''The secret of Alan Yentob's chat for the 'British Backscratching Corporation'''

  

More on the story from yesterday about Alan Yentob appearing on the News at Ten to plug his big New Year's Eve interview with Mel Brooks - the godfather of his son...

Richard Eden of the Daily Mail has been talking to ''a source'' [BBC? Not BBC?] who says:

This is the British Backscratching Corporation at its worst. Viewers should have been told of Yentob's close connection to his subject.

This mysterious source questions why, if BBC bosses deemed the publication of Mel's memoir to be newsworthy, he wasn't interviewed by one of the BBC's many U.S. correspondents.

And, going back to direct quotes from the same source: 

And if it was considered a job so important that someone had to be flown out at great expense some 5,000 miles from London, surely the interview should have been conducted by one of the arts correspondents?

The feature was on Monday's News at Ten. I've just checked it and, yes, there's no mention whatsoever of Alan Yentob's close personal connection to Mel Brooks. It begins with Huw Edwards saying, ''He's been talking to the BBC's Alan Yentob'', then Mr Yentob saying, ''I know the word can be overused, but Mel Brooks is a legend. A movie legend, a musical legend and a comedy legend'', and ends with Huw saying, ''The great Mel Brooks sharing some of his remarkable life story with the BBC's Alan Yentob. And you can see the full interview on BBC News Channel and iPlayer on 31st December. That's it.'' 

All a bit rum.

The BBC DOES carry adverts - for itself

That tendency for BBC News bulletins to act as advertising boards for other BBC TV shows has manifested itself again. Bill Rogers at trading as wdr has an interesting titbit for us concerning one such plug on the News at Ten:

"The BBC's Alan Yentob" is again on the reporting beat across all BBC News outlets. He's flown to Santa Monica, in California, to meet his son's godfather, Mel Brooks, who has his autobiography "All About Me" out in time for Christmas. 

Presumably, the BBC's News commissioners believe there's something new for audiences to discover. Mr Brooks' film The Producers, has been shown on the BBC 13 times; Young Frankenstein 10 times, and Blazing Saddles 14 times. On the BBC 10pm News, presenter Huw Edwards directed us to a longer version of Mr Yentob's feature, to be shown on the BBC News Channel on New Year's Eve.

I like all of those Mel Brooks films.

Camila Batmanghelidjh Returns

 

A real bolt out of the blue this past week was a High Court's ruling clearing the founder and trustees of Kids Company of wrongdoing. 

That means Camila Batmanghelidjh and - of especial interest to this blog - BBC high-up Alan Yentob.

The judge said that, were it not for "unfounded allegations", Kids Company might have survived.

It's one heck of a turn of events.

Oddly, I noticed the story after someone re-tweeted the main Newsnight reporter on the original story, Christopher Cook, maintaining that "they've never managed to knock a chip of paint off" his reporting.

(Xtopher is now working for former BBC New boss James Harding's Tortoise Media.)

Newsnight's reporting at the time surprised many of us hereabouts by painting a damning picture of Camila B & Alan Y's activities, and did real damage to CB & AY's reputation. 

The Mail on Sunday reports that the Royal Television Society, which gave Newsnight an award for their coverage of the story back in 2016, is now "looking into" that award. 

If so, and despite Chris Cook's protestations, is this yet another Newsnight investigation that got it badly wrong?

I'm intrigued...

Christopher Cook is a heavy tweeter and tweeted heavily on the day of the ruling itself, defending himself. And then came the silence. Total silence. 

Unless he's just taking the weekend off (which he usually doesn't as far as Twitter is concerned. He'd previously tweeted heavily every day, including New Year's Day and Christmas Day).

Where is this story going next? Will this week's Newsnight return to the story?

From bad to worse

Things look to be getting even worse for Alan Yentob.

Following his unannounced presence in the Today studio (standing next to the producer) while Camila was being grilled, his call to Newsnight asking for its Kids Company report to be put off for a day, and his alleged bellowing at a BBC reporter (Lucy Manning) comes this...

The Times article BBC’s Yentob accused of Kids Company news bias now reports that Nick told Fran that Edward wasn't happy about Alan:

BBC sources said that Nick Sutton, the editor of the BBC Radio 4 World at One programme, spoke to Fran Unsworth, the deputy head of news, to raise concerns about Mr Yentob’s behaviour over a Kids Company report that his show broadcast in August. 

The spoken complaint was made after Mr Yentob personally called Edward Stourton, a presenter, on World at One to discuss the report on Kids Company shortly before it was broadcast. 

The presenter felt that it was “inappropriate” and his concerns were passed on to Ms Unsworth, according to well-placed sources. BBC insiders acknowledged that concerns had been raised, but did not take the matter further because a formal complaint was not lodged.

Oh, and the mother of a murdered teenager has accused him of using her son’s case as a political pawn, telling him,  “Stop acting like you care when you don’t”.

"Sources" are saying he's be lucky to be still in place at the BBC by Christmas.

Kids Company goes to Parliament

Not being at work today I thought I'd watch some of the Kids Company parliamentary select committee coverage, starring that famous double act, Camila Batmanghelidjh of Kids Company and Alan Yentob of Kids Company and the BBC.

It proved quite a draw it seems (well, for those of us not at work and interesting in such things) and was rather riveting. 

