PROPER GANDER

Dear PM

I am writing to express my deep concern over yesterday’s coverage of the NATO bombing campaign in Libya. In particular, I was dismayed by the programme’s lack of focus on serious efforts to pursue a peaceful resolution to the current conflict.

Your editors chose to limit the spectrum of possible action to the narrow range of views expressed by Malcolm Charmers and Abdul Barry At War. The options explored were restricted to continuing aerial bombing for the foreseeable future versus sending in ground forces, in other words warmongering versus warmongering. These commentators, unchallenged by your interviewer, dismissed the fact that US, Britain and NATO are clearly not adequately testing offers for a truce and supervised elections. Balanced coverage would surely embrace a wider range of viewpoints, including those expressing a genuine commitment to diplomatic and political solutions.

This blinkered coverage condemns the BBC to a mere propaganda role. The tragedy is that a government mired in recession and debt, intent on savage cuts to public services, can continue to attempt to police the world with interventions of this nature while the BBC simply looks the other way.

Yours sincerely

Fireseed

PS: Please don’t refer me to the BBC’s Complaints Department. If I want antiseptic, I will go to the chemist. BBC editors are paid from the public purse and should be accountable to the public.