Libby Purves asks what we have been asking for years now….just why does the BBC employ people at such exhorbitant rates when they could easily get someone to do the same job, just as competently or better, as a Humphrys or Vine at a vastly lower salary?
The former Radio 4 presenter said that the corporation ‘clings on’ to stars including Graham Norton and Gary Lineker ‘like frightened toddlers to their teddies’ and fail to ‘hunt widely’ for alternative presenters.
She accused BBC bosses of shying away from telling the highest-paid stars that their salaries will shrink because they are concerned about them quitting.
Having said that she would like to see director-general Lord Hall making it clear that top stars are replaceable, she told Radio Times: ‘That this never happens is because of two things.
‘One is that managers like to talk of ‘handling multi-million-pound budgets’, because that makes their own inflated pay seem good value.
‘The other is a craven fear of losing ‘talent’, and a failure to hunt widely for more. They get fixed on the idea that there can only ever be one Norton or Winkleman or Feltz or Lineker.
‘They cling on, like frightened toddlers to their teddies. In fluffy showbiz it’s a bit understandable. But news and good documentaries aren’t showbiz.’
In the Guardian an anonymous and senior BBC woman gives the BBC a broadside for not paying women like her, highly educated, clever, talented and articulate, the same as men…note she also supports the idea that there is no need to pay for ‘talent’ as there is plenty of talent out there untapped that would work for far less…so no need for the BBC to be held hostage by the big stars of news….
Fear stalks the BBC, and women like me are being gaslighted and lied to
The group of BBC women I am a part of now numbers more than 200, including some of the most high-profile at the corporation. We are women who support our colleague Carrie Gracie in her public and eloquent pursuit of that principle of parity.
That I write this anonymously is a sign of both fear and anger among many BBC women, who, even after joining the group, stay silent. Fear that we might be seen as obstructive for speaking out, and anger because the reason for our speaking out is neither obstructive nor designed to make trouble. We just want to see an existing law enforced.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell’s words are embedded in the wall of the front of the building in which I work, next to his statue. And I believe in them.
But the BBC cannot trumpet its editorial independence in telling truth to power, only to expect its highly educated and talented employees to stay silent when they are lied to. And we have been lied to. Both in individual cases and collectively. You could argue that it is a form of gaslighting: continuing to tell women that there is no inequality and, over a period of time, they think they are imagining it. Knowledge is power. If this is happening to a group of articulate, clever and highly educated women then it must surely be happening in many other industries.
The leak of a private conversation between two senior broadcasters (John Humphrys and Jon Sopel) about Gracie, should be more than discomfiting. That the BBC management is said to be “deeply unimpressed” is good. But the private conversation isn’t just a sideshow, it is a symptom of a cultural malaise. It represents hardwired hostility and contempt towards women who demand what is right and legal. This can’t be shrugged off as “jocular exchange” or “banter” between old mates.
For a public service broadcaster, salaries of the top earners are indeed inflated. And if individuals bargain with the BBC and say they could earn more money elsewhere, perhaps the BBC should acquire the confidence to let them go. There are many, many talented people – and some of them are even women – who could step into their shoes. Given the BBC’s unique nature, in many cases there are no comparable programmes individuals could go to and still have the same platform they have at the BBC.
Have to say her attack on Humphrys is wrong really…he was joking but if he was having a moan doesn’t he have a right to? It was not hostility nor contempt towards women. After all he is having large amounts of money stripped from his salary at no fault of his own….this is down to the BBC which agreed the huge salary in the first place….and now are reneging on the deal because they have been found out rather than coughing up and levelling pay upwards. Not Humphrys’ fault at all.
The BBC could make a start by replacing one of its many corrupt male Guardian writers and Geneticists, who pose as Climate science experts, Adam Rutherford, and replace him with a highly competent female Investigative Journalist, like Donna Laframboise.
Rutherford who remains as a BBC science presenter, campaigned to have the only scientist on the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Graham Stringer, removed.
Stringer, a Chemist, would understand the failings of the chemical formula, behind the Carbon Dioxide hypothesis, to have ever produced any results, even from an Atmospheric chamber.
Stringer seems to understand that both the attribution claimed for Carbon Dioxide and the solution with the “Unified Theory of Climate” is with thermodynamics. He has said “Like so many other public institutions, the BBC has adopted its eco posture without any genuine scientific literacy. Most BBC executives and reporters would be clueless about the second law of thermodynamics”
Same with freedman who is a columnist for the G – enough said his neutrality – how -Rome -was -full -of -foreigners -so -London should -be too -routine . Long View crap
There are lots of ‘libbys ‘ in al Beeb – does anyone know how much she got for that bloody awful midweek smugathon she did for years. Liberals flogging their books.
“Liberals flogging their books”
Clegg! I can’t stand the weasel! (just felt like saying it.”