reported and also about the BBC’s (ab)use of that Redwood footage again, Helen Boaden, the BBC’s Director of Views, sorry, News, has written about the BBC’s Red Tape Reporting on the BBC Editors Blog, saying:
In retrospect we weren’t right to use that footage again, which came from a long time ago.
In retrospect Helen? Wasn’t it obvious that it was wrong beforehand? It was obviously wrong to everyone outside the White City Viewsroom, but it’s like a knee-jerk reaction at the BBC: mention Redwood, show that footage, as sure as night follows day.
Some Beeboid posteriors really ought to be getting a boot imprint on them for such stupidity – and Helen Boaden really ought to be apologising for it – not just coming out with a bland, passive acknowledgement of their bias, sorry, Helen, their ‘mistake’. It’s not as if it was an accident – someone purposely dug out that footage and used it to embarrass Mr. Redwood, quite out of context from the news story. Someone wasn’t doing their job properly or professionally. Surely someone in the Viewsroom at the weekend had the power and the nous to stop such stupidity before it got on air? But no, it seems not.
Boaden goes on to list a selection of news headlines in a bid to defend the BBC from Iain Dale’s comments about the BBC’s approach to this news story, but it’s all in vain – anyone can pick a small selection of headlines that don’t happen to say the words Iain Dale quoted, but the tenor of the BBC’s approach was plain – Helen Boaden would do well to admit it, to apologise and to kick some backsides.
It looks like it’s Bloggers (and The Sun): 1, BBC: 0, again.
P.S.: If you haven’t heard it already, see the post below to listen to the BBC interview with Neil Kinnock that was covered up and hidden for more than a decade after Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition and would-be Prime Minister at the time, exploded in rage during an interview. By the same BBC standards this should be (but of course never is) played whenever Lord Kinnock pops up on the box to give us the benefit of his wisdom.
“Helen Boaden would do well to admit it, to apologise and to kick some backsides.”
Why would she do that? Her only acknowledgement of a mistake in using the clip was that the footage “came from a long time ago.” In other words, had it been recent footage she would have been happy with its use.
Andrew
I agree that the use of the Redwood welsh national anthem footage was wrong. Rather juvenile, I thought.
I also agree that Helen Boaden should be reading the riot act to certain individuals • perhaps she is, who knows?
Redwood hasn’t been the only victim of smart-alec archive selection, of course.
If I’ve seen that clip of Neil Kinnock falling down on the beach once, I’ve seen it a thousand times.
Others that can be over-used and used out of proper context: Michael Howard refusing to answer Paxo 14 times; Tony Blair, rouged up lik a rent boy claiming to be ‘a pretty straight kinda guy’.
I know you are under no obligation to be even-handed yourself, but I thought you underplayed an important part of Helen Boaden’s blog post.
Iain Dale said:
the BBC are starting all their news bulletins about John Redwood’s Competitiveness Commission reports with the words…
The Labour Party has today criticised…
The Sun echoed this with:
The caustic bulletins could have been scripted by Labour ministers.
Helen B cited bulletin after bulletin from all the main BBC networks on radio and TV proving this to be false.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/08/red_tape_reporting.html
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1002882&PressNoticeID=2484
Communities and Local Government News Release
Red tape slashed to help businesses go green
So where were the BBC reports about the government “lurching to the right” then?
Or is it OK to slash red tape if you include the magic “green” word?
Sadly, I think it is actually Bloggers and the Sun 1 vs The BBC 2. The BBC is biased and it’s not going anywhere. They will just carry on being biased to the liberal-left with their progressive agenda – and we can do nothing about it.
A hollow victory, but better than nothing I suppose.
And not a great deal will be done about it by a left-of-centre government. After all, the BBC provide day in and day out propaganda for statism so el Gordo won’t bed complaining.
Reith
The Kinnock references are completely irrelevant. Kinnock is not a front bench Labour spokesman, he is a has-been waffling, windbag who is now fair game for satire (as are most of the Conservative cabinet ministers from the 1980’s). Also, the Kinnock Falling Down clip, as far as I know, is not used by the BBC news & current affairs department as part of supposedly serious news stories.
“the Kinnock Falling Down clip, as far as I know, is not used by the BBC news & current affairs department as part of supposedly serious news stories” – Indeed Towcestrian. It was shown every week in the title scenes of Spitting Image (along with many similar clips), but that is very different from using it to illustrate every mention of Kinnock, which is what the BBC has a nasty tendency to do with John Redwood and the singing in Welsh clip.
Helen Boaden ought to get the sole remaining copy of the Redwood singing tape and place it under the cushion on her chair, so that next time it doesn’t get (ab)used without her knowing about it! 🙂
JR is certainly wriggling if he can’t see the difference between using the Kinnock image as part of a satirical programme and prefacing a serious policy speech by a shadow front bench minister with a similar clip.
I must have missed the BBC using the infamous nose picking scene as a prelude to any of Gordons appearances.
Reith
Kinnock’s beach performance – only because you watched Spitting Image week in week out, where it formed part of the intro (on ITV, note).
What Boaden fails to cover is why the BBC always need to refer to Redwood as “From the Right” as if this put-him-in-a-box-first is going to aid understanding of the policy proposals. Rather, it merely supports the notion that his views are unusual or wayward.
