A seventeen-minute prime time euthanasia promotion, courtesy of Tuesday’s Today programme.

One pro-euthanasia campaigner given the easiest of breathless interviews by reporter Jon Manel, no anti-euthanasia campaigners, an interview with euthanasia sceptic and hospice doctor Sheila Cassidy featuring John Humphrys trying (not very hard) and failing completely to keep on the right side of the line that divides reporter from advocate. The interview was actually Humphrys arguing with Dr Cassidy in favour of euthanasia.

“My father … ghastly few years … enormously distressing …why couldn’t he have been given a bit of help ?”

“I suppose it’s because it’s against the law”

“Couldn’t the law be changed ?”

John Humphrys, as an outspoken advocate of euthanasia, should never have been chosen to present this piece. The editor, whoever he or she was, has made a dreadful – and disgraceful – decision.

(Declaration of personal interest – I find it objectionable that my taxes are used to give a platform to an already wealthy journalist’s campaign to allow the killing of the sick (but not murderers)).

a leader article in the Daily Telegraph, Winds of competition:

Not entirely unlike the Royal Mail farrago is the crisis that looms at the BBC. Again, a public sector organisation faces threats of strike action from its unions that could weaken the future of the entire enterprise. But in this case, the decisions of the management seem to be dictated by an irrational bureaucratic mindset.

The corporation has set its face against closing down the little-watched digital channels BBC3 and BBC4, preferring to cut the most distinguished of the BBC’s core services: news and current affairs, and factual programming. To attack the most publicly esteemed areas of its production — rather than admit defeat in its failed experimental ventures — reveals a bizarre system of priorities that takes no account of the logic of market forces. But neither the BBC nor Royal Mail exists in a non-competitive vacuum any longer. They will need disciplined realism if they are to survive among the choices that new technologies offer.

My own view is that there’s a lot of managerial girth at the BBC that should be addressed first – almost two years ago Media Guardian reported Surge in BBC’s top earners, with the news that, at that time, 262 BBC staff took home more than £100,000 per annum as salary – more than 1% of those on the corporation’s payroll, not to mention the large numbers of highly paid individuals hovering below £100,000pa. Needless to say, the BBC defended itself at the time with this old chestnut:

The BBC said that it needs to pay big salaries to attract the best staff and also attributed much of the rise to inflation.

– the same specious argument that was put forward to justify the utterly ridiculous sum of £18m over three years paid to Jonathan Ross. If he can get that much from ITV or anyone else then good luck to him. There are plenty of talented people who’d be honoured to replace Woss for a fraction of that amount.

BBC Three probably should go – the few good bits can easily find new homes, the rest, mostly race-to-the-bottom dross (I love the C-word anyone?) that does nothing for our nation deserves to disappear – certainly from the tellytaxpayer teat. BBC Four should probably stay – it is much closer to the BBC’s public service remit (and is half the cost of BBC Three).

Today’s Daily Mail covers this story at greater length, BBC News and Top Gear face cuts as corporation is forced to axe 3,000 staff:

BBC insiders are mystified that their bosses appear to be targeting areas which are the cornerstone of the corporation’s public service remit.

John Humphrys, among others, has said Mr Thompson should kill off less popular services such as BBC3, rather than slash news and current affairs.

But the BBC seems determined to hold on to the controversial channel, which costs licence fee payers £116million a year.

BBC3, aimed at younger audiences, spends almost £180,000 an hour on its programmes, double what BBC1 spends.

Yet it gets just two per cent of viewers or a tenth of BBC1’s figures.

The channel has also been criticised for lurid programme titles like F*** Off I’m a Hairy Woman and Sex Talk With Mum and Dad.

The Mail also quotes Conservative MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, accusing Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, of contradicting his previous statements about wanting to protect quality programming: “He is cutting jobs in the precise areas where there is the greatest need for public service content and where the BBC’s strength lies. They are doing precisely what Mark Thompson said they would not do”.

I have no sympathy for the BBC’s pleas of poverty – a guaranteed £3.5 billion pounds annual income is a lavish amount for any broadcaster, but it is ridiculous that the BBC’s management are threatening genuine public service aspects of the BBC whilst busily expanding the BBC in all sorts of non-core areas, producing all sorts of tosh that could and should be produced more economically by commercial broadcasters.

It’s unusual for Biased BBC to defend (some parts of) the BBC, but it looks as if we’re set to end up with the worst of both worlds – more ratings chasing dross and less quality public service broadcasting – and this from Mark Thompson, who as chief executive of Channel 4 described the BBC as “basking in a Jacuzzi of spare public cash“, claiming that he would produce a stronger BBC that “spent less on process and more on content”.

See also yesterday’s ongoing complaint and comments about the selectivity of what counts as BBC in the news on the BBC Editors Blog.

, the supremely qualified Jeff Randall, writing in the Telegraph, says All the BBC needs is proper management. Some excerpts:

Queengate and Fincham’s departure:

As Fincham walked, the BBC promised “to implement a comprehensive set of actions to address the weaknesses of communications and co-ordination with other divisions.” Do what?

