Charm Personified

News came this week that Naga Munchetty's salary has gone up from £255,000-£259,999 to £365,000-£369,999. So she's earning an extra £110,000, which is nice for her.

Meanwhile BBC Breakfast viewers - and her BBC colleagues - continue to reap the delights of her charming personality:

Feel sorry for the poor reporter and the owner of the ice cream business after Naga Munchetty makes it all about herself (as usual) on ⁦@BBCBreakfast⁩ #BBCBreakfast pic.twitter.com/tuRYKTMLRa

— Chris (@The__Winchester) July 15, 2022

It isn't impartial broadcasting

 

 

As we've been discussing on the open thread...

This morning's BBC Breakfast included an interview with the French MP for Calais and a former Chief Immigration Officer for UK Border Force in light of the tragedy in the Channel yesterday.

In a very BBC moment, BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty decided to interrupt when the latter, Kevin Saunders, said something that, however factual, was clearly unpalatable to her. 

She then took umbrage with him when he reacted with bemusement to her interruption. 

And, not letting it go, she then went on to try and shame him by playing the time-honoured 'please think of the children' card. 

It was all rather aggressive from the BBC presenter. 

Here's a transcript of that section:

Kevin Saunders, Former Chief Immigration Officer for the UK Border Force: In the longer term, we have got to have offshore reception centres for these people. The draw to the UK is phenomenal. They want to come here because basically everything is free. And that's the attraction. That's why they wants to come. They are going to get housing, education, money, everything. That's why they are wanting to come...

Naga Munchetty, BBC: [interrupting] Because they are seeking asylum.

Kevin Saunders: Ah, er...um...

Naga Munchetty: Sorry, what do you mean by...what does that gesture mean?

Kevin Saunders: I was in France for 16 years pulling people out of the back of lorries and such like. Most of the people that I dealt with were not asylum seekers, they were economic migrants. And I do think it's a little bit disingenuous of some of the people who've never met a migrant in their life to say that they are all asylum seekers. They are not all asylum seekers. A lot of them are just plain economic migrants.

Naga Munchetty: What about those who aren't like the child that died on that boat yesterday?

Kevin Saunders: I mean, I'm not saying that everybody is an economic migrant. But a lot of them are.

And then came a report from the BBC's Lewis Goodall which contradicted the lived testimony of Mr Saunders, former Chief Immigration Officer for the UK Border Force. 

Here are some quotes from that:  

• Some of those have made that journey two, three, four or five times to try and make it to the UK. Why? Well for some of them at least they feel they have already risked everything coming from countries where they have been persecuted perhaps, or where their family have been imprisoned, and so it's merely the latest in a series of risks. 
• And of course some people say, well, why don't they just stay in France? There are a few reasons for that. Sometimes it's about family connections, their last family in the world might be in the UK. Sometimes it's about language, they can speak English, they don't speak French. One of the other reasons is they feel they have been treated badly in France and I don't think people necessarily appreciate just how poor conditions are in the camps, and I call them 'camps' charitably. They are basically really just woods and roadsides where people with kids - women, men and children - are living. 
• To understand that, we spent some time in some camps in Calais and Dunkirk and here is a sense of what we found there. When you think of Dunkirk, this almost certainly is not the escape you think of. But in 2021, this is what Dunkirk is. Thousands of people from around the world, men, women, children too, living in the woods, wondering the motorway, waiting for the call to flee at dawn across the sea from France to Britain.
• We should remember, too, that in terms of numbers at least, compared to other European countries, or indeed elsewhere, we are not talking about that many people. It's just more visible.   
• There's much discussion in Britain about whether these people are genuine asylum seekers. It's a fair question. But also fair to consider whether many or most would credibly take these sort of risks if they weren't.

Now, who would you trust to know whether the bulk of the people crossing the Channel are migrants or refugees: the former Chief Immigration Officer for the UK Border Force who has dealt with these people for 16 years or a BBC 'instant expert' Newsnight reporter who has just popped over to France for a couple of days and talked to a few people?

And this isn't just any old BBC journalist. Lewis has a reputation. 

And, as per an earlier post, both Mark Easton and Newsnight were on a concerted mission to try to defuse this as a story before yesterday's tragedy struck and Lewis Goodall was obviously despatched to help advance that mission. 'Defusing the story' is now impossible, so deflecting it seems to be the new approach. 

Watching a Lewis Goodall report is like watching a university debating society in action. Note, as ever, how Lewis uses the tricks of rhetoric to advance it further - that last quote in particular.

Lewis just can't imagine that people who have travelled so far and are trying so hard can be economic migrants. For him, 'it stands to reason' that they must be asylum seekers. Well, it doesn't for me, and I think that's an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.

Note also his 'we should remember' in the fourth quote. Should we really? Why is a BBC reporter telling us what we should think?

As for the Dunkirk references [and there were images from the war], it crossed my mind that Mark Easton was playing the 'little ships' card. Lewis Goodall, unlike the very canny Mark Easton, was less discreet about using that analogy.

And he really hammers home the 'women and children' angle - despite everything we've seen with our own eyes from video after video over the past couple of year [something the full report heavily reinforces]. 

It's a one-sided argument disguised as a report, loaded in both its content and language.

The whole report also goes out of its way to tug at the heart strings, and - in typical Lewis Goodall style - features talk of what he calls ''this political purgatory''. This gets him into familiar territory, and he negotiates the UK-French angle by putting the emphasis on the French side's criticisms of the UK government. 

Even while he's emphasising his own fears for the lives of the migrants he's spoken to he can't but advance his own position on matters of controversy, and do it with a partisan politician's way of winning an argument. 

Whatever this is, it certainly isn't impartial broadcasting.

Sunday morning

I

Well done to Morecambe's very own world-beating boxer Tyson Fury!

The BBC's report on his triumph has a couple of adverts for other BBC output at the bottom of it, which don't seem entirely relevant:

I think I'll pass on those.

II

Talking of advertising on the BBC, the BBC is hardly free of adverts as they deluge viewers with plugs for other BBC programmes between programmes. 

