The BBC/Newsnight

No Jamie, it's not you.

There are actually three problems:

1. The BBC has a large number of enemies who would like to see it crippled or cease to exist - from that nice Mr Murdoch and his minions, through to rival media organisations and politicians like Thatcher, Blair and Cameron - and is constantly being undermined and attacked whenever the opportunity arises.

2. Ever since Alasdair Milne was forced out by Thatcher, the BBC has been lumbered with incompetent, self-serving and spineless Director-Generals (with the possible exception of Greg Dyke) and management. Morons like Thompson and Birt both undermined the BBC and allowed its external enemies to undermine it. At the same time, layers of management ballooned and an enfeebling compliance culture blossomed. The BBc now needs a Churchillian (as opposed to another Chamberlain) DG who will rid the Beeb of the excess layers of management, curb the consultants, stand up to its enemies and ensure the very highest standards of both journalism and programme-making.

3. Westminster (ie politicians) and the media exist in a bubble of mutual interdependence, which means that they prefer to focus on each other or themselves than the real story.

For all these reasons, a story about the abuse of children has become a story about the BBC. It's heartbreaking really.

It's heartbreaking for the children [now adults], and this from what was a trusted organisation, of which people were wrongly as it now seems, proud.

The organisation is irredeemably sullied. It seems that it wants to spread the manure by insinuation rather than robust journalism, and this is no way for a responsible news organisation and entertainment service to act. The BBC has a privileged position that it is clearly in not living up to ...

Time for it to be axed, as I posted elsewhere.

ATB from George

This is an overreaction. The Beeb should be reformed, heads should roll but no reason for it top be axed.

Time for you to stop talking rubbish dear George, as I posted elsewhere.

How can you defend the organisation?

It is rotten to the core. The evidence is now in the public domain, though I suspect more may yet be revealed.

ATB from George

We shall wait and see then.

I still think the BBC is very badly run but it is not "rotten to the core" as you assert. And it is most definitely worth defending and preserving.

How many people trust the BBC any more? Without trust, no amount of repair is going to help the BBC. 

Without trust the future of the BBC is nothing to worry about. Indeed without trust the best thing would be to end it.

ATB from George

How many people trust anything in Britain any more?

Senior police officers and bankers have proved untrustworthy, yet have slid away unpunished. Every transaction has to be examined with a jeweller's eye for some misrepresentation or frank deceit. I wonder how much the latter contributes to the ongoing economic woes. I retired early because of systematic dishonesty in one arm of the business I was involved in.

The problem, I think, is that there is no overarching criminal offence of 'dishonesty', with examplary penalties on conviction.

Fraser

The BBC is an organisation unique in, and respected throughout, the world.

It has made a mistake re Saville and, in compensation almost, a mistake about McAlpine.

It is not broken, it is not rotten to the core, and it continues to make superb programmes that adhere to its Charter. It also makes some dross but that reflects public taste.

All it really needs is competent management.

+ One million. Well said Derry.

I am so happy for those who call the child abuse scandal a mistake. 

I suppose any thing goes from now on. A forty year mistake, indeed.

Not that serious really is it? Or perhaps it is?

How much covering up was involved and what kind of culture allowed for this from top to bottom of the employee hierarchy.

No of course, it just one teensy-weensy mistake. No individual to blame, just a rotten to the core culture, bred of complacency that allowed for this.

Was it just one child abuser or did the BBC allow many individuals to use their premises for such acts?

I would be surprised by now that we have heard the truth yet from this unrepentant institution. Oh yes we have had meally mouth apologies, but why wait forty years to sort it out? Because an independant media source was able to obtain material the BBC tried to bury in their feeble cover up of the issue. I cannot bring myself to have sympathy for such an organisation as the BBC after that.

You may know a man by his friends. Well I am no friend of the BBC any more.

ATB from George

George

As usual, you ascribe motives, and interpretations, to others that are simply not supported by what they write.

I have not said that abuse is not serious. The BBC's mistake, in common with the police and other organsiations, was not to act on allegations made.

If you think that the BBC should be disbanded because of it, that is up to you. I have a different opinion.

+1. hear,hear, great post Kevin nothing more to add , says it all, the tragic abuse of vulnerable children gets lost in the fog of blame the BBC.

Regards Graham.

Then we differ in view.

We can do that without personal animosity!

I don't think my view will be what counts but rather what further evidence emerges from the various inquiries that the BBC was forced to instigate as well as the police ones, after the botched recent cover up was disclosed.

I think that the damage to the BBC's honest reporting is already so great that I shall give up even radio from now on, but what may yet come out may in time lead to a majority of the public considering the disbanding of the BBC as being a good an necessary thing. The BBC no longer commands the trust of a majority of people and if the situation is revealed as being even larger in scope than so far uncovered, then I'd say the BBC's days are numbered. In my view the organisation has already done enough to be axed. But I don't speak for everyone.

ATB from George

George, it appears you are mixing up shoddy journalism with child abuse. Or misinterpreting what Derry, myself and others have said.

The dropping of the Newsnight investigation into Savile was unforgivable and showed weakness and complacency. Was there a conscious cover-up? I don't think so, but we shall see once the independent inquiry reports its findings. The Newsnight item about the "leading Tory" was shoddy journalism.

In both cases the buck stops with the editors (ie, the DG, head of news, editor of the programme, etc).

