Read the headline to this post…it came from Guido Fawkes before the Newsnight programme was broadcast. Who knew eh?
This if anything, proves absolutely that George Entwistle failed utterly and completely to get a grip of his news team. Ian Overton editor of the London-based Bureau of Investigation working for Newsnight, claimed : “We’ve got a Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile”.
This immediately hit the headlines and the man who was to be named contacted the BBC and told them he would start legal action against them if they named him.
The BBC then backed down…..they now claim they had no intention of naming him.
But this all shows that this was big news….with potentially massive and damaging consequences for the BBC if it all went wrong.
Where was the DG? Why was he not all over this like a rash? Wouldn’t you be….especially for an organistaion whose whole existence is based upon the trust invested in it by the Public….the trust that gives it authority and credibility when reporting.
Here are some of the headlines before the programme went out…including the threat to sue the BBC if they named the man….If I was the DG I might have taken note!
Senior political figure threatens to sue BBC over paedophile claims …
However Iain Overton, editor of the London-based Bureau of … Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile”.
Newsnight To Out A ‘Senior Political Figure’ As Paedophile
@iainoverton. Iain Overton. If all goes well we’ve got a Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile.
Explosive Newsnight in Pipeline – Guy Fawkes’ blog
Bureau of Investigative Journalism hack Iain Overton has been working … out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile.— …
It even made it onto this military forum...and you can see the effect the revelation has on the way people speculate…..and that’s all driven by the BBC….
Here is one comment from that forum after the show had been aired:
‘Well that was a halfhearted waste of 15 mins, if they don’t have the evidence to name him and nothings changed in years then what was the point of the story? to smear the Tories and take a bit of heat off the BBC and Saville? and now we have everyone looking at the older Tories as if they’re all paedos.’
Lord McAlpine might well have a good legal case….the Tories also.
And Channel 4 knew…….
Michael Crick, a former Newsnight presenter and now a political correspondent with Channel 4 News, later said: “[A] ‘senior political figure’ due to be accused tonight by BBC of being paedophile denies allegations and tells me he’ll issue a libel writ against the BBC.”
Entwistle has allowed this to run out of control and his news team to smear the Tories.
Entwistle can’t remain. He has lost all credibility and after his grilling with Humphrys he has lost all authority.
Apparently the BBC did not even call McAlpine to get his response to the allegations. This is gutter journalism.
It gets even better – Newsnight’s star witness has a history of making false allegations of sexual abuse in court with expectations of payment for damages :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231212/Steven-Messham-Astonishing-story-BBC-DIDNT-tell-troubled-star-witness.html?ICO=most_read_module
All part of the “It wasn’t just the BBC” line of defense the BBC was trying to sell on every show for two weeks after the Savile revelation. And a pretty poor effort at it.
Entwistle shouldn’t have been given the job in the first place, as he’s been part of the management problem for years.
And Jonathan” pious ” Dumbleday ” How cretinous can you get , grow up ” has the gall to slag off Phillip Schofield.
As if the media, all media, isn’t already.
Why wouldn’t you slag off Schofield? Will Archie Norman resign?
I read that the Buearu have removed any info from there site about newsnight ?????
Yep, couldn’t find the tweet…seems to have been deleted.
And Watson gone very quiet….and website down.
Guess he’s doing some digging to back up his claims so that he doesn’t join Entwistle in the stocks.
It takes a lot to shut Watson up.
But if he wants a lead I’ll give him one:
Google Islington Child Care Scandal, call Eileen Fairweather and speak to Margaret “tax dodger” Hodge.
Now there IS a cover up.
The BBC suspended their dealings with them for now. Probably had to remove it. Now it’s just anti-war and “human rights” and anti-capitalist investigative journalism.
that speaks volumes
A quich check on the Bureau of Investigative Journalists tells you all you need to know about where they are coming from. Heck, they even make the bBBC look right wing. Just run a search on them, they are certainly on the bBBC’s wavelength.
No reason, then, to be even a little suspicious of a partisan agenda when claiming a juicy story about a “Thatcher-era Tory” bigwig, right? Yet the BBC bosses let it run without question.
Much more than Newsnight is tainted here.
When I went on it earlier today they had reference to the story but the comments option was closed’ mores the pity
I’d like to know more about this ‘Janet and John’ foundation that fund them.
It is clear the management is incompetent. Private sector they would be out today. The BBC?
Like ITV?
In the run up to the newsnight program the bBC aired numerous articles regards the witch-hunt in place by the right against…the bBC.
