, by Robin Aitken, a well respected former BBC journalist is due out this week.
There is a long extract in today’s Mail on Sunday, What is the loneliest job in Britain? Being a Tory at the BBC, that is well worth reading. To whet your appetite here’s the introduction:
Working at the BBC can be a strange experience. On occasions during my 25 years as a journalist with the corporation it was jaw-dropping.
In 1984 I returned to BBC Scotland after covering the Tory conference in Brighton. The IRA had come close to assassinating Margaret Thatcher with a bomb and the country was in shock.
Apart, that is, from some of my BBC colleagues. “Pity they missed the bitch,” one confided to me.
For three decades I was that rare breed – a Conservative at the BBC. In my time working on programmes such as Today and Breakfast News I couldn’t have formed a cricket team from Tory sympathisers.
As one producer put it, you feel almost part of an ethnic minority.
We all know the cliched critique of the BBC: a nest of Lefties promoting a progressive agenda and political correctness.
Depressingly, that cliche is uncomfortably close to the truth: the BBC is biased,and it is a bias that seriously distorts public debate.
In the past 30 years, ‘Auntie’ has transformed from the staid upholder of the status quo to a champion of progressive causes.
In the process, the ideal at the heart of the corporation – that it should be fair-minded and non-partisan – has all but disappeared.
Do read the rest of the article. Can we trust the BBC? is available from Amazon.co.uk for £9.89 plus delivery (free if you spend a bit over a fiver on something else!).
Another recent book about the BBC that is on my current stack of books is Scrap the BBC! by Richard D. North (no relation to the Richard North at the excellent EU Referendum blog). This is also available from Amazon, cost £15.95 with free delivery, though can be bought at a discount from the publisher, The Social Affairs Unit (omm-sau), for £10 plus £2.75 postage via Amazon Marketplace.
Update: Some interesting comments on the original Daily Mail story, particularly the second and third ones:
Yep, wholeheartedly agree. I don’t look at the BBC website, and avoid their news programmes like the plague.
Steve, New Zealand
My son worked at the BBC until recently – he always felt it wise to keep quiet about the fact that I am a senior Tory activist, as did the daughter of another Tory Association chairman – and neither of them worked on the front line.
Sjm, London, UK
I was a coal miner one of many that voted for Mrs. Thatcher, I never had any regrets. I agree with your take on what has happened to the BBC, it angers me so much. Ideas are more deadly than bombs and the end of this dictatorship of the left in our country will be very bad. When it comes to it these liberals have no guts when it comes to a scrap. Well done to you, this from an ordinary bloke.
Frederick Mee, Rhyl North Wales
Well done to this author. A book like this is vital in the discussion.
Lmo, Notts, England
The book fell rather flat for me; no real surprises.
Aitken does give some good examples of bias but nothing we didn’t know or suspect already. Still it is good to get it all down on paper and from the inside perspective.
I suppose for someone who thinks the BBC is fair and balanced this book would be quite a shock.
“the old Establishment was undermined by media scrutiny; the new Establishment is the media. Who can debunk it?”
Hits the nail squarely on the head.
“In the past 30 years, ‘Auntie’ has transformed from the staid upholder of the status quo to a champion of progressive causes.”
Upholding the Status Quo? Sounds like bias to me. Surely the Beeb should have taken a neutral stance on whether the Status Quo stays or goes.
It rather spoilt my breakfast reading about Radio 4, PM’s Nigel Wrench and his anti-social activities and views here; but I note that it was not Wrench, but Kilroy-Silk, whose services were not welcome at Al Beeb.
There is an old hippie called Pooter.
And only left wing views will suit her
She makes such a song
And dance when proved wrong
That hot air steams from her computer.
Thank you for your limerick Fran. I’ve deleted the still banned El Pajero’s comment.
“In the past 30 years, ‘Auntie’ has transformed from the staid upholder of the status quo to a champion of progressive causes.”
Well, I’m not sure about that. As long as I can remember someone from one side or the other and frequently both has been complaining the BBC was against them. And I’m sure I’ve read on B-BBC about how Churchill hated the BBC during the thirties for being a hotbed of both communinsm and nazism, or probably both at the same time?
Martin dear
The BBC never met an Authoritarian Socialist that it didn`t like.
Any further Questions?
I just wonder,given that Robin Aitken’s book raises issues of genuine public concern, whether the BBC will devote any airtime to a serious discussion of it.Perhaps a Newsnight mini documentary?Or am I just being naive? I expect all we will hear is silence.
