A Michael Taylor, in the comments to the previous post, on the BBC. It’s not Paul Reynolds in disguise, is it ?
The agenda-setting is tedious for those who don’t share their world-view, but where it’s accompanied by the hard slog of good journalism – Channel 4 News for example – you agree to disagree and wish them well on their way.
The problem with the BBC is not just that they’re agenda-pushing, but that it daily undermines their journalistic practice. As anyone who has worked as a journo can tell you, it’s either one of the easiest jobs in the world, or one of the hardest. If you’re content merely to push your agenda day in, day out, it’s dead easy – the (same) stories write themselves day after day, helped along the way by fellow agenda-pushers (all those NGOs and lobbyists are more than willing to write your news for you). Soon enough, you end up with the Today programme.
The majority of stories (as opposed to attitudes) complained of here are, I believe, the result of an abandonment of journalistic standards (and effort), which are itself an expression of the comprehensiveness with which the “correct” agenda is understood by everyone involved.
Real reporting is hard: how much more work does it take to be Paul Reynolds digging out the facts than John Simpson spinning fantasies and speculation, do you think?
Ultimately, the fish starts to stink from the head: the poor junior staffers of the BBC will pretty quickly have to absorb the agenda and habits of their seniors, or get another job. And why do the seniors – the John Humphreys, the silent Kevin Marsh (head of new journalism college, yet to lower himself to explain why he invited al Sadr’s man on the Today program to push, unchallenged, the slur that the Americans were responsible for the Golden Mosque bomb) do it? As so often, it’s the “why does a dog lick its balls” question: because they can.
And they can because, absent the market, there’s absolutely nothing to discipline these people – they are answerable to no-one or nothing. Oh, sorry, they are answerable to the complaints procedure (yup, that’s the one that brought you “Complaint upheld, no action recommended”), and the governors.
And who are the governors? You haven’t a clue, have you? Well, they are:
Michael Grade – TV lifer;
Anthony Salz – lawyer;
Deborah Bull – former principal dancer with Royal Ballet;
Andrew Burns – career diplomat
Ruth Deech – lawyer, don;
Dermot Gleeson – industrialist;
Merfyn Jones – Welsh academic;
Fabian Monds – Northern Ireland academic;
Jeremy Peat – Civil servant turned banker;
Angela Sarkis – charity worker, on the House of Lords Appointments Commission;
Ranjit Sondhi – race relations activist (that’s a bit harsh, he’s probably a good egg);
Richard Tait – BBC lifer.
That’s right, good establishment chaps all, but a life swaddled in the British establishment is no grounding for overseeing the BBC. And, of course, not a journalist among them: not one. Worse, looking at the list, you get the feeling they’d feel pretty chuffed personally if Dimbleby, Paxman, Humphreys et al nodded to them in the lift.
Who believes these are the people to save the BBC?
“Worse, looking at the list, you get the feeling they’d feel pretty chuffed personally if Dimbleby, Paxman, Humphreys et al nodded to them in the lift”
Er no.
If the hutton enquiry was any indication, most of the people on the list wouldn’t recognise Dimbleby, Paxman, Humphreys if they stumbled over them while ascending the stairs to their Ivory Towers.
Dermont Glesson is NOT an industrialist. He is an Irish Barrister and Chairman of Allied Irish Bank. Last time I looked Ireland went its own way in 1921.
I suppose Sir John Bond of HSBC is on the Board of RTE ? No I didn’t think so.
Britain has a State Broadcasting Corporation just like Russia. Putin puts his cronies in charge and Blair also.
The BBC is an anachronism – a nationalised industry in a privatised sector sustained by monopoly funding of a levy on ownership of a TV receiver
Noone ever proposed making Vodafone a State Telephone Company by levying a tax on mobile phones – just the opposite in fact, they were made to pay a tax up-front for an unproven 3-G technology.
Better still, BT is forced to cut prices each year based on digital technology; but BBC can increase prices each year because of digital technology !
My idea was that the BBC Sound Library be transferred to The British Library; the Orchestras be funded directly by the National Lottery; and the radio stations be privatised, BBC1 to take adverts, and the head office to be made redundant
Broadcasting House could become an hotel. A great place to relax. Which happens there already, of course – at our expense.
Broadcasting House could become The Museum of Socialist Theory – Oh dear, it already is – at our expense.
Or the BBC could concentrate on reporting facts, and leave out pushing the usual agendas down our throats.
I remember John Humphreys appearing on a quiz programme (on English spelling or grammar or something similar) hosted by Ann Robinson. Apart from pronouncing on how awful our English is, he still managed to tell us why he was worried about Bush! They don’t even knowb they are doing it, and they consider themselves far more important than they really are.
Broadcasting House could become an hotel
Surely the most logical transformation would be into a mosque?
I’m staggered by this Gleeson bloke as a Beeb governor. He is an Irish citizen, wtf is he doing at the top of the BBC? Doing his best for the British Broadcasting Corporation is he?
I note that RTE does not benefit from quite the same level of diversity. Here is the RTE Authority:
http://www.rte.ie/about/authority.html
And here is the RTE executive:
http://www.rte.ie/about/executiveboard.html
In both cases there are members from NI so we’ve got are lads in there. Well maybe not, both are Irish speakers and one writes for an Irish language paper. Both bowler hat wearing unionists Im sure.
Of course it may be that Dermot Gleeson would like a British passport and return Ireland to the Union, yes that must be it.
socialism is necrotising
One question I think a lot of us would like to be more sure we knew the answer to, is this.
