Well, BBC D-G George Entwistle has resigned. But the question is rather larger – should the BBC now be AXED as a parasite bleeding off the public purse? One sacrificial lamb is not sufficient.
“The BBC’s director general, George Entwistle, has resigned in the wake of the Newsnight child abuse broadcast. In a statement given outside New Broadcasting House, Mr Entwistle said: “I have decided that the honourable thing to do is to step down.” Earlier, Mr Entwistle said the Newsnight report, which wrongly implicated ex-senior Tory Lord McAlpine should never have been broadcast.The broadcast covered cases of child abuse at north Wales care homes. Mr Entwistle took up the post of director general on 17 September.”
Pity Chris Patten did not also resign.
Its interesting that, as in so many “resignations” at the BBC, this guy still seems to have a job of some form there, he continues to draw a salary and look forward to his cushy retirement at my/our compulsory expense.
His exact words are:
“I have decided that the honourable thing to do is to step down form the post of Director General”
Not, you will notice, resign from the BBC.
I particularly liked the dictatorial BBC ‘warm-up’ just before the Entwistle-and-Patten double-act announced Entwistle’s resignation… largely because he had expected people to tell him stuff so he hadn’t asked any questions:
“There will be no questions.”
Ah, BBC comedy gold, eh?
Really? No questions? Publicly funded body who are they to decide whether there will be questions or not? Nearly as bad Miliband thinking tax cuts are like giving everybody a cheque. WE OWN YOU BBC, YOU WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS AT ANY TIME.
(Can we axe everything but the Sky at Night. I have worked out at if we did that then SaK could be the first television programme to put a man on Mars within a decade or so. No? I will fetch my coat then……)
“There will be no questions.”
I see from Guido that Mr. Paxman (who apparently refused to do his job, as you can, without consequence, uniquely, in some places) is also following the Lord Patten line to the full.
An interviewer who feels that preceding anything with ‘no questions’ will work in future when holding anyone else to account.
Nifty.
He also, insanely, appears to have gone the ‘cuts’ route still by way of pathetic, risible ‘excuse’.
How much does it cost, as a professional media news ‘professional, of integrity, to check a source and ask a few basic questions?
He’s just blown apart the whole foundation of the whole Labour/Unions/BBC-NUJ axis of weevils tribal alliance strategy of the last 2 years, along with his career credibility.
Now for a £1M market rate… that took talent!
Agreed. Paxo is stuffed!
Indeed.
What exactly are his pay-off arrangements, his redundancy monies and his probable immediate payment of pension. He is elderly, if not infirm, as anyone can see.
One thing you can be sure of, most of the BBC Trust meeting that sacked him was devoted to deciding his redundancy pay.
And another, no BBC journalist will dare ask about the money.
They wouldn’t even consider asking about the bias.
D Vance is certainly not a go-to person when they are vulnerable.
Well, he’s 50. Not that elderly!
That is precisely the point he is making…..
Something has been missing from this site tonight….I dunno….can’t quite put my finger on what….
Oh, who am I kidding, we are all missing Scott, Jim Dandy and Dez.
Play nice between yourselves boys, we know you’re there 🙂
Yes, they do seem to play together nicely – very quickly agreed between themselves this is just an isolated case of shoddy journalism (you know, learn our lessons, a resignation or two, carry on as before).
Well done, boys!
This is the public sector. He will have a large cash pay off and he will keep his taxpayer funded government backed index linked pension that will be more than I will ever get as a wage. One the heat dies down he will be found another public sector job that requires little effort and less ability. He might even come back into the BBC as a ‘consultant’ getting lots of money for little work.
He will undergo BBC rehabilitation treatment and within the year will be co-hosting an impartial nightly politics programme with Denis MacShane.
Nah. Denis MacShane is pro-Israel to the core. No job for the likes of him at Al-Beeb.
Framer: “What exactly are his pay-off arrangements…”
“He will receive a year’s salary – £450,000 – as part of a pay-off…
The BBC’s Norman Smith says the Trust had confirmed Mr Entwistle will be given a year’s salary, even though he was legally only entitled to six months pay. [my emphasis]
Our correspondent says it is understood the decision to give him a full year’s salary was taken on Saturday night in order to reach a swift resolution to his departure.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20286198
Did the ‘honourable’ thing and held out for more dosh. The (gone-native) Trust doing their usual job of looking after the interests of the licence payer.
/sarc
Early next year I shall be an ex-payer of the tv licence, either because my head will have exploded from all the BBC shenanigans or because I will have implemented technology to avoid the licence requirement.
