by snare&racket 34 Replies latest jw friends
I'm not cutting the BBC any slack. More than 99 out of 100 readers are going to think this man is being shunned for missing a funeral. Which is unintelligible nonsense. It's abysmal journalism:
But two years ago, he was disfellowshipped after he missed a Jehovah's Witness memorial service - seen in the religion as an important event.
A shame about the lack of a public venue for feedback on BBC articles.
Interview is on Victoria Derbyshire on BBC2 this morning. Interview is just after 10am.
Maybe all jehovahs witnesses will dismiss this article ,most of them are a lost cause anyway .Who cares ?
They bought their ticket ,they know what they are getting into,and they will suffer the consequences.
However the general public will more likely , because of this article dismiss the JW`s as a cult to be avoided .
And that is who I am most concerned about.
Their not interested in the nitty gritty of who is right and who is wrong ,dotting the I`s and crossing the T`s .
The average person ,not a JW will just dismiss the religion as another lot of fruitcakes.
And i think thats a great outcome.
I would agree that by the BBC not being exceptionally clear or correct about the reasons behind a particular disfellowshipping, any PIMI JW will immediately dismiss the entire article as untrue and apostate lies.
On a side note, apparently about the only thing that has remained completely unchanged in the last 50 years of the Watchtower is the font they use for signage at the conventions!! Holy crap!!
There is no such thing as bad publicity but this underlines the importance of accuracy on everything we have control over. It sounds like these stories have a background of truth but the inaccuracies clang in your ears. What we want, recognise and get here is the ring of truth.
The background of shunning and families being torn apart can get lost in the detail.
The news article B- , the program A+. The interviews were balanced, factual and calm. Very powerful stuff. The overall message was excellent in my view.
very disjointed didn't come across well at all, it didn't help with the ludicrous nonsense they were quoting from active jw's and the official spokesperson from the WTS, and noting whatsoever as to why they shun/dissfellowship members who have simple disagreements with doctrines and are labelled as apostates in which these kind of programmes never address or research properly when contacting or replying to jw's and official spokespeople
jookbeard: very disjointed didn't come across well at all.
It was kinda bland, and all very 'so-what-ish' - which doesn't really work on TV
At that time of the day, the TV programme is up against 'Judge Judy' with parent's suing their kids etc and 'Jeremy Kyle' with families fighting each other. And then there's Victoria Derbyshire...
Victoria Derbyshire also seemed unsure what questions to actually ask to - trying her best to make it into an 'i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g' story before viewers either turned over, or went to make a cup of tea.
It was kinda weird too - the lady interviewee was shown in silhouette, and the guy had only his back shown with an actor doing a voice-over for his comments. Agan, a bit 'so-what-ish-weird'
And Terri - who can be very good in the right enviroment - sadly just looked like an out-of-place gooseberry, particularly as she was sitting opposite the two main interviewees, and next to Victoria.
Yep, it was as I thought. Here is the response from my JW brother to my text about the BBC news article:
"Those things may have happened, some elders are useless. But you don't get disfellowship for not attending the memorial, and you don't get disfellowship for leaving your abusive partner, you get disfellowship for abusing your partner. Domestic abuse is a crime and standard procedure is to report all crimes to the police. They're a long way from perfect and there are plenty of legitimate grievances, but this was a long way from that."
I have to say, he's not a very good JW and I have no idea why he wrote disfellowship and not disfellowshipped, but this shows that even a fence sitting JW will dismiss the BBC article. :(
