A lot of folk from the government and media have taken it upon themsleves to lecture us on the sins of our travelling habits.
Fair enough.
Oddly, however, when it comes to the evils of using cars, the alternatives they tend to opt for seem a bit different to those advocated for most of us. And even when they do subsitute a taxi for a car, they don't seem to be any more keen on bearing the costs of such convenience.
BBC under fire again for spending £20,000 of licence payers' money on Wimbledon junket
Or even explaining exactly what these costs are.
Showing posts with label BBC TRUST. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BBC TRUST. Show all posts
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Friday, August 31, 2007
STOP PRESS! Lord Haw Haw to avoid noddies to ensure more balance!
A bit of a thing about trust in Newsnight, leading to some hairy debates on the blog about climate change, with a few equally hairy links to even more hairy debates elsewhere. As always the argument seems still to be revolving more around whether MMCC is happening or not, at the expense of DOING anything. And the media sits back and laps it all up.
I learn new things, and make decisions on information provided by the media. My trust on getting either, accurately, honestly and without agenda (skewed professional or personal/ideological) to the point that truth is 'enhanced’ to no longer be the truth, has been sorely tried of late. And not much restored by most efforts in damage control. Not least by the almost inevitable knee-jerk of broadcasters and their defiant, defensive representatives, which goes usually something like; 'It didn't happen. If it did, we didn't do it. If we did it didn't matter. If does matter, it wasn't our fault (it was a mystical 'them' of outside companies, ill-trained and, one presumes, unsupervised trainees, budgets cuts, current precedent, etc) - and if it was who cares as no one is going to be held to account at all, or if so long enough for things not to wash over. Or if it is looking like dragging on we'll have a bit of a review until it does blow out'.
So of all that could be on the agenda, the pressing issues of "noddies" and "staged questions" are not really high on mine. Which makes me wonder why it is so high, in fact to the exclusion of almost all else, from Ch5 to here. I could not be more under whelmed, though I do note that you can nod with a smile or a frown to seriously redirect the viewer’s perception of what has just transpired. And a reverse question, which I hadn't appreciated until now, seems a great way to get a seemingly horse’s mouth answer to whatever horse’s rear question you fancy asking. Artifice is all. So maybe this is, as the CH 5 editor admitted, at least a start. Just... go further. Even if it may mean changing entrenched views and practices.
All I ask is that, in future, we get told what happened, as it happened. And if we have to be subjected to commentary or analysis by vox pops from the first punter strolling by the studio to 'experts' waiting on call in the wine bar next door, there is not a sneaking suspicion that they have been preselected for what they will say, and/or post-edited to ensure that what they do say fits into place.
Meanwhile, back to saving the planet.
Let me nail my colours to the mast. I think the climate is changing, and for the worse. I think personkind and its consumerist activities may be a possible cause, and certainly cannot be helping (more people buying ever more stuff and rushing around more and more on a finite space with finite atmosphere suggest some kind of tipping point when it comes to the results of inevitable competition and pollution - or, to be polite, 'emissions' - such activity causes)
So I think some things need to be understood, and while we're at it a few other things need to be instigated. Quick. Sadly doing nothing while we argue is an option that, while seeming to be balanced, tends to favour the status quo, and of that I am not in favour.
Hence I tend to err on simply showing folk, and hopefully persuading them, that consuming more than we need, or can use, is perhaps not the best thing to do. Or better yet share the amazing number and scope of things that can be done to avoid pollution and save waste that exist already, and which can go a long way to saving the planet along with a bunch of money.
Another celeb fest ain't it.
To paraphrase Mr. Geldof a wee while ago about another mighty waste of [insert a load of nouns here], I don't need my 'consciousness' raised any more than it is already, ta very much. And I certainly don't need the kind of awareness boost that happened as a result of Live Earth.
My enduring memories are mainly of the negative coverage before, during and after, inspired, with some validity, by such as a Spice holding her child and 'doing it for her', and a week later getting a personal jet with each of her power sisters in case they have too much shopping or get into a hissy fit as they tour the world. Or, on the day, Mr. Ross and such mates who could be bothered to come for a bit of profile and cheap weekend entertainment, basically playing the fool and pretty much saying that all this cutting back really wasn't for them... but they do wee-cycle, like that's all it takes.
If you are a high-profile mega-star, with squillions to burn, with few exceptions ( I think there are some), you are going to have trouble resisting that wadge of wonga and not buy stuff and/or going lots of places to show it off. And a vast media industry depends on you doing so to get the shots they need.
It's just lazy, celeb-obsessed programming to get a few execs and D-list interviewers to play all day in the Green-elite VIP room, and fill a long slot on the cheap in the cause of 'awareness’.
Stick with what's going to make a difference please. I was convinced by your piece on deforestation. It may not be sexy, but not cutting down a tree seems to make more sense than planting a sapling to make up for Puff Diddly's hairdresser's dog's helicopter trip. Or, for that matter, the one to show us what a potentially infectious virus-infected barn may look like if you blow enough wind around it. Or the iceberg in the Far North the entire crew has flown up to look at with a totally white background in shot, to impress upon us the damage of unnecessary trips.
