BBC Reporter John Sweeney, one of the main journalists behind the BBC Panorama show Scientology and Me should be quite experienced with journalism and the routines of the job.
We all know the techniques of journalists to elicit an unexpected emotional response from the subject. Nobody likes being in the camera spotlight like that with a fast paced and prying journalist in your face trying to make you err at every step.
They stalk the subject and film it at every possible moment, hopefully trying to capture something that nobody else has so they can have some sensational materiel for their show.
This is John Sweeney’s profession – he’s a journalist for a living on one of the worlds largest TV channels.
Now what does a journalist like John Sweeney say when the tables turn and he is the one being documented? When a journalist starts to investigate him, his actions and his life?
We’ve all seen the video on youtube.com, but before you look at it again, let’s rapidly look over the journalistic philosophy of John Sweeney per the BBC’s Panorama site. He says “First, find a crocodile. Two, poke it in the eye with a stick. Three, stand back and report what happens next. If it’s a sodden log you’ll be quite safe. If it’s a crocodile you’ve got a story.”
And let’s see the video now
Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxqR5NPhtLI
Have we got a story here? Per John himself I think we do.
We will all agree that one of the most fundamental journalistic skills is the mastery of language. Let’s see how John excused himself after this outburst; we would all expect a quick twist of words that would make it all seem rational and intelligent.
Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVAeL8AyYeI&NR=1
For someone whose job it is to investigate and write stories one would expect a little more creativity than “I wanted to show you that my voice was louder than yours”. (I’ll have to try that next time I start yelling at someone I am investigating).
Now in response to this he claims he was feeling brainwashed because he was “being stalked” for several days. Actually the stalking in question here is a Scientology Documentary team that did a documentary on John Sweeney’s making of the Panorama show. But how can this be an excuse? Here is a Documentary journalist complaining of being stalked by a documentary team? Does he not realize what he is saying?
In other words, is documentary journalism brainwashing people?
I don’t know about that last statement but I do know that John Sweeney is getting a taste of his own medecine and it’s not tasing good.
A fellow blogger wrote an article and has some great videos on this.
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5 users commented in " BBC Reporter gets a taste of his own medicine and doesn’t like it "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackYou must check out the full documentary put together by Scientologists - bbcpanorama-exposed.org. It tells all…
The full BBC Panorama documentary is available on bbc.co.uk for the next week or so.
The BBC were brave to broadcast the documentary (rant included) knowing the smear jobs that the Scientology cult likes to do on it’s critics.
Watch the Panorama doc, Sweeney wasn’t being “followed by a documentary team”, he was being followed by private investigators and Scientology staff who did their best to disrupt his investigation - including turning up at his wedding.
Scientology is a dangerous cult - http://www.xenu.net/ contains a lot of interesting material on the history and processes behind it.
Very interesting article. It’s amazing what passes as “fact”! What’s this nonsense comment about being followed at his own wedding? Can he or John Sweeney back those claims up? Just seems very strange to me. The tables are turned and John Sweeney doesn’t like his own medicine. Is that surprising? Considering the tactics he uses to make people look bad, he’s afraid of it being used against him. He comes across as though he is the “almighty” and can do anything he likes to “investigate for the people”. He’s hiding behind this. The use of general terms (like most 4$$hole reporters) means it’s not “him” questioning but apparently “the people”.
How about the BBC/Panorama report on some facts and not annoy people waiting to film the reaction? It’s almost funny.
Clearly, we did not watch the same pair of documentaries.
It’s disingenuous to say the Sweeney overreacted to the Scientologist camera crew. His single outburst was regrettable, but look at the context: he was in an exhibit claiming psychiatry caused the Holocaust, a man who’d been annoying him all week made reference to an interview that self-same man had crashed, and then the man shouted “You listen to me!” and started in on a well-worn routine of loudly talking while refusing to let Sweeney get a word in edgewise.
The Scientology documentary crew was an annoyance, surely, especially given the group’s creative editing history. Sweeney was understandably irked to find that they were lying in wait at his hotel at midnight when he hadn’t given them any of that information, but that’s not what the general stalking allegation’s about. As seen in the BBC-produced documentary, he was also followed around his hotel by a man who had absolutely no filmmaking intent, and was also tailed by car. When he arrived back in England, someone showed up in his mother-in-law’s block of flats, going through her mail. The Scientologist-funded film shows that the tracking of Sweeney was even more extensive, going to far as to highlight his visits to experts with no Scientology affiliation whatsoever (hilariously, Sweeney didn’t show any of that bit on the Panorama cut, so the Scientologists just gave one of their critics an introduction to the general population).
