BBC creating a new post – Scotland Editor for network news based in Glasgow. Wonder if
@AlexSalmond would act as my referee ?
Nick Robinson Nick Robinson may joke but it looks like Alex Salmond and the SNP intimidation has worked….the BBC is creating a ‘Scottish Editor’.
BBC to appoint new Scotland Editor in admission “Scotland has become the story”
THE BBC is to appoint its first Scotland Editor as a response to the vociferous criticism of its coverage of the referendum. The corporation will shortly advertise the new post, and hope to appoint journalist to the high profile role by the end of October. The Scotland Editor will report on Scotland and its issues for the UK BBC network while being based in Scotland.
Which is curious as just two days earlier Robinson had written this…The BBC must resist Alex Salmond’s attempt to control its coverage
The BBC naturally deny this new job was as a result of the SNP bullying:
The new post, insiders say, was not prompted by high profile criticism of the BBC such as former First Minister Alex Salmond’s critique of the broadcasting of political editor Nick Robinson, or this week’s speech by Nicola Sturgeon, the current First Minister.
Instead it has been discussed for months and the BBC hopes to have the successful candidate in place by next month.
The attacks on the BBC are deeply political too. Mr Salmond led a party that wants independence. He dislikes British institutions and has a vested interest in attempting to deny them legitimacy in Scotland – as the Glasgow protest against the BBC also aimed to do. He judges the media by whether they support his nationalist cause or not. At the SNP’s spring conference he proposed that the Scottish parliament, with its SNP majority, should be given control of broadcasting and the BBC in Scotland, even before any further referendum.
This should be seen for the bullying that it is.
The Guardian also tells us that:
Encouragingly, the current first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has attempted to distance herself from it. Last week, she even invited Mr Robinson and his family to a private dinner at Bute House, her official residence.
However Sturgeon has just made a speech in whih she tries to annex the BBC in Scotland and put it under SNP control:
Last night, Ms Sturgeon demanded that Scotland must get a dedicated BBC television channel to counter the often “ill-informed” coverage of London-based journalists who have “totally failed” to cover constitutional change.
As a minimum, Ms Sturgeon called for BBC editors based within Scotland to have greater ability to influence UK reporting, a specific Scottish site for iPlayer programmes, Scottish Parliament oversight for the BBC in Scotland, greater use of Scottish opt-outs,and more powers for the BBC commissioners based in Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon insisted, during her Alternative MacTaggart lecture, she does not believe the BBC’s coverage of the referendum was biased, but said BBC network journalists flown in during the final stages of the campaign “sounded less than fully informed”.
Scotland does indeed seem to get more like Putin’s Russia than is comfortable as Nick Robinson might say.
Strangely enough that old ‘fellow traveller’ Paul mason has leapt to the defence of Alex Salmond:
Paul Mason comes to Alex Salmond’s defence over BBC bias
With Alex Salmond currently engaged in a war of words with Nick Robinson over the BBC’s ‘disgraceful’ coverage of the Scottish referendum, there is one former Beeb employee he can turn to in his time of need. Step forward Paul Mason….who said the BBC’s unionist values were part and parcel of the corporation:
‘I’m absolutely sure that the BBC believes it is a unionist institution. It thinks if Scotland becomes independent there is no provision for a Scottish independent BBC so in its DNA it’s a product of this polity.’
And also:
Mason went on to hint that the corporation is not diverse enough, with its more senior staff often belonging to the same social set:
‘I have this theory about the BBC, that what most people don’t like about it is to do with the social group from which its managers and senior people are recruited.’
But then again Paul Mason, like Alex Salmond, is pretty thin skinned and prepared to use ‘violent’ language to close down debate…here denouncing a commenter who criticises his beloved Syriza as a ‘Nazi collaborator:
Paul Mason calls Syriza critic a ‘Nazi collaborator’
Covering the Greece crisis appears to be beginning to take its toll on Paul Mason. Channel 4′s economics editor became embroiled in a bizarre Twitter rant last night during which he accused an anonymous blogger of being a ‘Nazi supporter’ over their criticism of the Syriza government.
Perhaps Mason’s anti-BBC stand is influenced by the lack of support he seems to get from his ex-BBC colleagues:
However, not everyone is convinced by the explanation. Newsnight‘s policy editor Chris Cook has been quick to claim that @GreekAnalyst is not a troll:
.@GreekAnalyst isn’t a troll so not sure this really works. http://t.co/gp2GywObTR
— Chris Cook (@xtophercook) July 8, 2015
And of course his latest ramblings about the future of Capitalism got panned by the BBC Trust’s Diane Coyle when she asked ‘Is that it?’ as she realised there was a lot of hot air and not a lot of substance to Mason’s towering economic edifice.
