Kevin Marsh is probably not a well-known name outside the rarified corridors of the BBC. But as head of the BBC’s College of Journalism and also a former editor of Radio 4’s Today, he’s one of the corporation’s top news wallahs, shortly due to retire on an obscenely fat pension. So how does he practise his trade? As a scion of public service broadcasting, with its binding principles of fairness and lack of bias? Er, no. Well not according to Antonia Hoyle, writing in today’s Mail on Sunday. Mr Marsh did not like former BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan’s (he who broke the story of the dodgy Iran intelligence dossier) rather positive entry on Wikipedia, so he doctored it, adding the telling phrase that his reputation for breaking news ‘was not always deserved’. Likewise, our Kev thought the Wiki entry for his predecessor as editor of Today, Rod Liddle, was a tad too nice. Originally the Liddle section said that he had used Today to ‘break’ new stories. Kev’s neatly edited version said that he had ‘tried with limited success to switch the programme to a more tabloid approach’. Maiow. That, in BBC speak is the highest form of insult.
Mr Gilligan claims that Mr Marsh is not happy with him because, as a result of the Hutton report – which considered the BBC’s handling of the Iraq dossier- his career as an editor ended and he became instead ‘deputy head of training’.
I should add that Mr Marsh strongly denies that he was acting inappropriately; he is quoted as saying he was merely ensuring accuracy. Of course. All I will say is that I made a number of complaints against Today items when dear Kev was editor, and attended meetings where he was there, so I saw his style first hand. His approach was always to bend the facts in every way he could.
Does the BBC have at their college of journalism a bust of their founder Goebbels? Or in true BBC tradition has that been air brushed out of history.
Certainly with their hatred of Jews the BBC is a lover of the Nazis. Oh and quotes from Nazis as well.
Interesting. Those edits, at the very least, break Wikipedia’s rules for “no original research” (i.e., everything should have been published and verifiable elsewhere) – the one principle that, if followed by everybody, would make WP entries much more trustworthy generally (some are excellent, some complete cack).
Notably, though, he made the edits while logged in, so they were directly traceable back to him when he made them in 2007. And it seems, from that article, that Wikipedia’s own rules did kick in since the edits were removed. In the past couple of years, WP editors have been much more attentive (to, in some cases, an almost anal degree) to changes which aren’t supported by documentary evidence. Stuff still creeps through, though, frustratingly.
The timing of the MoS story is a bit odd, given that this all happened nearly 3 years ago. I do wonder if, now that Wikipedia has been around for a lot longer and people are much more aware of how easy it is to attribute changes, whether anything like that could, or would, happen today. And, indeed, whether other news organisations would allow employees to alter pages pertaining to their rivals any more.
You mean like the beeboid that changed George W Bush’s Wikipedia entry as well?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/26669_Wikipedia_EditGate-_BBC_Edits
A Beeboid spouting accuracy – I nearly spilt my coffee!
So Marsh is now going to teach all the new Beeboids how to be impartial and honest? It explains so much.
I thought it as well to add a bit more information to Mr Marsh’s entry in Wiki:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Marsh
The footnotes aren’t working unfortunately.
OK, technical glith in Wiki referred to above now sorted.
Good work Hippiepooter in giving the shitbag a bit of his own medicine. The difference being your edits are documented and verifiable elsewhere, his vague accusations are unsubstantiated.
I think he is just jealous of the success Gilligan had with his awards and the Iraq stuff etc.
I think the Wiki system is improving albeit a little too slowly, and it will be increasingly difficult to post allegations without backing them up.