Roger and out...time for Amol again?

The closing section of this week's Feedback on Radio 4 was a question-and-answer session directed at its sacked presenter Roger Bolton, marking his very reluctant last appearance. 

As the embittered 73-year-old BBC veteran couldn't interview himself, the programme got a faithful listener to put the questions. She turned out, bless her, to be the living embodiment of a stereotypical elderly Radio 4 listener - with views to match.

Everyone loved Roger and she loved the BBC, and at the end of this long-farewell love-in they agreed on the corporation's importance/necessity.

Roger wasn't keen on the present BBC bosses though, and repeatedly slammed them for being reluctant to come on his show. Many of his criticisms will strike a chord with 'people like us' who know how the BBC handles such 'watchdog' programmes.

Unfortunately, he has also subsequently gone on to tell The Observer that Emily Maitlis was right, especially over her criticisms of the BBC's Brexit coverage for not being anti-Brexit enough.

I see in our archives a huge pile of often very long and detailed pieces slamming Roger Bolton for being biased on that issue - and several others. 

He's not been shy about it either, openly stating his disdain for criticism of the BBC from 'people like us'. 

He's never been a wholly impartial champion of the Radio 4 listener. Though he's had his moments, he's mainly been the champion of that stereotypical Radio 4 listener, and been given free range by the BBC, until this year, however far he's strayed on Feedback into various kinds of advocacy. 

And regular readers might also recall yet more exhaustingly long posts here recording his anger at John Humphrys after JH slammed the BBC, especially over pro-EU bias - despite JH later stating that he'd voted Remain himself.

As we said at the time, Roger Bolton truly took the hump against the former Today presenter for straying from the BBC straight and narrow. It also sounded like he strongly disagreed and that he took it as a personal affront. JH became a regular Feedback target thereafter. I wrote here, several times, about it seeming something like a vendetta.

What Roger Bolton's saying now as an 'ex-BBC presenter' is exactly what we claimed he believed while being an active BBC presenter because, whilst hiding being BBC impartiality, he frequently wasn't impartial, framing discussions in certain ways and asking particular questions in differing ways and giving his own opinions.

I know he has many fans - maybe some of you - but I think the new BBC management are well shot of him - as they are of Emily, Jon and Lewis. Clear the whole lot out, and take Mark Easton and Jeremy Bowen with them off to LBC too, to join James O'Brien and our old friend Rob Burley where people don't have to pay for them!

If only those BBC bosses can now hold off from the urge to really 'troll' their underlings - and the public - and make Amol Rajan the next Feedback presenter. I'm hoping if gobby Gary L gets the Golden Boot from Match of the Day after one too many egregious tweets about women footballers and bras that Amol will get that gig too. Plus Gardeners' World and Fake or Fortune? And if, as we hear, the BBC is bringing back that old ITV Saturday night classic of bread-and-circuses British TV Gladiators, I'm hoping Amol will be the new Ulrika alongside Mishal Husain. 

I've given up my old habit of predicting Newswatch's Samira Ahmed for every job vacancy as she never gets them, especially since her pay row triumph over the BBC. She may mouth off on Twitter from time to time, and join protests, and write articles, and be very anti-Nigel Farage, but she's much better at keeping her opinions to herself while broadcasting than Roger Bolton and she reads out views she almost certainly doesn't agree with without the Boltonian distancing tone. If only she hadn't humiliated the petty, vindictive, defensive BBC, a BBC that bears grudges.

Not that I'm stirring...

“Is no one checking scripts any more?”

Under the headline BBC facing brain drain as exodus goes deeper than just the big names, The Sunday Times's media editor Rosamund Urwin reports on the mood of “despondency” among BBC news employees as the leaving parties pile up. The paper says the BBC “has lost more than 2,500 years of experience...since January 2020”, and another thousand employees might go.

As for BBC profligacy, I was particularly taken by this passage:

In her book, Scoops, published this week, Sam McAlister, the former Newsnight producer who clinched the interview with Prince Andrew, writes of a famous BBC presenter “who spent more money in taxi expenses than I earned in an entire year. Actually, not once, several times. I’d check to see I’d finally managed to out-earn his taxi expenses every year. I never did.”

Meanwhile on Twitter...

One of the earlier departed, Hugh Sykes, was listening to Radio 4 last night. From the sounds of it, a BBC programme was praising the BBC. That led to the following thread:

•  'A Hard Look At Soft Power' on BBC Radio 4  gave BBC News as one of the best examples, but it's at risk due to the over-75s licence deal scandalously agreed by ex d-g Tony Hall with John Whittingdale which slashed the BBC budget by 20%. Accuracy is one of the casualties - eg (more): 
• Inaccuracies are creeping into BBC News. For example, news bulletins describing abortion as a 'Constitutional right' in the USA. It has never been that. It isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Roe Vs Wade only made it a l e g a l right. Is no one checking scripts any more? 
• Conservatives politicians (like Nadine Dorries) undermining the BBC with tendentious ideological attacks may regret it when they are out of power and they find that the BBC is no longer holding their opposition successors robustly to account. 
• In Iraq nearly 20 years ago I had to explain the BBC Gilligan/Dodgy Dossier/David Kelly/Hutton row to a taxi driver. When I'd finished, he asked "So. BBC not government?!" No, I said, BBC not government. That needs to remain true if this British soft power is to remain powerful.

