【卫报】Tibet complaint against Radio 4's Today upheld by BBC Trust

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Tibet complaint against Radio 4's Today upheld by BBC Trust
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/29/bbc-trust-tibet-radio-4-today

Friday 29 May 2009 16.08 BST

Tibet complaint against Radio 4's Today upheld by BBC TrustBBC Radio 4's Today should have explained that interviewee on Tibet spoke from pro-Chinese government position, trust rules

The BBC should have informed listeners that an academic interviewed about Tibet on Radio 4's Today programme was speaking from a pro-Chinese government viewpoint, the BBC Trust has ruled.

In its latest roundup of rulings, the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee partly upheld a complaint about a Today Show item on demonstrations in Tibet aired in March 2008.

The complainant said Professor Barry Sautman of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was allowed to express his views in support of the Chinese government's policy on Tibet "virtually unchallenged".

Meanwhile, the complainant argued that Sonam Dagpo, head of international relations for the Tibetan government-in-exile, was given no right of reply and was instead "continually badgered" and "harangued" about whether the demonstrators should be encouraged to show restraint.

Listeners of Today were "treated to about five minutes of pure propaganda about how Tibet is, and has always been, an integral part of China and that subversive elements are trying to split the mother country", the complainant wrote.
The BBC Trust committee ruled that Sautman, who has published books on the subject of Tibet under Chinese rule and has contributed to other news outlets such as al-Jazeera and Voice of America, was a credible choice of interviewee.

Sautman's use to counter the Tibetan viewpoint was also reasonable, given that the Chinese authorities rarely agree to interviews.

However, the committee said the programme breached the rules on impartiality by not making it clear that Sautman was associated with a particular viewpoint rather than giving an impartial view as an academic.

"Professor Sautman had been introduced only by his name and university, not by his affiliation to any particular viewpoint," the ESC ruled. "The audience would not have been aware, for at least the first part of the interview, that he held any more than an observant academic's opinions on the subject."

The fact that Sautman had strong views only became clear when the interviewer asked if he had any sympathy with the Tibetan independence movement and he replied that he had none.

However, the committee rejected the complaint that the presenter had harangued Dagpo, concluding that he failed to answer the question and it was reasonable to press the point.

The complainant wrote to BBC Information twice and the Editorial Complaints Unit four times, before resorting to the BBC Trust in December last year.

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rlsrls08

我已经翻译好了

rlsrls08

http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-169366-1-1.html