But at least they don't put them in the middle of programmes....

....except, that is, if your watching the news and see a plug for, say, an upcoming Panorama disguised as a news report. 

The Mail on Sunday claims however, that it goes a lot further than that. They suggest that the BBC is using Strictly Come Dancing as a ''walking advert for other shows'' as eight out of this year's 15 celebrity contestants are already working for the BBC. Did they enlist an EastEnders actress because EastEnders's viewing figures have falling to an all-time low? Did they enroll one of the new team captains on Question Of Sport because that show's new line-up hasn't proved a hit so far? Are they promoting new Newsround presenter Rhys Stephenson because ''sources say that he is being lined up to be a future superstar of the network''? Is BBC Breakfast's Dan Walker walker on because of the ratings battle with ITV's Good Morning Britain? etc, etc.

I wouldn't put it past them.

III

And talking of BBC Breakfast, [h/t Guest Who], it's charm all round this Sunday morning: 

Rob Chisholm [BBC viewer]: Glad that BBC Breakfast doesn't have Naga Munchetty on the sofa again. It's a far more pleasant and professional programme without her snide & irritating comments. Long may the lack of Naga Munchetty on our screens continue. 

Naga Munchetty [BBC presenter]: Ah Rob. Thank goodness there's someone else who is also 'snide & irritating' out there. Phew! Long may your own lack of pleasantness continue. X

I see from his Twitter profile that Rob is, among other things, a Royal British Legion Rider and a an RAF Veteran and that his 'pinned tweet' recommends a 'Coffee and Cake To Go For Paramedic Heroes', plus he has a union flag in his profile. No wonder they don't like each other!

IV

The Mail on Sunday also reports that Match of the Day ''WILL continue to show Premier League teams take the knee each week - despite a growing amount of players choosing not to perform the gesture''. A BBC spokesperson said: ‘Match Of The Day’s editorial brief is to provide coverage of all aspects of the Premier League. The ongoing anti-racism statements made by all teams is an important part of the current football narrative.’ Ah, the BBC and their narratives!

''Of course. I understand that. But where is safe then?''

 

This morning's BBC Breakfast saw Armed Forces Minister James Heappey being interviewed by Naga Munchetty. 

Twitter then caught fire, as usual.

Here's a representative selection of the early tweets from both sides, followed by a transcript of the interview, with Naga's questions in bold and underlined.

AGAINST NAGA MUNCHETTY

Ian Preston: I see that Naga Munchetty has got her stroppy face on again. Armed Forces Minister - There is a very credible threat to people's safety at Kabul airport so we are advising them to go to another place of safety.

Naga - So where would that be?

Minister quite rightly diplomatically didn't answer.

Naga - So where us this place of safety? Again, with stern face.

Minister - Well I'm not going to tell you as it will no longer be safe!

What did she expect him to say!

Come on BBC Breakfast, we can do better than this!

Les Douglass: Naga "Can you tell us what boarder crossings are safe for people to go to escape?" James "No, because the would tell the Taliban where to block their escape"! ..SUCH STUPID QUESTION...WHO WRITES HER COMEDY SCRIPT? It must so difficult for James Heappey to give informative answers from such stupid questions from NAGA. He is either correcting her false assumptions or explaining why her ideas can't work! NAGA Its not the BRITISH Army that abandoned the Afghans! It was the AFGHAN Army! The question is "did NAGA learn anything from James Heapey"? No. She did not understand a word...Thanks James, most of us did understand!

Hmmmm?: British soldiers and govt officials risking their lives to get British and Afghan vulnerable out and Naga Munchetty implies they are being abandoned "is it fair to say they've been abandoned?" What a bloody disgrace she is.

Annie_MacF: FFS. Naga M is a real nasty piece of work! Suggesting the people now in trouble due to ISIS in Kabul are being abandoned. Other Q & tone confrontational all the way through interview with James Heappey MP who was great. It was as if we had caused this.

JD: Naga, your aggressive line of questioning/interrogation isn’t clever or pleasant to watch. “Can you guarantee” seems to be one of your favourite questions in situations where clearly no guarantees would ever be possible.

Steve Weston: Despite moronic questions from Naga. Stop, stop, stop asking for specific timings, you are going to get people killed. I can't say why because I have integrity. The general UK audience does NOT need those answers. The Defence Minister's tolerance was excellent.

kirsty: [James Heappey] was doing his job by acting responsibly to protect the lives of the UK nationals, the Afghan people and our armed forces personnel by refusing to answer questions about the threat. I usually enjoy Naga’s interactions but her questions this morning were unrealistic.

FOR NAGA MUNCHETTY

BenDelaBen: Naga did her job. Being a journalist = Asking Hard Questions. The MOD Dodged half the questions with very vague answers.

Jangli Billu (Wild Cat): Love to see Naga Munchetty upsetting the natives again. Her name tending means the bigots are upset. She just needs to appear and the frothing starts.

Gwinnie: ‘Naga’ is trending so assume the gammon are out, yet again, attacking that poor woman on BBC Breakfast. She takes so much abuse every day she’s on. Wonder why?

J.-P. Janson De Couët: What it about Naga Munchetty that rattles gammon cages?

Peadar Mac Ciarraí: I love how all the Karens pretend their issue with Naga is anything other than pure racism.

Giorgio: Welcome to journalism. It's about holding people to account. Be honest what really upsets you is the colour of her skin and the fact that she confronts societal ugly truths and misconceptions. Naga is brilliant.

THE INTERVIEW

We're joined now by Armed Forces Minister, James Heappey. Good morning to you. 

Morning Naga. 

Morning. OK, so what details, if any, can you give of this imminent threat? 

I can't share with you the exact detail with you of what the threat is, that I can say that over the course of the week the credibility of the reporting has reached the stage where we believe that there is a very imminent, highly lethal attack possible within Kabul, and as a consequence we have had to change the travel advice to advise people not to come to the airport, to move away from the airport and find a place of safety and await further instructions. 

Do you have a timeline?

No.

OK. Where is safe then? If the environs of the airport is not safe, where is safe for those people who are waiting to leave the country? 

