In a previous post the idea that the BBC are now engaged in a ‘black propaganda’ campaign to persuade us that the BBC is itself the victim of a ‘political and media witch hunt’ was laid out.
There was plenty of evidence to back that up, but here’s just one more recent piece that demonstrates the BBC’s complete unwillingness to just take the hit and accept they were wrong…….
BBC crisis: Entwistle deserves £450,000 pay-off, colleagues say
The former director-general of the BBC deserved his £450,000 pay-off after becoming the victim of a “political and media witch hunt”, one of his colleagues has claimed.
The BBC began with claims that the Lord McAlpine debacle proved that their shelving of the Savile investigation was the right thing to do….well, apart from the fact that Savile was guilty and there were plenty of witnesses to that fact.
The BBC then went on to claim that the cause of the Newsnight fiasco was budget cuts…..no, it was shoddy journalism and incompetence.
Now we have the ‘political and media witch hunt’ plea……what’s wrong with that?
Perhaps the fact that it was the BBC’s own attack dog, John Humphrys, that forced Entwistle out….not Murdoch or the Daily Mail.
Newsnight’s been caught out, twice, Panorama’s been caught out faking evidence, the climate change CMEP 2006 seminar has been proved to be a highly politicised event, and who knows what the Balen Report will reveal.
None of that is due to budget or outside political pressure…..what is the overarching theme, what was the cause of their ‘mistakes’? The BBC’s own political view of the world and its attempts to play politics through using its broadcasts to persuade the world to adopt those same views.
And it has got its fingers burnt.
Ok, am going to throw this out there.
Can a news corp/org etc run by humans ever be 100% un biased ?
Guido Fawkes posted a comment here a while back saying that impartiality is a chimera. He’s not wrong.
Impartiality is impossible. But they could at least try, and be seen to be trying. Any time I’ve asked about the statistics they keep, there’s a deafening silence. Which suggests to me they don’t even bother.
There appears to be no system to attempt impartiality, merely their feeling that they got it about right.
No, but there has to be a balance and they have to at least put some effort into addressing the problem…and that is missing at the BBC….no real opposing viewpoint….save Andrew Neil….and no genuine, effective intervention to moderate the leftist take on everything…..look at the college of journalism, set up to do just that…but then you look at who is/was teaching there….Richard Black on climate and as related recently, Tim Crook on media ethics and law…..but who supports the BBC viewpoint rather than informs it.
No, but I’d expect a spectrum of opinion, weighted towards the centre. Unfortunately, to the BBC, the “centre” follows the BBC position, not the other way around.
Anyone who has been reading this site for some time will know that there are many opinions which never get a look in, ever.
Surely the British people should be able to hear a wide spectrum of views from their News and Current Affairs broadcasters. The BBC certainly isn’t doing that so I think that the News and Current Affairs should be removed from their offering and they can confine themselves to ‘entertaining’ us. Note , not educating us, because the liberal/left bias has taken over that too and it needs scraping as well.
The gap would be filled by a variety of new broadcasters, all commercially funded, and over time natural selection would sort out the ones people thought worth while watching and listening to from those they didn’t.
The BBC has outlived its purpose and has become a dangerous and rotten left wing propaganda broadcaster of immense power. Those who don’t wish to listen/watch its dreadful output shouldn’t be forced to pay for it.
It would not matter if the licence fee was paid by voluntary subscription.
This is why Murdoch is morally superior to the BBC.
Entwistle is the innocent victim of a witch hunt? I’ve seen this play before.
So, does that make John Humphrys the Governor Danforth of the story? And Ceri Thomas is John Proctor? I suppose the nasty Tory Press with a vested interest in bringing the BBC down (“enemies waiting to pounce”) are Abigail Williams and the other awful girls who testified against Goody Good. And Patten is Judge Hathorne.
This is the problem….nothing can be truly ‘unbiased’ by its sheer nature…and this is the beebs problem…it has become in recent times so wrapped up in itself seeking to be whiter than white (oops) that it has completely missed the point which is, that it is paid for by british people. Ie we expect it to have a British ‘slant’ ie biased but towards the people it represents.
