Author Archives: DB

MICHAEL BUERK ON TELEVISION

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Former BBC newsreader Michael Buerk, quoted in the Telegraph:

“If you’ve been hired because you are young and pretty, because you are mincingly camp, because you’ve ticked a particular ethnic box and then you are no longer young and pretty or the fashions have moved on and you suddenly don’t have a job – get over it. It’s showbusiness… The problem is that at the other extreme of the argument. The idea of putting people on television – which is a non-job, that is terribly well paid, where you don’t have to think too much, or work too hard – and giving people those jobs purely on the ground that we need another six Asians, or we need another six lesbians, or we need another six pensioners, is to my mind almost worse.”

He makes the comments in a programme about ageism in television presented by former BBC Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly for ITV Tonight which, as the name suggests, is on ITV tonight.

As Guest Who puts it in the open thread, it’s time for offence-taking luvvies to “flounce up your engines” again. Which bit do you think the twitterati will get most angry about? The references to well paid non-jobs? The phrase “mincingly camp”? The bit about lesbians, or Asians, or pensioners? Should be fun. [Gets popcorn]

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FOX NEWS

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Further to Robin’s earlier post, here’s another interesting blast from Fiona Fox’s past:

DISGRACED former Labour politician Jim Devine persuaded a friend to call his office manager pretending to be a journalist looking into MPs expenses, it was claimed today.
But when she took time off for stress after discovering his actions had been an elaborate hoax, he told other staff that it was her being investigated for fraudulent expenses claims used to fund a non-existent gambling habit…

…But when she came into the office the following day, the office manager realised it was all a big hoax.
She said: “I went into work and checked my emails and I had access to Jim’s email.
“There was one marked urgent so I opened it.
“It was from Fiona Fox mostly about the Embryology Bill.
“She is the Director at the Science Media Centre in London.
“But at the end there was a PS said that ‘I phoned that poor woman in your office and left the message. Hope you’ve put her out of her misery.“

Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample commented at the time:

Few people who are familiar with the small pond that is science journalism in the UK will have failed to gulp on reading about the ex-Labour MP Jim Devine and the unthinkable bullying he unleashed on his office manager, Marion Kinley.
Devine, who was an MP in Livingston, Scotland, before being caught up in the expenses scandal last year asked an acquaintance to make a fake call to Kinley and pretend to be a journalist investigating her financial affairs. The story gets darker with every step and you can read more about it here. Devine has since been ordered to pay Kinley £35,000.
Though appalling from the off, it was not the top line that shocked many of my colleagues most. What came as a surprise was the revelation far down the story that the fake call in question was made by Fiona Fox, head of the Science Media Centre in London, a prominent venue for press conferences on all matters scientific and medical. Otherwise articulate people who read the story struggled to say more than three letters: WTF?

This is the same person lecturing about “integrity” on the BBC College of Journalism website.

UPDATE. In the comments Beeboidal points us to the BBC’s account of the Devine bullying case. No mention of Fiona Fox, of course.

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POT EMPLOYEE CRITICISES RIVAL KETTLE GROUP

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BBC journalist Iain Mackenzie has returned from his stint in America. I’ve just stumbled across his newly-named Twitter account and was quite taken with this tweet from last month:


Kudos for pointing it out, Iain, but given the BBC’s record I’ve got to say that’s quite a pair of balls you’ve got there.

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PARALLELS

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This morning’s Today programme devoted substantial time to allegations – scandalous if true – that the Metropolitan Police has undertaken an orchestrated campaign to discredit expert defence witnesses in Shaken Baby court cases. One of the pathologists in question stated:

“…it appears to me that there has been an attempt to remove from the courts all of those people who are willing to challenge the mainstream hypothesis”

A supposedly impartial and highly influential state body using dubious methods to discredit those who dare to disagree with the establishment’s consensus opinion. Remind you of anything? (Clue – Paul Nurse’s Horizon and Storyville’s Meet the Climate Sceptics.)

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Spot the Party

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Via Conservative Home, this story from The Times (£):

“In an interview with The Times, Paul Maynard, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North & Cleveleys, described an incident in which some Labour MPs made faces, stretching their cheeks up and down as he spoke. It appeared to be an attempt to mimic him…”

(See also Telegraph, Mail, Press Association)

Whoever wrote the copy for the final newspaper review on this morning’s Today programme decided one particular detail wasn’t worth mentioning. Here’s how Evan Davis told it – see if you can spot what’s missing:

“The Times says the Conservative MP Paul Maynard has been mocked by colleagues in the House of Commons because he’s disabled. Mr Maynard has cerebral palsy and he tells the paper MPs appeared to pull faces to mimic him as he spoke in a debate. He says that carrying on regardless was one of the hardest things he’s had to do. The Times says MPs of all parties have condemned the general behaviour in the commons as cruel and despicable…”

There’s a similar omission in the BBC’s online paper review (h/t Craig):

The Times has Tory MP Paul Maynard, who has cerebral palsy, saying he was mocked by MPs during a Commons debate.
He says they pulled faces at him, and the paper calls it a “scandal”.

As Craig points out in the open thread, this brief item in the paper review is thus far the only mention of the story on the BBC website. There is, however, room for yet more Alastair Campbell-related publicity.

The BBC would be treating this very differently if Tories had been accused of mocking a disabled Labour MP.

UPDATE 4pm. NotaSheep and Span Ows point out in the comments that the phrase “mocked by colleagues” in the Today paper review goes further than merely covering for the Labour MPs involved by creating the impression that fellow Conservatives could be to blame. And Hippiepooter reminds us that when a non-entity Tory activist (not an MP) sent an email to a Tory councillor (not an MP) in Bradford in which he called a Labour agent “a cripple”, Newsnight led with it (here’s then editor Peter Barron’s response to the ensuing criticism.)

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OPEN THREAD

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The previous open thread has agreed to stand down in favour of a new open thread, ushering in a fresh era of open threadness.

For those of you not up to speed on recent BBC output, here’s a brief summary of the main points:

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Wikileaks In The Telegraph? Meh.

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Julian Assange has taken his latest batch of documents to the Telegraph:

WikiLeaks documents that disclose how British ministers secretly advised Libya on securing the successful early release of the Lockerbie bomber demonstrate that Tony Blair’s Government was “playing false” over the issue, Alex Salmond has said.

The BBC response so far:


Apart from a brief mention during one of the paper reviews on Today this morning I haven’t seen or heard anything about this on the BBC. How very different to the headline treatment given to similar recent Guardian stories (Wikileaks, Palestinian papers). In those cases the BBC seemed to be in the loop, primed and ready for action as soon as the early editions were out. Now that the Telegraph is splashing with Wikileaks revelations the BBC appears slow to react and uninterested. The fact that the latest documents are embarrassing to Labour could be a contributing factor too.

No doubt something will appear eventually, but one gets the impression there’s a greater sense of urgency at the BBC when the Guardian is involved in these stories. Apparently there are more important things to report on today, such as the suspension of a principal from a minor Scottish university.

Update: The BBC’s Wikileaks page hasn’t been updated for a while:

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