scientologied

I had the dubious honour of receiving a package from the Church of Scientology this morning.
Except I might not initially have known where it was from, had I not just read an article which happened to contain the name of their UK headquarters.
The letter, ostensibly from the editor of an organisation called Freedom Television - coincidentally also based at Saint Hill Manor in West Sussex, the nerve centre of British Scientology - drew my attention to what it called the "repeated failures" of the BBC to follow its own guidelines.
With it came the church's counter-attack to last week's Scientology "investigation", in the form of a slick DVD documentary.
What struck me most was the way the accompanying letter skipped around the subject without once mentioning the word Scientology or name John Sweeney.

The letter, signed Graeme Wilson, said: "The push for ratings in a highly competitive media world must not be satisfied by relegating fairness and accuracy to the level of tabloid stunts.
"That's why I am sending you the enclosed documentary, 'Panorama Exposed'. It reveals what really goes on behind the scenes in making a Panorama programme.
"This documentary details 154 would-be violations of the BBC and OfCom Guidelines in the making of a recently produced Panorama story.
"The reporter claimed at the outset that he was interested in both the positives and negatives of the story but when he couldn't find the negative information he staged scenarios to fit his storyline, resorting to proven unreliable sources."

As for the documentary which came with it, well you can watch it online here. Clips have of course been circulating on YouTube for over a week now.
For my sins, I watched the Panorama show and found it pretty obvious in its approach, intellectually lightweight and at times beyond cringe-worthy.
Yet there's no denying that they way John Sweeney appeared to be tailed by the Scientologists was decidedly sinister. They denied his accusations but the variety of footage they have in their own documentary speaks for itself.
They have a point about the professional standards of the programme, which seemed to do little but reinforce old stereotypes.
Sweeney was caught on camera apparently pretending to be a fan and heckling John Travolta at a film premiere.
The Scientologists accuse him of engineering a demonstration against them, trying to provoke responses from adherents with his aggressive interviewing, staging events for the camera and generally being biased.
On a personal level, I have little real interest in Scientology or, for that matter, Scientologists. I interviewed a follower last year and while he was nice enough and clearly sincere, I agreed with very few of his beliefs.

But as ridiculous as parts of Panorama was, actually making and posting out a documentary to media professionals is a pretty extreme and - dare I say - paranoid response.
The whole thing has descended into some kind of unseemly war of spin and counter-spin.
And senior media and religious figures have been drawn into it through their appearance on the Scientology riposte.
Chris Frost, National Union of Journalists executive and respected journalism lecturer, gave an interview about press ethics and the BBC.
Former BBC reporter Robin Aitken, and American investigative reporter Ted Hynds also took part, discussing the claim Panorama had "faked reality" in the programme and that the show had "dumbed down".
Jay Lakhandi, director of the UK Hindu Council, and Rev Graham James, chair of the BBC's own religions advisory committee, also took part - lending credence to the Scientologists' extreme reaction.
Interestingly, for an organisation so hostile to the field of psychiatry, another commentator happened to be a Dr Colin Ross - described as a "psychiatrist and author."
Except maybe that shouldn't be such a surprise. Dr Ross is actually Scientology's pet, well, scientist at the moment, after exposing supposed CIA mind control experiments in his recent book.

PS - Clips of the brilliant South Park take on Scientology can be seen here. Blistering satire at its best.