Could the deck of cards be crumbling?
The BBC’s director of news, Helen Boaden, and her deputy have “stepped aside” pending the outcome of an internal review. The move by Ms Boaden and Steve Mitchell comes after director general George Entwistle quit on Saturday. The BBC said it was not commenting yet, but there will be an announcement within hours.
Time to axe the institutional bias and time for a REAL debate on it. It is curious how the BBC studiously ignores the MOST vocal critics at this time….
Time for a game of “Stepping Aside Bingo”
Stepping aside
Getting a grip
The BBC have enemies
Murdoch
Back bench Tories
Poor us
Entwistle was great
Fat Pang is great
Not his/their/our fault
This has been the drivel I have heard today, they are a fecking disgrace.
I’m afraid for all the “drama” what needs to change won’t change and that’s the entire ethos of the BBC as it stands.
They’ll come out of this even more holier than thou saying they’ve “learnt some hard lessons” blah, blah, blah but the same left wing dogma will be in place as well as the prejudice aganist Israel and sympathy for Islam.
It pains me to say this but unfortunately, in a few months time it will be business as usual.
I think it’s already looking like that. it’s amazing how quickly and shamelessly they re-group to go on the front foot. Yesterday lunchtime Polly Toynbee was being interviewed and was reminding viewers how many in the Conservative Party “hated the BBC”, and singling out Paul Mason’s reporting as just one reason why Newsnight needs to be saved. And the BBC are already creating diversions and engineering discussions on this into it all being about management structures blah blah blah (Paxo couldn’t help blaming some of it on the cuts!)rather than it being a straight and simple exposed example of their anti-Conservative culture. And as ever anyone within the main body of the Conservative Party is terrified of pointing the obvious out – even John Whittingdale sounded as wet as anything saying he “wasn’t convinced” that George Entwistle deserved all of his pay-off.
Yes the BBCwill carry on as usual but with a difference. I believe this is a watershed moment for the BBC and many of the public’s eyes have been opened. For the first time polls show that more people distrust the BBC than trust it, a startling turnaround.
Poly Toynbee preaching to the converted isn’t going to change that. Who listens to her anyway outside West Hampstead?
The BBC will continue to limp on, possibly for many decades but I do think it has been fatally wounded now.
Singling out Paul Mason as an example of what’s great about BBC journalism is a dead giveaway. They can change mandarins, but unless the entire system and a significant contingent of personnel, the bias will remain the same, the low morale will remain the same.
‘Singling out Paul Mason as an example of what’s great about BBC journalism is a dead giveaway.’
Not too smart anyway.
He’s the Anger and Protests Editor who may mention Economics once, but only if he thinks he can get away with it.
A man who described the PM resisting a EuroHole as ‘the UK throwing its toys out of the pram’ when most of the country was not accurately represented by that claim.
Ms. Toynbee must be allowed to dig her way to the US, where she can unearth Katty Kay and her ‘speaking for the nation’ gems.
It was interesting to hear David Dimbleby on R4 ‘Today’ this morning saying that the new director general will need to check things like “have they read the Guardian today”.
” “have they read the Guardian today”. ”
doesn’t that perfectly sum up what exactly is wrong there. But they will NEVER see it.
In fairness, that was an allusion to the fact that it was the Guardian which revealed mistaken identity over McAlpine, and that Entwistle told Humphrys he hadn’t read it. Dimbleby was taking a swipe at Entwistle.
Quite.
Indeed. But it begs the question of what the hell they are paying their journalists and far too many layers of management for, if they are saying that they need that attrocious left wing rag “the Guardian” to do their jobs and fact-checking for them?
Sure that shows that they should be shut down and it would be better to have a “test screen” up on the multiple BBC news outlets saying simply,
“Read the bloody Guardian!”
It’s what their own “journalists” do.
Really? Surely the point is he should be keeping abreast of what all the newspapers are saying? In this case it might have been The Guardian but it could just as easily have been The Times. If he’d said ‘Read the newspapers’ people who are interested in this case would have known which paper broke this particular news.
Anyway, given the number of copies of the Guardian that are lying around Broadcasting House every morning it’s amazing he didn’t spot it. Allegedly.
