Monthly Archives: May 2006

a couple of interesting links: Media groups unite against BBC:

“The government is handing the BBC an unfair advantage in the digital revolution that is changing the face of the media,” the submission says.

“The government is handing the BBC a prime public policy task that should not be the preserve of any media organisation. At the same time, it will allow the corporation to indulge in wide cross-promotion of an increasing range of digital products.

“There cannot be a ‘balanced media ecology’ where the BBC is given such strong public policy direction and support in the development of digital products. That remit needs to be curtailed.”

and ‘Prancing’ BBC News hosts berated:

Mr Mullin said: “Can we find time to debate the extent to which the tabloid virus is beginning to infect BBC television news?

“Have you noticed that newscasters increasingly no longer read news to camera, but they walk around the studio like a couple of ham actors emoting?

“I think it is called news with attitude.”

I wonder if the Beeboids will deign to have a (Don’t) Have Your Say on this topic – I’m sure the great British public will have plenty of views on the BBC (and other) prancing presenters. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a BBC (D)HYS though – tell us (and them) what you think in the comments here.

, writes Tom Mangold in Wednesday’s Independent. Formerly a senior BBC News correspondent and longstanding journalist on Panorama, I’ve always thought of Mangold as one of the better old-school guys at the BBC. Here are a couple of excerpts, laying in to the ratings chasing dolts that run the BBC nowadays:

What you are not seeing on Panorama generally are reporters of reputation, chutzpah and experience telling you what the hell Iran is up to; what on earth is going on at the CIA; whether the Labour Party really is sawing at its own throat with rusty razor-blades; how Israel and Hamas intend to co-exist; just who is the 17-year-old wunderkind chosen for England’s World Cup squad; how much longer can the Iraq imbroglio last before meltdown; and can anyone anywhere explain why our boys are in Afghanistan?

The appointment of a new editor will be BBC1’s last chance to salvage the wreckage of its current affairs commitment. One more mistake and surely the game will be up. But the omens are not good. My former boss Mark Thompson in his BBC “state of the union” message devoted exactly eight words out of 4,000 – that’s 0.2 per cent – to the subject of BBC TV current affairs. Here’s what he said: “[We are going to] find new ways of shaping our current affairs.” That’s it. Mind-blowing stuff, eh? Big commitment by Britain’s boss of public service broadcasting.

and:

Peter Fincham also promised his demoralised staff “hour-long, week-night special editions at 9pm”. Oh yeah? So what happened last Wednesday? A Panorama “special” (on yet another poor person close to death) was first kicked out of its usual Sunday night slot because it got in the way of a major feature film; next the producer was told he could have a slot on Wednesday but would he cut 10 minutes out of the film first. (Imagine Van Gogh’s agent: “Too many sunflowers there, Van old boy, take a few out, big canvases don’t sell any more.”) Then, what was left of the film was not run, as promised, at 9pm, but the truncated version appeared at 7pm (reaching a dismally small audience of 2.3 million). Why? Well, BBC2 was running The Apprentice at 9pm, ITV had the Uefa Cup Final, and Fincham could only fight back with a blockbuster film starting at 9pm. That’s the commitment to current affairs now on the channel. Cinderella was treated like Madonna in comparison.

Indeed. Lowest common denominator ratings chasing with ITV and Sky isn’t my idea of public service television either. I fondly recall, from the age of about 12 upwards, being increasingly interested, informed and piqued by BBC programmes like Panorama and ITV programmes like World in Action, TV Eye (This Week) and First Tuesday – the first of which is often but a shadow of its former self, whilst the latter are long since finished on ITV (pleasingly though, the news junkies among us can get classic World in Action programmes on DVD now – it’s worth it just for the nostalgia trip of the theme music, let alone film of things like Idi Amin on his rise to infamy. Do stop me if I ever start to reminisce about Richard Stilgoe’s piano playing on Nationwide though!).

Channel 4’s contribution to this area of TV is much appreciated. Series like Dispatches and one-offs by independent minded people of varying political hues (for instance Peter Oborne, William Shawcross, Martin Bell, Rod Liddle, Kenan Malik etc.) are to be commended, but there is so much more current affairs coverage that could and should be done, in particular by the BBC.

There are exceptions to this state of affairs at the BBC: Andrew Neil’s resurgence is a welcome nod in the direction of no nonsense inquisition (though Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo could do with a change now and again). Even Jeremy Paxman, and, to a lesser degree, Newsnight as a whole, have gone up in my estimation in recent times. Their section the other day on illegal immigration, including a packaged report by Steve Moxon, the IND whistleblower, and a studio discussion with Sir Andrew Green and Nick Clegg was very good – although Tony McNulty, the Labour minister could have done with a thorough mauling, including Green and Clegg, rather than being dealt with separately. If only Newsnight (and the BBC) could lose the awful (and thoroughly compromised) Kirsty Nark and ditch the right-on twaddle that masquerades as Newsnight Review.

