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It’s interesting the language that the BBC chooses at times. As we know language and images are the main currencies of the BBC so words matter. The BBC were to the fore in attacking every action of NOTW when it came to phone tapping and most certainly adopted  high moral tone suggesting that Murdoch’s newspaper empire was evil.  Come this morning, we read that the Daily Mirror has “been hit” by legal claims that it engaged in similar acts of phone tapping. Curious – almost as if this was an accident. There was the Mirror, innocently churning our day and day of left wing propaganda and trash, and ..whoops.. it “is hit.” Throughout this entire phone tapping saga, I have felt that the BBC seemed determined to place Murdoch at the center when in fact, as we all know, the practise was common across the media. It’s a pity nobody tapped Jimmy Savile’s phone…

I’ve rattled off a quick transcript from a key part of the Jimmy Savile/Neswnight Panorama. It really doesn’t get much more serious than this.

A: There are now allegations that Top of the Pops was a centre for abuse and that as well as Jimmy Savile others were involved.

B: A group of three have been described, men in their thirties, who would collect girls from the Top of the Pops audience and take them to other parties off the premises of the BBC. And inappropriate things have been described as happening then. Some quite serious.

A: And is it your understanding that these people worked for the BBC?

B: Yes, yes, so you know we’ve had one particular call that has names of people who can be traced on that and that will be passed on to the police.

A: Not all the victims were young girls. Lawyers are now hearing allegations that boys were targeted too.

C: There are some quite serious allegations that there was a paedophile ring operating. These are quite serious allegations.

A: A paedophile ring operating where? At the BBC?

C: Yes.

A: Involving other members of staff?

C: Yes

UPDATE. The Sun – making the most of it:

Compare and contrast the current top stories on BBC and Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9625623/British-al-Qaeda-gang-from-Birmingham-planned-another-911-in-UK.html

Subheading in the Telegraph: ‘An al-Qaeda inspired gang of British Muslims planned to carry out “another 9/11” in the UK with up to eight suicide bombers, a court heard today.’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20007532

…but on the BBC, they’re just ‘men’. Or ‘Birmingham men’. The only mention of Muslim or Islam is at the end of the story, to tell us that they tricked muslims into giving them cash for bona fide Islamic charities.

Bias? It seems to me the BBC seems determined to obscure inconvenient details.

Hat tip to the Biased BBC reader for the story

Further to Alan’s post below, Savilegate continues to damage the BBC.

“The Newsnight editor responsible for dropping a report into claims Jimmy Savile sexually abused people is stepping aside, the BBC has said. Peter Rippon’s move is for the duration of an inquiry into Newsnight’s handling of the planned report last year. Earlier this month, in a blog, Mr Rippon explained the editorial reasons behind his decision to axe the report. The BBC has now issued a correction, calling the blog “inaccurate or incomplete in some respects”.

Or, if you like straight language, …wrong. The BBC has major questions to answer into WHY it played along with Savile for ALL those years.  There must be DOZENS of people who turned a blind eye to Mr Fix It. It seems like institutionalised avoidance of sexual abuse going on right under their noses.  Time for arrests?

On Thursday the latest GDP figures will be released and it is widely expected that they will show a rise.

Whilst GDP was falling, however slightly, and employment rising, the BBC was constantly questioning how employment could go up in a recession…..they concluded that Britain’s industry was failing….productivity must be falling….and therefore government industrial policy was failing….we need a Plan B.

Many others suggested that the GDP figures were wrong…the BBC disimissed this out of hand.

One thing the BBC never did was to ask the businesses themselves that were employing these new recruits just exactly why they were recruiting in a ‘recession’….the BBC preferred to speculate because it could put its own, doom laden, interpretation upon the figures. 

 It will be interesting to see how they react if the GDP figures do go up….will the BBC start to suggest  the figures are not accurate after all…..just as Flanders removed her seal of approval from the OECD when they backed up George Osborne’s plans?

5Live has been advertising its intentions for Thurday….investigating the economy and the businesses and the workers….I’m sure I don’t have to listen to know their conclusions….the economy might look like it is showing some green shoots but it is all a bit of a mirage….keep your bags packed and passports handy…you might have to flee the country in search of a better life…or you could just vote Labour!

Sort of interesting day if you like to listen to the BBC relentlessly eviscerating itself  whilst at the same time  they try to apply a field dressing to the gaping wound and carry on as if nothing happened.

There are though still plenty of attempts to play down the Savile affair and the subsequent Newsnight bungle.

Nicky Campbell suggested that no one knew a thing about Savile, not a clue…the general view at the BBC was that he had been a ‘benign eccentric’.

 If you ever wondered why complaining to the BBC Governors or the BBC Trust rarely resulted in any meaningful action you only had to listen to Sir Christopher Bland and Sir Michael Lyons telling us what a load of old hooey over nothing very much all this is…..Lyons tells us it is all really just the Press kicking up sand and taking a swipe at the BBC.

