Australia's Channel 7 on Child Labor Abuse

Glosslip gloats about the fact that "Australia’s Channel 7 reporter Brian Seymour did a brilliant expose on the Church of Scientology’s long-standing child labor abuse”. In fact the footage was only brilliant in its manipulation of information and didn't expose anything since most of the show only consists of the say-so of a disgruntled ex-member commenting on teenagers going in and out of the building, punctuated by the exclamations and horrified speechless faces of Brian Seymour repeatedly shocked by the repetitive claims that they have to work 40 hours a day and don't get home schooling (something the CoS denies).

An example of manipulation of information is when we are shown an interview of Astra Woodcraft claiming that at age 15 she had to counsel a 40 years-old man against masturbating and that she had to show him a policy that says masturbating is banned (in reality there is no such policy). Then we are shown a 15 years-old girl entering the building with the exclamation of the reporter horrified that at this age she is trained to be an auditor - presumably to be trained to counsel 40 years-old men against masturbation. In fact, the counseling Astra did (if true as it certainly is not typical) was an ethic counseling, totally different to auditing. The footage deliberately mixes the two to give people a false impression.

Then we get the manipulated Hubbard interview I already pointed in my entry for June 30, in which the BBC deliberately assembled the interview to make Hubbard sound absurd, with of course Brian Seymour commenting “remember, this rambling ruck on tur is revered by Scientologsits”.

We also get the hint that minors illegally commit themselves through contract. Unfortunately the picture they show to illustrate this is precisely where it obviously says that minors need parental consent but you would only see this if you make a stand-still on the word "minors" that is shown for just a split second.

Not surprisingly, the footage ends on the Xenu story, falsely claiming that Scientology beliefs are build on that story.

The whole thing is theatrical and patently ridiculous but of course it is going to be a big hit for uncritical critics who already rave, rant, and ravel about it as can be seen on ESMB and Digg.