MOD bans ITV news access to Warzones

[ORAC]

The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-2417831,00.html): MoD bans TV news access to warzones

THE Ministry of Defence has banned Britain’s biggest commercial news broadcaster from frontline access to the nation’s forces, The Times has learnt. In an unprecedented move that risks accusations of censorship, the Government has withdrawn co-operation from ITV News in warzones after accusing it of inaccurate and intrusive reports about the fate of wounded soldiers........

[TurbineTooHot]

Waiting for the sh:mad: t to hit the fan.....however.......

About f:mad: :mad: :mad: king time that inaccurate and irresponsible jounrnalism and reporting wasn't let by unpunished.

Finally, in Mr Clark, evidence that there is a flash of competence from a civil servant once in a while.:D

Maybe other news agencies will take note.

Or maybe the to$$ers will winge about their "rights."

Watching with interest.

TTH





Wait, did I just praise an MOD civil servant? :eek:

Oh dear, time for bed!

[mutleyfour]

OK so they havent always got things right but they have moved things on at a pace even you must agree.

Look at what has happened regarding the military wing at Selby, tax free lump sum for deployed personnel, and a much wider knowledge of what is going on in Theatre.

I for one am dissapointed in the MOD action as it just shows the Stable door attitude that it always has done!

[BEagle]

Very stupid indeed to 'ban' the press. Such actions will guarantee a hostile press who will jump on any bad news in response.

MoD may not like true news items which expose its failings - inconvenient truth is often awkward for politicians.

I wonder whether ITV will be covering the delivery of the Hercules petition to Downing Street today.......

[nigegilb]

Beags, in answer to you question, ITN News in the form of C4 News are meeting the families when they step off the train.

We still have a free press here in the UK.

[QFIhawkman]

Very stupid indeed to 'ban' the press. Such actions will guarantee a hostile press who will jump on any bad news in response.

Yeah because that never happens at the moment does it?

The press are right behind the troops. They would NEVER dream of slinging mud in the tabloids when a female Officer runs off with a married squaddie half her age for example. They'd never make an issue of someone being kicked out for going topless in the paper.
They inform the public in a balanced way of the tribulations faced by servicemen on operations.

Oh, hang on a minute..... That's wrong isn't it?


The press are hostile to the forces all of the time Beags. Shame you haven't noticed.

[hobie]

I always thought ITN went to the dogs the day Andrew Gardner and Reggie Bosanquet packed it in .... :(

that was about 5 years ago wasn't it ? .... :p

[Ewan Whosearmy]

So, if you believe the Times article, ITN failed to get release consent from soldiers filmed being returned home wounded. And there were some inaccuracies, but the MoD hasn't told anyone what they were.

Solution: Ban them from being able to report from the war zone?

Sound like overkill to me.

[FCK1]

hey guys,
maybe i got the this wrong, but won't this just mean that ITV will go on reporting and just not talk to our boys on the ground? how's that going to help us get our points of view across to the media?

[Vox Populi]

A desperate act from a desperate department.

Probably more to do with stopping troops getting access to journalists than the other way around.

VP

[GlosMikeP]

Well that's going to help get a straight story isn't it!:rolleyes:

Now they'll invent it all from second-hand reports through journalists with even lower standards than the ones they've prohibited.

The BBC seems still to get stories on Zimbabwe, despite being banned from going there.

Pointless and stupid.

[Reach]

Good. About time they got rid of the lousy press, they only get in the way and what's the point in them anyway - the government spokesmen always tell it how it is.

[scribbler614]

MOD press maestros are getting increasingly jumpy over coverage of / access to Afghanistan and Iraq, and more and more snappy at the media. This isn't the first falling out in recent months.
It's got worse since Gen Dannatt said his piece, his MOD minders failed to spot the furore coming and the sh!t hit the fan.

I watched ITN piece which led to this latest row, as I'm sure others did. Could anyone have identifed the wounded soldier seen being unloaded from a VC10 at Brum International freight terminal in the wee small hours? Doubt it. For my part I couldn't see nature of injuries, either. Was ITN wrong to show that footage? You could argue it both ways.
I note MOD has accused ITN of 'inaccuracies' without saying what they are. That's not to say there weren't any, but I'd take this outburst more seriously if evidence were set out.
A wounded soldier who'd been through the mill complained about the way he was treated in hospital at Birmingham - surrounded by 'drug addicts and old women' - and said he felt betrayed. Was he right or wrong to speak out? Should ITN have ignored his views and told him to bugg3r off?

The media isn't anti-the British military.
Some bits of the media are anti-current operations. Most of media is anti-the way the Government treats the forces.

If MOD spin doctors think throwing their weight around like this will produce more favourable coverage, they're wrong.

[RileyDove]

Of course when the 'fun' stuff was happening with the assault on Basra and
toppling Saddam's statue they couldn't get enough embodied press there to witness it! Similarily in the lead up to war when we learnt of WMD's and the supposed links with Al Qaeda the Mod and Whitehall were leaning over backwards to help the press with the information they needed .
Step forwards to now and the glaring treatment of our forces is clear to all . Great that they choose now to censor what our media can do - maybe the media should now ignore these self serving muppets when they choose to fly out to these war zones and pretend everything is going swimmingly!

[PompeySailor]

Interesting developments. The MOD is on a serious backfoot here, they are not invoking the D-Notice system, they are simply banning an agency, which is almost unheard of. The last time this was done was on the Ark Royal when a unilateral decision was made in 2003 to switch from BBC because of their coverage of the helo crash and the petulant little ****e of a CBBC reporter on board, to Sky. The Ark was directed, formally, to retune to the "official" station of the BBC.

The MOD does not know which way to turn at the moment - they are not leading on the changes that are being forced through, they are having to react, hence the delay in publishing full information on the operational bonus and the associated fallout with regards to other allowances - they are barely keeping up, and the MOD press office is not coping. The Journos have realised that the information that they want can be got first hand and unfiltered. The MOD would appear to be confronted with a need to adjust, which they are doing in the time-honoured way of blaming everyone and trying to retreat into their shell. However, in the days of information sharing, they are going to lose. The drive for change comes from people pushing information straight into the public domain where it is picked up by the media, etc. The time, if the BAFF gets it right, has come for the soldier/sailor/airman to take the lead and bypass the "official" routes. If Dannatt can do it (or at least appear to do it with smoke and mirrors), then the gloves are off - and it certainly seems far more effective to do it by cutting out the middle man.

[Talking Radalt]

The BBC seems still to get stories on Zimbabwe, despite being banned from going there.

Errrr, well they make you think they're getting the goss from Zimbabwe when actually they're using second-hand reports from the safety of a neighbouring country!

[London Mil]

The press are hostile to the forces all of the time Beags. Shame you haven't noticed.

I don't think the press are hostile to the armed forces. They are merely a business that needs to sell stories, regardless of what the story is or where it comes from.

Right now, the military provide easy pickings. There's nothing more meaty than pictures of "our poor troops suffering due to Governmental incompetence/arrogance", reinforced by beautiful snippets from leaked emails and forum threads. Look at what else is going on in the 'news' right now. The Macca divorce (I bet he would like the ability to 'gag' the press), Posh getting her kit off (again?), Madge buying a 'Black Kid', Tony and his never-ending resignation and migrants.

All this is stuff where the press choose to pitch a story in a critical manner, normally focussed on the establishment or a celebrity.

Personally, I'm tempted to shove my head in the sand and ignore the news. It has ceased to inform me in an unbiased manned and certainly doesn't bring any light to my life. :rolleyes:

[Solid Rust Twotter]

Make that "relative safety"....