Maybe Mason should apply for the job…seems like a win win for him and his new pal north of the border:
Media Job: Head of news and current affairs, BBC Scotland
LEADING BBC Scotland’s newsroom is one of the most exciting and challenging jobs in the BBC.
Based in centres across Scotland, the department provides local, national and international news on radio, television and online for audiences in Scotland and across the United Kingdom.
It provides in depth coverage of Scotland’s business and politics and makes stand-out current affairs and investigations programmes for the nation and the network.
Oh, hang on…could be a difficulty:
You will be able to gain respect at all levels due to your credibility, integrity and professionalism.
You will be a natural strategic thinker, with the ability to plan and evaluate people and editorial decisions in the short, medium and long-term, alongside the day-to-day needs of leading a fast-paced news agenda.
You will have strong editorial judgement and an unwavering focus on impartiality.
So in England we have the BBC acting as Pravda. And in Scotland it will be McPravda. It makes no difference, the BBC will still be functionally unfit for purpose.
For an entity supposedly facing an uncertain future, the BBC does still seem to be creating a raft of new broadcast entities and expensive, penisioned, redundancy immune jobs.
Maybe they know something John Whittingdale has yet to mention to the rest of us?
Why Glasgow ? The Parliament is in Edinburgh and the restaurants are better !
Only 5 seats in the whole of Scotland voted for independence – 4 in Glasgow, 1 in Dundee.
The virulent, vicious, rabid leftist hate is most apparent in these two cities both stuck in the 70’s.
Edinburgh and Aberdeen, considerably more prosperous and modernist.
Pacific Quay is Glasgow is where the majority of bbc Scotland employees sit, and where they decide the daily news agenda
Places like Edinburgh and Aberdeen are treated as outposts. Much like the way London and Salford treat the rest of England and Wales
These changes will all cost, therefore it seems reasonable that license payers north of the border should have to pay a higher telly tax.
Wait….what?
The BBC believes it needs actual Scottish people in Scotland on the payroll to give a Scottish perspective? Well, OK, but how can the BBC now justify refusing to hire anyone from the half of the country who voted Tory or UKIP for any job that doesn’t involve wearing a hard hat? The UKIP vote alone was almost equal to the whole of the Scottish electorate but don’t hold your breath waiting for the BBC to give up its ‘Gorilla In The Mist’ coverage of UKIP.
So why does it not feel that it needs English people on the payroll in England to give an English perspective? BBC racism rears its ugly head once again.
When is England as a nation going to recognised by the BBC? Why is there no BBC England? Why does it, with these omissions, discriminate against England, and favour Scotland? It is because the BBC wishes England to be divided, and thus promotes ‘regions’ instead. It does not have the same views on Scotland. Another example of bias and partiality.
The BBC is not fit for purpose; it is the BBC which must be broken up. It cannot be tinkered with however. The change must be dramatic and irreversible.
England is now Multiculti-Land, incorporating cultures from Britain and all over the world in a sharing, caring environment where all cultures are equal – er, unless you’re English, of course.
But in their home countries these cultures – including Scottish, Irish and Welsh (with Cornish coming up hard on the rails) – must be protected and preserved and never ever subjected to the threat of multiculturalism because they are so superior to any culture based on ‘Britishness’ or ‘Englishness’.
This job might be useful for the bBC as a culling chamber. It could quickly become the equivalent of the salt mines.
Who might fit that bill within existing ranks………..
The pressure would not only come from the SNP. There are plenty of bbc Scotland employees who are fully paid up Nats (Lesley Riddoch made no attempt to hide it during the referendum), and vice-versa (Westmister SNP MP John Nicholson is ex-bbc breakfast, for instance).
I’ve no doubt those on the inside would have exerted pressure as well
I thought that was what that Brian Taylor chappie was supposed to be doing?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/briantaylor
Maybe its all in the role definition?
Brian Taylor is only part-time. Otherwise he is training to be a restaurant reviewer.
He is training really hard – I reckon he’s reviewing at least 6 restaurants a day !
Scotland turns out to be just a flag of convenience for the liberal lefties.
It exemplifies the hard left agitprop and grievance mongering that they require-all public sector bitchings, insatiable never-ending hustling for eye catching gestures to cheer the hard Left that purrs quietly as they squawk on.
Remind me of the IRA but with fried Mars Bars, ETA but with tam o shanters instead of berets.
The Scots deserve much better-their political elite are bought up shortbread suckups, and will lead their country to hell within our lifetimes.