Twelve Months of Censorship
Julian Petley casts his eye on the last year of censorship in television and argues that it's been less a matter of outright bans and more a case of subtler pressures discouraging 'difficult' programmes from being made in the first place.  

Long article which we can't quite be bothered to type out. Except the bit about us.

..... One-Off Production's "McLibel: Two Worlds Collide" is turned down by C4 and the BBC's Heart of the Matter. The latter's editor, Anne Reevell, says: "I tried hard to turn the film into something the BBC could transmit. But so many problems remained to do with copyright and covert recording that it proved impossible to broadcast."

However, the show's maker, Franny Armstrong, argues that fear of the notoriously litigious McDonald's lies behind the timidity. She says: "If I were the BBC, I wouldn't broadcast the film either. I wouldn't want to risk damages, costs, injunctions and months in court. I wouldn't want to fight a case where the burden of proof was entirely on me and I would have to prove every allegation from primary sources. I would take notice of the long list of organisations that have apologised in the past. I might feel uneasy at ignoring such a high-profile case but I would reassure myself that everyone else was ignoring it too. Which is why it is the libel laws that are the problem, rather than the broadcasters."

Meanwhile, the film is being distributed on vieo and shown at public screenings around the country. It can also be seen on the internet at www.spanner.org/mclibel.

 
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