Scrutable

For yesterday's award, Alexander 'Boris' Johnson for fidgeting through the 2 minute silence then laying the wreath upside down.

For today, the BBC for showing footage from three years ago to cover it up.

Or Nigel Farage, but it might be better to save him for a quiet day. Any quiet day.

P.J. Denyer wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:11 pm For yesterday's award, Alexander 'Boris' Johnson for fidgeting through the 2 minute silence then laying the wreath upside down.

For today, the BBC for showing footage from three years ago to cover it up.

Or Nigel Farage, but it might be better to save him for a quiet day. Any quiet day.

A quiet day on the COTD thread. You new around here?

Martin_B wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:54 pm

P.J. Denyer wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:11 pm For yesterday's award, Alexander 'Boris' Johnson for fidgeting through the 2 minute silence then laying the wreath upside down.

For today, the BBC for showing footage from three years ago to cover it up.

Or Nigel Farage, but it might be better to save him for a quiet day. Any quiet day.

A quiet day on the COTD thread. You new around here?

Particularly.

It's odd that the scum, yesterday's daily mail and the indy are the only national papers I could find that covered that story.

My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days. I would only say that incompetence is pretty plausible and as coverups go, it's pretty feeble stuff to air the wrong clip on one programme the day after, which loads of people notice and kick up a much bigger fuss.

I dipped a toe in the poison lake of the Mail and Express to see what the other side think and the Express seemed to like the incompetence angle while the Mail hinted at a double-bluff, reporting social media claims it was deliberate and someone in the BBC did it to make Johnson look bad.

Martin Y wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:12 pm My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days. I would only say that incompetence is pretty plausible and as coverups go, it's pretty feeble stuff to air the wrong clip on one programme the day after, which loads of people notice and kick up a much bigger fuss.

I dipped a toe in the poison lake of the Mail and Express to see what the other side think and the Express seemed to like the incompetence angle while the Mail hinted at a double-bluff, reporting social media claims it was deliberate and someone in the BBC did it to make Johnson look bad.

The express also managed to go for the "Corbyn wasn't showing respect" angle too. Which I thought an interesting line.

Martin Y wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:12 pm My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days. I would only say that incompetence is pretty plausible and as coverups go, it's pretty feeble stuff to air the wrong clip on one programme the day after, which loads of people notice and kick up a much bigger fuss.

I dipped a toe in the poison lake of the Mail and Express to see what the other side think and the Express seemed to like the incompetence angle while the Mail hinted at a double-bluff, reporting social media claims it was deliberate and someone in the BBC did it to make Johnson look bad.

Don’t the Beeb use the Jupiter system for footage gathering? From what I know it’s a pretty hated and flawed system (but even so, a cursory glance should have caught this)

Martin Y wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:12 pm My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days. I would only say that incompetence is pretty plausible and as coverups go, it's pretty feeble stuff to air the wrong clip on one programme the day after, which loads of people notice and kick up a much bigger fuss.

Yeah, me too.

Also, the last few times I was there I was aware of the general situation of blurred responsibility and arse covering and it annoyed me.

Vertigowooyay wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 7:38 pmeb use the Jupiter system for footage gathering? From what I know it’s a pretty hated and flawed system (but even so, a cursory glance should have caught this)

Yeah Jupiter is, or was, crap in many ways. OTOH it did give file names including 'LIB', etc, when you pulled stuff off it so you could tell if something was current or library. Last time I was around it, a couple of years ago, they were supposed to be transitioning to Fabric but Fabric wasn't working properly so we were still using Jupiter.

On a slight tangent, which may or may not be relevant, a friend of mine used to run one of the automated TX desks in Broadcasting House and like so much in the BBC is was a cobble together of various software and hardware systems. When he retired he offered to do a handover session with whoever was taking over, to go through all the 'local knowledge' of how it all interacted together but no one took him up on the offer.

Just imagine if JC had laid his wreath the wrong way up... we'd be hearing about it for weeks.

Martin Y wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:12 pm My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days. I would only say that incompetence is pretty plausible and as coverups go, it's pretty feeble stuff to air the wrong clip on one programme the day after, which loads of people notice and kick up a much bigger fuss.

I dipped a toe in the poison lake of the Mail and Express to see what the other side think and the Express seemed to like the incompetence angle while the Mail hinted at a double-bluff, reporting social media claims it was deliberate and someone in the BBC did it to make Johnson look bad.

If it was just this one thing my reaction would be "meh". But when you take in the context of the number of times Farage appears on Question Time, Fiona Bruce making inaccurate statements to shut down an audience member's point then it starts to look deliberate.

