From: Steve Dyson Subject: Brum regionals spat Keith Harrison
challenges the Birmingham Mail’s campaign for “No More Chinese
Whispers” from new Rover owner Nanjing. (Letters, Press Gazette, 7
October).
He claims his Express & Star also asked questions
of Nanjing. Did it Keith, or did it just report generically on the
queries of others?
If anyone at your paper wrote any searching
questions, or challenging editorials demanding clear answers, they must
have been spiked, because I never saw them.
Even if the Express
& Star did reflect a query or two in the footsteps of others, did
it publish a challenging list of 12 of its own detailed questions on 34
consecutive days? I think not.
Did it translate them into
Mandarin, along with the main front page headline, thereby attracting
worldwide attention to, and then pressure on, the activities of the
Chinese company? Er, no.
Did it personally take them down to
London to hand over to the Chinese Embassy? Of course not (and why
should it? Longbridge is not even on the Express & Star’s patch).
Yes,
of course all the media reported on the result… but which paper
prompted that result, who made sure the Chinese delivered the full
answers, and whose 12 questions were each specifically answered?
Great
to see you’re still around, Keith. Long time since we competed for
scoops as fellow reporters in the Sunday Mercury class of ’93.
And
I’m delighted to see you helping to lead the Express & Star in some
fine journalism. But your paper had nothing to do with the Nanjing
capitulation. This was a good, old-fashioned, campaigning exclusive by
the Bimingham Mail.
Steve Dyson editor, Birmingham Mail
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