Chris Patten
or as i read elsewhere today,Chris Petain
how very apt
btw,for those of you who don’t know who petain was,he was a french traitor and nazi collaborator who sold out his own people
HAPPY DAYS, the worthless fuckers are on the run,. Oh, and the French just stuffed the Wallabies !
From the moment of his feeble performance in front of the House of Commons Select Committee he looked a doomed man. But is still beggars belief that he took no interest in the Newsnight Story. Quite unbelievable.
Then speaking of the resignation Patten said: “This is undoubtedly one of the saddest evenings of my public life. George Entwistle ….. exemplifies the finest values of public service broadcasting. At the heart of the BBC is its role as a trusted global news organisation” (sic).
Trusted? What price that belief now.
if the BBC told me the sky was blue,I would step outside to check
that’s how much i trust them
You would, and perhaps right now quite a % of the population would, but once the BBC has righted ship and their lefty helpers have spoken up for them and reminded everyone how awful TV would be without a state funded monopoly, everyone will go back to sleep and the BBC will role on with their mission.
I am sick of the Tories missing the chance to finish off the BBC. What is wrong with them ? Do they have a death wish?
I would always make sure Patten was standing where I could see him.
I wonder if Helen Boaden supported Entwistle with all the info he needed? I guess as we won’t be able to get the full facts through FoI we’ll never really know!
I guess she’d like to be considered for the top spot again. She has already shown she can deploy £100,000s
BBCour money for the lawyers (google ‘Boaden, FoI and David Marks QC’), and when there’s any trouble and blame flying aroundsupport the BBClook out for herself and keep her head down. Oh, and she’s a woman, so additional points there!So I suppose her action plan if she were to become boss might be:
– increase salaries even more, to be able to attract ‘the top people’;
– put in place another couple of layers of expensive management (to scramble accountability even more);
– hire more lawyers (they seem so useful);
– cut down on news investigations, and just make up stories from what ‘expert sources’ say off the record.
And I’m sure she’d be a unifying force at the BBC, as we can see from:
Civil war at BBC…’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222522/Civil-war-BBC-editor-hung-dry-Radio-5-Live-presenter-leads-growing-mutiny-corporation-chiefs.html
Helen Boaden appears, so far, to have done a fine job of keeping herself out of the headlines. For how much longer, one wonders? Sky News tonight were certainly making it clear that they consider the problem wasn’t so much the (ex) Director General, but rather the ‘senior management tier’ within the BBC… This ain’t over, folks. Pass the popcorn!
Next on the tumbril Gameshow Nikki for his,
“Yerve only gorragoogle ‘Thatcher’ and ‘paedophile’.”
There should not repeat not be any way back from that smear.
An open and shut case.
You didn’t quote all of George Entwistle’s resignation statement, here’s the last two sentences with my comments:
‘the BBC is full of people of the greatest talent and the highest integrity.’ – Talent, maybe. Integrity, I think not. The bias and bile spewed daily from the BBC is disgusting and there needs to be a clear out of much the BBC’s management and ‘journalists’to purge it of that bias and bile.
“the finest broadcaster in the world.” The most biased, maybe. The most effective at brainwashing the general public, maybe. The finest, don’t make me sick.
Love it.
It’s the very least of what should happen now. The very structure of the BBC has been shown to be inadequate and corrupt. It’s consistent failure to be balanced and impartial because of the mindset of those employed there makes it unsuitable for the role it was cast in.
If the government fails to act now they are even more abject failures. They will never get a better opportunity.
Since the election of the Coalition Government in 2010 there have two distinct trends at work within the BBC.
a) Anti-Tory campaigners
b) Corporate self-interest
Now so long as they were talking about the occupy crusties or Tory cuts or the Arab Spring or Cameron’s veto at the EU then all was perfectly in sync at the Beeb.
The so-called phone hacking scandal drama was the ideal topic about which those two strands of self-interest for the BBC payrollers could work hand in hand.
Look where it all went off the rails. The notorious non-report by Newsnight on Savile. Corporate self-interest trumped all journalistic instincts.
And now look where the whole circus big top has come crashing down. The Anti-Tory tendency over rode the corporate self-interest.
The BBC see themselves on a moral crusade to attack everything this country stands for, and they seek to reward themselves handsomely (and pay as little tax as possible) for all the trouble they take.
But you are correct “As I See It” that in the end their hatred of the English and their values trumps even their greed, and so keen were they to smear the Conservatives they did not even bother to make even the most basic of checks.
No I do not see the BBC has having the highest standards of integrity, I see them as having the lowest.
I warned everyone this would happen- the BBC is hideously white and it is showing. It has long been my recommendation that we allow Diane Abbot to appoint the DG.
Still hideous then?
