There’s nothing like kicking a man when he’s down and Steve Hewlett is giving George Entwistle, and Mark Thompson, a bit of a thumping in this interview with Sheila Fogarty about the new DG, Tony Hall. (From 55 mins)
He also vividly demonstrates the visceral hatred and antipathy for Thatcher (PBUH) that still runs through the blood of any veteran BBCer.
What is notable about this interview is that Thompson and Entwistle say they were ‘hands off’ because they wanted to ensure ‘independence’ of the programmes and for there to be no impression of interference from above.…but this interview shows that the Head of News should and can take an interest in proceedings along with an overall view of a programme to ensure it meets any organisational strictures or legal or taste criteria without actually interfering in the production itself.…in other words Hewlett is taking a swipe at Entwistle and Thompson, saying they failed to properly oversee Newsnight and failed to ensure that proper systems were in place to make things run smoothly and correctly.
Steve Hewlett is presenter of R4’s Media Show and Guardian columnist.
He was editor of Martin Bashir’s Interview on Newsnight with Lady Diana and worked closely with Tony hall who was then Director of News.
SH: He (Hall) rose to the top during the years of John Birt who is much maligned for Dalek speak and structural organisation but I think history will judge John Birt rather more generously having saved the BBC from the ravages of a Thatcher government determined to clip its wings.
(BBC unaccountable and unclippable?)
SF: The Diana programme…that was a programme…that was a national, even global, moment of television.
SH: Exactly….Had it gone wrong it would have knocked Newsnight into a cocked hat.
SF: …Taking on the Establishment…
SH: Let me tell you he dealt with that in an absolutely proper way. As an editor I was left to get on with it. I made sure he knew through the line of managers that he knew what was going on. He came to view an early roughcut of the programme. His comments were at all times helpful, he made the system work to assist me and Martin and the team in getting the programme out. I could not have wished for a more straightforward, more supportive, more engaged boss.
He didn’t try to interfere, he made sure the system worked. At the same time as putting us to properly rigorous tests in terms of how we had gone about it, what we’d done, whether we’d asked the right questions and whether we’d edited it fairly and all of that.
Ouch!
All of which confirms what we already knew: ‘new broom’ Tony Hall is in fact a made man in La Corpa Nostra.
Yep…and he oversaw the creation of the bleeding, beating heart of the BBC…5Live radio….as well as , yawn, BBC parliament and BBC News 24.
Should be good.
Hmm, sounds like he might be a very good choice.
Having been Head of BBC News between 1993-99 however, must lead to foreboding.
You know something?
I got up for work early this morning..I heard a bit of Today, and the topics up for discussion were
1. The Euro rebate, the budget and Cameron being an arse to nice Mr von Rumpoy
2. The nasty Government soon to be shown as crap, for allowing prisoners to vote-despite this being what the BBC wants anyway.
3.Ben Bradshaw and the women bishop stuff.
Is there anybody out there who could NOT piece together how the BBC would set up these kites of stories for the rest of us to get ulcers over?
So-turned the bloody thing off and went to my CDs…Kinks, Cohen, Dylan, etc etc…and had a splendid breakfast and drive to work.
Uncle bup took one for the team earlier this week-me telling you what the BBC would be saying about the above issues would be a waste of all out times.
Why don`t Fox or Heart set up something to finish the Toady Show…I know no more sickening paean in the arse!
Spot on. Why doesn’t someone – encourage someone – set up a counterpoint to the dire Toady prog. It has no commercial competitor and it should!
“BBC boss Caroline Thomson handed £670,000 redundancy pay after she lost out to George Entwistle in race for Director General job”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236793/BBCs-Caroline-Thomson-handed-670k-redundancy-pay-lost-Director-General-job-George-Entwistle.html
‘[B]ut I think history will judge John Birt rather more generously having saved the BBC from the ravages of a Thatcher government determined to clip its wings.’
Huh?
Birt was appointed director-general in 1992, two years after Thatcher resigned.
2 years is nothing…the BBC really does blame Thatcher for this recession right now.
According to the bBBC history book, Mrs Thatcher ruled from 1950 (just after the NHS was created as ‘the envy of the world’) until 2010 when the present hated government took over.
