“Controversy”
I’ve not been closely following the Ross/Brand obscene phone call brouhaha, but a couple of things struck me about the BBC’s coverage :
Yesterday’s Today programme was talking about the “controversy” over the call. The word “controversy” implies disagreement, two sides, some who think one thing, some another. Yet in all the coverage I’ve not heard anyone defending what the BBC did, the debate, such as it is, being about the nature and degree of sanctions and who they should be applied to. The BBC must be shy about presenting the people who thought the call was a good idea.
The BBC mot du jour to describe the affair is “prank”, with its overtones of schoolboy larks. Russell Brand is 33. Jonathan Ross is 47.
Brand defended the call on air by asking what was more offensive, the Daily Mail’s support for Mosley’s Blackshirts seventy-odd years back, or his call. I guess the answer to that is that that no-one in the 1930s was forced on pain of imprisonment to buy the Daily Mail !
(Slightly off-topic but irresistible – I bet you didn’t know that the Guardian argued for the Nazi Party’s inclusion in the German government, saying that this would “help to perpetuate this democracy“. Or that the Observer hinted that claims of anti-semitism were exaggerated because “the major part of the German Republican Press is in Jewish hands“.)
UPDATE – No Good Boyo examines the entrails (h/t Sam Paradise in the comments).
I do have some unsolicited advice. The BBC handles these matters badly. The Queen, Gilligan, Barbara & Yasser 4 Eva, phones-in, boycotting Gary Numan, you name it – the BBC always follows the same pattern:
- Managers stoutly defend integrity of initial broadcast.
- Managers actually watch initial broadcast.
- Managers abjectly apologise for initial broadcast.
- Someone called Jonty is sacked.
- All BBC staff go on a “don’t lie or be a bastard/don’t say ffyc” course, run by an independent consultancy recently set up by Jonty.
UPDATE2 – the BBC find a defender of Ross and Brand :
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, comedian Alexander Armstrong defended them saying people “shouldn’t be too quick to condemn them” for comments made “in the heat of the moment” that were not intentional.
Wouldn’t be the Alexander Armstrong who makes frequent BBC appearances, would it ?
UPDATE3 – the BBC probably don’t need too many supporters like Guardian commenter mitch72 :
“Why has David Cameron piped up? To get more votes and critise the BBC which is supportive of the Labour Party.”
The Guardian “Should Ross and Brand be fired ?” poll is currently running a 70/30 yes/no ratio. (Visitors to the Guardian site can also check out the latest BBC job adverts.)
“Brand and Ross were providing precisely the kind of lowest common-denominator humour that advocates of the licence fee tell us would dominate the airwaves without public subsidy.”
Independent. I must say I hadn’t heard of George Lamb before, a presenter on one of the BBC’s 148 digital “youth” stations, nor his treatment of Ray Davies :
The routine was all about the public bullying of two people on the fringe of public life, one old and one young, neither as powerful as Brand or Ross. It was not a moment of zany individual madness either: the BBC played its part, not only passing the programme for broadcast but also, astonishingly, supplying Sachs’s mobile-phone number to their presenter to use on-air. When the row blew up, sections of the press, with habitual hypocrisy, trilled with outrage while adding to the hurt by sleazily investigating the private life of the granddaughter – in the public interest, of course.
Sachs’s mistake was his non-appearance at the studio. His alpha-male colleagues responded to this lack of respect with an act of petulant retaliation. The great songwriter Ray Davies was on the receiving end of a similar revenge-mobbing last month when interviewed over the telephone by a BBC disc-jockey, George Lamb. “Are you bald?” was one of the first of several idiotic, sneering questions asked. Diplomatically, Davies pretended that the line was bad and discontinued the interview. He was “a moody git”, the BBC man told his listeners, “senile, no sense of humour”; his bad energy would probably cause him to die a horrible death.
The Guardian was also a supporter of eugenics, if memory serves. And then the Times published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I’m sure the Telegraph has been around long enough to do something comparably awful. That really just leaves me with the Independent. Unfortunately, it’s crap.
Speaking of all those darn Daily Mail readers spoiling the kids’ fun, here’s a bit more from the BBC’s traditional bete noir:
Should Brand and Ross be fired?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2008/oct/28/russell-brand-jonathan-ross?commentpage=1&commentposted=1
Not quite the Times, but then it was a different question. Still, not… optimal… I’d hazard.
Darned voters again… get Polly or Yasmin on to tell ’em why they are wrong again.
