Some interesting comments here from Mark Thompson.
“Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, went on the offensive against James Murdoch and other critics of the public broadcaster, effectively accusing News Corporation of lapses of integrity and warning that the collapse of the BSkyB takeover was not an excuse to start a debate about the scale and scope of the BBC.
Writing in the Guardian, just ahead of the start of this year’sMediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Thompson chose to explictly reject a 2009 lecture given by James Murdoch at the same event, in which the son of media mogul Rupert concluded that for media organisations “the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit”.
Noting that the “broader debate about the future media landscape must not deflect us from the most obvious and urgent matters arising from the News of the World case … matters of personal conduct and criminality, and above all of ethics and values,” Thompson proposed recasting Murdoch’s 2009 conclusion.
“If James Murdoch was giving his lecture this year,” Thompson writes, “I’d suggest he amended only one word in that final sentence. The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is not profit. Nor who you know. Nor what corners you can cut. It’s integrity.”
My first thought while reading the above was “It had to be the Guardian that he went to spread his smears” then saw that you had also finished on the same point. I do think that he ought to be careful, up till now he had only sent salvoes across Murdoch’s bows, but this is a full broadside. If the Murdochs want to get him they can and will, and hopefully sink him and the whole of his ship which is full of red fever.
I’m no fan of the Murdochs but they remain infinitely better than the BBC/Guardian axis.
{ -from previous ‘Open Thread’}-
BBC-NUJ-Guardian-Labour DIRECTOR GENERAL, MARK THOMPSON:
-has decided to DENY ANY DEBATE on the nature of the undemocratic global media empire that is the BBC.
‘Guardian’:
“Mark Thompson attacks James Murdoch over BBC:
Director general targets corporation’s critics, warning collapse of BSkyB takeover was not excuse to debate scale of BBC”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/24/mark-thompson-attacks-james-murdoch
At the Guardian’s annual politically statist gathering of the undemocratic at the Guardian’s restrictive Edinburgh anti-Murdoch Television Festival, the BBC has the leading role.
D G THOMPSON, infamous for the preferential treatment given to Islamic interests at Islam Not BBC, now decides to go public in his total censorship of any debate about the nature and role of the BBC empire.
Presumably, the British government is supporting this denial of criticism, or debate of the BBC; otherwise Hunt or Cameron would issue a public statement to stop Thompson’s attempted denial of basic freedom.
The BBC-NUJ-Guardian is behaving like the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in trying to BAN any criticism of the organisation’s ideology and aims.
In the photograph, accompanying this ‘Guardian’ article, Thompson is grinning like a Cheshire Cat. He thinks that the joke of denial of debate is on us licencepaying suckers; and that we can’t touch him. He expects to get his £1m pension pay off from us at worse.
This is what we are up against.
Are there any Beeboids to speak out against THOMPSON and BBC’s publicly voiced policy of DENIAL OF DEBATE, together with censorship? Any politicians?
Strange that Mark Thompson would choose to lecture on integrity in the pages of a (admittedly low circulation, minority interest) newspaper who’s chief investigative reporter has admitted illegal hacking of mobile phone voicemail. Mark Thompson also represents an organisation (the BBC) rife with illegal drug abuse which employs “talent” such as Richard Bacon who was caught using a Class A drug and recently found notoriety for heartily endorsing the view that Downs Syndrome children should be shot in the head at birth.
An organisation of such tremendous integrity that it recently had to apologise for using faked footage in a supposed documentary on one of its flagship news programmes, though these kind of scandals are quite commonplace at the BBC.
What utter hypocrisy.
It seems to me that a complete lack of self-awareness at the BBC is becoming more and more apparent and that they are on the verge of completely over-reaching themselves.
If I may quote a fellow Scot:
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us
Thompson one on end of the see-saw…and Patten on the other!
This is the BBCs “balanced” approach to their output.
Think that particular play park of the intellect-perpetual season tickets paid for by us…needs Eric Pickles to plan a Pruis carpark and battery charger!
No-utter waste of time, but got to be better that these two tubs of guts from prep schools going nowhere!
‘Sunday Times’, 2007:
“BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1942948.ece
“Although its coverage of conventional politics is judged to be fair and impartial,”
What the hell are they taking?
Integrity from Thompson, bloody hell, and the BBC has integrity? Where? I think he is using “newspeak” as in Orwell’s 1984, shame he got the date wrong by a few years!
The notion of “independence” is a smokescreen. It’s the wrong issue to worry about. Of course the BBC is independent, and the license fee doesn’t make it any less so than if it were a strictly commercial enterprise. The real issue to worry about is accountability. The BBC is not held accountable for their actions anywhere near the way a commerical media organization would be. The occasional individual is forced to face the music for their behavior, and every now and again staff are forced to take yet another training course reminding them not to do silly things like lie to children and steal money from the public, or openly support Labour when too many people are watching their Twitter feed. But the Corporation itself is not held to account, and so they go back to business as usual, making the same mistakes over and over again, only with a new layer of rules and bureaucracy to cover for them.
A commerical organization loses subscribers when they have major scandals the public doesn’t like. The “Sirs, I’m canceling my subscription” letter doesnt exist for the BBC. A commerical organization faces the loss of advertisers if they do something really stupid that the public doesn’t like. The BBC has no such worries. All they have to worry about is ratings. But even then, if ratings drop, they cancel the show but don’t have to worry about coming up with a new one to recoup the ad revenue. When Russell Brand’s show was canceled, the BBC did not have to scramble to find a replacement who would keep the audience ratings up enough to keep the same amount of ad revenue coming in. As a Corporation, the BBC is untouchable, unaccountable.
The BBC is protected from accountability by the license fee. Independence is not the problem.
“…..and warning that the collapse of the BSkyB takeover was not an excuse to start a debate about the scale and scope of the BBC. ”
Sorry Mark you have blown that one! You and your chums wanted an inquiry about media monopolies and thats what you will get. As Cameron was quoted in the article with regards to forthcoming enquiy
“Above all we need to ensure that no one voice, not News Corporation, not the BBC , becomes too powerful”
We need choice, range, diversity in our media … think of it as sort of er.. multicultural…and who could argue against that! Ask yourself how can this be encouraged when the fat, biased, inefficient, greedy, left wing, state-sponsered behemoth will strangle any new media organisation at birth due to the unique way in which it is funded. Even the Guardian must have figured by now it can’t compete online with the BBC as its hardprint audience dissapears.
Thompson knows where the argument is going hence the pre-enquiry posturing. Look forward to many warnings about tampering with the BBC
Open Letter to Mr Thompson:
Sir,
You cannot have it both ways. It is the BBC that has blown this story up to hysterical proportions. Now that you have got Parliament (remember, the people who are supposed to be answerable to the electorate and NOT the BBC), to dance to your tune, you cannot now say “hang on chaps, let’s not be too hasty”.
It was your Labour Party friends who wanted the investigation to include television. Yes, they were thinking of Sky. However it also includes the BBC.
If we are going to look at the effect that the media has on our democracy, let’s have all the cards on the table. It may turn out that the NOTW spat was the joker and the BBC was holding the ace all along.
Don’t be shy now!
Yours