If I remember my history (horrible and all that) correctly, Mrs T had a break from 1997 until 2010, when that wonderful socialist labour party managed to grasp power from her grasping little hands and tried valiantly to put right all the awful things that Mrs T and her Conservatives had done to us. It’s a credit to the bbc that they were able to help them in this enterprise by keeping the nation informed of the wondrous works being done by the tireless socialists on our behalf; ingrates that we are, we threw them out for another bunch of incompetents.
Can’t help feeling frustrated that David Cameron has just let another chance to properly sort out the BBC go by.
He should have sacked the wishy washy Chris Patten and appointed a Conservative leaning person to the post of Chairman, who would then have appointed a person of similar persuasion to be DG. I know this would be a ‘political’ appointment, but that is what is needed to counteract the disgraceful selective Leftie reporting of the past 40 years. Why can’t the public rely on the BBC have political issues debated in a properly unbiased manner with proper representation and validity given to both sides. Lefties cannot bring themselves to do this and feel compelled to misrepresent issues.
…………………………………………………………………………… Step up Jim Dandy to spin your spiel.
Tebbit for Chairman.
I think Tebbit (when Chairman of the Conservative Party ?) helped ensure that Marmaduke Hussey became BBC Chairman. A fairly brisk no-nonsense Tory, with long experience in managing newspapers. He was needed to cut Alastair Milne, the then D-G, down to size.
If I remember right there was all round praise when Entwistle was appointed.
This is Anthony Fry, BBC Trustee; Zarin Patel, Chief Financial Officer and Bal Samra, Director, BBC Rights & Business Affairs in front of the Public Accounts Committee this morning, going through the severance payments of Entwhistle and Caroline Thompson, and it is almost surreal the way licence fee payers’ money is thrown around. Pour a large dram, grit your teeth and watch this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9771000/9771868.stm
Listened to some of it this morning….sounded like blackmail on Entwistle’s part….’I will resign, because I feel the Governors have lost confidence in me…but only if you give me £450,000.’
So he offered to resign because he knew he couldn’t do the job as no one had confidence in him….so why did the Trust submit to ‘blackmail’ ie the threat of an unfair dismissal case? If the relationship had broken down and it was clear not only the Trust but the BBC staff, and public, had lost confidence, how could he stay?…and sacking would be justifiable…in a sane world….as it was his actions/inactions that precipitated the disaster.
Not only £450,000. Plus £10,000 legal costs, £3,500 private health cover, up to £45,000 for “legal advice relating to the enquiries, plus unspecified security costs at home, plus £40,000 pa pension. That’s Entwhistle. Caroline Thompson got a payoff of £670,000 when her post was made redundant and she was bitterly disappointed not to get the DG spot. And 573 managers get health insurance costing £2m pa. And we, the shareholders, get no say and are threatened if we do not pay up every year.
It is wrong, it is immoral, and needs to be fundamentally overhauled. Bring on the Parlientary transparency bill in January.
I do wish there was something similar to the ‘like’ button for example ‘an agree’ button.
I don’t like to read about the huge sums of our money given to George Entwhistle; I don’t ‘like’ to read about John Donnison twittering photos of dead children and wrongly putting the blame on Israel – but so important that these things are brought to our notice.
George was an honourable man, well he he described himself as that, which rather suggests he wasn’t.
Impressed with Richard Bacon (the MP, not the R5L dickwad) when Zarin Patel tried to bluff and evade over the BBC’s private healthcare provision for its executives.
“Why don’t you just answer the question Ms Patel? You have a record of coming to this committee and ignoring the question you’re asked and answering a different question. The question was, ‘How far down does medical cover go?'”
(follow Philo’TheWisp’s link above and watch from about 9.30 in)
The arrogance of the BBC executives on show was breathtaking. The way they splash around public money without a second thought and dismissing it as “standard practice”.
Also notice how they describe the generous payoffs as “in the best interests of the BBC”, and then in the next breath as “in the best interests of the public”. They repeatedlyconflated the terms. They really do think that what is best from the BBC is automatically what is best for the public. They regard themselves as saints. Just mind-boggling arrogance and self entitlement. Public money is theirs, they’ll do with it as they please, andgiving millions of pounds of it to each other is “in the best interests of the public”. Unbelievable. I have no time for Margaret Hodge, but I shared a sense of disbelief at what she was hearing.
