There’s another dodgy Wynne-Jones story in the Telegraph today about Aaqil Ahmed (Head of Religion at the BBC), made even dodgier by the headline. Those who tend to knee-jerk reactions whenever the BBC or Islam get a mention, like Cranmer, seem to have only read the headline accusing the Church of England of living in the past. Cranmer disingenuously asks:
[If Ahmed believes the C of E is "living in the past, he] must be persuaded that the Roman Catholic Church is at the very least antediluvian. And if the Roman Catholic Church is antediluvian, he must be of the opinion that Islam is positively Jurassic. Why does he not say this? Just wondering.
This predictably rouses some of his more Islamophobic readers (and he has a fair few) to outrage (and indeed, outrageousness) in the comments. He even misleads the normally level-headed Bp Alan Wilson to leave a tetchy comment.
When I first noticed this story, I shrugged and moved on. The reaction, however, has made me think again, and I feel the need to opine at greater length.
First, I have some observations about the story. Specifically, it seems, what Ahmed objects to is a simple comparison of broadcasting figures from 20 years ago with the figures today. It is hard to get exactly what he is saying because of the way Wynne-Jones deploys his quotations. We don’t know precisely what question Ahmed is answering. If, however, I understand him rightly, then simply thinking in terms of hours broadcast, is what he means by “living in the past”
This may be borne out by the interview he gave this week’s Church Times, still irritatingly behind its subscribers’ firewall.
[The quoting of broadcast hours] does make me think that there are people who don’t understand how television works, because television has changed … The industry is not the same as it was five yeas ago, let alone 25 years ago.
So, Channel Four four or five years ago, we had 50 hours of religious programming; then suddenly you have to think differently, like, how many programmes are you going to make that don’t have a financial return.”
The second point about this is that it is a specific criticism of a specific set of figures quoted in a specific motion by Nigel Holmes for this forthcoming General Synod. Ahmed is suggesting, I think, that Nigel Holmes, who 20 years ago was, yes, a BBC producer, is “living in the past”, the past, presumably when he worked for the BBC and the world of multi-channel digital television was barely a glint in a technophile’s eye.
This is the key point. It is Wynne-Jones who says these are “the Church’s criticisms” not Ahmed, and it is the Telegraph sub-editor who says the Church of England who is living in the past. Such are the subtle and devious ways in which even direct quotations can be spun into a different story. Cranmer’s take on it seems quite unjustified, except as a Pavlovian response to a headline.
There is a final observation I think worth making. In a previous post I criticised Holmes’ motion as an unhelpful whinge, and asked:
Where, for example, is the vision for whether the Church could either alone or in partnership establish its own independent production company to start selling good programmes to the main channels? Where is the encouragement of creative arts among Christians to nurture talent in script-writing and direction? When did you last hear anyone encourage young Christians to consider a career as a journalist or other media professional?
Some of the criticism of Ahmed seems to me to boil down to the fact that he is a Muslim, and this is enough to outrage a fair swathe of the Telegraph readership, for whom, in any case believe nothing good could come from that nest of lefty-liberals in the BBC.
It seems only fair to note that under Christians, the BBC’s religious output had been going nowhere fast. The situation Holmes is complaining about largely came about under that previous regime. Over the same 20 year period that broadcasting has been changing fast, the Church has shown not the slightest interest in encouraging and developing creative media professionals from its membership.
Criticising Aaqil Ahmed for the failings of the past (and the inadequacies of the Church’s engagement with the media) is a strange thing to do indeed, but perhaps it sounds less bigoted than criticising him for being a Muslim.
{ 11 comments }
“Those who tend to knee-jerk reactions whenever the BBC or Islam get a mention, like Cranmer…”
And those who tend to knee-jerk reactions whenever Cranmer posts on a matter..
One wonders how you square your crass allegation of knee-jerk reactions with (a href=”http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2009/04/aaqil-ahmed-can-muslim-be-head-of-bbcs.html”>THIS.
Or perhaps you will not bother, for it plainly contradicts your own knee-jerk prejudice.
Well, I’d say that earlier post you refer to is a lot more thoughtful than today’s. I still think that what you wrote today looks like a knee-jerk reaction to the headline.
Your precise allegation was of a knee-jerk reaction whenever the BBC and Islam are mentioned.
Since you now appear to concede that the linked article is ‘more thoughtful’, your allegation is (at best) a misrepresentation.
In the interests of precision, my allegation was that you “tend to” knee-jerk reactions on those topics. I’m not yet convinced that’s a misrepresentation, but perhaps the strength of feeling with which you express yourself on them misleads me.
Sorry, the URL is:
THIS
There was no preview facility.
Aaarrrgghhhhh
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2009/04/aaqil-ahmed-can-muslim-be-head-of-bbcs.html
Just cut ‘n’ paste.
Sorry the lack of preview is giving you problems. I did copy and paste the original and read it, and responded!
Gosh, and what about:
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/01/will-islam-save-united-kingdom-by-her.html
Or
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2009/09/muslim-women-oppose-sharia-councils-in.html
There is a myriad of ‘thoughtful’ posts on Islam, and quite a few on the BBC.
Besides the accusation of knee-jerking (a matter the Mouse will stay out of), you are exactly right in your observation of Wynne-Jones’s article. The headline gives a completely different impression from what was intended by Ahmed by taking a specific and implying it is a generalisation. No doubt there will be many such headlines in the coming days as actual events from General Synod are made more newsworthy by the mainstream media.
I fear you are right, Mouse. I sometimes wonder if the religion correspondents feel that unless they’re stoking a row, no-one will give think their subject matters. It is an intensification of a general attitude that unless there’s a controversy, there’s no news.
Spot on Clayboy. The complete absence from the article itself of the “quotation” used in the headline suggests the Sunday Telegraph – true to form – just made that one up. Sigh. And the idea that the BBC’s Head of Religion would say Christianity doesn’t merit or get preferential treatment, when his department across radio and TV delivers hours of Christian worship every week and … er … zero hours of any other kind of worship … It does all start to look the sort of classic Wynne-Jones we’re getting used to scraping off our shoes.
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