It is now certain that Savile abused girls while at the Beeb, and used his position there to his advantage. Chances are such abuse happened in parallel in other institutions - schools, children's homes, the church, the scouts, ITV, etc etc.

Individuals within the BBC may have turned a blind eye to, protected, or even participated in, Savile and his cronies' abuse. If they are still alive they must be prosecuted and punished accordingly. But that doesn't mean that the BBC itself is corrupt or rotten, or that it is institutionally paedophilic. It might be, but at the moment you have no evidence for your assertions, however heartfelt they might be.

If you want to shut down the BBC you'll have to also shut down  the Catholic Church, a real hotbed of horrific child abuse, and far more guilty in this regard - and rotten - than the BBC.

The dropping of the Newsnight investigation into Savile was unforgivable and showed weakness and complacency.

Dear Kevin,

You have stated it in a nutshell.

Unforgiveable. Showed weakness, and complacency.

What needs adding to the execution paper?

You ask whether this was a conscious cover up? In other words is one individual absolutely responsible for it, or is this a cultural thing where the organisation is more important than any individual having the spine to do the right thing against a prevailing culture?

It's a big question isn't it?

I guess that the various inquiries may yet shed some further light on the situation, but even as badly and partially reported by the BBC itself so far, things look rotten to me at a cultural level where everyone is too scared of rocking the boat. Even finding and sacking a person would appear to be choosing a scape goat, but that would not be the end of the questions for me.

ATB from George

Part of the problem was that George Entwhistle was so woefully ill-informed, as anyone who heard his car-crash interview on the Today programme on Saturday can attest. A decent enough man but weak, complacent and completely incompetent.

The man doesn't even read the papers, FFS, and spent the time when he should have been dealing with the crises circling around him and his organisations making speeches and having lunches. It was right he fell on his sword.

Peter Rippon, the Newsnight editor, should be sacked. As should Helen Boaden, head of news, and a BBC "lifer" . Former DG Mark Thompson, along with John "Blue Skies Birt", the least competent DG in BBC history, should be severely censured, as he's up to his neck in this too.

Once this is done, the BBC should ensure that its presenters, producers and editors become employees, rather than freelancers. This means that prominent BBC "ambassadors" such as Clarkson, Paxman and Fiona Bruce will be subject to BBC discipline and standards.

Chris Patten should, once he's appointed a new DG (maybe Greg Dyke should come back), step down too. After all he appointed Entwhistle.

Interestingly, if you listen to the John Humphrys Today interview with Entwhistle (it's on the iPlayer) you realise just how open the BBC can actually be. No other broadcaster - no other organisation, I'd say - would allow an employee to grill the boss like that.

I'm not a huge Humphrys fan, but yesterday he performed his job superbly.

Dear Kevin,

I hope that the organisation can be cleaned up, but if is it not convincing, you will know that I shall not be convinced.

John Humphries did a real logic job on Entwhistle, and there was nowhere left for him after that. I listened to it on the Telegraph website. I follow two newspapers this way and the other is the Guardian, so somewhere between them I get a notion of the truth. As it went I used to believe that I could guarantee that truth from the BBC, but anyone with a brain to think will see that this has not always been the case. And when trust - formerly held - is lost it is far more damaging than if one never quite trusted in the first place. That is why what has been going on at the BBC is even sadder than it might seem otherwise. An organisation that has by its own actions besmirched itself, and by implication those who believed in its integrity.

I could never be quite so upset by dubious reporting by a private capital newspaper!

At its best the BBC shows the qualities that it must have to earn respect and trust in its uniquely privileged position.

If it can demonstrate that it has cleaned the stable, then it may in time take its position of honour, trust, and therefore moral authority once again after a period of exemplary actions - it will not be an overnight rebuilding of trust though. Trust can be lost in an instant, and must be rebuilt over much longer. 

But in my view, it must come back in scale of operation to within what can be managed with complete control and diligence, and it is too extended an organisation for that currently, IMO.

And it is certainly true that the BBC is not the only organisation which has to answer questions regarding the child abuse scandal. It is something that is going to be a horrible mark on public life for a long time to come I would think, and for the victims the torment will never entirely pass.

ATB from George

Maybe we should remember that it was the BBC (john humphries) that exposed its own DG weaknesses! Not every news service, TV, radio or print might have allowed that so effectively!

That is is not to defend the Beeb on it's very serious errors but it was prepared to ask very awkward questions of itself and publicly!

Spot-on Kevin

Cheers

Don

George, I don't often disagree with you, but on this occasion..............

Cheers

Don

Concise and spot-on Derry. There are evil forces at work who seek to destroy the BBC and we should be careful what we wish for.  

Derry, I don't often agree with you, but on this occasion........

Cheers

Don

Tim Loughton captured some of my thoughts with this (abstract)

"We really mustn't forget that this is about child abuse,"...............

............... "I fear the publicity around the witch-hunt of celebrities and high-level figures is detracting from the real purpose - which is to root out child abuse that has gone on in the past, bring the perpetrators to book, give the victims some closure and make sure that it's not happening in 2012."

In addition, the BBC needs change. And so do other institutions as others have noted above. No room for a whitewash or complacency anywhere.

Cheers

Don

A sensible and balanced view IMO. I feel quite sorry for George Entwistle. He strikes me as a man of good character who being new in the job, was relying on his senior managers while he got up to speed. The wheel came off and he's done the decent thing.

We live in an age of media obsessed madness.

John.