I remember when the BBC broadcast The Black and White Minstrel Show. There was a lot of black people in that.
I’m turning in my grave now because of what has happened to the organisation I started.
Heh…now I’ve got Entwistle out of the way, it’s time for a bit of girl power….Reith ‘ll be spinning in his grave soon!
Could worser you could be Julia Middleton.
‘Diane Abbuse’ to appoint the new DG …no
be the new DG!!
Allwhite!
Just watched the night time news on BBC1.
Now I know it`s Remembrance Day, so black might be a colour to wear, but poor Kate Silverfish looked like a Soviet or Pyongyang booby…I mean how black do the BBC do?
Presumably its the Mandela funeral weeds they`ll all be wearing for a while yet.
No other news tonight either…Syria?…OFQUAL?…Wind Farms?…binned until further notice.
Funny, wondrous stuff…the Soviet/N. Korean influence is never so obvious as at times like this.
So the BBC Cenotaph gets another name-another martyr to add to its wall of progressives sadly cut down by an unenlightened , uninformed and rabid mob.
Savile .James
Entwhistel. George.
To be read aloud before the trombone, above kindly provided for 11.11a.m tomorrow
The next DG should be the last, charged to split up and close down the rancid bBBC.
I should be the next DG seeing I will need a new job when the Guardian closes.
I was the first DG maybe I should be the last DG.
Well it is the day to lay down your Reith.
The truth is there should be(at the very least) a seismic over-haul of the BBC in light of what has unfolded over the past month and this weekend.
Sadly, the BBC is, as I mentioned in another thread, so powerful, untouchable and full of itself that this is unlikely to happen.
I suspect George Entwistle will be seen/used by the BBC as a sacrificial lamb by which they will then give themselves the right to boulder on regardless.
This is a golden opportunity to fell the BBC but there’s just nobody to do it……
Even the Conservative Government seem to be sitting on their hands and missing the chance to do something…….
Nothing wrong with the BBC it pays for my Tuscany villa.
Hey, Poll! Something I’ve always wondered… How did you get into Oxford with (if what I’ve read online is true) only one A Level? My friend Claire, who’s your age and from the same Education Authority, was nothing less than brilliant all the way through school and got three A Levels all at the top possible grade, but there was no Oxford place for her, despite all her teachers’ expectations…
My Daddy was very rich and bribed Oxford.
did the samething to get me into journalism.
At the very least Andrew Neil as DG and David Vance as Chairman of the Trust.
After all the Trust is supposed to represent the interests of the license fee payer, not act as a cheerleader for the BBC.
Patten is well pensioned up by now, so he should retire from public life and do us all a favour.
Anyone able to quantify the Beeb’s Murdoch coverage over the last couple of years, and compare it to the coverage of their own demise?
I presume it will be a factor of 10:1.
Naughtie and Evan Davis on Today are already restless at so many references to their trouble and strife.
Naughtie will crack under the pressure of wearing the guise of impartiality. His journalistic version of Tourettes – where he can’t help blurting out leftie shite – will get the better of him.
At the time Entwhistle was appointed, the BBC website had a HYS piece or some such, allowing comments from the rabble. I posted a comment to the effect pointing out that Entwhistle had been in charge of the farcical jubilee coverage, so what could possibly go wrong? or words to that effect.
Amazingly, it was selected as an “Editor’s pick”.
And here we are, only a few short weeks later, and the useless ****** has gone. Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Incurious George is no more.
Remind me, who was the stupid twat who appointed him? And who was the stupid twat who he left in charge of News, and in particular of supervising Newsnight, after the Savile fiasco?
Patten and Boaden must be next to fall on their swords. And in pretty short order.
Exactly. And that should be just for starters.
Its Harrabin whos in for the biggest shock.
Campaigns against BBC and E.U.
The necessary campaign to end the public funding of the BBC has something in common with the growing popular campaign to end the Britain’s financial contribution to, and membership of the European Union.
Both the BBC and the E.U are undemocratic, political, globally ambitious, wasteful organisations. And both organisations are increasingly unpopular in Britain.
But as with the E.U, the lobby for the BBC includes – the Labour Party, Lib Dems, Tories, TUC.
As for the Beeboids themselves, there are next to no internal critics of the organisation in terms of its political output, its global growth, its monopolistic broadcasting role, and its gross waste and inefficiency. (Paxman’s comments in defence of Entrwistle totally miss the mark.)
Us champagne Socialists are perfect. The BBC doesn’t need anything done to it. All you daily reading little Englanders need to get more. Go to Hampstead for example.
Earls, your alter egos are priceless comedy. Ever thought of sending a script or two to Radio 4?
Would they accept me seeing I’m not left-wing?
