Author Archives: Andrew

: Having ignored former BBC Governor Dame Pauline Neville-Jones’ devastating broadside in last week’s Mail on Sunday, this week they managed to include Jeff Randall’s article from the Sunday Telegraph, All the BBC needs is proper management, and then ignored an article from Monday’s Daily Mail, Faked footage, rigged votes and a culture of bias. No wonder we’ve lost faith in the BBC, where Melanie Phillips goes to town on a number of BBC issues.

What is the point of BBC in the news if it’s dishonest and partial in reporting genuine cases of BBC in the news?

And again we must ask, why has the option for the public (the people who pay for the BBC) to comment on BBC in the news been removed?

What are The Editors so afraid of that justifies such evasiveness?

there was a report about the North West Passage being free of ice for, according to Sneerboy, “the first time ever” – which of course sounds a lot more dramatic than “the first time in recorded history”, though even that is debatable.

But the thing that really irked was this, in the Stupid BBC category, David Shukman (who of course just had to go to Resolute Bay in Canada to report on a view of the seashore) informed us that a ship travelling from the UK to Japan via the Panama Canal “travels 14,000 miles”, whereas, via the North West Passage “it could save a fortnight”.

How the hell are we supposed to compare 14,000 miles on the one hand with two weeks on the other? It’s apples and pears – it’s meaningless without knowing the mileage or duration of both routes! Clowns!

P.S. David, how many thousand miles was your trip, and how many BBC working hours did it count as? A bit more than a report from White City with some locally supplied footage would have been I expect, and no more informative for all that.

Innocent of inserting noddy shots of himself into interviews not conducted by him, anyway. It turns out that:

In all of the shows, in the four years since Imagine began, fake “noddies” were inserted into precisely none of them. Not one.

So how did it happen then that such a damaging allegation was allowed to gain so much traction? “It’s all my own fault . . . it was foolish of me to respond in that fashion. I did not want to say no to something that might have been yes.”

So when the media asked whether he had allowed noddies to be used to make it look as if he had been where he hadn’t, he said possibly, probably and even suggested it was quite likely because he couldn’t remember and didn’t want to be caught fibbing? Well, baldly, the answer to that question is yes.

Which sounds a bit like confessing to shoplifting just in case you might have done it in the past but can’t quite remember. So why confess?

In all of the shows, in the four years since Imagine began, fake “noddies” were inserted into precisely none of them. Not one.

So how did it happen then that such a damaging allegation was allowed to gain so much traction? “It’s all my own fault . . . it was foolish of me to respond in that fashion. I did not want to say no to something that might have been yes.”

So when the media asked whether he had allowed noddies to be used to make it look as if he had been where he hadn’t, he said possibly, probably and even suggested it was quite likely because he couldn’t remember and didn’t want to be caught fibbing? Well, baldly, the answer to that question is yes.

Trust me, I’m a broadcaster:

He says there needs to be an open debate both within the BBC and beyond – one, importantly, fully open to audiences too – about where lines should be drawn and under what circumstances they might properly be crossed. This is all the more necessary, he says, after “10 years of genre bending and ‘reality’ TV” which have led to what he describes as “a laziness, a routineness about how you make programmes – you want to make them more exciting so you add a bit”; but without that context public service delights like Jamie’s School Dinners simply wouldn’t have happened. The debate so far, he says, has “suggested that you can’t trust anyone – as if programme makers were estate agents, and that’s not true. There are no more motivated people than those who work in broadcasting . . . and ultimately it is about trust and honesty.”

See Steve Hewlett’s original article (linked above) for more details.

, the supremely qualified Jeff Randall, writing in the Telegraph, says All the BBC needs is proper management. Some excerpts:

Queengate and Fincham’s departure:

As Fincham walked, the BBC promised “to implement a comprehensive set of actions to address the weaknesses of communications and co-ordination with other divisions.” Do what?

Hello, it’s not that complicated. This fiasco does not merit another burst of expensive training manuals. There’s no need for yet more weasel worded instructions on internal discourse. You simply tell staff: DON’T MAKE IT UP. If you do, you will be slung out. No ifs, no buts and no compensation. That would do the trick, but it’s not going to happen. Instead, all programme-makers are being sent on truth courses. The BBC should broadcast them: I’d pay good money to see John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman being lectured by some numpty on why telling fibs is a bad idea.

