Amid much controversy the BNP’s Nick Griffin made his BBC Question Time debut last night. Now, having seen or read about the transmitted programme, do you think the BBC was right in its judgement to invite him on? Please take part in our poll and leave additional comments about the programme below:
BBC Trust intervention in the BBC’s decision to allow BNP leader Nick Griffin onto Question Time would be at odds with the corporation’s constitutional arrangements, the regulatory body has said.
Therefore the Trust will not hear appeals, and complaints can only be made after transmission. The release stated:
“They [ad hoc Trust committee] took the view that the Charter and Agreement establishes the director-general as editor-in-chief of the BBC – the individual responsible for the editorial content of BBC programmes.”
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) opposes the BBC’s decision to invite the leader of the British National Party (BNP) onto its Question Time programme, the union has said in a release.
“The union argues that the format of the show does not allow the BNP’s dishonest propaganda to be properly challenged.”
The BBC is recruiting the first batch of regional journalists to improve its linear services to the UK’s regions, as part of proposals approved by the the BBC Trust in July.
The 12 new political reporter posts (as advertised on Media UK) will work across radio, TV and online for the BBC’s English regions.
“In this role, you’ll be translating complex material into reports which engage with our audiences. You’ll be working for both bulletins and programmes (e.g. Local Radio Breakfast and Drivetime shows) and providing material for regional TV news and weekly political programmes on BBC One. You’ll cover the next General Election campaign,” the job ad description explains.
Following the rejection of the BBC’s plans to increase local video output, the BBC Trust tasked the executive with producing proposals to enhance the BBC’s local TV and radio services.
The approved proposals included:
“This is the first tranche of roles that we intend to create over the next few years focused on enhanced BBC coverage of local democracy on both local radio and regional television as part of improving local linear services to regions and communities,” a BBC spokeswoman told Journalism.co.uk.
“The overall package is part of a process of re-investment from our own efficiencies and we don’t expect there to be any net increase in jobs over the whole of the package which will roll out over the next 4/5 years.”
The BBC is looking to appoint a social media editor to help the corporation better understand how to explore social media and best practice for using it.
The BBC already has members of its team scanning social media for news, Nic Newman, future media and technology controller, confirmed.
Last month the Guardian reported that a ‘radical redesign’ and relaunch of BBC websites is planned for March 2010, with a focus on social media – according to the paper’s sources.
Among the changes outlined were ‘a new homepage and underlying hosting platform’, radical changes to news navigation, commenting facilities on programmes, the launch of the Open iPlayer and new connections to third party platforms.
The BBC, however, denied such a ‘radical overhaul’ to Journalism.co.uk, although it said ‘a refresh of the BBC News site’ will take place in due course – as previously reported.
The discovery that the BBC has paid out almost £1 million in costs and damages for libel from current affairs programmes in two years has shocked the Sunday Express, but not Richard Sharpe, writing on ETC’s Keep It Legal Blog.
“The BBC received 71 complaints about libel since January 2008 and spent £121,000 on lawyers to defend itself, says the Sunday Express.
“Consider just one fact about the output of the BBC: over 78,000 radio hours in its past financial year over 10 radio networks. And it has 8 TV networks also pumping out hours of viewing.
“Current affairs is a central part of the BBC. The BBC spends £4.5 billion on operating expenditure, putting out those radio and TV hours, putting up the websites and all the support needed to do that.”
The BBC has now run a longer story on the attempt to gag the Guardian from reporting a parliamentary question by MP Paul Farrelly about UK oil company Trafigura [Parliament.uk].
The BBC does not quote or detail the question itself, but states: ‘the paper’s [Guardian] website said the question from Paul Farrelly MP ‘was related to Trafigura toxic waste scandal’.
“Newsnight will report on this case and the prevalence of media laws being used by large companies to restrict information on Tuesday October 13 2009 at 10.30pm on BBC Two,” the BBC said.
Update: The BBC report now reproduces the question in full.
Roy Greenslade first picked up on this one at the beginning of the month when he commented on how the BBC had used BNP comments in its Radio 1 Newsbeat programme, and on its site.
Now Peter Hain, the Welsh secretary, has condemned the BBC’s handling of the interview and the BBC faces calls for an internal investigation after it received more than 100 complaints, MediaGuardian reports.
Meanwhile, FleetStreetBlues has some sympathy for the BBC reporter:
“The report has been criticised widely for introducing two interviewees as ‘two young guys who are members of the BNP’ without stating that they were prominent party members and one was the BNP’s publicity director.
“No, it’s not great journalism, but we’ve all done it. Interviewed a ‘Man Utd fan’ who turns out to editor the Man Utd fanzine. Quizzed a donkey-loving member of the public who turns out to run a donkey sanctuary. Sought grassroots student comment from the local student union.
“The news editor wants authentic BNP comment and he needs it by 10am? Sorry, going for comment via organisations and then dressing it up as someone we just happened to meet on the street is what reporters do. You don’t give us time for anything else.”
The BBC can only be saved by a rediscovery of the values that John Reith placed on public service broadcasting, Dame Joan Bakewell counselled at an event on Wednesday.
Bakewell warned that broadcasters have a responsibility to look back to the ethos of the ‘golden age’ of public service broadcasting of the 1960s in order to deal with the challenges presented by multiplying competition.
“At a time when so many other institutions, financial, parliamentary, are deeply flawed, the battered and tattered ideals of public service broadcasting survive. If a societal consciousness is creeping back into public affairs, then now is the time to celebrate public service broadcasting and see it flourish again,” she said.
Bakewell described Public Service Broadcasting as the ‘lynchpin’ of Britain’s culture and democracy and argued that it must have the courage of its own judgments in order to survive as the ‘bedrock on which the BBC’s worldwide reputation relies’.
Her reflections came in the form of the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture, which she delivered to an audience made up of journalists and students at City University in London.
Gary Younge, the US-based Guardian reporter and columnist, was presented with the James Cameron Memorial Award for his reporting written with ‘passion and compassion’ in the run up to the election of Barack Obama.
Younge’s nod to Kanye West’s recent faux pas at the MTV Video Music Awards had the room in fits of giggles. “Beyonce was the greatest writer of all time,” he said.
Also posthumously honoured with a special award for those who fight to hold those in power to account was Sri Lankan editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was murdered in January. As editor of Sri Lanka’s Sunday Leader he was known as a forceful critic of the challengers to liberal democracy.
Wickrematunge wrote a ‘living obituary’ predicting his own death as a result of his work as a journalist shortly before his murder. Sonali Wickrematunge, Lasantha’s wife, said that the award would serve as ‘a beam of hope for those who continue to risk their life for the truth’.
The BBC is giving its licence fee payers a say on a new draft version of its editorial guidelines – the first review of the guidelines since the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand scandal.
The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines will be open to a public consultation, which will run until December 24.