Why does it matter that Andrew Marr is such an appallingly bad, partisan and unchallenging interviewer? The New Statesman tells us why it matters...ironically in praise of Andrew Marr…..
Despite new challengers, Andrew Marr is still the king of the Sunday-morning politics skirmish
The war among the UK’s television channels has shifted to new territory: now it’s Sunday-morning sofa skirmishes.
These things matter because the Sunday-morning political programmes often generate the headlines for the rest of the day’s broadcasting and for the Monday papers; and the commercial companies want to dent the BBC’s reputation for setting the agenda. The corporation can often do it by the sheer volume of its output on TV, including the estimable Sunday Politics, and on radio; but it’s a plus for audiences if other voices can be heard.
Marr has been slammed for this Sunday’s interview with Corbyn and last week’s with McDonnell who was allowed to stop an audio clip of him abusing Esther McVey and joking about lynching her being played. But Marr has always been pretty hopeless as mentioned in many previous posts such as this…
Marr is absolutely hopeless isn’t he? Yet another interview with a Labour grandee, Corbyn, and it is red carpet treatment all the way with little in the way of demanding and probing questions…McDonnell was given a free ride and a very smug Corbyn couldn’t have got better treatment if he’d written the script himself.
Corbyn told us he’d had a ‘brilliant manifesto‘….no comment from Marr despite the fact that Corbyn’s manifesto was big, huge, on promises, but failed completely to provide genuine costings….the IFS saying Corbyn would have to impose the biggest tax burden on this country of any peace-time era. Nor did Marr challenge him on the fact that Corbyn was obviously bribing voters, buying their votes….for someone who presents himself as the ‘ethical’ politician, different from all the rest, that deserves some comment you might think.
Corbyn told us that his approach was ‘challenging an economic consensus that impoverished so many people’. Marr’s response? ‘It clearly was’.
No comment about Corbyn’s support for the IRA and Muslim terrorists despite the issue being of huge significance in the election and Corbyn doing a massive opportunistic u-turn on his support for terrorists.
Similarly Marr raises the subject of the ‘socially conservative’ DUP…but makes no reference to Corbyn’s close ties to Muslim conservatives or indeed his own extreme views.
Marr is well named. It suits his style of interviewing. Marred. Maybe a new verb…to be ‘Marred’…to be let off the hook in a half-arsed interview.
If programmes like Marr and Today are setting the news agenda for the rest of the day, not just at the BBC but in the Press as well, it is clearly critical that Marr and Co gets things right, asks the right questions and gets the right answers. If politicians like Corbyn are allowed to lie through their teeth it does major damage to the democratic process….the fact that May was expected to get a landslide majority but was almost defeated at the last election shows how the distortion and corruption of the news can effect the outcome of major political events such as general elections and thus have serious repercussions for the country…and may still as Corbyn and his Stalinist enterprise tries to lie and bully their way to power untroubled by a rigorous and questioning BBC which seems all too ready to put a Labour government into No10 regardless of its true nature.
BBC Complaints up to its old tricks, and it seems Twitter continues to be whatever staff want it to be as far they are concerned.
https://bbcwatch.org/2018/01/29/bbc-brushes-off-a-complaint-about-a-journalists-tweets/
The ‘covered elsewhere’ argument is a facile as it gets. BBC staff routinely try and chop up screeds that won’t fit into even the new character limit and allow context to be removed, especially as the lead, like bbc headlines, is almost always misleading.
So the Grauniad praises Al Beeb’s ‘sheer volume of output on tv and radio’ and its ‘setting the agenda’.
Is this the same Grauniad which is forever campaigning against the Murdoch empire’s (supposed) dominance of the news agenda?
The New Statesman doesn’t say anything critical about Marr’s interviewing technique, and as you say, is largely praising the show (minus the ‘predictable format’, London backdrop and the sofa). I’m sure Marr would be pleased with your promotion of the article though.
I can’t find any mention in news coverage that ‘Marr has been slammed for this Sunday’s interview with Corbyn and last week’s with McDonnell’ – did somebody ‘slam’ him on Twitter?
‘McDonnell who was allowed to stop an audio clip of him abusing Esther McVey ‘ – No, not really. Is it this audio clip, which has mysteriously made it onto the BBC website and has been there since it first emerged?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-42682854/audio-of-john-mcdonnell-s-2014-lynching-remark
The one played to Barry Gardner the same day:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09ljvv3/sunday-politics-14012018
‘Corbyn told us that his approach was ‘challenging an economic consensus that impoverished so many people’. Marr’s response? ‘It clearly was’.’