“Is no one checking scripts any more?”, asks Hugh. 

Well, on his specific point - e.g. on Saturday 2 July, the BBC News Channel repeatedly said, throughout the day, “It comes after the US Supreme Court's decision to remove a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.” - one person who evidently isn't is Amol Rajan. Here's Amol interviewing Billie Jean King:

At the time of our speaking, we have only seen the draft judgment of a proposal to overturn Roe v Wade, which is the landmark case of 1973 which enshrined a woman's constitutional right to an abortion in the US.

Amol Rajan v The Guardian

Friendly fire time for the BBC as The Observer loads up this Sunday headline: 

BBC’s Amol Rajan criticised for using phrase ‘pro-life’ in Roe v Wade interview. Pro-choice campaigners say hearing the term, seen as partisan, on Today programme was ‘disappointing’.

The Observer 'reports': 

One of the BBC’s most high-profile presenters has been criticised for using the term “pro-life” to describe anti-abortion campaigners in a discussion about the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.

The term, which is considered partisan, was used twice by Amol Rajan during Saturday morning’s Today programme on Radio 4, in segments about the landmark ruling ending Americans’ constitutional right to abortion.

The BBC News style guide advises journalists to “use anti-abortion rather than pro-life, except where it is part of the title of a group’s name”.

Now, a BBC reporter using the term 'pro-life' in the context of abortion is not what I'd expect, given the BBC's pronounced social-liberal bias, but Christopher Snowden of the free-market think tank the IEA makes an interesting point in response:

Both sides picked a name that makes their cause sound more appealing (pro-choice/pro-life) and everyone understands that. Unless this guy called the pro-choice people “pro-death”, I don’t see the problem.

And Christopher points out that the Guardian/Observer is mired in this language slough as well. See the image at the top of this very post for that tweet and his proof of that.

It's an interesting one. Though 'pro-abortion' and 'anti-abortion' aren't perfect terms, especially for some 'pro-abortion' people, they are understandable and not quite as loaded as 'pro-life' or 'pro-choice'. Maybe the BBC should stick to those?

From my own perspective, which I suppose I ought to put on record, I think our British compromise on the issue gets it about right - as BBC editors appearing on the BBC's Newswatch would say.

Update (Sunday): To expand on Christopher Snowden's point, here's BBC Washington correspondent Nomia Iqbal yesterday evening on the BBC News Channel:

It is day two of those protests, not as many numbers as they were yesterday when that ruling came through but there are hundreds of protesters. I would say they are a largely pro-choice group. Earlier, there were anti-abortion protesters as well and there was a slight stand-off between them where you had pro-choice groups surrounding those anti-abortion ones and shouting, my body, my choice.

Amol Rajan, Evgeny Lebedev and Sir Ian McKellen

I'm not sure if The Sunday Times story Boris Johnson’s Russian crony Evgeny Lebedev got peerage after spies dropped warning amounts to much but it raises interesting questions, not least for one of Lord Lebedev's former advisors and editors - Amol Rajan, then of The Independent, now of the BBC. 

Wonder if he'll have anything to say about it, especially if he conducts interviews about the influence of Russian oligarchs on the Today programme? 

And talking of Amol Rajan's interviews...

Amol's new BBC Two series Amol Rajan Interviews this week interviewed actor Sir Ian McKellen. What risks sending me down Marianna's rabbit hole is that, though serendipity, I've just learnt something I didn't know: by coincidence, Sir Ian and Lord Lebedev are listed as joint directors of a London-based company:

Not that it's remotely a secret. Far from it: Wikipedia's page on Evgeny Lebedev notes that they own a pub called The Grapes together, as does Wikipedia's page on Sir Ian. 

I've used TVEyes to scan the Amol Rajan-Sir Ian McKellen interview for mentions of their shared associate, Lord Lebedev, but it didn't bring up any results. 

Curiouser and Curiouser. 

It's a small world though, isn't it?

Taking the Micheál

 

It's not going well for Amol Rajan. Another day, another apology. On this morning's Today at 7:12am he said, “Here's Michael Martin, the Taoiseach, speaking last night”. I'm guessing someone had a quick word in his ear because a minute later came a correction and apology, “Micheál Martin not Michael Martin. Forgive me.” 'Micheál' is pronounced 'Mee-hal'. And on that trivial bombshell...

Dame Jenni Murray on Amol Rajan

   

Dame Jenni Murray, writing in in The Daily Mail, finds herself troubled by “the BBC’s new golden boy Amol Rajan”, who she says “has already broken the number one rule for journalists: ‘Don’t become the story’” over his controversial The Princes And The Press.

And she troubled by the behaviour of BBC bosses too, asking “Where is the impartiality in a journalist who is a self-confessed republican being asked to make programmes about the Royal Family’s nightmare of recent years?” 

She obviously feels hard done by, and that a double standard is operating on how the BBC applies its guidelines on impartiality. After all, she says, the BBC banned her from doing anything related to transgender matters after she made some cautious comments on the matter from a traditional feminist standpoint away from the BBC, and they also took her off Woman's Hour for six whole weeks in the run-up to the 2019 general election after she made some pro-EU membership remarks in the wake of the vote for Brexit, again away from the BBC.

As for Amol, her piece begins: 

A year ago, many people would have struggled to place Amol Rajan. As the BBC’s media editor, he was a solid middle-ranker rather than broadcasting A-List.  