Andrew
Is HipPoot P.N.G. here then?
Shame. I’d thought of several more rhymes for ‘pooter’ ….
Why ‘El Pajero’?
Andrew
“Why ‘El Pajero’?”
Please ignore question Don’t want to know answer!
One presenter described the sense of superiority that working at the BBC confers on its staff.
“It’s the whole thing that ‘we know best’ and it’s our responsibility to educate the poor unfortunates beneath us in how things should be.”
————————————-
Surely the above quote from the book is highly pertinent. The BBC opposes any elected government because they know best. They exist in an unreal world where everyone is wrong except them.
As if to prove Robin Aitken’s case there’s an interview with Martin Sixsmith in today’s Independent:
Yet having established himself as one of the most familiar faces of BBC television news, it was entirely Sixsmith’s own choice to cross to the other side, seduced by a telephone call from a friend. “It was May 1997; it was a new start after 18 years of Tory misrule,” he explains. “Tony Blair said, ‘A new dawn has broken, has it not?’, and the answer at the time was yes. The great attraction was that I had spent 17 years on the outside looking in observing how politicians worked. Because I knew the Labour Party placed a great deal of store by communications I knew that if I took the job it would be a very privileged position on the inside of Government at the heart of policy-making. It was a great opportunity that a journalist probably wouldn’t pass up.”
“…he has resumed his relationship with the BBC, as a documentary presenter on Radio 4.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2281980.ece
Foxgoose
You asked on another thread whether I had read Aitken’s book and had any response to it.
I’ve been out and got one and am perusing it now. First impressions are that it is a surprisingly slight piece of work. Given the years of gestation and the massive pre-publication hype, I’d expected something more substantial.
I will reply to it point-by-point in the coming days (including the gobbets you cite).
As for the Mail extract – one initial observation:
Aitken makes much of the ‘loneliest job in Britain’…..only Tory in the village stuff …(to which I’ll return in due course) and yet later admits:
My colleagues had elected me to the BBC Forum
and
In 2001 I was hired by Rod Liddle, then editor of Radio 4’s Today, to report on politics and economics
Can’t have been regarded as that much of a pariah then, can he?
From Aitken’s Mail column
Another example, from a writer seeking “rational debate” on gay sex without a condom: “The first guy I ever f***** without a condom gave me HIV.’ Since I’ve been HIV-positive, I’ve had ‘unsafe sex’ more times than I can remember, often with men whose names I could not tell you now.”
Controversial? Yes. Impartial? Hardly. So who is writing here? Nigel Wrench, one of the presenters of Radio 4’s PM programme, in The Pink Paper in 2000.
At least Wrench was keeping his comments in the family at the Pink ‘Un.
The Sun reports gay times in one of the BBC’s own commercial enterprises, the Dr Who magazine
DOCTOR Who bosses have apologised after gay star John Barrowman made a series of saucy remarks in the show’s family magazine.
Camp John, 39 — who has played bisexual Captain Jack Harkness in the series and the spin-off Torchwood — shocked readers by boasting that his manhood was “really too big”.
He went on to talk about Torchwood director Ashley Way, saying: “He’s a real hotty. I like him. He has a nice bum.”
John also spoke of how he fancied former Doctor Christopher Ecclestone and “sexy” current star David Tennant. And he recalled a recent daydream where he woke up aroused.
Outraged readers complained that the content was too explicit for a family magazine. Fan Robert Mitchell, from Brighton, said: “The magazine is called Doctor Who Magazine and not Gay Times.”
Editor Clayton Hickman said: “We consider the magazine is for older readers, but some of this content may have overstepped the mark. Apologies.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2007080123,00.html
will | 19.02.07 – 2:19 pm
If the Nigel Wrench quotation means what I take it to mean • that he admits going out deliberately spreading the HIV virus willy-nilly (as it were) • then my instinctive reaction is that the only ‘rational debate’ I want to hear on the subject is the one in the jury room when they’re deciding whether to send him to Rampton (on the grounds that he’s a criminal lunatic) or to the Scrubs (on the grounds that he’s a criminal menace).
Personally, I can’t see the moral difference between someone HIV positive tomming around Hampstead Heath without a condom and someone taking pot shots at a crowd with a loaded pistol: in the end someone innocent is pretty sure to be killed or severely injured.
Perhaps the criminal law hasn’t caught up with this sort of threat. Or is it that people actually consent to this sort of thing?