And if we are sincere in moving public behaviour in a real sense that has a decent enviROI, what about such issues as reducing domestic energy consumption and preventing unnecessary waste through loss. Get creative and educate and convince with these first... in major way. Not some 2 second ‘turn the thermostat down’ piety to a bunch of waste-junkies sent to a hair-shirt camp for 24 hrs. Real life, and people, don’t live like that, or face the issues in that way. And, I believe, turn off when confronted with such nonsense.
And don't jump on bandwagons. I don't know, so I simply ask. Are carrier bags and plastic bottles and 4x4s the things that are top of the list in dragging us to oblivion? If energy production and consumption is the single greatest home (and hence viewer) influenced protagonist in all this, can we devote serious journalistic energy and investigation and balanced debate to what is being spent and what the actual benefits (or not) are of alternatives? If an offshore wind farm is not making as much sense as it might, I’d like to know, and why (I actually thought Justin's piece on home turbines went a long way to rasing some key issues and questions on this aspect).
I am appalled that thanks to almost total superficiality devoted to such topics by our major media, I am in the position of being swayed by other sources who are questioning what government is doing (with the support of media capable of little more than rehashing press releases) to help my kids' futures, and simply seem more concerned with meeting a target, boosting a political career or a quango exec's bonus cheque.
I simply can't understand why the facts of these huge issues cannot be found, or made clearer, to help us figure out for ourselves what's best for our futures.
Or we not to be trusted with such decisions?
Divide and rule, guys. Divide and rule.
ClimateChangeCorp - Buying green energy: A corporate power play, with unintended consequences
BBC is Biased - A few points on the wind power issue. I still await answers to my questions, on Newsnight, sadly. Maybe better luck here.
"Windmills get a big thumbs up from the BBC" - er... like this BBC Costing The Earth programme
Is there a link to something online about this?
I have one major concern with climate issues, and that is the enviROI of proposed solutions. I don't mind, and can even applaud doing something 'for the planet' though it may not make great sense financially (on a personal level... blowing public funds is another story if there are better uses environmentally), but for my kids' sake I get very unhappy if whatever it is may not even make sense on a carbon reduction basis from instigation through operation to 'retirement'.
Hence if, for instance, the massive weight of support in the media for such as offshore wind farms may be less than balanced, I'm keen to know more. With facts and true expert opinion. Not PR from subsidised-body/contractor/operator spokespersons.
BBC Newsnight - Noddy's not dead - Nice title!
'The first thing to say is that the issue of editing shots is in a different league from the incidents of deception and dishonesty which have caused turmoil in the TV industry in recent months.'
And well said. Plus, it is to be hoped, to also be well acted upon.
Credit too, at least, for listening.
Noddies - well, ok, but please ensure that there is no hint of anything in the interviewer's manner other than being to accept the narrative flow.
Reverse questions - Hmn. Still sounds to me like an opportunity to alter perception, if only by changing the tonality of the question. I can't quite figure out why the actual question and actual answer can't sit together. In this day and age the lack of another digicam locked off on a tripod as an excuse seems poor.
Walking shots - Yaaay! Along with those awful 'door open/first time we've met... not' efforts, I hope. A view, I suspect, shared by many interviewees, who just look silly. Big up to your cameraman. I just wonder how easy it is to get a truly 'natural' shout with a crew, boom mike, lights and whatnot.
Note: This rejected, again, by what I suspect to be another technological glitch. This time to prevent 'abuse' though multiple posts. Thing is, this is my first attempt at this thread. At least the message is polite. Patience, Peter, patience.
ADDENDUM - Spinwatch on Newsnight - a link I gleaned from BBC is Biased, so it does indeed still have values making it worth scoping. It's a long piece and covers a lot but as a thorough blow by blow it's hard to fault. The analysis could be argued to set out to prove an agenda, but again some of the facts, skillfully presented to be sure, are again hard to fault. They go further than have I, but for sure this is a shared frustration of the 'twofer' interviewee technique I don't feel contributes much beyond stirring things up, both through the selection of who speaks, and what they are steered to say. Transcript - don't know how they do it (well, I guess I do. I often record and jot stuff down and capture images, so what am I talking about. ) but it's very handy!
Guardian - The camera sometimes lies - Who cares, wins
I learn new things, and make decisions on information provided by the media. My trust on getting either, accurately, honestly and without agenda (skewed professional or personal/ideological) to the point that truth is 'enhanced’ to no longer be the truth, has been sorely tried of late. And not much restored by most efforts in damage control. Not least by the almost inevitable knee-jerk of broadcasters and their defiant, defensive representatives, which goes usually something like; 'It didn't happen. If it did, we didn't do it. If we did it didn't matter. If does matter, it wasn't our fault (it was a mystical 'them' of outside companies, ill-trained and, one presumes, unsupervised trainees, budgets cuts, current precedent, etc) - and if it was who cares as no one is going to be held to account at all, or if so long enough for things not to wash over. Or if it is looking like dragging on we'll have a bit of a review until it does blow out'.
So of all that could be on the agenda, the pressing issues of "noddies" and "staged questions" are not really high on mine. Which makes me wonder why it is so high, in fact to the exclusion of almost all else, from Ch5 to here. I could not be more under whelmed, though I do note that you can nod with a smile or a frown to seriously redirect the viewer’s perception of what has just transpired. And a reverse question, which I hadn't appreciated until now, seems a great way to get a seemingly horse’s mouth answer to whatever horse’s rear question you fancy asking. Artifice is all. So maybe this is, as the CH 5 editor admitted, at least a start. Just... go further. Even if it may mean changing entrenched views and practices.