Surely the bBBC ‘journalists’ can’t read The Times? That’s the Murdoch rag that exposed the Muslim paedophile gangs. Can’t be having our precious leftie sensibilities offended by the downsides of multicultural Britain.
‘Stepping aside’ = Approved procedure when a BBC comrade finds him or herself embroiled in a spot of ‘local difficulty’, said comrade will be sent to their holiday dacha on a lengthy spot of (paid) ‘gardening leave’, to be followed eventually by quiet reappointment to a less visible or non- ‘public-facing’ position within the Politburo on a higher pay grade.
Just can’t wait to see Dimblebores sour pained expression on the next QT show!
How will they pack the audience and the panel i wonder?
With even more rabid Murdoch haters, who will claim, it matters not what the witch hunt against the BBC uncovers, it is still far less wrong than the evil monster Murdoch.
These people have absolutely NO shame whatsoever!
I can just hear it from the panel and the carefully-selected comrades-in-arms a.k.a. ‘the audience’: ‘It is vital the BBC keeps its independence and is free from political influence’. Said with a straight face of course, every time.
Great piece by Boris in the Telegraph today. We really shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the BBC set about smearing an ex-aide to Margaret Thatcher purely to divert attention from the BBC’s role in facilitating on-site child abuse over several decades.
Any lie, it seems, will do, particularly when there’s a link to Mrs Thacher.
Yes, and one by Andrew Pierce in the Mail on Tom Watson.
There is a big difference between the factless attacks by the BBC and the fact filled attack on Watson.
That was factual reporting about Watson.
The BBC did no favours to Tony Blair either. In 2004 the BBC didnot even report any on his 8 minute standing ovation speech in Washington and in 2006 his speech in Las Angeles was covered by the News at 10 with the words “this is what the Prime Minister meant to say”
Yes, but the attacks on Blair were from the Left – the direction from which all BBC criticism comes.
“the attacks on Blair were from the Left”
Precisely
‘Illegal wars’ was the only criticism I ever heard from the Left, including the insufferable ‘News Quiz’.
It really irks me that, whilst they duck-shove and dump a few people to make it look as if they’re “dealing” with both the Savile and the McAlpine scandals, these BBC buddies (like Patten, Dimbleby, et al) whilst speaking of regaining the “trust” of the viewers/listeners, carefully sidestep the underlying issue that the BBC are more hated and distrusted than ever largely because of the blatant socialist left-wing leaning they now espouse, and which can be witnessed all day, on a daily basis.
This never seems to get a mention, and is cunningly avoided whilst dealing with the current misdemeanours.
Nor does the disgraceful affair of the “28” at the climate change conference, the identities of whom they go to great lengths to cover up, despite FOI requests.
Speaking of FOI requests, isn’t it disgusting that they (the BBC) use them as much as possible to drag information out of others to suit their own ends, yet go to such lengths to avoid submitting to them themselves?
What a cowardly, nasty, leftie gang of bullying miscreants they are. Sack Patten, and a good many more; privatise the whole shebang, and withdraw the need for the general public to have to pay for this shite.
Also, why have they been allowed to grow in size to such monstrous proportions, with fingers in many pies? Why do they need so many radio and television channels? There is so much repeated material between BBC 2 and BBC 4, for example, there seems to me to be a good reason to get rid of one, particularly as we can now record programmes ourselves, or drag archive material out to watch via the internet. There’s no need for repeats, any more.
I remember the good old days of BBC1, then BBC2, The Home Service, The Light Programme and the Third programme. That’s all we need.
We don’t need a socialist, smarmy labour-based, Euro-funded organisation spouting its horrid bias, its catastrophic global warming ideas, and other such rubbish. Get rid.
Totally agree. They’re owned by the license fee payer, yet behave like a secret society when asked inconvenient questions.
I decided to stop funding them due to their side-stepping and refusal to answer perfectly reasonable questions in written complaints.
Well said. I don’t want a reformed BBC, I want to see it scattered to the four winds.