I’d say ‘it’s not an edifying thing for a tax-funded broadcaster to be doing, but no worse than the brain-dead reality TV shows that nobody seems to be making a comparable fuss about, and would be fine if it were on a privately funded channel’. Anyone willing to go more positive than that…?
OT: the DM supported the blackshirts, whereas the Guardian merely thought Hitler was too stupid and thuggish to be a serious threat. There’s a difference between evil and misjudgement.
Sadly I can’t find an online ref for it, but I read somewhere that in June 1914 the New Statesman sniffily dismissed rumours of impending war and recommended its readers go ahead and holiday in the Balkans.
There’s a very long list of things you can’t criticise without offending your opponents.
Certain religions. It makes you look prejudiced, even phobic.
Certain politicians. It makes you look racist.
Certain foreign policies, countries, in fact any generalised grouping you care to mention has some sort of a trap attached, which you fall into if ever you are caught in critical mode by the other side.
But the topic is certain comedians. Criticism of whom can make you look prudish and lacking a sense of humour.
Funny how things morph from one thing to another, from good to bad, from admirable to abhorrent.
The cult of youth metamorphoses into reverence for immaturity,
Sexual freedom can slide into promiscuity and exploitation.
Titillation and seduction often overlap various degrees of porn, and the quest for self-fulfillment sits beside ego mania.
Russell Brand combines all these elements. But he’s supposed to be funny and talented with it.
Kelvin McKenzie has been paraded around to criticise the BBC. If I’m not mistaken he is responsible for, among other things, TalkSport which uses shock and sensation to attract viewers. Although I agree with some of what he has said, I still think, – what a hypocrite to condemn the same thing in others.
Another objection to the Ross and Brand combo is the question of quality. The BBC is so slow. So uncool. They think they are backing and defending ‘cutting edge.’
Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross may have been that once upon a time, but if so, they are certainly not now. They’re stale, feeble, childish, not witty, not innovative.
They’re like Billy Connolly, Little Britain, Ricky Gervais. They were, but sorry to say, aren’t now.
The BBC lags behind, and pours money through the stable doors long after the horse has bolted. Pandering to the taste of the slow and stupid is ratings driven incompetence. In my view.
Billy Connolly went down the pan when he substituted swearing for jokes. Little Britain similar but more repetitive. Ricky Gervais; they kept trying to convince us that Extras was as good as the Office, but even though we wanted to believe it, we couldn’t quite manage it. But their legend status lingers inexplicably, no matter how much effort they expend in expunging it.
Russell Brand and Mr. Ross are dead horses, so let’s not flog them even deader. Put them out to grass and send their producers and facilitators with them.
In the 1930’s at least one of the major Trade Unions paid for adverts in the press which urged the government not to pay benefits to refugees from Nazi Germany.
That has ended up in the left’s memory hole as well.
Brand defended the call on air
There you have it – it is a controversy cuz someone (one of their more famous presenters, actually) is defending it 🙂
It is a bit pathetic if Brand has to give Hitler and the Nazis as an example of something worse than his behaviour.
Sue 5:35
Excellent post as usual, except that you forgot to say that it is OK to criticise Bernard Manning !
The most pathetic excuse ever. You almost need a new category of ‘Godwin’s Law’ to represent the asinine depth of Brand’s “…at least I’m not as bad as the Hitler-loving Daily Mail, Guv”.
‘Brand’s Law’ perhaps?
Any possibility what Brand and Ross did could be identified as “an obscene phone call”? Isn’t that a criminal offence?
AndrewSouthLondon: I think there would have to be a complaint made first. Having said that, the Police did turn up at the Big Brother studio if I remember before a formal complaint had been made.
I understand the unedited version of the show contained stuff that was even worse. Perhaps the Police should seize that before the BBC manage to lose it.
The BBC supported Yassa Arafat, they also support Castro.
Bernard Manning – “There were 2 homosexuals having anal sex in the back of a van, a transit van! They were both over 21, what’s wrong with that?”
The main thing is, in my boring opinion, is was it funny?
Cheers for the topic blog David.
I’m unsure – I think sacking them would be OTT but certainly some televised community service and some genuine contrition. Seriously, bring the Nazis into it, as Stuck – Record mentioned is automatic Godwin red card. Well, that genocide wasn’t as bad as the Boer war or the Armenian totals.
What pisses me off is the analysis placed on Gideon & Mandy compared to their audit of their own drivel. And Andy Sachs for chuffs sake – he’s a top dude of serious brilliance.
PS – the economy’s twated for the next 10 years minimum. Old news? Oops sorry, getting on with the job, downturn – ah, I see.
PPS – surely Jonathan Ross is the highest paid public servant in the land by a bloody good margin?
