- Ben Rich
- 16 May 06, 05:03 PM
In these days of tight budgets and efficiencies, an offer of something-for-nothing is always welcome.
And when that something-for-nothing turns out to be expensively researched and beautifully shot documentary material whose broadcast might just stop a mother having her fourth child forcibly adopted because of a medical mistake, well it would be churlish to say no.
John Sweeney's moving story of the mother whose first three children were taken away after she was thought to have abused one of them had it all - powerful testimony from the parents, a medical whodunnit around the issue of whether she suffered from (and could have passed on) a genetic predisposition to brittle bones which could explain suspicious fractures, and the gripping drama of whether her not-yet-born fourth child would be taken away as well.
It also had a raft of legal problems related to cases in the notoriously secret Family Courts, a mind boggling chain of scientific reasoning that made me realise why it had being done as a half hour documentary in the first place, and precious little in the way of detailed response from social services or the doctors involved.
So John's original script for the Six would have amounted to probably seven minutes and made perfect sense. We then cut it back until it was about two minutes and you couldn't understand a word of it. Eventually John and producer Vicky Ridell cut a powerful piece at just under three minutes that satisfied John, her, and most importantly, the lawyers. A great piece for the Six, and hopefully a bigger audience for the real thing on .
Ben Rich is deputy editor, One and Six O'Clock news
- Simon Waldman
- 16 May 06, 04:30 PM
After all the fuss - and media attention, Guy Goma could have been forgiven for not wanting to set foot anywhere near TV Centre again. But he made the brave, if maybe rash, decision to re-appear on 大象传媒 News 24 - where we put him in touch with the original intended guest Guy Kewney (see my earlier posting, here)
They were charm personified to one another - and Guy Goma showed himself to be a real star: innocently overwhelmed by the whole ratpack experience, but very much Up For It. The question everyone wanted to know: did he get that job as a Data Systems Cleanser?
Unfortunately the answer is "no" - a fact that ITN felt able to inform him of, live on air. The guy (Goma, that is) deserves a medal for his patience and good humour in dealing with quite so many appalling hacks - us included.
Someone else who deserves a medal is the business presenter who originally interviewed him, Karen Bowerman. She's been through the mill almost as much as Guy. And her crime: to warn me moments before going on air that her interviewee might not be of the usual high quality and then to keep the poor man talking, by asking very gentle questions, while we scrambled to get the next guest lined up.
To answer some of the comments made to my first post (it IS very interactive, isn't it!):
• Jeremy says he's waiting for an apology from News 24 - Simon McCoy and Carrie Gracie apologised to both Guys and to the audience. Twice.
• Neil suggests we should get Guy Goma back to guest edit - an attractive idea, but possibly tad controversial for my slot on News 24 just at the moment.
And a question for YOU: this blog is - currently - an internal 大象传媒 thing. So how come chunks of the original entry ended up in this morning's papers? Huh?
Simon Waldman is morning editor on 大象传媒 News
- Steve Herrmann
- 16 May 06, 12:49 PM
There's an article in today's Daily Express about how a new 鈥渋nternationalist extremism鈥 is allegedly sweeping the country.
The article is wrong when it says the 大象传媒 News website did not cover an interview the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu gave to the Today programme; we wrote a story about his claim that some local government policies had led to the impression that migrants were being favoured over people of British origin. .
As for the rest of the evidence cited in the piece about the new doctrine said to be tightening its grip over British public life (the 大象传媒 included), that's perhaps a debate for another day.
Steve Herrmann is editor of the
- Simon Waldman
- 16 May 06, 10:41 AM
More on Guy Goma, who came for a job interview and got an interview instead. We thought the only way to resolve this was to get both Guys on telly at once - you can see the interview here.
Simon Waldman is morning editor on 大象传媒 News
The Sun: "This is the mystery TV pundit Guy Goma mistakenly grilled by 大象传媒 reporters" (, or read our exclusive from yesterday here).
The Telegraph: Craig Brown - "Virtually everyone interviewed on the radio and television news is either pretending to know something he doesn't, or pretending not to know something he does" ().
The Guardian: Tim Dowling - "I should have asked for a driver. At least then there might have been a chance of them interviewing him instead of me" ().
Daily Express: Patrick O'Flynn - "A rival form of extremism is tightening its grip over our politics - its influence is far-reaching within the judiciary, government and the 大象传媒".
You can read previous '大象传媒 in the news' posts by clicking here.