It appears that in order to shift the spotlight they paid a piper to knock out a tune in which to divert the hoards knocking at their door. The tune contained Tory,senior, paedophile and Thatcher. Elated that they had something which ticked all the boxes for a leftwing arsehole they allowed (with great fafare) the program to go out.
At first they succeeded and the media spot light moved to the right. Problem was, their so called pedo wasn’t and he got his lawyers to knock on the bBC door. Oh they played the victim card but as we have seen it hasn’t washed and they have been caught out.
Entwistle (The DG) is claiming he didn’t know in which to stop the buck stopping at him.
All evidence points to the fact that this program was pushed out without any checks. But hang on the bBC prides itself on the checks it carry out. You know when the guilty are Muslims killing non-muslims. But when the so called gulity are:
White,
Tories
Jews
British forces
The what do you know..nothing.
The bBC,the traitors in our Midst
The fact that, immediately after the revolting and ongoing SaVILE scandal, the organization attempted to deflect the spotlight on to the Tories in such a slipshod manner is nothing short of disgraceful. It further confirms what an ideologically charged, loose canon the BBC is. The BBC no longer can have the audacity to preach morality from the pulpit… but, things will carry on relentless with us coerced into funding its incompetent, biased and corrupt practices. Disgusted!
And in a world beyond irony, I saw on the news that one Gordon Brown is now the UN Global Envoy on education or such like!
As if Bianca and Ginger Spice aren`t mocking enough, we get Gordon Brown to ,,,well what exactly?
The man has hardly visited Parliament these last few years, which can`t be said of lovely Nadine Dorries…but the Tories will suck up the bile thrown at Nadine like the sad hoover that they are.
Is there ANYBODY at Tory HQ that wants to stuff Labours thirteen years back down its gullet, and put Brown in his wicca basket?…or are they all saps?
Maybe, just maybe…if we get Brown, Blunkett, Morris, Kelly, Johnson, Byers and all those other useless Labour school droolers into “places where they can affect global education”..China, Vietnam, Brazil, Kenya etc…we could f*** their education, whilst it is still in the pram…and buy ourselves a few more years of state-sloshed mediocrity, which passes for most schooling these days.
Let Brown roam, and pay him well-British jobs may prosper if the world is made as thick as Brown left OUR schools!
Let’s hope they don’t let Brown loose in the classroom with his economics lectures or that’s the whole world f****d for a new generation.
Brown might have bigger worries soon.
And his former next door neighbour.
Gordon Brown is busy riding the UN gravy train and saving the world’s children. And I’m sure his constituents still love him to death. Why would he bother going down to Westminster when people will just ask uncomfortable questions? He’s laying the groundwork for a sweet position at the top of some unelected supra-national organization.
More to the point, what exactly is he saving world’s children for!
Self-aggrandizement, and an easy step up the ladder. Saving the children is the easiest cause in the world to champion. Nobody can question the value of your cause. As we’ve all recently learned, eh?
That, and mandarins need peasants to rule over.
I saw this grinning cretin on the BBC today.
I’ve not seen this person on any news outlet for the last 18 months – cue two Newsnight cock-ups and there he is, being a really nice ambassador.
Vile.
Mr Entwistle told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he did not see yesterday’s Guardian newspaper naming Lord McAlpine because he was making a speech at London’s 21st Public Broadcasters International Conference
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bbc-director-general-george-entwistle-says-he-was-not-aware-of-newsnights-report-wrongly-implicating-lord-mcalpine-in-a-child-abuse-scandal-8303438.html
‘The BBC is proud to host the 21st Public Broadcasters International Conference in London on 7-9 November 2012.
Our vibrant agenda goes to the heart of PSB dilemmas and unashamedly confronts the most contentious issues in public service broadcasting. Expect honest, candid and forthright debate among broadcasters from every corner of the globe.’
But don’t expect the BBC to be honest candid or forthright toward the UK licence payers
http://www.publicbroadcastersinternational.org/conference.php
PBI LONDON 2012 IS HOSTED BY THE BBC
The provisional Conference agenda is as follows:
11:45 Closing session: Broadcaster priorities for 2013, with George Entwistle, Director General of the BBC.
[Correction: Searching for new employment priorities for 2013, with George Entwistle, former-Director General of the BBC]
Humphries admonishing Entwistle for not reading The Guardian yesterday morning (because everyone does, surely?) on ‘Today’ was sheer BBC broadcasting beauty…
That is why he had to go.
