Sky News: not learning lessons
Days after the Hillsborough disaster (whose upcoming 20th anniversary is brilliantly commemorated by Merrick), The Sun newspaper printed a story headlined ‘THE TRUTH‘.
The story ‘told of Liverpool fans attacking ambulance crews, pissing on coppers, pickpocketing dead bodies and beating up coppers giving the kiss of life.’
The story was a vile and lying load of old shit. Nobody saw the attacking, pissing, pickpocketing and beating because they didn’t happen. Public revulsion instigated a boycott of The Sun on Merseyside that still holds to this day.
So, when I read this on Sky News, I got a nasty little nagging feeling…
The man was found after collapsing at a protest camp near the Bank of England. Police said bottles were thrown at them while they attempted to treat him.
Did protesters really bottle medics?
Sky says that protesters threw bottles at police trying to help him – this is definitely not true.
I have an eye witness account from on the ground who saw a man who’d collapsed (rather than pushed or beaten to ground or whatever, although he may have been concussed from an incident earlier).
Protesters called for assistance from the police and helped medical assistance get through. The police were not obstructed in any way.
In both stories the journalists were a little too ready to believe the testimonies of policemen. Sky News and The Sun, the jewels in Rupert Murdoch’s portfolio.
Update: Via JimJay’s comments – another eyewitness account.
Posted on April 2nd, 2009 at 11:35am under Culture, media and sport
| Related posts... • Where are the G20 killers? • The Evening Standard’s G20 bricks • Heliocentric |
• Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe |
|
|
|
• 19 Comments |
Sky aren’t the only ones to report this though. I think I first read it in The Times. Um… sorry, I’ve forgotten what my point was.
Sky News – Commence the riots!
[...] Justin points out, the police/press combination has past form for this… “Days after the Hillsborough [...]
I dunno… Maybe they are learning lessons – just not the lessons one might hope.
Your two links are contradictory. One, Red Pepper, says: “Ten minutes or so after that, three police vans came up Gracechurch Street, which runs directly into Bishopsgate. Various protesters/rioters threw bottles and debris at them. A very solid hit on the side window of one of the vans by some masonry led to the police hightailing it back the other way.”
The other says: “It is definitely and absolutely untrue that the police were pelted with bottles. This did not happen. Remember Menezes. Remember how the police use lies as propaganda to cover themselves. Don’t fall for it. My eyewitness was there the whole time and nothing of the kind happened.”
So there were (according to Red Pepper, hardly a source likely to cover up for the police) people in the same place as the dead man, at roughly the same time, throwing bottles at police. Did they throw bottles at the very policemen who treated the casualty? No idea. But it doesn’t seem that unlikely, does it?
ajay on 02.04.2009 at 15:56
You haven’t read the Red Pepper article well have you? The writer says the police vans came down the street about 10 minutes AFTER the ambulance and medics had taken the poor chap to hospital. He states bottles and debris were thrown at these police vans but he noticed none when the medics were trying to help the chap. Seems like he was near enough to see the collapsed man’s face so surely he’d have noticed bottles being thrown.
Oh, and look:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/g20-summit-protester-death
“Elias Stoakes, 25, also a student at Queen Mary, from Exeter in Devon, said: “There were a lot of people around him trying to help him and asking for medics. “One or maybe two plastic bottles were thrown, but it was by people further back in the crowd who did not know what was going on.”…
“Jasper Jackson, 23, from London, who photographed the man’s collapse… said the man was then surrounded by police officers who were pelted with at least one missile.
“There were a couple of people throwing bottles in that general direction,” said Jackson.”
But I’m sure Rupert Murdoch paid them to write that.
And I’m sure he didn’t pay The Evening Standard journalist to say that protesters ‘pelted police with bricks‘ as they tried to help the man. But somebody did. All I was pointing out is that News International outlets have form for this kind of thing.
Sky News are now saying ‘police said they were pelted with missiles believed to include bottles as they tried to save his life’. Does that sound like ‘one or maybe two plastic bottles’ to you?
The Evening Standard has now backed away from bricks and changed the story (although the URL still tells the tale).
This story and it’s propagation by unnamed police sources has the stink of a Hillisboroughesque distortion done to divert attention from very real examples for police heavy-handiness. I note no video or photos have emerged of police medics being ‘pelted’ with bottles while attempting to assist a dying man.
[...] Justin has also interviewed an eyewitness: http://www.chickyog.net/2009/04/02/sky-news-not-learning-lessons/#comments [...]
Typical mainstream media propaganda. The Daily Star was even worse than Sky ‘news’, they’re both just jingoistic piles of shit.
Wait until the police in that video are told that their “defined benefit schemes” pensions are canceled/changed into “defined contribution schemes”.
Ha, The Labour Party, all politicians are just bottom feeders, who are fed at the bottom by the bankers/wankers they just rescued.
I think there’s a Hillsborough parallel in the policing. The disaster was founded on the common view at the time that football crowds were a problem, a security issue, a volatile feral bunch that needed caging.
The police tactic of kettling stems from viewing all protests that way.
[...] Yoghurt followed the media as they propagate police versions uncritically and a good point made @ Liberal Conspiracy, this is [...]
[...] than that it has been the blogosphere that has covered it with reports by Craig Murray, Red Pepper, Chicken Yoghourt, Indymedia and several messages on the Medialens message [...]
[...] than that it has been the blogosphere that has covered it with reports by Craig Murray, Red Pepper, Chicken Yoghourt, Indymedia and several messages on the Medialens message [...]
[...] Justin has also an interview with an eyewitness: http://www.chickyog.net/2009/04/02/sky-news-not-learning-lessons/#comments [...]
[...] the meantime, the Dead Tree Media covered the full range from wanton exaggeration to making shit up to reading stuff other people had made up and expressing faux [...]
[...] Yoghurt (Tavuk Yo?urt) Blog üç ba?ka bu ölümü gören ki?ileri buldu – garip biçimde onlar?n hiçi ?i?eler veya [...]
[...] (Tavuk Yo?urt) Blog üç ba?ka bu ölümü gören ki?ileri buldu – garip biçimde onlar?n hiçi ?i?eler veya [...]