Investigating Scientology was written by Sandy Smith, the editor of Panorama, and in it he is defending the documentary in the same way that you would defend yourself for hitting someone by saying they hit you first. It’s simply the editor’s rebuttal in a battle of words which - as you say, Carl - was prevalent in the documentary.

Improving Journalism on the other hand is written by the BBC College of Journalism’s editor - Kevin Marsh - and is a more academic look on the future of small grassroots journalism vs. the archetypal ‘Big Journalism’ model. I’ll quote from the end of it:

… the reason it’s to be welcomed is that it will improve journalism; perhaps even raise our trust in what journalists tell us.

After all, if the argument for investigative journalism is that things done in the light are done with more integrity and accountability than things done in the dark… then the argument for investigating journalism - for audiences and those journalism puts in the news to investigate journalism - is unanswerable. Journalism that has integrity and honesty in the first place has nothing to fear.

But, listening to John Travolta et al, discussing how much of an impact Scientology made on their career (”I wouldn’t have made it without them” etc), I don’t doubt that Scientology provides some important services for the stars. Judging by whole their PR performance, the Scientologists have clearly learned a lot about the psychology of manipulation, and what actor would not be interested by that? Actors are manipulators by nature. Plus there is the whole “club” vibe of it, with all kinds of internal gossip and mud slinging about, well, everyone who isn’t a Scientologist… I can see the allure of that.

Plus, they’ve probably have developed a good framework to help actors deal with paparazzi and other difficult people.

But that doesn’t make it a church, and I’m appalled that they have the status of a church here in the US.

From a negotiation perspective, I loved watching how the Scientology reps used personal attacks on the BBC reporters to keep the conversation away from topics of any substance. They said very little of, “It seems like your story is one-sided, can we talk about that…” and a whole lot of, “You are a bad reporter and you make me sick.” It’s very similar to what Bill O’Reilly does.

As for Panorama though, there are serious issues that - in my opinion - have been bubbling beneath the surface for years and have eventually come to fruition this year, culminating in a show that is almost a sensationalist ‘investigatory’ documentary show - not news. It’s a bit like a Michael Moore film: interesting; sometimes worth watching; brings up some good questions that need answering; and makes you think - but it can be unbelievably biased, closed-minded and is hardly ‘news’.

Ever since the late 90s the scheduling of Panorama has been an issue, with the programme slowly migrating from its primetime slot to the graveyard slot of Sunday nights. Then, with the move back to primetime purely because the Board of Governors required more current affairs programming to be shown, the show had its slot halved and the programme became more of a ‘tabloid’ side-article in the BBC’s portfolio.

And this brings me to a point you made, that I totally agree with. Rather than dealing with the audience-grabbing tabloid-style topic of arguing the ‘cult’ status of Scientology, the show should have concentrated more on the evidence at hand… especially family ‘disconnection’.

Thanks for the comment,
Lloyd

First of all, a topic like the Church/Cult of Scientology cannot be properly discussed in a 30 minute programme. This undermines its complexity and creates a pretty large bias margin.

Second, Mr. Sweeney didn’t insist enough on the ‘disconnection’ part. I personally would have loved to hear a Scientologist’s point of view on that. This sounds much more concerning to me, from an ethical point of view, than the cult/religion distinction the programme insisted on.

Last but not least, I would have liked more material on the ‘thetons’ (and whatever that measuring device measures) and the scientific ground for that.