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| Lucy Manning, not Alan Y's favourite (it seems) |
What more is there to say about Yentobgate'?
Apparently plenty.
It's all turning into a bizarre punch-up. And it's hard to keep up. Or care. Anyhow, as everyone else it still talking about it...
The papers (well, The Times and others initially) said that Kids' Club trustee Alan Yentob tried to influence Newsnight over its Kids' Company report.
According to Guido Fawkes, the Guardian then reported that people who Guido described as "BBC spinners" spun the yarn that Mr Yentob didn't attempt to influence the BBC. But (again according to Guido), when he appeared on Channel 4 News, Alan Yentob then said he did but that this was in no way an abuse of his position as a senior BBC boss.
Then, last night, came the Daily Mail with its story that Mr Y had launched a tirade (a "verbal attack") against the BBC reporter responsible - recent recruit from ITV, Lucy Manning.
The Mail persuasively made Mr Y look bad...
...but Mr Y's pals at the Guardian then pounced back, slamming the Mail for misrepresenting the story.
In the Graun's account, Alan Yentob...
...was actually being pursued by Manning and a camera crew at the time through the BBC’s News Broadcasting House corridors and lobby- a speciality of hers that she successfully employed while at ITV on former BBC director general George Entwistle on his way to work
The Guardian suggests that this version of events doesn't "quite fit" with the Mail's angle.
Everyone seems to have an angle here. I bet even I've got an angle (though what that might possibly be is increasingly a mystery to me).
Er - it's not difficult to work out. Yentob has been caught out nominally in charge of a completely dysfunctional alleged "charity". He's reacting like the big beast he is. But that doesn't change things. The guy's a twat.
ReplyDeleteI just watched about half of Frei's interview with Yentob. Frei was a little puffed up, trying his best to do a Paxman. Valid questions, obviously, but it got a little silly at times. I paraphrase, but only just:
ReplyDelete"Did you know about these sexual allegations?"
"I had no idea."
"You didn't know about these sexual allegations?"
"Nobody told me."
"How did you not know?"
"Nobody told me. I'm just finding out now."
"But it's your job to know."
"Nobody told me. How can I know if nobody told me?"
"Why didn't you find out?"
There must have been a producer shouting in his ear to move on already by this point. But Yentob was acting like the just-rumbled murderer in one of those period BBC detective series. It could just be his arrogance was repellent and nothing more than that, but he was squirming.
Credit to Frei for trying not to let Yentob dodge, but I think he's getting a little too much credit. He's ex-BBC, but he still has the loathing and resentment of all BBC working staff for the top brass. If there's even a whiff of Yentob - and Tim Davie and Danny Cohen and Peter Salmon (cue Jewish mafia moaning from the gallery) - being aware of the financial mismanagement, the rank and file would love to take at least one of them down. The loyalty lines will be drawn. It will be popcorn time.
I am having to now import popcorn, as the deft way senior BBC executive talent handles such things makes the telephone numbers they authorize the comedic staff seem redundant.
ReplyDeleteYentob may not have tried to shut down the broadcast, but he was clearly angry that he wasn't consulted first. That's bad enough, as he has not right to demand being informed of news and current affair broadcasting, as far as I understand the ridiculous corporate structure, anyway. Publicly berating a journalist should get him in trouble according to BBC anti-bullying guidelines.
ReplyDeleteBut apparently the BBC (Don't) Trust says they won't investigate, nothing to see here, move along. That's only going to anger everybody even more. They should at least do one of their Sir Humphrey 'internal inquiries', just for show.
More and more evidence against the whole point of the Corporation is piling up, and these idiots don't have the awareness to get what they're doing.