News at 6 led with the Ross/Brand story, but emphasised a young/old division.
So they did a vox pop of people queuing outside the BBC to watch a program being made. Interviewed 4 of them, all “disgusted”, and all quite elderly !
Then later, a commentator says something like “most young people seem to think “so what ? ” “.
So long as young people approve, it must be OK. No principles involved whatsoever.
It seems that the BBC are not even going to suspend the two scumbags, pending an investigation.
Brand defended the call on air by asking what was more offensive, the Daily Mail’s support for Mosley’s Blackshirts seventy-odd years back, or his call.
And here’s me thinking Brand wasn’t funny.
What is he…. 14 years old?
I’m all in favour of filth, and relish bad language, even obscene language. But this broadcast was about humiliating Sachs and his grand daughter (the fact she’s a bit of a sort has nothing to do with it) in public. Brand asked “what’s worse, saying a rude word on someone’s answerphone or supporting fascism?” – a classic straw man argument. The “rude words” (edgy stuff there) were irrelevant. It’s the verbal abuse and public humiliation that are at the heart of the matter. And so it’s not a question of “elderly Daily Mail readers versus trendy young things”. Basically, it’s about two overpaid and unimaginative thugs – the new elite – displaying classic BBC arrogance.
Grant: Yes and I wonder how many ‘young people’ actually pay the TV tax?
*************YES!!!!!!*************
Anyone else just hear Tom Bradbury on ITV news? He was reporting from Westminster.
Talking about the Toss and Brand story. The Tories are not happy with the BBC and if they are in power next time around, they might do something about the BBC!!!
About bloody time!!!!!!
I’d love to know who he had been talking to.
Caroline Spelman?
George Osbourne?
Maybe I’m being childish but I giggled at the Sky headline on this: “BBC To Probe ‘Offensive’ Sex Gag”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Jonathan-Ross-Russell-Brand-BBC-Pressure-Over-Calls-To-Andrew-Sachs-About-Georgina-Baillie/Article/200810415130211?lpos=Showbiz_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15130211_Jonathan_Ross%2C_Russell_Brand%3A_BBC_Pressure_Over_Calls_To_Andrew_Sachs_About_Georgina_Baillie
Martin 7:44
Cameron was very critical of the BBC on News at 6.
Channel 4 News should be interesting.
I thought the abuse of personal data (telephone numbers) was an offence under the data protection act – did the LibDems not recently drop themselves in the shit over unsolicited phone calls?
In the case of the Beeb, I would have thought that the Information Commissioner should be feeling a few collars and offering an all-expenses-paid holiday at one of Her Majesty’s pleasure-domes.
Who handed Sachs’ home phone number to these muppets? That is why agents are employed by celebs.
You are all rootless fools. This Welsh has the right answer:
http://alfanalf.blogspot.com/2008/10/ross-brand-guildenstern.html
Just about to call it a day, then this from Ch 4:
FIRESTORM IN A TEACUP
And, of course, the ongoing Brand-Ross saga. This has turned into a classic media firestorm. A handful of complaints have become several thousand thanks to the news coverage. And now Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, has launched the inevitable inquiry, ensuring this story will run and run.
Earlier today Andrew Sachs’s agent told Channel 4 News he fully accepted Jonathan Ross’s letter of apology and hadn’t wanted all these investigations to ensue. However, in the last few minutes a new statement from Mr Sachs reveals he has not heard from Russell Brand and that his granddaughter has not heard from either of these charmers.
The BBC’s response to this story continues to stoke it. No executive has been offered up for interview and, in a particularly bizarre move, the corporation has conducted its own interview with a senior manager and is sending out a clip to news organisations for them to use.
That’s the kind of behaviour that the BBC newsroom would respond to with contempt if it had come from any other corporate or government body. We at Channel 4 News are similarly perplexed.
What will tomorrow bring, I wonder?
All I know is that, after an utterly miserable summer and autumn – on so many levels – it would be the best news imaginable if these two talentless idiots were sacked.
But I suspect it’s too much to hope for.
Even when he’s criticising the BBC, it is only when Gordon Brown says something that it becomes news.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7695951.stm
‘Brown speaks out over prank calls’
Story created at 18:48. But as the BBC’s own timeline shows, David Cameron spoke out before lunch today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7694989.stm
In other words, Cameron expressed an opinion which a lot of people would agree with and would welcome, and was the first political leader to do so. Brown gets in on the act six hours later and suddenly it becomes newsworthy because they can lead with his name in lights.
sky news are leading on the story right now…
Brand defended the call on air by asking what was more offensive, the Daily Mail’s support for Mosley’s Blackshirts seventy-odd years back, or his call.