Hello, it’s not that complicated. This fiasco does not merit another burst of expensive training manuals. There’s no need for yet more weasel worded instructions on internal discourse. You simply tell staff: DON’T MAKE IT UP. If you do, you will be slung out. No ifs, no buts and no compensation. That would do the trick, but it’s not going to happen. Instead, all programme-makers are being sent on truth courses. The BBC should broadcast them: I’d pay good money to see John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman being lectured by some numpty on why telling fibs is a bad idea.

“Queengate” has been embarrassing. But the source of BBC dysfunctionality lies much deeper than the improper splicing of a documentary about royal life.

Over 80 years, a system has been created in which getting rid of feeble performers is almost impossible. The unions, though they speak for less than half the staff, fight any sacking to the last ditch. The upshot is a large rump of people who shouldn’t be there. They are bitter, disillusioned and going nowhere. They openly resent the success of more talented colleagues. For this grisly bunch, there are no triumphs to enjoy, merely the savouring of other people’s disasters. Their bad karma is palpable, yet they are allowed to cling on like barnacles on a sewage pipe.

The BBC’s problem in short:

At the BBC, red lights should be flashing. It is clearly no longer what it says it is. Well, not entirely. The corporation has always sought to distance itself from other media in terms of integrity, impartiality and fairness, but in recent months it has fallen short on all three. Flagship shows such as Blue Peter, Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief have been debased by dodgy dealings. Arts supremo Alan Yentob inserted himself into interviews that he never conducted. Worst of all, Her Majesty was stitched up.

Many decent souls in BBC News are furious. They despair at the sclerosis caused by a surfeit of toadying bureaucrats.

Randall’s suspicions about Thompson’s plans:

Thompson is close to delivering his proposals for coping with a licence-fee settlement that was less than management had asked for. I’m told that he plans to chip away at BBC jewels – such as Today, the main television news bulletins and documentaries – instead of throwing out diamanté rubbish.

With more than £3 billion of annual income, the BBC is an exceptionally well funded broadcaster. It doesn’t need extra income to continue with its world-class service. What’s required is management courage to call time on paper-clip collectors while diverting resources to output that really matters.

Another article worth reading in full.

an article defending the BBC in today’s Guardian.

A commentator in the Guardian’s comments section sums it up well:

Partnership… standards… interaction… percentages… engage… conversation… culture… value… colleagues…

Now, back to the studio.

Most of the comments, from Guardian readers remember, have been hostile. For example:

What a load of guff. It’s not your stupid phone-ins and naff prizes which are the problem – it’s your political bias and the increasing vacuousness of your news coverage. It offends me, and I’m a bloody liberal! No wonder the Tories and assorted “nationalists” are apoplectic.

And PLEASE put a kindly bolt in the head of that awful NEWS 24. “All the same news all the effin’ time”.

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I deeply resent being forced to pay the licence fee for a luxury item that I do not need and would not currently choose to have. I don’t watch BBC news or documentaries anymore because the news is simplistic, sensationalistic and condescending and the documentaries are ‘docudramas’. I don’t much care about the quiz line rip-offs – I always assumed they were rip-offs anyway – but the issue of selective editing is far more dangerous. You create the view you want to and everyone is taken in by something, no matter how smart we think we are. I do realise that neutrality is virtually impossible to achieve but you might take a stab at it occasionally. Meanwhile, the licence fee has to go. I want to have a television, primarily to watch dvds on, but occasionally to watch television programmes too. I am quite happy to not receive BBC. I’d like to be given that choice.

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I’m fed up paying the BBC license tax I rarely watch it. I don’t watch SKY either but then I don’t pay for it, I believe only 25% of the public watch it. If I watch TV on the PC do I have to pay the license???

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As someone that leans towards soft centre-left liberalism (i.e. a Guardian reader) I find the BBC news reasonably balanced and have little to complain about.

Erm..hang on a sec though, that’s the problem here isn’t it?

I doubt I’d agree with bigjake on many things but the treatment of Redwood by bbc editors was truly appalling, it played right into the hands of everyone that accuses the beeb of bias.

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Impoverished local theatres with a budget of tuppence ha’penny a year put on fantastic new and revived stuff week in, week out. But the Beeb, with its corridors awash with OUR MONEY, gives us Casualty and, if we’re children, DR BLEEDIN WHO.

———-

The political coverage is so soft on Labour as to be a joke. Remember Little Ant and Dec interviewing Blair?

Brown refused to go on Question Time. John Humphrys says there’s no point having him on the Today programme because he just reads from a script irrespective of the question.

He is almost NEVER interviewed full stop. The BBC needs to get mediaeval on his ass for being so undemocratic.

———-

Well you could start by realising the report on the BBC’s coverage of the Lebanon war instead of hiding behind data protection act in the courts , that may help. Or even get your middle east reports to actual read Hamas charter before they report on it, they are there to report the events for the wider world in balanced way not to be ‘friends of the Palestinians’.

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Thank you to Biased BBC reader Ayayay for the link.

