Wednesday, October 10, 2007

BBC should stand for Beatroots Beat Cretinous (er…journos)


I used to be a big supporter of the BBC – meaning I liked watching it. But it has got in all sorts of embarrassment recently, and all of its own making.

So this just takes the biscuit, as far as the beatroot blog is concerned. Here is top BBC reporter Mark Mardell claiming the Economist broke the story of the Daily Mail paying Poles to go around speeding and parking illegally in the UK.

He says the Economist have an ‘expose’, ‘based on a story by the beatroot blog’!

He even spells 'beatroot' incorrectly - beatrout!!!

The .....cheek. But very representative of many MSM journalists. If it is first published by the MSM then it is an ‘expose’. But when bloggers, ‘expose’ something it is called ‘a story in the beatroot blog’ (see his post half way down).

The little set up of the Daily Mail involved two or three different people here in Warsaw – they ‘exposed’ the Mail.

A journalist ‘exposes’ and a blogger has a ‘story’. Mardell is writing in the context of ‘journalistic ethics’. So where is the ‘ethics’ in misrepresenting the source and method of distribution of your story? .

31 comments:

sonia said...

I think that for a very long time still the blogs will be treated as last-class citizens, far behind all the other medias.

We are supposed to be grateful if the MSM as much as notices our existence...

BBC is simply enforcing the apartheid of media hierarchy. And we are still in the 1950's of THAT apartheid regime...

beatroot said...

Rock on sister!

Damien Moran said...

Angry to hear this news - good on ya for keeping a track of their dirty deeds.

Respect and acknowledgment is due to the journo who exposed this story. And it's hardly a big ask to spell beanroot properly now, is it;)

Anonymous said...

But what about the black motorcycle rebel nuns who have "disappeared"?

What kind of visions did their "matka direktor" have?

What was the deal with the Franciscan priest who lived with them?

Sorry, but with so many noodles of nunnery news, I've lost interest in the jaywalking Poles story.

What about the way Michael Moore stages news events, btw?

beatroot said...

Jaywalking nuns?

Anonymous said...

What's the big fuss about the Daily Mail's methods? They're standard operating procedure in modern Poland.

beatroot said...

Prove it.

Anonymous said...

Mmm - unfortunately the Daily Mail is a popular standard read here in the UK and sadly most people - mainly middle class ones at that trust what they read - sad but true:-)

Is x

Damien Moran said...

Geez, like a good man elaborate on the jaywalking, black motorcycle rebel nuns who have "disappeared"? nuns. Ya can't just jump in here an tease us with such statements.

The Franciscan in Kazimierz Dolny was allegedly aggressive when the eviction of the nuns took place yesterday and as a result he was handcuffed and arrested by the cops. The Mother Superior was also arrested.

I haven't heard whether they have since been released or charged with anything.

For those lost as to what the fuck this issue is about then catch up here:
http://africa.reuters.com/odd/news/usnL10627437.html

It's worth a good laugh.

BR, have you contacted the BBC to tell them you and colleagues were the ones who actually broke this story. I know it's a head-fuck to chase up the media but at least they should put out an apology and note of clarification as to the correct source of this story.

beatroot said...

Mark Mardell knows...it really is the type of story that has been kept to the newspaper blogs - 'clogs'...not in the main sections. So it is 'B' level. So there is a level of interest, but in the end many 'investigative' journalists do this...and yes, it does happen in Poland.

Anonymous said...

I read that the the nuns were taken to three places to be somehow processed and then only one went back to join her family. The rest just disappeared. Maybe they ascended into heaven. There were apparently some rumors that they were going to go out with a mass suicide if word came of an eviction. Seems they were surprised when "the man" came. I wonder if they went their seperate ways to do it individually or if they might have planned to meet up somewhere. The news seems very spotty. Again, any word on what kind of visions the Big Mama was having?

beatroot said...

The people involved in that are deranged. Even the younger nuns have been totally separated from normal relationships and they look like a ‘Sect’ to me. If you look at the photos of them they seem like they have been sniffing laughing gas. One of them said: ‘There is so much love in that house (convent) …even the toys for the children have love in them…’

It is one of those sect stories that Americans should be familiar with.

Meg Q said...

Well, reahally, Beatroot old chap, you see, you're just a, what is it, yes a blog, whilst the Economist are real journos . . .

I've noticed that the better magazines and (surviving) newspapers here in North America are turning into agglomerations of blogs by contributors, with news stories attached. Maybe once the BBC is just a bunch of blogs with web content and multimedia being "broadcast" over broadband (or whatever), they'll respect blogs more. Until then - I wouldn't hold my breath.

Damien Moran said...

I heard that the Mama Superior was having visions of two kinds:

One was carnal and involved spaghetti and ice cream.

The other was that her true vocation was to be a bricklayer.

Supposedly this is what caused the eccentricity and drove her bananas.

And with all due respect I can understand her annnoyance - I mean, you spend 40 years locked up in a convent doing all you can to please God, then the Holy Spirit comes down and says:

"Dear child, thy Lord has calleth thee to lay bricks for his kingdom's most divine palace.
Go forth towards the most proximate prophet's house (newsagents), offer whatever silver you find in the shoe box beneath thine wooden bed - the varnished pine which you dressed with sharpened nails some months ago, and purchase thyself the Job section of Gazeta Wyborcza."


The Spirit allegedly continued: "Upon receiving this supplement, my Newest and Final Testament, proceed to the Construction section, whereupon you shalt find many a company who seeks thine blessed spade-like hands. Next, stop a man with a scruffy grey beard walking a a boxer dog outside the prophet's abode and borrow his mobile phone. Close your eyes, pray the Hail Mary backwards, and put your finger upon the construction page number 6, whereon you shall henceforth establish the name and number of your own private seraphim, who happens to have a Masters degree in engineering. My child, it is bricklayers who will be raised up first when the day of judgement descends upon the face of humanity - you neither know the day nor the hour. Bricklayers, bricklayers, bricklaers my dear Jadwiga - these are my foot soldiers; and you are to be their general."