“Queengate” has been embarrassing. But the source of BBC dysfunctionality lies much deeper than the improper splicing of a documentary about royal life.

Over 80 years, a system has been created in which getting rid of feeble performers is almost impossible. The unions, though they speak for less than half the staff, fight any sacking to the last ditch. The upshot is a large rump of people who shouldn’t be there. They are bitter, disillusioned and going nowhere. They openly resent the success of more talented colleagues. For this grisly bunch, there are no triumphs to enjoy, merely the savouring of other people’s disasters. Their bad karma is palpable, yet they are allowed to cling on like barnacles on a sewage pipe.

The BBC’s problem in short:

At the BBC, red lights should be flashing. It is clearly no longer what it says it is. Well, not entirely. The corporation has always sought to distance itself from other media in terms of integrity, impartiality and fairness, but in recent months it has fallen short on all three. Flagship shows such as Blue Peter, Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief have been debased by dodgy dealings. Arts supremo Alan Yentob inserted himself into interviews that he never conducted. Worst of all, Her Majesty was stitched up.

Many decent souls in BBC News are furious. They despair at the sclerosis caused by a surfeit of toadying bureaucrats.

Randall’s suspicions about Thompson’s plans:

Thompson is close to delivering his proposals for coping with a licence-fee settlement that was less than management had asked for. I’m told that he plans to chip away at BBC jewels – such as Today, the main television news bulletins and documentaries – instead of throwing out diamanté rubbish.

With more than £3 billion of annual income, the BBC is an exceptionally well funded broadcaster. It doesn’t need extra income to continue with its world-class service. What’s required is management courage to call time on paper-clip collectors while diverting resources to output that really matters.

Another article worth reading in full.

wrote Melanie Phillips in yesterday’s Daily Mail. Some excerpts:

The departure of Peter Fincham:

[F]eeling is growing that Mr Fincham has been made to carry the can for those higher up the BBC hierarchy, such as the grandly titled Director of Vision Jana Bennett, who was also criticised for showing a “lack of curiosity” once she had been told what had happened.

Moreover, the manner of Mr Fincham’s departure is disturbing in the light of reports that he refused to sign a prepared “Soviet-style” letter of resignation blaming him for the debacle and was summarily dismissed instead.

Cutting the BBC’s core output whilst expanding non-core areas:

Mr Thompson is reportedly about to deal with a funding crisis by emasculating the BBC’s core output, with programmes such as Timewatch or Horizon facing the chop along with distinctive TV news bulletins which would be replaced by a rolling news service. Such action suggests that somewhere along the way priorities have gone haywire.

For while it is taking an axe to its core programming, the BBC is spending vast amounts on highly questionable enterprises.

The BBC’s institutional bias:

At the same time, the very core of the BBC’s claim to the licence fee, that it is uniquely trusted for its integrity, is being steadily destroyed. It’s not just the serial fakery to which it has now put its hands up. It’s the fact that its output, including its journalism, is politically as bent as a corkscrew.

As its own impartiality review concluded earlier this year, the BBC operates in a “Leftleaning comfort zone” and has an “innate liberal bias”, dictating what issues it chooses to cover and how it does so.

It is institutionally and viscerally hostile to America, Israel, conservatism, big business, religion, the countryside and family values; it supports multiculturalism, environmentalism, European federalism, human rights law and ‘alternative’ lifestyles.

Worse still, it sees everything through the distorting prism of this “progressive” agenda. As a result, it views its own Left-wing position as the centre ground, and anyone who disagrees is viewed as a Rightwing extremist.

And Melanie’s piercing conclusion: it’s that Marr again:

In place of the former high-minded disciples of Lord Reith, the BBC came to be run by people who stood for nothing except shallow success. Politically correct to a fault, they therefore enforced the Left-wing group think with even greater zeal.

The inevitable outcome has been that the BBC has all but destroyed the very reason for its existence. With its public service ideal thus fatally corrupted, the loss of self confidence which brought that about has also made it unable to stand up to government pressure.

