For an allegedly impartial broadcaster this is an interesting insight into the thinking of the next possible D-G of the BBC;
“With the post of BBC director-general now being advertised, former Newsnight political editor Michael Crick has an intriguing insight into the personality of one of the frontrunners, George Entwistle, the Yorkshire-born director of BBC Vision. ‘Entwistle used to be my editor on Newsnight, and I vividly recall him saying that our job every day was to come in and ask ourselves: “How can we f*** the Government today?” ’ says Crick, now at Channel 4 News. ‘I thought it was a great maxim for journalists.’
Well, that’s one way of looking at it i suppose but the problem is that it seems to me that based on the track record of the past forty years the BBC want to f*** only some governments. Thoughts?
Proven anti-Tory, pro-Labour credentials are a necessary political attribute of the next D.G.
And Cameron and Hunt will watch it happen.
Superfluous ‘next’ in that comment, George R 😉
The BBC has to f*** all governments actually but as the Conservatives are the only ones with a modicum of common sense and the ability to make money and keep to a sensible fiscal policy for the country they must attacked harder than the other lot, that’s the ones that have the opposite attributes to the ones above. Come on keep up Jim!
The alternative is a government that is not wrong footed and the end result of that would be the end of the BBC.
By the way I seem to have lost my contract with the BBC. You know the one we get with all companies that we agree to buy from. I have a receipt for the Licence tax thingy but just can’t find the bit of paper saying I agree to it. It’s a real b….r.
Aside from political tribal preferences, I am often surprised at how various basic political concepts are either misunderstood or corrupted by our politico-media-estate.
Like those in ‘power’ not grasping they are there to represent, not rule. At least voting booths can rain on that delusion every few years. Hold that thought.
Then there is ‘government money’. There is no such thing, it is merely what some temporary guardians of the public purse have got hold of from said public to then squander. On such things as an independent, professional, impartial national broadcaster, who is none of these things any more.
‘The media’ do have a role in hold government to account, rightly so, but if all they are there to do is f*** with them, then all they are really doing is the same to the people.
Which is, on balance, about what they have been, are, and seem to seek to do with zero accountability in perpetuity.
If this guys becomes DG it will come as no surprise, but does not seem optimal for free speech, democracy or getting Britain back on its feet again.
As far as I can tell Entwistle was editor of Newsnight during Blair’s period in Government. So it was a Labour Government he wanted to go the nasty on.
A PPE grad (natch).
He became an assistant producer on Panorama, where he worked on the programme’s coverage of the first Gulf War, the fall of Margaret Thatcher, and an investigation into how the Tiananmen Square protest leaders were spirited out of China.
In January 1993, George became a producer for On The Record and subsequently went on to be a producer, assistant editor and deputy editor on BBC Two’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight between 1994 and 1999.
So Thatcher and early Blair. Presumably, the next stage of his career was what Crick is referring to:
He became Editor of Newsnight in 2001, starting work in his new post the day before the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers in the USA.
Anyone watching the BBC at that time knows all too well how many Beeboids viewed the attacks. As soon as the Coalition invaded Afghanistan, Blair became known as “Bush’s Poodle”, and that was reinforced in spades in 2003 with the removal of Sadaam Hussein from power in Iraq. That’s when most Beeboids turned against Blair, and it has precious little to do with being conservative or being an impartial watchdog.
Here’s an example of what Entwhistle’s got up to in between his factual career and becoming Vision mandarin:
BBC sends staff on jelly ‘bonding’ day
The BBC has spent thousands of pounds on a team bonding course in which presenters had to wash raspberry jelly from each other’s feet.
Adrian Chiles, a presenter, and Alan Yentob, the creative director, were among 200 executives who took part in the sensory assault course.
Staff were blindfolded and required to walk barefoot through pools of raspberry jelly and autumn leaves while clutching plastic babies programmed to wet themselves and cry.
At the end they had to wash each other’s feet. The babies were props from the BBC3 show Baby Borrowers. Staff were given masks of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
Thatcher had been out of office for seven years, yet the obsession was still there. Blair had also become a figure of derision by then, in large part due to Afghanistan and Iraq.
When they were not walking through jelly, or changing the nappies of the plastic babies, staff were invited to pitch programme ideas at a panel of senior executives including Glenwyn Benson, the controller of BBC Knowledge, and George Entwistle, the acting controller of BBC4.
This bit of quality improvement cost £10,000 at the same time the BBC was cutting 1800 jobs. Plus ça change indeed.
So the period to which Crick refers saw Labour in power.’And the ‘some governments’ to which DV alludes must at least include Labour.
Was that the point intended?
No. The point intended was obviously that, when looking at the long term, Beeboids want to f**k some Governments more than others. If anything, DV seems to be saying that we need to keep this in mind despite the fact that Labour was in power during Entwistle’s term as editor. It seemed pretty obvious to me, anyway.
But if we’re going to focus on that period specifically, Blair’s fall from grace due in large part to his association with Bush’s Wars™ is key here. Of course, I’m not a mind reader and would have to hear it from Entwistle himself.
But I did observe a clear sea change regarding Blair – among my friends and in the media, not just in the BBC – although not against Labour in general. This is probably a good topic for a doctoral thesis, but we don’t have time for that here. Since Entwistle became Crick’s editor during this key turning point in world affairs and in Beeboids’ esteem of Blair, it’s not unreasonable to think that was a factor behind Entwistle’s and Crick’s desire to f**k Blair, possibly more than an honest, impartial desire to be a bulwark against “the Government”, full stop, regardless of who was in power.
If there’s some way to go through every single Newsnight segment during Entwistle’s tenure to observe trends, I’ll be happy to do it with you.
‘It seemed pretty obvious to me’
Is there a literary equivalent of ‘there’s none so deaf..’?
I suspect we’re headed for another period of innocent, po-faced incomprehension again.
You could try writing posts a wee bit more slowly I guess, in case the pace can translate across the ether to accommodate the hard of thinking.
As far as one can tell in such matters, he thinks he has got a stick and it’s worth gnawing on, even if unaware it’s the wrong end again.
The issue of a destroy rather than challenge to improve meme in the highest echelons of state media seems not to be troubling our account holder in chief today.
I think I’ve gnawed this stick into a rather soggy mess.
Of course the BBC is critical of both Labour and Conservative governments in equal measure. Conservative governments are criticized for not being Liberal and Labour governments are criticized for not being even more Liberal.
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/form-book-24.html?
If Mr. Jackson has no evident, overt, expressed political allegiances ( very much doubt he, like anyone, has no views), that may err in his favour.
Of course, that may also make him the most dangerous DG of all.
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