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Newsnight propagandises interview with working single mum

DaveCinzano said:
Here's today's email from Fraser 'Man Of' Steel:



So that's alright then.
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Lots of 'benefits bingo' in that apology, did Shanene, actually ask for the term, (I sincerely hope she didn't) 'lifestyle choice' to be included, this was once just used by the hard right of the Tory party and then NL, so now it is used by Newsnight editors...
 
My latest chat with Fraser;

Dear Mr Steel

That is all very well, but it doesn't address the critical question of WHY this "mistaken impression" was created, and the assumptions behind the editorial decisions. In fact in re-iterating the language about "living off the state as a lifestyle choice", the apology itself compounds the issue behind my complaint.

As a richly remunerated employee of the BBC, I assume that you are happy with your own lifestyle choice to "live off the state" via the licence fee?

Yours,
XXXXXXX (A8)

Dear XXXXXX (A8)

The ECU’s remit is to determine whether there has been a breach of editorial standards and, if so, whether there has been appropriate redress. It’s not our primary function to answer the question of how the breach came about, though it may well be answered in the course our investigation. In this instance, the answer seems to be that the programme team had sought an interviewee who stood to be affected by the changes to welfare provision which the Government was envisaging, and were genuinely under the impression that Ms Thorpe was a case in point (their fault being a failure to check the facts). If Ms Thorpe’s circumstances had been as the programme team believed, I think Allegra Stratton’s questioning would have been legitimate, as a way of putting the issues to the interviewee in their sharpest form, and I saw nothing else in her report which would tend to reinforce the Government’s narrative that the welfare benefits system is being abused. As to the terms of the apology, it was carefully phrased (though, in the light of your comments, perhaps not entirely successfully) to avoid the implication that “living off the state as a lifestyle choice” was reprehensible – the unfairness arising, not from portraying Ms Thorpe in that light, but from doing so inaccurately.

I hope I have gone at least some way towards addressing your concerns, but, if you remain dissatisfied, it is open to you to appeal to the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust. Correspondence for the Committee should be addressed to Lucy Tristram, Complaints Advisor, at the BBC Trust Unit, 180 Great Portland St, London W1W 5QZ or by email to trust.editorial@bbc.co.uk, and the Committee would normally expect any appeal to be lodged within four weeks of the date of this message.

Yours sincerely

Fraser Steel
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I honestly don't see how they could think that if the facts were straight (as Allegra thought so) the questions were legitimate. Basically the BBC are so far up Tory arse on this one they can't see daylight.

That 'apology', whether on Newsnight or not, was nothing of the kind. Shame on them.
 
was a good bit by paul mason just on newsnight about the number of people going to food banks. then an in studio discussion where some bloke called danny kruger made himself look like an absolute cunt talking about personal responsibility
 
weepiper said:
Is there a 'why the BBC is shit/going down the pan' type thread somewhere? I have a memory there is but I couldn't find one, mods can move if there's a better place

http://www.change.org/petitions/bbc...yBkO&utm_medium=email&utm_source=action_alert

This young woman was approached by her manager at work at Tower Hamlets Council to ask if she wanted to be interviewed for Newsnight as a young single mum who needs Housing Benefit. She's been working since she was 16 and has a three year old child. She wasn't expecting them to selectively trim any reference to her working out of the interview when they aired it and imply that she is an unemployed benefit scrounger who should just move back in with her mum. Total misrepresentation. And Boris claims the BBC has a left-wing bias?
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I wonder why they didn't just use an unemployed person for the interview?
 
killer b said:
blog from the cunt.

i liked this line.
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Complete contradiction of Rippon's version from Newsnight journalist Liz MacKean in the Obbo:

In her email to Entwistle, dated 8 October, which has been leaked to newspapers, MacKean denied Entwistle's assertion that the story was "about the Surrey police investigation" and rejected an account by Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, who posted a blog on 2 October, the day before ITV's documentary on Savile, explaining his decision to drop the BBC's story.

"Ever since the report was dropped, just ahead of it being edited, there have been repeated misleading statements from the press office about the nature of our investigation," MacKean wrote. "To see what began as a BBC story running large on ITV is a hard thing. For it not to be mentioned in any way on Newsnight is another, quite absurd, thing. But worst of all has been what seems like a concerted effort to make it appear that our story was about something else, something that could be dropped and forgotten ahead of fulsome tribute programmes. It is this which seems to be fuelling the damaging claims of a cover-up."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/oct/20/jimmy-savile-bbc-protecting-stars

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...cuse-bbc-of-jimmy-savile-coverup-8218971.html
 
Rippon's out, and there's a statement correcting his blog from 2 October:

The following is a statement issued by the BBC

The BBC has launched an independent review, led by former Head of Sky News Nick Pollard, to determine whether there were any failings in the BBC's management of the Newsnight investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile.

However, on the basis of material available now, it is apparent from information supplied by the Newsnight editor and programme team - that the explanation in a blog by the editor of his decision to drop the programme's investigation is inaccurate or incomplete in some respects.

