Panorama Gaff Leaves a Red Face at the Oldham Chronicle

OLDHAM Chronicle editor, Jim Williams, was left with a very red face yesterday after his private comments to Jane Corbin and her Panorma production team were posted on the programme's public 'Forum'.
His effusive praise for the programme "Under the Skin of the BNP" was very embarassing coming from the editor of a local paper that prides itself on its impartiality. But it was his pledge to use the 'Oldham Chronicle' to discredit the BNP in Oldham and to "run the BNP out of town" that were highly controversial.
11,000 residents in Oldham voted for the BNP at June's General Election and the revelation that the local paper wants to see them 'run out of town' does nothing to relieve the heightened tension that exists within the community.
"Jim's comments were on Panorama's Forum for barely twenty minutes" said freelance reporter Martin Wingfield, who was researching the archive for an article on the programme.
"I could hardly believe it when his e-mail popped up. His remarks were so brazenly biased and revealed the hidden agenda that the paper has to discredit the BNP prior to next May's local council elections."
"I immediately e-mailed Jim and told him that I thought he was doing a dis-service to his readers by his pronouncements. When I returned to the Forum after relaying his comments to some colleagues, Panorama had realised their mistake and removed the posting.
IMPARTIAL
"All journalists have their political opinions and we all have our axe to grind, but editors of local 'community' papers should be different. They should represent the views of their population as equally as possible and try to be impartial when dealing with local politics.
"If Jim Williams wants to use the Oldham Chronicle to wage a campaign against the BNP, as along as the paper's owners have no objection, that is fair enough. But readers should be made aware that the paper has this agenda and does not intend to report fairly on the local political scene."
The Panorama programme used a left-wing journalist from the magazine 'Searchlight', and a football thug to claim that the party's new image was 'only skin deep'. Reaction to the programme brought an equal, for and against, response from the public.




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