As my dear old Dad used to say, “Trust me, son, all bad ba***rds get theirs in the end.”
…on Hampstead Heath – regularly.
In my day any BBC employee caught in Homosexual activities got 5 years hard labour.
Like the country will get in 2015, if we don’t wake up!
‘Mail on Sunday’ frontpage-
“Bloodbath at BBC as chief quits: Sensation as Director General is forced out for ‘shoddy journalism’ – and more tipped to go.
“George Entwistle’s announcement came after he admitted he did not watch last weekend’s BBC2 show.
“Mr Entwistle knew nothing about it – until a member of staff told him.
“The BBC chief described the report on child abuse as ‘unacceptable.’
“He warns staff involved in the programme could now face disciplinary action.
“Former Minister David Mellor said: ‘He came across as so out of touch.’
“Former PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer said: ‘Humphrys’ humiliation of Entwistle almost painful to listen to.'”
By LEON WATSON and ANNA EDWARDS
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-2231117/Bloodbath-BBC-chief-quits-Sensation-Director-General-George-Entwistle-forced-shoddy-journalism–tipped-go.html
The tone of the market rate media apologists, lining up to speak on behalf of poor old George, is that of someone making excuses for having to have a cute kitten gassed. There seems to be disbelief amongst the media chums that someone earning hundreds of thousands of licence payer pounds a year, as the head of the worlds most recognisable broadcaster should be, in some way, accountable for the actions of his organisation. Since he seems to have never heard of Jimmy Saville, never watched Newsnight or even read the BBC’s favourite newspaper, one has to ask: “What exactly are the duties of the DG?”
…………..oh and another thing.
A tiny little thing, but there you are.
Patten and Entwhistle both wearing nice red ties for their piece to camera tonight. Patten also wore a nice red tie when Entwhistle was appointed (just re-shown on Sky News midnight…).
Patten = TINO
Paxman and Kirsty Squawk shouldn’t resign, they should be fired.
Newsnight should be replaced by the Test card or pages of Ceefax
It doesn’t really matter if Bentwhistle resigns, they’ll just hire another apparatchik automaton.
Bit like moving the coffins round the crypt.
“BBC Fights To Retain Viewers’ Trust”*
By Katie Stallard.
http://news.sky.com/story/1009809/bbc-fights-to-retain-viewers-trust
[Shouldn’t the word be ‘gain’ not ‘retain’, Ms Stallard?]
* Posted about 1 hour before Entwistle’s resignation.
I expect that the BBC is rated less trustworthy now than at time of poll.
The truth is “BBC Fights to keep Viewers lack of Trust, secret from any BBC viewers still ignorant of the three big BBC cover-ups.
Will the BBC be spending a couple of hundred thousand on “consultants” to find the next DG?
They are so arrogant at the BBC and, empowered by their mate Fat Pang, they will have no hesitation in appointing another useless git to the post and I, for one, hope that they do. I believe that every useless, lefty, nonce in post at the BBC hastens its demise.
The most recent Newsnight scandal is a perfect demonstration of BBC arrogance and stupidity – in their haste to smear the Conservative party and deflect attention from the BBC in-house paedophile ring, they have buggered the current DG and flushed the BBC’s “peerless reputation” down the bog.
Great stuff!
Maybe I should come back from the dead and be DG of the BBC again.
Jimmy Savile would have liked that, according to Paul Gambaccini, Savile was a necrophile.
Gambaccini did seem desperate to keep the spotlight on Savile.
Oh hello Lord John, from your style I take it you are the younger son of an Earl, since no life or hereditary peer would use his title and Christian name?
I am trail blazer like when I started the BBC.
I am starting a new fashion.
George Entwistle, quoted in the Mail:
Though not, apparently, aware of what was going on in the organisation he was paid 400 grand a year to run.
Ah, the BBC talking to itself! How revealing.
Telling itself how wonderful it is, and how wrong and evil are those who disagree with it is their demented rationale for propaganda policies like:
“the science is settled”
How many schoolchildren (and probably teachers) have heard that lie and believe it must be true, because the BBC said it?
I think it’s the “Anthropogenic Global Warming is a fact” statement that is legally fatal for the BBC.
I find it really revealing that for the last week all BBC reports of the alleged care home abuse have referred to the involvement of “Tory” politicians said in a consistently sneering manner. Tonight it has miraculously changed to “Conservative”.
David Banks ex editor of The Mirror on BBC Radio 5, said by accident, slip of the tongue.
” The BBC is the best propaganda organization ”
“Entwistle isn’t the only BBC employee who doesn’t read the papers”
By Harry Mount .
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harrymount/100067211/?
