The Green Independence Party
A while back, I blogged about Franz Ferdinand providing music for the British Greens’ election broadcast. The Scottish rock band’s song, “This Fireâ€?, provided the backdrop to a “nightmare visionâ€? of the future if we let our environment be polluted.
Well, a frogblog reader, Clare, has pointed me to this story about Britain’s Channel 4 mistakenly screening subtitles from the far-right United Kingdom Independent during the Green broadcast. Reports the Guardian:
Channel 4 has been forced to apologise to the Green party after mistakenly transmitting its election broadcast with subtitles from the UK Independence Party.
But subtitles for a Ukip broadcast, which cursed the European Union, were screened simultaneously. The Greens are furious that some viewers may now think they take Ukip’s negative stance on Europe, immigration and political correctness.
“It’s pretty awful, It totally lost the message,” said a Green party spokesman, adding that representations are being made to Channel 4 about the mistake.
Channel 4 said overlaying the Ukip subtitles was a genuine mistake that was rectified during the broadcast, which began at 7.55pm in a prime slot after the network’s flagship news bulletin.
“It was a rare and honest mistake. The subtitles were stopped before the end of the orogramme and replaced with an apology. Only a small percentage of viewers would have been affected,” a spokesman added.
This is like a NZ Greens broadcast about a sustainable transport network having subtitles provided by the “more roads, more cars, more pollution” National Party. Or a Greens broadcast about justice having subtitles provided by the draconian NZ First. And the worst thing for the British Greens is that this is the only broadcast they get - unlike the major parties, smaller groups like the Greens only get one throw of the dice. So, viewers who only see their election broadcasts on Channel 4 and not on BBC channels or ITV will be left with a very confused picture of what the Greens are about. Hopefully, the publicity surrounding the stuff-up will in some way mitigate the effects the stuff-up has had in confusing the Green message.
Perhaps TVNZ should be extra special careful to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen here…
May 1st, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Frog said: hopefully, the publicity surrounding the stuff-up will in some way mitigate the effects the stuff-up has had in confusing the Green message.
Yep, I agree. Managed correctly, this could be a golden opportunity for the British Greens rather than a disaster. The possibilities are endless for an inventive green publicist - the great British public, or any public for that matter, love to read stories about a media stuff-up. As long as the British Greens laugh at the ludicrous mixed message themselves (and repeat the real message in a way that makes a clever soundbite; media reality) rather than get terribly po-faced about it, they should reach a lot more people than the original, correct, broadcast would have.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:33 pm
It should be pointed out that this would only have been seen by a tiny number of people - these are the subtitles for the hard of hearing, i.e. they are only added if someone turns them on. You have to wonder how many hard of hearing actually watch party political broadcasts (given the level of political indifference nowadays) and how many of them watch them on Channel 4 as opposed to BBC 1, BBC2 and ITV.