Well, as you're seeing on your TV screens I suspect already this morning, to an awful lot of people even knowing that the US, the Australians, the UK are giving the advice that we are now giving an awful lot of people still feel that the airport is the safest place. That is a concern because the crowds are still very large and that reflects I think the desperation that people have, and I suspect that people realise that by not coming to the airport with the 31st August still the deadline everybody is working to this isn't just a case of pausing, dealing with the threat and picking up where we left off. The reality is that the clock continues to tick even whilst we are having to give the advice that we are giving and asking people to stay away, but we know how desperate people's circumstances are. We would not be sharing the intelligence or the threat that we know of if we did not think it was credible, imminent and lethal. 

Of course. I understand that. But where is safe then? If there are people in Kabul who would have made their way to the airport to pass certain checkpoints in order to be able to get on transport to leave the country, if they're not supposed to do that where physically do they go now? 

Well, I can't advise them to go to any one place. In fact, you might see that to do so would simply be to advertise to Islamic State that there is another place that we are asking eligible people to go and concentrate, and that in itself becomes a target. The reality is that we are asking people to move away from the airport. You might argue that anywhere that isn't a large crowd in an obvious place that IS would target is a safer place, but the reality is - as you will see on tv - that there are still very large crowds outside the airport and that's a real concern for everybody. 

I mean, one of the processing centres - or the processing centre - is a hotel which is in the middle of the area where people are people told to avoid, so what does that mean in terms of processing people? 

It means I'm afraid exactly as it sounds, that we have processed 1,988 people or we have flown out 1,988 people in the last 24 hours. We have taken as many into the hotel as we physically could at the time when the threat reporting came as urgent as it was, but the reality is that clearly if we are asking people to move away we are effectively also saying that that reduces our capacity to process people. Now you may well see footage of people who have ignored the advice and remained in the queue that we are desperately trying to protect them by bringing them inside as quickly as we are able to, but that should not encourage people to travel to the airport because... 

So, OK...

I cannot stress the desperation of the situation enough. The threat is credible, it is imminent, it is lethal. We wouldn't be saying this if we were not genuinely concerned about offering Islamic State a target that is just unimaginable. 

If you are not in the hotel at this moment in time, will you be able to get into the hotel to be processed? If you are not in the hotel at this time, does that mean that, while this threat exists, there is no chance of being processed? 

I am not able to guarantee that if you are not in the hotel at the moment that you may have the opportunity to be processed. But I should stress that that is under constant review. We are not wanting to end the process at this point. We just have to be honest and responsible with the intelligence we have. 

Of course, of course, but it is now the 26th of August and the deadline is the 30th, at 11:59 at night, on either the 30th or on the 31st of August, that's not yet clear. So is there any indication that this threat may be over before then? 

The reality is that we have no depth in country in order to be able to go out and interdict the threat. We are effectively holding the hotel and the airport and providing security to that. And we are confident in our ability to secure that. Clearly what happens outside the immediate perimeter is to target, but when you have got so few troops on the ground, and when you have got no depth in the city beyond the airport, our ability to go out and find the threat and deal with it is very limited indeed. So I fear that this is a judgment to be made on the balance of probabilities between IS's ability to mount the attack that we have intelligence to say is imminent versus our desire to get out as many people as possible. We are not being overly cautious, I promise you. 

Of course. How many British citizens haven't been processed? Is there an estimate available? And those Afghans who are eligible to leave the country and be evacuated by the UK, how many...what numbers are we talking about who are not yet being processed or in that hotel? 

British citizens, it is very, very hard to nail down. There have been colleagues in the Foreign Office who have been trying to get hold of some people for weeks and then they get hold of them and it turns out they are already in Dubai. Our working number is we think there are around 400 eligible people, mostly British citizens, dual nationals, in country. Clearly we are working hard to find routes to safety for them, and indeed for those that remain under the ARAP scheme. But I hope you will understand that, given the threat, the last thing we would do is advertise what advice we might offer to those who have moved away to a place of safety, because in advertising it we risk making that alternative provision, if we are able to find an alternative provision, a target in itself. So it is suboptimal in terms of my ability to give you the detail what you quite understandably want, but... 

And I appreciate that, but how are they getting the information? How would they get the information? I appreciate you cannot advertise it, there is a security issue, but are they getting that information, those 400 who have not gone through the system yet? 

That is the job of work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Crisis Unit last night and today. There will be people who are absolutely desperate to have heard this news at what they know is the back end of the evacuation process. It is a concern for all of us that they are still there in the first place. The advice has been to leave for many months now, but a number of people have chosen to stay. Some of them, journalists for example, who have a... 

And some of them Afghan who love...and some of them Afghans who love their country and wouldn't want to leave because they didn't want to see it in that position. So can you guarantee...? 

You asked me about eligible people and I am just pointing out that there are some who do not want to leave at all. There are some who have, for various reasons, needed to stay until the very end. We are in the process of contacting them to try to discuss with them what their options might be for getting them to safety. But this is a very dynamic, very challenging situation, and I just have to be really honest with people and say that there is every possibility, as we've been saying all the way through, that we will not get everybody out. And the security situation worsening, as it has, makes that more likely. 

If you don't get them out, is it fair to say they have been abandoned? 

I don't think that would be a fair reflection of what has happened over the last ten or 11 days. 12,279 people have been brought out. We have been clear all the way through that there will inevitably be the reality that not everybody can be brought out and I think that whilst they personally might feel that, the reality is that we will have done our absolute best, militarily. Judgments will then be made I think about the political decision-making and the route to being in this situation in the first place. But I want to pay tribute to the Royal Air Force particularly for the way that they have facilitated the air lift over the last few weeks. 12,279 people is over 5,000 more than we thought we were going to need to evacuate from Kabul when this mission began. It is an extraordinary effort. But that is no consolation whatsoever to the people who are fearing that they are not going to get out. And that is why I say those numbers with no sense of triumph or accomplishment. I know that there are people who will feel desperate that they have not been one of those 12,000 who has been brought out.