There is still a place, a market and a need for decent, probing, investigative current affairs reporting in the UK. If the BBC could free itself from its prevailing anodine, politically correct pap, peddled by its self-selecting gang of Guardian subscribing drones (and the overpaid smiley, smiley ‘talent’ lounging on the corporation’s sofas) then we might get back to having decent current affairs programming that actually informs and serves the British public – the people who pay for it all – rather than pushing the right-on agenda of the Guardian’s metropolitan chattering classes.

Update: According to the Guardian Panorama jobs under threat, including, they speculate, John Ware:

Ware has produced some of Panorama’s biggest scoops over recent years, including the Who Bombed Omagh? special in which he named the Real IRA men thought to be responsible.

His loss would be a big blow to the corporation, which has repeatedly pledged not to downgrade its commitment to current affairs.

“There is a very small reporting pool within the current affairs area that is well and truly under threat,” said a source.

“They are all of a certain age and are investigative reporters who do what they do very well but can’t be fitted into other roles very easily. Ware is in a very vulnerable group.”

John Ware is another of the good guys at the BBC – if they’re stupid enough to get rid of reporters like him then they might as well axe Panorama in favour of more derivative crap like Lame Academy – paid for by voluntary subscription.

Hat tip to Ritter for The Independent link and dumbcisco for the Guardian link.

Martin Walker of United Press International had an interesting article in The Times a few days ago, beginning:

Despite a catalogue of examples to the contrary, the governors insist there is bias against the Palestinians

THE OFFICIAL REPORT for the governors of the BBC on its coverage of the Palestine-Israeli conflict found predictably that there was “was little to suggest systematic or deliberate bias” but then went on to list a series of measurements by which the BBC could be said to be biased in favour of Israel.

This produced mocking guffaws in my own newsroom, where some of the BBC’s greatest hits – or perhaps misses – remain fresh in the memory. There was the hagiographic send-off for Yassir Arafat by a BBC reporter with tears in her eyes and that half-hour profile of Arafat in 2002 which called him a “hero” and “an icon” and concluded that the corrupt old brute was “the stuff of legends”.

There was Orla Guerin’s unforgettably inventive spin on the story of a Palestinian child being deployed as a suicide bomber, which most journalists saw as a sickening example of child abuse in the pursuit of terrorism. Guerin had it as “Israel’s cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes”.

The rest of it is worth reading, though I’m not sure I’d go along with his conclusion entirely!

about an Old Bailey trial. So far there have been two reports, Men ‘stored 600kg bomb material’ covering Monday and ‘Terror cell bugged’ court hears covering Tuesday (there hasn’t been a report for Wednesday yet).

Both of these reports concern what is described in one as “a British terror cell” and in the other as “an alleged British terror cell”. Leaving aside the issue of whether the accused are British or just allegedly British (or do the Beeboids mean allegedly terrorists?), what I can’t figure out, from the BBC’s reports, is what was motivating these (allegedly) British alleged terrorists to behave in the manner alleged.

The only terror group mentioned is in the context of the gang’s “600kg of a fertiliser the IRA once used”, but I haven’t heard any news of Gerry Adams claiming that Messrs. Mahmood, Akbar, Khyam, Mahmood, Amin, Garcia (also known as Rahman Adam) and Hussain are victims of a British securocrat conspiracy.

So, I’m at a loss. Do you think they could be militant plumbers, like that chap back in December?

On another matter, Adloyada asks us to say: Egypt.

Please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, preferably BBC related. Please keep comments on other threads on the topic of that particular post. N.B. this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – the idea is to maintain order and clarity. Thank you.

Natasha Kerplunksky, the BBC’s only newsreader named after a racehorse, came out with another example of BBC Weird Phenomena introducing last night’s Six O’Clock News (256Kbps, WMV):

“WPC Murder: Police say WPC Nisha Patel Nasri may have been killed by her own kitchen knife”

Watch out for those self activating knives. Everyone else who mentioned this tragic incident was savvy enough to say ‘with’ instead of ‘by’.

Later in the bulletin John Sweeney presented a moving report about a couple who’ve had their three children forcibly adopted in circumstances that appear less than clear cut (starting 17’20” on the link above) – an example of good BBC journalism – powerful and original, rather than mediocre diary-based stuff.

Update: For those bemused by the Najinski reference above, it’s a bit of an obscure in-joke, inspired by a very funny comment last year, to wit:

Anyway, the Beeb’s naffed-offness, if any, with the Shuttle mission was that they had especially extended their weak Breakfast show on Monday to cover the Shuttle’s return, only to be left with a bit of a gap to fill – a gap that is even wider than Najinsky’s* inane grin 🙂

* named after the famous race-horse, Natasha Kaplinsky – famous for never winning races because she keeps pulling to the left, but, was, by all accounts, a good ride for her partner in last year’s Strictly Horse Dancing show.

: BBC Views Online have just revealed that the man they mistakenly interviewed live on BBC News 24 in place of Guy Kewney is, in fact, Guy Goma, an applicant for a “data support cleanser” job. According to the BBC:

The mix-up occurred when a producer went to collect the expert from the wrong reception in BBC Television Centre in West London.