As a result, it has become all too eager to do the bidding of a Government which scarcely bothers to hide its contempt.

So when Gordon Brown announced there would be no General Election, he ignored ITN and Sky and chose to use instead a soft interview by the BBC’s Andrew Marr – who then announced the decision to the nation from Downing Street for all the world as if he were the Prime Minister’s spokesman.

The BBC has lost its way – and it will take more than the removal of an executive or two for it to find it again.

But do read the whole thing – it’s worth it!

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Richy for the link.

It wasn’t exactly a tough no-nonsense interview was it? Marr certainly went through the motions, but Brown got away with a lot of nonsense and flannel that a more rigorous interview style would have drawn out and highlighted.

David Cameron, speaking on Adam Boulton’s show on Sky News, described the Brown/Marr interview:

I think there are two points. There is the manner in which the statement was made and I think for the Prime Minister who said I am going to do things differently, I’m going to be transparent, no more of the spin it was a classic example of spin. You get one broadcaster invite them into Downing Street and do a special little interview rather than actually go out there and face the press and answer the questions.

The second thing is not just the manner of how it was done but the content of the interview. I just think he is treating people like fools. He is saying I am not having an election because I want to get on with the changes. We all know he was planning an election, that he wanted an election, it was briefed that he was going to decide when he had looked at the poll. He is not being straight with people. He ought to have said I’ve looked at the polls and I recognize I have more to do to convince people then at least he would have been straight. Instead we have had spin…

Later, while interviewing Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Adam Boulton slipped in:

So why couldn’t the Prime Minister be honest with the country? Why couldn’t he tell us what he was thinking about about a general election? And why couldn’t he actually tell the nation face to face live yesterday that he was calling it off?

…obviously still smarting from being cast into the Downing Street gutter courtesy of Brown’s soft-soap opportunism and the willingness of Andrew Marr and the BBC to go along with it.

Whilst Brown and co. got a good going over yesterday afternoon and in the Sunday papers for the manner of his announcement and the fallout from his dithering, it appears that his original plan was to have Marr along for a cosy chat on the quiet, until, if The Observer is to be believed, plans for his announcement were thrown into disarray when news of his decision was leaked to ConservativeHome.

Would Marr and the BBC have announced Brown’s decision on Saturday afternoon if Brown’s plans hadn’t been leaked or would they have kept Marr’s exclusive until Saturday night or even Sunday before going public? It would certainly have suited Brown if that had happened.

A shoddy business all round.

Update: Like Blair before him, Brown has opted to have one of his ‘monthly briefings’ today – you know the sort – the ones that happen at short notice whenever the Prime Minister wants to appear as if he’s open and honest. Nick Robinson sums it up nicely on his blog, getting in a good dig in passing:

Here we go again. The prime minister, we’re told, “will brave the inquisition/face the music/confront the feral beast [choose cliche of choice] at the beginning of his worst week yet”.

Heard it before? Of course you have, whenever Tony Blair was in the soup. Downing Street organised today’s news conference to show that Gordon Brown, just like his predecessor, could withstand the slings and arrows, the name-calling and the cat calls and still emerge looking like a prime minister.

The truth is that he would far rather do this at a news conference than in the bear-pit of Parliament or a round with the media’s toughest interviewers. It isn’t that difficult when you get to choose the questions (allowing you to say “the lady at the back with the headscarf” if the going gets tough and you fancy a detour into the Middle East) and you disallow follow-ups and when you stand up in the state rooms of Downing Street looking prime ministerial.

“…or a round with the media’s toughest interviewers” – so Nick doesn’t think Brown has done a round with the media’s toughest interviewers either…

Video clips courtesy of the BBC.

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How embarrassing for Gordon Brown – having let speculation run riot, egged on by his spinners, rearranged his diary ready to make the announcment, only to pull out at the last minute, citing a laundry list of excuses (wanting to show his vision, the staleness of the electoral register, foot & mouth disease, the postal strike, lack of public demand etc.) – none of which would have mattered if it was in the interests of the Labour Party to hold an election now.