Now it’s hard to miss him.

You can say that again!

Amol Rajan - ''Rude and immature''

I've written so many quizzes over the years for friends and family, but I've never asked this bog-standard quiz question before: ''Rita Coolidge's All Time High was the theme to which Bond film?''

 

The title of the song rather than the song itself was in my head because I was thinking of the phrase 'all time low' in connection to the Royal Family's present relations with the BBC - or at least that part of the Royal Family not associated by title with the county of Sussex.

What surprises me about all this is [a] is how quickly the BBC has been allowed to move on from the Martin Bashir scandal and [b] how many missteps - or deliberate provocations - the BBC has made towards the Royal Family since the Dyson report into that scandal.

And I wonder how is this going down with the public, especially in the light of Amol Rajan's The Princes and the Press? Is it stoking more anger than usual towards the BBC?

Meanwhile, and talking of Amol Rajan...

His anti-monarchist Independent articles and rude tweets repeating chucking bricks at particular members of the Royal Family and the institution in general resulted in the usual apology this week:

1/ In reference to very reasonable questions about some foolish commentary from a former life, I want to say I deeply regret it. I wrote things that were rude and immature and I look back on them now with real embarrassment, and ask myself what I was thinking, frankly… (cont’d) 

2/ … I would like to say sorry for any offence they caused then or now. I’m completely committed to impartiality and hope our recent programmes can be judged on their merits.

That “former life” is just 9 years ago and Amol was nearly 30 at the time. Doesn't that make him a bit too old to play the 'immaturity' card?

Anyhow, someone responded, “Has Amol Rajan been cancelled yet? Isn't that what the Wokies do when distasteful, hateful old tweets emerge?”, but I'm guessing that as Amol isn't just some easily disposable white cricketer like Ollie Robinson that he's safe and will sail on, full speed ahead, onwards and upwards, at the BBC.

BBC navel-gazing and metropolitan elitism

Here's a little Tuesday morning reading from the newspapers, starting with Anita Singh in the Daily Telegraph:

There is navel-gazing, and then there is the sight in The Princes and the Press (BBC Two) of BBC presenter Amol Rajan reporting on media editor Amol Rajan reporting on the Royal family criticising the BBC. Absurd doesn’t cover it.

After the second and final episode of a series that has caused so much controversy, what have we learned? That there was rivalry between the Royal households. That Harry hates the press, and Meghan got terrible headlines. That Palace sources, whose job it is to secure favourable press coverage for their royals, may have briefed certain journalists in the hope of doing exactly that. Any and all of this information has been available to read in the newspapers for several years. Recycling it for television has achieved nothing, except to sour relations between the BBC and the Royal family.

And David Blunkett is back on the subject of 'woke' BBC Radio 4, this time writing a piece for the Daily Mail. He says:

Radio 4 has become so determined to address multicultural diversity, gender issues and identity politics that it forgets about all-embracing inclusion. People who live outside a narrow class of well-off professionals with rigidly right-on opinions, almost all of them in London, no longer feel included by the station. If you’re not part of the self-proclaimed metropolitan elite, you are unlikely to hear your views reflected. The BBC seems to ignore the obvious fact that ‘B’ stands for British — and its remit is to broadcast to the whole country, not just a few fashionable streets around Islington.

Meanwhile, The Times has a piece by Jawad Iqbal headlined The BBC has a blind spot over the bias of its Covid expert Susan Michie. It begins...and ends:

The BBC is guilty of a grave disservice to its audiences in continuing to give prominent airtime to a communist-supporting scientist as one of its go-to experts on pandemic restrictions, without any real attempt to contextualise or counterbalance her criticisms. Professor Susan Michie, of University College London, a super-rich longstanding member of the Communist Party of Britain, was lined up as a main expert to pass judgment on the prime minister’s announcement of measures to tackle the new Omicron variant....Michie’s revolutionary views — she is said to be dedicated to establishing a socialist order in the UK — are surely relevant when evaluating her critique of pandemic policies. The BBC, which prattles on endlessly about the importance of impartiality and objectivity, seems to have a blind spot when it comes to Michie. Its first duty must be to its audiences, who have a right to be told much more about the experts given valuable airtime.  

On which theme, by the way, I noted down the names of the first four interviewees on the BBC News Channel immediately following Boris's press conference the other day. All were what might be called 'lockdown hawks'. In order of appearance they were: Professor Susan Michie, University College London; Alex Norris MP, Shadow Health Minister; Professor Devi Sridhar, Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh; and Dr Sarah Pitt, University of Brighton.

''Amol The Righteous''

I think it's safe to say that the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell isn't pleased with the BBC. Her Saturday column this week is headlined How the BBC's golden boy Amol Rajan conned me into royal hatchet job.

As well as calling the first part of his documentary The Princes and the Press “a hatchet job on the Palace and the Press...and a hagiography of Harry and Meghan”, she says she “submitted” herself to “at least two hours of filmed conversation with Rajan” but found it “reduced to less than two minutes of selective quotes”. She says she “felt utterly conned”, and feels even more sorry for the Royal Family.

 

It has to be said that The New Statesman's Rachel Cooke isn't overly sympathetic towards Amanda's plight, writing:

These [royal] correspondents have all walked straight into Rajan’s trap. He was the editor of the Independent, they must have thought, he’ll understand, he’ll listen, he’ll take me seriously.

