A platform for religion? Where do programmes draw the line?
Can programmes, albeit unwittingly, act as platforms for strongly-held religious or political views?
According to an irate listener, Patrick O'Mahoney, one edition of World Have Your Say, broadcast from "God's Littlest Children" orphanage in Haiti last week did just that.
The programme's format is normally studio-based with callers and emailers from around the world contributing to a global debate on issues of the day.
The World Have Your Say team visited Haiti three month's on from the devestating earthquake.The issue in this Haiti special from the WHYS team was the ethics of the international adoption of children from a disaster zone. But Patrick felt this was eclipsed by the amount of time given over to interviews that emphasised the importance of Christianity to those who administer or live in the orphanage.
Patrick objected to the frequent references to God and Jesus by both the adult carers and the children themselves.
He felt these were best left to what he called "revivalist meetings", and not to a programme that is usually "informative and stimulating".
I put these points to the editor of the programme, Mark Sandell, who defended his programme in typically feisty fashion:
You can hear the full debate on Over To You this weekend.
Writer-In-Residence
You can also hear an interview with the first ever Writer-In-Residence at the World Service.
Hamid Ismailov is a charming man and a prolific writer - as well as Head of the Â鶹Éç's Central Asian service - and in his new role he's charged with the fascinating responsibility of injecting a fresh perspective on current affairs and news stories that are covered more conventionally by regular journalists.
And Hamid wants you to join in too.
Starting this week he's going to be blogging at bbcworldservice.com/writer - and he'll be asking questions that are designed to get you to leave your comments.
Which of course is what we want you to do with our blog, too!
Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You
Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹Éç World Service and its programmes. It airs at 00:40, 03:40 and 12:40 every Sunday (GMT).
- Listen to previous episodes of Over To You
- Subscribe to the podcast
- Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.
Comment number 1.
At 12th Mar 2011, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:"Can programmes, albeit unwittingly, act as platforms for strongly-held religious or political views?"
This is a tremendously loaded question. Are you suggesting that the mere expression of a belief makes the broadcaster somehow complicit in the presumed act of proselytising (as in the case of religion) or political persuasion? I would have thought that any expression of an opinion (particularly a strongly held one) is implicitly an act of persuasion: "I believe this to be true, therefore, of course, I would like others to accept that my idea is true, hence my need to express it."
If even an implicit act of persuasion is to be avoided in a broadcast, then who can say anything at all?
I am pleased with the response of Mark Sandell, who rightly criticised the use of the rather cynical phrase 'trotted out', as if Christians do not have a right to express their views.
As he implied, atheists are not subject to the same criticism, and my observation has been that they basically seem to get a free ride through much of the media, presumably because their worldview is regarded as the intellectually acceptable 'default' position (a highly dubious assumption, philosophically speaking).
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