Category Archives: F-Bombgate

Two "gates" and a couple of degrees of separation

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A few weeks BC (Before Climategate) there was another “gate” controversy which, I have to concede, generated slightly less interest among the Biased BBC readership. Well, you’ll all be pleased to read that F-Bombgate has just about reached its denouement:

The BBC investigation into the sabotage of an early morning 5 Live sports news bulletin with obscene material has concluded that chief suspect Ben Jacobs will not be offered any more freelance shifts. But the Beeb will be extremely careful with any statement for fear of legal action by Jacobs, who has kept silent since denying any involvement. He claims someone logged on to the BBC computer system in his name.

Now, bear with me here. Via Richard North at EUReferendum I see that Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson (who has apparently re-reinvented himself as the sword of truth against the evil forces of the Right) blames us all for Climategate:

“The CRU theft was a criminal attempt to sabotage the Copenhagen climate summit, and the entire right wing blogosphere is complicit in the crime.”

Apart from his role as the sanctimonious conscience of the blogosphere, Johnson is also a jazz musician who, according to Wikipedia, has featured on a couple of albums by bassist Stanley Clarke. And with that as my tenuous link, here’s the moment once again (possibly for the last time, but I can’t promise) when a blooper reel of BBC racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght was sneaked into a sports report by person or persons known or unknown:

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Some Updates

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Re Saturday’s blog post about Gavin Lee’s interview with Duane in Killeen. First Post reports today:

Questions were being asked in Texas this weekend about the friendship between the US Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base last Thursday, and a young man called Duane Reasoner Jnr. Interviewed by the BBC on Friday, Reasoner said he felt no pity for Hasan’s victims because “they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims”.

A tape of the interview, conducted by Gavin Lee of the BBC, has ended up on YouTube and other sites and is getting an angry response from Americans still shocked by Hasan’s deadly rampage.

The clip I posted is currently ranking 2 in Most Discussed (Today) – News and Politics on YouTube. A group of terrorist-supporting Islamic supremacist whackjobs who were featured by CNN on Friday have also put the clip on their website (no link for those arseholes). Needless to say, they’re very proud of young Duane.

It’s pleasing to note that Melanie Phillips linked to Friday’s post about Mark Mardell.

And I’d like to give a shout out (as President Obama might say) to Artists Against Wind Farms who linked to this post yesterday. Their noble endeavour is to stop our countryside being blighted by those monstrosities.

Oh yeah, there’s some more F-bombgate news in the Daily Mail today (scroll down – even I’m bored with the whole thing now and therefore can’t be bothered to give it a blog post of its own.)

This is a Some Updates Update. BBC North America editor Mark Mardell’s eagerness to dismiss an ideological motive for the Fort Hood killings looks ever more foolish:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

Further Update. Hasan’s calling card – “Soldier of Allah“.

Mark Mardell #fail.

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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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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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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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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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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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Is BBC Lying Over F-Bombgate?

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Today the BBC told the Telegraph that an “unnamed producer” was responsible for an outburst of swearing on yesterday’s Morning Reports on Radio Five Live. I noted yesterday that a couple of tweets suggested that the racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght was to blame.

Compare the f-bomb clip with the one of Cornelius Lysaght taken from Radio Five Live today. Is it the same person?

If it is the same person (and it sounds like it to me) why would the BBC lie? It’s not as if Lysaght can be blamed for the error; in fact, if he’s forced to listen to tedious jazz fusion while waiting to file reports he deserves our sympathy. Is the BBC telling the truth, and if not, why not?

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