That he did not know what the Guardian/bien-pensants/right minded (and virtuous spokespeople of elitist aspirational niceness) line-steer-shape shifting-narrative enhancement was to be for the weekend really sealed his fate.
What is the point of the Guardian putting out its bile and BS if the bloody Beeb aren`t even reading it…who else buys the tawdry rag, but the News wallahs at the BBC?
No ciabatta for YOU Mr Entwhistle…and I hope you`re noting the eggy body language as well.
You deserve nothing better George.
Amidst all the ack-ack fire and scattergunning by the BBC and its liberal apologists; we still need to remember that the expose of Jimmy Savile was canned for political purposes…well as long as Shane Ritchies tribute was to be advertised.
Was Rippon leant on…why and by who?
Let`s hope that MacAlpine takes the BBCs “Children in Need ” appeal and uses it to fund his systemic mucking out of the Beeb Barn.
How the BBC DARE host a Children In Need event is beyond belief…many of them would not be “In Need” if the bloody BBC hadn`t decided to be Child Catcher and Butterfly Collector for Savile and the other jocks, rockers and slebs that we stump up for!
BBC…put in on the Sex Offenders register!
Of course, it was a different time… and for the BBC a few decades now gets, uniquely, to be a week.
And that, to some at Aunty, must be feeling already a very, very looooong time.
This time I don’t think I’ll be needing my page grabs even as the delete keys get hit and the shredders whirr.
Once again I ask where prole and dez have and nicked thingy have all gone?
I do hope they are OK and not too upset about their immaculately conceived Auntie Beeb going down the drain. Sad init?
Missing you already!
NOT.
Jim Dandy has already condemned Newsnight and Entwistle on another thread. This kind of thing doesn’t fall under prole’s area of supervision, and dez is on the night shift, not available for interviews at the current time. Judging from a couple of hints Nicked emus has dropped about his professional activities and his general attitude towards us, I wonder if he might actually with the Bureau of Investigate Journalism.
Not all he’s dropped.
And if he is from TBOIJ, that’s going to be a heck of a plus on the CV when it gets dusted off on Monday.
How many times … I do not work for the BBC, and never have done.
Yes I am a hack.
Newsnight’s journalism was utterly shoddy, really poor. I don’t think this proves anything but appallingly poor editorial judgement.
Newsnight’s credibility has been destroyed, it should go. The DG is toast. He needs to go too.
Nicked, who said you worked for the BBC? Don’t despair, though. Looks like there might be a couple positions opening up….. 😉
Yes, this fiasco proves there’s poor editorial judgment. But that’s not an actual answer to anything. The question is what priorities, what thought processes led to both the Savile decision and to this one. The entire system and behavior of personnel needs to be examined from top to bottom.
Perhaps we’ll learn things like what thought process led Newsnight to hire a far-Left activist – without labeling him as such and without informing the viewer that someone presented as an independent voice was actually that activist’s partner in crime (so to speak) – to tell you that only white Republicans try to rig elections, specifically to keep black people from voting, while assuring you that none of the voter fraud ACORN or any other Left-wing groups get up to ever affects elections.
Or why the first question Jeremy Paxman asked George Galloway after winning his first seat in Parliament was if he, Galloway, was proud of unseating a black MP. Or why Allegra Stratton misrepresented and attacked that young woman about housing benefits.
So many questions, and “appallingly poor editorial judgment” isn’t an answer. Without really asking the right questions, simply shutting down Newsnight will change nothing, as all the bad actors will simply carry on elsewhere.
It may surprise you that I agree with yr final par. Simply shutting it down and then re-opening it a week later (The Sunday Sun) won’t achieve anything.
How did Newsnight get into this position? What are the editorial processes they have in place? Do they have the right balance in the team?
As for your specific points I didn’t see those programmes (funny how much UK TV you watch) so I have no comment.
This is a very dark day for UK journalism, and heaven knows there have been enough of them of late.
Actually, Nicked, I’m not surprised at all. You’re no fool.
I wasn’t expecting responses to the examples I raised; they were just that: examples to support my larger point.
The BBC broadcasts in the US, you know. In fact, for about six months they did a kind of “Best of Newsnight” (not the actual title) compilation every Friday evening on BBC America, until the channel gave up entirely on being anything other than BBC Gold, only with gems like The In-Betweeners and a lot of Gordon Ramsey swearing thrown into the mix. I guess I should have seen that coming way back when they ruined Walking With Dinosaurs by cutting out Kenneth Brannagh’s engaging narration and replacing it with the stilted, over-wrought reading by Avery Brooks. I know focus groups told them some US audiences had trouble with foreign accents, but WTF?
