Thoughtful in the comments has thoughtfully provided us with this link which I think deserves to be put up in lights here….let’s hope it wasn’t all talk:
The BBC’s new director of News & Current Affairs, James Harding, on the BBC (Whilst at the Times):
“The BBC distorts and suffocates an industry. It is too big.”
“Big, bloated and cunning” – headline of a leader on the BBC, 2010
“The BBC ought to be a creative force for entrepreneurship. In reality it stifles innovation.”
“Its websites, which may seem like a handy and innocuous extension of its news gathering, have destroyed jobs, livelihoods and creativity.”
“What the BBC is not, and never has been, is an organisation devoted to investigative journalism.”
Thoughtful wonders ‘how long it will be before he sings a different tune??’
Chomsky suggests it won’t be long before he conforms:
‘Most people are not liars, there are outright liars and brazen propagandists in journalism and in the academic professions but the norm is obedience to the culture, adoption of uncritical attitudes, taking the easy path of self-deception. There is also a selective process in the academic professions and journalism…people who are independent-minded and cannot be trusted to be obedient don’t make it by and large. They are filtered out along the way leaving you with a monoculture of similar thinking, attitudes and world views.‘
Fist time I`ve agreed with Chomsky since I was a student oaf back in the late 70s, and subject to the usual -ologies that lauded him, but trashed the woman who paid my student grant.
And we`re supposed to think Blair and his student tuition fees to not be divisive(unlike that same woman, who was?).
Weird world this one of the BBCs isn`t it?
According to Wikipedia:
On 16 April 2013, his appointment as the new head of BBC News was announced, although he will not formally take up the post until August.[26][6] He had said in 2011 that the BBC does not have “a pro-Israel newsroom and it has taken management to get some balance in there”. Accordingly, Harding found this “frustrating because, unlike The Times where you can just choose not to buy it, you have to pay for the BBC.”[15]
I think most of us are fairly cynical, and not without good reason, for seeing any real change at the BBC to address the multitude of bias they exhibit every day.
I’m going to try and keep an open mind and watch how his appointment develops. Either he will swallow his own ethics to go along with the existing dynamics, or we will see changes. It will be interesting if he does conform to his previous observations about the BBC, how those responsible for maintaining it that way react, and what they do about it.
At least we have a privileged position to best understand whatever is really behind the actions and words that might come out if there was to be any confrontation.
Interesting days ahead.
To make a significant reduction in the liberal left bias of the BBC news and current affairs output will be a Herculean task and well beyond the ability of one man to do, even assuming that he wanted to do it.
The liberal left view is so ingrained in the BBC at all levels that there would have to be mass replacement of time served employees with new blood.
There would probably have to several hundred sackings in order to sufficiently suppress the liberal left tendency for an unbiased service to be forthcoming. Even then the old liberal left bias would reassert itself at the first relaxation of the iron fist.
Sackings and the BBC just don’t go together and so to make the change large sections of the the BBC senior management would have to be prepared to change the culture and sack lots of folks . But of course the senior staff are not bought into the need for change at the BBC and so this won’t happen no matter how much Harding might want it to.
Basically the BBC is beyond reform and we can only get an unbiased news and current affairs output for the UK by closing it down and opening up the airwaves to a wide and diverse range of providers .
Anybody who thinks Harding is going to come in and start slashing and burning the online content will be sorely disappointed. Especially the US version. Cash is king, and the website is all about ad revenue and promoting BBC-owned content. All those “bespoke” video magazine pieces they crank out in the US aren’t going to go the way of the dodo any time soon. If anything, it’s the future of the BBC online content.
Does anyone seriously think his first major act will be to get rid of another thousand Beeboids just to clear room for local radio and entrepreneurship?
Alan quotes Chomsky;
“Most people are not liars, there are outright liars and brazen propagandists in journalism and in the academic professions but the norm is obedience to the culture, adoption of uncritical attitudes, taking the easy path of self-deception.”
So Alan will you admit to lying about what Evan Davis said in your post; “All The Evidence Points Too…”, or take the easy path of self-deception?