It’s been a long-established BBC tradition that where a foreign national commits crimes in the UK, his nationality and immigration status should be downplayed or ignored entirely in their news reporting.

Hence we see the Algerian illegal immigrant transformed into a man from ‘Shepherds Bush‘, the Moroccan drug dealer (obsessed with beheadings and al-Quaeda videos) who becomes a man ‘from Lisson Grove, north-west London‘ (with no notable habits), the Somali ‘of Small Heath, Birmingham’, the Nigerian nationals and illegal immigrants who become ‘South Londoners’ (see next paragraph for the links).

There’s one notable exception to this rule – if the foreign national is American the BBC goes to town on the story. Even if he’s a naturalised British citizen he’ll always be American to BBC news.

Yet BBC coverage of the latest UK terrorist attacks is going out of its way to emphasise the ‘non-Britishness’ of the attackers.

None of the suspects involved in the Glasgow attack and the foiled London car bombings are British in origin.

“British in origin” ? It’s the “in origin” bit that gets me. Only a year or two back a politician using language like that would be getting the John Humphrys treatment on the Today programme. Are they channelling Norman Tebbit here, or Nick Griffin ?

‘Terrorist’ suspects ‘not Scots’ : Mr MacAskill said the suspects were not “born or bred” here but had lived in Scotland for a “period of time”.

The BBC has learned those arrested are believed to be of varying Middle Eastern nationalities.

According to his father Jamil, he obtained a medical degree in Jordan in 2004 and came to the UK in the same year to gain a specialisation in neurology. Dr Abdulla is said to have qualified in Baghdad in 2004 and first registered as a doctor in the UK in 2006.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing if the BBC are straight with the licence payers when it comes to reporting the nationality and immigration status of alleged or convicted criminals. It’s just such a departure from previous practice. Have some major decisions been taken in editorial conference, or are they following the SNP “they’re not Scots” lead instinctively, like pilot fish keeping up with a shark ?

UPDATE – “the men, who are not believed to be of Scottish origin“

“Iraqi Bilal Abdullah will be taken to Paddington Green police station … Dr Mohammed Asha, 26, who was brought up in Jordan“

The main item on Today’s 7 am news was to the effect that “Peter Halliday is to be sentenced today after pleading guilty to abusing choirboys over a period of five years. But the Church of England knew that he had admitted the offences 17 years ago.” An in-depth report (RealAudio) follwed at 7.35.

Now it’s not unreasonable that they should be reporting such things, although the prominent billing is probably because the story is a Today exclusive.

But what’s this item at 7.15 ?

“Academics have uncovered a book written by a man who could well be considered the first advocate for gay rights (RealAudio). We speak to Dr Hal Gladfelder of Manchester University.”

John Humphrys even invited Dr Gladfelder, author of such seminal works as “Plague Spots: Deviance and the Body in the Writings of John Cleland” to give a potted history of homosexual rights in the UK, interrupting Dr Gladfelder at the mention of Roy Jenkins with the enthusiastic comment ‘that great reforming Home Secretary !‘.

The actual document discovered by Dr Gladfelder is called ‘Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified’. It is available to Project Muse subscribers.

Perhaps the BBC, so exercised by people who abuse choirboys without criminal sanction, should check out the definition of ‘pederasty‘.

via commenter anonanon:

 

The BBC is advising MEPs on how to improve the “image” of the European elections, as part of a drive to make the next round of voting for the European Parliament more “viewer friendly”. Senior executives have held meetings with officials in Brussels who are seeking ways to draw more viewers into the “excitement” of the 2009 European Union-wide polls.

James Stephenson, the editor of the BBC’s election night programme, and Peter Knowles, the controller of BBC parliamentary coverage, took part in meetings in Brussels late last month to discuss which techniques from British election nights would help boost viewing of the EU elections, both in the build-up to voting and on the night of the Europe-wide results.

Their presence as consultants to the most federalist of the Brussels institutions will give ammunition to critics who claim the publicly-funded broadcaster has a pro-EU bias.

 

Scots blogger Mr Eugenides points out that the BBC also propose live coverage of the Treaty of Rome’s 50th anniversary celebrations – which is more than they managed for the late Queen Mother’s one hundredth anniversary. He’s quite sanguine about this, believing that “By the time Nana Mouskouri launches into her third encore, UKIP’s website will have crashed under the deluge of traffic, and sturdy yeomen will be erecting barricades along the beach at Dover.”

Also via Mr. E – is your website banned in China ? I’m pleased to say B-BBC is available to the citizens of the People’s Republic.

Robin Aitken, author of “Can We Trust the BBC ?” writes in last week’s Sunday Times.

Damien Thompson at the Telegraph blog notes the BBCs plugging of a report from the lefty think tank Demos.

Do you enjoy multiculturalist drivel? No? Tough luck. If you’ve paid your BBC licence fee, then you have subsidised free publicity for a report on “cultural diplomacy” by the Labour-friendly think tank Demos.

And finally – John Humphrys’ last Tony Blair interview on the Today programme (RealAudio) revealed his intriguing take on democracy, Iran-style. David Aaronovitch examines the entrails in the Times.