BBC summed up:
“…the business of news gathering and broadcasting takes second place to the David Brent School of Management.”
Time to put Norman Tebbit in charge of the beeb.
Labour have been very quiet . Elementary my dear Watson you could sa.
Sorry iPad mistake
Rather amusingly, Iain Overton, who made the original and gleeful tweet about how Newsnight were about to expose a “Tory paedophile”, now claims that it was an accident due to him being on potent medication because of a serious illness (though, luckily, he was well enough to address the Oxford Union the night before).
I wonder what Monbiot and Bercow’s excuses will be? Not sure that being a swivel-eyed, left wing, nutjob will cut it with the libel jury.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Marr was stressed. This guy was… ‘on medication’.
And there’s always the ‘just joking’ for the more credulous.
Yet I am hearing ‘commentators’ now trying to say that the BBC will be just fine if a few bad eggs in the middle & top get promoted sideways on full benefits, some more cash is infused and we’ll soon get back to the good old Aunty we know and love.
Well, as I continue to ‘deal’ with CECUTT, as one individual, I have a few emails from a few lower order complaints drones and even a Newsnight producer that would suggest they are all permanently stressed, on medication and very seldom joking.
Trouble is, until this point, it has been the public paying for it, literally and figuratively.
So no, I don’t feel like kissing and making up so they can get back to the good old ways frankly.
Bullies should never prosper, no matter how unique they are.
The playground bully that is the BBC has been shown up for what it is (Savile, Newsnight, McAlpine, Tony Newbury…) and the time is now right for the whole school to say enough.
I await the outcome of another of their internal investigations. If it does not satisfy (and ‘we are right because we are always right’ will no longer fly) then they can kiss their DD goodbye and I’ll see ’em in court.
With, I suspect, a few others.
And a public mood they may not be able to count on any more.
“I await the outcome of another of their internal investigations.”
As will a great many people in this country.
But what faith can we put in any investigation while the publicly funded BBC is allowed to hide pertinent information from public scrutiny by FoI?
Will you take the BBC’s word as true, backed up by only any documentation they decide to let you see?
I watched David Elstein interviewed on Sky and the BBC. He made the point that the BBC is too bureaucratic, and should be streamlined and various parts split from each other.
I think we would agree with this, and is biased on a whole range of issues, but I would go further, and would urge, in this era of devolution in the UK, the formal division of broadcasting between the nations, especially for England which is not represented as a nation; it is divided into regions, so there would be a true ‘BBC’ England. New names would of course need to be divised.
Each would need to be completely independent of each other, separately financed and managed with independent editorial policies.
The BBC Trust should be dissolved and not replaced.
Prang Wizard – can you not see that breaking up the BBC into nations would be just the excuse the BBC would need to have one DG for each, one head of vision, one director of news, etc and they would have to be on the same money as the present pay scale- so of course the BBC would need an increase in the license fee.
But I assume Helen Boaden as director of news is responsible for Newsnight – or at least the bulletins that reported the Newsnight story. Now why didn’t she tell George E about the Messham story before it was broadcast? Time she went I think.
Sorry, on a re-read I obviously didn’t make myself clear at all in my enthusiasm. (Poor journalism!) I’m not advocating four new ‘BBCs’, just four new broadcasters. Sky started from next to nothing, so lets replace the present arrangements and open it to the market.
This isn’t about bias. It’s about journalistic competence. For the BBC, it derives from an active policy to introduce story breaking print journalists into their news operations. This came crashing down with Gilligan and Hutton (more serious if anything and aimed at a left wing government).
The BBC needs to sort out its editorial policy and controls.
Entwhistle did the right and honourable thing.
Jim part of what you say is correct, however the bias is there. Obviously I cannot prove it but had this been a labour peer or ex New Labour Minister (and there ARE a few of those in the same frame as that Lord MacAlpine was accused of) then I suspect the journalistic competence and due diligence would have been ratcheted up more than a few notches.
This isn’t about bias.
Bias is simply misdirected, and too often tolerated professional compromise on a tribal basis.
I’m off now with my two teenage sons in CCF uniform to a service at their school to honour their Grandad and others like him who fought for principles you and too many others wouldn’t recognise if you fell over a champagne bottle in the corridor.
About the only honourable thing so far has been Mr. Entwistle’s resignation, not that he had much choice.
Piss off arsehole. My family made sacrifices in both wars and I will honour them and those like them today.
Hmm Jim your left-wing debating skills are showing so please drop the abuse!
Ooooh, get her!
Sounds like a bit of a flounce to me.
Don’t worry, Jim, your beloved BBC with all it’s ‘climate change’ and other leftie bollocks bias will survive – nobody has the guts to give it the rogering it deserves – but go visit your doctor just in case.