The French Prime Minister has said that from tomorrow evening onwards we may no longer be able to evacuate people from Afghanistan. That is from the French Prime Minister. Is the UK in a similar position? 

I am not going to comment on the remaining time line for our evacuation flights. 

James Heappey, Armed Forces Minister, thank you very much for talking to us on Breakfast. 

Thank you very much indeed.

Naga Munchetty wants us to talk about race

 

The BBC Press Team is retweeting the following tonight:

Naga Munchetty: My BBC Panorama team and I have been working on this for a year.

This may give some insight to why we think it's important to talk about race.

#letstalkaboutrace.

@BBCOne 7pm Monday

X

Many, if not most, might very well be thinking, 'Oh, dear God, please no! Please, please BBC, let's not talk about race any more! Just stop nagging us about what you think we should think about race!'

Alas: That's (evidently) not going to happen. X

Naga has been let off BBC editorial guideline breach after BBC editorial guideline breach regarding impartiality over the past couple of years. 

And if you think that's just the BBC being cowardly and scared of offending the 'woke mob', well, the BBC now appears to have gone well and truly above and beyond. They've actually given Naga her own Panorama. 

And, from her very own tweet, we know for a fact that she's going to be pushing a contentious line that advances a particular, divisive point of view, and panders to a small subset of public opinion that the BBC appears determined to attract. 

So much for Tim Davie getting a grip at the BBC. The BBC appears to be getting ever more out of hand.

Why is this even going out?

"I’ve always been quite critical of my voice and I’ve been told it’s like a foghorn, and grating, but it seems to be working on radio, which I’m really delighted with"

 

Sticking with The Sunday Times, the paper's Katherine Forster has given Naga Munchetty a highly sympathetic interview. 

She says the BBC presenter has a "no-nonsense likeability" off air as well and on air and is taking to her new Radio 5 Live show.

"I’ve always been quite critical of my voice and I’ve been told it’s like a foghorn, and grating, but it seems to be working on radio, which I’m really delighted with", says Naga.

We're also told, among other things that,  "like her nemesis Trump, she is a “slightly obsessed” golfer — she has a handicap of seven — and is desperately missing the green."

I was unaware that her husband's name is James Haggar, so if she had taken his name she'd have been Naga Haggar. 

On interviewing politicians Naga says:

Politicians are in a very tricky situation and I don’t think we should blame anyone for not having a crystal ball. But our viewers are more than capable of recognising when someone doesn’t answer a question. One of the most powerful things if someone still won’t answer is to say, ‘You haven’t answered that question, but let’s move on’.

The top-rated comment below the article isn't quite as enthusiastic as Katherine though. It reads:

I'm afraid I don't share the writer's crush on Naga.  She is not a good or hard interviewer she is just rude.  She starts an interview with a negative statement then tries to shoe horn the questions to justify the comment.  She usually fails.  She also makes comments about her fellow presenters.  If they make the slightest mistake she draws attention to it, so, no not a fan.

The BBC nags Naga. But what next?

I see that Naga Munchetty has fallen foul of the BBC's own guidelines, yet again. 

She's had a very busy year on that front. She's found herself pretty much up to the neck in mud most of the year.

She hit the headlines again only last month after the BBC publicly chastised her for moonlighting on behalf of Aston Martin. Her bosses were concerned about a possible conflict of interest. 

And now she's hit the headlines once more for moonlighting on behalf of the NatWest bank. 

The Daily Mail, reporting the story, adds that it's "come to light the star commands a £15,000 fee for speaking at engagements - on top of her £195,000-a-year salary". 

When I first heard this story I failed to immediately pick up on the fact that the papers weren't just adding to the earlier story by piling up extra tales of previous indiscretions but were actually adding something fresh and far more damning: Naga Munchetty broke BBC guidelines over moonlighting again after her previous ticking-off. 

That's surely the staggering thing. 

The moonlighting element of BBC stars' behaviour in itself isn't one that particularly grips me - though that "£15,000 fee for speaking at engagements" is eye-rollingly ridiculous. I can see why the Corporation's guardians of impartiality would worry about possible conflicts of interest - though such COIs (new acronym?) seem rather theoretical to me in cases like this. 

No, it's the fact that this high-profile publicly-funded BBC journalist very obviously took absolutely no notice whatsoever of her publicly-funded bosses' concerns and criticisms and just did continued doing what she pleased. 

It suggests to me that she's seriously out-of-control. 

This time the BBC has said:

On this occasion, as the event was public facing, we have advised Naga that this could be seen as a conflict of interest and this will be kept in mind for future editorial decisions.

Pretty much like last time then. 

So it's déjà vu all over again. 

(Quiz question: Who is the phrase 'It's déjà vu all over again' first attributed to? Update: The Wiganer gives the correct answer in the comments. No peaking!).

I doubt that will stop her. I suspect she thinks herself unsackable. 

And she may very well be right.

Earlier this year Tony Hall rode to her rescue, overruling his own senior colleagues' well-founded criticism of her. Lord Hall's gone now, so the question is now in the lap of his impartially-focused successor. 

Will Tim Davie continue to allow Naga to commit strike after strike after strike against the BBC's editorial guidelines (on several fronts) or will he dare to stand up and say that enough's enough, and that if she does it again she's OUT, no ifs, not buts?

Kerching!

The Sunday Times reports that the BBC has "quietly" paid out more than £3m  (from the licence fee) to its staff - including over £1m to a single individual - in an attempt to avoid Samira Ahmed-style employment tribunals. Many of the payouts have been "modest payments" of over £5-10k, but others have been in six figures. Apparently, around 50 further cases remain unresolved, including grievance cases involving Naga Munchetty, Rachel Burden and Louise Minchin. Money, money, money, must be funny, in a £3.83 billion licence fee-funded world. 

"‘No-nonsense Naga’! Go get ‘im!"

"Why are you relatable to families up and down the country? How can they relate to you and your family?"

