Interesting stuff. The McCanns were in Parliament yesterday. Putting forward their arguements for the introduction of an EU Amber card alert system for the abduction of children.So far so uncontroversial.
It was agreed that they would give one TV interview which would be pooled under the auspices of the Parliament's broadcasting service.
The interview went out on various local stations in the UK, but was blocked from going out across the board under the instruction of the Parliament's broadcasting co-ordinating committee headed by the Parliament's head of press, one Jaime Duch.
The reason, because the Portugese MEPs complained.
I have been roundly castigated and bellowed at in public by those who are running EuroparlTV for suggesting that having parliamentary officials on the editorial board threatens freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
Well in which case explain this example of censorship.
2 comments:
This might be interesting to anyone passing by:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/
"The interview (...) was blocked from going out across the board under the instruction of (...) Parliament's head of press, Jaime (sic) Duch."
Excuse me! First of all: this was entirely the McCanns' call: they could and did give interviews to whoever and whenever they wanted. Then the European Parliament on its own accord arranged for one of the interviews (done for ITV) to be sent to EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, which is used by almost all national broadcasters in Europe. Finally, Parliament also made sure that the press conference with the McCanns was broadcast by EbS, the EU's tv information service, which is used used by hundreds of tv stations, news agencies, etc. (Btw: EbS has absolutely nothing to do with the EuroparlTV that Gawain mentions.) If this is blocking an interview, I know thousands of people who would love to have their interviews blocked!
Marjory van den Broeke,
Head Press Room Unit European Parliament
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