They never knew what he was really like until it was too late

Here's something (with a very strong h/t to Sue)...

Who do you reckon said this about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party?

If you are Jewish, how can you vote for them? How could you? For me it would be like being a Muslim and voting for Donald Trump. How could you do it? I am deeply troubled about what is going on in the Labour party. I am deeply troubled that our main opposition party is having such frequent problems with antisemitism. It really disturbs and troubles me.

Clue: It was the same person who signed a letter to the Guardian entitled 'Israel needs cultural bridges, not boycotts'.

Yes, it's none other than the left-liberal, politically-correct, lentil-eating, muesli-munching, Guardian-reading, Notting Hill-watching, metrosexual, 'Marxist'-wife-marrying, great-crested-newt-hugging, Radio-4-comedy-admiring, crisp-side-salad-of-grape-tomatoes-and-romaine-lettuce-requesting-(at-all-times-in-a-restaurant), Daily Heil-hating former director of BBC Television, Danny Cohen.

Yes, that Danny Cohen.

Boy, haven't we all slagged him off over the years! He's been the butt of many a joke, the target of many a missive. I've penned a fair few critical posts about him in my time too, so I'm as guilty as anyone here.

And yet here he is, again showing us that he's not really the man we thought he was. Shame on us!

That said, his interview with the Times does show that he is is partly the man we thought he was though (so all's well!), and it's well worth reading in its entirety - if you've paid to get past the paywall (and this isn't the Soviet Union, you know, so pay up!).

Adieu then Mr. Cohen, formerly of the BBC.

More nutters and Israel-haters

Having flagged up the 71 signatories story below I might continue with the other ‘letter to the press’. 

BBC Watch has highlighted it and its opposing letter here. 

The original letter to the Guardian is pure BDS, based on rubbish propaganda and signed by a whole bunch of  anti-Israel campaigners and luvvies  of little importance. 

“we are announcing today that we will not engage in business-as-usual cultural relations with Israel. We will accept neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding, from any institutions linked to its government. “

Great loss, I’m sure.

The other letter, also to the Guardian, simply says cultural boycotts are unacceptable and open dialogue is the way forward. You’d hardly think that was contentious in any way shape or form, other than being naive and delusional in its implied belief that the Palestinians are open to reason. 

In fact the BBC has always been keen to promote the idea that “talking to Hamas” is the way forward. Sarah Montague is famous for it.  

So this is odd: 

“The BBC has criticised former director of television Danny Cohen for signing a letter opposing a cultural boycott of Israel. 

The corporation said that it regretted the “impression” created by Mr Cohen’s name appearing on the letter but that it “had no bearing on his ability to do his day job”. 

The letter, published in the Guardian in October, was signed by more than 150 writers, artists, musicians and media personalities including J K Rowling and Melvyn Bragg. It was a response to an earlier announcement by media personalities calling for a cultural boycott of Israel and described boycotting Israel as ‘a barrier to peace’. 

Following a complaint to the BBC about Mr Cohen’s involvement, the BBC responded in a December email describing Mr Cohen’s actions as ‘inadvisable’. The email went on to say that senior employees “should avoid making their views known on issues of current political controversy”.  

According to the Guardian, a follow-up email sent this month from BBC chief complaints adviser Dominic Groves said: “The BBC agrees that it was inadvisable for him (Cohen) to add his signature given his then seniority within the BBC as director of television but in practice it had no bearing on his ability to do his day to day job; a role which does not involve direct control over BBC news.”

Sara Apps, interim director of the PSC (I hear Sarah Colborne has had to resign / been forced out / due to some of the more rabid antisemites in the dis-organisation taking exception to what they call her attempts to “kosherize” the group) said the letter opposing the boycott expresses the views of the Israeli state, and that BBC staff should be impartial and seen to be impartial, in their work at the BBC,  unlike me and my fellow antisemites who can be as mad as a box of frogs if it takes our fancy. 

 

Gone!

It beggars belief that the BBC thinks ‘being seen to be impartial’ involves tiptoeing round the hysterical sensibilities of a bunch of nutters and Islamist supporters but Ms Apps seems confident that they’ll play ball and take action against Cohen. 

Too late. He left the BBC already; so tough. Perhaps they could sack him retrospectively for kosherizing the BBC.