They still produce a rump of a nightly news show in the US, specifically targeted at ignorant, parochial United Statesians like myself. It was so good that they cut it in half, and dumped it from BBC America entirely. Matt Frei saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship (hasn’t worked out as well as he’d hoped, I don’t think), leaving the reins in the hyper-partisan hands of a personal friend and business partner of the President’s spokesman’s wife. It’s now run before dinner time on select PBS outlets. Plus the BBC World News half hour (which, believe it or not, used to compete directly in the same time slot in some markets), made, admittedly, for the Anglosphere in general, not just the US.
And never mind that the BBC has misinformed or misled my British friends and business acquaintances on important matters.
Having said all that, I find it interesting that you say it’s a dark day for UK journalism. Since it doesn’t directly affect Sky or ITV or the sainted Guardian or the “Tory Press” (other than possibly making a few people newly available for hire), why does the failure of one BBC news show cast a shadow over the entire country? I know my own answer to that question, but what’s yours?
Because the reputation of British journalism has never been lower and this drives it even further down. It means it is harder for every other journalist doing his or her job.
This is a failure of journalism and a very public one at that. In the same way as the news international affected everyone this will have the same effect.
Journalism is a very curious beast; it is private enterprise doing a public good. What form it takes, and who does it, is up for debate, but it is a public good. If you want to see what a country looks likes without a media that holds the leadership to account have a look at Russia.
This episode is journalism at its worst. An appalling abuse of power.
Newsnight has lost all of its credibility. Who would want to appear on it now? Who will believe anything it says?
The BBC has to dump it unless it wants to take the whole edifice down with it. Now I know that that is music to the ears of people on this blog.
keep it on.keep it on!!
Mainstream journalism is finished if it doesn’t change. It presents a Middle class metro trendy socialist viewpoint that represents Hampstead and Islington and no where else.
Look how bad newspapers are doing especially local ones. In 5 years most local papers will be gone and a few nationals as well.
If the BBC doesn’t change it will be taken down though some mass refusal to pay its licence fee. Its being organised and it will happen and any government Tory or Labour will be glad that the BBC will be gone.
They won’t have to pander to them anymore.
You can be a pain Mr Emus…and no doubt we can be too to you.
That said, I happen to think this well written and correct.
More please sir in this vein!
Poor effort, Nicked. You know what the BBC strategy is on this either through direct contact or simply by being of the same mindset – dump Newsnight, sacrifice a couple of names at the top, ‘learn lessons’ – then move on with your eco-leftist propaganda machine intact.
Let’s see how long the two of you keep it going.
Good points, Nicked. But as you well know, if the same producers and editors who’re behind these and other disasters (and the top brass who let it happen) just get moved over to other shows, shutting down Newsnight surely cannot be the end of the problems. A number of people have to be exiled from the BBC entirely.
And actually, I know all about living in a country where the mainstream media and largest and most influential outlets do not hold leadership to account. We’re seeing the consequences of it right now, and it’s only just begun.
Yes but was it bias?
Newsnight’s future is neither here nor there. It’s just a political discussion programme with some news reports much like Channel 4 News and probably needed in some format or another. Actually C4 News is better because it is proud to be biassed and we all know that it is – Sean Snow anyway and some of his lady friends.
If it is just about incompetence we can move on, but you know it is not.
It is about the certainties of a statist organisation who diverted £1 billion from licence fees to its pension fund last year with hardly a word of justification; and definitely no Newsnight investigation.
It’s about bias, stupid.
Well you said it, and it happened a few hours later!
You may be the coming man there sir!…as if any sane bloke would touch it.
Good point on the Archive on 4 about Reith-no manager, but he inspired the BBC to think morally, despite his personal hypocrisies and failings.
All we`re being offered now are managers….no wonder the Beeb are stuffed.
Desperate-I simply can`t think of ANYBODY in British life with that “inspiring” quality…looks like we`d best keep that little Pakistani girl and make her head of the Beeb.
Even she`d be rendered an oaf after a few weeks in that massive, publicly funded ratsack…better off taking her chances back home at this rate.
Amazing tweet from Jonathan Dimbleby https://twitter.com/dimbleby_jd/status/267251279510777857
“Only upside of new Newsnight disgrace is that editor’s decision to drop Savile report may seem wise caution not cowardice.”