If we imagine for one moment that a night or two of the long knives will solve the problem in the BBC we are going to be sorely disappointed. Root and branch for years the staff at all levels in the BBC have been brainwashed to believe in their warped view of the world. It is not just left wing it is much deeper than that, it is a strange camp, sneering view of anything that is from the establishment, i.e. conservative as well as Conservatives, with Mrs Thatcher deemed the Anti-Christ.
It is an unrealistic destructive, celebrity based mind-set that comes from never having to say you are sorry and even worse there are no penalties even in disgrace. Are there, Mr, £450,000 settlement for a job badly done plus a six figure a year pension, Entwistle?
That mind-set cannot be changed because of a few management shuffles and a week or two of bad publicity. There is no serious call for the breakup of the monstrous BBC even from the Tory right wing.
What I fear will happen is that the subtle propaganda machine will automatically kick in, in fact it already has, they are already advertising this morning how good they are at uncovering wrongdoing on Watchdog. Then there will be a long term and vicious revenge strategy. It is in their blood, we can see even on this blog the defenders of the faith go after their man, not the augment, in true left wing style and with no holds barred. After all the End Justifies the Means and Stalin still lives in them to this day.
I would like to think I am wrong, but…
Folowing Cameron’s lamentable failure to get a grip on the BBC when he had the chance, I think it may be time to break up The Conservative Party as well as the BBC. Cameron should step aside. Time for real leadership, not a PR Toff-boy.
If Cameron dares lift a finger against his beloved BBC and their shared liberal-left wing agenda, the BBC and the labour party and the public sector Unions and other funded left wing “charities” will all combine to slaughter the tories with an overwhelming, no-holds barred avalanche of lies, smears and unquestioned bullshit.
The tories NEED a real hard right wing heavyweight patriot now to take on and dismantle the BBC whilst it is wounded.
I think Cameron will do all he can to save it instead!
There’s stepping aside, and BBC ‘unique’ stepping aside…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/statements/macquarrie-report.html
‘they expect to then return to their positions’
The BBC – You put your left foot in; your left foot in further…
In the private sector (and most of the public, I’d guess) you either resign, are sacked, made redundant, or suspended. The first three mean you’ve lost your job, the fourth means you could lose your job (in fact, strong likelihood you will).
‘Step aside and expect to return to your position’ is a nonsense The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party would be envious of.
It always come back to Northern Ireland. The wally who approved the Newsnight report was the BBC’s Northern Ireland controller Peter Johnston. He made the decision because the Beeb was ‘running out of people’ from its management board to do so. Mr Johnston who worked in marketing for Shell and as a management consultant at Coopers and Lybrand “has very little journalistic experience”.
But he knows what to do in such a crisis – keep David Vance off the airwaves.
The prestigious local radio programme, Sunday Sequence, had an insightful discussion on the crisis yesterday – with three BBC insiders who, as one, bemoaned the mistakes made and oddly did not mention political bias or the Tories.
DV is called in as a fall guy on occasional economic discussions by Stephen Nolan, but the most obvious go-to candidate in Northern Ireland to discuss the BBC meltdown is ruthlessly kept off the air.
I wonder did Johnston make that decision too?
“the most obvious go-to candidate in Northern Ireland to discuss the BBC meltdown is ruthlessly kept off the air.”
Maybe DV should be invited onto BBC Question Time?
The Order of the Brown Nose (1st Class) goes jointly to Wild and Framer.
“ruthlessly kept off the air.” Ha — that is the best thing I have read all day.
So David Vance, a man whose only qualification is he runs a couple of blogs (and had one shut down because the platform it was on said it was racist deemed it hate speech) populated by a bunch of old, angry, far-right, white men, should be on question time? Why? All he does is recycle opinions he lifts from the Daily Mail and even worse, the Express. If I want to know what the Daily Mail thinks I will go there; the organ grinder, not the little monkey.
A man who twice ran for elected office and was twice humiliatingly rejected.
A man who endless complains about the BBC unless it is writing cheques with his name on it, then oh, what a surprise, he is all in favour of it.
“the organ grinder, not the little monkey.”
With defenders like you the BBC does not need enemies.
Every day, in every way, you sink lower and lower.
A fine perch you`ve got there sir!
All that shit swirling around your beloved BBC…all your darlings that we fund proving to be lying grooming nonces and tax dodgers, yet its Mr Vance who`s the problem!
