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Newswatch

Host Host | 11:02 UK time, Monday, 30 October 2006

On this week's Newswatch, the programme to discuss viewers' comments on Ö÷²¥´óÐã News, head of TV News Peter Horrocks answers complaints about coverage of the Kriss Donald murder trial, and director of sport Roger Mosey debates the appointment of Mihir Bose as sport editor. You can watch it here.

Comments

  • 1.
  • At 03:31 PM on 31 Oct 2006,
  • Richard Davies wrote:

Most people who happen across this piece will probably be saying to themselves 'Kriss Donald ? Who's he, I've never heard of him...'

And *that* is precisely the point.

As a counterpoint, try and find anyone (either in your workplace or in the pub) who *hasn't* heard the name Stephen Lawrence or Anthony Walker.

Of course, both of those murders were shocking and senseless and certainly worthy of coverage.

However, both of those victims died from a single blow. Kriss Donald on the other hand was literally butchered and burned alive, simply for being a white boy in the wrong place. And still the Ö÷²¥´óÐã didn't deem this worthy of airtime.

It makes you wonder just exactly what a white victim of a racist attack would have to endure before the Ö÷²¥´óÐã would consider it 'a story'.

  • 2.
  • At 12:58 PM on 02 Nov 2006,
  • Richard Morris wrote:

Sorry to note that Peter Horrock is a fully paid up member of the 'obviously' club.

  • 3.
  • At 11:10 AM on 09 Nov 2006,
  • tim heydon wrote:

What is so offensive about the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's attitude to 'race' crime has been its quite unjustified assumption that, to quote Mark Easton, Ö÷²¥´óÐã News Editor, Racism has been defined as 'prejudice plus power.'

This is certainly the neo-marxist definition of the liberal-left elites, but Mr Easton has no right to identify the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's own liberal-left prejudices with society at large, whose own attitude to this matter has always been far more realistic.

That the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has done so in the past has meant a gross injustice to and oppression of the native British, who have had to put up with decades of skewed news reporting and attitudes designed to make them feel their unique guilt.

Racial feeling is a function of a common human nature; a proposition the liberal left has difficulty getting its head round, because it flies in the face of its most fundamental assumptions. When it does, we shall begin to see some honesty and truth on the subject of race from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã.

  • 4.
  • At 04:43 PM on 12 Nov 2006,
  • Yeang Soo Ling wrote:

Richard Davies, I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment. Considering that I am Chinese and am not a native of this country as such, I would like to think that my concurrence with you comes from a sense of humanity and of fairness. I did know about what happened to Kriss Donald by the time I read your post on here. BUT ONLY SINCE THE PAST WEEK; and because it is only now that there is some publicity about the inhumane murder of this innocent young boy.

There does appear to be an inbalance in the lack of any concerted effort on the part of the media to bring Kriss Donald and what happened to him, to the public's consciousness. So yes, this is strange indeed.

And yet, Kriss Donald was subjected to a terrifying ordeal that far surpassed other racially motivated murders in the past.

Stephen Lawrence was a watershed case that had stood out in people's consciousness; his death had evoked revulsion for his killers. And rightly, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and the rest of the media had been collectively instrumental in their efforts to bring his murderers to public attention - which does indeed make it all the more bizarre that many people - with the exception of those in Scotland - have only just come to learn about Kriss Donald's barbaric murder this past week!

Since hearing and reading about Kriss, I have been haunted by images of what he must have gone through before he died. It isn't just his death itself, tragic enough as it is; it was his last moments of having been subjected to pain, agony and terror; and the certain knowledge that he was going to die. It is images of him being repeated stabbed, it is images of him as he tried to extinguish the fire on his body, that stuns me to the core of my humanity.

Over the past week I have been personally affected by what I read and learn about his ordeal. I have cried for him - two years and eight months later. It is sad that the powers that be at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and other media corporations had somehow not given the same 'Stephen Lawrence' kind of zeal and focus to this case. It would have been a tribute that this young boy and his family has so rightly deserved.

Kriss Donald, this is my personal tribute to you - two years and eight months after your terrifying and lonely death.

A mother of two sons
YSL.

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