But maybe there’s a dimension to this bareback riding that I’m missing? I seem to remember Andrew Sullivan had something profound to say about it • but I never bothered to enquire quite what.
Where Robin Aitken goes wrong is in his
Controversial? Yes. Impartial? Hardly.
None of the words he attributes to Wrench constitute a statement of opinion that’s susceptible to being judged either controversial or partial. The quotation reads to me like a straightforward factual confession • though not one exactly dripping with remorse.
So the Kilroy-Silk analogy doesn’t work. An Angus Deayton one arguably might.
You make some good points, John Reith. I have not yet read Aitken’s book – though I intend to – but I suspect that there will be plenty of anecdotal evidence, plenty of individual bias, but probably no “smoking gun”. Having said that, there appears already to be a smoking gun – the Balen Report – which the BBC used taxpayers’ money to compile and is now (fraudulently, in my opinion) using taxpayers’ money to hide.
I do disagree with your last sentence, though. In the whole context of the extract – which you have led us away from – the Kilroy-Silk analogy works fine. Kilroy-Silk was fired for criticising the ROP, Wench keeps his job after apparently confessing to giving people AIDS. The BBC can excuse Wrench for something that could be argued as tantamount to murder, but not Kilroy-Silk for not liking the Muslims very much. It can excuse Barbara Plett for blatantly taking sides live on air, but not Kilroy-Silk for effectively taking the other side. Griffin spouts some pretty objectionable stuff at a private meeting and the BBC tries to get him jailed; Respect girl (whose name escapes me) tells an audience of thousands that 7/7 was “reprisal” and the BBC rewards her with a spot on QT.
What I have written may not be conclusive proof of the BBC’s bias, but it sure looks like it has a bit of a skewed agenda to me.
jr
“Aitken makes much of the ‘loneliest job in Britain’…..only Tory in the village stuff …(to which I’ll return in due course) and yet later admits:
My colleagues had elected me to the BBC Forum
and
In 2001 I was hired by Rod Liddle, then editor of Radio 4’s Today, to report on politics and economics
Can’t have been regarded as that much of a pariah then, can he”
I haven’t read the book but, assuming he didn’t admit to being Conservative (which apparently makes a lot of sense if you want a career at the BBC) then he was not a pariah and was elected/selected by those in ignorance of his political beliefs. Anyway, even if he did admit to them, he might still have been selected as a token non-lefty (as apparently was Jeff Randle). As to the “BBC Forum” I have no knowledge of what this is and so cannot comment.
There is an interview with the author on 18 Doughty Street
We thought you might be interested in this link – Robin Aitken at The New Culture Forum
http://newcultureforum.blogspot.com/2007/02/answers-on-postcard-please.html
John Reith – what do you make of Martin “18 years of Tory misrule” Sixsmith’s interview in the Indie?
He claims that the chance to work for the Labour government was “a great opportunity that a journalist probably wouldn’t pass up”. Surely one could only make this claim if all one’s journalistic colleagues supported Labour (or were too scared to admit they didn’t)?
To save your valuable time, Mr Reith, I’ve written your answer for you:
John Reith: Normally I prefer to ignore those comments which show incontrovertible proof of bias but I’ll give this one a go.
When Sixsmith mentions “18 years of Tory misrule” he is simply reflecting, in an objective manner, the view of the population at large in 1997. It is unfair to judge him on this phrase when the entire electorate (43% of a 71% turnout) held the same opinion, namely that the Labour Party would save us all.
And call me old fashioned but when someone says that a job in government is something a journalist wouldn’t pass up, I take that to mean that journalists (particularly those who work for the BBC) believe in public service. If the Tories had won the 1997 election I’m sure my old mate Martie would have accepted a job with them too. And I have one final thing I want you to consider. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense. Therefore the BBC is not biased.
Andrew.
I notice that this good European site:-
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/
is doing blog on bbc bias and Aitken’s book, now; is it worth you publicising your site there with a timely comment and site reference?
John Reith
This site provides example after example of BBC mis-reporting, misleading reporting and skewed reporting.
The site’s premise is that there is institutional bias at the BBC.
Aitken, a respected ex-BBC employee now insists that there is an identifiable world view which top BBC executives simply assume to be correct – and which he does not.
He presents example after example of the way in which this weltanschaung operates in editorial policy at the highest level of the BBC.
His book confirms that there is truth in what the owners and the commenters on this site say.
Your dismissive attitude towards the book only provides further evidence of the know-all culture at the heart of the BBC.
Forgive me if this question is a bit nosey for a newbie but how many of you have bought the book?