All I ask is that, in future, we get told what happened, as it happened. And if we have to be subjected to commentary or analysis by vox pops from the first punter strolling by the studio to 'experts' waiting on call in the wine bar next door, there is not a sneaking suspicion that they have been preselected for what they will say, and/or post-edited to ensure that what they do say fits into place.
Meanwhile, back to saving the planet.
Let me nail my colours to the mast. I think the climate is changing, and for the worse. I think personkind and its consumerist activities may be a possible cause, and certainly cannot be helping (more people buying ever more stuff and rushing around more and more on a finite space with finite atmosphere suggest some kind of tipping point when it comes to the results of inevitable competition and pollution - or, to be polite, 'emissions' - such activity causes)
So I think some things need to be understood, and while we're at it a few other things need to be instigated. Quick. Sadly doing nothing while we argue is an option that, while seeming to be balanced, tends to favour the status quo, and of that I am not in favour.
Hence I tend to err on simply showing folk, and hopefully persuading them, that consuming more than we need, or can use, is perhaps not the best thing to do. Or better yet share the amazing number and scope of things that can be done to avoid pollution and save waste that exist already, and which can go a long way to saving the planet along with a bunch of money.
Another celeb fest ain't it.
To paraphrase Mr. Geldof a wee while ago about another mighty waste of [insert a load of nouns here], I don't need my 'consciousness' raised any more than it is already, ta very much. And I certainly don't need the kind of awareness boost that happened as a result of Live Earth.
My enduring memories are mainly of the negative coverage before, during and after, inspired, with some validity, by such as a Spice holding her child and 'doing it for her', and a week later getting a personal jet with each of her power sisters in case they have too much shopping or get into a hissy fit as they tour the world. Or, on the day, Mr. Ross and such mates who could be bothered to come for a bit of profile and cheap weekend entertainment, basically playing the fool and pretty much saying that all this cutting back really wasn't for them... but they do wee-cycle, like that's all it takes.
If you are a high-profile mega-star, with squillions to burn, with few exceptions ( I think there are some), you are going to have trouble resisting that wadge of wonga and not buy stuff and/or going lots of places to show it off. And a vast media industry depends on you doing so to get the shots they need.
It's just lazy, celeb-obsessed programming to get a few execs and D-list interviewers to play all day in the Green-elite VIP room, and fill a long slot on the cheap in the cause of 'awareness’.
Stick with what's going to make a difference please. I was convinced by your piece on deforestation. It may not be sexy, but not cutting down a tree seems to make more sense than planting a sapling to make up for Puff Diddly's hairdresser's dog's helicopter trip. Or, for that matter, the one to show us what a potentially infectious virus-infected barn may look like if you blow enough wind around it. Or the iceberg in the Far North the entire crew has flown up to look at with a totally white background in shot, to impress upon us the damage of unnecessary trips.
And if we are sincere in moving public behaviour in a real sense that has a decent enviROI, what about such issues as reducing domestic energy consumption and preventing unnecessary waste through loss. Get creative and educate and convince with these first... in major way. Not some 2 second ‘turn the thermostat down’ piety to a bunch of waste-junkies sent to a hair-shirt camp for 24 hrs. Real life, and people, don’t live like that, or face the issues in that way. And, I believe, turn off when confronted with such nonsense.
And don't jump on bandwagons. I don't know, so I simply ask. Are carrier bags and plastic bottles and 4x4s the things that are top of the list in dragging us to oblivion? If energy production and consumption is the single greatest home (and hence viewer) influenced protagonist in all this, can we devote serious journalistic energy and investigation and balanced debate to what is being spent and what the actual benefits (or not) are of alternatives? If an offshore wind farm is not making as much sense as it might, I’d like to know, and why (I actually thought Justin's piece on home turbines went a long way to rasing some key issues and questions on this aspect).
I am appalled that thanks to almost total superficiality devoted to such topics by our major media, I am in the position of being swayed by other sources who are questioning what government is doing (with the support of media capable of little more than rehashing press releases) to help my kids' futures, and simply seem more concerned with meeting a target, boosting a political career or a quango exec's bonus cheque.
I simply can't understand why the facts of these huge issues cannot be found, or made clearer, to help us figure out for ourselves what's best for our futures.
Or we not to be trusted with such decisions?
Divide and rule, guys. Divide and rule.
ClimateChangeCorp - Buying green energy: A corporate power play, with unintended consequences
BBC is Biased - A few points on the wind power issue. I still await answers to my questions, on Newsnight, sadly. Maybe better luck here.
"Windmills get a big thumbs up from the BBC" - er... like this BBC Costing The Earth programme
Is there a link to something online about this?
I have one major concern with climate issues, and that is the enviROI of proposed solutions. I don't mind, and can even applaud doing something 'for the planet' though it may not make great sense financially (on a personal level... blowing public funds is another story if there are better uses environmentally), but for my kids' sake I get very unhappy if whatever it is may not even make sense on a carbon reduction basis from instigation through operation to 'retirement'.
Hence if, for instance, the massive weight of support in the media for such as offshore wind farms may be less than balanced, I'm keen to know more. With facts and true expert opinion. Not PR from subsidised-body/contractor/operator spokespersons.
BBC Newsnight - Noddy's not dead - Nice title!
