Author Archives: DB

Grayling

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Radio Five Live whipped itself into quite a frenzy over the Chris Grayling rumpus. Stephen Nolan could hardly contain himself when the story broke during his show last night, admitting to the senior programme editor of Channel 4 News today that he was “ready to burst” waiting for the boxing to finish (not a pleasant image – can’t get Mr Creosote out of my mind for some reason).

Five Live’s political reporter Chris Mason shared Nolan’s enthusiasm:

Anna Adams (“Interactive Reporter, BBC News”) was so excited she posted her first tweets in over a week. The story remained Five Live’s top headline until midday today (even the breaking news of three car bombs and dozens dead in Baghdad was deemed a lesser item on the 11am and 11.30 am bulletins). Unsurprisingly, the Tory Party’s widening lead in the opinion polls was not considered very newsworthy.

The fervour shown for this story by the Beeb (and particularly Five Live) suggests that there are a number of BBC journalists simply itching to give the Tories a good kicking. Unfortunately for them I don’t think most people are particularly bothered one way or the other by Grayling’s views on gays and B&Bs. Still, no doubt there will be other opportunities to stick the boot in between now and election day.

Sunday night update. Keeping it going:


Update 2. And as of 10.30pm Sunday night it’s the number one headline on Radio Five Live again.

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Stomach turning

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From today’s Telegraph

The editors and presenters on Radio 4’s Today programme have been told they must interview representatives of the BNP, Ukip, the Green party, SNP and Plaid Cymru on the same show, the morning after the debates.

Sources said this will leave almost no room for serious discussion of how the mainstream leaders performed.

One source said: “We’re all spitting feathers here. This is further proof that the BBC’s obsession with ‘compliance’ is destroying its news coverage and journalism.

“The only result of this directive from Mark Byford and the rest of the overpaid detached senior management is that listeners will simply switch off in droves.

“The idea of having to interview the Ukip leader Nigel Farage – let alone Nick Griffin – is turning people’s stomachs.”

No Alka Seltzer needed for the leaders of the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, just the BNP and UKIP. So even the party that came second in the European elections is beyond the pale as far as sophisticated metropolitan BBC journalists are concerned. Too stupid to know that UKIP’s leader is Lord Pearson, not Nigel Farage, though. (H-t John Anderson in the comments).

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Classic BBC Cringe

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The BBC’s Wendy Urquhart enters the realms of “beyond parody” in this butt-clenchingly PC report about the anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands (or “the Falkland Islands or Las Malvinas” as they are apparently known when they’re not simply “Las Malvinas”) :

A solemn day in Argentina. Thousands gather to pay their respects, but the issue of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, or Las Malvinas, is clearly one that’s far from settled. President Cristina Kirchner told the crowds that it was a time to remember those they’d lost but it was most definitely not a time to forget about Las Malvinas and vowed to keep pushing for ownership of the islands…

Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, or Las Malvinas, on April 2nd 1982…

The Falklands, or Las Malvinas, lie just 300 miles form the coast of Argentina and have been claimed at one time or another by Britain, France, Spain and Argentina…

The two nations appear to agree that war is not the answer, but Argentina wants Las Malvinas back and President Kirchner is determined to make that happen.

This week’s From Our Own Correspondent also included an Argentinian perspective on the Falklands War. Nothing from our brethren islanders with their unpleasantly positive views about Margaret Thatcher, though. Funny, that.

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Earth Hour vs Human Achievement Hour

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On Radio Five Live’s Morning Reports today Nick Bryant ended a piece about Earth Hour with a quick reference to the Competitive Enterprise Institute counter campaign, Human Achievement Hour. The response from the newsreader in the studio (Vicki Sperrey?) amused me. Just in case listeners were in any doubt whose side the BBC is on…

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Small Icicle in Hades

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On this week’s Now Show Jon Holmes took advantage of Marcus Brigstocke’s absence and actually did a segment mocking climate change alarmism. Hard to believe, I know. A sop to the show’s critics, perhaps?

Another interesting little point. Brigstocke’s replacement for the week was Paul Sinha whose routine was based – with stunning originality – on a Daily Mail article. However, he referred to it only as “a major national newspaper”. Has criticism of lazy right-on comedians using the words “Daily Mail” also hit home?

The story in the Mail was about a naughty word nearly appearing on Channel 4’s Countdown. For Sinha it was an opportunity to use another tiresome comedy cliché, namely the “Have you seen those crazy comments under right-wing newspaper articles?” bit. He riffed off a comment on the Mail’s website from Doreen in Dorset who had written of the near-scandal: “More evidence of how moral standards have fallen in Brown’s Broken Britain.” If you look up the post by “Doreen” you’ll see she also adds: “When will they scrap the awful licence fee TAX?” This is clearly someone taking the piss out of Daily Mail readers. There are other comments like it, such as “Dave” in Maidstone: “Another idiotic waste of taxpayers’ money by Jonathan Ross and the BBC.” One wonders what percentage of comments on the Daily Mail website are actually written by crappy comedians stuck for things to joke about.

A better comedian might have questioned why so many newspapers covered this non-story (Guardian, Telegraph, Sun, Mirror) rather than take the all too familiar – and clearly fake – Daily Mail readers’ comments route.

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