Author Archives: DB

Today’s Forecast Wrong Again

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Today programme news bulletins this morning:

6am – “Figures to be released this morning could show that the UK economy grew slightly in the third quarter of this year. If confirmed it would be the first quarterly growth since early 2008 and would mean that the recession is technically over.”

7am and 8am – “Many analysts expect figures out today will show that the British economy has started growing again…”

8.30am – “The latest figures for gross domestic product due to be published in the next hour are expected to show the economy grew between July and September…”

10am – BBC News website:

The UK economy unexpectedly contracted by 0.4% between July and September, according to official figures, meaning the country is still in recession.

It is the first time UK gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted for six consecutive quarters, since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955.

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Another F-Bombgate Update

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It’s getting a bit ridiculous now:

The special BBC unit investigating the 5 Live sabotaging of a pre-recorded sports item with obscene material have finally interviewed alleged prime suspect Ben Jacobs three weeks after the incident.
Yet it’s understood that Jacobs, who denies involvement, was only asked general questions such as how long he’s worked for the Beeb.
These could easily been researched during the 25 days in which this BBC probe — paid for by licence fee money — has got precisely nowhere.

Reminder:

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The One Show

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Here’s One Show reporter Ellie Harrison sporting a CND T-shirt for a segment about new veterinary procedures on last night’s programme:

Hat tip to Dumb Jon, who wasn’t impressed with the show. I dare say he won’t be pleased to hear that Adrian Chiles will be presenting a late night spin-off called The Ten Show.

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A Few Lines

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The Times:

Broadcasting executives addicted to cocaine are routinely praised by bosses for their “creative genius”, a former BBC producer told MPs.

Sarah Graham, who worked on children’s programmes for the corporation and took cocaine for nine years, said use of the drug remained widespread among senior media executives and taking it helped to boost their careers.

The Times also provides a brief history of coke sniffing BBC celebs. Same story covered by the Telegraph, and the Mail.

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New R5L Line-up

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Any thoughts on the new Five Live schedule?

Victoria Derbyshire’s recent Nick Clarke Award for best broadcast interview has been rewarded with the loss of an hour to Obama-lovin’ glamour puss Gabby Logan, who will now be on from 12 ’til 2 weekdays. She’ll be followed by Richard Bacon which means that R5L’s afternoon output will now be determined by the daily obsessions of a tiny number of like-minded celebrity luvvie twitterers.

At least my preference for the afternoon slot has been given his own show: former Sunday Sport editor Tony Livesey takes over from Bacon for the late night stint. Livesey’s occasional stand-in sessions on Weekend Breakfast have made the alternative to the Sunday morning religious broadcasting on Radio 4 bearable for a change. Bonus – his appointment has not gone down well with one Five Live permanent fixture, leftie luvvie Boyd Hilton. I hope Livesey bears that in my mind when he’s booking his guests.

For those unfamiliar with Livesey’s work, this is from the Press Gazette report following his resignation from Sport newspapers:

Livesey told Press Gazette his lasting legacy would be the Cutting Edge Channel 4 documentary about the Sport that showed him coming up with the headline “Shoots You, Sir” about the murder of Gianni Versace. The headline referred to popular comedy sketch show The Fast Show that included a sketch where two tailors said the catchphrase “Suits you, Sir”.
Livesey said: “One of my other proudest moments was when I didn’t quite believe the story ‘Aliens turned our son into a fish finger’ so I told the reporter to go to Asda buy a packet of fish fingers, mix the child in with them and see if the mother could pick it out.”

A bigger role for Livesey has got to be a good thing, yeah?

Update. Forgot the hat-tip to Martin in the comments.

Update 2. Imagine the outrage from all the luvvies if Twitter had existed when Livesey responded to the death of a gay fashion icon with the headline “Shoots You Sir”.

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The Lapel Badges of Phil Jupitus Aged 47 1/4

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Following on from BBC darling Jo Brand’s recent declaration that only white people can be racist, here’s another of the BBC’s favourite comedians, Phil Jupitus, expressing his ideological beliefs. This morning the ubiquitous BBC panel show guest shared with his twitter followers a photo of the lapel badges he’s wearing today:

Chairman Mao and a red star. Aww, how sweet.

A BBC regular proudly displaying a Hitler badge and a swastika would soon see the programme invitations dry up, and rightly so. Lefties are held to different standards and are allowed to celebrate their communist mass-murdering heroes by claiming “retro irony” or some similar bullshit.

(The other badge relates to a show by the comedy trio the Penny Dreadfuls)

Update October 22. Jupitus responds. Hello to all you leftie tossers.