Also, the plans are referred to as “radical” whereas the extraordinary rise in recent years in ineffective public sector expenditure is never referred to as “radical”. Searching the headlines on this on Google News it appears that the BBC are pretty special in referring to the proposals as “radical”. It’s the Sir Humphrey advice – something unwise you refer to as “brave” or “radical”.
The caustic bulletins could have been scripted by Labour ministers.
Helen B cited bulletin after bulletin from all the main BBC networks on radio and TV proving this to be false.
Yeah right. Try reading the comments on Boaden’s piece Mr Reith. Helen Boaden is fooling no-one. The words ‘in a hole’ and ‘digging’ spring to mind.
For once, Reith has something of a point. Not much of one, but he’s more reasonable than usual. He’s absolutely right about the Howard-Paxman interview.
Others have pointed out the difference with the Kinnock footage. Of course, it must also be remembered that he’s seen as something of a hapless figure even amongst those who agree with his politics.
I think something similar is going on with Blair. Yes, his “straight kinda guy” bit is often used by the BBC (not anything like as much as the Paxman interview when Howard was Tory leader, but let that pass), however the point has been made many times here, and by the likes of Robin Aitken, Jeff Randall and Anthony Jay, that the Corporation isn’t blindly pro-Labour; it has a particular viewpoint, which most closely corresponds with the Labour party’s (in England; there’s a strong seperatist streak in BBC Scotland, and by all accounts the same is true of BBCNI), but sometimes they diverge. Surely nobody is in any doubt that since the Iraq invasion, the BBC has been anti-Blair?
Sam, the BBC is mostly left-wing, which means it generally supports Labour and the Lib Dems over the Conservatives, but it will attack these parties from the left if it feels they’re being too right-wing (and Blair is often seen by the left as too right-wing).
Sam Dunan
“Surely nobody is in any doubt that since the Iraq invasion, the BBC has been anti-Blair?”
That’s exactly the point. The BBC has no party political bias as such, they have a media-liberal bias. Providing you fit the BBC media-liberal stereotype (for example unwashed, anti-establishment eco-warriors) you are IN and if you don’t fit it (for example by siding with the great Mammon, aka the USA, in an “illegal” war) then you are most definately OUT and are fully eligible for the Redwood treatment at every opportunity.
The BBC does not have a “liberal” bias. It has a leftist bias. The BBC is a public-sector body which depends for its existence on compulsory taxation. No questions may be asked about how those taxes are used, or why they should be paid to the BBC in the first place.
The rest of the BBC’s output — including its eco-silliness — is just part of the leftist mentality.
The solution to the problem of the BBC is to abolish the particular tax which supports it.
Yes, the BBC has been anti-Blair since the invasion (Sam Duncan), but as Towcestarian pointed out, because he stepped out of the template they accept for leftist politicians- well, politicians in general, but the one they expect from leftists. There’s another very important factor too- there was a ready successor in Gordon Brown, who no doubt made clear privately his differences with Blair and thus ensured BBC support for the transfer of power.
BBC is forced into second apology to Tories
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2267125.ece
sentinel | 15.08.07 – 7:21 pm
“Media-liberal” is the terminology that was used by Antony Jay in his recent pamphlet “Confessions of a reformed BBC producer”. He calls the BBC “media-liberals” to differentiate them from true liberal/libertarians.
Very few Beedoids are truly “left-wing” – they consider themselves far too intellectual to be associated too closely with the lower classes. They are the self styled post-modernist protectors of the lower classes, not actually part of that squalid, violent and totally illiberal bit of real Britain.
Anyone have a link to Boaden’s interview on bias on R4 [?] last week?
IIRC she said ‘sneering’ anti-US or anti-tory coverage would not be tolerated.
So is she going to sack anyone over ‘The Redwood Affair’ – or the wiki edits?
Excellent comment (one of many) on the BBCs Editor’s blog about the Redwood affair.
The BBC seems to have been taken over by Labour ever since Sir Michael Lyons was appointed as head of the BBC trust. For those of you who dont know Michael Lyons he is a long standing friend and colleage of Gordon Brown, and i was apsolutely amazed that the BBC can let someone that influential in Govenment become the CHAIRMAN of their trust.
its not just me though, a recent influential Lords committee has criticised the way the BBC chairman was appointed and concluded that government ministers have too much control over the recruitment process.
Although the procedure followed the Nolan rules for public appointments, the Lords communications committee said it was still far too opaque and open to influence by ministers.
“What is clear is that this process gives ministers considerable opportunity to influence the selection,” said the report.
“Ministers appointed the selection panel, ministers were allowed to change the shortlist of candidates and ultimately ministers were able to choose between the four candidates who passed the interview process.”
“government ministers have considerable powers over the selection of the chairman of the BBC. We think these powers should be limited.”
This sets a very dangerous precedent and i very much hope that the BBC reviews the very large amount of political influence most of its editors, trustee’s and directors have on its reporting, before the BBC becomes yet another Yellow-belly media outlet.
Bodo, I have an MP3 of the programme with Helen Boaden et al, and will try to post it sometime soon.