'The first thing to say is that the issue of editing shots is in a different league from the incidents of deception and dishonesty which have caused turmoil in the TV industry in recent months.'
And well said. Plus, it is to be hoped, to also be well acted upon.
Credit too, at least, for listening.
Noddies - well, ok, but please ensure that there is no hint of anything in the interviewer's manner other than being to accept the narrative flow.
Reverse questions - Hmn. Still sounds to me like an opportunity to alter perception, if only by changing the tonality of the question. I can't quite figure out why the actual question and actual answer can't sit together. In this day and age the lack of another digicam locked off on a tripod as an excuse seems poor.
Walking shots - Yaaay! Along with those awful 'door open/first time we've met... not' efforts, I hope. A view, I suspect, shared by many interviewees, who just look silly. Big up to your cameraman. I just wonder how easy it is to get a truly 'natural' shout with a crew, boom mike, lights and whatnot.
Note: This rejected, again, by what I suspect to be another technological glitch. This time to prevent 'abuse' though multiple posts. Thing is, this is my first attempt at this thread. At least the message is polite. Patience, Peter, patience.
ADDENDUM - Spinwatch on Newsnight - a link I gleaned from BBC is Biased, so it does indeed still have values making it worth scoping. It's a long piece and covers a lot but as a thorough blow by blow it's hard to fault. The analysis could be argued to set out to prove an agenda, but again some of the facts, skillfully presented to be sure, are again hard to fault. They go further than have I, but for sure this is a shared frustration of the 'twofer' interviewee technique I don't feel contributes much beyond stirring things up, both through the selection of who speaks, and what they are steered to say. Transcript - don't know how they do it (well, I guess I do. I often record and jot stuff down and capture images, so what am I talking about. ) but it's very handy!
Guardian - The camera sometimes lies - Who cares, wins
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Door show
Trust?
Look... there... a framed orifice through which you can pass from one place to another.
Apparently, from now on, if anyone in the BBC does something 'naughty' (my flip word for a broad tranche of policy, journalistic and editorial 'lapses'), they will be 'shown the door'.
So says an evidently irritated DG, Mark Thompson, who looks like he has much better things to do than deal with the public's views on his outfit. Apparently this is how trust will be regained. A fair task, given what's in this blog and the papers today. And will putting staff on a course (I presume at the licence payers expense) resolve this... I doubt it. And truly resent wasting such funds on a mop up which is more of a backside covering effort of tissuelike thinness than anything tangible. As are allusions to compensation. Using what mechanisms? What money? From where? To whom?
However, in the spirit of 'moving on', which is the phrase du jour of all senior (and, in the old days, responsible/accountable) executives/pols, it looks like this will be the latest free pass bestowed on all complicit in misleading the viewing public. And if that is the case again, why on earth should anyone trust anything said or done in the future.
While charitable financial dodginess is bad enough, I can't help but note that we have also moved from what in many ways I see as a much more critical issue to address, and that is the notion, which seems endemic and to pervade every level of the organisation, that reality and truth are entirely adjustable to improve ratin... er... the story.
In a cosy fire side chat with the boss, some quite remarkable things are covered and, essentially, dismissed.
I think I heard the word unacceptable several times. It becomes rather meaningless if in the same breaths it becomes pretty clear a lot has been and is accepted.
Short term contracts and pressure/ may be reasons, but they are not excuses. And while they can be responsible for a lot of things, they can surely not be held accountable for swapping critical chronologies in news items to 'enhance reality'... in the name of what? It is only now that I find out that reordering is 'not good practice'. It blooming well is a darn site more than that if it changes meaning, or has the DG not read the posts on this blog on the matter.
So there is a duty to have an 'eye to the culture'. Do what? And, er, only now? And an 'eye' will really sort it, for sure.
Great play was also made of how open 'they' are all being now. You know, if George Washington was not found standing next to that felled tree with an axe, one wonders just how open he would have been if not challenged. It's all being treated as a bit of a one off that will blow over, which of course it will.
We get the obligatory resignation question, with the standard 'best for the person who got us in this situation to dig us out of it and prevent future repeats' reply, which worked so well for Charles Clarke.
If these things happen, and they are not for 'personal gain', why do it? Of course it is for personal gain, because you gain personally from the salary and status of your career. And to progress that means satisfying the demands of your job, which means your superiors. It's hardly anything to do with training or lack of it... it is policy. Yet again we are seeing those at the sharp end being used as a buffer and deflection from those above who are really responsible and should be accountable, and then 'sacrificed' (and then pardoned) with a 'jolly good telling to' on an internal basis.
This is not a one off. It has been a whole series, and in a short time. And nothing I have heard or seen leads me to suspect that anything has or will be done beyond short-term damage limitation.
And that's all we have time for. Moving on...
Trust? Don't talk to me about trust.
Indy - BBC reveals further cases of fake phone-ins -
Indy - When broadcasters become the news
There will be more, I'm sure...
BBC - BBC boss backed in phone scandal - Well, there's a shock
Creative Match - BBC confess to 'disrespecting the audience' in phone in scam
What worries me as much, is how the 'issue' has now moved onto the equally (if not legally/financially even more) significant area of phone-ins, but we have 'moved on' (key phrase of any senior exec trying to protect tushie) from the fact that a) the truth is out there... waaaaaay out there... and b) the odd notion that there's no much wrong with a little 'enhanced reality (ie: outright fabrication) between feral fiends of the media and the public in this new Big Brother short-contract, high pressure, yoof-media 'professional' age.