Brand obviously got that from Ken Livingston’s defence of his abuse of the Evening Standard’s reporter.
Let us not forget that John Reith (the real one – founder of the BBC) supported the Nazis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith,_1st_Baron_Reith#My_Father_.E2.80.94_Reith_of_the_BBC
A biography, My Father — Reith of the BBC, written by his daughter Marista Leishman, was published on 29 September 2006. In it she claims that her father was a Nazi sympathiser who abhorred Jews. He banned the playing of jazz music on the BBC, and Leishman says that he wrote in his diary that “Germany has banned hot jazz and I’m sorry that we should be behind in dealing with this filthy product of modernity.” Leishman says that on 9 March 1933 Reith wrote “I am certain that the Nazis will clean things up and put Germany on the way to being a real power in Europe again…. They are being ruthless and most determined”; and in March 1939, when Prague was occupied, he wrote: “Hitler continues his magnificent efficiency.”
interesting… and c4 news are jumping in now as well..
even though their Snowmail had the story at the bottom labelled “firestorm in a teacup”.
jeez… this is gonna get big.
c4 news – the bbc gave only one interview today about it, but to themselves.. and nobody else.
note that the program was PRE-RECORDED… this isnt a “gaffe”…
Misleading headline of the day?
‘Shouldn’t be too quick to condemn’
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, comedian Alexander Armstrong defended them saying people “shouldn’t be too quick to condemn them” for comments made “in the heat of the moment” that were not intentional.
Said “comedian” Alexander Armstrong is then obliged to eat his words when he is informed that it was a pre-recorded program, not something done “in the heat of the moment”.
Words such as hole, dig, stop come to mind…
archduke: I’m surprised C4 hasn’t given the BBC more of a kicking, especially after the way the BBC went after them over the Undercover Mosque story.
I am getting kind of piss*d off with the knee-jerk leftist taunt of “Daily Mail” reader – it is appearing on this blog courtesy of our socialist lurkers. I don’t read the Mail very often myself and it does have very poor reporting of health scares but it has very substantially more readers than the Graun and the Indi combined. It is commercially successful without free funding from public sector advertising and it does reflect the views and opinions of millions of “middle englanders”. It is about time that the socialists stopped treating the productive, prudent element of society with such contempt and disdain. ‘Daily mail man’ knows that he is just about the last bastion of civil society left in the dis-united kingdom that we have been presented with – laid waste by cultural and socialist engineering of the Labour Party. Foremost amongst the forces of ‘progress’ is of course the BBC.
The final insult is for Brand to portray himself as the victim in granddaughter-gate fracas. Apparently what he said was less offensive than the Daily Mails’ support for Mosley in the 1930s.
Vile though fascism was, it is worth noting that all of the leftist rags (such as the Morning star / daily Worker, circ 12) in the 30’s openly supported that murderous, genocidal, amoral bastard Stalin and the implementation of his personal vision of hell, the USSR.
Brown speaks out over prank calls
Lets establish something from the outset BBC, pranks are something that silly school children indulge in. Ross and Brand are in their mid forties and mid thirties respectively.
A prank?
Next the tardiness with which the BBC apologised. Clearly the arseholes thought they could ride this out and then, in their parlance, ‘close down the debate’.
But even now they are trying to defend the indefensible:
Meanwhile, the pair have received strong support from Radio 1 listeners.
Most of those who sent text messages to the youth-orientated station said reaction to the pranks had been “over the top”.
Risible BBC, just risible.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7695951.stm
Hopefully this whole business will gather storm, already over 10,000 complaints, but you won’t see that on their dreadful website, and many commentators are coming out of the woodwork to question the continued funding of the BBC by an enforced poll tax.
Martin | 28.10.08 – 8:30 pm
but C4 did give them a kicking – the report seemed to have “relish” written all over it.
reporter stood outside Woss’s london home , pointing out that an ofcom fine would only be a maximum of £250k, when Woss gets paid £18 million.
meeeowwww…. ouch…
It’s all too much | 28.10.08 – 8:40 pm
and its never pointed out that Mosley left the LABOUR PARTY to form the British Union of Fascists…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_mosley#Crossing_the_floor
“Mosley and his wife Cynthia were ardent Fabian Socialists in the 1920s and 1930s. Mosley appears in a list of names of Fabians from Fabian News and Fabian Society Annual Report 1929•31.”