For example the tories represent the ‘right’ (allegedly ) in Britain but i wouldn’t expect Cameron to speak for the right if i lived in France say if i lived there….so, beeb remember where ya loyalties lie and get a grip….
Personally id hive off the news and current affairs and keep separate from entertainment
You are probably on the right tack here but it is probably more fundamental.
The BBC is too big. When organisations become too big and dominant within a sector they loose perspective.
Once they became dominant and ALSO were granted dominance by weight of law then they were put in a position of absolute power.
Once they attained this position they became introspective. The whole purpose of the BBC is to sustain itself. The very nature of the beast means that they develop their own culture and climate which becomes unstoppable by the very nature of its constitution.
Patten made a pointed remark and threat when Cameroon had a go last week. He said don’t tell what to do I am not in your domain. Of course he is not. The BBC by its very structure is untouchable.
Someone remarked that the only person with power to control the beast is the Queen because they operate under Royal Charter.
The TV License is an anachronism.
Take away the requirement for a TV License and they can be as biased as they like, provided they can find a means to fund themselves.
What sticks in my craw is the fact that I am not allowed to watch TV without paying them – it’s like a legalised protection racket!
absolutely correct its nothing short of that. I haven’t watched/paid for years and wont either, if fact I want ALL the money back that I did pay in the past with interest, and a personal apology
I guess you are advocating a privatised BBC who would then have to compete with the existing commercial and subscription/commercial funded broadcasters. Bearing in mind the BBC’s tendency to garner the highest viewing figures I would imagine that the other broadcasters may not be to keen on that idea. It would of course appeal to the Daily Mail who will be first in line when it comes to charging for access to web based news services.
I suspect that, like the US news media, the Beebs have been watching too much Star Trek and think they represent the United Federation of Planets instead of the British people. The US media have been doing that for a while, as well as linking “fear” and “anger”– ie: What makes you angry is really fear. That is pure-dee channeling of Yoda.
These people are getting their philosophical cues from Hollyweird script-writers. 😉
I rather suspect that Entwistle was the subject of an internal vendetta an nothing to do with outside influence. Wasn’t someone else, who flounced off in a huff after his appointment, the favourite to be annointed into the post.
Entwistle was obviously kept in the dark. Even the usless Patten knew about the programme, even though he should have nothing to do with editorial content, but didn’t bother to warn Entwistle. Entwistle was also known to be out at a prior arranged engagement when the programme was broadcast and would therefore be known to have missed it. He was then allowed to be interviewed by Sky (when did that last happen to a DG?) still without having been properly made fully aware of the circumstances by the BBC which left him to look like an out of touch floundering idiot.
The BBC have form for putting up sacrificial lambs to fend off criticism so I can’t decide if he was set up as a fall guy or if a powerful group below him so an opportunity to dispose of somebody who did not fit fully into their agenda.
I mostly agree with this assessment (although didn’t Caroline Thomson leave because Entwistle made her position redundant the minute he took office?), but it begs the question: why are we being made to think Entwistle was kept in the dark? There are three possibilities:
1. He’s lying.
2. He’s wildly unsuited for the job – and by extension, his previous job as Director of Vision, and before that, Controller of Knowledge (there’s probably a great German compound word for this combination of Orwellian and iroinic).
3. Keeping him out of the loop was necessary because that’s his and Helen Boaden’s and Mark Thompson’s defense on Savile. Which is beginning to unravel.
And before all this he used to be the Newsnight editor. Which begs another question altogether.
I see that the BBC have lost “One of their own”, or at least the son of a Palestinian called “Jihad “, that just happened to work for the ever “impartial” BBC
When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When they’re ‘militants’.
Who gave him a job? we need to ferret the lot of them out
Errm, just how long has he been carrying the dead body around for? Its clearly night in these pictures and yet the earlier shots were clearly in the day time.
And managed to find time to change his sweater – maybe that’s what he’s been holding in the shrouded bundle.
A child is dead and all you can do is post comments like this – you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Your evidence here of black ops and corporate denial is one ex employee’s letter to ariel.