The brief of the programme was to discover if Scientology really had reformed the way they claim to have, away from the hideous “fair game” policy that allows members to viciously attack anyone they believe to be critical to the group and the history of isolating people from their families. Of COURSE the BBC were bound to ask questions such as “what is your response to accusations that you’re in a cult” and stuff about the brainwashing — it’s the reputation the Scientologists claim to have shed! To agree NOT to ask those questions is absurd, and certainly not journalism. That’s a puff piece.
But all content of the programmes aside, the one thing that struck me most was the insane, utter, raving need of the Scientology reps to control the situation. Sweeney had a job and a corporation backing him up as he went into this — most religious tourists who walk through Scientology’s doors won’t have those defences. Brainwashing? Well, after watching Tommy Davis purposely edge forward until he was mere inches from Sweeney’s face while droning on in an uninterruptable stream of attacks and accusations, it’s hard not to see that sort of attitude as a direct result of Scientology teachings. It was like watching a master class in button-pushing, and Sweeney was quite good to put up with it as long as he did.
Davis’ rants (especially of the absurd “I’m angry! Real angry!” speech) were delivered in the peculiar style of a man who is having an out-of-body experience and thoroughly enjoying watching himself star in his very own movie. And luckily for Davis, the people on the screen at the cinema never even hear the audience, and so he felt absolutely no need to engage in normal human conversation with Sweeney. Or to allow Sweeney to have a conversation with anyone, really. Interrupting the car park interview was bad enough, but when Davis is reduced to shouting through the bathroom door when Sweeney and his crew lock themselves in, desperate for a chance to talk interrupted? That’s nuts.
So that’s what I’ve come away from these documentaries with. Scientology hasn’t changed a whit from the days of “Operation Snow White” and “Operation Freakout”, they’ve just gotten a sheen of celebrity respectibility and gotten better at litigation. I’m convinced that Scientology is a paranoid, reactive, aggressive cult that actively conditions people to be shouty, dim, suspicious little people who recognise absolutely no boundaries in regards to others.
I was going to write a well reasoned comment to your blog posting telling you that you’re a scientology shill. But I don’t see the need to now that I read Nina’s comment. You are a member of a cult that from the very beginning is based on lies.
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm.
“I would like to be able to thank the officials of the Church of Scientology for their help in compiling this biography, but I am unable to do so because the price of their co-operation was effective control of the manuscript and it was a price I was unwilling to pay. Thereafter the Church did its best to dissuade people who knew Hubbard from speaking to me and constantly threatened litigation. Scientology lawyers in New York and Los Angeles made it clear in frequent letters that they expected me to libel and defame L. Ron Hubbard. When I protested that in thirty years as a journalist and writer I had never been accused of libel, I was apparently investigated and a letter was written to my publishers in New York alleging that my claim was ’simply not accurate’. It was, and is.
This book could not have been written without the assistance of the many former Scientologists who were prepared to give freely of their time to talk about their experiences, notwithstanding considerable risks. Some of them are named in the narrative, but there were many others who provided background information and to them all I pay tribute. I was deeply impressed by their integrity, intelligence and courage.
This book could also not have been written without the existence of the Freedom of Information Act in the United States, which may give pause for thought to those who care about the truth yet are opposing the introduction of similar legislation in Britain.
A special word of thanks is due to Jon Atack, a former Scientologist resident in East Grinstead, who has assembled one of the most comprehensive archives about Scientology and its founder and generously made his files available to me. I would also like to thank George Hay and John Symonds in London; Lydia and Jimmy Hicks in Washington DC; David and Milo Weaver in San Francisco; Connie and Phil Winberry in Seattle; Skip Davis in Newport, Rhode Island; Diane Lewis in Wichita; Arthur Jean Cox, Lawrence Kristiansen and Boris de Sidis in Los Angeles; Ron Newman in Woodside, California; Ron Howard of George Washington University; Sue Lindsay of the Rocky Mountain News, Denver; Dave Walters of the Montana Historical Society; and the ever helpful staff of the Library of Congress. Too many people to name patiently replied to queries by mail and searched their records for the answers to innumerable obscure questions. Their contribution to the whole picture was invaluable.
My editor, Jennie Davies, polished the manuscript with her usual skill and diligence, despite the demands of her newly-born twins. My wife, Renate, read every chapter as it was written and always offered constructive advice. She had to put up with my long absences abroad while I was tracking down the truth about L. Ron Hubbard and then endure the misery of living with an obsessive author through the long months of writing. I could never thank her enough for her patience, love and support.
Russell Miller,
Buckinghamshire,
England”
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