Onwards and upwards

Caught red-handed

Danny Cohen's day has gone from bad to worse. Michael Palin and the Guardian (of all people) are piling on the agony:

BBC organised stars' protest letter to David Cameron 

Michael Palin has confirmed that the letter from dozens of celebrities urging David Cameron not to “diminish” the BBC was organised by the corporation’s senior executives. 

Speaking on the Victoria Derbyshire show on BBC 2, Palin said BBC TV boss Danny Cohen had asked him to sign the letter. 

“Danny Cohen rang me up, he just asked ‘Would you sign? The charter is coming up we’re a bit worried the BBC would become smaller and less significant.’”

“I didn’t think that was a very good idea that it should become that much smaller or that it should be sort of chipped away at by special interest groups. Let’s keep the BBC doing what it does best, which is an enormous amount of work.”

What has Danny Cohen been up to?

Well, well, well! According to The Times, the BBC secretly organised that 'independent' protest letter from various celebrities.

The BBC Press Office appears to be squirming with embarrassment at the Times's scoop.

Here are some extracts from the article:

The BBC secretly helped to organise a celebrity letter warning David Cameron that plans to reform the corporation would damage Britain’s global standing, one of its top presenters has revealed. 

The BBC’s press office initially denied it had “anything to do” with the open letter, which was delivered to the prime minister on Tuesday and signed by stars including Dame Judi Dench and Sir David Attenborough......

The letter was presented as an independent protest against plans to reform the BBC, but The Times can reveal that executives at the highest level helped to co-ordinate it while the corporation officially denied all knowledge. 

Annie Nightingale, BBC Radio 1’s longest-serving presenter and one of the letter’s 29 signatories, said she had been invited to be a signatory by Ben Cooper, the controller of Radio 1. She had not seen the text of the letter before its publication. 

She said: “I bumped into Ben a couple of days ago. He said Danny Cohen [the director of BBC television] was putting this letter together and said, ‘Would you like to be included?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. I understood vaguely what it would say. I didn’t read the letter before it went out.” 

Ms Nightingale, the first female Radio 1 DJ, said that she had previously contacted Mr Cooper to express concern over potential BBC cuts and was fully supportive of the letter’s contents. 

“Before the letter I emailed Ben to say I was very concerned and would do whatever it takes,” she said. “That’s when he said Danny Cohen was inviting people to take part in the letter.”....... 

When presented with Ms Nightingale’s interview, the BBC press office did not deny that Mr Cohen and Mr Cooper had been involved but refused to elaborate......

The Times has asked via freedom of information laws for all correspondence relating to the letter sent between Mr Cohen and Mr Cooper as well as between other BBC executives......

Danny Cohen on the rise of anti-Semitism

Danny Cohen, the BBC's head of television, speaking at the launch of a season of programme's commemorating the 70th anniversary off  the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkeanau, has made some noteworthy comments about the renewed rise of anti-Semitism.

Quoted in the Telegraph, he said: 

Today, we witness the murder of Jewish citizens in France and Belgium, the desperate search for refuge of the Yazidis in the face of the ISIS onslaught and the continuing threats to the Christian community in Iraq and elsewhere. 

All around us we continue to feel the dark shadow of genocidal, religious and racial hatred, whether through testimonies from the past or tragedies in the present. 

Despite the Holocaust, anti-Semitic attacks continue in Europe – and indeed have increased in the last year.

In recent days we have mourned the victims of the Paris kosher supermarket atrocity. In Germany, France, Britain and elsewhere, Jewish men and women have been attacked and synagogues and cemeteries desecrated.

Here on the streets of London, swastikas have been displayed at anti-Israel rallies.

Centuries-old forms of abuse have found new homes on the internet.

Never has it seemed more important to remind the world of what can happen when racial and ethnic hatred warps the minds and souls of people of any nation or creed.

It's interesting to see him note the use of swastikas at anti-Israel rallies. It would be good to see the BBC begin seriously investigating the anti-Semitism behind some of the hostility to Israel. 

Disappointingly, however, he doesn't consider the the role of the media in helping to create this climate - especially the BBC's own hostile reporting of Israel.

Be prepared

For the last few days I’ve been (mostly) thinking about Danny Cohen.

The BBC’s director of television senses an ominous whiff of antisemitism in the air.  The press has shown quite a bit of interest in Cohen’s interview with Yonit Levi of Israel’s Channel 2, and a complaint by a prominent Jewish media figure about rising antisemitism in the UK begs a fair few questions.

