After Sweeney’s rant at the Scientologists, is it OK to kick interviewees?
Rod Liddle explores the subtle etiquette of BBC interviews and concludes that John Sweeney made a protocol error — quiet hostility would have been ample Ah, now, this is what we pay our licence fee for. A maniac screaming at a maniac. I hope you caught the latest edition of the BBC’s Panorama, during which the presenter, John Sweeney, went berserk at a spokesman for the Church of Scientology — bellowing in his face at full volume in the manner of an inmate at Rampton being told that his pornography allowance has been stopped. If you didn’t see the show itself, then check out the incident on YouTube on the internet — it’s been posted there by the Scientologists as if to say look, everybody, this is what we have to put up with, abuse and harrassment. The clip is quite wonderful — perhaps the most arresting moment of TV this year and utterly hilarious. Sweeney has latterly apologised for his behaviour, and the BBC announced that he had been given a ‘severe reprimand’. I daresay the Corporation’s deep and abiding regret at the incident will have been counterbalanced by its pleasure at the doubling or maybe quadrupling of Panorama’s usual audience figures as a result of all the publicity. Perhaps this is the way forward for all of the Corporation’s news and current affairs presenters — to abuse interviewees and perhaps kick or punch them. Brings in the punters.
In fact, there are certain sorts of people whom the BBC thinks it’s all well and good to be fairly nasty to, and Scientologists are among them. Indeed, there are certain groups of people whom the BBC feels that its personnel must roundly abuse or even physically chastise if it is going to give them airtime, such as, for example, the British National Party, or members of Islamic groups that are not on the ever-shifting list of politically OK Islamic groups. These people all come under category one in the BBC producer guidelines. In each case, the presenter is required to shout at these people because they are plainly, obviously, horrible — you will remember the Newsnight interview, for example, in which BNP leader, Nick Griffin, was denied the chance to answer a single question. And any BBC interview with a Muslim mullah who has hooks instead of hands. The Scientologists do not quite fall into this special category; under those aforementioned guidelines, they come in category two — people towards whom the presenter should display contempt, quiet hostility and open dislike, but should not actually punch or scream at. Members of the Conservative party and Ukip, all Israelis other than those who are activists within ‘peace’ groups, evangelistic Christians, supporters of the Countryside Alliance, Roman Catholics, paedophiles and chairmen of multinational corporations are similarly covered by the category two requirements. Category three, meanwhile, demands that the presenter affect an attitude of studied indifference and mild disdain and applies to interviews with most members of the present government, unless they were against the war in Iraq, in which case they get the category four treatment, which is also handed out to pop stars who wish for the African debt burden to be written off, all disabled people, ‘ordinary’ members of ethnic minorities and especially ‘moderate’ Muslims, all charity spokeswomen and bearded scientists in spectacles who insist that the earth is going to turn into a cinder by the year 2012. Category four requires the presenter to fawn in a sickening manner and, on occasion, proffer sexual favours.
So, poor John Sweeney got his categories wrong, although he was only one out. Let us hope the BBC shows a little bit of latitude and resists the temptation to sack him. Clearly, the main thrust of his film, barring the shouty bits, displayed the requisite quiet hostility and open dislike. It was not what you might call a neutral film, this investigation into a faith to which an estimated ten million people, worldwide, subscribe. Its starting point was an assumption that Scientologists are members of a dangerous cult built on an imbecilic ideology dreamed up by an American charlatan 50 odd years ago.
Well, I wouldn’t argue with that. How could you? These are people who believe, among other things, that ‘malak’ — ethereal mindless beasties created from pure light float around us at all times and may be prevailed upon to intercede in our earthly affairs. And that true adherents must never touch the wet parts of a dog or trim their own beards and that the earth will be consumed in a bloody Armageddon at a date yet to be decided and everyone must prepare for a holy struggle against the infidels and — oh, hang on — got my wires crossed again. Apologies. That’s Islam. They’re in category four!
See, it’s easy to do. Scientology is the one that insists some bloke called Xenu and the Galactic Confederation brought billions of people to earth some 75 million years ago and then tied them to volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. The souls of these unfortunate aliens are still milling around today, doing God knows what — watching Panorama, among other things, one supposes. That’s Scientology. I have my doubts about it, to tell you the truth, although at least in the midst of this madness they imply that the earth must be at least 75 million years old, unlike some whacko born-again Christians I interviewed recently who are currently running state secondary schools in the northeast of England. They thought the earth was about 4,500 years old and that the dinosaurs were peacefully cohabiting on this planet with mankind. And that God created the world and all that is in it in six days flat — no time off, no lunch breaks, no primordial soup. Ah, God bless ’em. Hinduism, meanwhile, is the one that insists that cattle are sacred, out of respect to the divine bull Nandi, which, as you are aware, was the only creature capable of eating the sticky karma of mankind when it got spilled everywhere millions of years ago. It’s vitally important to get these details right, so as to avoid giving offence to the devout. Wouldn’t want to do that.
The real purpose of John Sweeney’s perfectly fine film was to inform us all just how horrible are the Scientologists. In that, you have to say, he definitely succeeded. As our own High Court Justice Latey once asserted, Scientology is ‘immoral and socially obnoxious’ and also ‘sinister, corrupt and dangerous’. Whether it is any more sinister and dangerous than one or two other religions I have named above is, I suppose, a moot point — and not one that I suspect Panorama will be investigating in the near or even distant future.
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