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Alex James Cocaine Documentary

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in Drink & Drugs
Is anyone going to be watching this tonight? 8:30 on BBC1.

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    BunnieBunnie Posts: 6,099 Master Poster
    I'm With Stupid wrote: »
    Is anyone going to be watching this tonight? 8:30 on BBC1.

    I probably will, it looks quite good.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Why couldnt they get a proper journalist to do it? No offence to the bloke but in the reviews I have read they found his style quite annoying and apparently it gets in the way of the story.

    I still may well watch it.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I expect for creative reasons, they probably felt that someone who has spent thousands on the substance would make a better programme. Maybe him learning his lesson or something similar.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Alex James seems to have somehow ingratiated himself with the BBC current affairs elite. I saw him on Question Time last week and heard an edition of the Today program on radio 4 that was guest edited by him and had an extensive interview with him.

    I saw this Panorama the other night - he isn't a serious journalist. For much of it he seems like a harmless popinjay, burned out and left supine by his long term coke habit and the effort it must have taken to kick it. But at some points his style and content seemed to be deliberately disingenous. For instance, his interview with the President of Columbia was a total farce. He set it up by reciting a piece of emotional blackmail about how the interviewee's father was murdered by a coca cartel them seemed to swallow everything the guy said, although only a minute or so of footage was shown. No questions about Columbian military anti-drugs policies, government supported militia behaviour, defoliant tactics, US sponsorship and involvement, indigenous consumption of coca, etc...

    Much better sources available to consume if you have a legitimate objective interest if you ask me.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Exactly, there was no mention of the right wing paramilitary groups, next to nothing really about FARC and their background, nothing really on the ecological damage - it was far too short and far too shallow.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Anyone remember Angus Macqueen's 3 part documentary on cocaine, called funnily enough, Cocaine (he's the same documentary maker who put together the astonishing The Death of Yugoslavia). Now that was proper journalism - 18 months in the making, lots of time spent on the cocaine trails.

    You can see the article he wrote as a result of making the films here -
    http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1385987,00.html

    And if you can track it down (can't say where - that would be naughty) it's an astonishing piece of journalism
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