Would you buy one if the narrative was along the the lines ‘Used to work at the BBC, seemed full of normal people with a broad range of views to me.’?
Because that’s the kind of story I’d tell.
Maybe I could make a few quid?
😉
Well, why not tell it, then, Andy? Not forgetting to explain just how broad a range of views you mean.
On the Doctor Who front, I rather fear The Sun is in storm-teacup territory here. For the record Doctor Who Magazine is not published by the BBC it is published by Panini, and as Clyton says, it aimed at adults not kids, who have their own Doctor Who Adventures magazine which *is* published by the BBC.
Of course, The Sun doesn’t seem to have a problem when anybody mentions that Billie Piper has a cute bum – or in its own headlines like my favourite puntastic – “BILLIE looks simply Dalek-table as Christopher Eccleston’s love interest”
Having said that, if you read the Holy moly gossip email, you’ll know that John Barrowman isn’t reknowned for being the retiring type about his sexuality…
By broad I mean like I might find in the office of any big company.
So that’s a fairly middle-class, educated, metropolitan, culturally literate view of the world then.
I guess that is a form of bias in and of itself, but is it the kind of bias you are seeking?
Umbongo | 19.02.07 – 5:13 pm |
No, Aitken makes a point of how he was out of the closet, arguing a sound line in editorial meetings, making complaints to the suits, even making written representations to the governors.
He is however inconsistent in his estimations of how many fellow right-thinking people there were around him.
On page 35 he claims:
In my 25 years at the BBC I couldn’t have formed a cricket team from people I could confidently identify as right of centre
By page 36, however, he appears to accept the testimony of one of his anonymous ‘sources’ that Tories account for around 20% of fellow BBC journalists.
I reckon that I could get close to making a cricket team out of BBC people who’d have worked with Aitken • or were in the BBC during Aitken’s time • and who haven’t just been Conservative sympathisers, but have been active in Conservative politics or have worked for Conservative Party. So • completely off the top of my head, here goes:
When Aitken was Business & Economics Correspondent in Scotland his oppo in the London office was Damian Green, now Conservative frontbench Home Affairs spokesman on immigration.
Aitken would also have come across Michael Simmonds who left the BBC political research unit for a job at Conservative Central Office.
Aitken worked for a while at On The Record • odd he didn’t notice Andrew Scadding who left that programme to become Head of Broadcasting for the Conservative Party.
And surely he couldn’t have missed Jo-Ann Nadler who was constantly in and out of the BBC between spells as a Central Office press officer, biographer of William Hague, campaign aide to IDS and writing ‘Too Nice to be a Tory’?
Or Robbie Gibb – yet another On the Record alumnus who went off to CCO before joining the Conservative think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies as deputy-director.
Did he simply not notice the talented Today programme reporter Michael Gove – now Tory MP for Surrey Heath? Or that voluble young whippersnapper Nick Robinson who joined the corporation fresh from a sabbatical year as National Chairman of the Young Conservatives? Amazing.
But then • despite working in the room next door at Broadcasting House during his first stint on Today, he appears to have failed to connect with the unforgettable Rachel Johnson (sister of Boris), who was a reporter at that time on The World Tonight. And during his time in television he also seems to have missed Stephen Milligan, who resigned as BBC Europe Correspondent in 1990 to become Conservative MP for Eastleigh, and Shaun Woodward who left the BBC to become the Conservative Party’s Director of Communications.
If he’d needed friends in high places he might have popped into see Howell James, who after the BBC did a brief stint with former Tory Cabinet Minister Lord Young before becoming John Major’s Political Secretary at 10 Downing Street and masterminding (if that’s the right word) the Conservatives’ 1997 election campaign. Or the redoubtable Patricia Hodgson (former Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Islington) who throughout the 90s was the most powerful person in the BBC after John Birt • more or less running the place while Birt was buried in his management-theory handbooks.
And if Aitken really needed to pester the Governors, why wait for NuLab appointee Gavin Davies? Any time from 1996-2001 he would have found an ideological soulmate in the then Chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, a former chairman of the Bow Group and former Conservative member of the GLC and ILEA.
And there are probably loads more I haven’t thought of.
‘Only Tory in the village’ • tosh.
‘BBC Tories too scared to come-out’ • Double tosh in spades.
John Reith
All your examples of right-of-centre employees at the BBC appear now to be EX-employees – is that right?
Could it be that some of them found the Broadcasting House culture as depressing as Aitken and voted with their feet?
