What the Hell are Sky playing at?

I’ve just got home and turned on the TV, only to find that Sky are running a live interview with four masked ‘rioters’ bragging of their spoils from the riots.

It’s being played as ‘social commentary’ – giving them the chance to explain the ‘social deprivation’ that they have suffered which has led to them feeling that lugging home a stolen plasma TV is the answer.

In fact Sky are busy interviewing four criminals who are admitting their crimes, and allowing them to hide their faces – for the entertainment value.

Where is the police car screaming to a halt behind this offensive scene? Where is the indication that Sky have notified the police at all?

I am beside myself with anger, I have rarely seen anything so irresponsible – interspersed with the endless footage of the ‘all the fun of the fair’ trolley dash.

One of these morons is 16 – and claims he was forced to loot to find nappies for his son…..

Another claims his actions were retribution for the Comet Superstore failing to give him a job when he had submitted his CV – I trust Comet are going through all their back applications for last year to see who he might be…

We don’t’ need to give this shower air time to brag of their exploits, showing off their new trainers – that isn’t ‘news’ – that’s just glorifying their crimes.

Shame on you Sky, shame on you.

I was in a good mood – I’ll be sounding like Devil’s Kitchen by the end of the day at this rate.

UPDATED: Courtesy of Jon Slattery.

“The NUJ has a long and proud record in fighting to protect journalists faced with actions over sources or journalistic material. It is important we do not allow the police to use journalists as information gatherers for their purposes. Such a move places all journalists at greater risk when covering public order issues and stops sources coming forward.”

Right, so the NUJ can hide behind that one – fair enough. In return, don’t take the Michael by running footage which just glorifies crime.

John Pickworth
August 14, 2011 at 02:49

For those who missed it and would like their morals outraged…. or just
fancy a damn good laugh. You can watch ‘Sky News Meets The London Riot
Looters’ here:

http://news.sky.com/home/video/16049147

John Pickworth
August 14, 2011 at 02:30

I’m happy they showed the ‘interview’…

To be honest, I couldn’t stop laughing. There was an ever present feeling
of ‘Brass-Eye’ throughout; which made me wonder a few times if the entire
thing wasn’t being acted. As it was, I don’t doubt the participants were who
they claimed to be but I’m equally sure some of their crimes were being
overstated somewhat… and yet you could almost hear the overly eager
interviewer saying “that’s it boys, take some more lovely rope…”. Come to
think of it, the young Bro almost losing his trousers at the end of the
interview while scrambling up the river bank could have done with a bit of
rope.

At the end of the day, these were kids, with kid-like thinking and a
kid-like view of the world… and no I’m not excusing them or their actions… but
I’m sure if you were to play their words back to them in 10 or 15 years time
they’d all recant. Everyone of them.

It wasn’t serious journalism and might have been better suited on Sky One
just prior to Trollied

John.

John B August 12, 2011 at 23:01

Yes, I saw some of that on Sky and then switched off. Enough propaganda. If
I can’t do anything about it then I rather watch out for my blood
pressure.
However.
What went through my mind is that the normally
somewhat centre-ish Sky is slipping. And then I thought this is simply the
beginnings of the working through the system of Murdoch’s defeat.
The MSM
consensus is sliding left already.
Which is, I guess, to be
expected.
Mourn the passing of Murdoch’s BSkyB bid. Whatever you thought of
him.
The empire struck back and is now riding victorious into the dark
night of control and deception.

Single
Acts Of Tyranny August 12, 2011 at
19:59

I was also struck by the abject stupidity of someone who claimed to have
sent his CV to Comet or Currys and named the month. Then of course if the cops
were really interested, retina scans of HDTV (which I guess this must be
filmed) in must help.

