Nick Cohen laments the ‘the sinister treatment of dissent at the BBC‘, as if the state owned tax funded media operation had ever been some haven of even handed rectitude and objectivity.
What a fool I was. Since then, BBC managers have shifted Tom Giles, the editor of Panorama, out of news. Peter Horrocks, an executive who insisted throughout the scandal that the BBC must behave ethically, announced last September that he was resigning to “find new challenges”. Clive Edwards, who as commissioning editor for current affairs oversaw the Panorama documentary, was demoted. The television trade press reported recently that his future is “not yet clear” (which doesn’t sound as if he has much of a future at all).
Why would the top people at the BBC be all that different to any other part of the British state? When being a state body means you cannot go bust as long as there are taxpayers to be farmed, the people suckling from the public teat serve up such wonders as the police and social services did in Rotherham, or the NHS in Staffordshire Hospital. Had the Staffs scandal happened privately, I are quite certain there would be howls in the Guardian for all private hospitals to be nationalised and new ones made illegal, yet I am told the NHS is still the ‘envy of the world‘.
It takes a double shot of navy proof state issued rum to not expect the worst from any aspect of the tax funded Leviathan. And the BBC is a tax funded arm of the state.
So let’s chat about “free” education and the condition of “state provided” high density, “discount” housing.
(US) We have an “Executive” who is fond of the saying “You didn’t build that!” to actual tax PAYER Citizens/Corporations.
The latest “Nationalisation” targets are the firearms ammunition industry, the internet, the medical care insurance industry, and I believe the current illegal alien non-assimilation/”welfare” program participation industry. Of course, the Energy sector is an ongoing target of “Who’s NOT in charge here?”, and the food industry is ALWAYS subject to “Who’s NOT responsible here?”.
The Royal Navy stopped the rum ration some years ago. I believe they kept bum and the lash.
Somehow I think if the BBC were punishing people whi dissented on their views toward UKIP Nick Cohen would be singing a different tune.
An employer sidelines, demotes and tries to get rid of employees who won’t toe the corporate line.
Totally normal behaviour.
It shows how unworldly and naïve many BBC staff are that they expect anything different.
You do as you’re told and take the money. That’s how being an employee works.
Quite, and true whether you work for someone else in the private or public sector.
no one is surprised when someone like Jeffrey Wigand recieves death threats as well as losing his job, but for some reason people expect the government, or one of its many arms such as the BBC, to be different.
But in the BBC’s case, part of the corporate line is that it is independent, fearless and inclusive, as if its ethos were ‘publish and be damned’, because of the unique way it is funded.
Viewers get what they are offered and the BBC takes the money, even if the viewer does not watch. No supermarket operates like that.
I think it’s rather sweet that Nick Cohen (who is far from being a Stepford Wife leftie hack) harboured his tooth fairy illusions about the BBC practically into old age.
The astonishing thing is – this will actually damage the BBC’s reputation. You’d have thought by now there wasn’t anything left to damage, but there are still millions of nice kind middle of the road muppets to whom this will come as a shock.
Quite so
It’s not just between the employer and the employee, though, when the corporate line to the public (the BBC’s owners, after all) and the internal corporate line conflict. This is the CEO misrepresenting himself to his employer.
While I have no wish to defend Saville or the BBC it should be pointed out that Anna Racoon attended Duncroft, the approved school that Meirion Jones’ aunt was head of, during the time in question and that she has a lot of reservations about Jones, his accusations and the Panorama program that he made.
And when I say ‘reservations’, I mean that she thinks that the whole thing is a farrago of lies. She has been in contact with other girls as well as the headmistress and her recollections have been confirmed. If you wish to see for youselves what she has dug out there is a large archive of all these posts on her site.
I’m not competent to judge the truth or otherwise of the Duncroft allegations, but I do believe Ms Racoon is and I find her very persuasive.
The BBC should be closed down without further ado and it should revert to its old (already rather creepy, almost Belgian) Test Card on all TV stations, but with the image of Sir James Savile in place of the doll, with bird song on the radio channels.
After 3 weeks without the agitprop, normal people would not miss it.
Yes the BBC the NHS and all the rest of it.
The state is a religion in Britain in a way it is not, quite, yet in the United States (at least not in parts of the United States).
That is why I am desperately concerned and driven to despair over various developments in America – whereas I can face developments in Britain quite calmly.
When there is still a small amount of hope left one is tortured – when there is no hope at all, one can be calm and relaxed.
Heres a radical plan, why not make the BBC subscription/donation funded like the American PBS?
So there is still less connection between filthy commerce and the sainted BBC than if they took paid ads, but their income would be at least slightly more dependent on producing stuff people want.
Or there is the Rabz doctrine, for the Australian ABC but easily adaptable for the BBC.
FIRE THEM ALL
SELL IT OFF
SALT THE EARTH IT STOOD ON
PYRAMID OF SKULLS
The last 2 are optional, but comforting.
This is could well be Stalin eliminating Beria… if a Guardianista is crying for someone in a Leftist organization like BBC that use state violence to get money from people they hate this means it is Left against Left. Pass the pop corn.
thefrollickingmole, PBS is only partially financed through subscriptions and donations, it is supported by the Federal gov, although indirectly.
Kevin B’s comment throws a revealing light. The power of narratives.
The BBC/Savile narrative of the peroxide Christ with a cigar had the strength to overcome all doubts. And now the Savile as Devil Incarnate, able to walk through locked doors, miraculously appear in several places simultaneously & charm the birds from the trees with a flick of fragrant ash narrative resists all requests for reliable, supporting evidence.
Truth doesn’t get a look-in.
I have no idea about the truth or otherwise of the Savile allegations, but it is certainly true that the narrative paradigm has flipped as completely as is possible. Indeed there is much evidence that some are loath to let a nice witch hunt go to waste. And the plod seems unseemly fixated on Cliff Richard too.
You do as you’re told and take the money. That’s how being an employee works.
And if your employer tells to do something that you find unconscionable, you quit and find another job. (It doesn’t have to be done loudly. You quietly quit, say thank you and nice words to everyone, and then move on). This is a choice everyone who is not a slave always has.
Of course, it is much easier to do this in competitive industries where there are lots of other potential employers. The fact that British media regulation for the last 70 years has been all about hobbling or completely outlawing competition to the BBC makes these sorts of scandals much more likely, of course.