That’s a BBC euphemism for “the wrong kind of snow“. A BBC spokeswoman said “This has turned out to be a genuine misunderstanding”, in other words, “a momentous cock-up”!

Still, reassuringly for Tellytax-payers, they say “We’ve looked carefully at our guest procedures and will take every measure to ensure this doesn’t happen again”, until the next time, that is.

Meanwhile, in other BBC cock-up news, almost literally in this case, have a listen to this gem of a BBC Radio Leicester record dedication, courtesy of YouTube:

Okay, let’s get to our first, straightaway, to our first dedication:

“Dear Chris, Please say a big hello to Connie Lingus, who’s 69 on Tuesday. She’ll be enjoying my meat and two veg. on Sunday at 12. Wish her all the very best, and tell her I look forward to seeing her when she comes, thanks ever so much”,

says Ivan R. Don, and he says, “Please say hello to Bill as well”, and that comes from Ivan, going out to Connie in Thurnby Lodge, here in Leicestershire.

Superb! Where does the BBC get these people from?

Update: Re. a query about the veracity of the above clip, it certainly seems genuine – it was reported in The Sun, DJ boob on the Beeb (so it must be true!), and is also mentioned in a copy of a press story here.

Update: Daily Mail: Revealed: The identity of the BBC’s latest star. Guy Kewney: That “Guy” – he really is a Guy, and not a cab driver, either!

Update: More details emerge in The Times, The interview went pretty well. So, have I got the job?:

“Poor soul, he was nervous and just did as he was told,” Mr Waldman wrote on the BBC news weblog, which can be read only by BBC staff.

Mr Waldman wrote on the blog: “Harassed producer sets off at a brisk pace to get his guest from ‘reception’. You’ve guessed: wrong reception. The wrong Guy is asked three questions, with toe-curling results”.

Please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, preferably BBC related. Please keep comments on other threads on the topic of that particular post. N.B. this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – the idea is to maintain order and clarity. Thank you.

– from today’s Sunday Times:

Commercial companies – from giant ITV, Emap and Yahoo down to minnows such as Island FM on Guernsey – complain that relentless BBC expansion is hurting private- sector enterprise in areas from parish-pump television to magazines, the internet and classical-music publishing.

Lobby groups representing the radio and local-newspaper industries have sent letters to Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, in the past few days, setting out their concerns about the BBC’s ambitions and about the way it uses its licence-fee revenue.

They plan to increase pressure in the run-up to the government’s decision later this year on the next licence-fee settlement.

Tom Moloney, chief executive of Emap, the magazine publisher and radio-station operator, complained last week: “The reason this situation has occurred is that the BBC is overfunded and is therefore looking for things to do.”

Do read the whole thing.

BBC News 24 cocked things up big time last Monday when they interviewed respected technology commentator Guy Kewney on the outcome of the Apple Computer vs. Apple Music case. Except, rather than place Mr. Kewney in front of lightweight Karen Bowerman, they chose his taxi driver for her to interview instead.

Bowerman proceeded to interview the taxi driver, whose Frank Spencer style expressions, when he realises their mistake, are priceless! Gamely though he had a go at answering her questions, while she, alert as ever, presses on (that said, for all her faults, she remains far preferable to squealy, squealy twelve-year old Julia Caesar, another so-called business correspondent).

Watch out for the cabbie’s hilarious facial expressions!

This sort of cock-up beggars belief – that all the highly trained and expert BBC staff failed to spot the taxi driver, who looks and sounds nothing like Kewney, a BBC regular, earlier. Do none of them watch their own news programming? Do none of them have the gumption to tell the difference between a taxi-driver and a well known technology expert before they get him live on air?

A handy cut out and keep guide for BBC staffers:
This is a taxi driver, not Guy Kewney.	This is Guy Kewney.

Still, it could have been worse – the mother of all right-on BBC cock-ups remains the Bhopal hoax of December 2004, when the BBC were easily tricked into broadcasting a story they wanted to broadcast by a pair of conmen. For more details of this see my earlier Biased BBC post, Blink and you’ll miss it.

Strangely, whilst this latest cock-up is featured on Raymond Snoddy’s worthwhile Newswatch programme (256Kbps, WMV, or see clip above), it has yet to make an appearance on the BBC’s Newswatch web site, which, we were promised when it launched, all of eighteen months ago, would “publish all mistakes of a serious nature across the BBC’s platforms – TV, radio and on the web – and try to explain what happened“. I expect the BBC Views Online people will attend to this omission in due course, since they’ve already covered a couple of other items from this week’s Newswatch show.

More coverage of this story is available from The Times, BBC falls for ‘expert’ cabbie’s banter, by Jack Malvern.

P.S. If Sky News or ITN had done this I’m sure it would have been mentioned for a day or two on every BBC News programme, with barely concealed mirth, purely in the interests of reporting the news of course!

Update: See also Mail on Sunday: The BBC’s latest star – a baffled cabbie.

Update: It turns out the ‘wrong’ man was a job applicant – see News 24’s ‘wrong Guy’ is revealed above.