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Gary Lineker vs. BBC

ks.234 said:
The fact that there are so many suggests that being a donor or member of the Tory party is actually a precondition. No wonder the BBC is corrupt.
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While I do think the BBC has a problem with Robbie Gibb, Tim Davie and Richard Sharp, I don't think it is all a simple matter of corruption.

There is also a level of timidity/cowardice about its News and Current affairs coverage. This article about John Sweeney (Buzzfeed) gives some background to how Sweeney left the BBC, for context; but I want to focus on his letter to Ofcom, dated Nov 2019. The accusations he made are as follows (note that they include investigations into Labour figures as well as right wingers):

"My concerns centre on the following programmes or films:
  • Our Panorama on far-right activist Tommy Robinson which should have been broadcast in February or March this year. It had fresh information on Robinson’s links with German far right sources and there was potential to explore how Robinson was being indirectly funded by Kremlin money. Robinson set out to intimidate the BBC. Not broadcast.
  • Our Newsnight investigation into Lord Mandelson which caused him to change his House of Lords’ register recording money he got from a Russian company connected to the mafiya. After a direction intervention by Mandelson’s friend, then BBC Head of News, James Harding, the investigation stopped. Not broadcast.
  • Our Newsnight investigation into the dubious connections between former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale MP and Dmitri Firtash, the pro-Kremlin oligarch currently fighting extradition to the United States. Not broadcast.
  • Our Newsnight investigation into Henley & Partners, a dodgy passport-selling firm which sought to silence Daphne Caruana Galizia before she was assassinated. Outside a H & P event in London I was physically assaulted by security for the Maltese PM. Inside a BBC presenter was doing a paid corporate gig for H&P. Not broadcast.
  • A Newsnight investigation into the pro-Russian sympathies of Labour spin doctor, Seumas Milne. Not commissioned. Not broadcast.
  • A Panorama on Roman Abramovich: made and completed. I did not work on this but know of it. Not broadcast.
  • A BBC News investigation into Brexit funder Arron Banks. I did not work on this but know of it. Not broadcast.
Please note that roughly in the same time frame BBC News – not Current Affairs - did broadcast investigations into Cliff Richards and Lord Bramall and Lord Brittan on the basis of a fantasist. Both investigations should never have been broadcast.

The BBC did broadcast films I made that were weakened by management. They include:
  • A series of Newsnight films into Arron Banks, the man who helped fund Brexit and Nigel Farage. Some were broadcast but the strength of the journalism was enfeebled by management. One, exploring Nigel Farage’s worries about Mr Banks’ connections to Russia, was not broadcast. A second, on Katya Banks and how she came to the United Kingdom, was not broadcast.
  • A Panorama on Russia called Taking On Putin. This was broadcast last year. In the course of making it the acting head of the BBC Moscow bureau told our Panorama team to leave the bureau though we had sensitive rushes on us and were being pursued by Moscow police. He then informed the Foreign Ministry that I had been filming without a press pass. Not giving me a press pass is a routine piece of administrative harassment by the Russian state. Our fixer was forced to leave Russia for good. It felt like our BBC Moscow colleagues saw the Kremlin as their friend and us as the enemy.
On all the films above I worked on, I sought to complain to BBC management about failures to broadcast or weakening of editorial stance. Most did not seriously engage with my complaints. One senior manager did not reply to four emails I sent asking for a meeting so we never spoke."
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I'd summarise all of that as saying: the BBC is too easily bullied. Which is mostly how I see the events of last week, too.
 
tiggers said:
Nail on head, I think there's enough of the population that do like it that way to make it worthwhile for the government to bang the drum in that direction over and over as it will ultimately keep them where they want to be... in power. The UK has turned into a very nasty little country and if I was a good bit younger I'd be out of here. Everyone keeps saying how far we've come... I think we've gone massively backwards in the last 10 years... the Brexit debacle has given the bigots a voice and that voice just gets louder and louder.
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Actually we have a nasty government, the country is generally great as are the people.

There is a tiny vocal minority who will say anything to cling onto power & then an underclass who like to blame ‘immigrants’ for their own problems.

I get very irate about how certain people are intent on damaging our country for their own ends.

Let’s be honest there are lots of great people around.
 
laughingboy said:
I'd summarise all of that as saying: the BBC is too easily bullied. Which is mostly how I see the events of last week, too.
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It's more that the management knows what is expected of them and they're all too eager to please. It could be seen as giving sweets to the school bully but that's an overly-generous interpretation in my view. The fact that they all 21st century Tories, i.e. on the hard right of the political spectrum by any measure, gives the game away, along with the revolving door between the BBC and senior roles as ministerial aides...
 
BBC negotiations in full:

“Delete the tweets”
“No”
“Okay, well, apologise for them”
“No”
“We’ll get somebody else in to do your job if you don’t”
-Everyone downs tools-
“Will you at least promise not to tweet political stuff in the future?”
“No”
“Okay, we have a deal”
 
Woodface said:
Actually we have a nasty government, the country is generally great as are the people.

There is a tiny vocal minority who will say anything to cling onto power & then an underclass who like to blame ‘immigrants’ for their own problems.

I get very irate about how certain people are intent on damaging our country for their own ends.

Let’s be honest there are lots of great people around.
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There are but the minority are still significant enough to be worth this horribly right wing government trying to appeal to as they’re big enough in numbers to keep them in power. I think we tend to live in our own little bubbles and not realise quite how many people think like that, it’s more than you realise for sure.
 
narabdela said:
George Orwell. Outside the BBC.


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Great quote just a pity Orwell went to Eton.
 
tiggers said:
There are but the minority are still significant enough to be worth this horribly right wing government trying to appeal to as they’re big enough in numbers to keep them in power. I think we tend to live in our own little bubbles and not realise quite how many people think like that, it’s more than you realise for sure.
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That’s a fair point, we all live in bubbles to a degree & I have no intention to mingle with racists. Problem is, many countries have similar elements now. The weather may be better though.
 
Orwell won a scholarship to Eton, his family paid nothing for him to go there. He didn't subsequently go to university because his parents didn't have the money and he didn't win a scholarship to go. His background was colonial middle class (his father was a civil servant in India). He was probably less posh than someone like Damon Albarn.
 
gavreid said:
It's more that the management knows what is expected of them and they're all too eager to please. It could be seen as giving sweets to the school bully but that's an overly-generous interpretation in my view. The fact that they all 21st century Tories, i.e. on the hard right of the political spectrum by any measure, gives the game away, along with the revolving door between the BBC and senior roles as ministerial aides...
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I don't disagree. I want a BBC free of political appointees (as I said last August: https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/mctaggart-lecture-emily-maitlis.271345/#post-4776613), but solving that problem isn't enough on its own. The BBC needs to stick up for itself and its public broadcaster remit.
 
Obviously James O'Brien and other journalists have left Newsnight in recent years. OK money is an issue but then so is editorial interference.
John Sopel, Emily Maitlis, Lewis Goodall.
 
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