But of course not, for you have said that there is no such BBC culture, and that must be true, for you work for the BBC and you have said it!
9 males excluding the defector Woodward. Still not a cricket team is it.
A total of 13 people out of 22,000. Not really representative is it. Of course going by Marr’s admission the beeb is hideously ethnic, hideously homosexual and hideously juvenile.
Fran – it isn’t quite clear to me how JR could give examples of people who worked at the BCB and then went to work for the Conservatives in some capacity or the other if they hadn’t left the BBC?
Oh and I forgot, hideously left wing.
TPO those comments bear no relation to the BBC I worked at – are they a direct quotation or are those your own words? 🙂
Andy Tedd
“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”, Andrew Marr, the Daily Mail, Oct 21st, 2006.
Fran & TPO
Martin Belam answers part of Fran’s post above. But to be strictly accurate:
All your examples of right-of-centre employees at the BBC appear now to be EX-employees – is that right?
No.
Moving on: as I say, Aitken quotes an estimate of 20% Tories from one of his sources. I’d have put that on the low side, historically. But I’m not going to quibble. Today, I think there are rather more – as in the rest of society – there were some BBC people of a previously conservative disposition who were tempted by Blair in 97 and 2001 but have since reverted.
One thing Aitken does get right is that of the non-conservatives – a much higher proportion are Liberal Democrats than would be the case in society at large.
jr
Haven’t read the book yet, only going on reviews at the mo.
Have to say though that having watched Dyke on Marr’s appalling Bias on Sunday show the other day he didn’t even bother to hide it. I can just see him saying “Who was that F*****”
Must off to Guildford Mothercare now with little one. If I get a chance I’ll pop into Waterstones for the book.
Remiss of me. Should have said welcome back from your sojourn.
TPO – so its not a direct quotation then is it? You’ve put quite lot of editorial comment in there haven’t you? And then attributed it back to Marr. But then we knew that already.
What level of employment does it take for representation of ethnic minorities or young people or gay people to be “hideous” I wonder?
You tell me the figure you’ve got in mind, and I tell you how close it is to the actual figure (where those figures are measured).
What level of employment does it take for representation of ethnic minorities or young people or gay people to be “hideous” I wonder?
Ask Greg Dyke.
Andy Tedd
I suspect you’ll have to postpone this interesting exchange – When TPO says he’s off to Mothercare, he means it.
As a newbie here you won’t know that TPO (after a long and distinguished career in the RAF, intelligence and police work) has become a serious housefather. He packs his child bride off to the office each morning before getting down to the old head-and-shoulders-knees-and-toes routine with his three-ish year old.
Despite the bark, he has more of a GSoH than many who comment here and is, I suspect, the darling of the West Surrey playgroups.
Sadly, he’s threatening to move to Canada. No-one has warned him that in terms of Political Correctness, CBC makes the BBC look like Viz magazine.
Just to correct a couple of factual inaccuracies.
The article by Kilroy that got him the sack attacked Arabs as a racial group, not Muslims.
If the comment about Barbara Plett refers to her piece about crying about Arafat on From Our Own Correspondent, Helen Boaden (Head of BBC News) said at the time that the piece was “an editorial misjudgement”, and the BBC Governors upheld complaints about it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4471494.stm
“Culturally Literate” : Andy Tedd
Only an arrogant marxist would use a phrase like that.
I wonder how “broad” your politics is? Probably left of Allende.
WARNING: Socialism Kills.
AntiCitizenOne – that’s for me to know and you to speculate about it. But you are quite wrong in your assumption. I wonder how many other of your assumptions are wrong? (Your webpage is quite funny though).
Having spent some time looking around this site, it’s a pity comments like that discredit what could be a useful conversation for the BBC to be engaged in.
It’s too easy for those that have something interesting to say to be ignored because of those who think they know things, that they so very clearly don’t.
Still at least there are a few prepared to stick their head above the parapet.
(Hello Nick)
AntiCitizenOne 20.02.07 – 2:14 pm |
Only an arrogant marxist would use a phrase like {culturally literate}
Wrong. Marxists have often been the enemies of the culturally literate.
Cambodia springs to mind, where the Khmer Rouge killed anyone with glasses – just in case they might be of the book-reading persuasion.
Re the cricket team theme – here’s a Special Advisers Eleven – all one-time BBC employees who went to work for the Labour government: John Birt, Martin Sixsmith, Lance Price, Ed Richards, Peter Hyman, Tom Kelly, Bill Bush, Catherine Rimmer, Katie Kay, Sarah Hunter, Adrian Long.
