I have occasionally thought about setting up a production company. In the meantime, Matt Turner writes:
Cast your minds back to last year when the results of the
Labour leadership contest were imminent.
BBC Panorama broadcast an anti-Corbyn documentary called ‘Jeremy Corbyn: Labour’s Earthquake’ – which was meant to be about the reasons behind the shock rise of an anti-establishment, anti-austerity candidate.
BBC Panorama broadcast an anti-Corbyn documentary called ‘Jeremy Corbyn: Labour’s Earthquake’ – which was meant to be about the reasons behind the shock rise of an anti-establishment, anti-austerity candidate.
Instead, a source in Corbyn’s camp accused the episode of being a “complete hatchet
job” that contained a
shocking level of inaccuracies and mistruths.
It was so poorly received by those
backing Corbyn that the BBC actually outright refused to
reveal the number of complaints it had received about the show.
My
guess is that it was in the tens of thousands.
Of course, the programme was not
made by the BBC, but a private production company called Films of Record.
However, EvolvePolitics can reveal that the same production company and
executive producer, Neil Grant, are responsible for the up and coming Channel 4
Dispatches documentary ‘The Battle for the
Labour Party’.
What makes this story interesting
is that the Managing Director of Films of Record, Neil Grant, used to be a
Labour CLP chair and political researcher for Ken Livingstone.
Grant has not
spoken to Livingstone in twenty years after an apparent falling out.
When questioned on
Livingstone, Grant
said “Ken is not the person I remember. It’s very sad for me.”
Due for broadcast today, the Dispatches documentary has
already been lambasted for targeting Momentum, a group set up to support Jeremy
Corbyn’s leadership in the wake of his victory last September.
A spokesman for Momentum has claimed that the documentary
contains a plethora of slurs and inaccuracies, and laughed off attempts by
Channel 4’s Dispatches and Films of Record to try and find evidence of a
serious entryism plot.
According to Momentum, “the programme has failed to do
so because no such plot exists.”
Moreover, Momentum claim that
other allegations levelled at them and the Jeremy For Labour leadership
campaign in the documentary are “matters of opinion which will raise more
concerns about the impartiality of the broadcaster than anything else.”
There is no crime here other than
a crime against investigative journalism, but it appears this production
company is specialising in Labour Party hit jobs, timing them perfectly for
when all eyes are on Labour – ahead of leadership election results.
What will
leave viewers questioning the legitimacy of these documentaries is that both
programmes have been castigated for inaccurate reporting that intentionally and
undeservedly portrays Corbyn and those associated with him in a negative light.
Don’t expect much balance in your
Monday night viewing, folks.
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