That's a question Naga Munchetty put to Boris Johnson on Friday's BBC Breakfast - and one of her BBC colleagues was very impressed:

Great lesson for interviewers, this — the question so open, and so lethal pic.twitter.com/DMhT54ZlIm

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) November 15, 2019

Boris appeared flummoxed and struggled for an answer, and this absolutely delighted his critics. They felt that he'd been exposed as the priveleged charlatan he is, and took to Twitter en masse to extol Naga's virtues as an interviewer.

They positively love-bombed her.

Others, however, thought that this was a ghastly attempt at a 'gotcha', and that she'd asked him a question most people would struggle to answer.  

Here's a not-so-typical sample of the Twitter discussion about it:

JJ Techilovsky I'm a Corbyn supporter but I thought it a stupid question. It's not his fault which family he was born into. But challenge him on the things he is responsible for.

Trish: It's not about the type of family he was born into it's about his values and principles, ....to me it was a simple and honest question but obviously he was stumped for an answer. God help us all.

JJ Techilovsky: She literally said "how can they relate to you and your family?" I'm not a fan of Boris but if it was about his principles she could have just said "What are your values and principles?"

Matt Byrne: Nothing to do with the family he was brought up in, that isn't his fault. More to do with his current families and children, she was basically very cleverly calling him a bollox.

And here's the Daily Telegraph's Benedict Spence, agreeing that "she was basically very cleverly calling him a bollox", albeit throughout the interview, and most definitely not admiring her for it:

Take Friday's interview between Naga Munchetty and the PM on BBC Breakfast. What was billed as cosy sofa chat — to allow the audience to get to know the candidate better — quickly became an aggressive interrogation, full of prickliness, with an air of dismissiveness from Munchetty, and punctuated by interruptions, digs, and plenty of over-laboured efforts at a ‘gotcha’ moment.  

It’s one of the things that has come to mark broadcast interviewing strategies in this country, and it isn’t edifying or constructive — not to delve into the crux of policies, say, or actually get a straight answer, but instead to try where possible to harangue the interviewee, and make them out to be beyond contempt. 

Perhaps Jeremy Paxman is responsible for this — he of the famous Michael Howard interview — but it now seems to be more important to render people immobile before verbally goring them than to actually interview them. 

It has been one of the great complaints made against Today, of late, that presenters talk and snipe too much. It ends up telling the public very little about the person, or policies, they were ostensibly tuning in to discover more of.

"I’m very sorry we got this wrong" - The BBC apologises for Naga Munchetty

If you recall:

Harvey Proctor v Naga Munchetty (Transcript: BBC Breakfast, this morning)

Well, I nearly missed that there's been a development this week: 

The BBC has apologised to former Tory MP Harvey Proctor over an error made by a Breakfast TV presenter. 

Mr Proctor, who was falsely accused of multiple murder by serial liar Carl Beech, walked out of a live interview about Scotland Yard’s shambolic VIP child sex abuse inquiry. 

Naga Munchetty was quizzing him about Beech – alias ‘Nick’– who has been jailed for 18 years. 

The presenter wrongly claimed Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick had been cleared by independent reports into the force’s handling of the case.

Wonder if Lord Hall will step in again to 'correct' the BBC's apology this time?

Sir Trevor McDonald on the Naga Munchetty affair

John Humphrys isn't the only former broadcaster with a book out at the moment. So is the mighty Sir Trevor McDonald, ten years on from his last '...and finally' for ITN. 

The opening of The Sunday Times's interview with him today breathes the air of a better broadcasting past:

Breakfast-sofa chit-chat was never his style, says the former newsreader Sir Trevor McDonald. Even if it had been, he doubts he would ever have found himself on live television accusing the American president of making racist comments. 

“I never regarded it as [my job] as a presenter to express a view,” he says in that voice, when I ask him about the case of Naga Munchetty. The BBC presenter was controversially censured — and then controversially uncensured — for her comments about Donald Trump. “I was always terribly, terribly keen about being absolutely straight. I thought you owed it to viewers to present what you thought was the absolute truth and let them make up their minds. You know, people are very clever about working things out.”

The BBC bubble is boiling

The open revolt at the BBC over the Naga Munchetty affair continues. Thursday saw open meetings with BBC staff calling for (1) a formal apology for Naga, (2) more black and ethnic minority people to be included in the Executive Complaints Unit and (3) a review of the role of David Jordan, the BBC's head of editorial standards. 

On the latter point, writing in the Sunday Times, Jeremy Clarkson says that throwing David Jordan under the bridge would be a crime, as he's the main "fair cop" at the BBC - one of the few there who never loses sight of the fact that diversity of opinion really matters. 

I don't know the man myself but I've heard the same from leading campaigners against BBC bias. Mr Jordan is, in their experience, the sore thumb that stands out from the rest of the BBC's senior management in genuinely listening to criticism from 'people like us' and, occasionally, acting on it. 

So if the BBC bubble succeeds in getting rid of him then that would be yet another retrograde step for the licence-fee-paying public.

Harvey Proctor v Naga Munchetty (Transcript: BBC Breakfast, this morning)

[Naga Munchetty mishandled her interview with Harvey Proctor this morning to a painful extent. Though she was right to seek to present the other side, the way she tried to talk Mr Proctor into silence - especially after he began criticising the BBC's role in the affair - was clumsy at best, especially when she then said, rather snippily, "Please let me talk and I will let you talk. That is how this works." The point was that she hadn't been letting him talk - as he himself went on to point out. Her petulant-sounding pause midway was hardly what was needed either, especially during a sensitive interview like this.]

A fraught encounter

Naga Munchetty: Former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor was among those falsely accused. He joins us now from our London newsroom. Good morning to you, Harvey Proctor. Thank you very much for talking to us on Breakfast this morning. Can you tell us about what happened when you were investigated? 

Harvey Proctor: Good morning to you, and thank you for the invitation to come on your programme. The question is a short one. The answer could take many hours. I have been under the cosh, or truncheon, of the Metropolitan Police, for nearly five years now. It is very harrowing to be investigated, or to be the centre of such an investigation for so long, and the ramifications of it. But, as people know, in shorthand what happened to me was that I lost my job, my home, and my repute as the result of a fantasist who were believed by the Metropolitan Police, and who castigated his comments as credible and true when they were neither credible nor true. They were untrue, and they were incredible. Any common sense person would realise that what he was saying was not credible. 

