.<\/span><\/p>\n Gone forever.<\/span><\/p>\n The World Wide Web has killed it; killed that power of omission<\/em>, stone-dead.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been an un-paid blogger, writing journalistically since February 2008. Consider this fact: during the time-period since then, to the present, I have written and produced more evidence-based investigative journalism \u2013 than every journalist, from all of Jersey\u2019s traditional media – in all of the post-World War II years \u2013 combined.<\/span><\/p>\n Take, for example, just the following three blog-postings:<\/span><\/p>\n http:\/\/stuartsyvret.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/graham-powers-statement-part-1.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/stuartsyvret.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/jersey-independence.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n