“old angry white men eh”…under MacPherson, can`t I take a case out on you?…after all, I perceive you to be a sour sort grubbing around for some kind of salve for yourself.
Mr Vance is on the right side of history…you, Mr Emus are an aimless kind of controversist.
If your beloved BBC is not a problem to you, then even the likes of Mr Vance can help you.
Mr Vance is on the right side of history
A man who campaigned on opposition to the GFA twice and was twice rejected. A man who had a blog closed from under him because it was deemed to be racist.
I don’t think so. He has never been on the right side of history.
Vance who`s the problem!
I never said he is the problem, but he sure as hell is not the solution.
This should be this blog’s finest hour, this is the culmination of 10 years of shouting in the wilderness. Get it right and for once, someone might actually listen to you.
But no, with all the predictability of an oncoming train you manage to f*** it up. A bit more thought and a bit less knee-jerk angryoldwhiteman reactionary comments and you could have done it.
Oh well, back to the wilderness for you lot, tilting at windmills and dreaming of what could have been.
It isn’t “my BBC”, i have made my position quite clear, but once again the tangential relationship this blog has with facts means it pings off into the ether.
The role of DG needs to be split between an editor in chief and a CEO. This is common in many other news organisations, there is no reason not to have it at the BBC. It means the EIC concentrates on the quality of output and leaves the day-to-day management to others. This clusterfuck was caused by a conflation of management incompetence and shocking editorial misjudgment.
I find it hard to see how Patten still has his job. That makes zero sense. He has to go
If you persist with the angryoldwhiteman it is very hard for me to take you at all seriously. It just sounds silly. A bit Monty Pythonesque.
I am under no illusions that there will be any real change at the BBC. That is not possible given the liberal stranglehold on our major institutions. Tinkering with the BBC will do nothing to change this.
What will is either dramatic economic collapse or a black swan event nobody can forsee. And inevitably the passing of time.
This is a time of liberalism triumphant. Of the 60s counter culture becoming mainstream and dominant. The AOWM were always the enemy . What is meant by this is that their values had to be discredited. It only works for so long .When reality and the vagaries of human nature assert themselves then do those values appear not so dreadful after all.
The ways of the world are remarkably constant. Generation to generation. Sometimes things get out of hand for a while.
If you persist with the angryoldwhiteman it is very hard for me to take you at all seriously.
Welcome to my world. How about this deal? I will stop using angryoldwhitemen as a shorthand when you lot stop using “libtards”, “socialists”, “commies” etc to describe anyone who disagrees with you.
Actually I forget who it was whose only complaint against the label was “less of the old”.
The differnce is that for a sizeable proportion of posters on here the cap fits very nicely indeed. A sizeable amount of you are exactly that — angry, old, white, and male; obviously not all.
However as you have found out, the converse is not true. One poster who didn’t fall into lockstep was decried as a socialist was in fact a life-long Tory voter.
Once again sauce for the goose… If you persist in bandying around phrases in a pejorative manner don’t go bleating if they come right back at you. If you persist in using ad hominems don’t get your panties in a wad when people use them right back at you.
Over to you.
I’ve got nothing against people who are left-wing , Socialist etc if they want to help people and society.
What I can’t stand is these nu-labour, frankfurt school, common purpose types.
Who want to destroy society hoping they will get their Socialist world government out of the wreckage.
Sometimes this site is beyond parody.
This thread has run out of road and a good thing too.
Nicodemus. You keep accusing David Vance of having had racist websites, but you keep playing the race card as if its the only one in the deck! Have you no sense of shame, or even self-irony? You manage to be ageist, sexist and racist in one sentence – perfectly normal for a Beeboid of the left.
You complain when people call it “Your BBC” – well what do you expect when you defend them even at their most indefensible? Even the major disasters with them at the moment you portray as merely minor difficulties – when really they should go the same way as the News of the World whose crime was far more minor than either of these disgraces that the BBC have been guilty of. If you continue to defend YOUR BBC then expect people to keep calling you on it.
Have you no sense of shame, or even self-irony
Aren’t double standards a bitch? Like people taking money off organisations they purport to hate.