Naga Munchetty: Well, to pick you up on the use of the word 'credible' - that is the word the Metropolitan Police have said they found Carl Beech to be, what holes in his story do you think could have been picked up on earlier? 

Harvey Proctor: Well, quite clearly, the Metropolitan Police lied to a district judge to get search warrants to search my house and that of Lord Brammal and Lady Brittan's houses. There were numerous contradictions before the application for the search warrants and they were not deployed before the district judge. For example, they lied about who went to Mr Beech. They said he went to the police in 2014. He didn't. They went to him. They didn't look at the previous interviews he did with Wiltshire Police when he made allegations of similar, but slightly different allegations. So there were all sorts of things that the police could have done that they didn't do. Clearly, they didn't look at his mother's interviews much earlier, which cast doubt on his story. 

Naga Munchetty: And I should say, the Metropolitan Police have given as a lengthy statement but I do need to give some right of reply here. The Metropolitan Police has said, "There is no evidence or the Independent Office for Police Conduct investigation, which has concluded has said the allegations made were grave, 'Nick' made were grave, and warranted investigation. We believe those involved in applying for the search warrant acted with due diligence and in good faith at the time. There was no evidence to indicate bad faith, malice or dishonesty, no indication any of the officers may have behaved in a manner which would justify disciplinary proceedings". Erm...

Harvey Proctor: The IOPC is not an organisation fit for purpose to control and interrogate the Metropolitan Police. If you want to give the right of reply, could I suggest your programme invites Cressida Dick, the current commissioner, who lied on radio recently about these matters...

Naga Munchetty: Well...

Harvey Proctor: ...onto your programme to question her about her lies...

Naga Munchetty: And this is something...

Harvey Proctor: ...and why she has made those lies? Could I suggest that you get in touch with your home affairs correspondent for the BBC...

Naga Munchetty: OK...

Harvey Proctor: ...who messed up potentially the investigation into Mr Beech and, as Henriques said, by showing photographs to Mr Beech of children that I'm supposed to have murdered could have got in the way...

Naga Munchetty: Harvey Proctor, I'm going to interrupt you.

Harvey Proctor: ...of any criminal action against me...

Naga Munchetty: OK, I'm going to interrupt you. I'm going to interrupt you. I will...

Harvey Proctor: No, it's OK you talking across me...

Naga Munchetty: I will...I will...no, no...I will continue this conversation...

Harvey Proctor: That is because the BBC are very sensitive about any criticism...

Naga Munchetty: No, no...I will continue this conversation...

Harvey Proctor: ...whatsoever that may come your way...

Naga Munchetty: I will continue this conversation... 

Harvey Proctor: By talking across me, you're not really doing what the BBC should do, and that is to give a right to comment. And you're very sensitive about this. I understand that. I understand the BBC are sensitive in view of the criticism not just of the police but that the BBC has received in Henriques's report yesterday. 

(Pause)
Naga Munchetty: The IOPC has also found out there was no evidence regarding deliberate lying or wrongdoing by Cressida Dick, as you have just said. It also looked at the conduct...

Harvey Proctor: No, sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry...

Naga Munchetty: Please let me talk and I will let you talk. That is how this works. 

Harvey Proctor: No, because you're now...you've just said that the IOPC have found no evidence of Cressida Dick lying. Hold on. The IOPC have not interviewed Cressida Dick. They didn't know that she was involved. In fact Sir Richard Henriques didn't know that she was involved. She wasn't interviewed by Richard Henriques. Invite Cressida Dick onto your programme, invite me onto the programme, and let's have a debate about it. She won't come. 

Naga Munchetty: Sir Richard has also...I want to get to how this has impacted you, but I need to do my job as well, and Sir Richard has...

Harvey Proctor: Well, I respect your work very much, but you must not invite people onto your programme and then not allow them to speak. 

Naga Munchetty: I am allowing you to speak, and I will allow you to speak...

Harvey Proctor: You are now, but you weren't before.

Naga Munchetty: ...but I also need to give a right of reply, rather than letting you say things that are potentially incorrect, or when people don't have a right to reply. Sir Richard...

Harvey Proctor: (Removes earpiece) Sorry, I'm  not having this. I'm sorry. (Leaves the set). 

Naga Munchetty: Harvey Proctor, thank you for your time. Harvey Proctor, former Conservative MP. And I think what's very clear there is the impact that this investigation has had on his life, as he said at the very beginning, how it has impacted on his life. Harvey Proctor talking to us this morning. Former Conservative MP. 

Charlie Stayt: Yes, clear from that it's a story that has affected him very personally. And let's have a look at the time now. 16 minutes past 9.

This evenings viewing

You’ll have heard that Tony Hall has reversed the BBC’s unfortunate decision about Naga Munchetti and she has been uncensured. Will heads roll? Come back John Humphrys, that’s your speciality isn’t it?

I intended to watch Jane Corbin’s take on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, mainly because I’ve just mastered the fluent pronunciation of 'Khashoggi', with both adjacent gs (hard and soft) bound seamlessly together, which is more than most BBC announcers can manage. 

The problem was that the TV was tuned to Channel Four and I was transfixed by the post-conference interview with a portly-looking Krishnan Guru-Murphy, Rachel Sylvester, Craig Oliver and Gillian Keegan MP. 

Tory MP Gillian Keegan tells @krishgm re Johnson groping claims: ‘I've no reason not to believe him’ https://t.co/ZGhx9zfywd

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 30, 2019

Unsurprisingly, being Channel 4, the topic they were most excited about was Boris and thigh-gate. Who lied? If it wasn’t Charlotte Edwardes with her extra e, it must be Boris, the lying letch.

I had been reflecting on the increasing ubiquity of Rachel Sylvester as seen on TV. She’s been on loadsa political programmes recently. She’s a columnist for The Times, yet she appears to be a very priggish lefty. 

