h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today, as usual, I'm confused and annoyed. A man called George Enwhistle has just resigned. Up until his resignation he was director general of the BBC. Basically he was in charge, albeit answerable to the independent trustees and to any Government minister who spotted someone else to blame. That's part one of my annoyed. Don't they just love it, the MP's? Crawling out of the wood work to go on about serious loss of trust in the BBC. Come off it, MPs you lot have been widely exposed as having claimed duck houses and porn on expenses. And, what's worse, doing it under a system that made it largely legitimate. Some of you are now in prison. You are in no position to accuse anyone of a loss of trust. I know you love to have a go at the Beeb any chance you get (because, be honest, you fear it don't you? Just a bit. Secretly, in your dark hearts you wish this was North Korea, and you could just have them shut down) but really, when it comes to trust you'd be better advised to opt for the 'we all make mistakes' line or, better yet, just shut up.
Am I exonorating the BBC? No. It seems likely that someone made an error of judgement pulling a programe on their flagship 'current affairs' program Newsnight which reported very largely on accusations of child abuse against Jimmy Saville. This was not publically known about at the time, but Newsnight thought they knew, and chose to say nothing. Bad Newsnight. Go and stand in the corner.
Anyway, this week they have apparently run witha story that a Conservative Party Peer may have been implicated. They didn't name the peer who, it turns out, was wrongly identified by the alldged victim. So the victim apologise for what pupports to be genuine error on his part, the name was never named on Newsnight and, naturally, the peer is going to sue anyway. I don't understand that on any level. Firstly, this means his name will spend weeks in the public eye in relation to child abuse, which it might not have done otherwise had the mistake been, as it was, identified. Secondly, he's missed the chance to be magnanimous and generous and praise the courage of the bloke and say he doesn't mind now that it's all been cleared up and he's glad people are feeling more free to talk about the whole thing, which would have made him seem much nicer and might have had a positive impact. We'll never know.
I also don't understand why Newsnight are copping the blame this time. I admit I haven't seen the broadcast so I am only going by second hand information, but if they didn't name anyone, how can they have done anything wrong? Answers most welcome.

And then there is George. He, by all accounts, performed dismally when called to account regarding the original broadcast by a parliamentary select committee. He hasn't been in his job long, but he was, I gather, head of television prior to his elevation to the top job. The second broadcast was met with an immediate 'They were wrong' announcement, with a whiff of panic button annoucenment, and a senior news executive was dispatched post-haste to Newsnight HQ to oversee the next broadcast. Then, oddly, George resigned. The noble thing to do, he said. I wonder what the trustees think?

Oh, one more thing before I go. For decades the BBC has been a leader in broadcasting news, documentaries (ATTTENBOROUGH, for crying out loud) comedy, drama and anything else you can think of. They made a stupid mistake. Can we weigh up the pros and cons?

[Amy P]

The BBC is a lot more than news journalism. "Inform, Educate and Entertain" is carved in marble somewhere in Wood Lane, I suspect, so it's only a fraction of that 33.3%.

To be honest, the BBC's TV news offering has long ceased to be the best. Channel 4 News is streets ahead in serious journalism, and ITV News is better for popular stuff. Newsnight is pretty dull, and I don't know why they have to devote hours of evening BBC2 to it - why not sideline this stuff to BBC News 24 between the bulletins? I certainly don't see Newsnight as any sort of flagship offering. It's just a vehicle for Paxman et al to engage in macho posturing. Get a life, guys.

Oh, and someone in the know once told me that the top tier of BBC news anchors were on £1m+ salaries. Are we getting value for that?

I'm not sure I'd agree with that assessment Icy. I don't watch C4, but there news couverage is what- one hour a day? ITV drives me up the wall with Alistaire whatisname frowning determinedly at a story so I know it's serious, and their local news coverage is painful. Besides, some of the BBC's best news coverage is on their website, which is excellent.

C4 News is an hour-long bulletin, which allows them to include studio interviews, so it combines News + Newsnight in effect. Editorially it's superior, as it's far more balanced and internationalist, and doesn't feel as if it's being written by political whips. It's the Guardian on TV, you could say.

ITV News is what they took out of the Channel 4 bulletin. It also has the bongs and "And Finally".

Both are produced by ITN.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree over news Icy, but I still maintain that the bbc can't loose all of it's trust over this episode.

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