Interesting article here on the BBC and how it has handled Savile and now McAlpine.
Worse still, just as this scandal began to die down, Newsnight has embroiled itself in a sexual abuse scandal.
Last week the show ran a segment that featured allegations that a well-known Conservative British politician had been a part of notorious pedophile network that operated in Wales in the 1970s. The segment didn’t name the politician — apparently out of legal fears — but the name of the suspect soon spread online.
On the surface of it, it looked like Newsnight’s attempt to remind the British public that they were the most important TV news show in the UK — and unafraid to ask serious questions about the British establishment. However, the show set off a storm of speculation that even British Prime Minister David Cameron had to admit verged on a “witch hunt”.
The scandal gained another dimension today when The Guardian announced that the man many had assumed was at the heart of the scandal — former Margaret Thatcher aide Lord (Alistair) McAlpine — was innocent of these and had been the victim of mistaken identity.
Lord McAlpine, who now lives in Italy, has apparently had throngs of reporters outside his villa for weeks, and has been forced to leave his home because of the media frenzy. He has now issued a lengthy statement that goes into some detail in its denial of the accusations, and his lawyer has told the BBC that they are considering legal action against the BBC as well as a number of Twitter users who had named him.
The man who accused McAlpine has now apologized for inferring the Lord was involved, and conceded it was a case of mistaken identity.
For the BBC, and Newsnight in particular, this was a big chance at redemption. And, rightly or wrongly, it looks like the show was rushed. It really appears that the BBC blew it.
So the BBC have apologised. However the culture we are in now is “Go ahead and do the damage, we can always say sorry afterwards”. Apologies are worthless. Not the first time we have seen this.
BBC are rightly copping it for this but let’s not forget that that odious turd Tom Watson should be crucified also.
I heard Bea Campbell on Radio 2 yesterday. She used to appear regularly on the Today prog’ finding racists under every stone. Now it’s paedo’s under every bed.
A couple of years back she was bullying us for not being more sympathetic to the disfunctional northern family whose daughter had gone missing. Of course it transpired they had actually kidnapped the girl themselves and were hoping for a pay out.
Yesterday she told us these boys must be listened to and these high ranking men exposed. Within minutes the entire house of cards had collapsed and the BBC was in the dock.
Bea Campbell is an intolerant feminist, Marxist, communist, greeny who sees evil in everything men do. I can’t understand why they keep having her on.
Oh. hang on…
George Bentwhistle on BBC 24 News.
From what I gather, I don’t think Bentwhistle watches or listens to any BBC television and radio programmes or reads the BBC website. I’m not surprised.
” systems are too blame ” What the hell are systems ?
A pink-faced Incurious George Entwistle has popped up on my TV screen again this morning.
This time he is attempting to reassure the sofa-bound muppets on BBC Breakfast.
This has to be another BBC repeat, surely?
He didn’t know about anything before it went out. No one told him anything – that’s not his job. Gosh, what is an editor-in-chief? He will set up an inquiry. He has put robust systems in place, blah blah blah.
I did like his line about how the public would be surprised at how very huge and complex is their BBC.
A little cry from the very heart of our Incurious George there I feel. Oh I can’t do this job – it’s too hard.
Meanwhile Steve Hewlett pops up on Sky to reveal a recent poll which indicates 76% of Joe Public don’t trust senior BBC management to tell the truth.
That’s right, three quarters of us reckon Auntie’s bosses tell porkies.
Lord Patten must have hoped his latest lucrative sinecure of gliding about in a stately manner as figurehead of a huge entity whilst it is quietly sold out to the commies would have gone a tad more smoothly.
Unfortunately, unlike the Chinese, our Beeboids are shortsighted and factious as well as being scurrilous self-serving anti-Torys – and now that’s official. Or at least it is painfully obvious, outside of committed leftist circles.
Perhaps we should now congratulate David Cameron on his policy of sit-on-your-hands and whimper whilst providing the Beeb will enough rope so that they will hang themselves.
Dave, now that the leftist would-be social revoultionaries at the BBC have so conclusively shoved their own heads in the noose – please push them off the platform.
Ex BBC director general Mark Thompson, now in New York, must be pissing himself laughing at how lucky he is.
I wouldn’t celebrate too early. The BBC’s demise is far far away. What we’ll get in the end, partly due to the hysteria surrounding this scandal and the Savile affair, and partly so that our rulers can be seen to be “doing something”, is stautory regulation of the press by, oh yes,
those incorruptible MPsan “independent” body appointed by the very people who appointed exactly who to the “independent” BBC Trust.Yes, the current hoo-hah is all very bad news for the BBC but, believe me, it’ll survive: it’s too valuable to the political class not to. There will be a few eminent sacrificial victims – maybe even Entwistle – but the BBC will continue on its way spreading its slime like a slug on a garden path.
My overall impression of the BBC in all this?
Far from being cowed in any way, they simply do not give a damn what anybody thinks.
They continue to repeat the whole headline word for word, hiding behind the ‘allegations’ get out line.
I have now heard it, unchanged, for at least ten news broadcasts since Mr Messham’s apology.
The only way to deal with this bunch of anti Tories, is to split them up and sell it off.
But who has the cojones to do it?
Not so much cojones.
Liblabatory simply don’t want to do anything about the BBC, hence the appointment of Patten to the Trust.
The makeup of the Tories and the BBC doesn’t reflect the public they profess to serve.
The would need to be less hetrophobic for one thing.
Monbiot should have stuck with what he knows best – climate change.
Oh, hang on a minute…
They, BBC, just can’t help themselves . .
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/10/the-secret-28-who-made-bbc-green-will-not-be-named/
Why is anyone surprised at this sorry episode? Picture the scene at the BBC – an opportunity to discredit the Thatcher government. Remember she won three elections despite the best efforts of the leftist BBC and it is still bitter to this day.