I used to, only half-jokingly, write that something I read was on the BBC 'so it must be true'. Oh, the irony.
Gaurdian - Comic Relief among shows that deceived BBC viewers
Gaurdian - Trust angry over charity appeal lies
Guardian - Ofcom gets tough and says broadcasters are in denial - ya think???!
Guardian - Newsdesk notes for Thursday July 19
Guardian - Does the BBC deserve its public "shaming"?
Guardian - Don't believe all you see on TV - I think they'r ekeen on this!
I couldn't face the Tabs and Tories, as I rather suspect they will be a tad to the right of my own thinking only with a slight whiff of 'holier than thou'.
Indy - In defence of the BBC - Well it does need it a bit. Plus several side bar links worth scoping
I find this telling, though: Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, resisted calls from Conservative MPs for the Government to intervene. She told the House of Commons: "It is of course important they have the trust of all their viewers but this is not just an issue for the BBC but across all broadcasters."
I felt moved to write under the heading 'Apples. Oranges. And Lemons':
Excuse me? Harriet Harman says "It is of course important they have the trust of all their viewers but this is not just an issue for the BBC but across all broadcasters."
Our local plod have tried to excuse their inability to properly police crime by pointing out resources are tight and anyway it is a lot worse elsewhere. That's like me trying to get off a speeding conviction by saying other folk are going faster.
And one small, additional, point. Who pays... er, gets forced to pay for the BBC?
Guardian - When they stop calling - Positively Clintonian. It's 'enhancing' the truth; not lying.
Guardian - So the BBC is a subversive leftwing conspiracy? You could have fooled me
As is too often the case, we seem to be being presented a rather stark 'either/or' here.
As has been pointed out, certain distractions, now followed by near apocalyptic warnings, have rather managed to drown out the fact that some people up the executive chain in the BBC decided that telling the truth needed some enhancement. In short, portraying some things as real that were not. Which is, apparently, different to lying. Just like taking money under false pretences now seems not to be fraud.
And, in so doing, using whose money?
What I'm seeing is an attempt to blow this out of all proportion to arrange a major puff of smoke, around which mirrors will be rearranged, things will 'move on' and nothing will actually change.
Until the next time.
Maybe, just maybe, we nail down who did what, and if it was wrong hold them properly accountable?
Marketing Week - The commercial uses of BBC abuses - a worthy analysis of who should really be looked at more thoroughly in all this.
Look... there... a framed orifice through which you can pass from one place to another.
Apparently, from now on, if anyone in the BBC does something 'naughty' (my flip word for a broad tranche of policy, journalistic and editorial 'lapses'), they will be 'shown the door'.
So says an evidently irritated DG, Mark Thompson, who looks like he has much better things to do than deal with the public's views on his outfit. Apparently this is how trust will be regained. A fair task, given what's in this blog and the papers today. And will putting staff on a course (I presume at the licence payers expense) resolve this... I doubt it. And truly resent wasting such funds on a mop up which is more of a backside covering effort of tissuelike thinness than anything tangible. As are allusions to compensation. Using what mechanisms? What money? From where? To whom?
However, in the spirit of 'moving on', which is the phrase du jour of all senior (and, in the old days, responsible/accountable) executives/pols, it looks like this will be the latest free pass bestowed on all complicit in misleading the viewing public. And if that is the case again, why on earth should anyone trust anything said or done in the future.
While charitable financial dodginess is bad enough, I can't help but note that we have also moved from what in many ways I see as a much more critical issue to address, and that is the notion, which seems endemic and to pervade every level of the organisation, that reality and truth are entirely adjustable to improve ratin... er... the story.
In a cosy fire side chat with the boss, some quite remarkable things are covered and, essentially, dismissed.
I think I heard the word unacceptable several times. It becomes rather meaningless if in the same breaths it becomes pretty clear a lot has been and is accepted.
Short term contracts and pressure/ may be reasons, but they are not excuses. And while they can be responsible for a lot of things, they can surely not be held accountable for swapping critical chronologies in news items to 'enhance reality'... in the name of what? It is only now that I find out that reordering is 'not good practice'. It blooming well is a darn site more than that if it changes meaning, or has the DG not read the posts on this blog on the matter.
So there is a duty to have an 'eye to the culture'. Do what? And, er, only now? And an 'eye' will really sort it, for sure.
Great play was also made of how open 'they' are all being now. You know, if George Washington was not found standing next to that felled tree with an axe, one wonders just how open he would have been if not challenged. It's all being treated as a bit of a one off that will blow over, which of course it will.
We get the obligatory resignation question, with the standard 'best for the person who got us in this situation to dig us out of it and prevent future repeats' reply, which worked so well for Charles Clarke.
If these things happen, and they are not for 'personal gain', why do it? Of course it is for personal gain, because you gain personally from the salary and status of your career. And to progress that means satisfying the demands of your job, which means your superiors. It's hardly anything to do with training or lack of it... it is policy. Yet again we are seeing those at the sharp end being used as a buffer and deflection from those above who are really responsible and should be accountable, and then 'sacrificed' (and then pardoned) with a 'jolly good telling to' on an internal basis.
This is not a one off. It has been a whole series, and in a short time. And nothing I have heard or seen leads me to suspect that anything has or will be done beyond short-term damage limitation.