No it wasn’t not caution. The original report was corroborated by many testimonies about a BBC presenter which would have stood up in court, and evidence that was later broadcasted by ITV – which is precisely the reason we are where we are.
Newsnight’s latest wasn’t, it wasn’t corroborated and was based on the mistaken evidence of one man.
Such ‘nuances’ though mean nothing when defending Auntie.
if that’s being taken as “upside” then you know they’re really in the crap
Bet the BBC mandarins trying to protect Newsnight thought the same thing, which is why they let this one run.
Good spot.
Have a feeling then that that might be the new ‘official line’ for the BBC as Sheila Fogarty played the same cards yesterday on her show.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nphcq
I really hope they will decide to take this tack in defending their reason to abandon the Savile Newsnight report. Unlike with the Tory minister, there are those at the BBC who were very aware of what Savile was doing, so they had first hand knowledge of its veracity. It seems likely that it was to cover up their silence and complicity to his abuse over the years was the main reason to cancel the report.
Let them try using ‘caution’ as the excuse, they will be hammered.
“Bureau of Investigative Journalism says trustees appalled at what appears to be a breach of its standards in relation to Newsnight report “
Forget ‘management incompetence’ and think ‘arrogant complacency’. This is the BBC coming unstuck because they honestly believed they were untouchable and could smear the Tories in whatever way they chose, and at the same time deflect attention from the Savile fiasco by creating their own on-going news thread. I bet before it all blew up they were high-fiving each other over their own cleverness.
‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.’
Seems Aunty scored a BOGOF.
They got mad enough to ignore the red mist.
Then mad enough to forget inbreeding at court has consequences eventually.
Very biblical.
I’m beginning to wonder if Mr. Court may have been onto some’at.
I’m just warning people of divine justice if they don’t repent.
The BBC is everything that god hates.
They mock God and his son our lord and saviour Jesus Christ every chance they get.
They will suffer gods just anger and suffer eternal damnation in the lake of fire if they don’t repent.
The BBC is everything that god hates.
More of an ITV guy is he? Likes a bit of X factor and I’m a Celebrity … Funny. I would have had him down as an Archers, you and yours guy myself.
Why would God need to watch television anyway he can see everything anyway.
Revenge is mine eh?
When the likes of Benedict were under threat of a “citizens arrest” by the likes of Robertson, Dawkins, Tatchell, Penney, Hari etc(whatever happened to Hari then?); we surely knew that God would not be putting up with this BBC-inspired guff for much longer.
Two years is bit a second or two to God!
And on a day when we can compare how the Vatican deals with its leakers…compassionate sentences etc with the Assange stuff and how the LeftLeberal luvvies allow THEIR leakers to get away with it!
The BBC needs now to be wiped out and turned to a deadtree option for us to buy or pick up at London Bridge etc…let`s call it the “new and refreshed” Guardian.
Hari is in the doghouse seeing he got caught copying stuff in his articles.
Even I’ve just written the same article for the last 40 years Polly Toynbee never did that.
I knew this Mr Court.
It just gave me an excuse to hang his sorry carcass of a career round the neck of the liberal elite who loved his hatred of Israel etc.
See…there IS a God…but let`s not tell `em eh?
…as ever, when they’re under pressure their reflex is to point at ‘the evil one’ and sneer “…but he’s the REAL bad guy, we’re the nice ones, leave us alone…it’s not fair”. It’s all about Murdoch at the BBC.
this murdoch nonsense just isn’t going to wash this time
they’re a busted flush,and i think even they know it without actually admitting it
these are the tactics of the downright desperate
a cornered rat will do anything to try to escape
“Statement from Trustees of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/11/10/statement-from-trustees-of-the-bureau-of-investigative-journalism … “
Incoherent and badly written disclaimer. By a journalist I presume?
Now might be time to tip the BBC into that empty grave vacated by one of their favourite sons who “fell”…and when better to celebrate their talisman than this Remembrance Day weekend.
I refer of course to Savile. Beeboids might ,by now : be so thick(and checking all those emails of theirs) that they`ll not know what I`m talking about any more-Jimmy was so last month now, dahling!
But …after doctoring the Queens footage, after those prize fiddles, phoneline scams, Brand/Ross and those tax dodges the BBC are not trusted…and they`re so bovine that nearly half of them STILL trust the BBC!
It`s been a couple of good “dress down Fridays” there at the BBC…Newsnight is the clownface of the organisation…and the kids that let the likes of Brand drag the BBC through the gutters seem to have learned nothing.
Why would they?