She suspects him of “laughing at them inwardly” [e.g. “at Amanda Platell of the Daily Mail trying to sound cute rather than just plain bitchy”].

But she continues, pondering...:

...how on Earth to explain Rajan’s own, no less comical mode? 

He seems to doubt anyone watching could have even the vaguest grasp not only of the basics of journalism, but of the English language itself. “She is a COLUMNIST,” he says, of Platell. “Which means she provides OPINION.” Hammy pauses, disappointed sighs, patronising explanations: he is very good on Today on BBC Radio 4, but here he sounds ridiculous, half-Hercule Poirot and half-Richard Madeley.

Former BBC presenter Libby Purves enjoyed Rachel's piece, tweeting:

Hilarious. And has Amol The Righteous bang to rights as well!!!

Tropes

 

In response to claims that Amol Rajan's republicanism might contaminate his controversial Royal Family documentary, the BBC repeated their mantra that journalists like Amol leave their personal views at the door when they join the BBC. 

If Anita Singh's review in The Telegraph is anything to go by though, he appears to have let at least some of those views slip through the door, take their shoes off and plonk their feet on his desk:

That’s not to say that Rajan didn’t share his own opinions. It is clear, he concluded, that “in some tabloid quarters, racially charged tropes were evoked and gave a xenophobic whiff” to coverage of Meghan.

And also on the 'racism' theme: 

...he allowed Meghan’s cheerleader-in-chief Omid Scobie to paint himself as the “only” mixed-race royal correspondent. Technically true, but it ignores the fact that a non-white royal correspondent appeared in this very programme (Roya Nikkhah of the Sunday Times), while the Press Association’s royal correspondent is black. A small fact but - as Prince Harry would say in his fight against fake news - truth matters.

Ms Singh makes a reasonable point, surely? 

Where's Amol? (Updated)

 

It's quite an astonishing act of censorship that Google has pulled talkRADIO's YouTube channel, presumably for 'sailing close to the wind' for giving voice to the sceptical minority over Covid-19 and lockdown, as if such views shouldn't be tolerated. 

talkRADIO is an Ofcom-regulated broadcaster that receives its hourly news from Sky News. 

It's owned by Wireless Group, which also owns talkSPORT and Times Radio and is part of the universe of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. 

Amol Rajan, the BBC's media editor has been highly active on Twitter today, but - so far - has been ignoring this extraordinary attack on free speech by 'Big Tech'.

Come in, Amol! One for BBC One's main bulletins? Urgent questions from you to Google/YouTube?

Anyhow, here's BBC disinformation specialist Marianna giving her "analysis", and sympathising with the predicament the poor, censorious 'Tech Giants' find themselves in. 'It's so hard for them having to decide to censor media outlets like talkRADIO but it's a job they've probably got to do' seems to sum up her point of view:

That's outrageous, but it's where we are with the BBC these days.

Update:  talkRADIO is back on YouTube, but Konstantin Kisin's earlier comments (before their reinstatement) still strike an ominous chord:

I am sure thatTalkRadio will get their YouTube channel reinstated. They have the lawyers, the connections and the money. I will be delighted for them when it happens. However, it doesn't matter. Today is the day we can all be 100% certain that free speech is over. Here's why:

When Big Tech censored the New York Post's story about Hunter Biden during US election, I told you (as a non-partisan) it was the biggest story of 2020. Big tech decided what was true in an attempt to influence an election. From there it gets worse: 

As covered by Glenn Greenwald, the Biden cabinet is packed with former big tech executives. His administration will do nothing to deal with big tech censorship. The only chance was Trump winning and being so pissed off that he took a sledgehammer to Section 230. Congress won't help - they don't even understand how big tech companies operate as we have seen from hearing after hearing. They once asked Zuckerberg how Facebook makes money if they don't charge users. 

There is a simple truth here: Big Tech has more power than individual consumers and creators due to their monopoly and they have more power than your government due to lobbying, geriatric politicians and political appointees from big tech backgrounds. And they know it.

Free speech online is over.

Update 6/1: As StewGreen notes, the BBC website article was re-written last night and Marianna Spring's 'analysis' removed. 

Sarah Montague wouldn't approve

(h/t Guest Who)

Some 16 hours ago the BBC's media editor tweeted the following:

Scoop: John Humphrys is joining the Daily Mail as a columnist. My very distinguished former colleague, who left @BBCr4today in September after 32yrs, starts on Saturday. Replaces Peter Oborne. Will range beyond politics. Suspect BBC will be in his sights from time to time!

He when then visited by a multitude of not-so-heavenly Corbynistas and FBPEers, so 2 hours ago he tweeted again:

If you want proof that, from a low base, Twitter has got so much worse so quickly of late, I recommend combining acclaimed BBC journalists and The Daily Mail in a single tweet. Btw on a point of information he voted Remain, and wrote a Sunday Times column for many years.

(For those wondering about the meaning of the title of this post, in his book John Humphrys revealed that his then colleague Sarah Montague "gave him a hard time" for reading The Daily Mail.)

Blowing bubbles

I'd missed Amol Rajan's BBC online piece General election 2019: Five lessons from the 'social media' election until reading pugnazious's comment about it at B-BBC. It's quite something:

No two Twitter users have the same experience, because all follow different people. But I think Piers Morgan was correct to say "Twitter loses another election" last night, though perhaps for more complex reasons than he implied. [ed - Nice attempt to appear intellectually superior to Piers there, Amol!] 

