Have I not got news for you….Did Ian Hislop cover up for the BBC to keep the HIGNFY pay-cheques rolling in…along with all the other work he does for the BBC or what?
Hislop appears as normal on HIGNFY and the first story is the obvious…Whittingdale…which story Ian claims his magazine broke. Which, it didn’t. Byline broke the story ‘officially’ [No doubt encouraged to do so by their contributing advisor Peter Jukes….who also gets a great deal of work sent his way by the BBC and who, according to the Telegraph, has been paid by Hacked Off] followed up by Hislop’s Private Eye and the BBC. Even in the Eye Hislop still claims the credit...
NO sooner had the new issue of Private Eye gone on sale this week, carrying a detailed article questioning the motives of national newspapers in spiking a story about culture secretary John Whittingdale (full text below), than Whittingdale himself took the initiative, issuing a statement that was widely seized on by the BBC’s Newsnight, Fleet Street, opposition MPs and press privacy campaigners.
No mention of Byline then…and on HIGNFY no mention of the real source of the story Natalie Rowe…Hislop muttered coyly something about rumours on the internet. Why no mention of Rowe and her determined efforts to get the story published? Why not? Can it be because she first revealed it back in 2014 and there would have to be some explaining from the likes of Hislop as to why he and others, such as the BBC, didn’t break the story themselves so long ago? He can’t very well stick it to the Redtops (and the Independent) for covering up for Whittingdale in the hope to influence his decision on Press regulation if Hislop himself, the BBC and the Guardian also knew. Why did they not publish also? If Hislop can conjecture about a Press conspiracy then he can conjecture about a BBC/Guardian one as well in light of their interests in Press regulation and the charter review.
Hislop the brave, investigative spearer of the Establishment? Not when it comes to his own paymaster it seems.
What is an amusing aside is that Byline tells us they are financed by money which...’ finally came in from investors: Nicolas Berggruen, Jaewoong Lee, Eric X. Li, and Ian Osborne.’
The billionaire Berggruen and Osborne are linked…Osborne being an advisor to Beggruen.
What is amusing is that the lefty Byline, which tells us that:
News media is broken….Quality is in decline, and essential investigative work is disappearing. Democracy demands an active and independent press, not endless clickbait about Kim Kardashian’s bum, ‘Ten Reasons Why…’ articles, and ‘sponsored content’ masquerading as proper journalism.
The time has come for something different.
We’re taking out the middlemen – the newspaper proprietors and advertisers who have agendas of their own – and giving power back to the reader and the journalist. We hope you will be part of it too.
…is in part funded by that Ian Osborne who is a good pal of Cameron and Murdoch…..
His name is Ian Osborne, a British political fixer who… wouldn’t you know it?… is another of the people credited with rebranding David Cameron, along with his colleagues Rachel Whetstone and Steve Hilton.
Obsorne remains close to both the Cameron government and to Rupert Murdoch’s British lieutenants — but, again like Whetstone, Obsorne no longer spends much time in UK politics, preferring instead to act as a kind of reputation fixer for hire for US tech companies and international billionaires.
Osborne is also a contributing editor at the Spectator.
Small world…and an odd one….guess money trumps politics. Still funny to see a lefty publication that hates Murdoch and trumpets its virtuousness being funded by an associate of Murdoch and Cameron. There’s a conspiracy there somewhere. Damned if I can work it out though.
Hislop simply cannot be trusted to report on the BBC. He might be editor of Private Eye, but the big money comes from HIGNFY. Private Eye gives him status, but the BBC is his real paymaster.
Even when Angus Deayton was the quizmaster, Hislop and Merton were getting £7000 per episode, it must be much more than that now. So Hislop is a man who makes his real money from the BBC, and edits Private Eye as a sideline, trading off the kudos of being the Eye’s editor. Pretty shameful all things considered.
“There’s a conspiracy there somewhere. Damned if I can work it out though.”
They have a purpose in common – Common Purpose.
I cancelled my very longstanding subscription to ‘Private Eye’ a few years ago after I became sickened by seeing His Highness Hislop constantly sneering, leering and generally taking the BBC line on all current matters of “news” whilst he also grabbed the BBC shilling which costs me dearly.
Though I cannot with ease and simplicity cancel the BBC TV Tax, it gave me a small modicum of satisfaction in cancelling Master Hislop’s annual withdrawals from my current account.
The man is a whore. (And a very well paid one if the figures quoted above are correct.)
Hislop is precisely the kind of weasel Private Eye used to go after. Peter Cook must be turning in his grave.
Steve,
Quite right. I cannot think that anyone could have bought Peter Cook. The BBC’s payments to Hislop are, in effect, a bribe and they are getting good value with our money.
PS I doubt if Richard Ingrams could have been bribed either.
So it is back.
Merton again gurning it in and not much more.
But the rest were like a bunch of giggly schoolgirls secure in the knowledge that they knew things and were safe from any consequence of alluding to them.
Most of what was targetted deserved the satirical barbs, but I am pretty sure there were some flat out inaccuracies, and most typically inevitable was the utter inability to train fire on sacred cows to the BBC hive, to mix a few metaphors.
Clive Myrie was a goofy professional disgrace.
No matter what private media did or did not report upon, or why, the actual fact is the public state broadcaster tried to stitch up a political foe using a sorry combination of confirmation bias, ineptitude, ideological arrogance and a stunning confidence in the absolute freedom from accountability that their unique purposes of journalism appear to confer.
This was not mentioned.
Because they control the edit.