And that's all we have time for. Moving on...
Trust? Don't talk to me about trust.
Indy - BBC reveals further cases of fake phone-ins -
Indy - When broadcasters become the news
There will be more, I'm sure...
BBC - BBC boss backed in phone scandal - Well, there's a shock
Creative Match - BBC confess to 'disrespecting the audience' in phone in scam
What worries me as much, is how the 'issue' has now moved onto the equally (if not legally/financially even more) significant area of phone-ins, but we have 'moved on' (key phrase of any senior exec trying to protect tushie) from the fact that a) the truth is out there... waaaaaay out there... and b) the odd notion that there's no much wrong with a little 'enhanced reality (ie: outright fabrication) between feral fiends of the media and the public in this new Big Brother short-contract, high pressure, yoof-media 'professional' age.
I used to, only half-jokingly, write that something I read was on the BBC 'so it must be true'. Oh, the irony.
Gaurdian - Comic Relief among shows that deceived BBC viewers
Gaurdian - Trust angry over charity appeal lies
Guardian - Ofcom gets tough and says broadcasters are in denial - ya think???!
Guardian - Newsdesk notes for Thursday July 19
Guardian - Does the BBC deserve its public "shaming"?
Guardian - Don't believe all you see on TV - I think they'r ekeen on this!
I couldn't face the Tabs and Tories, as I rather suspect they will be a tad to the right of my own thinking only with a slight whiff of 'holier than thou'.
Indy - In defence of the BBC - Well it does need it a bit. Plus several side bar links worth scoping
I find this telling, though: Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, resisted calls from Conservative MPs for the Government to intervene. She told the House of Commons: "It is of course important they have the trust of all their viewers but this is not just an issue for the BBC but across all broadcasters."
I felt moved to write under the heading 'Apples. Oranges. And Lemons':
Excuse me? Harriet Harman says "It is of course important they have the trust of all their viewers but this is not just an issue for the BBC but across all broadcasters."
Our local plod have tried to excuse their inability to properly police crime by pointing out resources are tight and anyway it is a lot worse elsewhere. That's like me trying to get off a speeding conviction by saying other folk are going faster.
And one small, additional, point. Who pays... er, gets forced to pay for the BBC?
Guardian - When they stop calling - Positively Clintonian. It's 'enhancing' the truth; not lying.
Guardian - So the BBC is a subversive leftwing conspiracy? You could have fooled me
As is too often the case, we seem to be being presented a rather stark 'either/or' here.
As has been pointed out, certain distractions, now followed by near apocalyptic warnings, have rather managed to drown out the fact that some people up the executive chain in the BBC decided that telling the truth needed some enhancement. In short, portraying some things as real that were not. Which is, apparently, different to lying. Just like taking money under false pretences now seems not to be fraud.
And, in so doing, using whose money?
What I'm seeing is an attempt to blow this out of all proportion to arrange a major puff of smoke, around which mirrors will be rearranged, things will 'move on' and nothing will actually change.
Until the next time.
Maybe, just maybe, we nail down who did what, and if it was wrong hold them properly accountable?
Marketing Week - The commercial uses of BBC abuses - a worthy analysis of who should really be looked at more thoroughly in all this.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Edit, or?
This from Newsday, or is it night (it seems they can now be one in the same)? The Queen and the BBC
Not long ago I had a pathetic, insincere, form (I have had others that are lifted from the same template - sorry for the delay, we know it's important, we've had a check, so we screwed up, so what, yadayada...) 'apology' from the BBC following a complaint about a piece where what I had written got 'edited' to make it the exact reverse of what I said.
Having just had a complaint to OFCOM about an edit that featured me and my company - which turned black into white - upheld, SKY has replied in its defence to the effect that because it was only a few seconds long it doesn't matter (so showing Fidel Castro on the Grassy Knoll would be fine), and in any case it would set 'a bad precedent' for reality TV shows to accurately represent, er, reality. Astounding.
And to show this extends to every level of our current media, this is the Editor's full reply in my local paper to a letter from a reader (rightly) complaining that they edited his letter to completely change its meaning: 'Apologies to... It is not our normal practice to alter the sense of letters.'
Well all I can say is that it seems to be a pretty prevalent, abnormal practice nowadays across the whole sorry industry (even news, apparently), and getting more and more frequent as ever more sad ways are sought to drive up ratings through 'enhancing' actuality. Bear in mind that when they say 'Tell us what you think..' and you do so, that what they say you think may end up a very different version in this edit-obsessed, unaccountable, fake media age.
And now, on top of Blue Peter, etc, we have this.
I created a while ago a category on my blog called tushtissue. It refers to the gobsmacking front to try and weasel out of the fact that you were caught with your pants down. More appropriately, with them round your ankles deliberately trying to score a cheap rating, or political point, or column inch by conveying something totally untrue. And then denying it.
So, who would like to take a bet that no one, anywhere, will be found to carry the can, or bear the consequences? A myriad fingers will point in every direction, and the whole thing will get lost in the 'What's?'.
It's a sad, sad state we are in. Thanks Tony. Thanks Gordon. Thanks BBC. Thanks Fleet Street. Thanks every miserable overpaid 'senior executive' out there who laps the cream but will never shoulder the pain - of their own sorry actions.