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Rather Biased

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On this week’s episode of Radio 4’s Americana the current state of US journalism was discussed with none other than “special guest” Dan Rather. In his introduction Matt Frei described Rather as a legend (twice) and a titan. The pair talked about various problems facing journalism, covering topics such as the chase for ratings, the newspaper industry, and citizen journalists. Rather concluded with the following observation:

“…let’s pause and remember what we as journalists are supposed to do when we’re at our best, fulfilling the best tradition of American journalism or journalism wherever it is, is play no favourites, pull no punches, and news is what is important for people to know that somebody somewhere in power doesn’t want them to know. Most of the rest is just advertising.”

At no time in their lofty discussions of journalistic ideals was it mentioned that Dan “play no favourites” Rather used demonstrably false documents in an attempt to smear President Bush in the run-up to the 2004 election, the fallout from which damaged CBS’s credibility and hastened Rather’s departure from the network. During the programme Frei quoted former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee’s dismissive take on citizen journalists (“What about citizen surgeons?”) which was somewhat ironic given that his special guest was a professional journalist brought low by the fact-checking of bloggers.

Rather’s bio on the BBC Americana website states: “He retired from CBS in 2005 and is currently the anchor and managing editor of Dan Rather Reports on Hdnet.” In fact he only retired as CBS anchor in 2005, but limped on at CBS News until 2006 when his contract was not renewed. Rather filed a lawsuit against CBS for breach of contract but this was tossed out of court last month (another point not brought up by Frei). Clearly Frei didn’t want to bother the listeners (or embarrass the legend) by mentioning such inconvenient facts; Rather was, after all, fighting the good fight against President Bush and thus can be forgiven everything.

At the end of the programme Frei paid homage by signing off with Rather’s catchphrase “Courage”, a quality I then had to call upon myself to prevent my dinner from re-emerging.

Update. In related “play no favourites” news, this morning ex-CBS correspondent Mika Brzezinski gave MSNBC co-host Joe Scarborough her assessment of the political leanings at Dan Rather’s former network during the years she was there (via Newsbusters) :

SCARBOROUGH:…can you think seriously of one correspondent, of one producer, of one anchor, that was a George W. Bush fan?
BRZEZINSKI: I can. I can think of one, yes.
SCARBOROUGH: How many did you work for?
BRZEZINSKI: Many more than that.

That’s probably one more than the BBC.

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F-Bombgate in the Mail on Sunday

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There’s an article on Ben Jacobs and F-Bombgate in today’s MoS. Includes this:

Their conversation was interrupted by a third voice – understood to be the BBC’s horse racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght – using the f-word several times… The recording of Lysaght’s remarks – made while filing a pre-recorded report several months ago – was stored on a so-called ‘blooper’ file for the amusement of staff.

The Telegraph reported on October 4:

The BBC has been forced to apologise after a member of staff delivered a four-letter tirade without realising he was being broadcast live on Radio 5 Live.
Thousands of listeners heard the unnamed producer swearing at a jazz music recording.

Seems I was correct to be suspicious of that explanation (which could have been down to the Telegraph reporter’s interpretation of events rather than the BBC not telling the truth).

Anyway, it looks likes this amusing little diversion will be coming to an end soon. The final line in the MoS:

A 5 Live spokesman said: ‘We expect to conclude this investigation shortly.’

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Quick one off the wrist

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Watching the latest video from the excellent Evan Coyne Maloney (“Rise and Fall of ObamaMarketing“), in which he contrasts the goofy support for Obama on inauguration day with the subsequent dramatic fall-off in sales for Obama merchandise, reminded me of a couple of BBC correspondents who were very keen to display their own celebratory items following The One’s election:

That’s Anita Anand in the Obama hat and Richard Bacon admiring his new Obama wrist band. (Bacon: “Even though I’m technically impartial I’m now allowed to wear one of these”. Love that “technically”.) And before anybody asks, I have no idea whether or not Mr Bacon wears his dainty fashion accessory while vigorously enjoying himself to Obama’s speeches.

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"You can’t be racist towards white people"

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Here’s BBC favourite Jo Brand during an interview with stand-in host Phil Williams on Radio Five Live’s Simon Mayo Show yesterday:

Jo Brand: My personal opinion is that you can’t be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them but being prejudiced isn’t an illegal act whereas being racist can be.

Phil Williams: Don’t you think racism is just being derogatory about a race, regardless of the colour?

Jo Brand: No I don’t. I think the definition of racism also encompasses political power. So you can’t be racist towards a race that’s politically more powerful than a minority. That to me is the correct definition of racism. I think you can be prejudiced towards a group of people who are more powerful than you, but I don’t think you can be racist towards them.

Have at it.

(The guest immediately before Labour Party luvvie stalwart Jo Brand was Labour Party luvvie stalwart Patrick Stewart. Both just happened to have signed a letter condemning the Tories for their links to the Polish Law and Justice Party. Coincidence?)

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