Express is on another planet

The latest edition of the Sunday Express led with a story about EU funding:

The article, which poured scorn on the EU for “wasting” money on the European space programme and for helping to fund “explicit films”, was picked apart by Atomic Spin on the same day.

Since it appeared online, the article has attracted a plethora of predictable comments, including one that is somewhat less predictable.

Aghast at the Express’ biased reporting of the story, Dennis Abbott, who is the EC spokesperson for education and culture, left a comment of his own that’s worth reproducing in full:

Don’t you mean the Express is on another planet?

Kirsty Buchanan, congratulations: you are hereby inducted into the Express ‘Never Let the Facts Get in the Way of the Story’ hall of journalistic fantasy.

You write that the EU is funnelling taxpayers’ cash ‘into subsidies for pro-European documentaries and art-house films revelling in senes of sex and violence’.

Here are the facts, for anyone who’s interested. By the way, I explained them to Kirsty last Friday:

The EU’s aid for the film industry prohibits support for explictly pornographic or racist films or films promoting violence.

Oh and we do not just support ‘art-house’ films. Recent beneficiaries of funding from the EU include the companies behind award-films like Slumdog Millionaire, The Wind that Shakes The Barley and The Pianist. You may be aware that these films also did quite well at the box office ..

Without EU funding at the early stages, these films might never have got off the drawing board.

Thr UK is among the biggest net beneficiaries of EU funding through the MEDIA fund for cinema (ie the UK gets a lot more out of the fund than it puts in).

Why does the EU help to fund the film sector – especially small operators? Because we want to help to create and safeguard jobs in the industry, and to ensure diversity.

If any readers want to find out the facts about EU funding for cinema, click here:

http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/programme/overview/index_en.htm

If they want to know more about programmes revelling in sex, they’re much better off checking out Television X or Red Hot TV … and we know you runs them, don’t we?

Best regards

Dennis Abbott
EC spokesperson for education and culture

(Thanks to Antonia Mochan.)