What he and others believe is that Twitter has a liberal bias, and that it can too often be a chat room for the metropolitan elite. That is my experience too, despite my best and constant attempts to follow people outside - and I use the phrase after long consideration - the London media bubble. [ed - Well done, you, Amol! You're my hero!] If Twitter does seem like it's dominated by journalists from Remain-ish titles, or Corbyn supporters, well, both had a bad night. 

The main reason that Twitter had a bad election, however, is that it continues to be a handmaiden to appalling abuse and the proliferation of fake news. [ed - The BBCs crusade against social media is gathering pace]. As a stream, Twitter is great for real-time updates. But so much of what you see is digital sewage, with trolls directing unconscionable abuse at innocent or vulnerable people, and a detection and reporting system that is wholly inadequate. 

Moreover, when the Conservative Party press account re-branded itself a fact-checking service early in the campaign - a dystopian tactic that was repeated last night - it is striking that it took to Twitter to, in effect, disseminate confusion. Sadly, it is a matter of fact in 2019 that the British party of government looks to Twitter to dupe people.

I don't know what happened "last night" (hopefully something similar to what happened last time), but that earlier Twitter "re-brand" by the Conservative Party press account as an 'independent' fact-checking service during one TV debate - which caused such a furore on Twitter and on the BBC - was. to my mind, very clearly not an attempt "to dupe people".

It was, I think very clearly a joke - the Conservative Party sending up self-appointed 'reality checkers' - such as the BBC's Reality Check...

...trolling them, as it were...

...the way they later trolled Hugh Grant, Richard Curtis & Co. with that funny 'Brexit, Actually' video.

Ordinary voters, however stupid the London media bubble might consider them, wouldn't have been "duped" by those tweets - especially as most people never go anywhere near political Twitter! -  and people like Amol are, I think,  massively underestimating most voters' intelligence (and sense of humour). And "dystopian", frankly, is worthy of the ever-hyperbolic Norman Smith and, even more  frankly, downright silly - and biased.

His attempts to escape the bubble he describes have clearly gone nowhere near far enough.

Stop spreading the nonsense, Amol. We're leaving on 31 January. We're going to make a brand new start of it, BBC, BBC. 

Amol exults!

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.

*******

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?

Themes without variations

An earlier post looked at the first few episodes of podcast offshoot of the Today programme, Beyond Today, hosted by Tina Daheley and Matthew Price, and found them to be little different to the Today programme (except that, being aimed at a younger audience, Matthew Price was speaking more slowly and pretending not to know stuff, such how to pronounce the new Brazilian president's name). 

Overall, I thought that the themes - including fake news, hate speech, middle-class drug abuse and concerns about Instagram and WhatsApp - were very BBC/Guardian-type themes. 

The four subsequent episodes have focused on (1) diversity in the media (especially class), (2) #MeToo, (3) whether misogyny should be considered a hate crime....and (4) the US midterms. 

Again, lots of very BBC/Guardian-type themes there. 

The one about diversity in the media - an extended discussion between Tina D and Amol Rajan - was very informal, more a chat even, and very interesting. Tina D, in particular, considers herself working class and, like Amol Rajan, thinks there's a significant problem of under-representation of working class people like her at the BBC. Indeed, Amol argued that the reason the BBC kept failing to see things coming - Brexit, Trump, the rise of Corbyn, various elections - is because of that under-representation of working class people. And he may very well be right about that. 

So, yes, more working class people at the BBC might well help expand the BBC's mind, but it's diversity of opinion that really matters...and, as Beyond Today is proving, the BBC mindset is a very resilient and rigid thing. I doubt that many of the readers of this blog or most people (working class or otherwise) would have come up the topics the makers of Beyond Today have been coming up with as the concerns of Beyond Today seem to spring from a very particular world view. That way of thinking needs a massive amount of fresh air letting in. 

Reshuffle

or 'avin a larf. (someone is)

Look at Guido —> The sidebar screams “PM runners and Riders.” I guess we’re meant to think PM stands for Prime Minister. Leadership election? Oh no! Not anerther wun! 

But no. It’s just the BBC reshuffling the same old same olds. 

Of course by the time I’d written that it’s outdated. Guido posts a new something every ten minutes.

(Back on topic) According to Guido, rumour has it that the contenders are: Emma Barnett, Carolyn Quinn, Mishal Husain, Martha Kearney, Laura Kuenssberg, Robert Peston (?) Vicky Young, and just for the hell of it, Amol Rajan.

A few btl commenters immediately said what I would have said, e.g.,  “time for fresh ‘talent’ ”, “at least Victoria Derbyshire isn’t on the list” and “stopped listening to PM ages ago.” 

Anyway, it’s Guido’s descriptions that amused me.

Emma Barnett?  

Headline-maker fast becoming a household name thanks to her fearless Brillo-style grilling of politicians.

Yep. She once gave Corby a hard time by revealing his shaky grasp of economics or something. She’s tenacious, which is a laudable attribute but not always productive  - think Paxman. But she’s Jewish you know; at least that will annoy the Momentumistas

Carolyn Quinn?

Experienced. 

Yes, but not all that likeable.

Mishal Husain?

