Peter Oborne, writing an opinion column for the Guardian (and now running a new website called The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Boris Johnson and his government), has gone down a storm today (with the usual types) for saying this:
I have talked to senior BBC executives, and they tell me they personally think it’s wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister because it undermines trust in British politics.
Really?
It looks as if the BBC's Rob Burley might want to set up his own new website called The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Peter Oborne in response, given that Rob has tweeted this today:
It looks as if the BBC's Rob Burley might want to set up his own new website called The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Peter Oborne in response, given that Rob has tweeted this today:
Just because you read something in an opinion column doesn’t mean it’s true. Often quite the opposite.
It may have riled Rob in particular because The Big O 'named and shamed' his main man, Andrew Marr:
Recently the hugely experienced broadcaster Andrew Marr allowed Johnson to go unchallenged in saying the Tories “don’t do deals with other political parties”. What about the coalition government with the Liberal Democrats in 2010? Or the £1bn “confidence and supply” deal struck with the Democratic Unionist party just two years ago? Marr let Johnson get away with it. So do many others.Meanwhile, here comes Huw Edwards:
I have great admiration for Peter, but he should name these ‘senior BBC executives’. I have never come across any such suggestion in my 35 years here. As for ‘undermining trust’...
So who to believe?
I don’t think it is a deliberate ploy to let statements go unchallenged. I just think it is poor journalism where those named (Marr, Kuenssberg, Peston) are unprepared and simply haven’t done their homework in the way that say, Andrew Neil does. They are more interested in a pre-prepared angle or narrative.
ReplyDeleteOsborne seems to be driven by a deep hatred of Johnson and Cummings but...I’m with him when he says too many of them simply parrot the latest political party press releases without proper scrutiny.
Our MSM is obsessed with politics and Westminster goings-on as its main source of news and all too often they spout whatever rubbish they have just been briefed on. We see that all the time on the BBC. (The BBC has learned, the BBC understands, government sources have said, my senior EU sources say... an so on.)
"They are more interested in a pre-prepared angle or narrative."
DeleteYou mean "gotchas"
Against non-metroliberals they start an interview with a list of cheap easy gotchas, and often can be seen to ignore the in conversation cos they so focused on moving on in on the gotcha.
yes, a good way to describe it
DeleteI have never trusted Oborne. He has always seemed wrong-headed and overwrought, banging on about "political lying" as though it had only just been invented. We require our politicians not to tell us the truth, just as we require our ambassadors to "lie abroad" for their country. If politicians told us the truth, we would feel anxious and cross with the people who made us anxious (that's one of the reasons why Winston Churchill didn't get much of a hearing in the 1930s on appeasement - people simply didn't want to hear the bad news).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I wouldn't trust a word that Oborne says.
Oborne has made an extraordinary claim
ReplyDelete... but didn't supply the extraordinary evidence.
It is the Guardian after all.
I don't expect Guardian stories to be true about this real world.
Without 'claims', 'sources', 'quotes', "quotes" and a myriad other dubious tricks, no current 'news' outlet would be able to report anything. Especially the BBC.
ReplyDeleteWhich makes the BBC's latest selective gathering of its frillies about 'fact-checking' by some places but not others, from the home of the McAlpine investigation, hilariously hypocritical.
Just saw the cadaverous Ems trying to get outraged but simply looking evil.
Heard Emma Barnett on Radio 5 Live this morning. The sickening levels of bias and interruption were, well, sickening. It couldn't be clearer that Barnett hates the "Tories" and Boris in particular. It's a widespread disease in the UK MSM. Even Julie Etchingham is alleged to have interrupted Boris twice as much as the Far Leftist Pro-Totalitarian Corbyn during the debates. Par for the course.
ReplyDeleteThey all hate Boris and have little time for any Conservative to the right of Ken Clarke: Nick Robinson, Mishal Husain, Paul Brand, John Pienaar, Libby Weiner, Tom Bradby, Adam Boulton, Emily Maitlis, Jon Craig, Beth Rigby, Faisal Islam, Robert Peston. Wherever you look it's Toryphobia and a Boris Hate Fest.
First thing the Conservatives should do after winning this election is change their name. Call themselves the Democratic Party and insist that they be referred to as Democrats. That will piss off the MSM big time. :)