Not that the BBC ever engaged in attacking Murdoch’s or any other news papers.

Richard Bacon dragged in the man with a distant relationshiop to the truth, Kevin Marsh, yet again, and also Ben Fenton from the lefty FT….who also suggested a similar line to Lyons…no story really just the Press trying to lessen the case for regulation under Leveson  because if good old Aunty Beeb can make mistakes well so can anyone….so no need for tighter regulation says Fenton…its a tabloid agenda not a real story about the BBC and Savile.

He tells us, and Bacon jumps aboard, what happened was only a series of marginal mistakes…sins of ommission not commission…unlike the evil Murdoch papers who plotted their nefarious deeds deliberately.

However I would suggest if you knew something about Savile, and it seems many did KNOW, then to look away and do nothing is not ommission it is commission…you have decided to ignore abuse.

It does look, before Panorama goes to air, that George Entwistle was either remiss in not doing his job or he is lying about not knowing or asking about Newsnight’s investigation.  When Helen Boaden told him he might have to change his programme  schedule because of the Newsnight programme surely he would have to ask her to justify that….or is his trust in Helen Boaden so great that he just bows down before her…in the jealously guarded realms of televison?

Peter Rippon’s future doesn’t look too bright on the evidence so far….inaccurate and incomplete explanation of why he cancelled the Newsnight programme…..and the emails reveal senior management involvement in decision making….long denied by all.

Something else that Rippon said is of interest, and ironic all considered….he was keen to look at the CPS’ reasons for not going ahead with their prosecution…because it showed ‘ institutional failure’…which was a strong story…and more interesting. 

That does shine a little light into the BBC thinking…always keen to undermine other Institutions in the interest of better telly.

All in all not a brilliant day for the management and panjandrums of the BBC….but credit where credit is due…except to Bacon and perhaps Campbell….many have worked hard on digging into the heart of this tale and have not shied away from the bad news.

Can only hope Panorama does a proper job and doesn’t come up with the jaded formula of  ‘Yes we did wrong but it wasn’t all that bad really, the times and culture etc, it happened in alot of other places as well not just the BBC, and we have changed our ways since…unlike the grubby Redtops!’….which has been the constant refrain from the BBC in their own defence so far.

Unlike a BBC satirical panel show this thread is open to ALL views.

The UK’s employment figures hit a 30 year high but the BBC play it down.

The headline here  gets in the 2.53 million unemployed figure ….but shouldn’t the headline be ‘Employment at Record High’? or would that just give the Tories too much credit?  No such reluctance when giving the figures for temperatures when they reach ‘record highs’.

It was interesting following the BBC’s coverage of the release of the unemployment figures……reporting the ‘good news’….but then came the ‘buts’.

The first line was that youth unempoyment was still terrible under the Coalition…however that line had to be rapidly dropped as they realised that the fall in unemployment was mostly down to youth employment rising.

The next line was that there was still far too many long term unemployed but that didn’t really have much resonance…shame as it was the basis for Labour’s counter-attack.

The next line was that well yes employment has gone up but you know what it’s all part time jobs or self employed people or temporary work….painters and decorators, gardeners, window cleaners…you know, the type of jobs desperate people take when the economy is  in such dire shape…as it is under this Tory government.

Guess the BBC is trying to keep the economy on an even keel and not allowing you to get your hopes up too much and start seeing green shoots where there are none….don’t want you to be disappointed when your expectations are dashed….because as we know the economy is only getting worse under George Osborne’s misguided rule.

Savile’s own epigraph:

“When I’m gone, they’ll say: ‘I always thought he was straight but he wasn’t – he was crooked.’ ”

I imagine that’s one that could equally apply to the BBC.

The BBC have been pushing the story that the Newsnight programme wasn’t really about Savile personally and that senior management didn’t know, did not want to know and shouldn’t know what was going on at Newsnight….due to the BBC’s renowned ‘Independence’.

However it looks like the programme was expected to kick up a bit of a fuss as you might imagine, and that preparations were in hand to cope with that…‘a line to take’…..is it really likely  senior manager was kept in the dark about a programme that was going to put a bomb under the BBC and that they were not told at least of the content of the programme….and asked if it should be aired?

‘The email from a press officer to BBC executives appears to contradict the corporation’s official statements about why the BBC Two programme was cancelled just before Christmas.

The BBC seems to have lost its marbles slightly over this as it prepares to air a Panorama programme about the Newsnight decision….the day before the BBC DG, George Entwistle, goes before a committee of MPs to investigate the affair.

Is that just bad judgement by the BBC, or an attempt to play a spoiler and spike the guns of any inquiry with an exoneration of the BBC, or is it a stab in the back for Entwistle who seems to have upset the News staff at the BBC if it implicates the BBC in some sort of wrongdoing?

Not really a sensible time to air it I would have thought….especially as any information from the committee looking into the Newsnight abandonment must surely be relevant to the Panorama programme itself, investigating as it is…the Newsnight abandonment.