Dez,
I prefer ‘Brazen Propagandist’ to ‘liar’…it’s what’s on my door at Mr Murdoch’s ‘Den of Iniquity’ where we plot to destroy your pension fund provider.
Sorry about that.
Alan, you’ve been caught out lying through your teeth and you don’t have the courage to admit it or even make some sort of half-arsed denial.
Speaks volumes about you, this blog, and the contempt you feel for anyone stupid enough to believe a single word you say.
You mean like the time you dishonestly elided a statement by Mardell and then pretended you hadn’t?
Contempt Dez for the readers and commenters on this site?
No, I don’t think so.
I have a great respect for them…the way they read a post, take time to understand what is being said and make coherent, intelligent comments about it….you could learn a lot from their example.
As for courage, you and I both know you would never have the courage to say what you say on this site face to face.
I do have nothing but contempt for the likes of you, who, lacking any understanding or reasoned argument resort to vulgarities and abuse, especially as when in public you wouldn’t dare.
You are one of those kids on a council estate desperate for attention but struggling for self-expression…and do so by chucking a brick through a window rather than put in the hard work and thought into improving themselves and contributing to society…or in this case an informed and rational debate about the BBC.
Any need to explain what the post was about? No, because I have confidence not only in what I wrote but also in the normal reader’s ability to process that and understand the point being made….and if they do have a question about it to raise it in a civil manner.
You need to sort yourself out Dez and exercise some judgement and restraint in the manner you speak to people on this site.
If not I will do it for you.
Ok Alan, taken on board. I will be the model of politeness.
Now can you explain why you lied about what Evan Davis said? Can you at least admit that you misquoted him, or are you going to continue to dodge the question?
As I have commented elsewhere on this blog in the last couple of days, Harding certainly changed The Times, and not for the better, emphasising its London-centric bias and dropping a lot of news in favour of fashion trivia and photos of women.
Watch out for the same prejudices emerging in bBBC news.
Don’t forget the Times is News International owned and Murdoch is not a fan of the BBC, so we might have been seeing a set of statements to please a proprietor. The counter to that is the reason for Harding leaving The Times, which was because he failed to please Murdoch over the Hacking / Levinson enquiry.
My belief is therefore that he was speaking his true feelings, although I do sense a degree of frustration at the way the bBC is able to swamp all other voices.
As to his current position I do think his views will change based on a little favourite saying:
Power is lovely
Absolute power is absolutely lovely!
I would like to think this man will be true to the critical views he has expressed about the BBC, and lets hope someone could ask him soon if he stands by those statements.
Could it be that the organisation is responding at last to the mounting criticism of it? I say elsewhere that it is beyond internal reform, and so I am not optimistic about any changes he may bring, so we must continue to monitor the news and current affairs output. Indeed the need becomes greater, the BBC seems to become more blatantly partial and biased the more the criticism mounts, but that way lies collapse. We must not waver now.
The MacKay Commission on the government of England has conceded that there must be change in the UK parliament to reflect the aspirations of the people of England who have no parliament of their own; it follows that the BBC must be reconsituted too.
Don’t hold your breath in the hope that James Harding will make any major changes to the BBC. Previous comments and beliefs are soon dumped once you get onto the BBC gravy train. Remember Mark Thompson when he was head of Channel 4 and his comments about the BBC “swimming in a Jacuzzi of public cash”? When appointed director-general in 2004 Thompson obviously decided he rather liked being in a Jacuzzi of cash and it was huge salaries, bonuses and expense accounts all round.
I’m sure Harding’s previous beliefs will be equally conveniently discarded. Also don’t forget that Harding was in charge of The Times whilst it had Tom Baldwin (now doing Alistair Campells old job) as its senior political correspondent – regarded as a “brilliant hack” who let everyone down by allowing himself to become a propagandist for Labour, such it was his “blind hatred” of the Tories. This was well known in journalistic circles, and tolerated by Harding who imust share at least some of Baldwins political leanings. .
What of Christopher Patten? He is an ex-Tory in the BBC who seems to have “gone native” since joining.