When something is plastered all over the mainstream media - especially the BBC and even more so when a 'story' about the BBC is all over the BBC - one has to be suspicious of the real motive behind it. This one single act has supposedly brought about two high profile casualties yet years of lies, propaganda, obfuscation and parroting of Establishment narrative has been just fine.
The BBC is an organisation I worked alongside (briefly) in the early 2000's as part of launching i-Player when I worked in technology. I mention this only as it gave me a window into the culture of parts of the organisation during that period. It was a time when The BBC Manchester Offices were being completed. Executives relocating from London to Manchester were being handed remuneration packages which - wait for it - compensated them extra salary to 'cover any disparity in house prices between London and Manchester whilst they were located in the North'. Yes - really! With your licence fee people.
Of all the senior executives & management I worked with over the time I was working in technology - the only time I have ever been asked to provide a helicopter to transport a senior director to a meeting I was pulling together - was someone at the BBC. It was my call - and I refused the request -'struggling on' without that person present.
The BBC does - to be fair to it - have some excellent people working inside the corporation. Dedicated, decent and talented people. However, it seemed to me - to also have a dark and arrogant underbelly that appears to be made up of a curious cocktail of entitlement and rather sketchy (and selective) accountability.
Being (as I am) addicted to quality television drama, I remember playwright Dennis Potter tearing into John Birt (the then D.G) at the 1993 Television conference in Edinburgh. Explaining how if he were starting out in the early 1990's as a writer - perhaps television would not be his chosen medium? This - before the internet was even a twinkle in the public's eye! The BBC gave us some fantastic new talent in the 'golden years' of British television from the late 1960's to the late 1990's. However - when we entered this century - it morphed - and not in a good way. I well remember being a 'V.I.P' guest at the Last Night of the Proms - only to be somewhat sneered at by a BBC employee on the fringes of our 'working collaboration' team for singing our National Anthem in a manner he considered 'too enthusiastic'.
When Savile's skeleton came tumbling out of the closet - I was not entirely surprised. That carefully staged P.R circus with Louis Theroux raised a few questions in my mind at the time it was first transmitted. Sonia Poulton's recent blog on the subject of an unhealthy and long standing culture of power abuse at The BBC is well worth a view (link at the bottom).
In summary - my own experience of the BBC - both as a viewer and fiscal sponsor (license payer) is now tarnished by a long running and escalating series of scandals, abuses of power and extensive and far-reaching viewer manipulation.
I am in the throes of placing nostalgia way behind the necessary process of re-shaping what 21st Century British media communications need to look like and what public service actually means in 2025?
I've had numerous conversations about the J6 events with friends who completely believed the mainstream narrative ("Orange Man Bad incited riot, don't question it!"). Now is the time to press home with these people the extent to which they've been conned. They would rather just forget... but then history just gets buried. Use this opportunity to win people over to realise to extent to which they've been led up the garden path.
When something is plastered all over the mainstream media - especially the BBC and even more so when a 'story' about the BBC is all over the BBC - one has to be suspicious of the real motive behind it. This one single act has supposedly brought about two high profile casualties yet years of lies, propaganda, obfuscation and parroting of Establishment narrative has been just fine.
That's a very good question...and the answer might be that it's the crisis likely to do the least harm...
If anyone thinks that 2 resignations is going to change anything at the BBC with their non-apology, I've a few bridges to sell.
The BBC is an organisation I worked alongside (briefly) in the early 2000's as part of launching i-Player when I worked in technology. I mention this only as it gave me a window into the culture of parts of the organisation during that period. It was a time when The BBC Manchester Offices were being completed. Executives relocating from London to Manchester were being handed remuneration packages which - wait for it - compensated them extra salary to 'cover any disparity in house prices between London and Manchester whilst they were located in the North'. Yes - really! With your licence fee people.
Of all the senior executives & management I worked with over the time I was working in technology - the only time I have ever been asked to provide a helicopter to transport a senior director to a meeting I was pulling together - was someone at the BBC. It was my call - and I refused the request -'struggling on' without that person present.
The BBC does - to be fair to it - have some excellent people working inside the corporation. Dedicated, decent and talented people. However, it seemed to me - to also have a dark and arrogant underbelly that appears to be made up of a curious cocktail of entitlement and rather sketchy (and selective) accountability.
Being (as I am) addicted to quality television drama, I remember playwright Dennis Potter tearing into John Birt (the then D.G) at the 1993 Television conference in Edinburgh. Explaining how if he were starting out in the early 1990's as a writer - perhaps television would not be his chosen medium? This - before the internet was even a twinkle in the public's eye! The BBC gave us some fantastic new talent in the 'golden years' of British television from the late 1960's to the late 1990's. However - when we entered this century - it morphed - and not in a good way. I well remember being a 'V.I.P' guest at the Last Night of the Proms - only to be somewhat sneered at by a BBC employee on the fringes of our 'working collaboration' team for singing our National Anthem in a manner he considered 'too enthusiastic'.
When Savile's skeleton came tumbling out of the closet - I was not entirely surprised. That carefully staged P.R circus with Louis Theroux raised a few questions in my mind at the time it was first transmitted. Sonia Poulton's recent blog on the subject of an unhealthy and long standing culture of power abuse at The BBC is well worth a view (link at the bottom).
In summary - my own experience of the BBC - both as a viewer and fiscal sponsor (license payer) is now tarnished by a long running and escalating series of scandals, abuses of power and extensive and far-reaching viewer manipulation.
I am in the throes of placing nostalgia way behind the necessary process of re-shaping what 21st Century British media communications need to look like and what public service actually means in 2025?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcReoK9S2GI
At least the US administration has highlighted the BBC's nefarious behaviour.
They are the UK state broadcaster, but are the recipient of USAID money.
The BBC's misdemeanours are legion, and more people are noticing. The 'astons' while Andrew Bridgen spoke in Parliament (https://www.hartgroup.org/trends-in-excess-deaths/) and all the ridiculous stats about mortality causation back in 2020-2022 (https://www.hartgroup.org/interpreting-bbc-dialectics/) are just further examples.
I've had numerous conversations about the J6 events with friends who completely believed the mainstream narrative ("Orange Man Bad incited riot, don't question it!"). Now is the time to press home with these people the extent to which they've been conned. They would rather just forget... but then history just gets buried. Use this opportunity to win people over to realise to extent to which they've been led up the garden path.
Nice one Jeffrey Peel. Shades of Finland come to mind.
Readers may be interested in this article by Piers Robinson about Covid era propaganda by the BBC: https://propagandainfocus.com/deafening-silences-propaganda-through-censorship-smearing-and-coercion/