The rest of the squad could be former BBC employees who are current Labour government ministers: James Purnell, Ben Bradshaw, Phil Woolas, Shaun Woodward.
TPO:
What level of employment does it take for representation of ethnic minorities or young people or gay people to be “hideous” I wonder?
Ask Greg Dyke.
TPO | 20.02.07 – 1:52 pm | #
Well TPO, unfortunately for Dyke whenver he shot his mouth off there was usually someone around to pick it up and he had to do something about it.
So he set a target – 12.5% of staff from ethnic minorities – presumably when that target is reached Dyke would no longer consider the Beeb “hideously white”. However somewhat hypothetical since he got his cards.
Thompson has decided to stick with the target, currently the number is 10.6%, although senior management representation is much lower, about 5%.
How do you feel about that? You are fortunate that you can shoot your mouth off without having to set a target, so if you want to decline to comment, fine.
The targets were often a source of amusement for me and the team. Were two gays worth an ethnic? What if someone was gay and ethnic – did that count double? If it looked like I might not hit my target and not get a bonus – how much would I pay for someone to produce their grandmother’s Egyptian passport?
Then we stopped laughing, put our hair britches back on, and got on with the serious business of reading Pravda.
The problem for the BBC in the wake of this book is that many other former Beeboids will now come out of the closet, and many of them know where the bodies are really buried. (What about Light Entertainment Dept and Sports Dept excesses?) I wait with baited breath for the next tell-all tome.
Anonanon | 20.02.07 – 3:13 pm
Katie Kay – would that be the same Katie Kay who was the Chief Dalek’s secretary and then became Tony Blair’s diary secretary?
I’m not sure secretaries should get to play in the cricket team. Club secretary maybe.
Actually, quite a lot of your players are a bit iffy. I’d guess Ed Richards, James Purnell, Sarah Hunter (and you left out Chris ‘Pants’ Bryant) were only hired by the BBC to do ‘strategy advisor’ non-jobs in the run up to ’97 because they were already known as Tony cronies, i.e. The BBC wanted to establish some routes into Downing Street to beg for its licence fee after Mr Tone came to power. Smart move really.
Did Peter Hyman really work for the BBC? I remember him being at Sky – his first job, I think. Next time I blinked, he was bag-carrying for Labour bigwigs. If he did do time at the beeb, it can only’ve been 5 minutes.
Nick Reynolds:
Just to correct a couple of factual inaccuracies.
The article by Kilroy that got him the sack attacked Arabs as a racial group, not Muslims.
If the comment about Barbara Plett refers to her piece about crying about Arafat on From Our Own Correspondent, Helen Boaden (Head of BBC News) said at the time that the piece was “an editorial misjudgement”, and the BBC Governors upheld complaints about it.
Nick, thanks for the information. I don’t think that many people here particularly object to Kilroy losing his job. Our beef is with the rest.
1. I am delighted that Helen Boaden has taken editorial responsibility for Barbara Plett’s report, but it was Plett and only Plett who was at fault here – it was no error of judgement, but a piece of reporting from someone who was implacably biased to one side. Anyone who knows anything about the Israel-Palestine situation would agree that it is impossible to want to shed tears at Arafat’s death and be at all capable of impartiality. She should have been moved as far away from the Middle East as possible so she could report on other issues with some proportion of balance. Her continuing role in the Middle East is a two-fingered salute to everyone who objected to that report. Don’t fire her, just move her somewhere else. There is plenty of evidence of Bowen’s dislike of Israel, and of Webb and Frei’s dislike of America. How can anyone trust the BBC to be impartial on these subjects when every unguarded word from these people’s lips suggests a rabid hatred for their subject?
2. Wrench’s confessions are far more serious than Kilroy’s thoughts. How can you justify this man being in a job?
Fran to John Reith
“John Reith
All your examples of right-of-centre employees at the BBC appear now to be EX-employees – is that right?”
John Reith to Fran
“No”
In the meantime Martin Belam
“Martin Belam:
“Fran – it isn’t quite clear to me how JR could give examples of people who worked at the BCB and then went to work for the Conservatives in some capacity or the other if they hadn’t left the BBC?”
Er, read the posts carefully, Martin.
Fran
You are being a bit tough on Martin B. He’s generally right to say I couldn’t name people you’d gone to work for the Conservatives unless they’d……gone to work for the Conservatives.
The odd man out being the one who worked for the Conservatives before he joined the BBC.