And I find it awfully hard to believe that looter A developed a sense of
social responsibility to care for his son all-of-a-sudden. Imagine the scene,

Looter B ~ Yah bluhd, let’s grab some gold or Plasma TV’s or Trainers
innit
Looter A ~ Sorry man, I gotta loot some nappies and baby formula milk
and nappy rash cream

Er, no.

ian r thorpe August 12, 2011 at 19:54

It’s that kind of sensationalist culture combined with politically correct
thinking that led to the riots These guys will think they’re ‘celebrities’
now.

Ed P August 12, 2011 at 18:50

Who’s that Antipodean fellow not noted for his probity or moral standing?
Surely Sky is not part of his empire of filth?

alan August 12, 2011 at 18:02

Rather than all this talk of them losing their benefits, they should be
given a month of community service in a 3rd world country and see what real
poverty is rather than the faux poverty they use to justify their actions.

Lilith August 12, 2011 at 18:26

“Community service in a 3rd world country”
Great idea alan, we could
put it out to tender. Zimbabwe? The Congo? Pakistan? We could send our
labour instead of cash aid.

JuliaM August
13, 2011 at 07:20

Surely, for ‘community service in a third-world country’, some of them
would just need to stay where they were arrested…?

Malcolm
Saunders August 13, 2011 at
10:47

North Korea.

John Bellingham
August 12, 2011 at 16:00

Disgusting, Anna!
But nice of the yob to admit that he nicked an X-Box.
Any X-box that is connected to Sony’s servers will reveal its serial number
and IPaddress. The user can then be traced back through his ISP.
Sony have
continually resisted allowing the tracking of their products in this fashion,
but now that they have lost their distribution centre, maybe they will be more
amenable.
Some of the latest more advanced HDTVs can also reveal their
serial number and if connected to cable, tracked back.
However as this
faility has ALWAYS existed with mobile phones and nothing is ever done–I
suppose it’s just a dream that crooks may actually be causght.

John Bellingham
August 12, 2011 at 16:16

Of course, I mean Microsoft for the X-Box and Sony for the
Playstation

Saul August 12, 2011 at 15:58

Always assuming that they were genuine rioters of course…..

Katabasis August
12, 2011 at 13:21

I was particularly insulted by this on a personal level because:

i) they claim to be one of the groups who attacked Lewisham (just south of
me). I was on-call for a young family there in case the scum came anywhere
near their house.

ii) they are being filmed – literally – directly across the river from
where I live.

Tony August 12, 2011 at 13:01

I agree this should not have been screened. One interesting point however
was the lad who said he had been rejected by Comet – What retailer is going to
employ someone who speaks with a barely intelligible pseudo – Jamaican accent
? Should speaking properly be part of the educational system? Or , in the
interest of inclusivity should everyone be obliged to speak in this manner
?

macheath August
12, 2011 at 14:03

Two decades ago, teachers in training were being told that correcting a
West Indian sentence structure or pronunciation was effectively racist and
that pupils had a right to express themselves in patois.

And so they do, of course. However, failing to teach them accepted
grammar and pronunciation in schools deprived them of the chance to learn a
second version of their language, one clearly understood by English speakers
anywhere in the world and a huge advantage in securing any job dealing with
the public.

It is ironic that employers who decide not to employ those whose accent
makes them unintelligible lay themselves open to accusations of racism when
it was an anti-racist stance that effectively caused the situation.

Michael August 12, 2011 at 19:32

Oops now I know why I keep getting my teaching wrong. I correct
spelling, despise “text speak” especially in written work (I consider it
bad enough on a telephone) and am accused of using “big words”! But what
really puts my blood pressure well past the “Red Mist” stage is this rot
about “deprivation”. These feral youths have better Mobile Phones, better
Televisions and other goods than I do but they are “deprived”. I grew up
with very little, held down a poorly paid job to fight my way through
University (at nights) and worked very hard to achieve what I have earned.
Yet the “Guardianista” claim I should hand over more of my hard earned
money to keep some chav or chavette whose desire on leaving School is “To
go on the Dole and get stoned” in the style to which their extended
families wish to become accustomed.

macheath August 12, 2011 at 21:35

Do you also use a red pen for marking? If so, I salute you for
holding out in the face of the green revolution – red these days being
‘too confrontational’ and likely to ‘harm their self-esteem’.