I can’t decide how to approach this topic for “Is the BBC Biased?” 

Heavily sarcastic seems somehow wrong; yet tempting. 

“As any fule kno, the Jews control the media, therefore a complaint by a prominent Jewish media figure about rising antisemitism in the UK begs the question: if you’re so goddam all-powerful, why don’t you do something about it instead of whingeing about it in YOUR media?”

Perhaps not. Obviously I’m taking it as read that the BBC is largely responsible for the UK’s rising antisemitism. (What with the supposedly impartial BBC’s biased reporting on nearly all Israel related matters, and a ‘bend-over-backwards’ appeasement of culturally antisemitic traditions, not to mention the weirdly blinkered attitude to immigration.)

Maybe a more ruminative approach?

“Is Danny Cohen even aware of the BBC’s routinely anti-Israel stance? Who knows? Maybe he isn’t any more interested in the minutiae of the legal and political history of the Middle East than the average Gogglebox viewer. Maybe he genuinely believes that those ‘complaints from both sides’ automatically cancel each other out. 

BBC Watch painstakingly documents substantive examples of anti-Israel bias. Maybe Mr. Cohen, like his BBC colleagues, dismisses BBC Watch out of hand. Being dismissed out of hand is an occupational hazard for defenders of Israel. Defenders of Israel are deemed beyond the pale, and nothing they say will be listened to, ever. They believe defenders of Israel must be being paid by Israel.”

Or is that over generous to the person who recently:

“hit back at attacks on the broadcaster by some of its biggest stars, such as David Dimbleby and Jennifer Saunders, complaining that high-profile critics were damaging the corporation and “driving staff mad”

So that’s what’s driven him mad? (Sorry)) 

"I would like to call on those who are paid by the BBC but criticise it in media interviews and in public to think hard before they join the daily chorus of BBC-bashing that takes place in some quarters.” [...]"From now, I'd like to call on everyone who believes in the BBC to get behind it, to speak up for it, to celebrate its successes and help us explain why the BBC really matters and sits proudly at the heart of public service broadcasting and Britain's creative industries – rather than find ways to undermine it.”

Benefit of the doubt. Danny Cohen doesn’t understand the BBC’s anti Israel bias. Maybe he doesn’t recognise the myriad inaccuracies when he hears them, or perhaps he does, but he doesn’t have any clout with what is after all James Harding’s news department. 

That’s roughly what his friend Tom Gross is saying.

“Mr Cohen’s friend, journalist Tom Gross, told the JC: “Danny Cohen is in a delicate position. Because he has an obviously Jewish-sounding name, he is often asked to defend what many see as BBC News’s biased coverage of Israel.” 

(So does he or doesn’t he defend the BBC’s news coverage?) 

With a friend like Tom Gross, how could Cohen possibly “not know” about the BBC’s role in inflaming antisemitism? 

Well, let’s assume he really doesn’t get it. Could his ‘uncomfortable‘ remark have been addressed to Israel? Maybe he was indirectly pleading that when devising its response to Palestinian ‘resistance’  the Israeli government should think, firstly, of the backlash?

If he refuses to grasp the concept that his BBC is has anything to do with the rise in antisemitism, maybe it was a plea to the Israelis not to be beastly to the Palestinians, because look, diaspora Jews are bearing the brunt.

Surely that’s ridiculous. Or is it?

Hugo Rifkind and Daniel Finkelstein, amongst others, have also noticed that uncomfortable feeling in the UK. Some recommend keeping a bag packed just in case, like in the final trimester of pregnancy, when you might have to make a hasty exit.

The press has put varying spin according to particular political preferences, upon this interview. The RT article, for example, is followed by a number of very nasty antisemitic comments, neatly demonstrating the antisemitism the article addresses. 

Other articles almost gratuitously include the pro Palestinian accusations that the BBC  failed to properly represent their case.  The only article I’ve seen that gives an honest appraisal of the BBC’s part in fuelling this situation is here, in Commentary Magazine. 

Don’t Like Anti-Semitism? Then Don’t Encourage It.

