Whenever the BBC plunges itself into scandal, be it its own fact-checking division caught lying, or a hunky young intern waking up in a fire escape with his pants around his ankles having swallowed a pink cocktail handed to him the night before by his slender, middle-aged male producer, a phased response is initiated.
First out the blocks is damage control in and around Parliament via lobbyists and reputation managers. Next, fellow ideologically retarded media invites former BBC reporters in their 60s and 70s onto their platforms.
Soon you wouldn’t know that anything’s wrong. Politicians like Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, come out swinging in defence of the corporation, especially if its latest catastrophe involves anyone from the “right”. The former BBC personalities likewise: a man with white hair appears on the screen of a show, is introduced by the host – then introduces himself, nodding, as a friend of the late Nelson Mandela’s – before heaving into spittle fury about how wonderful the corporation is, and how its critics are all racists who threaten democracy.
This time the BBC got caught faking a Donald Trump speech (splicing different parts to make it seem as though it was one sentence), taking sides in the Israel-Hamas war (obviously on the latter) and censoring the views of gender-critical feminists (a campaign administered by its own reporters).
Worse, these were all identified (politely) as “problematic” by an independent reviewer retained by the corporation to examine output six months ago. First the BBC sat on – then blatantly ignored – Michael Prescott’s memos about these chronic failures of editorial oversight, virtually guaranteeing that his concerns would be leaked at some point. Before the phased response was initiated on Monday morning, the crisis had already scalped both the Director General, Tim Davie, and the CEO of BBC News, Deborah Turness.
Grovel
For me, one of the best things happened after Trump’s lawyers announced that unless the BBC apologised to the standard he is accustomed to – i.e. grovel – he will sue them for $1b. The left-wing law industrial complex (there are 120,000 more lawyers in the UK today than there were in 1987) broke cover to dismiss Trump’s threats of suing as fantasy: there can be no way to tell, these people squirmed, that anyone was unduly influenced by the fake footage used in a Panorama documentary entitled Trump: A Second Chance?
Those lawyers, by the way, all love the BBC: for them, talking about their favourite thing while simultaneously talking about their worst is especially gratifying. Anyway, they come out, jeer, point out libel distinctions between jurisdictions, jeer more, then leave.
People who work for the BBC, however, had their own ideas.
It took the form of one of the corporation’s most pompous profiles ever – veteran John Simpson. Simpson, a “friend of the late Nelson Mandela’s”, was admittedly also a “friend” of the late Ernie “Lastig” Solomon, the notorious Cape Flats gangland boss. Solomon was un-alived in November 2020 in a hail of bullets fired from automatic rifles in Boksburg; “damn and blast”, Simpson lamented when he heard that news, disappointed that he couldn’t make a documentary about the man he found “charming”.
Simpson’s attempt to complement the lawyers defending the BBC against any potential claims from Trump had to go further. Here, you can imagine the old boy grabbing his phone restlessly: “No, no Trump needs to get it in the teeth, I’m going to see to that.” The note he composed, and subsequently posted on X, didn’t exactly attack Trump, but it did acknowledge that the BBC had a tremendous following in America. “We reach 77 million people and we are the second most trusted news source in the United States,” he boasted.
Swearing and lashing out
I think it would be reasonable to assume that, not five minutes later, Simpson realised what he’d just done, and that in a fit of swearing and lashing out, he slammed his fingers against his phone: “delete! BLOODY DELETE!” (this is what happens when you give boomers social media accounts).
What Simpson had just done was to tell Trump’s lawyers just how influential the BBC was in the United States, dismantling any jeering made by the useful left-wing lawyers previously – and indeed his own organization. What he’d just done was to embolden a Florida court with a working hypothesis that while the idea for the offence – election interference – may have originated in London, the attempt took place in…America.
Simpson’s idiocy illuminated the dreary familiarity of an otherwise standard BBC debacle. Because it’s futile trying to seize the point of the institution when the result is abundantly clear; thanks to the BBC, the land is irreconcilably divided, with one half convinced that its perspective is just – so much so they base their own perspectives on it – and the other screaming out for people to use whatever faculty for critical analysis they have left.
Call it an achievement if you will, but what the BBC has done is quite remarkable. They have sought to convince people – gradually – that the only way to examine the world is through the left’s perspective i.e. welfare, immigration, theories of privilege, etc. Most South African media doesn’t do that: while some have been accused of cushioning criticism for its favourites, it cannot be accused of the Gramscian cycle of position slow bleed, or drip, into news and information cycles.
Particular interpretation
For one, the ecosystem is too small, and too young. Yes, you have media profiles now accusing certain groups of being “collaborators” – an obvious extension to Nazi activities – but this is more a reflection of the poor quality of individuals concerned, and yes, the national broadcaster has always aped the positions of the government of the day – badly.
But no evidence exists of editorial strategies designed only to persuade minds to bend to a particular interpretation. This is what has happened in the UK – with devastating consequences.
So be grateful, but, even more importantly, vigilant.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/863884480]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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