She’s some chief finance officer –
“Zarin Patel demands damages and a permanent injunction over articles about the tax affairs of corporation staff”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/05/bbc-finance-officer-daily-star?newsfeed=true
Well she decided to give £1 billion of licence fee money to the BBC staff pension fund last year on the strength of a couple of lines of evidence.
There’s some irony to it being headed ‘Democracy Live’, though I guess we at least get to see, if have no say in how they splash the cash.
Surprised there’s any money left for programming after Mark, George, Caroline, Bob, Ted & Alice.
OBN:
Mr. Nic ‘knows’ only as much as any ‘source’ tells him to print.
Uh-oh.
Enjoying the Tweets DB, it’s beginning to look really grim.
Harriet already regretting the ‘working with him’ mind.
Uh-oh x1000:
the circle is formed, the agony complete. This is a bad appointment.
This self congratulating elite really believe they rule us by divine right. So one of their own has got the job and all is well with their world.
Well well. But every day more and more of us can see them for what they are. Greedy and self serving. Principles for hire. Of all the vices greed is the worst as it begets the others. Might be the defining principle of our governing and media class.
Nothing will change .Why should it? The executives are on to a good thing. Paid well over the odds and when they foul up given even more as a reward.
I used to think one could reform the BBC. You can’t. This new DG looks to be a safe pair of hands. That is if you are a BBC executive.
If may port over an OpenThread comment as it could maybe better live here…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20441887
If they closed quickly… that would be awkward, eh?
Arf.
This entry is now closed for comments
First Comment –
1. david williams
6 HOURS AGO
Wonder what he’ll want to resign/be fired when the next cock-up arrises?
Last comment:
437. MCGibbo
2 HOURS AGO
@beammeup, I don’t watch the BBC anyway. Last thing I watched by the BBC was The Shadowline and I rented that on Blu ray! Still have to pay TV Licence though, Question Time is ok but I’ve never managed to actually get into the audience, I feel no loyalty or love for the BBC anymore. I used to think they were great but they seem to have gone downhill since they bottled it over the sexed up dossier.
So that would make it up around lunchtime and dead by four?
Making it so the BBC closes their ‘interactive’ thread on the new DG before anyone in the UK without access to a PC at work gets home.
Unique.
For fun… most liked (of those not ‘referred’… a lot. They didn’t seem to like the direction the debate on not paying the fee legally was headed):
74. Phil
6 HOURS AGO
Dear BBC,
Just make sure he can be fired for less than a million should he prove incompetent, please.
Kind Regards,
A Licence Fee Payer
having saved the BBC from the ravages of a Thatcher government determined to clip its wings.
Well if you’re a Beeboid, you would probably call a 6.4% real terms cut in the licence fee having your wings clipped. But ravaged? Not in a million years.
The other side of the coin is the 31% real terms licence fee increase under New Labour. Admittedly, some of this would be used to do things the BBC had not been doing before, but some say it was mostly a reward for services rendered, and future services.
Did I ever tell you the one about how the BBC cannot be funded from general taxation in order to preserve its independence from government….
Licence fee calculations based on data here.
I think I heard the phrase ” restore trust ” 9473 times. Patten looks as if he’s had too many long lunches and fine wines.
Incidentally, never had a proper job in his life, climbed up the greasy pole.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead. That is quite near Salford. He can shut the whole bloody London set up, save a billion, and be home in time for his tea. Everyone’s a winner. Except Patten. Long way from his watering holes, is Salford.
He is a cross-bench member of the Lords. I checked his voting record under they work for you. In the last 15 votes in the Lords he sided with Labour every single time. Every single time. In his only single speech as a lord, about BBC governance, he spoke against ofcom governance arguing to leave it to the BBC trust and for trusting programme makers to do the right thing. He is a defender of the status quo. I despair, yet another defender of the entrenched bias. Why do I have to pay for this ? I reject it, it is so wrong.
Like most of us you will have to learn to know your place. They really are better than us you know. Polly Toynbee should be our role model of a perfect human being.
I hear she’s been preserved in ice, to keep herself perfect forever – like Hillary Clinton did on her honeymoon.
He is going to earn more than the last one. Apparently he already has a BBC pension!
They really do take us for the fools we seem to be.