Author Archives: DB

Evening Standard on the BBC, pt 2

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“At heart, the BBC is a nine-to-five, public sector type of place, run by people who have never really worked anywhere else.”…

Those at the top spend their whole time talking to each other, so they are genuinely surprised by outside criticism…

Like most highly bureaucratic organisations which feel under threat, the BBC’s core instinct is to expand as a matter of self-preservation.
It cannot see a piece of new or old media territory without seeking to dominate it.

From part two of Stephen Robinson’s look at the BBC in the Evening Standard. (Part one linked here.)

Robinson makes one claim which may raise some eyebrows:

…few could now argue that politicians of the Left are given an easier ride in interviews than those of the Right: Andrew Marr’s recent grillings of Gordon Brown and David Cameron were equally tough.

Analysis of both interviews by Beeb Bias Craig suggests that Marr actually interrupted Cameron twice as often he did Brown (more than two interruptions per minute versus one per minute).

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F-Bombgate News

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Ben Jacobs hits back:

BBC freelance sports broadcaster Ben Jacobs, the alleged prime suspect in a high-level BBC inquiry into the sabotaged early Saturday morning precording for a 5 Live sports news bulletin that contained inserted obscene material from the Beeb’s bloopers file, will take legal action if necessary to clear his name.
Jacobs says in an email to BBC colleagues: ‘I now face being barred from potentially all BBC outlets for something I fervently, vociferously can swear I did not do, nor could ever conceive of doing.
‘I will take the matter to a law-court if I have to, because I have worked hard and honestly for the past five years and some idiot has ruined my reputation and career overnight.’

(Listen to the sabotaged broadcast.)

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"Institutional Terror"

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Lengthy article by Stephen Robinson in the Evening Standard: Fear and loathing inside the BBC. Some snippets:

Bennett is Head of Vision, which is another way of saying she oversees the other executives who oversee television and the BBC’s internet output, for which she is rewarded with a salary package of £536,000.
She is one of the 47 BBC executives who is paid more than the £197,000 earned a year by the British Prime Minister.
“She was standing surrounded by a bunch of her acolytes as she held forth. They weren’t quite bowing in her presence but they were certainly fawning over her. It was ridiculous. And I thought, what does she actually do for the BBC? What is the point of her?”…

There is an institutional terror of talking publicly about the fears that have dominated the conscious hours of everyone who works there…

“Where on earth are these dozens of executives on more that £200,000 supposed to be going?,” asks one BBC reporter. “They are literally unemployable outside the BBC.”…

Vine and Jeremy Paxman are said by BBC colleagues to be locked into an ultra-competitive contest about their respective salaries…

One veteran BBC presenter, a household name who does not want to be identified, says the central problem with the corporation now is its size. “We have become so big, so dominant, that there’s nothing institutional left for us to aim at,” he says…

One of the oddest things about talking to BBC people is that they will spend half an hour sounding off about the horrors of the institution, of its bureaucratic culture, of the shameful way its senior executives reward themselves ludicrous amounts of public money.
And then those journalists will say: “I hope you’re not writing a Right-wing newspaper attack on the BBC.”…

An on-air reporter says it is the second-rate programme-making staff who get shunted up the management ladder.
“It’s insane,” he says. “We have one of the largest media organisations in the world run by jobbing journalists who couldn’t hack it.
“In any private organisation they would eventually be fired, but in the BBC they just keep on climbing up the ladder.”…

“The warning here is Gorbachev. Once you start trying to reform an organisation such as the BBC, it collapses, just like the old Soviet Union,” says one well-known presenter. “Who, as director-general, is going to say, let’s make this place smaller, let’s reduce all the salaries, including mine?”

“just like the old Soviet Union”. Heh.

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They’re only Republicans…

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This comment was left on the blog of Radio 4’s PM programme (click image for larger version):

I responded in kind:

As I expected my message was removed very quickly (within ten minutes):

The comment from “alanparker” hoping for the death of “racist Republicans” Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin is still there.

Update. Somebody at the Beeb must be reading this blog – the “alanparker” comment has now been removed. Funny how it didn’t occur to the moderators to remove it at the same time as they took mine down.

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F-Bombgate – Director General Intervenes

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I can tell you’re all itching to know the latest on F-Bombgate, so here it is:

The Five Live sports news sabotage case, in which a Saturday morning pre-recorded interview with Wigan manager Roberto Martinez had an obscene blooper out-take inserted, has reached the level of the BBC Director General Mark Thompson.
Thompson has ordered all unused studios at Television Centre to be locked as part of his investigation and the out-take file bloopers erased.
At the centre of the inquiry is freelancer Ben Jacobs, who had been replaced by Paul Scott as the overnight sports news reader.
The incident happened on Scott’s first shift and involved a computer on which Jacobs had signed on.
The saboteur also attempted to delete other pre-recorded material. Subsequently, an email from BBC Radio Solent sports editor Adam Blackmore, who employed Jacobs and Scott, was sent to all local Beeb radio stations advising them not to employ ‘loose cannon’ Jacobs.
Oxford graduate Jacobs denies any malpractice and claims someone logged on in his name.

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Stuffing Paxo

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Jeremy Paxman famously asked the then Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard the same question 12 times on Newsnight. Former Newsnight editor Peter Horrocks chose it as his favourite moment when the programme celebrated its 25 anniversary, and the clip is available on the Newsnight website (unlike many other people’s favourite – the outing of Peter Mandelson by Matthew Parris, which the BBC refuses to rebroadcast).