I hate those double standards.
But like I say, I will stop being lazy and calling you lot angryoldwhitemen (and even stop calling you lot “you lot”) when you stop the infantile, and intellectually lazy, “all socialists …” nonsense.
Deal?
If you stop behaving like a Socialist then I will stop calling you one. I won’t stop calling you a racist because you were showing that side of your character over and over on the posts above.
If you stop behaving like an angryoldwhitemen then likewise.
Btw it isn’t racist to call someone an angry old white man if they are (a) angry, (b) old, (c ) white and (d) male. It isn’t racist to mention a person’s sex/age/color/sexual orientation if it is germane.
Especially if they’re called Deborah or Louise or are of Pakistani extraction, like Pounce.
The role of DG needs to be split between an editor in chief and a CEO. This is common in many other news organisations, there is no reason not to have it at the BBC.
While I’m not in particular disagreement with this, there is a problem with devolving the position of Editor-in-Chief from that of DG, in that it’s written into the BBC’s Royal Charter.
Personally I think that there wouldn’t be an issue of the DG also being editor-in-chief if there was an adequate chain of responsibility between the journalists doing the legwork and the people at the top of the corporation. In the short term, that line of reporting needs to be examined and the problems sorted: the role of DG as EiC can then be reviewed as part of the charter renewal process for 2017.
It seems you have a personal problem with Mr Vance. But then you are only following the approved leftwing method of argument. Attack the people not the facts. It is just not good enough
Once upon a time the “ooooo, you used an ad hominem” bleat carried some weight. But when people on this site called for my death and routinely respond to posts with streams of ad hominems (either about other posters, or about the people in question, such as “fatty” Diane Abbott) I gave up worrying about it. Sauce for the goose and all that.
My problem with Vance is that he is a hypocrite. He sold his integrity for a £140 appearance fee. That and his offensive views. Now before you get your panties in a wad and start screaming that I am trying to shut down free speech, no I am not, but if you post bollocks, and offensive bollocks at that, then you don’t get a free pass. Someone will call you on it — that is how free speech works.
The problem I have with this site is it talks such total bollocks. Every day it is just a stream of reactionary, knee-jerk, right-wing verbiage. It is not as if (a) anyone has anything original to say, you simply all parrot each other, or (b) take the argument on. Murdoch is great, the left are all morons, all left-wing people think the same (my personal fave, esp when the same point is repeated time after time after time by different commentators) etc etc etc.
However never change, and do keep posting. This site has become my absolute fave — it is the gift that keeps on giving.
Like I say, this was your moment. But you blew it. Bad luck.
I lost interest after “once upon a time”……………………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
There is one lone kernel of truth in what Nicked says.
Yes, Diane Abbot is a fatty.
Are you in year 5?
‘Nicked, after long and unnoticeable absence, comes out fighting’.
‘Wet paper bag still winning’.
I wish I could “step aside” in my business, keep drawing money and come back when the cost is clear.
“Stepping aside”
Its enough to make you puke.
*coast*
It works with “cost” too.
Iain Overton, who set the “Thatcher-era Tory paedo!!!” Newsnight ball rolling with his tweet last week, has resigned as editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. However, the former BBC producer is still scheduled to run a workshop on investigative journalism at the Frontline Club in February. £150 will get you Overton’s wisdom on the following:
10-11.30am: The Bureau & The Crisis of Investigative Journalism
11.30-11.45am: Break
11.45-1.15pm: Tools of the Trade: Forensic, FOI, Data, Sources
1.15-2.15pm: Break
2.15-3.45pm: Undercover: Practicalities, Ethics & Experiences
3.45-4.00pm: Break
4.00-5.30pm: How to survive as an Investigative Journalist
Check out this tweet from Overton back on October 24. Irony alert…
The ex-Beeboid behind the report should be kicked out as well.
Bizarre interview on Murnaghan just now with Tim Davie. TD constantly looking off-screen for reassurance from somebody out of shot. Then, in the glass behind TD, you can make out a shady figure of a bloke in a suit evidently standing behind the camera, nodding and seemingly coaching TD with his answers.
Hardly inspires confidence.
Just who the hell is Davie’s crutch?????