“there is no escaping the fact that both the BBC and the Labor Party have played a role in stoking the kind of contempt for the Jewish state that leads directly to the increasingly common verbal and physical attacks on British Jews.”
 “Danny Cohen only took over as head of BBC television in May 2013, and so can hardly be held responsible for the BBC’s long legacy of slanted reporting on Israel.’
“So many of the accusations thrown at Israel today echo far older incarnations of Jew-hatred. Once it was accusations of Jews murdering and kidnapping Christian children, and now the accusation is of Israelis imprisoning minors and bombing Palestinian children. Once it was said that the Jews poisoned wells and caused the crops to fail, now that waste water from settlements pollutes Palestinian fields and drinking water. Similarly, the prominent depiction of blood and Palestinian children in contemporary political cartoons about Israel mirrors so precisely the imagery found in medieval anti-Semitism. What was particularly remarkable about medieval anti-Semitism was that whether it was the show trials of the Talmud, the Spanish Inquisition, or the numerous blood libel cases, time and again the names of Jewish converts who had risen high in the Church establishment are found littering the history books on account of the unique role they played in putting anti-Jewish ideas into non-Jewish heads. Perhaps there really is nothing new under the sun.”

Keep your bags packed. 

Danny, the Champion of the BBC

And talking of Rod Liddle's piece in today's Sunday Times...

He has lots of other sharp and funny things to say on other matters too, all of which you can find behind the paywall there... 

...but I'm going to recommend the rest of his section on the BBC above all, as it's very good indeed. It begins: 

It is with enormous pleasure and, indeed, humility that I bring to you the latest utterings of Mr Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television. Danny last made an appearance in this column back in March, with his considered opinion that he could earn at least twice his £320,000 BBC salary if he deserted the public sector and joined a private company.

I laughed so hard at this that I strained a muscle in my neck, and had to wear a brace for two weeks. It occurred to me then that Danny was a comedy jewel, to be treasured — certainly a lot funnier than the comedians he commissioned to make shows for the corporation, such as the vapid Russell Howard.

And now, as the days narrow and the rains come down, Danny has lifted our spirits again. In an impassioned outburst, he has demanded that the country’s journalists must — absolutely must — hold the BBC to account. How right he is.

But in what way should we do this, sir? Danny had the answer: “Stand by the BBC. Support it. Make the case for it. Speak up for it. Celebrate its achievements.” Well, it’s a tall order, Danny — all a bit rigorous for me, and at my age I get cramp if I bow too frequently. But I shall do my best. Here goes.

That, of course, refers to a speech made by Danny Cohen this week, in which the senior BBC manager appealed to each and every one of us to give the BBC a break:

So I make a direct and open plea to you tonight.

It is sincerely meant and acknowledges that the BBC doesn't get everything right, that it makes mistakes, that it is imperfect.

But despite these imperfections I ask you to stand by the BBC in the year ahead - support it, make the case for it, speak up for it, celebrate its achievements and help us make sure we can keep offering such an extraordinary range of programmes for all audiences.

Of course, you will always hold us to account - and so you should.

But if you ask yourself whether the UK and its audiences would be better off with a diminished BBC, unable to deliver the range of quality programmes in the coming years that I've just outlined, then I feel confident you will agree that a BBC that can flourish in a world of globalised media companies is the right thing for the UK and the right thing for audiences.

Perhaps this is time for a little less of the critical friend and a bit more of the friend.

So, "let's be friends!" says Danny Cohen. 

Now, thousands upon thousands of Danny's would-be friends who haven't been quite good enough friends to pay for their licence-fee-funded friend's funding mechanism have been taken to court by their would-be friends at the BBC in a none-too-friendly fashion. Maybe, the BBC should think about its responsibility as such people's friend too and be a good deal less heavy-handed. 

Anyhow, I don't think think we've made any efforts here at Is the BBC biased? to hide the fact that we do like a fair amount of what the BBC does (especially me!). We've even celebrated it from time to time here. But if Danny thinks that we're going to stop being critical and instead start angling for invites to Danny and Noreena's dinner parties and going on holiday with them to the Maldives then he's got another think coming (unless he's paying).

The BBC v the media

I have to write something about “The BBC v the media.”

The BBC has hit back at critics who have questioned executive salaries, asking whether licence payers are actually getting good value for money.

The BBC has issued, via Twitter, a rebuttal. 

The Telegraph’s Anita Singh doesn’t seem convinced. She cites a number of figures which make the BBC’s protestations of prudence seem slightly disingenuous.

Danny Cohen has begged journalists to be “less of the critical friend and a bit more of the friend” to the corporation. 