Brown has fluffed his chance to hold a ‘mandate’ election and secure a new five year term. He and his spinners, with all their election hype, have squandered their ace card (choosing the election date) whilst also unifying and energising the Conservatives into the bargain. Not a good day for Brown or the Labour Party.

But the boys and girls in the Brown stuff aren’t the only ones who had a bad day. Not only does the Prime Minister get to pick and choose the election date to suit him and his party, he also, it seems, gets to pick and choose who interviews him to pass on the Dear Leader’s message to the nation.

If you were in Gordon Brown’s shoes – poor battlefield marginal polls, Cameron on a roll and an election steam train of your own making thundering toward a cliff edge, how would you explain yourself to the nation?

1. Face the music live in front of the Downing Street press pack? Nope.

    

2. Give a rigorous live interview to someone who can smell your fear and who owes you nothing? Not a chance.

    

3. Or perhaps a not quite so rigorous recorded shuffle with Handy Andy Marr, for editing and transmission a day later? That’ll do nicely!

No prizes for guessing right – the answer’s more obvious than a premium-rate quiz question.

The BBC should not dance to the tune of the government – yet colluding with Brown to let him choose how, when and who will interview him is dancing to the tune of the government. Even if the BBC can’t control the how and the when they can certainly control the who – and insist on equal access for other journalists (including those from other organisations) or none at all – Brown shouldn’t have been allowed to dictate the interview terms – he should have been given the choice of full access or no access – to do anything less is not serving the public who pay for the BBC.

This is in stark contrast to David Cameron, who was interviewed live in a pooled interview (conducted by Sky) responding to Brown’s announcement. A stark contrast that should be highlighted every time the Marr/Brown clip is shown – but don’t hold your breath if you’re watching BBC News.

Other journalists aren’t pulling their punches. Adam Boulton described Marr as a “sympathetic interviewer”, blogging:

As I write in the gutter opposite Number 10, the BBC’s Andrew Marr is inside interviewing the Prime Minister. It’s unusual to make such announcements on an exclusive basis – but it’s a sure sign of meltdown, as is the radio silence observed today by both Government and Labour spokespeople.

…laying in to Brown and Co. as best he can from outside in the Downing Street gutter (see full transcript at the CWO blog).

Participating in the government’s stage-management runs the risk of damaging Marr more than the Prime Minister is damaged, unless it turns out that Marr has given Brown the pasting of a lifetime (not evidenced by the clip we’ve seen so far) and has Cameron on after Brown’s interview to respond first hand to Brown’s performance. Even then, it’s clear who Brown’s first choice is to act as his mouthpiece.

: Peter Fincham (the quintessential frightened man in a suit) and Jane Fletcher, his head of press, are expected to resign today following Will Wyatt’s inquiry into the Crowngate affair – the faked footage suggesting the Queen had stormed out of a photo shoot. An excerpt from MediaGuardian’s report:

They have decided to quit because they knew by 5pm on the day of the BBC1 press launch on July 11 that the story was untrue. But they did not correct it until the following morning, allowing the media – including BBC News – to run with the story.

The BBC did not apologise until July 12, when it admitted the sequence of events in a BBC1 documentary about the Queen had been misrepresented and would not be shown that way in the final programme.

Today’s report is expected to be equally critical of Jana Bennett, the director of BBC Vision. Mr Fincham told the inquiry that he made it clear to Ms Bennett in an evening meeting on July 11 that the story was untrue. She disputes this, and is expected to survive for the moment.

The creative director of production company RDF Media, Stephen Lambert, who admitted to the Guardian that he had wrongly edited the footage of the Queen that led to the Crowngate scandal, has also resigned.

See A Tale of two train wrecks for Biased BBC’s coverage of BBC Views Online’s typically poor coverage of the original scandal. See also Peter Fincham in his starring role on Newsnight – “I don’t think I should resign to be absolutely honest”:

Paging Noddy Yentob, paging Noddy Yentob…

Update: As expected earlier this afternoon, it’s been confirmed: BBC One boss quits over Queen row.

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Rockall for the spot.

to present Five News. BBC Views Online’s summary of Natasha’s career curiously omits her time working for John Smith and Neil Kinnock before moving to Meridian TV. Doubtless for reasons of space.