Remember the Panorama programme on JWs a few years ago? Question (page 4)

evergreen

Two things that always stick out in my mind about the panorama programme and the letter read out after in the congregation was

1/ The dismissive attitude that the Elders had when the reporter was trying to ask them questions about the allegations. That ludicrous adoptive way, passed down from the GB of course to not answering the media. It just made the witnesses look even more guilty and cultish looking in the eyes of the public.

and

2/ How on this earth could a small child ever convince the elders that they have been abused. Cant the society realise that in most cases the abuse takes place when the adult is alone with the child. The letter that was read out annoyed me so much and i am sure that many witnesses felt the same.

Even a relative of mine who works in social care and is a staunch J Dub said that if a child made such an allegation at her place of work. The social workers are straight in to deal with the matter. Even she, an out and out witness was shocked by the panorama programme.

fullofdoubtnow

I have recently watched the Panorama programme on silentlambs. In that programme, it said that Sarah Poisson did not know of her husband's abuse of Holly, but was certain that he was abuding her younger daughter Heather. She found out about Holly at a later date. She went to the elders about what he was doing to Heather, not Holly.

If you want to check that, it's still on silentlambs. The only lies told on that programme, as well as the US, Australian ans Canadian programmes, all on silentlambs, were, I suspect, told by the witnesses.

stapler99

I don't know whether this was just our circuit overseer or whether it was a more general thing but at the next circuit assembly after this was broadcast we were told that such programs were produced by apostates and were not aimed at the general public but were aimed at Jehovah's Witnesses to try and break their faith, and that we would be better off not watching these programmes at all. That's just plain silliness.

Jourles

From the man who would know....

That is a lie no apology was ever issued for the program. IF you watched the talk show afterwards you would see this was plainly disproven. I have a copy of course. Send me your mailing address and I will try and get it out this week.

Regards,

bill

From: Josh
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 9:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: quick question

Hey Bill. I was wondering if Panorama ever issued a formal apology for the Suffer the Little Children show? There is a poster on Simon's board who is swearing up and down that they issued an apology for misrepresenting certain facts and being anti-jw overall. Do you know if this ever happened?

Where did Kero go off to?

stevenyc

Maybe a new JDub Urban Ledgend ?

steve

dozy

What were your thoughts at the time?

I was shaken up , but my wife found it profoundly upsetting. Jws rarely are exposed to negative images of their religion.

What did you think about the programme that had been shown?

To be honest , I found it rather sensationalist & shallow- tabloid style journalism & not like the Panoramas that I used to watch in the past. I remember being annoyed that as a TV license payer , I had paid for the reporter to travel to the USA & hassle the GB member. Bill Bowen came over as a “good ol’ Southern boy” and didn’t impress me at all - I thought he was a bit deceitful. His figure of 24,000 child molesters was so manifestly untrue that it destroyed his credibility. Brits don’t like his type (see George W Bush for details).

If you were rank and file at the time , did it shock you?

Shocked - no , saddened & disappointed , yes. I was aware of the problems in Stevenston & knew many of the elders involved.

Did you view yourself as being quite spiritually strong at the time but then suddenly find yourself having serious doubts about the borg because of this programme?

I already had doubts and , in hindsight , it probably was another nail in the coffin , but due to the shortcomings of the program , it was quite easy to rationalise away.

Incidentally , there was no apology made or even requested from the BBC.

vitty

I watched the programmein the UK , there was no apology that i remember, I think it would have been good news among the congregations if there had been.

The day after I was on FS and thought id be in for a rough time. NO ONE mentioned it, apparently Big brother had been on the other side so everyone was watching that, Pity

Remember the Panorama programme on JWs a few years ago? Question