More Scientology Controversy
Tuesday May 15, 2007
Scientologists get picked on a lot. In some ways, it's hard to blame their critics, who often believe they're performing a public service by steering people away from the group. Unfortunately, the organization often deserves the criticism, and the way they deal with critics is often mind boggling. Take John Sweeney, for instance. The BBC reporter spent six months on an investigative report on Scientology, a fairly common subject for documentaries these days, and reports that throughout, he was followed, photographed, and more or less stalked by unknown people, who even went through his mail. After several grueling days of filming interviews with current and former Scientologists, punctuated with interruptions from church members, the reporter attended the church's "Psychiatry: Industry of Death" exhibit, which blames psychiatry for a great number of societal ills. It was there that he gave in to the continual goading and completely lost his temper, conveniently before a Scientologist's video camera. And that's not where it ended, either- the video was posted almost immediately to Youtube, and now resides on its very own dedicated website. The church is now threatening to sue Sweeney.
Sweeney's report for BBC's Panorama can be viewed here, or on Youtube: 1, 2, 3.
Comments
Jennifer, I am a regular reader of your column, but on this one you got some things wrong - or should I say did not research properly. I spent some minutes watching all the YouTube footage available and here is what I found: If you look at both sides of this “battle” you might want to remember that John Sweeney is an investigative journalist making his living with spying on people and that he did so on the Scientology issue for less than 6 days, at least in the US, per his own words. He “lost it” when he was challenged on his journalistic bias, his refusal to visit the Scientology headquarters and facilities and actually see and film what they are doing there. He “exploded like a tomato” (his words) when challenged why he interviews people having no relation whatsoever to Scientology as “experts”. Well, we all have our sensitive spots and those are the ones we usually know we are wrong with. John Sweeney obviously set out to produce a slander piece and the Scientologists turned the table on him. It’s that simple.
I failt o see where he did any sort of ’spying’ on anyone- in fact, he was pretty straightforward that he ewas doing a story, and it seems that when it was discovered that he was also interviewqing critics, they went overboard. I’m also a little concerned by your “two wrongs maker a right” attitude- I fail to see how following a man home, interupting interviews, and other such infantile behavior can possibly be defended.