"The murder of black teenager Anthony Walker was caused by the same racism which led to slavery, the Bishop of Liverpool has said."

No it wasn't.

Anyway.

The programme about Nanny Maroon over the weekend was a huge disappointment. The presenter was a stupid young girl whose only qualification to present it was that she's black and part Jamaican through one of her grandparents (or, more realistically, is famous).

This silly little snit sat in a white Jamaican man's plantation house and lectured him on why he should feel awful about his ancestry. She quite clearly knew nothing about the subject, while the fellow was very knowledgeable but (gasp!) said he didn't feel personal guilt. So, why doesn't he? Rather than explain, he was shouted down. She got to make more unanswered accusations, or rather reiterate her points in exactly the same terms she'd used in the interview (she sounded like she was reading from a script all the way through), after the interview was finished, in the guise of "If I were him I'd feel this and that". Travesty of journalism.

Then when confronted with the occasional actual fact (like that the Maroons signed a peace treaty agreeing to hand back escaped slaves), she tried to weasel out of it! ("But maybe they were starving and had no choice but to accept?" "No, there's no evidence of starvation; it seems to have been a political decision." VO after interview: "Oo-err, I don't think I want to accept this - still, at least Nanny [who didn't sign the treaty] was exonerated.") Impartial? You decide...

In other words, the views of a taxi driver were rated more highly than someone from the national archive, because although the taxi driver's response was entirely emotional and uninformed, he said what she wanted to hear. Most of the interviewees had no credentials provided except that they were descended from Maroons. (I'm descended from someone called Jane Eyre, love, and that doesn't make me a literature expert.)

And she was the worst interviewer I've ever seen. ("But specifically about the brutality, how do you feel about that?" "You mean how do I feel about what went on in the plantations?" "No no, about the brutality." She would not leave go of that word as the poor interviewee tried to get out of her what she was actually asking.) And the constant interjected "right"s and "uh huh"s from her drove me crazy (and made her sound as though she didn't believe anything the interviewees were saying).

I know I'm going to loathe any programme that's described in its billings as a "personal journey" instead of a real documentary. And this was absolute trash. One or two thumbs up for atmosphere - I actually enjoyed the use of the Jamaican musicians throughout, though it was rather lazy filmmaking, too blatantly emotive and their interpretation of the story strayed too far into the mythological - but minus everything for the ludicrously biased, anecdotal, fact-free content. As the taxi driver said at the start, Nanny and the Maroons deserve a documentary about them. This wasn't one.

(Edit: sent this, only slightly toned down, as an official complaint. It annoyed me that much.)