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| Amol Rajan, ready for Emily and Esme's big awards moments |
As MB notes on the Open Thread, Amol Rajan - the BBC's Media Editor - is joining in the BBC-on-BBC backslapping - and then some - over the Prince Andrew Newsnightie scoop:
Maximum respect. Clearly Emily Maitlis was magnificent and deserves every award coming her way. But this moment of television and British history would not have happened without exceptional producers - heroic public servants the public know virtually nothing of. Nice one Esme Wren.
Isn't that lovely!
I hope he gets an award too for being so simply super in support of his marvellous , marvellous BBC colleagues.
And I hope MB and I get awards too for passing on his effusions.
And you, dear readers, too shouldn't be left out.
And above all Sue, for just being Sue.
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Meanwhile, MB has also spotted something I wasn't aware of:
Looking at Amol's Twitter Feed I see he proudly proclaims his association with a Liberal Democrat Peer's charity (the Rumi Foundation).
I think senior BBC people should be more careful about proclaiming such associations with party political figures.
Indeed, his 'Pinned Tweet' reads
Am so immensely proud of what our charity, KEY Sessions, has already done. KEY = Knowledge Elevates Youth. We’ve transformed a lot of inner-city kids’ lives - and we’re just getting started.
KEY Sessions is a Rumi Foundation project that the BBC's Amol co-founded.
Is this problematic?
Craig - have you seen the standard of Amol's grammar in his Twitter posts? I thought he'd been an editor in a previous life!
ReplyDeleteAnd, whilst on the topic of dropping standards, I met a lady this week whilst recruiting listeners for the Rajsr diaries who teaches trainee infant school teachers. She told me that she has to teach some of them how to tell the time on an old fashioned clock (they don't know what 'quarter to' means) and she's ordered some wooden blocks with strings on to show these students how to tie shoes.
John - Amol makes informality something of a fetish as far as reporting goes. He thinks it's a virtue. So abysmal grammar is probably something he's intensely relaxed about!
DeleteIn my teenage years, in the late 80s, I did my degree at a place that doubled as a teacher training college. I will confess, as a reactionary rebel, that I corrected some of the wall posters of the trainee teachers for some very bad spelling mistakes. But trainee teachers not being able to get to grips with traditional clocks and phrases like 'quarter to' (and, I presume, 'quarter past') is something else.
He writes in a casual, clichéd and even slangy way. On occasion I've seen a properly written piece which came as a surprise. He is a dreadful broadcaster, untrained obviously, going up and down in volume from shout to normal and speeding up to a gabble and slowing down in the same sentence. I have to turn him off. In fact I haven't heard him for ages as I don't turn on the Media programme or any other if I know he's to be on.
DeleteRef the clock, broadcasters and journalists also don't know what a.m. means. Sky reporters and presenters are particularly bad for this, constantly telling us about 7 a.m. in the morning. 'O'clock' is unknown to them probably but '7 this morning' would do wouldn't it?
Amol's twitter feed is awash with more than grammatical errors - it's positively brimming, like a horribly blocked toilet pan, with paeans of praise from the Genius Amol to fellow Genius Beeboids and retweets of praise for the Genius Amol from fellow Genius Beeboids.
ReplyDelete"Have you been Amolled?" "Yes I have thanks and very nice it was...he rubbed oily praise all over me. Only problem is he expects you to do the same to him. I'll have to make something up..."
He does like his awards.
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