Not a flounce, just a reaction against GuestWho’s lazy and unprovoked personal attack.
He’s an arsehole.
And you are a fool if you genuinely believe the attacks on McAlpine were not motivated by A/ animus against the Tories and B/ a desire to drag the BBC out of the post Savlille spotlight.
Jim – Guest Who is echoing the feelings a lot of us have got about the erosion of democracy in this country. It’s a fair point and it was hardly a personal attack he made on you.
I know you are making this an issue of sloppy journalism on Newsnight but here’s my perspective: I never watch Newsnight but I listen to a lot of Radio 4 and I lost count of the number of times I heard ‘senior tory politician from the Thatcher era’ last week. Pure anti-Tory, anti-Thatcher opportunism with the added bonus of deflecting attention from Savile – until it blew up in their face. ‘The BBC is in crisis’ as the R4 news so succinctly put it this morning – and so it damn well should be.
Johnny – thank you.
I have nothing to apologise to Mr. Dandy for but I do to you and others for letting a clearly provocative pronouncement at such a time lead me to being intemperate on a day where we should all value free speech and democracy, honouring those who would and did fight with their lives to defend the rights of any whose views they may not even share.
A few individuals, or programmes, are but a symptom of but a much greater malaise that has been allowed to seep into every fibre of what was once a great, British institution.
Already the hospital administrators are carrying out the triage over any qualified medical personnel, and with a view to saving everything else, especially their cushy numbers, before the near terminal patient.
A few slices of the surgeons knife may for a while excise the ugly growths on the outside now apparent to all, but if the problem is within the marrow, infecting even healthy tissue grafted on, then lashing out at those offering alternative diagnoses are simply the throes of the self-condemning.
Mr. Dandy,
As we seem to have moved from ‘run along’ through ‘move along’ to newer imprecations, your truer colours are showing more than ever.
I referred, deliberately, to certain principles you appear to have forgotten. Not you.
It may not yet have sunk in, but while sticks, stones and Capita-filed court injunctions can have an adverse impact on my life, what my Dad and others did has thus far ensured I can see fit to again not do what you are trying to tell me to.
Or agree with what you seek to impose.
Your first and only thought above was to tell people what isn’t. In this you are perfectly entitled to do so.
I simply get tired with the mindset that comes to a small free blog that shares concerns on BBC accuracy and integrity, and sees fit to then go way beyond legitimate factual corrections or polite debate too often to hurl arrogant, sometimes hypocritical abuse around like confetti, and then run to teacher whilst still spitting bile if disagreed with in a way that offends suddenly delicate sensibilities.
You have spent months not only claiming the BBC’s rectitude in all things (until now), which is your right to do, but mostly trying to deny any others having their own view, or seek to criticise. As is their right. Events would suggest your default defensive stance is misplaced and not borne out… a lot… in fact.
Why you seek to do this, if not paid to or related, heaven knows.
But here’s a thought… instead of spending your every waking hour snarking and dismissing and distracting from often highly pertinent professional errors and failures of objectivity by the BBC how about committing some time using your claimed considerable skills and experience in media management to helping them stop keep doing stuff that means people end up here to air and share concerns in the first place.
Or is ranting some more… here… going to be your only knee jerk again?
Have a nice Sunday.
And you have your wish… you are no longer bothering with. I’ll let others build bridges with you as you seem destined to be a feature no matter what.
That this has worked so well in the past.
‘I’m off now with my two teenage sons in CCF uniform to a service at their school to honour their Grandad and others like him who fought for principles you and too many others wouldn’t recognise if you fell over a champagne bottle in the corridor.’
I made a narrow point that this crisis was born of incompetence not bias. An entirely legitimate view. You disagree; fine. But then you bring into play the principles people fought for in the World Wars and accuse me personally of not recognising or presuably valuing them.
I am entirely happy to engage in debate, but when someone makes as asinine and insulting and irrelevant comment as you did then I will use my freedom of speech to react similarly.
One of the beauties of precedents set by those who set themselves up as rulemakers, is when they seem to feel breaking them has no consequence, they can (well, should) hardly complain if others do too.
So I think I must as a final, final (ish) parting shot invoke the Cleo Rules and respond just this one last, wafer thin time…
Glad you use the word narrow, as a hallmark of your contribution has been faux outrage on what you select to be offensive when you want it to be, and not when it suits.
Again the BBC metaphors abound.
You clearly exist here to tell people what is right and wrong, and when that fails flail about trying to drive them into submission or off.
Who shares such principles you figure out… if you can shed the historical blinkers long enough to recognise them.