What about the critics who feel the BBC is politically biased, institutionally anti-Israel and out of touch with half the viewers? What about the critics who respect the power and influence the BBC still commands, but wish it could be turned around, shaken up and used to better effect? 

At the moment it’s not only the profligate squandering of resources that we criticise, but the inherent left-wing bias, the lack of imagination and lack of variety, the political correctness, the ubiquity of certain ‘personalities’ who appear time and time again, on everything, till everyone’s sick of the sight of them. 

Cohen stressed the importance of the BBC, its outstanding reputation and the fact that it delivers education and deep joy and stimulation to 97 % of the population every month.

Maybe it did, once.

There has been criticism of the large amount of repeats scheduled for the Christmas period. That does seem to be a pretty poor state of affairs, what with all those over-paid managers and high-salaried TV talent, you’d think they could cobble together some original material to entertain us over the dreary Christmas hols.  

What lies behind the paywall this morning?

Today's newspapers have a fair bit about the BBC in them, especially The Sunday Times (£).

They tell us, for example, that James Naughtie has been told off by an internal BBC inquiry for allowing a friend to plug a commercial company and give inaccurate information during an interview. Fraser Steel, head of editorial complaints, criticised the Today presenter's... 

...failure to dispel the idea that BritainsDNA was not a business and his allowing Moffat to read out its website address, giving “undue prominence [to] a commercial organisation”.

Naughty, naughty Jim!

We then hear about plans emanating from a BBC-established panel of the 'great and the good' to "scrap the licence fee and switch to a subscription service from 2020"... which calls for a 'Wow!' of some sort: 

The radical plan has been recommended by some of the country’s most influential economists, consultants and academics and comes as the corporation faces swingeing cuts ahead of its charter renewal at the end of 2016.

If introduced, it would be the greatest change to the BBC since its creation in 1922.

Will they really recommend that? Will it ever happen even if they do? 

The BBC's world does seem to be spinning a bit at the moment. At long last.

For comment, of course, Rod Liddle is usually great value for money. This week he's having a go at Danny Cohen, the BBC's Director of Television:

Danny last week took to Twitter to take questions from some of these grateful licence-fee payers — and yet very few people took this generous attempt at genuflecting before hoi polloi terribly seriously. Among the tweets posted to Danny were: “Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?” This sort of flippancy must have discombobulated Danny.

Cohen is, in a sense, what’s wrong with the BBC. A public school, liberal, white middle-class male with an unending sense of entitlement to your money and a deluded impression of his own abilities — not quite a unique creature within the corporation.

Usually great value for money, indeed, and well worth subscribing too. (No, Jim, I'm not a friend of his!)

A few suggestions for Danny Cohen

Further to yesterday's post about those three diversity-seeking senior directors and controllers at the BBC who are going to ensure more women, more gays and more blacks on BBC comedy shows and dramas....

It's now the turn of Match of the Day to face BBC Director of Television Danny Cohen's diversity-loving ire. 

There are too many white men on MOTD he says, and that's gotta change. 

I agree, but I think he needs to go much, much further. 

For starters, there are far too many ex-footballers on Match of the Day. 

I propose that the UK's Olympic women's curling team should take over as pundits, in the interests of diversity. 

They drew large TV audiences, and attracted a lot of viewers to their sport after all. They'd be perfect to replace Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen (and aren't there too many 'Alans' on MOTD too, Danny?). I'd happily watch Eve Muirhead explaining the offside rule and Anna Sloan slagging off Manchester United's defence. 

Gary Lineker - white, male, straight, an ex-footballer - would have to go too. Obviously. He's just so wrong for the job, on all four counts.

Clare Balding would naturally be at the forefront of the BBC's mind when it comes to finding a replacement for him, but - alongside the programme's new pundits - that wouldn't solve Danny Cohen's 'too many whites' problem, would it? Maybe Christine Ohuruogu then? 

Perhaps Danny should start looking even closer to home though. 

You may have noticed that he and Ben Stephenson and Charlotte Moore - and the rest of top BBC TV and radio  bigwigs - are all hideously white too. 

Maybe he should start by sacking himself, and appointing The Sky at Night's Maggie Aderin-Pocock instead. 

She'd make a great BBC Director of TV. She could scrap The One Show for starters and replace it with The Sky at Night for example.

I'd be up for that. Onwards to maximum diversity at the BBC!