Established presenter with internal reputation for even-handedness.

Are you quite mad?

Martha Kearney?

Huge experience of Radio 4‘s daytime news output over 11 years on The World At One. 

But I’m already tired of hearing her voice on the Today Programme. I have to say I prefer listening to male voices on the whole. (Not on the whole; on the radio.) 

Robert Peston (!)

Famous for his on air ‘banter’ clashes with Mair,..

Not really. Famous for his idiosyncratic delivery.

Vicky Young?

Chief Political Correspondent

Ah yes, name rings a bell.

Amol Rajan?

The ubiquitous media editor can never be ruled out of any BBC presenter role.

His contract stipulates that he has to be on everything, and now it’s getting a bit too obvious.

Very Random Thoughts

The four corners of the planet Mercury

I 

If you didn't listen to the Boris Johnson interview on Today this morning and hear John Humphrys's heavily insistent line of questioning (as mentioned in an earlier post), you really should - if you feel up to it...

...and then try to relate John's relentless pursuit of an already dubious point about President Macron opposing Mrs May to the four corners of the earth (and, given his relentlessness, very possibly to the four corners of Mercury, Venus and Mars as well) to the brutal fact that all of his thunder and lightning was subsequently rendered ridiculous by France's ringing backing for the UK's position over Russia.

So much sound and fury from John H. to so little purpose!

There was a strong whiff of 'fake news' about the BBC's reporting of this - as Andrew Neil suggested (though not in quite so many words).

I suspect - perhaps with my tin-foil hat on, perhaps not - that this was the BBC pushing their 'Brexit is harming the UK and the UK is losing its global influence' thing - something which has turned out to be far from true, given that the US and European countries have swung very firmly behind us over the Skripal affair, #despiteBrexit.

*******

II

Talking of 'fake news'...

Tonight's BBC One News at Six ran a feature about the BBC's latest 'School Report Day'.

Its theme this year has been that very thing - 'fake news', and the BBC have been going into schools telling pupils to be wary of fake news, especially on the internet.

The BBC as the purveyor and protector of 'truth' and 'reality'!

As a conscientious blogger, I worked my though their various BBC News website features and found nothing objectionable, bias-wise. It was just largely obvious and reasonable good advice (albeit in no way meant as being advice for pupils as to how to treat their consumption of BBC news, other than a few strong hints that the BBC is a 'good guy' here). 

The one bit where it strayed into political matters was the 'Recognising Fake News' video (with its youth-friendly loud music and gimmicks) where the BBC's new main man Amol Rajan cautioned pupils against believing politicians who cry 'Fake news!' in order to deflect attention away from their failings.

Hmm. Wonder who Amol was nudge, nudge, wink, winking at there? 

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III

Joyce

There have been two widely reported breaking news stories about the Grenfell Tower disaster today.

The first concerns the conviction for fraud of a woman (Joyce Msokeri) who pretended to be a Grenfell survivor whilst claiming that her fake husband died in the fire. (She's not the first person to have been convicted of this kind of fraud when it comes to Grenfell).

The second concerns a new report which found that a fire door installed in the tower block was only able to hold back the flames for around 15 minutes - just half the time it was supposed to work for.

Only one of those stories - the second - made it onto tonight's BBC One News at Six.

An editorial decision was obviously made not to report the first story on the BBC's main early evening news bulletin. Wonder what their thinking was there?

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IV

My timeline today has again been full of people criticising Agent Cob for his confused contortions over the 'Russian poisoning' story.

And however sensible you might think some of his questions have been (and about his positing of 'rogue elements'), Our/Their Cob certainly has veered all over the place over the past couple of days or so.

(I personally think he's been genuinely all over the place rather than being dishonest).

Again BBC One's News at Six left potential PM Jeremy and his party's travails out of its reporting equation tonight, for some reason.

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V

Tonight's Question Time has caused controversy by including an RT presenter (Afshin Rattansi) on its panel (alongside an actor, an EU bureaucrat, a Labour front-bencher, a Conservative minister and, perhaps, a fluffy kitten).

Some are asking, 'Why invite on someone from the Russian state propaganda channel, especially at this time? Aren't the BBC siding with our enemy?'

Other are objecting to the RT man's antisemitic past on social media. Shouldn't the BBC no-platform him?

As a free speech man, I'm firmly of the 'no, of course it shouldn't' point of view here. Let him be heard, and (if needs be) let him be heckled and robustly challenged.

Will he get the full David Dimbleby/QT-'Nick Griffin treatment' tonight?

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VI

Talking about antisemitism, The Independent has an 'exclusive' tonight: Frontrunner for Labour's next general secretary 'gave work to someone suspended by party for antisemitism'.

If true, that should be a lead story on every media outlet, including the BBC. The antisemitic nature of the tweets of the suspended woman is beyond question (even down to 'Jews having big noses' comments).

If the likely next Labour general secretary ignored this and gave a job to this woman in full knowledge of her antisemitism then the BBC should surely make a massive deal of it (the way they used to if even the most obscure UKIP candidate for a local council seat ever said anything even remotely racist-sounding or batty)?

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VII

'Let's have a look at what you could have won'

The super, smashin', great Jim Bowen died within a day or so of his hero Ken Dodd, and was (to me) a 'local lad made good'.