I saw the TD interview. He really inspired no confidence. Making the i’m a rookie excuses, “my first day in the job” was said over and over again.
A lawyer. Davie is a trained suit, not a journalist. He’s part of the brilliant management schemes that have made the BBC such a fun work environment over the last few years. With him in charge of a cleanup, expect nothing to change. other than training courses staff will be expected to take, new targets for mid-level bosses to reach, and a new kind of weekly assessment report to fill out.
The bias will remain intact.
‘Daily Mail’:-
“The 40-year grudge match between Lords Patten and McAlpine”
By SIMON HEFFER.
[Excerpt]:-
“McAlpine was shrewd to identify all those years ago Patten’s flaws of judgment. It was exactly the same trait of character that caused him to appoint the ultimate yes-man – George Entwistle – as director general.
“McAlpine was acute in spotting Patten’s greediness too. Despite being cushioned by a fat EU pension and having the best part of a dozen non-executive and advisory posts, the lure of the chairmanship of the BBC Trust as well — which pays a basic £110,000 a year for a three- to four-day week — was irresistible to a man who likes to collect well-paid, senior posts.
“How he can find the three or four days a week to do the job when, as well as everything else, he is also chancellor of Oxford University, is a matter for conjecture. The apparent detachment and lack of application with which he has handled the BBC’s recent troubles – which now see him presiding over what is unquestionably the worst crisis of confidence in the corporation’s 90-year history – is the result of this casual approach.
“And how, having admitted he knew what Newsnight was doing but didn’t feel the need to warn Entwistle, he can retain his present post will be beyond most people. ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2231532/BBC-crisis-The-40-year-grudge-match-Lords-Patten-McAlpine.html
Wonder if any members of Oxford University can tell us whether there’s a process for removing a Chancellor who’s too busily engaged elsewhwere?
In the past a few Oxford Chancellors have been removed from this world.
Wow…curiouser and curiouser…
More popcorn!
It is sheer delight to watch the BBC implode at the top. Since they have all recruited each other in their own image, there are no internal candidates for anything that are not same-old same-old. The only man fit to run the BBC is, frankly, Rupert Murdoch. He alone knows how to run a media empire, which is what the BBC is.
I would so love the tories to go to Murdoch and BEG him to run the BBC.
It would be worth it to see the lefties heads all explode at the same time 😀
Oh it would be hilarious!!!
If Cameron did that I would vote Conservative at the next General Election.
And also a delight to watch it explode from its bottom (nothing personal, Nicked).
“Now BBC news director Helen Boaden and her deputy ‘step aside’ over child abuse fiasco (but only temporarily!).
“BBC News director and her deputy ‘step aside’ at crisis-hit Corporation.
“Helen Boaden and Stephen Mitchell expected to return after Pollard Review.
“Move follows Newsnight editor Peter Rippon ‘stepping aside’ last month.
“Director general George Entwistle left on Saturday after seven weeks in job.
“Came after Newsnight probe falsely linked senior Tory figure to child abuse.
“Adrian Van Klaveren who signed off botched probe returned to job today.
“PM backs Lord Patten as BBC Trust chairman – but he remains under fire.
By MARK DUELL.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231648/Now-BBC-news-director-Helen-Boaden-deputy-step-aside-child-abuse-fiasco-temporarily.html
Yes, that popular Beeboid TWO-STEP dance:
Do the ‘Step Aside’:-
Step 1: ‘step aside’, collect money;
Step 2: step back to where you were.
It’s great to see all these supposed ‘top executives’ folding under pressure. Within the usual ‘firewall’ that the BBC provides them they can act like they really deserve all the money and accolades they award themselves. Yet as soon as that blanket is removed, they can be seen for what they really are.
Naturally the BBC tried to put a blanket on Davie’s ‘exit’ by claiming …the director-general “did not walk off from his interview with Sky”. “Interview overran, clashing with other interviews,” it explained.
I don’t recall them ever being so ‘understanding’ in hindsight when they were going after anybody else, particularly if they were ‘on the other side of the tracks’ from the BBC viewpoint.
Love to know what the ‘other interviews’ entailed? Maybe it was for Desert Island Discs or Blue Peter.