BBC v ITV (and maybe C4)

[drfchound]

Apart from the fear and outrage agendas that I have spoken about before. Reporting in the country has moved from reporting fact to reporting opinion and feeling, listen to the questions asked at the conferences

Ldr.

I'm not sure if that was in response to my posts, so forgive me if I've misread.

If it was, it misses the point. Kuenssberg here is not reporting "fact" or "opinion". She's acting as a conduit whereby, through her No10 controls the news agenda.

What a political editor SHOULD do is, yes, report facts but dissect them. Analyse them in light of other issues. Look at what they mean for likely policy implications. How they fit with political objectives. What the consequences are likely to be.

In doing that, she should be synthesising information from several sources and helping the reader make sense of complex situations.

Kuenssberg rarely does any of that. She just repeats what somebody in No10 has whispered to her.

BST, that last sentence........how could you possibly know that to be a fact.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Apart from the fear and outrage agendas that I have spoken about before. Reporting in the country has moved from reporting fact to reporting opinion and feeling, listen to the questions asked at the conferences

Ldr.

I'm not sure if that was in response to my posts, so forgive me if I've misread.

If it was, it misses the point. Kuenssberg here is not reporting "fact" or "opinion". She's acting as a conduit whereby, through her No10 controls the news agenda.

What a political editor SHOULD do is, yes, report facts but dissect them. Analyse them in light of other issues. Look at what they mean for likely policy implications. How they fit with political objectives. What the consequences are likely to be.

In doing that, she should be synthesising information from several sources and helping the reader make sense of complex situations.

Kuenssberg rarely does any of that. She just repeats what somebody in No10 has whispered to her.

BST, that last sentence........how could you possibly know that to be a fact.

Where do you think she got the briefing about what Johnson was about to say from?

Go back through her articles and see how many of them are based on "A source close to No10 says..." or "a senior Govt source said..."

Countless times. And frequently with no filtering or analysis of the message. Just a repeating it.

Where do you think she got the "information" (sic: read "lie") from that a Labour activist had assaulted a Tory aide outside a hospital during the election campaign. And why on earth would the most prominent political editor inthe country rush to publicise that without checking its accuracy?
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-and-itv-political-editors-apologise-for-false-hospital-punch-claim-in-tweets/

(PS: My mistake earlier. She DID apologise. But f**k me, how unprofessional was this, 2 days before an Election?)

[ravenrover]

Wasn't Peston the 1st to "report it"?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Raven

They are both as bad as each other. Cummings has the pair of them on the same lead.

[ravenrover]

Agreed

[wilts rover]

I don't know why people think BBC & ITV journalists are hand in glove with No.10 just because of the extra access and 'exclusives' it gives them.

I mean just because Sarah Sands (editor of BBC Radio 4 Today) was photograph at a Brexit lunch with Murdoch, Farage & Liam Fox doesn't necessarily mean that prominent Brexiteers were allowed on that programme with very little challenge. Just a coincidence.

In other news the ITV News Editor has just been announced as the new communications director for No.11.

[Filo]

C4 and Sky never got a look in today, but that media heavyweight The Stoke Sentinel was in there!

[drfchound]

The Sheffield Star was there yesterday.
Maybe they are trying to give some provincial rags a chance as well as the big lads.

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way.

That line from No10 that Kuenssberg broadcast to the nation, two days before the election about a Labour activist punching one of Hancock's aides?

See the video here.

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204091610843226112

And look what she did by way of an apology.

Not: "I am mortified that I acted as a puppet of the Tory party and broadcast a lie to the nation and I really should think long and hard before I simply broadcast what Dominic Cummings tells me in future."


No: It's a "Pretty grim" encounter. That is someone walking into someone else's arm.

[Donnywolf]

Apart from the fear and outrage agendas that I have spoken about before. Reporting in the country has moved from reporting fact to reporting opinion and feeling, listen to the questions asked at the conferences

The way I see it is that the media (and especially the newspapers, who have been losing money all over the place) have been sacking so many people to save money that they don't employ real journalists any more, they now employ glorified data gatherers who either reprint press releases that someone else has written or nick stories from one another instead of going out and doing the job properly. Anything to fill space as quickly and cheaply as possible.

... or indeed just pick out the main points from a Speech / Presentation / or something like PMQs that the viewer (in most cases) has just watched anyway

I agree that fills a huge bit of space and justifies the huge number of Journos the BBC has on its books and BST was right in Reply #15

It used to have a reputation as one of the finest political broadcasters in the world. But it's lost its soul.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Although that report is a preface to what may or may not be said by the PM later.  I would expect more of a critique after the PM has spoken.?

The cynical mind could suggest that the PM taking the briefing today is to deflect from the probable failure to meet the test target..

I haven't seen any critique from Kuenssberg after the PM spoke.

I HAVE seen her tweet several video clips of him speaking, with no comment from her.

And I have seen her re-tweet a story from a colleague about anti-Semitism in the Labour party. So she's been busy.

[selby]

  Sounds like the stories of Priti Patel's bullying of civil servants that was apparently false.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Where's your evidence for that Selby?