The adults have long gone to bed, and let the BBCs kids chill, chuck words like “paedo” around…because they think Brand was ” a laff” and as long as their Twitter chums get a giggle and give a smiley face, then job done.
I`m looking forward to next Fridays capers…Children In Need…what could possibly go wrong?
Its been amusing to watch agitprop24 today and I’ve invented my own parlour game, trying to guess which member of the BBC’s inner circle will be brought into the studio next to analyze the crisis, completely impartially of course. So far I’ve seen Steve Hewlett, Poly Toynbee and Mark Easton; Twitter rumour has it that Karl Marx will soon be disinterred for his sage comments.
Easton was forced to admit “if we lose trust the jig is up for us” I think I quote him virtually verbatim. I do get the sense that the BBC hivemind is truly panicking and they seem to be prepared to throw Entwhistle to the wolves by the looks of it. One can imagine them reasoning A la The collectivist Borg from Star Trek, “the needs of many outway the needs of the one”.
In any case they are really putting th eboot into Entwhistle on News24. Easton has concocted a new nickname for his boss “Incurious George” something which reveals what a bunch of backstabbers the BBC are.
The BBC are nothing else if not incorrigible and utterly shameless.
How the hell dare they continue to offer their “hook up” with schools…called School Report, voiced over by Huw Edwards?
Given what the BBCs reputation is now, it should not be allowed to offer wannabe journalists in schools, a chance to meet Darren in make up, Evan in features and cameraman Colin…not until they`ve dealt with the Savilisation that seems to rot the BBC from top to …yes, bottom.
For Gods sake-Children In Need? School Report?…time to tell them to show a bit of courage and put their mobile contact details up on phone boxes in Shepherds Bush market, if they want to “get their hands on the nub of youth”…not flaunt their predilections and lack of CRB checks, throughout this seediest of eras in BBC history.
Huw Edwards now sounds decidedly sinister.
F***Off BBC!
“The BBC wanted to read the words ‘paedophile’ and ‘Tory’ in the same headline. But things didn’t go to plan…”
By Damian Thompson.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100188920/the-bbc-wanted-to-read-the-words-paedophile-and-tory-in-the-same-headline-but-things-didnt-go-to-plan/
‘The Observer’:-
“‘Rudderless’ BBC faces disaster in Newsnight abuse crisis
Boss’s future under threat after poor radio performance as Jonathan Dimbleby says corporation ‘heading towards rocks'”
By Lisa O’Carroll, Maggie Brown and Vanessa Thorpe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/10/bbc-newsnight-abuse-crisis-dimbleby
Some breaking news on bBc news at 9pm
Imagine you are an investigative journalist interviewing somebody who claims to have been abused as a child by a high-up figure in government.
You try to contain your excitement at the prospect of this scoop and behave in a professional manner.
So you ask questions about where and when this abuse supposedly took place, if the victim knows who committed this abuse, and if so, how they know it was this person.
That’s if you are a professional – concerned about your credentials and making sure you report the truth.
When for example we see BBC coverage of Mid-East incidents where Israel is concerned, any slurs or blame will be accepted and reported without the slightest attempt to justify those claims. If the BBC wants it to be true – it is true.
So as soon as this BBC investigative reporter heard that a senior Tory was involved, so happy and willing was he to run with it, he didn’t question just how the victim knew that it really was the person he claimed it was. According to the BBC they even had their lawyers examine the data they had before running the story, and were given the go ahead.
This is the first of concerns that are revealed about BBC recent behaviour.
Now consider that following the flak the BBC has been getting over the Newsnight fiasco over the non-reporting of Savile, they are now about to launch an attack against a senior Tory MP for alleged child abuse. Should the director general make it his business to make sure all the i’s have been dotted and t’s crossed.
Not this one.
I’m reminded of Major Major (Bob Newhart) in Catch 22, who told his assistant not to let anybody into his office when he was in, but only when he left. That way he could avoid making any decisions that might be wrong.
Added that the BBC are so used to looking the other way to avoid seeing the truth when they think it suits their purpose, they can’t help themselves.
Sounds like Newsnight and Entwhistle are being set up as the sacrificial lambs: look we have cleaned up, now look over there, nothing to see here…
Ah yes Children in Need time again….when the workers of the country are asked to contribute yet more of their post tax income to provide the services that the govt should already be providing from the £675bn they already extract from us.
Alternatively the BBC could hand over 1% of their annual income and hey presto we have raised £35m without having to listen Wogan rattling his lovely little Oirish begging bowl all evening….