Editorial Independence, Or Unaccountability?
>> SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2011
Can somebody please read this update of the BBC Agreement (as in "Charter & Agreement") and tell me if "Editorial Independence" actually translates into "Unaccountability"?
Continuing AgreementThere's more at the link. The NAO (or anyone else, presumably, like OfCom) can say what they like, but the Trust will decide what to present to Jeremy Hunt, decide what is value for money, and decide if the BBC can syphon off extra Government/taxpayer cash to spend on the World Service. (Hopefully not for hiring yet another field correspondent to cover the US.) This sounds like unaccountability by any other name.Concerns have been expressed that the NAO reviews could lead to individual star's salaries becoming public, or the details of managerial decisions on finance, because the NAO can ask for any information it needs for its audit. The wording of the agreement makes no specific reference to those concerns and no such information has been revealed in previous NAO reports on the BBC.
A Trust spokesperson said: 'The NAO already have full access to the information they need to carry out reviews of the BBC; today's announcement confirms and continues that arrangement. In addition it will now enable the NAO to decide which areas to look at, but in an arrangement where it will continue to submit reports to the Trust. We believe that the terms agreed build on the BBC's existing relationship with the NAO to the benefit of licence fee payers, while preserving the BBC's independence.'
Editorial IndependenceThe agreement makes clear that whilst the NAO is 'entitled to review any BBC decision' it is not entitled to 'question the merits of any editorial or creative judgment or policy decision about the way BBC services are made or distributed.'
The Trust will still do its own value for money reviews, in fact the agreement requires it to lay out its own programme of such work each year. The NAO can't examine the same area as the Trust in the same year.
The NAO will submit its reports to the Trust, which will prepare a response before sending both to the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament.
The weekend is here and I am gone. Enjoy.COMEDY BY MISTAKE!
I was alerted to this from Melanie Philips a few days back. Well worth a read!
"And last week on BBC News Hard Talk, former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani repeatedly laughed incredulously at the assumptions of his interviewer, BBC correspondent Stephen Sackur. Wouldn’t you admit, said Sackur, that American policy after 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq was a mistake? Why should I admit that? said Giuliani when he had finished laughing; the US has foiled 42 separate terror attacks since then because of that security policy put in place by President Bush. Sackur tried again. But surely, he said, the police security strategy of targeting the Muslim community ‘gets in the way of the healing’. Giuliani laughed again even more incredulously. Well they would hardly target synagogues or churches he said. Of course the police targeted the mosques. It was from the mosques that the terror plots were coming. This is no more bad for Muslims than it was bad for Italian/Americans when I went after the Mafia in New York!
No wonder Giuliani laughed – he must have thought he’d wandered onto the set of a BBC comedy show by mistake."
BRASS IN POCKET
ICE WITH THAT?
I leave the science bias to some of my colleagues here who are so much more expert than I am. However, I see that the BBC are still droning on about the Arctic Ice.
Sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2011 has passed its annual minimum, reaching the second-lowest level since satellite records began, US scientists say. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) saysthe minimum, reached on 9 September, was 4.33 million sq km. That value is 36% lower than the average minimum for 1979-2000.
The Prophet Carter
Octogenarian Jimmy Carter was given a lovely long spot on Today, with James Naughtie questioning him deferentially about his particular version of the Israeli Palestinian situation and his support for the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN security Council. They both forgot to mention the Palestinians’ continual refusal to recognise Israel or to renounce violence, and Jimmy Carter made, at length, a number of factually incorrect statements about settlements and various other things. His prediction that a bid would succeed at the General Assembly, if not at the UN Security Council, was announced as if it was a great insight on his behalf. Perhaps he didn’t hear Jeremy Bowen stating something which we all know, namely that there’s “a built-in pro Palestinian majority, and no veto, at the General Assembly.” Some of his remarks indicate that he thinks Palestine is already an independent state, so why does the BBC bother to broadcast his bonkers views on the forthcoming Palestinian bid for statehood? Update. Melanie Phillips is wondering if the British government is about to vote for a Palestinian state.
Once Upon A Time
They still don’t get the Arab Spring. They think toppling Gaddafi and Mubarak is the end, not the beginning. Even after Iraq, they still think this. Even after witnessing the chaos and the antisemitic frenzy in Egypt they think it. Even with the rise of Islamism they think it. Even with the new liberated Libya calling for sharia law they think it. Judging by the euphoric drivel I heard this morning, Zubeida Malik is going to tell us about theBritish Arabs’ participation in this glorious event, as though once the despots and tyrants are sent off everyone lives happily ever after.
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