Mmm, I checked the transcript. It should be fairly clear that he was agreeing the manifesto was very different to the economic consensus – re-nationalisation of industry etc
Click to access 11061703.pdf
Marr didnt ask him about his IRA support, but you can’t really criticise him on the one hand for not challenging answers and also for not raising particular subjects. There’s a wide range of subjects within the purview on a man who wants to be PM – challenge an answer and another question drops of the list.
It’s not as if he hasn’t been asked about the subject on the BBC before. There’s this classic:
If you disagree politically with an interviewee, some people seem to think you only need to keep challenging their answer and eventually Jeremy Corbyn will concede that his lifetime belief in socialism has been all wrong, and he’ll be signing up to the Tory party in the morning.
The most recent interview included questions about his paid appearances on Iranian Press TV though. He also made paid appearance on Putin’s RT as well. A bit like David Vance. Is he still a regular there? A proud Ulster unionist, appearing on a Russian propaganda channel…..tut, tut.
‘the fact that May was expected to get a landslide majority but was almost defeated at the last election shows how the distortion and corruption of the news can effect the outcome of major political events’.
Say what!??! May’s loss of her majority was down to interviewers not asking the ‘right’ questions and getting the ‘right’ answers?!? Would of course be interested to see evidence of the casual link here! Nothing I’m sure to do with probably the worst Tory election campaign in history!?! Newspaper coverage was of course quite overwhelmingly critical of Corbyn.
What was the news agenda set by the interview? Doesn’t look like Corbyn came out of that too well (unless you’re convinced by his promise of free houses for the homeless of course):
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=andrew+marr+jeremy+corbyn&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJz-Kijv3YAhVKKMAKHQ5UCKsQ_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=653
You really should get an editor Alan.
If you want to be anonymous I suggest that you stop always ending your posts with a bitchy one liner. It is such a giveaway of your identity despite your name changes.
Blackwell, aka Zero, aka Maxicony
If you want to change your identity, as instructed by the BBC, try to change your style. People with respect for argument and debate try to end by drawing a conclusion, not with a bitchy comment.
Something for you to think about when fisting in Camden public toilets.
‘If you want to change your identity, as instructed by the BBC, ‘
This suggests not only paranoia but delusions of grandeur.
‘People with respect for argument and debate try to end by drawing a conclusion, not with a bitchy comment.’
People with respect for argument and debate would actually address the argument or debate.
The comment wasn’t intended as bitchy, I genuinely think Alan’s writing would be greatly improved if he ran it by at least one other person.
I will try to do better though. In future, I’ll show respect for argument and debate by ending with a conclusion rather than a bitchy comment.
Something for you to think about when fisting in Camden public toilets.
I’m no more anonymous than any other here, including the blog’s author.
I haven’t commented here in about a year+
Sorely missed.
Making up for it though.
Maxincony is clearly ashamed of his / hers last pseudonym !
Because he / she always gets his / hers arse kicked here !
I’m waiting for my arse kicking. Whenever you’re ready.
At least the preferred end is confirmed.
Blackwell – can I just make a small point? The BBC is not a political party, but you are defending it as if it were.
Montmorency
The Trots recruited from the yoony socialist societies by the BBC actually regard it as a political party which they have been allowed to infiltrate.
Maxi argues like a Trot, with his/its bitchy comment always used in meetings so that the party leader will take note.
G.W.F indeed. Anyone who cared deeply about our state broadcaster’s pledge to impartiality in return for our mandatory fee would be taking seriously statistics and complaints and aiming to resolve any imbalances, not swatting them away like irritating flies. The response to criticism stinks, I’m afraid.
I cannot address Alan’s statistics here, as he hasn’t used any.
I did address his ‘complaint’ though, and no-one is yet to dispute it.
I cannot address Alan’s statistics here, as he hasn’t used any.
I did address his ‘complaint’ though, and no-one is yet to dispute it.
In bbc world, silence is
What a strange’ interview’ this was with Corbyn. A pally little moment when together they remembered the little card that used to be issued by the Labour Party. Not once did Marr interrupt or incessantly talk over the interviewee. The number of times Corbyn made a statement that could ,and most certainly should have been challenged was lost in the gushing proceedings.
Corbyn adopted a pose that was utterly relaxed,probably aware of all the questions to be asked and also seemingly aware that there would be no challenge to anything he said.
Normally Marr’s interviews try to cram in so many questions that the non-Labour politician can barely answer the question before Marr has already moved on to the next one, oblivious and uninterested in the answer . What a waste of time!