Skip to main content
news

Re: Republicanism still an ...

Troels Forchhammer
Google Google
SubjectRe: Republicanism still an offence in England? (wasRe: Queen mother
FromTroels Forchhammer
Date2002-05-12 23:03 (2002-05-12 23:03)
Message-ID<3CDED8B5.B95290C@ThisIsFake.dk>
Client
Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
Follows?jevind L?ng
Followups?jevind L?ng (12h & 41m)
"?jevind L?ng" wrote:

?jevind L?ng
Troels Forchhammer wrote:

[snip]

Troels Forchhammer
I've seen shots where that selfsame woman (if, of course, we're talking of the same shot) tell that the tv-crew (I don't remember which) actually paid her and the others in the street to act out the festival scenes. They had (according to her) no idea what it was going to be used for and were very shocked to learn it.

The tv-crew in question will probably deny this, which would leave us with the unpleasant choice of whom to believe.

I at least find that a hard choice, but I tend to lean towards believing the woman.

?jevind L?ng
The TV crew bribed every person in the street to cheer and jubilate? Please.

I guess a Palestinian crowd come cheap these days

And how do you account for the fact that there were Arabs everywhere who cheered at the news?

I have no doubt that they were. I was merely responding to the limit of my knowledge regarding that specific scene. If other information has come up that I don't know about, just disregard what I said.

Why did the woman tell that story later? That one is easy. The Palestinian Autority's police impounded all camera reels of the jubilations they could find. So if you have seen such a reel of her telling that extremely unlikely story, guess who told her to tell it if she knew what was good for her?

I shall not venture into further guesses as what is the truth behind this matter - I have no way of knowing, but I would like to comment on the likelihood of the story that she with diverse others were paid by a tv-crew to act in a specific way. Or rather - the likelihood of such events in a more general sense - journalists paying off people or otherwise making their own news stories. I do believe that there is a minority (possibly a small minority) of journalists who would happily use such tactics - especially those working for the tabloid press - or the electronic equivalents. I have heard previously of other instances of journalists/tv-crews paying people to act out a scene in order to get some shot with a good news value. Unfortunately I don't remember the occasion and thus cannot quote documentation - I believe I heard/saw it in one of the more serious (and normally credible) background news programmes, but I don't even remember which. On a more personal level I know of an instance where a journalist in an attempt of getting an interview tried to impersonate a grandson of an injured old lady (her house had caught fire, and she foolishly had tried to run back in and rescue something), who had permitted only one of her daughters to visit (two of the grandsons were best man at my wedding and Godfather for my first). So yes - I am absolutely sure that some - hopefully very few - journalists will stop at nothing to get a good story.

-- Troels Forchhammer Please reply to (t.forch@mail.dk)

"She complicates this whole business, and I don't like complications. I like nice, simple situations and nice, easy solutions." "Good and Evil?" Durnik suggested. "That's a difficult one, Durnik. I prefer 'them and us.' That clears away all the excess baggage and allows you to get right down to cases."

Google
?jevind L?ng (12h & 41m)