I take issue with your portrait of the ‘chav or chavette’ though –
while going on the dole or getting stoned may well be their eventual
destiny, their desire is probably to be a premiership footballer
or supermodel, or at the very least a celebrity, having imbibed since
childhood the insidious X-factor fiction of ‘you too can be a star’.

In their own estimation, the material goods they accumulate are a
kind of down-payment on this future pie-in-the-sky lifestyle; the fact
that they can never attain it in real life is the foundation of their
constant sense of deprivation and grievance and their unwillingness to
work at anything less.

Michael
August 13, 2011 at 13:21

Actually I do use a red pen!
The quote as to “career options”
was from a pupil in an inner city boys comprehensive. I hope he was
extracting the eniru but on second thoughts I doubt it. It is a
regrettable fact that for many of todays “yoof” there is an
overwhelming sense of entitlement but not matched by any desire to
actually earn it. The excuses brought out about looting etc were as
predictable as they were inevitable. I read in todays paper (13th
August) that the mother of a looter who faces eviction actually claims
“I’m not responsible for my son’s actions, what about my human
rights”. She is his mother! How about some responsibilities?

richard August 12, 2011 at 12:50

I disagree. You can’t have dismasking as a sine qua non of saying something
to the press. In this case, recording someone who is admitting to a crime is
not an offence – is it? It would be different if the press paid youths to
commit an offence and then filmed them, or filmed a crime and refused to hand
over footage to the police. But it is a journalist’s job to record the facts,
not to tell people to reveal their faces. See below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0CB6URrV0

Giolla
August 12, 2011 at 12:24

“MSM medias”?? I clearly need more coffee I’ll be saying “PIN number”
next

Giolla
August 12, 2011 at 12:24

It’s also worth remembering the MSM medias fantastic track record with such
matters. What are the odds that these are actual looters as opposed to a few
youths in hoodies that Sky stumbled across on a street corner prepared to tell
some outrageous fibs in return for getting on the telly?

Malcolm
Saunders August 12, 2011 at 12:18

It is disgusting, but in a long tradition of media parasiting on crime.

From the portrayal of the Krays as charity fund raisers and gentlemanly
friends of the famous to the escalation of the cretinous ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser
to minor celebrity, TV has regularly sought ratings on the back of
glorification of criminals.

They have no capability of distinguishing news from sensationalist
exploitation of a situation.

JuliaM August 12,
2011 at 11:38

Let them carry on. Don’t stop them!

For every viewer who thinks ‘Yeah! Fight the power, man!’, about twenty or
thirty are suddenly looking at the screen in disbelief and thinking ‘Wait,
what? That’s where my taxes go? These are the ‘dispossessed poor’ I’ve just
been reading about in the ‘Guardian’? These vile little street
rats?’

And slowly, but surely, another nail is driven into the coffin of the world
the progressives made…

Anna
Raccoon August 12, 2011 at 11:49

Thank you for that calming comment Julia – I am now hovering an inch or
two lower below the ceiling……

Hysteria August 12, 2011 at 12:36

good point – still bloody grates though…. (greats? grates? meh!)

Woman on a
Raft August 12, 2011 at 13:14

Marcus Brigstocke is part of the problem but he did once say a useful
thing:

“You have to have freedom of speech or else you never find out what
complete ninnies people are”.

Michael
Fowke August 12, 2011 at 11:13

Sky talks to politicians all the time. No one calls the police then.

Hysteria August 12, 2011 at 11:03

W.T.F?

have they completely lost the plot?

What is it going to take to make the meeja realise they are part of the
problem? Clearly tearing apart the social fabric of the nation over the last
week wasn’t enough!