‘asinine and insulting and irrelevant comment’
Your high horse is knackered Jim, and the pedestal you rode it onto is sited on quicksand.
‘ It has frig all to do with any kind of implicit or tacit support, which is the bizarre accusation of David Vance.’
‘Oy vey. Your incitement points are utterly absurd’
‘Yes but Hitler was uniquely evil. Not something to measure by bodycount.’
‘‘curious’! It would be utterly bizarre and asinine had they made that link.”
“Sometimes it is hard to maintain a cool head”
I had a reply then to that too, Jim.
“Maybe you are sincere in your desire to see truth and balance prevail in all broadcast, but it seems pretty one-sided to me. So you have set yourself the task of setting right the perceived wrongs in output of a small, independent, free blog, yet seem comfortable with the errors and excesses of a vast, paid media monopoly.
I find that oddly selective, if not unheard of where the BBC and its output is concerned.
I take my national broadcaster’s output and intentions deadly seriously, which is why I come to this site, to learn and share and discuss.
You seem to have a narrower focus. Professional levels of keeping it on the straight and narrow are laudable, but you clearly enjoy your role here, and especially when accorded value I fear I cannot share.
I think it’s just a game to you, and the mask slips when a ball gets hit back hard and wraps you on the knuckles.
Which is when the ‘cool’ demeanour slips. Seen it before… will be interested in seeing if it can be resisted in future. Because when it does Jim, I can look back in archive too.”
If you don’t like the heat in kitchens, best not to kick over the pot you’re stirring if your own ingredients are the most inflammatory.
That exchange was a happi(er) time, when we disagreed but had some mutual respect.
You opted for a path that means any I had for you has long passed.
I leave you with this…
‘the bbc is a national institution and it’s our patriotic duty to ensure it lives up to the standards we demand of it. if it sinks we’ll be left with shit like CNN and Fox to inform us.’
It has sunk worse than that Jim. And it’s dead.
” This came crashing down with Gilligan and Hutton”
Oh dear! now there’s a thought. GILLIGAN was the real problem?
Gonna be a wonderful day to surf the Biased-bbc blog as the reactions develop.
Good luck Jim!
To paraphrase the sainted Joe McCarthy, if it was just stupidity, the errors wouldn’t always favour the same side of the debate.
“This isn’t about bias. It’s about journalistic competence.”
What Jim Dandy said, though I would add “and oversight” to the end.
I also think there is a giant elephant in the room whose name in Mark Thompson.
George Entwistle was out of his depth and was overwhelmed by events and actions over which he had no control. I take little pleasure in his resignation and actually have some sympathy for him – he has taken a fall as a result of others’ incompetence.
actually I do take pleasure in it
a career beeboid who was promoted beyond his abilty,and was sure to have known the ethos of the organisation he was milking (ahem) getting paid by all along
no tears here
I do have sympathy for him and his wife and children. As a human being the pressure on him and the public humiliation must have been and probably still is terrible.
Since Lord Patten is on record as saying that G Entwhistle was the best candidate for the job, and since that has proven not to be the case, shouldn’t Lord Patten resign together with all the members of the BBC trust who chose Mr. Entwhistle for the job?
If not, what guarantee is there they won ‘t select unwisely again?
We are led to believe that the sky high salaries of BBC management are commensurate with mangers in the private sector doing a similar job and that, without these salaries, there would be some inexorable drain of this talent to the private sector. I personally doubt that any of the current crop of BBC management could find any kind of employment in the private sector, including shelf stacker and bog cleaner. It is wrong to sympathise with Entwistle, he was quite happy to take on his 400 grand job (for which, we were told, he was absolutely the best candidate) and I don’t recall him saying “I’ll do the job as long as I don’t have to do anything tricky or be responsible for my actions (or lack thereof)”. I seem to remember quite a few comments at the time voicing surprise that the bloke responsible for the Jubilee coverage fiasco was deemed the most competent candidate for the top job in broadcasting. And guess what? Those commentators were right to have doubts.
Marr’s paper review
Beeboid Jonathan Dumblebum being a beeboid and spouting beeboidery in defence of the bbc
quelle surprise!!
the McAlpine affair was wrong in one way,but in another way it was right to broadcast the story ……….it says here
wtf????
people trust the bbc according to dumblebum—wouldn’t count on that TOO much matey.Also he notes “the relish with which the papers are treating the story!(scandal)
oh-and of course “the cuts” have caused problems for journalists.
yeah-dead on dumblebum,you nailed it there 🙂
well pardon me,but have you ever heard of the expression “sauce for the goose”?
get it right up ye
as for Max Hastings-total waste of space(the beeb is great,all hail the beeb etc etc.The problem is that the management structure is all wrong.