Anonymous said...

BR: "Even the younger nuns have been totally separated from normal relationships"

Well, that's the lot of cloistered nuns as a matter of course, no?

Still, I haven't seen the answers anywhere to the questions I previously posed. And another one... what specifically made them "rebels" ... apostates... whatever they were declared...

Much jucier than newstaging jaywalking Britz... sounds like a Devils of Louden in the making. Matka Joanna of Aniolow and all that

Anonymous said...

BTW of further explanation for Damien... There's a US band that I kinda like called The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club... buncha white guys, not nuns, just so you know. Lots of the Polish press in English I've read refered to the nuns in question as "rebel" nuns... and it just seemed wonderously silly to link em together.

Damien Moran said...

Geez, Bethany nuns take a vow of obedience. They were disobedient causing scandal to the church.

I haven't heard what parts of Canon Law the Polish church used against them in their case to the Vatican but the chronology of events unfolded like this:

Acc. to the Warsaw Voice,
"In May 2005, the Vatican sent a special delegate of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life (CICL) and Societies of Apostolic Life (SAL) to examine the situation in Kazimierz Dolny. As a result of the investigation, the Vatican Aug. 6 decided to remove Ligocka from her office."

Furthermore on Feb. 1, 2006, Lublin Archbishop Józef Życiński "issued a decree that banned administering sacraments in the convent of the Bethany nuns in Kazimierz Dolny."

Then on Oct. 28, 2006, the Vatican issued a decree that expelled the 10 disobedient nuns from the Bethany order.

Archbishop Życiński then wrote a pastoral letter to the residents of Kazimierz Dolny advising them that the CICL and SAL had confirmed its decision to banish the nuns.

Damien Moran said...

White Rebel Motorcycle Bricklaying Former Nun - has a ring to it alright!

Anonymous said...

Already read all that stuff and that it's been dragging out for a year -- but thanks Damien.

"As a result of the investigation, the Vatican Aug. 6 decided to remove Ligocka from her office."

But what did they investigate? And what were the findings? What kind of visions did she have? What else was going on there? What was the deal with the Franciscan priest there?

Bricklaying nuns?

Damien Moran said...

Hahahaha - good one! I like laughing in the morning and that last piece 'Bricklaying nuns?' almost had me piss in my pants - sorry, I know, I'll try hard to control myself.

Ok, I realise we're losing focus a bit on this thread so forgive us BR. It's a rather hot topic. Maybe we can get the Daily Mail's finest investigator on to the case?;)

Geez is right in terms of hard details being lacking. But sorry man, the church are hardly going to be too forthcoming when it comes to exposing the lunacy of people who are supposed to be it's own shepherds.

One word is sufficient - disobedience. Defying a pope's order is an excommunicable offence.
Yet, disgracefully, when Fr. Christian Von Wernich, former chaplain to the Buenos Aries police under the military junta in Argentina passed on secret information from confessors to the cops dozens were murdered, kidnapped and tortured:
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071010055638.oj639nma.html
He was able to keep his dog collar on, even while on trial.

And the fact that Fr. Teddy Rydzyk still has his collar is testimony to the Vatican's double standards.
It's quite easy to nail relatively unknown nuns, another thing to tackle a de facto semi-deity and media mogul cleric in Torun.

So unless some crappy tabloid offers an attractive sum for inside revelations and one of the more capitalist-minded nuns decides to let the cat out of the bag, I fear the gory details will evade us.

I'd seriously doubt any suicide will take place. They're stubborn women but guess a bit too fluffy and lacking balls for such a dramatic ending.

This Franciscan priest fruitcake looks like the one who exerted most dangerous influence. I'd like to think they've all gone hiking in the mountains to get a bit of exercise are being holed up in a house for 2 years.

beatroot said...

It was something to do with the previous Mother Superior, who had visions (possibly of kinky sex with bricklayers) and the visions were not to the Vaticans taste. So bad were they that they replaced the Mother Superior with another one and put some new sisters in place. But the old lot refused to go etc. Like you say, it is about control from vatican and the horrible fear catholics here have of 'sects'...

beatroot said...

Gore has won Nobel....get me a bucket.

Anonymous said...

D: Maybe we can get the Daily Mail's finest investigator on to the case?

The stories that come out of this one are going to be interesting. Much more so than expatriate Britz posing as jaywalking bricklayer-loving motorcycle gang renegade Polish nuns in Tralfagar Square.

Anonymous said...

I am a bit bored with blogging of all kinds! Maybe all bloggers should go on holiday and come back after Christmas!Blogging is a bit like Big Brother(reality TV-that's a joke!),but designed for the internet generation to air the trivial as well as the the important.I feel most blogging is trivial.Not critical of Beatroot, of course!

John,Poznan

beatroot said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
beatroot said...

May be blogging is just a prolonged craze. Don't know. Don't know how much good it does generally. There are many bloggers that think it will change the world. And comment journalists - and op eds - agree with them. They are always slagging them off, so they must be worried. Maybe a positive of blogs is that they might force journos to go back to their real job - newsgathering. But I doubt it. With 24 hour news and the internet, that is a lot of room to fill up. So what we are going to get is more and more journalists apeing bloggers and forgeting what their day job is.

Anonymous said...

... and forgeting what their day job is.

Sounds like a sensible thing to do.

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рестораны в барселоне said...

It can't work in reality, that is exactly what I suppose.

Fang said...

... and forgeting what their day job is. Sounds like a sensible thing to do.

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