I am sure we can look forward to a bumper edition of Newswatch, where all three of those up at dawn at the weekend can review the arrogant troupe of executive 'mea not blooming culpas' for whopping abuses of editorial standards broadcast to millions during prime time, fobbing off Uncle Ray during his cozy file-size chat with the usual 'it wasn't me, or if it was it wasn't that bad, or if it was it didn't matter, or if it does who cares?'
BBC Trust? Interesting, oxymoronic choice of words.
You cannot lie and expect to get away with it. Repeat. You should not be able to lie and get away with it. Repeat. You can lie and get away with it.
Now that's what I call editing.
Daily Mail - BBC's grovelling apology to Queen over 'tantrum' film - Well, they had to, really. It's the DM, after all. And read the comments. Not one cares about the changing of facts.
Times - Crisis of trust after BBC says sorry again - And sorry seems to be the easiest word...
I'm sure there 'll be more...
Guardian - Fincham: I'm staying put - there's a surprise: BBC exec not going to accept consequences shock. Plus the footage. Sweet. And not a thing ... yet... in CiF
Indy - Now we are really not amused: BBC forced to apologise for claiming Queen had a tantrum - Which would be, let's see... an outright lie? No, we really should leave it be and move on now.
Telegraph - Should the controller of BBC1 step down over the Queen gaffe?
Telegraph - Trust, the BBC and the Queen
BBC Newsnight - Putting things in order - the first (very well articulated) comment says it all.
Me, I'm a gobby sod:
Post 1 from Mike S clearly, factually and with great eloquence, pretty much answers your end question, I'd say.
That a viewer who was a live part of this 'process' feels this way I'd hazard shows the meaning was a bit more than 'remotely' affected by the dis-order.
Nice try.
'Maintaining standards of honesty, accuracy and fairness throw up various dilemmas which programme editors have to grapple with on a daily basis.'
But in maintaining those standards, grappling with the ethics of using the edit suite to alter a meaning really shouldn't be the greatest dilemma, now, should it?
Nice try.
'...claiming the chronology of two events were out of sequence and as such misrepresented the events.'
Is it really accurate to call it a claim if, in fact, this is/was precisely the case?
Nice try.
'However unlike the incident with the footage of the Queen, whichever order the events had been shown the meaning would remain the same.'
Um, or not. See above.
Nice try.
Glad for all concerned that at least it 'didn’t breach any of the BBC’s producer guidelines.' Wouldn't want to breach a guideline in doing an ethical, professional, honest job, now would we?
Not sure, having read this, whether some viewers' trust factors in the BBC or its news operatives' standards will have improved, though.
And this is such a shame. And makes the point. Having now watched the story, without that Achilles Heel (which was so subtle I honestly had trouble appreciating it), it was a telling piece for all the other 'imagery', if not facts conveyed.
I really don't know what to believe, so maybe it's best to believe none of it. Which is a pity, as black-suited press munchkins and jobsworth plods creating a wall of silence around our shy leader (as opposed to an opposition version who has amazing spontaneous total recall of relative camera sizes) does come across as a worry. None of it seemed real. And surely, as press with greater access (as alluded to, a form of editing in its own right) than the public will ever enjoy, it is for you to cut through all this spin and give us the clear, unvarnished truth.
In the 'war games' that rather bizarrely seem to exist - if only for the entertainment of those who play them - between accredited press and our elected representatives, in theory conducted on 'our' behalf to inform and allow us to form views we can carry to the polling booth, this is more than a worry.
BBC Breakfast 14/07
I just watched your comment piece on the BBC 'Queen' edit.
At risk of finding my comments here edited, I have to take issue with some of the things said.
It is astounding that any justification could be spun out of the culture of reality shows being 'known' to be... er... not real. And that this is accepted by the chattering classes is a real worry.
Fiction is fiction. Reality is reality. There are no blurred boundaries, from 'entertainment' to hard news. No exceptions.
I have an upheld complaint with OFCOM underway based on this very point.
GUARDIAN - BBC orders inquiry as pressure mounts
Cif - Don't believe everything you see - some amazing stuff about the Blue Peter issue I didn't know before. The rest of the posts show all that's wrong with blogging.
Indy - Pressure on BBC1 chief mounts over Queen slur
Times - BBC chief knew Queen footage was misleading 17 hours before apology
Telegraph - Behaving badly... the BBC and Fincham
Telegraph - Fincham should stay
Not long ago I had a pathetic, insincere, form (I have had others that are lifted from the same template - sorry for the delay, we know it's important, we've had a check, so we screwed up, so what, yadayada...) 'apology' from the BBC following a complaint about a piece where what I had written got 'edited' to make it the exact reverse of what I said.
Having just had a complaint to OFCOM about an edit that featured me and my company - which turned black into white - upheld, SKY has replied in its defence to the effect that because it was only a few seconds long it doesn't matter (so showing Fidel Castro on the Grassy Knoll would be fine), and in any case it would set 'a bad precedent' for reality TV shows to accurately represent, er, reality. Astounding.
And to show this extends to every level of our current media, this is the Editor's full reply in my local paper to a letter from a reader (rightly) complaining that they edited his letter to completely change its meaning: 'Apologies to... It is not our normal practice to alter the sense of letters.'