In the event, I sacrificed the first half of Khashoggi to my own morbid need to see how far Channel 4 could go with their petty, childish and spiteful Boris-bashing gossip. Gillian Keegan was the only sane person present and Guru-Murthy was almost beside himself with glee.

Looking at Rachel Sylvester’s spite-flecked eyes and listening to her squeaky voice one couldn’t help thinking that no-one’s going to be touching any of her body parts under or over any dinner-tables any time soon without written permission.

Watching Ed Balls on BBC 2 marvelling at our massive non-European fruit and veg related import and export industry was a nice change. It came across as rather pro-Brexit. Probably accidentally.

Sorry?

What’s wrong with everybody? Can’t anyone comprehend English these days?
 Perhaps comprehension has been dropped from the school curriculum. Aren't children expected to master comprehension at about eight or nine years of age any more? I'm sure English teachers used to set a passage of text and pupils had to reproduce the gist of it in their own words to demonstrate that they’d properly understood it.

“[Reading] comprehension involves three levels of understanding: literal meaning, inferential meaning, and evaluative meaning.”

Something has happened. For some reason, it's become commonplace for politically motivated journalists and their followers to maliciously fail to comprehend ‘news’. and no-one seems to bat an eyelid at the alarming proliferation of “Quote mining”. 

On TCW David Keighley examines the BBC’s responses to the Emily Maitlis and Naga Munchetti  affairs. 

By way of a  personal declaration of non-interest, I can’t stand any of the BBC’s flim-flam formats which feature Hello Magazine style items sandwiched between the inane banter of a pair of BBC anchors on a sofa in a garishly lit BBC studio. Like many of you, (probably) I hadn’t been following The Naga Manchetti ruling, but I have heard it discussed in the media. 

I gather that Naga Munchetti’s Beeb colleague had invited her to opine on President Trump’s “racist” remark, which had been retrospectively revised  (‘quote-mined’ ) to infer that President Trump had told the ‘squad’ (of BAME congresswomen) to “go back to their own countries”.

  

I have actually seen President Trump’s whole Tweet - the full monty - reproduced on the TV screen with just the relevant words emboldened. Yet despite the entirety of the tweet being clearly visible, the crucial caveat  “and then come back and fix it ” was completely ignored. Some kind of collective blind spot? (Has Ilhan Omar hypnotised the whole world?) 

Here’s an example of the type of ‘quote mining’ we'd normally dismiss as laughable when used to promote some godawful film, play or book. 

“David Turner-Samuels (for the Eye): With your permission, my lord, I will read an extract from The Times Literary Review — "Lord Russel's works could be said to be pornographic…" 

David Hirst, QC (for the plaintiff): Read the rest of the sentence. 

David Turner-Samuels: "But they are not."

See what I mean? “Read the rest of the sentence”  - but of course no-one has any appetite for the rest of President Trump’s sentences.

Naga’s opinion concerned her personal experience of ’racism’ - all perfectly legitimate, but nothing much to do with President Trump because any alleged connection was entirely predicated on a deliberate misinterpretation of what he'd said. The whole silly business blew up because the media decided to scoop words out of a longer passage in order to paint President Trump as a racist. And it’s easily forgotten why he made that remark in the first place. It was in response to the blatantly racist conduct of the congresswomen in question.  This is getting really silly. 

Look at the relentless, malicious, politically motivated journalistic hounding of  PM Boris Johnson. 

Firstly, we have the watermelon smiles and picaninnies. All taken out of context and repurposed to ‘prove’ “racist belittling” of persons of colour by Boris.  Flippant and reductive maybe, but racist only if one ignores the context.  Then we have those wretched letterboxes and bank robbers. Racist against Muslim women? How so? Taken out of context again. (And are we really supposed to see the full-face veil as anything other than ridiculous?)   This language-related madness is being deliberately uncomprehended for political purposes. 

The most recent Boris-related hurricane in a teacup blew up over the Bill-and-Benn-undermine-Brexit-act being disparagingly referred to as the ‘surrender’ bill. To the Remain lobby that might sound flippant and disrespectful, but it’s an accurate label nonetheless. The ‘foul’ comparison between an MP and a turkey and something fictitious about traitors is so lame I can’t be arsed to go into it. Especially in the light of the long list of truly foul language thrown around by angry lefties.

To pile incomprehension upon incomprehension, I watched a snippet of a conversation about this language business on Sky News. A person of colour known as Poet George and a young conservative with a Geordie accent were invited to discuss this problem.

Poet George expressed horror over the MP whose name he couldn’t initially recall who had used the “N” word.  Here we are. 

“A Conservative MP has been suspended from the party after it emerged she used a racist expression during a public discussion about Brexit.
Anne Marie Morris, the MP for Newton Abbot, used the phrase at an event in London to describe the prospect of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
She told the BBC: "The comment was totally unintentional. I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused."
The Conservative Party later confirmed she had had the whip withdrawn.
Announcing the suspension, Theresa May said she was "shocked" by the "completely unacceptable" language.
"I immediately asked the chief whip to suspend the party whip," she said in a statement.
"Language like this has absolutely no place in politics or in today's society.”

As any fule other than Poet George must kno, in the olden days, before the N-word was censored, that particular ‘unmentionable in the woodpile’ phrase was intended to illustrate a concept: 

 “some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong”

Back in the Enid Blyton era, when friendly gollies with waistcoats and striped trousers were objects of affection and the N-word was casually used by all and sundry to describe a shade of brown with no offence intended and not exclusively reserved for rap artists of colour to bandy about amongst themselves, anyone could freely use all sorts of phrases and metaphors. Then, with all its good intentions, along came the ‘enlightenment’, which paves the road to the kind of hell in which anyone can be caught out for unintentionally committing acts of racism such as accidentally saying “coloured person" instead of 'person of colour'.

Anne-Marie Morris MP duly apologised and grovelled and so on, and after a suitable period had the whip restored. Apologising for using such an out-of-touch phrase might have made sense, but she was probably even sorrier that she'd been unfairly accused of racism. 