You have to love the BBC.
In recent days the corporation has subjected us to an unedifying phenonmenon. A seemingly endless queue of payroll Beeboids and their left-minded supporters stepping up to clutch the karaoke mike to croon along to I Will Survive.
Recently watching rugby on TV5 (French) in a foreign bar with lots of English supporters, one Englishman turned to me and exclaimed that the commentator “was a bit biased”. I explained that it was a French commentator talking about a French team and of course he was biased- he had no obligation to be impartial. The English have a Welsh commentator on BBC…. therefore no chance of being biased, unlike the Scottish, Irish or Welsh commentators.
BBC celebrating victory over England
I noticed a segment of BBC Radio 5’s Drive yesterday celebrating the Swedish victory over the England soccer team.
I say it was celebrating and this is born out in part by a text which Peter Allen read from a listener who happened to tune in during the playing of a clip of a Swedish commentator celebrating a goal against England. The poor bloke was a Swede and turning on his radio he was most confused – presumably believing for a moment that his wireless had been trasported back home.
Remember that Norwegian football commentator and his ‘…Lord Nelson….Maggie Thatcher…..Winston Churchill…your boys took a hell of a beating!’
Well this Swedish chap was yelling in his own language and Allen (or his BBC producers) were inordinately keen to find out what was being said. Self loathing is what I would call it.
Perhaps they were simply midful to be providing a service to their Celtic fringe listeners?
It’s hard to pin the attitude down and tell when a traditional English sense of fairplay and modesty tips over into self flagellation – but I think I can tell when it crosses a line. I do believe I know it when I hear it – it is Anglophobia and I hear it often on the BBC.
In my younger days as a student I rubbed shoulders with a lot of leftwing Englishmen. Part of their persona as earnest young Marxists was just this kind of Anglophobia. They may have enjoyed their football – but they would go ridiculous lengths to emphasise their distaste for the England soccer team, the National Anthem, the Royal family etc etc.
And that is what I hear on the BBC.
“the climate change CMEP 2006 seminar has been proved to be a highly politicised event”
Not just highly politicised, but a conspiracy (as in a group of people secretly meeting to engage in dishonest or criminal activity) to present a group of vested interest and “renewable energy” investors as a scientific meeting of the greatest climate scientists, in order to falsely present the impression that the science had been established “as a fact” and in such a way as to give more certainty that the IPCC, the Royal Society and any other scientific organisation, that the (still unproven) AGW hypothesis had been so certainly proven as to allow the BBC to abandon it’s duty to its charter obligation to impartiality, thus lending its priceless endorsement and credibility and reputation for honest, impartial truth, to the very same (still) disputed hypothesis, which underpins the very same financial markets which most of the people in that room had massive direct financial interests in.
This was not a policy decision based upon hard science.
This was insider dealing. This was corruption. This was fraud.
The problem at the bBBC is not ‘Tory cuts’ but actually ‘not enough cuts’. There are still far too many people, paying themselves grossly inflated salaries, with a weak and obscure chain of command so that no-one knows who is supposed to be doing what, and no-one is prepared to take responsibility for decisions.
And then there’s Mark Thompson:-
“Letter Raises Questions About When BBC Ex-Chief Learned of Abuse Cases”
By MATTHEW PURDY
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/world/europe/letter-raises-questions-about-when-bbc-ex-chief-learned-of-abuse-cases.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&partner=rss&emc=rss&
“Crisis at the BBC.
“Exterminate!
“The BBC’s troubles have exposed weaknesses in the broadcaster’s management—and made future rows over the licence fee more likely.”
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21566675-bbcs-troubles-have-exposed-weaknesses-broadcasters-managementand-made-future-rows-over
Here’s a man that I hope will find himself in trouble over the whole of this scandal – Mark Thompson.
He seems to have escaped so far to run the NY Times, but perhaps the latest news to come out will have his bosses considering terminating his contract.
Newly Revealed Letter On The BBC Sex Abuse Scandal Could Be A Major Problem For Incoming NYT CEO