It’s a rotating door between the left wing press and the BBC. The Spectator reports;
The Guardian set tongues wagging across Westminster in December when its editor Katharine Viner appointed two women to share the role of political editor. Although the paper’s chief political correspondent Nicholas Watt had been seen as the favourite to succeed Patrick Wintour, Sky News‘s Anushka Asthana and Observer economics editor Heather Stewart were offered the role as a job-share, after applying together.
Happily Watt appeared to be gracious in defeat. While he tweeted that he was ‘disappointed’ to miss out on the role, he said he was looking forward to working with the ‘formidable duo’.
Alas word reaches Steerpike that Watt may not have much time working for Asthana and Stewart after all. Mr S understands that Watt is being lined up to join Newsnight as the show’s new political editor. He would fill the vacancy left by Allegra Stratton — who is also a former Guardian employee — after she stepped down as political editor to join ITV News as their National Editor this month.
Strikes me, and I know many of you share this view, that the BBC is the broadcast version of The Guardian,
Yet another Beeboid out to further poison the well of ITV News. That’s just how Sky succumbed to producing Left-Wing propaganda rather than news.
That’s so true. Robert Peston is now ensconced in ITV news and making his presence felt; not to the good in my opinion. More of his collectivist cronies joining him from the bbc hive will further erode ITV’s value as a place to go to for actual news. I have to wonder what ITV are thinking in giving these people jobs; the bosses either don’t realise how toxic is the bbc, or they don’t care.
The problem is what else can they do? ITN lacks the resources to train people. Some print journalists can make the transition easily, some need time and help. The easiest thing to do is poach hacks from the BBC, as Sky does, too.
This is, of course, one of the great dangers of having a state-funded near-monopoly. Now it is the hands of one political opinion it controls not just its own news but it seeds all the other providers with Marxist drones, too.
GC “The problem is what else can they do? ITN lacks the resources to train people. Some print journalists can make the transition easily, some need time and help. The easiest thing to do is poach hacks from the BBC, as Sky does, too.”
Ahem! Since when did the BBC train Peston? Unless he was reading a short piece that he had written, he was a total disaster in front of a microphone. James Naughtie? Another one. Some of the other journalists who routinely ‘lead’ (as it would be called by a Judge in the High Court) interviewees and contributors?
I seem to recall that in the immediate aftermath of the Gilligan Affair, the then D-G made an unbreakable commitment to properly train under-performing or inadequate journalists & presenters but I think those words were easy, the pledge quickly forgotten, the practise of it now is dormant.
Major reform required.
I didn’t say they trained them very well, or even that they were any good.
The sad fact is that the BBC has such a stranglehold on the UK’s broadcast media that almost anyone working in it is going to have had to pass BBC’s initiation test at some stage or another.
“the BBC has such a stranglehold on the UK’s broadcast media”
Precisely. Break it up.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/the-bbcs-promises-to-change-after-savile-are-as-sincere-as-a-prostitutes-smile/
Yup – the irony was completely lost on the presenters of the Today programme this morning when pushing for a break-up of BT, not only because of its ownership of ‘Openreach’, but because, in acquiring EE, its competitors complain, it has a ‘monopoly’ share of 40% of the UK retail telecoms market. (And the BBC share of the broadcast and online news markets is ?????)
Hilariously, in talking to a ‘representative’ BT customer, the Beeboids bring onto the programme a Director of the ‘Stickleback Fish Company’ which has recently moved premises. This pillock then manages to utter, almost in the same breath, that “You can’t do business in 2016 without high-speed internet.” and that he was astonished to find, apparently after the move had taken place, that the broadband quality was ‘catastrophic’ (his word) in the new location.
So, as a director of a business, he has moved his whole company – lock, stock and babelfish – without checking whether what he believes to be a fundamental requirement for his business is available or not in the new location. Not the best advert for his business skills – but , hey, he was there to put the only side of a story that the Beeb wanted to broadcast.
Which is exactly why the BBC monopoly of UK News sources is far worse than any other ‘monopoly’ they can find to criticise
rD
“pillock”
Pollock?
True, GC, true.
But Pesto wasn’t trained by the Beeb – he came to them fully formed with a gold-plated contact book – although there was a rumour that they tried to teach him how to talk, off-the-cuff on air. How to work out what he was going to say in reply to questions, how to focus on his answers, etc., etc.. Twas said that they gave up after a few hours of a multi-day course, realising it was hopeless. Pure rumour. Am slapping myself on the wrist for mentioning it.
Doesn’t matter now. He’s left.
Can’t help but think the Beeb are somewhat the poorer for it. He worked really hard. He had that book full of phone numbers. He held a Blog community together who have already started to drift off.
None of them are equipped to face the future .Identical people with predictable views. Not worth the bother of even considering them.
That’s that ‘BBC Diversity’ there, aka the United Colours of Liberal, aka staff from across the world, ideas from across two postcodes in north London.
I, think Robert Peston, is ok, he is reasonably fair & under ITN, he should beak away from the hive mentally.
Lost his wife a few years ago-so give him a fair wind wherever I can.
Eddie Mair didn`t like him I gather-so that`s a plus in my book.
This isn’t directly related to the BBC, but is another example of the inter-connections between apparently independent commentators.
Richard North has a blog post on an article by Daniel Hannan in the Spectator.
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85900#disqus_thread
In his preamble North points out:
“At this stage, it is helpful to know that Mr Hannan is a director of Vote Leave Ltd, an organisation that refuses to commit to leaving the EU, fronted by Dominic Cummings, the campaign director who just happens to be married to Spectator commissioning editor Mary Wakefield. ”
It isn’t just the BBC/Guardian and BBC/Sky relationships.