Opportunity Knocks

 

Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 5 Nov 2015

The BBC used its own resources to attack and undermine its commercial Press rivals by claiming they knew about Whittingdale and suppressed the story in order to have some leverage over him in regard to Press regulation.

Logically that makes no sense….if they had published they would have reinforced the case against themselves in the fervid period just after Leveson and  although Whittingdale would have had to resign at the time his replacement would have been even harsher.  Rather than blackmail it was a straightforward calculation that to publish actually damaged their own case.

But the BBC has pressed on with the line that this was a blackmail scenario…and yet, as they try to attack the minister in charge of the BBC Charter review, you have to ask what did the BBC itself know?  It is inconceivable that they did not know in light of the widely known revelations on the internet and in the book by Natalie Rowe that spelt out in no uncertain terms that Whittingdale was damaged goods.

In June 2015 she published some of the photos and detailed the allegations….about a Tory minister and his drug addict, hooker girlfriend……

• Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 15 Jun 2015

  Probably not the best Pic of #Whittingdale and his drug addict hooker, but I’m saving the best(and there’s a lot)

  
   

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  Natalie Rowe ‏@RealNatalieRowe 15 Jun 2015

  John Whittingdale TORY MINISTER & his Hooker, who he uses TAX PAYERS MONEY TO PAY HER RENT ON HIS EXPENSE ACCOUNT

  

  316 retweets 98 likes

The BBC knew about the scandal right from the start of 2014 and in the middle of 2015, nearly a year ago, there is perfect proof that the story was out there in all its glorious detail…and yet the BBC failed to report it and now hypocritically attacks the Press for doing the same.

The BBC couldn’t publish though it would have loved to do so as it would have been hypocritical in light of Leveson and the BBC’s support for that, and it would have looked a very obvious attack on someone with so much influence over the BBC’s future.  They had to wait until some other news source broke the story…and conveniently it was done so by Byline, conveniently with Peter Jukes, very much of the BBC, organising Byline’s workload…..but as it was a backwater publication it took the appearance of a press release on Hacked Off’s website reporting the story, referencing Byline, to give the BBC the real sanction to publish the story itself.   Note how Hacked Off avoided mentioning the lurid details of the allegations…was this principle or tactical?…..not wanting to appear like a sensationalist scandal mag and yet wanting to get the story out there to hit Whittingdale and the government were it hurts.   Not saying of course that Byline and Jukes, Hacked Off and the BBC, along with the BBC’s man, Hislop, were in any way in league with each other.

The BBC’s overboard reaction to this story was clearly a politically motivated, opportune attack on the man who has their future in his hands, and on the Press, which the BBC so looks down on and wishes to rein in so that it, the BBC, rules the media world and thus much of the real world, in effect.

Should there be an inquiry into the BBC’s reporting on this story so obviously is it targeted at getting a minsiter to resign and an attack on the free Press?

And why does the BBC not also target its old friend the Guardian?  It after all knew of the story themselves…and didn’t want to sign up to the new regulator…