By way of correction and clarification:

1.The blog says that Newsnight had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft home could or should have known about the allegations. In fact some allegations were made (mostly in general terms) that some of the Duncroft staff knew or may have known about the abuse.

2. The blog says that Newsnight had no evidence against the BBC. No allegation was made to the programme that BBC staff were aware of Mr Savile's alleged activities, but there were some allegations of abusive conduct on BBC premises.

3. The blog says that all the women spoken to by the programme had contacted the police independently already and that Newsnight had no new evidence against any other person that would have helped the police. It appears that in some cases women had not spoken to the police and that the police were not aware of all the allegations.

The BBC regrets these errors and will work with the Pollard review to assemble all relevant evidence to enable the review to determine the full facts.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2012/10/jimmy_savile_and_newsnight_a_c.html
 
Is anyone actually pulling at this string? This is from an email from Mackean to a mate:

"PR [Peter Rippon] says if the bosses aren't happy... [he] can't go to the wall on this one."
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is anyone asking who these bosses are and why they would already at this stage be unhappy? Or have i just missed it?
 
cesare said:
It's classic scapegoating "look, over there, he was the one that acted on his own" when any fule no that the BBC bosses (or indeed any bosses) don't allow their employees to make decisions at odds with the corporate ethos.
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Indeed, which is why i'm surprised that people have allowed the focus to be narrowed down on Rippon almost alone.
 
butchersapron said:
Indeed, which is why i'm surprised that people have allowed the focus to be narrowed down on Rippon almost alone.
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Because it's easier to focus on one culpable individual than it is to point at the entire structure of an organisation? It's why the Met has got away with it for so long too, look at what it took for people to even start to entertain the concept of institutionalised <whatevers>. I managed to find the entire notes of that age/sex country file presenter's ET and it's on similar lines. The BBC have a backstop position to protect themselves against vicarious liability for the acts of their employees and it boils down to the organisation "reflecting the needs of its viewing audience" I.e. society is to blame.
 
cesare said:
Because it's easier to focus on one culpable individual than it is to point at the entire structure of an organisation? It's why the Met has got away with it for so long too, look at what it took for people to even start to entertain the concept of institutionalised <whatevers>.
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Which is particularly annoying given that the sort of "closed community" that organisation like the Beeb, the Met or the courts produce is especially vulnerable to the generation and retention of institutional prejudices, and policy-makers and social scientists have been aware of this for the best part of a century.
 
BBC still (as expected) using the 'journalism, art or literature' cop-out to avoid answering what the personal circumstances, business interests or political affiliations of Rippon and Stratton (or anyone else working for them) are.

[...]

The Supreme Court specifically discussed the public interest at some length in their judgment on the Balen Report; they acknowledged the public interest in accessing information about the work of public authorities, but went on to identify that the reason for the inclusion of ‘the derogation’ in the Act was itself due to a corresponding public interest in allowing the BBC to fulfil its broadcasting functions without interference:


It is common ground that FOIA was enacted in order to promote an important public interest in access to information about public bodies. There are (as Schedule 1 to FOIA reveals) thousands of public authorities, large and small, which are paid for out of public funds, and whose actions or omissions may have a profound effect on citizens and residents of the United Kingdom. There is a strong public interest in the press and the general public having the right, subject to appropriate safeguards, to require public authorities to provide information about their activities. [Paragraph 76]

In this case, there is a powerful public interest pul ing in the opposite direction. It is that public service broadcasters, no less than the commercial media, should be free to gather, edit and publish news and comment on current affairs without the inhibition of an obligation to make public disclosure of or about their work in progress. They should also be free of inhibition in monitoring and reviewing their output in order to maintain standards and rectify lapses. [Paragraph 78]
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The Supreme Court referred to this as a “special consideration” which was included in the Act by the legislators in order to protect information held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature:

In the present case, the special consideration to which the legislator gave effect was the freedom of the BBC as a public service broadcaster in relation to its journalistic, artistic and literary output." [Paragraph 111]
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In other words: the BBC works in your interest and it is not in your interest to know how the BBC works. And it's terribly complicated so you probably wouldn't understand, or would leap to the wrong conclusion.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/business_and_other_registerable#incoming-366508
 
DaveCinzano said:
BBC still (as expected) using the 'journalism, art or literature' cop-out to avoid answering what the personal circumstances, business interests or political affiliations of Rippon and Stratton (or anyone else working for them) are.



In other words: the BBC works in your interest and it is not in your interest to know how the BBC works. And it's terribly complicated so you probably wouldn't understand, or would leap to the wrong conclusion.

Business and other registerable interests of Newsnight political editor Allegra Stratton and editor Peter Rippon - a Freedom of Information request to British Broadcasting Corporation
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Yes, the business interests have to be kept under lid:

Here is the Policy Editor of Newsnight, who worked for along while for Conservative David Willetts, declaring: "And how can you privatise a university? They've never been publicly owned."
 
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