Is this current situation with the BBC and the Labour goverment.
1 The last desperate acts from an unworkable dieing social and economic theory?
or
2 The real shape of things to come?
I cant make my mind up. I can think of lotts of reasons to support both answers. The last time the Labour party was swept from office, in disgrace. It was the dawning of a new begining for the country. Things were much worse in 1979 than it will be even in 3or4 years time.
Just for those of you still fighting with your sisters in 1979.
There was rampant inflation of up to 30% per year
Trade unions had control over all large industrys.
Trade unions had compleat control over the public services and transport systems.
Trade unions where effectivly the goverment.
Most of the above were on strike most of the time.
The country was bankrupt.
The country was instructed by the IMF to close hospitals as a condition of their loans.
The BBC was more clever and trusted than it is now.
There was almost a compleat state controlled broadcast media.
We had Punk music and Emerson Lake and Parmer popular at the same time.
We had a Cold War going on.
Communists and soviet spys were everywhere.
The national cricket and football teams where Crap.
People used to call themselves Marxist without going red in the face.
Top rate tax was 98%
Basic tax and NI was 43%
Public industrial and service workers pay was pitiful, due to vaste overmaning.
And thats all quickly of the top of my head
In short whatever the state of this country by 2009, DC is going to have far less to deficate himself about than Thatcher did. At least I hope, we all hope so.
I read in an 1972 copy of the Daily Mail that Sir Derik Ezra, the then chairman of the National Coal Bourd. Had recently got a pay rise bringing his wages to a staggering £10,000 per year. I know it was worth a bit more in those days but, what sort of chairman do you expect to get when paying pocket money wages,apart from a corrupt one? One that cost our then tax payers 1/2 billion a year. If goverments were not printing cash as quick as the presses would move in the sixties and seventies. The whole socialist nightmare would have turned into something even worse
If goverments were not printing cash as quick as the presses would move in the sixties and seventies
Meaningless bit of journalese – Credit was far harder to obtain in the 1960s and 1970s than nowadays. House prices only exploded after 1979.
You are saying Lord Ezra was “corrupt” ?
£10.000 in 1972 was probably around £200.000 today………………I note the Royal Mail runs superbly now Crozier gets £1.000.000 + and the BBC is successful because Mark Thompson gets £500.000.
BTW…in 1972 Britain was run by Selsdon Man himself, Free Market freak Edward Heath who deregulated credit in 1972 and created the largest monetary expansion yet seen through Competition & Credit Control Act 1972…………….it is Conservatives who deregulated credit and created the huge boom which brought down among others, Midland Bank.
There was rampant inflation of up to 30% per year
Wage Inflation not Price Inflation.
The country was instructed by the IMF to close hospitals as a condition of their loans. UNTRUE
Basic tax and NI was 43%
For most people today it is around 40%
Industrial production in 2006 is not much higher than in 1973
re – Dermot Gleeson mentioned above
the Dermot Gleeson biography here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermot_Gleeson
doesnt correspond to the BBC bio here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/boardofgovernors/dermotgleeson.shtml
for starters, the BBC bio says he was educated at Cambridge – but the wiki bio says Dublin.
same name – different people?
“Basic tax and NI was 43%
For most people today it is around 40%”
if you add council tax, and indirect stealth taxes (petrol for example) – its touching 50%
Taxes on Income:
Worker NI 10%
“Employer” NI 12%
Income Tax 40%
I would say the effective top rate of tax is > 62%
“etc The last desperate acts from an unworkable dieing social and economic theory?”
Judging by the post in the previous thread, about the Netherlands’ recent election being swung by the immigrant voters, I’m puzzled as well. I can understand the idea of bringing immigrants into the country in order to bolster the party’s votes, but in the long run how will a Muslim-dominated Britain be compatible with the set of left-wing values embodied by that Peter Barron chap? I can understand a Stalinist finding Muslim law attractive, but the kind of Barron-esque latte-sipping media type probably wouldn’t go for Sharia law. Perhaps Barron etc are weak, and get a kind of sexual kick out of the idea of being dominated and whipped by nasty brutish men.
I used to live in an area of London (Queensbury, near Harrow) which was absolutely dominated by immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. They were ultra-Tories in aspect, with silver Mercedes and house extensions and aspirations. I imagine that they would mostly find the idea of existing on state handouts abhorrent. Does Labour like them, or are they unfashionable nowadays? Would Labour like muslims if muslims were not constantly perceived as an oppressed, challenged minority?
Ashley
with regards the Left and thier love of all things Islamic and the paradox that this seems to be, we must keep in mind the old maxim “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. That is all there is to it, no mystery. No paradox.
If Islam was anti Socialist in tooth and claw, I`d sign up to it. We`ll deal with the rest when the time comes.
“the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
is wrong. That your enemy has other enemies is useful to know.
Archduke – its just typical, you wait all day for a Dermot Gleeson and then two turn up at once!
Ive dug around and yes, its two different blokes, at least one bio I found seems to have mixed them up though.
Would Labour like muslims if muslims were not constantly perceived as an oppressed, challenged minority?
Come on now………….they are tribal and their vote can be delivered as a block by their leaders to Labour which uses pork barrel politics to reward them for inner city seats………….imagine how STV would destroy this
Rick: No pork, please – they’re muslim.
I think a good old Schweinshaxe is what these chaps need………..
Ranjit wouldn’t notice who “nodded to him in the lift” as he’s blind.