He taught at Lancaster Road School in Morecambe, and used to own the fine (wonderfully-rural) Royal Oak pub halfway between Morecambe and Hornby along the Lune Valley and, for a while, owned Morecambe FC (The Shrimps) despite being a lifelong Blackburn fan.

I'd quite forgotten until I read the obituaries (if I ever actually knew) that he had a brief fling with the BBC. His Radio Lancashire show lasted about three years until they made him resign for "making a racist remark on air", as the BBC News website's obituary put it.

For obituaries, however, if you can read it beyond the paywall, the Telegraph's obituary of Our Jim is unbeatable. It's wonderfully wry but warmy, and a masterly piece of writing (albeit with the odd forgivable factual error). It relates his short BBC past in a slightly more charitable way:

From 1999 Bowen worked for BBC Radio Lancashire, presenting a magazine programme with Sally Naden called The Happy Daft Farm. When he was sacked in 2003 for using the expression “nig-nog” on air, he protested that in his part of Lancashire, it meant nothing more than a nitwit.

(That '2003' is the factual error. The BBC actually pushed him out in 2002).

It quotes a classic Bullseye moment:

“Hello, Ken, and what do you do for a living?”
“I’m unemployed, Jim.”
“Smashin’, Ken, super.”

 You really couldn't beat a bit of Bully.  

Good night and good morrow

Having run out of time tonight (before yet another long week at work), here's a link to give you food for thought over the coming days...

It takes you to a long lecture from shy and retiring BBC media editor Amol Rajan called The Tortoise and the Share that will take you at least an hour to read (if you're determined to try). 

It's packed with interesting thoughts and probably needs a considered overview from us, but - having no time left tonight - I'll just copy and paste a few paragraphs to infuriate your fancy instead:

The demands of rapacious social media, combined with the groupthink inherent in all pack journalism, makes covering politics highly prone to what, in my view, are errors of judgement. Let me re-iterate that I'm not talking about specific individuals here, but give you a couple of examples. 

First, Moggmentum. I'm sure you all know who Jacob Rees-Mogg is. Last year, especially through what has become known as silly season, there was a burgeoning industry in speculation over whether this idiosyncratic and intelligent backbencher was a future leadership contender for the Tories. I read article after article after article about how he was the grassroots' favourite, and various Tories were coming together to plot his takeover, lest Theresa May fall. 

But who does such speculation benefit, other than Jacob Rees-Mogg? And is there actually any substance to the story? It is of course one of those self-perpetuating things. Once the story starts to gather, if you excuse the pun, momentum, it does have the effect of inflating Rees-Mogg's reputation, and making him seem more plausible. But do ordinary members of the public really care about personalities in politics as much as journalists do? Runners and riders stories always seem to reflect the interest of hacks and pundits rather than audiences at home. 

Or take an example from America. The mad boosterism around Oprah Winfrey is their version of the same thing. After her speech at the Golden Globes there was an explosion of chat online about whether she might run for President. Does that mean it should be covered as news? Hell no! But did CNN cover it as news? Hell yes! One of their reports carried the headline: "Sources: Oprah Winfrey 'actively thinking' about running for president". 

Where to begin with this? I spend weekday evenings 'actively thinking' about becoming a reggae producer, or eating Nutella straight from the jar. That doesn't mean it's going to happen. The fact that this speculation was coming nearly a year before the mid-terms of Trump's first term was no barrier to the idle speculation. And if you actually read the story, it contained sentences such as: "One source emphasised that Winfrey has not made up her mind about running"... and "For now, it's all just talk". Er, you don't say.

Where to begin with that? Well, I'll probably leave that to you.

In lieu of that, I'll just point out that Amol's four "positive" recommendations for improving UK journalism (including BBC journalism) are very 'BBC' recommendations: (1) provide 'context' (BBC-style), (2) "fight for truth" by promoting things like the BBC's Reality Check, (3) have expert statistical fact-checkers on hand to immediately debunk those things you (the BBC) think need debunking, and (4) "speak for and with the poor, rather than to or at them".

And where to begin with that?

Well, not where BBC Amol begins for starters! I'm fed up with BBC reporters and their biased 'context', alarmed at their adjudicating 'reality checks', and concerned about their debunking intentions (and the direction they are likely to heavily tend towards thanks to the BBC's biases).

And as for "speaking for and with the poor", well, that needs a lot of 'unpacking'. Can such privileged BBC people really speak for the poor without projecting their own earnest fantasies onto them?

Please have a read for yourselves (if you have time). What do you think of the BBC media editor's take on mainstream media reporting?

Isn't this is a new BBC high-up basically singing like a blithe-spirited lark from his new BBC bosses' hymn sheet?

"Perhaps they deserve each other"

The BBC's omnipresent Media Editor Amol Rajan (does he ever sleep?) has just written a piece for The New Statesman about Michael Wolff and his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Amol describes Mr Wolff as a "scumbag" and says that his book is, in part, "fake news", though he did find it "riveting". The piece ends, ever so impartially, like this:

Get me outta here

Everyone needs a bit of mindless tat, and when it’s time to watch crap, Craig is an “I’m a Celebrity” man, and I would plump for Gogglebox. (If I was forced to choose.) But even mindless tat is not what it used to be. Tat has deteriorated. All that’s left is for you to just watch, mesmerised  with incredulity at the sheer weirdness of, I dunno, other people. Are they even real? (as the archbishop said to the actress.)