No-the problem is an inherent anti conservative bias and a load of lazy lefty hacks getting their “stories” off twatter
Petain on now
apparently he’s “not surprised” that Rupert Murdoch’s papers are gunning for them”
said sarcastically by the way
he just said without a hint of irony that there are more senior managers in the bbc than the chinese communist party
you said it chris-you said it
Brilliant – keep on digging, Fatty Pang.
Hey Beeboids, you know how you loved the Smiths.
Well this morning your very own Johnny Marr is strumming along to the dulcet tones of The Last of the International Pay-boys.
Well, “please please please let me get what I want”
– BBC broken and finished.
I reckon we can pinpoint the terminal cancer at the BBC to the Brandross virus that they caught in 2008.
Bad enough before then of course….but the fungal pus that Brandross Russellicarus set in train has never drained from the BBc and has gone all malignant on them.
They even tried to get the good Dr Ratzinger clapped in irons when he came over with a cure in 2010…delusional , you see.
Now it`s the delusional phase with the shakes and sweats!
Couldn`t happen to a nicer bunch of people…living will anyone?
Incurious George
There he was looking happily pink as usual and for once it seemed he was excused boots at morning appel; he wouldn’t have to take the Guardian with his museli.
A very jolly day was in prospect. Smoozing with Ruritanian TV execs about the fabulous virtues of Public Service Broadcasting. I’m Editor-in-Chief of the BBC, don’t you know. Then back to the office for some rearranging of the paperclips and signing some more expenses cheques.
Ben Bradshaw on R4 news this morning defending Entwhistle to the hilt and asking why ‘the management’ aren’t being held to account.
Er, Ben, Entwhistle was paid £400,000 a year to do what, exactly?
“…asking why ‘the management’ aren’t being held to account.”
Well they should be.
But clearly if Entwistle couldn’t do that to prevent losing his job then he wasn’t going to do that if he was just left there as snoozing DG, was he?
Bradshaw is right, though, that the real culprits here are the other top brass and mid-level mandarins who have caused the real problems at the BBC. Only Humprys seems to have missed that point. The poisonous atmosphere they created is coming back to bite them now with this staff rebellion.
Breaking news. Lord Fatten mentions Murdoch press twice on BBC interview then cancels live interview on Sky! WTF?
Sky just announced He’s changed his mind again and will appear after all. Shambles!
“Director-General who turned a blind eye to BBC meltdown – and paid the ultimate price”
By IAN GALLAGHER and ABUL TAHER
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231210/Director-General-turned-blind-eye-BBC-meltdown–paid-ultimate-price.html
No doubt Helen Boaden will go (very slimy of her not to resign right now).
Will we now see the Balen report published? Probably not…
According to BBC loyalist, Fraser Nelson of ‘Spectator’, the next D.G. is likely to be a Labour Blairite activist or another BBC insider!
“Now that George Entwistle has quit, the BBC needs an outsider”
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/11/george-entwhistle-quits-now-the-bbc-needs-an-outsider/
By the way, where are the ‘Spectator’ analyses on alternatives ways to dismantle the BBC and end the licence fee?
the bbc should now go back to doing what they do best
episodes of shaun the sheep
he’s brill!!
A BBC comedy with Entwhistle as an electrician in Hull, Holmfirth or China.
Entwhistle gone, and according to Fatty Pang he did an “honourable” thing. I expect the only honourable thing Fatty will do, will be to hang on by his fingertips, kicking off any attempts to grab him and chuck him to the wolves, too (which should be a natural follow on, but I suppose there are plenty of leftie halfwits available to fill the boots of both of them).
“BBC crisis: the newspapers are unanimous – Entwistle had to go”
By Roy Greenslade.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/nov/11/george-entwistle-national-newspapers
I want Boaden!
A collection of turnip heads along the Embankment would be nice wouldn`t it for Christmas?
Unfortunately, we`d have to stuff their heads with SOMETHING(papier mache as made up from the Guardian?)…and we`d have to give them faces…they all seem to be bland nothings who nobody would recognise…which (to be fair) can`t be said of their talismanic paed-piper , Sir James of Savile.
Chinless-but not wonders at all…and way to late to give them any semblance of a spine now!
The BBC-providing gaiety to the nation now for 90 years…enough already…time to say goodnight eh Teddy?
“paed-piper” – I see what you did there Chris; very good, carry on!
Patten showing just how out of touch he is by blaming the “Murdoch press” for this fiasco.
I had to laugh this morning at Dimplebum Jr saying he couldn’t believe the viciousness of the sunday papers, – What goes around, my old son……..
Live footage from the BBC of the reaction of staff to George Entwistle’s resignation.