Strange how Russell Brand finds the Daily Mail’s support for Mosley’s Blackshirts so intolerable yet thinks it perfectly acceptable to make obscene phone calls to a Jew born in Berlin who would have undoubtedly disappeared up the chimney of an extermination camp had his parents not managed to escape with him to Britain in 1938 (his father died of a heart attack in the internment camp for “enemy” aliens set up under Churchill’s “collar the lot” policy). It must have been very reminiscent of old times to have two Aryans boasting about deflowering his female relatives after he had refused to cooperate with them.
Reith, Hitler and Mosley :
this from the dissectingleftism blogspot
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin’s Communism. The very word “Nazi” is a German abbreviation for “National Socialist” (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler’s political party (translated) was “The National Socialist German Workers’ Party” (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
and interestingly enough – guess who supported the concept of a European Union?
why , one Oswald Mosley.
http://www.oswaldmosley.com/towards-a-fascist-europe.htm
“Having established the particular of possible friendship between Great Britain and other nations we will proceed to the general idea of European union built on the firm foundation of justice and economic reality. The sequence of thought will naturally follow the story of prior disaster and will strive to show at each stage how the previous fatality can be eliminated in the system of the future. Therefore, in proceeding to build first a system of European union we shall naturally begin with Germany.”
its well known that the Nazi’s were suddenly turned into “rightists” , because of Britain and America’s alliance with the USSR
but to be fair – it probably comes from earlier – the Spanish Civil War.
why else did thousands of left wingers from Britain go off and fight against Franco?
my own guess is that because the Catholic Church in Spain explicitly endorsed Franco, then it was easy to label fascists as being “right wing reactionaries”
and i guess the label stuck ever since.
If this murky episode has shown the masses anything it is a glimpse behind the BBC’s foggy curtain of obsfucation.
The BBC have scored a massive own goal, break the connection with the masses for even one second and people start to question their own personal need for this tax in todays landscape of new media.
I mean how ridiculous is it that we are still funding these clowns with threats of imprisonment.
the daily mail seems to be sticking the knife in , and thoroughly enjoying it..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080839/Ross-Brands-jobs-threat-10-000-complain-prank-Ofcom-launch-formal-inquiry.html
“10,000 complain…”
note the amount of comments in that mail article – now OVER 1,000….
touched a raw nerve with the public? yup.. you betcha.
Is it my imagination or has the basis of ‘entertainment’ has shifted into some perverse collaborative version of shadenfreude. We have ritualised bear baiting live on TV. The viewers / listeners are treated to ritual humiliation and bullying conducted by personalities / panels of – judges. The object is to demonstrate two things a) the superiority of the ‘evaluator’ and b) to hod up to contempt and ridicule the individual who is submitted to the ordeal.
Reality television and everything associated with it in all its manifestations (including the vile Brand and wanker Ross) reflects very well the attitude of a ruling elite that always knows best, always has the right answers, always has more expertise, and always has the right opinions. the modern entertainment industry always reminds Joe public by telling him over and over again that we are valueless, opinion less utterly dependant, infantalised, pliant drones. Ironically, of course the experts are usually self appointed borderline megalomaniacs who know less about reality virtually anyone in the population at large.
This pernicious trend has infected every aspect of TV and most radio(it is not restricted to the BBC) Unfortunately it is popular.
– How badly behaved are your brats / pets
– So you think that you are a business person – useless idiot
– Are you a feckless spendthrift – ha ha you are in debt
– let the cameras into your hose so we can film you shouting at your daughter who we imply is a slut
– How bad a driver are you
– Can’t cook – you toss*er
– We know how to make your garden/house/ look better
– Are you ugly? – get cosmetic surgery
– Ho ho you are fat
– let us look at your private parts, you have an ’embarrassing illness’
– can’t sing, come on TV and be humiliated
– Extrovert with marginal intelligence and no self respect – Big Brother is for you
etc ad nauseam
I can’t be bothered going on any further, but you get the idea
Hehe – well it’s all a lot more serious and important than Mandy cavorting with oligarchs or the world economy going down the tubes. Thank you Russell Brand say the nation’s misbehaving politicians.
What an utter cock Gordon Brown is.
It will be interesting to see if anyone gets a bollocking or the sack for this, my bet – nothing bad happens to anyone important and some youngster in a difficult position gets the boot.
And yet again the Beeb ‘forget’ to mention that if they DO get fine (yeah right…) then WE will pay the fine not those two clowns. It should come out of their wages and those of the producers.
PS amazed you haven’t smelt Alistair Campbell’s hand in this, come on boys – wake up
or even smelled it, well, it’s all a bit fishy, etc
I’ll get me coat