Ah, let’s begin our favourite Then and Now comparisons:
‘In fact last year I was sitting at a dinner party in London next to a charming American woman who asked me what I did. I said I run the BBC. She then informed me she regarded the BBC as a communistic organisation.
That was decision time. Did I get into a detailed argument about publicly funded broadcasting with someone who appeared culturally unable to understand the merits of such a system, or did I just politely get back to eating my dinner.’
Naturally, Greg (once known to some affectionately as ‘Boss Hogg’) didn’t bother with the detailed argument bit, and just tucked in.
I’m sure that lady would be interested to hear that the criticisms of Lord Hutton of BBC Management included- I’m being kind and only using three-
‘failing to investigate…to make an examination…to appreciate’
and would reflect on who might have been culturally disabled.
Well, you know, she was a thick yank after all. I mean, Britain withdrew from that primitive backwater of America and left them to their own devices, and look what came of them!
No, no, no. We simply do not understand.
The BBC answers to a higher good.
And in this world war, shall fight the American tyrant on the beaches and on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets, and in the hills.
And on the air.
Will never surrender.
Etc. (with apologies to the author…)
Oh Barry I think you do need to apologise.
Instead think of the BBC as Lord Haw Haw public advocate of National Socialism.
From Greg Dyke’s memo to staff announcing his resignation—the BBC problem in a nutshell:
“Throughout this affair my sole aim as director general of the BBC has been to defend our editorial independence and to act in the public interest.
In four years we’ve achieved a lot between us.
I believe we’ve changed the place fundamentally and I hope that those changes will last beyond me.”
Oh, no, Greg, one does not hope for that. Rather: Apres moi la deluge, preferably a flood of common sense and honesty.
Orgasmic. Dyke is gone.
He was the Howell Raines (NYT) of Britain. If you Brits had only heard that zealot in his US speeches during the Iraq war, your blood would have curdled. The idea Dyke was objective is patently laughable. Again, you only had to observe his words in his speeches here. Stunning in its arogance and advocacy.
Yep, HE was the guy that needed to go. In my mind, the rest could have stayed.
It now appears that Dyke was forced to go by the Board of Governors.
And the BBC (along with the liberal/left ‘elite’) continues to be in wrathful denial.
I think Blair is finished now – the whole media world is going to get together and trash him.
This will probably change (it being BBC Online) but currently the pictures on display in this story and the sidebar make an interesting comparison.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3442973.stm
Big, scary looking Cambell with his tongue stuck out, adjacent to poor little forlorn Greg on his way out (blub).
Is the ongoing BBC bias any wonder, given the nature of those staff?
‘Cut the crap, bring Greg back’ is the name of the BBC’s (very sympathetic) article covering the pro-Dyke protests outside of BBC HQ. The protesters clutching the giant photos remind me of this and that
Just a thought. Maybe he made up the story. It is not impossible but it does seem like an odd thing to say on a first meeting.
“We’ve been lying about you now for, what is it, several years now?
“Slandering you and your government with panache, with verve and creativity.
“Villifying you at every turn.
“Calumnying you no end.
“Around the whole wide effing (oops! ahem) world!
“Looks like we have to apologize.
“Sorry, Tony, old boy.
“No hard feelings.
“Heh, heh.”
–Throughout this affair my sole aim as director general of the BBC has been to defend our editorial independence and to act in the public interest.–
There it is, just who died and left him boss as to decide and promote what is in the “public interest?”
At least w/guns and the death penalty, it seems the public has decided that it doesn’t agree w/what Mr. Dyke and Co. thinks.
(That’s a really unwieldly sentence, but I really can’t explain it better. Sorry.)