Well all I can say is that it seems to be a pretty prevalent, abnormal practice nowadays across the whole sorry industry (even news, apparently), and getting more and more frequent as ever more sad ways are sought to drive up ratings through 'enhancing' actuality. Bear in mind that when they say 'Tell us what you think..' and you do so, that what they say you think may end up a very different version in this edit-obsessed, unaccountable, fake media age.
And now, on top of Blue Peter, etc, we have this.
I created a while ago a category on my blog called tushtissue. It refers to the gobsmacking front to try and weasel out of the fact that you were caught with your pants down. More appropriately, with them round your ankles deliberately trying to score a cheap rating, or political point, or column inch by conveying something totally untrue. And then denying it.
So, who would like to take a bet that no one, anywhere, will be found to carry the can, or bear the consequences? A myriad fingers will point in every direction, and the whole thing will get lost in the 'What's?'.
It's a sad, sad state we are in. Thanks Tony. Thanks Gordon. Thanks BBC. Thanks Fleet Street. Thanks every miserable overpaid 'senior executive' out there who laps the cream but will never shoulder the pain - of their own sorry actions.
I am sure we can look forward to a bumper edition of Newswatch, where all three of those up at dawn at the weekend can review the arrogant troupe of executive 'mea not blooming culpas' for whopping abuses of editorial standards broadcast to millions during prime time, fobbing off Uncle Ray during his cozy file-size chat with the usual 'it wasn't me, or if it was it wasn't that bad, or if it was it didn't matter, or if it does who cares?'
BBC Trust? Interesting, oxymoronic choice of words.
You cannot lie and expect to get away with it. Repeat. You should not be able to lie and get away with it. Repeat. You can lie and get away with it.
Now that's what I call editing.
Daily Mail - BBC's grovelling apology to Queen over 'tantrum' film - Well, they had to, really. It's the DM, after all. And read the comments. Not one cares about the changing of facts.
Times - Crisis of trust after BBC says sorry again - And sorry seems to be the easiest word...
I'm sure there 'll be more...
Guardian - Fincham: I'm staying put - there's a surprise: BBC exec not going to accept consequences shock. Plus the footage. Sweet. And not a thing ... yet... in CiF
Indy - Now we are really not amused: BBC forced to apologise for claiming Queen had a tantrum - Which would be, let's see... an outright lie? No, we really should leave it be and move on now.
Telegraph - Should the controller of BBC1 step down over the Queen gaffe?
Telegraph - Trust, the BBC and the Queen
BBC Newsnight - Putting things in order - the first (very well articulated) comment says it all.
Me, I'm a gobby sod:
Post 1 from Mike S clearly, factually and with great eloquence, pretty much answers your end question, I'd say.
That a viewer who was a live part of this 'process' feels this way I'd hazard shows the meaning was a bit more than 'remotely' affected by the dis-order.
Nice try.
'Maintaining standards of honesty, accuracy and fairness throw up various dilemmas which programme editors have to grapple with on a daily basis.'
But in maintaining those standards, grappling with the ethics of using the edit suite to alter a meaning really shouldn't be the greatest dilemma, now, should it?
Nice try.
'...claiming the chronology of two events were out of sequence and as such misrepresented the events.'
Is it really accurate to call it a claim if, in fact, this is/was precisely the case?
Nice try.
'However unlike the incident with the footage of the Queen, whichever order the events had been shown the meaning would remain the same.'
Um, or not. See above.
Nice try.
Glad for all concerned that at least it 'didn’t breach any of the BBC’s producer guidelines.' Wouldn't want to breach a guideline in doing an ethical, professional, honest job, now would we?
Not sure, having read this, whether some viewers' trust factors in the BBC or its news operatives' standards will have improved, though.
And this is such a shame. And makes the point. Having now watched the story, without that Achilles Heel (which was so subtle I honestly had trouble appreciating it), it was a telling piece for all the other 'imagery', if not facts conveyed.
I really don't know what to believe, so maybe it's best to believe none of it. Which is a pity, as black-suited press munchkins and jobsworth plods creating a wall of silence around our shy leader (as opposed to an opposition version who has amazing spontaneous total recall of relative camera sizes) does come across as a worry. None of it seemed real. And surely, as press with greater access (as alluded to, a form of editing in its own right) than the public will ever enjoy, it is for you to cut through all this spin and give us the clear, unvarnished truth.
In the 'war games' that rather bizarrely seem to exist - if only for the entertainment of those who play them - between accredited press and our elected representatives, in theory conducted on 'our' behalf to inform and allow us to form views we can carry to the polling booth, this is more than a worry.
BBC Breakfast 14/07
I just watched your comment piece on the BBC 'Queen' edit.
At risk of finding my comments here edited, I have to take issue with some of the things said.
It is astounding that any justification could be spun out of the culture of reality shows being 'known' to be... er... not real. And that this is accepted by the chattering classes is a real worry.
Fiction is fiction. Reality is reality. There are no blurred boundaries, from 'entertainment' to hard news. No exceptions.
I have an upheld complaint with OFCOM underway based on this very point.
GUARDIAN - BBC orders inquiry as pressure mounts
Cif - Don't believe everything you see - some amazing stuff about the Blue Peter issue I didn't know before. The rest of the posts show all that's wrong with blogging.
Indy - Pressure on BBC1 chief mounts over Queen slur
Times - BBC chief knew Queen footage was misleading 17 hours before apology
Telegraph - Behaving badly... the BBC and Fincham
Telegraph - Fincham should stay
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