The one with Jeremy Corbyn and Jessica Hynes was a dismal, chemistry-free zone. They didn’t connect, literally and figuratively. Why on God’s earth did she agree to do it? 

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Settling down to watch a bit of light entertainment the other night, I switched over to BBC One rather than watch the blitz programme on BBC 2, which hinted at lecture. I didn’t give it a chance because I wanted, nay, needed light-hearted escapism.

So, despite what  Einstein or Weinstein said about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, I sat through the third episode of Love, Lies and Records.  (The first episode was so ridiculous that I abandoned ship halfway through) I just thought the second episode might be different. It wasn’t. Still, if the first episode was ridiculous and the second episode was completely off the scale of bonkers, I still gave the third episode a go.  Bugger insanity.

Talk about being lectured to. I should have stayed with the bomb. I was being bombarded in any case - by an barrage of ‘trans’ and ‘same-sex-marriage’ advocacy.

The heroine’s elastic sense of cultural and moral tolerance and over-developed righteousness is coupled with a spot of sexual and intra-office jealousy. In a moment of compassionate sentimentality she subverts a golden rule of HM Registry in accord with the wishes of a dying woman, even though said woman is already dead.  

The ‘plot’ also features: suspected online grooming/ sexting/, illegal immigration/ sex trafficking/ murder/ adulterous shagging-in-the-cupboard/ man-to-woman transitioning/ a Jewish-gay wedding/ blackmail /  other right-on stuff.  Rebecca Front’s convincingly vengeful baddie commits what has become, officially, the most heinous crime of all. No, not the blackmail. Being ideologically opposed to same-sex marriage!

Help! Get me outta here!

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The BBC has a habit of over-exposing certain personalities till they go out of fashion, whereupon they are cruelly dropped or sidelined. They must be in room 101.

Currently overloading the airwaves are the faces of Amol Rajan (He’s on everything, including being a guest judge on Celebrity Masterchef - how did he get that gig?) and Emma Barnett (she’s on everything).

Emma Barnett is all over everything everywhere, as per this piece in the Times (£) 

She can be particularly annoying on Sunday Morning Live, but that is primarily down to the format of that show, and I have to say she was a big improvement on Tommy Sandhu who couldn’t even read aloud from a massive screen without adding his own personal touches to viewers’ texts and emails.

Anyway, our Emma made a big impression on the nation’s collective consciousness when she exposed one of Jeremy Corbyn’s weaknesses in her famous interview. The one when she “skewered Jeremy Corbyn" […] "ambushing him about his poor grasp of the figures”. 

Her interviewing style on that occasion was persistent and forensic, rather than “hectoring for its own sake” as per some of her colleagues, whose line of questioning can be openly agenda-driven. 

“She enjoys big-game hunting senior politicians, often using Paxman’s famous “repeat the question without mercy” tactic.” wrote Helen Rumbelow in the Times.  (Said with apparent admiration.)

In my opinion that technique (repetition of a question that the interviewer believes can only produce an incriminating answer) is the worst, most unproductive approach ever created. It was unpleasant enough when Paxman used it on Michael Howard, but when Mishal “How many Israelis” Husain appropriated it during her ill-tempered interrogation of Gill Hoffman, it said far more about the interviewer than the interviewee.  

Similarly, when Andrew Marr addressed Benjamin Netanyahu I thought he approached the interview with a visible agenda, i.e., he set out from a  position sympathetic to the Palestinian cause (as he sees it) with the intention of “challenging” Netanyahu.. He was clearly not concerned with the business of ‘drawing out’ the Prime Minister of Israel by letting him state his case, for good or bad. He was much more concerned with burnishing his own image for the benefit of the anti-Israel consensus.

There is one abiding mystery, which remains baffling, and - to coin a phrase - “I’m not the one saying this” - which is this. Why oh why don’t heavyweight interviewers like Andrew Marr tackle John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn robustly, forensically and persistently - about the antisemitism in the Labour Party? And about their own antisemitism for that matter.  Yes, admittedly some of your ‘Andrews’ have been known to tentatively broach the subject, but are too easily fobbed of with the ‘we oppose racism in all its forms’ nonsense.

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Did you know that the Israeli PM offered to send Israel’s rapid response team to help the victims of the Iranian/ Iraqi earthquake? The offer was refused. We never hear about that any more. Has it gone away?

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The first episode of Kate Humble’s series “Extreme Wives” was riveting and it received well-deserved, extremely positive reviews. Oddly enough I couldn't find any reviews of episode two, the one about Haredi Jews in Jerusalem. Not a squeak. 

However, I don’t think anyone had much reason to complain about that programme. 

Kate Humble has gone up in my estimation. She has an enormous amount of charm and sincerity and she manages to win round the most uncooperative subjects with her genuinely respectful curiosity and huge smile. Somehow, one doesn’t expect to find, on the BBC, a Jerusalem dwelling Haredi family presented with accepting inquisitiveness; for once, we have a ‘presenter-led show’ that wasn’t ‘all about me”. 

It went down well on Twitter, with a minimum amount of political point-scoring. So it’s all good.

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Fancy volunteering for a reality show? On the BBC? On a Kibbutz? You don’t even have to eat pigs’ testicles, (but you might have to face the wrath of Roger Waters.

Neither Roger Waters nor Jeremy Corbyn have an antisemitic bone in their bodies. Who knew.