Papers like the Telegraph have been live-broadcasting it, and blogs galore have been abuzz with talk about it.  It's been one of the 'trending' things on Twitter too. It was definitely hot 'n' happenin', as they say on certain BBC channels (e.g Radio 3). 

From what I saw and others' reporting of it, Mr Yentob got quite a bit more of a grilling than Miss Batmanghelidjh.

*****

Watching BBC One's News at One to see how the BBC was covering a story that partly relates to itself....

[...i.e. a story involving a lot of controversy about the behaviour of one of its top executives for appearing to have a conflict of interest...]

....well, BBC One's News at One did cover the story, giving it just under two-and-a-half minutes in the middle of the bulletin, including a report from Michael Buchanan.

I felt that Camila came off considerably worse than the BBC's Alan Yentob from the BBC's reporting here. This segment was unquestionably mostly about her.

Using my trusty stopwatch and calculator on this segment of the News at One I found that Alan Yentob (of the BBC) received a mere 20% of the attention.

Of that half-a-minute of coverage, nearly all of it was devoted to repeating Mr Yentob's highly contentious claims about the crimes that have been committed as a result of the closure of Kids Company (twice).

The BBC's Michael Buchanan then said (in three seconds) that the MPs "disputed" Mr Yentob's figures before going straight on to use the word "implied" about what the MPs were saying in general.

*****

In his testimony to parliament, Alan Yentob claimed that the BBC is even tougher on itself than anyone else when it comes to grilling top BBC executives. (I'm guessing he had John Humphrys in mind for helping force out George Entwistle after Savilegate). 

This BBC News at One segment didn't seem to be in that noble (one-off?) tradition.

Forget something, Chris?

Well, I might take the Alan Yentob angle on the Camilla story a bit further after all!...

Like Sue, I'm not overly bothered that Kids' Company trustee and BBC Creative Director Alan Yentob rang Newsnight in an attempt (it seems) to get them to soften their initial report or that he accompanied Camilla (off his own bat) to the Today studio the following day to stiffen her sinews (to to speak). 

Yes, it's hardly 'impartial' behaviour from a BBC boss, but it's not a hanging offence in my book - if the BBC registered his concerns but carried on regardless (as the BBC insists they did).

That was my thought anyhow until I caught up (tonight) with last night's Newsnight, expecting Chris Cook (who originally reported the story - alongside [and, I would guess, some way behind] Buzzfeed) to at least mention the Yentob angle, if only in passing. After all, the Yentob angle was reported in several newspapers yesterday (online), including The Times, and has some news value. Newsnight viewers might well have been intrigued by it. 

Remarkably, Chris Cook didn't mention Alan Yentob last night. Not once.

So much for fiercely impartial BBC reporting, don't you think?


P.S. Newsnight's Chris Cook kept his mouth closed about on this during his 7.10 interview on Today too. He did, however, make a statement that genuinely puzzled me.

I have to say that from the start of Newsnight's Buzzfeed-driven reporting of this story, Chris Cook has been pushing an angle about the government being in the dock over this - even more, it seems, than Kids' Company itself. His final contribution to today's Today ended on the same note:

But there is a secondary question too, which is: why ministers ended up writing a cheque to a charity that told the government it would be closing up shop, you know, within a week?

Did Kids' Company tell the government it would be closing up shop within a week before those ministers wrote that cheque last week, as Chris Cook said here?

Having watched last night's report and read all the coverage, that's not the impression I got. As far as I can tell, it looks as if Kids' Company only said it might close tonight yesterday (i.e. nearly a week after the ministers dispatched that cheque).

Was Chris Cook getting carried away by the thrill of appearing on Today (and bashing the government)? Or am I missing something?

Inspirational leader or cult figure?

The hanging and flogging brigade have always had it in for Camila Batmanghelidjh. Apart from the fact that she symbolizes their revulsion at the thought of hugging a hoodie, what particularly infuriates them is her get-up. 

There is something unsettling about her style. Defiant but with conformist touches, like wearing grim specs instead of goggles-gawn-mad like Iris Apfel’s. Stripey wristlets are eye-catching, but they must be a damn nuisance when washing up.

goggles-gawn-mad

not practical for doing the dishes

Below. Camila looking relatively conventional, trying not to alarm Prince Charles.

How d'you do?

The negative publicity surrounding Kids Company seems to have caught the interest of  the general public. A lot of people seem personally affronted by the very idea of Kids Company. I’ve always thought it had the right approach, but it seems to have gotten too big for its boots.  I must admit I don’t know anything about its recent implosion other than the Miles Goslett revelations. 

I’m divided.  Inspirational leader or cult figure? Bit of both.

I can’t actually see anything particularly damning in those e-mails, and I kind of tend to side with Camila. (and Boris) She does seem to have got out of her depth, and if there are financial irregularities she really should have sorted them out. 

The one thing her critics don’t appear to have addressed is what are social services or anyone else doing about the problems Kids Company is trying to deal with? Not a lot, and at much more public expense, probably.

As this is supposed to be a blog about the BBC I’d better say something about Alan Yentob.

I don’t really care if he tried to influence Newsnight. 

Newsnight suffers from its own dodgy internal trouble and strife. Curses on the lot of them.