[IDM]

Although that report is a preface to what may or may not be said by the PM later.  I would expect more of a critique after the PM has spoken.?

The cynical mind could suggest that the PM taking the briefing today is to deflect from the probable failure to meet the test target..

I haven't seen any critique from Kuenssberg after the PM spoke.

I HAVE seen her tweet several video clips of him speaking, with no comment from her.

And I have seen her re-tweet a story from a colleague about anti-Semitism in the Labour party. So she's been busy.

I often find the questioning by news presenters frustrating, especially on BBC breakfast.  They seem all to often to ask either the bleeding obvious or trivial questions, and press points which don’t need pressing.  Almost like they are dumbing down on behalf of the population who can’t interpret what has presented as news.

I try to rely on what is presented - ie the direct quotes from the video clips etc and make my own judgements..  I try to look beyond any sensationalising and attention grabbing headlines..

[BillyStubbsTears]

IDM

But like I say, the job of ANY Political Editor, and absolutely the one at the BBC, is supposed to be to go past the superficial and the trivial, and to inform the viewer or reader about what the real factors are in the various political issues.

They are meant to weigh up evidence, scrutinise it and indicate to the audience what is going on under the surface.

Kuenssberg barely pays lip service to that task. She, far more often, breathlessly reports "well this is what *I* have heard" like a playground gossip.

And Cummings, for all his failings, ain't stupid. He latched onto that a good while ago and he plays her like a puppeteer. Feeding her the information that he wants to roll out into the news. While Kuenssberg smugly thinks she's being a brilliant investigative journalist because so many of her pieces are prefixed by, "A senior Govt source says..."

[selby]

  Cleared in a government enquiry Billy reported in the Independent and the Guardian ( Bible). Do I detect a sense of disappointment?

[IDM]

IDM

But like I say, the job of ANY Political Editor, and absolutely the one at the BBC, is supposed to be to go past the superficial and the trivial, and to inform the viewer or reader about what the real factors are in the various political issues.

They are meant to weigh up evidence, scrutinise it and indicate to the audience what is going on under the surface.

Kuenssberg barely pays lip service to that task. She, far more often, breathlessly reports "well this is what *I* have heard" like a playground gossip.

And Cummings, for all his failings, ain't stupid. He latched onto that a good while ago and he plays her like a puppeteer. Feeding her the information that he wants to roll out into the news. While Kuenssberg smugly thinks she's being a brilliant investigative journalist because so many of her pieces are prefixed by, "A senior Govt source says..."

You won’t find me disagreeing BST, that’s why I draw my own conclusions from the facts that are presented to me.  Where the facts are inconclusive I look to common sense rather than any sensational headlines..

[BillyStubbsTears]

  Cleared in a government enquiry Billy reported in the Independent and the Guardian ( Bible). Do I detect a sense of disappointment?

You don't find a sense of anything from me Selby because I don't know.

All I've seen is reports that Govt insiders have said that the internal inquiry is likely to suggest no further action.

Labour have asked for the report to be made public and as far as I'm aware, there's been no response.

So, forgive me if, given the current state of knowledge on the topic, I take claims that she's been "cleared" with a little bit of scepticism.

Especially because the ex-head of the Home Office civil service who resigned alleging bullying from Patel has started a case of constructive dismissal at an industrial tribunal.

A tribunal has the right to require Patel to attend for questioning and to demand the release of internal memos and e-mails.

If there is nothing to these bullying claims, I'm sure Patel will jump at the chance to speak to the tribunal.

Let's see, eh?

[Not Now Kato]

  Cleared in a government enquiry Billy reported in the Independent and the Guardian ( Bible). Do I detect a sense of disappointment?

Being a bit selective there Selby?
 

The Whitehall process which is believed to have cleared Priti Patel over allegations she bullied her staff has been condemned as secretive and biased, as pressure grows to release the report.

A leak of the internal investigation – overseen by the cabinet secretary, on Boris Johnson’s instructions – says it has found has found no evidence the home secretary mistreated civil servants.

However, the report is not expected to be published immediately – and is not the end of Ms Patel’s troubles, after she was engulfed by a “tsunami of allegations” at three different departments.

Philip Rutnam, who sensationally quit as the Home Office’s top civil servant in February, alleging Ms Patel was behind a “vicious” campaign against him, is claiming constructive dismissal at an employment tribunal, to be held in public.

Dave Penman, the head of the FDA union of senior civil servants, attacked the way Ms Patel was investigated internally and the leak of the conclusions to a friendly newspaper.
Watch more

    Priti Patel is missing in action and asylum seekers pay the price

“It tells you everything that is wrong with investigations under the ministerial code that a process which is not written down, which contains no rights for those who might complain, that is determined in secret, alone by a prime minister who has already pledged his allegiance to the minister in advance, and which allows no right to transparency or challenge for anyone who complained, would then be leaked on the evening before the home secretary is due to appear before the home affairs select committee,” he told The Guardian.

Let's see what the employment tribunal - in public - determines eh?