Monthly Archives: October 2009

NOT ALL HATE SPEECH IS EQUAL…

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Stephen Fry is never off the BBC, much favoured luvvie and yet he has come out with some comments that if made by others would see them labelled as hate-mongers and banned from the BBC. However it all depends on who the targets of such offensive comments are, of course;

Stephen Fry has delivered an insulting attack on Catholics and Poles which grotesquely misrepresents historical fact and which, if levelled at almost any other targets, would probably be characterised as a “hate crime”. Fry, who joined Labour luvvies in signing an open letter protesting against the Tories’ alliance in the European Parliament with the Polish Law and Justice Party, said on Channel 4 News: “There’s been a history, let’s face it, in Poland of a right-wing Catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history and remember which side of the border Auschwitz was on”…

Gerald Warner deftly exposes the scale of the ignorance shown by Fry here but will the BBC show any interest in this? I doubt it. So long as “right wing Polish Catholics” can be insulted and history re-written by a luvvie whose self inflated importance is only equalled by his annual income, what’s the problem? Where’s the bias? The bias lies in the fact that Fry can get away with making these sort of calculated slurs and still be lionised by the BBC.

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F-Bombgate – Director General Intervenes

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I can tell you’re all itching to know the latest on F-Bombgate, so here it is:

The Five Live sports news sabotage case, in which a Saturday morning pre-recorded interview with Wigan manager Roberto Martinez had an obscene blooper out-take inserted, has reached the level of the BBC Director General Mark Thompson.
Thompson has ordered all unused studios at Television Centre to be locked as part of his investigation and the out-take file bloopers erased.
At the centre of the inquiry is freelancer Ben Jacobs, who had been replaced by Paul Scott as the overnight sports news reader.
The incident happened on Scott’s first shift and involved a computer on which Jacobs had signed on.
The saboteur also attempted to delete other pre-recorded material. Subsequently, an email from BBC Radio Solent sports editor Adam Blackmore, who employed Jacobs and Scott, was sent to all local Beeb radio stations advising them not to employ ‘loose cannon’ Jacobs.
Oxford graduate Jacobs denies any malpractice and claims someone logged on in his name.

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Little Ben Twitters

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Those who yearn for impartiality in BBC reporting can never close our minds to any side of a debate in our quest for fairness. For many years the bias has been pretty much one-way traffic – because it is inbred, it has become woven like fine silk through the cloth of reporting. So let us consider a contrary view.

Enter Stage Left Ben Bradshaw,  the Culture Secretary and soon to be ex-MP. On Twitter this morning he described the Today program as “biased” and “feeble” in its questioning of George Osborne.

“Another wholly feeble and biased Today programme rounded off with a fawning interview with a Tory pundit!!”

Earlier in the week he said, again via Twitter, that an interview with Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove was “disgracefully feeble”. Obviously feeble is his new favourite word, but leaving aside my view that Twitter isn’t an appropriate medium for a senior member of HMG to be sounding off on any issues, let’s examine in depth the points raised by the ex-BBC chappie.

Except there aren’t any.

To start with Evan Davies was fair by all accounts, but even if that wasn’t true, if the Left are to begin throwing accusations of bias in the run-up to losing the election then bring your evidence to the table and we will all listen fairly. Unsubstantiated Twitterings don’t cut the mustard.

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Stuffing Paxo

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Jeremy Paxman famously asked the then Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard the same question 12 times on Newsnight. Former Newsnight editor Peter Horrocks chose it as his favourite moment when the programme celebrated its 25 anniversary, and the clip is available on the Newsnight website (unlike many other people’s favourite – the outing of Peter Mandelson by Matthew Parris, which the BBC refuses to rebroadcast).

On Monday Boris Johnson asked Paxman what he earns at least five times during the course of their interview. Newsnight decided to cut the segment from broadcast:

THE BBC was blasted last night over claims it cut parts of an interview where Boris Johnson attacked Jeremy Paxman over his wages.
It is claimed the London Mayor demanded “five or six times” to know the BBC anchor’s taxpayer-funded salary – thought to be £1million a year…
Johnson said: “We didn’t get an answer for that by the way – about your earnings.”
The BBC last night said cuts were due to programme timings and views were “fairly reflected”. Mayoral aides have called for the unedited interview to go out online.

The BBC’s tax-dodging superstars do not like it up ’em.

More on this from the All Seeing Eye.

(Hat tips to anyone and everyone who has mentioned this in the comments.)

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NOT A FAIR COP

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Has anyone been watching the BBC1 drama Criminal Justice (running every night this week)? Critics are mostly raving about it, because the cast – led by the marvellous Maxine Peake – are first rate. There’s no doubt, too, that ex-barrister Peter Moffat, the writer, has considerable story-telling skills. But one aspect of it stinks to high heaven. As in almost every BBC drama that I can think of (apart, perhaps, from Waking the Dead), the coppers in it are portrayed as both idiotic and corrupt. Andrew Billen, in the Times, put it very well:

Are we expected to believe that policemen still remark in a solictor’s hearing that she has “nice tits” or that a senior officer encourages a suspect to make a confession after her lawyer has left or that he instructs a PC to lie about where they both were for a crucial hour?Even Moffat did not seem happy with having his wicked DI Chris Sexton baldly deny that rape within marriage is possible, a fallacy beaten out of coppers’ heads by any number of consciousness-raising workshops in the past decade.

I am not as sure as Billen that there aren’t cops who still think like this, and I also hate the way the police have become agents of political correctness gone mad. But one thing is certain: in the BBC’s world, cops are mostly incorrigibly bad, even when it makes their otherwise powerful dramas look idiotic and far-fetched.

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THOSE GAY CONSERVATIVES…

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So, Evan Davies trots along to the first Conservative Gay Pride bash in Manchester last night where blogger Iain Dale was compere. (There was also a Conservative Muslim Forum apparently but no report on it.) What gets me is that the context of the debate the BBC sets is always about how progressive one is about advancing the status of Gay Rights. Why should private individuals sexual preferences get ANY such elevated position (whoops!). Is there anybody out there who thinks the gay lobby may already be pandered to excessively and if so, why are they not provided with a voice? The BBC meme is that Gay Rights is something we must all embrace here. What gives them the right to say this? I have no issue with gay people other than the simple observation that what they do in their private lives is not any of my business nor any of my political concern.

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F-Bombgate Latest

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For those still interested in the ongoing saga, this comes from the Daily Mail’s Charles Sale column:

Saboteur hunt at 5live
The BBC are mounting a top-level probe, using CCTV and computer information, to find who was responsible for tampering with an early Saturday morning 5live sports news bulletin featuring a pre-recorded Jacqui Oatley interview with Wigan manager Roberto Martinez.
The Martinez chat was interrupted by a voice saying ‘******* trumpet, ******* Stanley Clarke’, which the Beeb hierarchy believe may have been inserted by a disgruntled employee.
Freelance sports reporter Ben Jacobs, who graduated from Oxford University with a double first in English Language and Literature in 2004, missed his BBC sports shift on Sunday having been told he was involved in the inquiry.
Jacobs’ agent David Welch said: ‘Ben is fully co-operating with the investigation but totally denies any involvement in any malpractice.’

Update. The aforementioned Ben Jacobs has just penned his first sports column for the Leicester Mercury. Headline – “Coventry curse isn’t working, but the F word is“.
(via the blog of Mercury editor Keith Perch)

See also: BBC F-Bomb Rant
F-Bomb Update
Is BBC Lying Over F-Bombgate?

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