On Monday Boris Johnson asked Paxman what he earns at least five times during the course of their interview. Newsnight decided to cut the segment from broadcast:

THE BBC was blasted last night over claims it cut parts of an interview where Boris Johnson attacked Jeremy Paxman over his wages.
It is claimed the London Mayor demanded “five or six times” to know the BBC anchor’s taxpayer-funded salary – thought to be £1million a year…
Johnson said: “We didn’t get an answer for that by the way – about your earnings.”
The BBC last night said cuts were due to programme timings and views were “fairly reflected”. Mayoral aides have called for the unedited interview to go out online.

The BBC’s tax-dodging superstars do not like it up ’em.

More on this from the All Seeing Eye.

(Hat tips to anyone and everyone who has mentioned this in the comments.)

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F-Bombgate Latest

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For those still interested in the ongoing saga, this comes from the Daily Mail’s Charles Sale column:

Saboteur hunt at 5live
The BBC are mounting a top-level probe, using CCTV and computer information, to find who was responsible for tampering with an early Saturday morning 5live sports news bulletin featuring a pre-recorded Jacqui Oatley interview with Wigan manager Roberto Martinez.
The Martinez chat was interrupted by a voice saying ‘******* trumpet, ******* Stanley Clarke’, which the Beeb hierarchy believe may have been inserted by a disgruntled employee.
Freelance sports reporter Ben Jacobs, who graduated from Oxford University with a double first in English Language and Literature in 2004, missed his BBC sports shift on Sunday having been told he was involved in the inquiry.
Jacobs’ agent David Welch said: ‘Ben is fully co-operating with the investigation but totally denies any involvement in any malpractice.’

Update. The aforementioned Ben Jacobs has just penned his first sports column for the Leicester Mercury. Headline – “Coventry curse isn’t working, but the F word is“.
(via the blog of Mercury editor Keith Perch)

See also: BBC F-Bomb Rant
F-Bomb Update
Is BBC Lying Over F-Bombgate?

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Log Lines

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The BBC and the Times have today both covered the news that old ships logs are being transcribed as a resource for climatologists. No prizes for guessing which media outlet thought the following could be of interest to its readers, and which chose to ignore it:

However, some of the logs suggest that there has been little or no change in sea temperatures elsewhere in the Arctic. Climate change sceptics are likely to seize on these records as evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are having less impact than many scientists have claimed.

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Rush Schools Katty

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Chicago’s first round exit from the 2016 Olympic voting on Friday was greeted with a certain amount of glee by Rush Limbaugh. Echoing the song of praise to Obama made famous by a group of New Jersey school kids, Limbaugh told his radio audience:

Our president, “Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm, mmm, mmm. Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm, mmm, mmm,” had been running around the world for nine months telling everybody how much our country sucks. He’s been running around the world apologizing for the United States of America. Why would anybody award the Olympics to such a crappy place as the United States?

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday the BBC’s Katty Kay, clearly missing the reference, was not impressed:

After, you know, listening to that Rush Limbaugh clip again and I don’t think I want to hear it, really, for a fourth or fifth time, is that it’s not Barack Obama, it’s Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. There’s something insidious going on there, too, in the repetition of his middle name.

Limbaugh responded on his show yesterday:

RUSH: Just unbelievable. This is a member in good standing of the State-Controlled Media and she thinks I’m out there, “Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm.” She does not realize that a bunch of school kids in New Jersey and across the country are being forced to learn songs and poems in praise of the dear leader such as…

SCHOOLKIDS: He said that all must lend a hand to make this country strong again. Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama. He said we must be fair today, equal work means equal pay. Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama. He said we all must take a stand, to make sure everyone gets a chance. Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama.

RUSH: All right, that’s enough, that’s enough. Now, I must acknowledge that Katty Kay certainly does not watch Fox News, which is the only place the video aired. We aired the audio here, but she’s clueless. She has no idea of the story, zip, zero, nada. Katty Kay, BBC America, has no idea that schoolchildren across America are being propagandized and indoctrinated to support personally the dear leader, Barack Hussein Obama. So when I mock this and have fun with it, she thinks I am being derisive of insidious, insidious, insidious, I don’t want to hear Limbaugh again, I heard it four or five times, I don’t want to hear it again. Hey, Katty, try this.

SCHOOLKIDS PARODY: Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, mmm, mmm. (Battle Hymn of the Republic tune) My ears have heard Rush Limbaugh on my parents’ radio. He tells me that the left is wrong and stuff I need to know. We turn it off when he is done ’cause there is no other show. Rush, keep broadcasting on. Glory, glory hallelujah. Glory, Clinton couldn’t fool ya. Barack Obama can’t ignore ya. Rush, keep broadcasting on. In 1951 he was born in Missouri. Now he’s on the radio conducting EIB. On the air to set us free from sea to shining sea, he keeps broadcasting on. Glory, glory hallelujah. Glory, Clinton couldn’t fool ya. Barack Obama can’t ignore ya. Rush, keep broadcasting on. Rush keep broadcasting on!

Marvellous.

At least Kay was wearing modest attire for her appearance on Morning Joe. She nearly got them out for the lads on the Chris Matthews Show the previous morning:

Update: Video of Limbaugh’s response to Kay, including the Rush Hudson Limbaugh song.

(A belated h/t to B-BBC reader Jack Bauer who was way ahead of us on this)

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