Nowadays we deliberately misunderstand and mis-comprehend whatever suits us. The media cavalierly repurposes quotes and sound-bites until they’re devoid of literal meaning, inferential meaning, and evaluative meaning.  

Apologies in advance for any offence caused.

Nigel and Naga

Following on from his Question Time appearance on Thursday Professor Anand Menon was back on the BBC as the paper reviewer for BBC Breakfast this morning.

I was intrigued by the heavy-handed way he was introduced each time:

8.18 - Charlie Stayt: Time now for a look at the newspapers. Our guest this morning is Anand Menon, who's from UK in a Changing Europe. Particularly at the moment, and in Brexit times, people are very keen to make sure they know where everyone's coming from who we broadcast with. So just explain - I know you've told us before: Your organisation does what?  

Anand Menon: Well, we're a network of academics and, basically, what we're funded to do is to let people know what the research says. We're not allied to any side. We have to be impartial. We simply say, I've carried out a couple of years research on, for instance, what the economics of Brexit might look like, and this is what I've found.

9.18 - Charlie Stayt: Anand Menon is with us this morning, director of UK in a Changing Europe. Do the explainer for us so that everyone knows who you are and what you do.  Tell us who you are in what you do? 

Anand Menon: We're an impartial network of academics that simply lets people know what the research says. 

Impartial like the BBC perhaps? 

Well, that second introduction was immediately followed by one of the BBC's 'most impartial', Naga Munchetty, letting slip a predictable opinion of her own:

Naga Munchetty: OK, one of the stories that you've picked out....and I will put this to you. I don't understand, or lots of people don't understand, why we spend so much time talking about Nigel Farage.
Anand Menon: For several reasons really. Well, one is he's box office. I mean, he's good, he's entertaining, so the cameras like him...
Naga Munchetty: (interrupting) OK, what's his place when it comes to Brexit negotiations?
Anand Menon: His place when it comes to Brexit...
Naga Munchetty: (interrupting) Now. Not from the start, but now. 

That's all very 'Samira Ahmed' from Naga there, thinking that Nigel Farage shouldn't be paid attention to. 

Here's how it went on. As you'll see, Naga followed through on her first point:

Anand Menon: Now, I think he is positioning himself so that if he can credibly argue that there has either been a watering-down or a delay or a cancellation of Brexit, he's planning to relaunch his political career. And you can see there the danger for Theresa May from her right flank, which is, if she does what a lot of people are saying, which is to softens Brexit, join a customs union, join the Single Market, the Brexiters in her party will be very annoyed and people like Farage will make capital out of it.
Naga Munchetty: Isn't this though, if that's the case, if Theresa May pays the attention to Nigel Farage that David Cameron did, isn't there the danger of falling into the trap that some say David Cameron fell into did, because of the noise, the noise, around Nigel Farage being picked up and being given too much prominence?

Impartial like the BBC, Anand? 

Is it a dolphin in a bathtub?

There's been much talk hereabouts about the new series of Have I Got News For You.

For this new series Ian and Paul both have old-fashioned landline telephones on the desks in front of them and speak through them at all times. This is so they can dial it in each week, just as they've been doing for years now. (Boom! Boom!)

If you missed it, here's a sample of it at its funniest. (Spoiler: That's me being sarcastic - though the punchline at the end isn't bad).

Picture spin quiz

Ian Hislop: This is a physicist at CERN who said that the history of physics was largely created by men. He implied that women weren't very good at physics, but nowadays there are so many women getting jobs in physics that men couldn't get a job. I didn't really follow his argument. 

Alexander Armstrong: Do you remember what his name was, the professor? 

Naga Munchetty: Idiot. 

Alexander Armstrong: He was Professor Alessandro Strumia from the CERN laboratory project. That's part of the Large Hadron Collider, isn't it? He's upset female scientists and womenkind. One of his claims is that Oxford University has lengthened its science exams by 15 minutes specifically to help women. Why is this so shocking? 

Josh Widdecombe: Because it's not true?

Alexander Armstrong: No. Because it is true. According to the Telegraph: "Students taking maths and computer science examinations in the summer of 2017 were given an extra 15 minutes to complete their papers, after dons ruled that 'female candidates might be more likely to be adversely affected by time pressure.'" 

Naga Munchetty: Have we got much longer? I'm feeling a bit faint. 

Ian Hislop: I'm going up to get more paper. 

Alexander Armstrong: This is the Italian scientist who told a group of female physicists that physics was invented by men. Professor Anne-Christine Davis, a physicist at Cambridge University said, "I just don't know what planet he lives on." I'm afraid you've rather played right into his hands. 

The 'crimes' of that "idiot" professor, as BBC Breakfast's right-on, oh-so-impartial Naga so charmingly called him, were first exposed to the world by the BBC. He's now been censored, to the point that it's no wonder that Ian Hislop can't follow his original argument. (Wonder if Ian's bothered to look into that?).But is Professor Strumia actuially a very modern 'heretic' and more sinned against than sinning? (Links abound).

After all that, we probably need a laugh, so here's a funny joke:

I have a bumper sticker that says, "Honk if you think I'm sexy". I just sit at green lights until I feel good about myself.

Mandatory inclusivity

Passive antisemitism: the new normal. I too saw Angel Epstein on BBC Breakfast discussing a concert organised by Italian musician Francesco Lotoro, soon to be performed in Israel. It’s unusual because it consists of lost music  - 

“Thousands of songs, symphonies and even operas composed in Nazi concentration, forced labour and prisoner of war camps in Germany and elsewhere before and during the second world war.” 

As already noted on this site, Angela Epstein was in conversation with Naga Munchetty. Epstein expressed her admiration for the extraordinary creativity of the Jewish concentration camp victims despite the horrific circumstances; quick as a flash Naga Muchetty piped up: “It wasn’t just Jewish people though, it was Gypsies and others as well…” This is staggering. 

As if to rub salt into a wound, (it seemed so to me anyway) a few moments later in the next news bulletin Naga announced in shocked, empathetic tones that nasty threatening letters have been sent to some Muslims.