Bradford Journalist speaks out on 'trial by media'

[TonyGosling]

MEDIA ARE COMPLICIT IN HYSTERIA

The complicity of our media in whipping up an atmosphere of Hysteria about the London bombings will astound future generations.

When I was a cub reporter, some 50 years ago, 'innocent until proven guilty' was a rule carved into my consciousness by my seniors. Words like "alleged" had to be inserted into every crime report until the courts delivered their verdict.

It seems to me that, like trial by jury and other freedoms, those safeguards are going out of the window. Trial by media, with none of the provisions of common law or justice, is now the order of the day.

Let us consider the case of the alleged bombers. What is it we know for sure? That they travelled to London just before the bombing. That they were caught on CCTV cameras, like many thousands of other travellers. That they died. All elase is conjecture.

But their names - and their families' names - are dragged through the mud. We are even shown the birth certificate of one in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, as if that told us anything we needed to know.

But, surely, the police assure us that they are implicated. Oh yes? Would that be the same police who stitched up the alleged IRA bombers of Birmingham and Guildford, to prove that they were doing something - anything! - to cover their backsides? So the true bombers went free?

Lets have some healthy scepticism and less hysteria from our media, please!

Karl Dallas - NUJ member - Bradford

From the September 2005 edition of The Journalist magazine - journal of the NUJ - www.nuj.org.uk