Monthly Archives: September 2009

MORE TORIES?

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Best laughs of the day.

The shadow culture secretary has called for the BBC to “actively” recruit more Conservatives to its news team. Jeremy Hunt said the BBC had “made huge strides” on diversity issues but should “not forget the core audience”

Well, that’s the warm up line. What are these “huge strides” that so impress Mr Hunt? Not good to hear Conservatives talk in this way. Anyway, here’s the punch-line.

The BBC said it would never recruit people for their politics and Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw described it as “unacceptable political interference”.

That’s former BBC employee Ben Bradshaw.
Comments?

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"KEYNES IS THE WORD…

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..is the word, is the word, it’s got meaning..”

BBC bigging it up for John Maynard Keynes this morning. Just before 8am I heard Humphyrs ponder “Has John Maynard Keynes saved the world” regarding the G20 farce. The political left may not invest a lot in understanding the essence of how economic works but when they do direct their though process that direction, Guru Keynes is their idol. And so the BBC falls in line and offers us Keynes as the answer even though anyone with half a brain would know that Keynesian economic is utterly discredited. I remember when I was doing my Economic degree back in the late 1970’s – the lecturers all pushed Keynes and damned monetarism. Of course history proved them wrong but in the lofty bastions of the left, such as the BBC, Keynes never went away and his Utopian follies are now presented to us as the global saviour.

Also, in all the G20 coverage, do you notice how it is “the banks” that are presented as having caused the economic crisis? Why does the BBC sanitise the role of government? In the States we had the (Democrat) CRA as a central dynamic leading to disaster. Here in the UK we had McDoom’s ten year spending frenzy and yet, oddly enough, this is not discussed. Why? Is it because the BBC is itself institutionally Statist and cannot conceive that the State itself may be the central problem.

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DEAD MAN WALKING…

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Did anyone else catch Jeremy Al Bowen’s take on Israel PM’s speech at the Obamathon at the UN. Just on the Ten News. I loved the way he instantly cast doubt on PM Nehanyahu’s assertion that the “tyrants in Tehran” will go nuclear very shortly. Did you see it? Also did you catch the SPIN put on McDoom’s disastrous day at the UN. Loved the way they finished the item with his coronation as “Statesman of the year”. I recall Twain said that a Statesman is another term for a dead politician. Brown is dead in the water but good old Auntie do their best for the dead man walking..through the UN kitchen.

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Meanwhile, In The Left Field

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Remember Ben “left of centre” Stephenson, the BBC’s Controller of Drama? Last week he was a panellist at a BFI discussion on “the theatre’s relationship to television drama.”

Here’s one guy, writing on his production company’s blog, who wasn’t impressed with Stephenson’s attitude to the classics (emphasis added) :

‘I just worry that they are not going to be that stimulating on screen,’ he said.
With which words the central creative figure in BBC drama wrote off — as far as television goes — not only the theatrical tradition outlined above but also pretty much everything stretching from Harold Pinter back to the Greek tragedies. The only way that the drama canon could work for television, he suggested, was if the plays were treated in a radical way, and most especially if significant cuts were made to their texts. And this, he was worried, wouldn’t be appropriate.

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"That’s the BBC way"

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Or how the lefty media clique perpetuates its dominance of the BBC.

A candid little insight into the workings of the BBC from its new Chief Creative Officer of Vision Pat Younge, in avuncular mood at a diversity forum:

“What I didn’t know, and a lot of people don’t know, is the subtle stuff about the BBC that you only learn when you’ve been around. So it’s quite normal … when I did actually get into the BBC, the BBC were looking for onscreen correspondents for the London region. And I saw how much Trevor was making, and the other Trevor (*), and I thought being on screen – yeah, this is where it’s at. But in applying for the job my now ex-wife said to me, ‘You do realise you’ve got to find out all the people who are going to interview you and you’ve got to go and see them.’

And I said, ‘Don’t be silly. You can’t go and tap up all the people that are meant to be interviewing you.’

She said, ‘That’s the BBC way.’

And if you’re outside the BBC you don’t know this. But when the job is advertised in the BBC it is quite legitimate to find the person who’s doing the interview and go and have a conversation with them. And all the internal candidates know that, and all the friends on the outside who know people on the inside know that. And so I went and met all these five people and by the time I came to the interview I knew what each of them wanted because I’d spent half an hour with each of them with them telling me what they were looking for.”

(* Trevors McDonald and Phillips, I presume.)

Update. At the same forum (organised by the TV Collective – Facebook motto: “YES WE CAN”) more from Pat Younge:

“We are definitely a minority within the broadcasting industry but we’re nowhere like the minority in terms of white working class people in our industry.”

Can the Daily Mail headline be far behind? “Too Few White Working Class at BBC Says Black BBC Boss”

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NOT SO SPECIAL..?

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Have you read this post from the new Justin Webb, Mark Mardell? He ponders on the “special relationship” between the UK and the US in the light of Obama snubbing McDoom at the UN meeting. (No mention of the Megrahi issue, of course) I think Mark provides an interesting insight into BBC elite thinking, Naturally there is denial that any such “special relationship” exists. It only did exist because of all those WASPS, apparently, but now we are the aged and puny relative unworthy of any special attention from the White House occupied by the first black President. (“Born in Hawaii” Mark confidently asserts. Has he seen evidence of this, I wonder?) Liberal self-loathing and depreciation of Britain is an essential asset for those such as Wardell. In fairness, Nick Robinson has a better take here.

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BBC AIRBRUSHING ANTI SEMITISM…

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I received this from a B-BBC reader and thought to share it…

“This morning at 5.30 I had the opportunity to compare the difference between Sky and BBC World’s coverage of this story.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iGmuQwdsTmw7x3L1h1KcR-CmdilQ

Whilst Sky’s strap line and bulletin headlines platform the role of BRITISH diplomats who walked out during Ahmadinejad’s speech because of ‘alleged anti-semitic” ‘ comments (quote marks theirs), the BBC said merely that SOME diplomats had walked out because of ‘criticism’ of western policies and Israel (quote mark mine’).

Sky broadcast the speech at the 5.30 am in their bulletin, in the context of the British walkout and anti-semitism., You can view the speec here . http://news.google.co.uk/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&ned=uk&hl=en&q=british+diplomats+walk+out+UN+ahmedinajad

In it, the Iranian president lambasts Israel for actions leading to ‘genocide’ and then says how wrong it is that ‘a few thousand people’ world wide can have such an influence on banking, media and world policy – in fact repeating the whole protocols of the elders of Zion, Nazi conspiracy theory. Open Jewish world domination theory in the hall of the UN!

The difference between the two reports of verifiable fact was jaw-dropping. Do the BBC World editors hate Israel (and, it would seem, Jewish people world-wide) so much that they are no longer shocked by blatant anti-semitism?

The answer, of course, is YES.

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