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Definitely not a good week for the Beeb…

Thanks to George R in the comments for pointing out that criticism of the Beeb’s bloggers – particularly Webb – is finding a wider audience.

[S]urely it’s time the organisation tried to control its bloggers who are becoming more and more outspoken. As a publicly-funded broadcaster, the BBC is supposed to maintain an attitude of political impartiality, but no longer, when it comes to the blogs available on the corporation’s website, reads the Standard’s Diary column.

It goes on to reference a couple of the recent blog entries that have been highlighted here. And it’s none too flattering about Peston, either.

And another thing…

Anyone know why the Beeb’s website has outsourced part of its US election coverage to Newsweek? The latest piece (following others such as these) is – well, just what you’d expect from a left-leaning news weekly – a predictable pre-emptive strike on any floating voters who dare choose McCain. Here’s the writer’s conclusion, imagining the horror of a McCain victory:

Democrats are despairing over the results, fearing they might never view their country in the same light again. Even many Republicans are subdued at the news of McCain’s victory.

Having expected him to lose, they know the GOP has now completed a sorry transition from the party of Lincoln to the party of cynicism. McCain, they’re reasoning, might prove a fine president, but it shouldn’t have happened like this…

… It probably won’t. Millions of people in the rest of the world assume that Barack Obama cannot be elected because he is black. They assume that the original sin of American history – enshrined in our Constitution – cannot be transcended.

I go into next week’s election with a different assumption – that the common sense and decency of the American people will prove the sceptics wrong.

If you’re wondering why it doesn’t work

Steve Hewlett’s piece in The Guardian offers an interesting insight into accountability at the BBC. The discussion is about the proposals for top-slicing the license fee, but the point is more widely applicable:

Senior Ofcom executives have privately expressed surprise at the lack of obvious separation between the BBC Trust and the BBC management on these questions… The Trust, meanwhile, continues to maintain that it represents licence fee payers.

Hewlett’s conclusion (and he has worked for the Beeb) is interesting: Yes, the Trust is required to demonstrate independence, and to represent the interests of licence fee payers by holding BBC management to account. But the Trust is, constitutionally, the BBC – so once you engage in bigger questions about the role, funding or even the very existence of the corporation, the Trust, quite properly, speaks as the BBC and not as a separate or independent regulator of it.

If you’re wondering who actually represents your interests regarding the BBC, then, the answer would seem to be, no one.

In case you missed them…

Guido has an amusing piece up on a surprising episode of Spooks. Shockingly, it goes some way towards reflecting reality – not a fundamentalist Christian terrorist or Mossad conspiracy in sight. As he says, it’s all a terrible disappointment: This is the BBC, we expect to be force fed left-wing platitudes and propaganda, not given a patriotic tear jerker.

Don’t get too excited, though. At the Three Line Whip, Iain Martin points us to this piece by Michael Gove, chastising the Beeb for sucking up to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm.

Setting the record straight

The BBC Editor’s blog is flagging up a Radio 4 Feedback piece on its blogs that helps clarify their status. It’s only five minutes long, but the key segment has this from presenter Louise Adamson:

Some would say the whole point of a blog is that it should be controversial, outspoken, off the cuff and frequently partisan. So how does that fit with the principles of BBC journalism?

“Badly” is the correct answer, as is daily apparent, but she has the features editor of the BBC’s news website Giles Wilson on instead:

It is quite a challenge so the thing we explain to our bloggers, and thankfully they’ve all got it, is that they shouldn’t misunderstand the apparent informal atmosphere of a blog to let their commitment to impartiality drop. They’ve got to be conversational but they’ve still got to speak in a BBC voice and follow the BBC guidelines on impartiality. Later on he remarks: We don’t think of blog content as being any different to any other news content.

I hope that clears things up.

Good for a laugh

James Forsyth has a short post at the Spectator’s Coffee House on the Beeb’s odd decision to keep its business editor Robert Peston off Have I Got News For You. The killer paragraph, though, relates to Peston’s reports last week on Osborne:

What makes this decision all the more absurd is that the BBC is happy for Peston to report on George Osborne and the Deripaska affair without mentioning that Osborne’s office is supporting a Serious Fraud Office investigation into who Peston’s sources have been on various recent stories. The BBC should be able to work out which of these is a genuine editorial issue.

I’m probably not alone in wondering, though, whether this wasn’t precisely why Peston was kept off. I certainly think Hislop would have had some fun with it…

Weekend reading

A slightly different take on the recession from Mark Easton:

It must be the perverse part of my nature, but when asked to go somewhere that illustrated the looming recession, I chose the place analysts had identified as the most immune to the downturn, he begins.

I’d agree: it must be the perverse part of his nature – the same part he votes with. So, instead of a piece that looks at the pain the recession is already causing, we get a run down of Labour’s fantastic achievements over the last ten years.

New Labour’s anthem from the mid-90s promised “Things Can Only Get Better”. And Corby has been living that dream. It still is – riding the wave of consumerism that has transformed Britain, he gushes. He also manages to find someone who shares his enthusiasm for recessions.

“[T]his might help to save us,” reckons Frank Black. More alert readers will know that this must be nonsense, though. Because if the piece tells us anything it’s surely that only Gordon can save us.

Free speech, BBC style

For those who consider the BBC arrogant and aloof, Justin Webb has deigned to take on the critics:

To Duhbuh and others who complain about coverage of Sarah Palin, I would say the party must take responsibility for not having the confidence to let her be herself. The interviews have been awful: that’s not media bias, it’s incompetence, hers to an extent but the party’s for letting it happen.

But what did Duhbuh actually say? Unfortunately, right now I can’t tell you. I can tell you, though, that the comment below rightly takes him to task for providing yet another link to the Huffington Post.

Another boring story

It’s not a good day for Peter Mandelson. Well, at least it isn’t if you read the paper – any paper. Mandy admits tycoon meetings, says the Sun; Mandelson back under the miscroscope, says the Guardian; while the Mail is a little more wordy with Mandelson admits he has known Russian oligarch years longer than he previously acknowledged; the Telegraph, though, is worst of all: Mandelson admits public were misled, it says. It’s no better elsewhere: Pressure rises on Mandelson, says the Press Association; and ITV goes with something similar: Pressure mounts on Mandelson. So, what of the BBC? Well, there doesn’t seem to be quite the same level of enthusiasm. Instead it opts for the fairly innocuous Mandelson met with tycoon in 2004. Even that, though is an improvement on its earlier draft which had Mandelson clarifies tycoon meetings.

Understandably, the BBC’s Nick Robinson has so far resisted the urge to blog on such a dull-sounding story. Nor has Robert Peston, despite there being an obvious business angle this time. Well, it is the weekend, after all.

Just because he always does it…

doesn’t mean it’s not worth pointing out how far Justin Webb’s blog goes in ignoring the BBC’s obligations on impartiality. If the rules really do permit the Beeb’s North American Editor to suggest that Palin would be the number one choice (after McCain) to lead America for those that hate the country, what’s the point of them?