Twitter - or at least my Twitter - seems evenly split between ‘I work in broadcasting and there’s no possible way this is deliberate’ and ‘I work in broadcasting and there’s no possible way this is accidental’, fwiw.

nekomatic wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 11:29 am Twitter - or at least my Twitter - seems evenly split between ‘I work in broadcasting and there’s no possible way this is deliberate’ and ‘I work in broadcasting and there’s no possible way this is accidental’, fwiw.

How does twitter split between whether it (accidentally or intentionally) makes Johnson look good or bad?

JQH wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2019 11:29 am

Martin Y wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 6:12 pm My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days. I would only say that incompetence is pretty plausible and as coverups go, it's pretty feeble stuff to air the wrong clip on one programme the day after, which loads of people notice and kick up a much bigger fuss.

I dipped a toe in the poison lake of the Mail and Express to see what the other side think and the Express seemed to like the incompetence angle while the Mail hinted at a double-bluff, reporting social media claims it was deliberate and someone in the BBC did it to make Johnson look bad.

If it was just this one thing my reaction would be "meh". But when you take in the context of the number of times Farage appears on Question Time, Fiona Bruce making inaccurate statements to shut down an audience member's point then it starts to look deliberate.

Only on twitter have I seen any coverage of the electoral commission's recent court win VoteLeave (Johnson et al) had appealed various things and lost them all very badly. Given the pertinence of this to the QT furore I might ahve expected at least some acknowledgement, but it's been silence.

Unfortunately the beeb has been taken over by the tories.

We are all f.cked.

My kneejerk reaction is always to fly to the BBC's defence but can't be arsed these days.

I know what you mean. And this will kill the BBC as a public service broadcaster at some point, as faith in it leaches away, even among its natural supporters.

I can't believe the transposed clip was a simple mistake. Seems to me more likely somebody shat it, fearing the shitstorm to follow, or some of the conservative (note l.c. "c") types felt that the dignity of the occasion outweighed the politics. But we'll never know.

Yeah, reckon the devil lies in that space between 'trying to make Boris Johnson look good' (right-wing bias) and 'trying not to look like you're trying to make Boris Johnson look bad' (which ends up much the same!).

I don't think I believe the relentless right wing/Daily Mail attacks on left-wing bias at the BBC were all a cover and they were secretly happy with everything the beeb put out all along. But the attacks have worked to the degree that self-policing/second-guessing seems to lead to some very bad (not to say spineless) decisions. Finding some things harder to defend too.

I used to be a massive defender of the BBC. I'm finding it much more difficult lately. Particularly the 'news' department.

Opti wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:33 pm I used to be a massive defender of the BBC. I'm finding it much more difficult lately. Particularly the 'news' department.

Same here. When the best one could say is that they are not fit to do their job because of massive incompetence, because the alternative is naked political bias of cowardice, then defending them is nigh on impossible.
Which means that the senior beeb journalists will still get attacked from the brexity right and now nobody will defend them. And it serves them right, but serves the country poorly.

Am I the only one who thinks that Corbyn should have made just the one stipulation before agreeing to the TV "debate" with Johnson? Namely, live fact checking with a section at the end devoted to the outcome of said checks?

FFS, you know there's a problem when lifelong Tories, like Peter Oborne have begun to list the leader's lies.

murmur wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:23 pm Am I the only one who thinks that Corbyn should have made just the one stipulation before agreeing to the TV "debate" with Johnson? Namely, live fact checking with a section at the end devoted to the outcome of said checks?

FFS, you know there's a problem when lifelong Tories, like Peter Oborne have begun to list the leader's lies.

No, you are not. Or, failing that, he should have borrowed the last leg's b.llsh.t buzzer.

Johnson doesn't like women controlling him does he?

murmur wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:23 pm Am I the only one who thinks that Corbyn should have made just the one stipulation before agreeing to the TV "debate" with Johnson? Namely, live fact checking with a section at the end devoted to the outcome of said checks?

Don't worry, the Conservative Press Office rebranded their twitter account as 'factcheckuk' for the evening. You have to think it must be pathological.

tom p wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:15 pm

murmur wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:23 pm Am I the only one who thinks that Corbyn should have made just the one stipulation before agreeing to the TV "debate" with Johnson? Namely, live fact checking with a section at the end devoted to the outcome of said checks?

FFS, you know there's a problem when lifelong Tories, like Peter Oborne have begun to list the leader's lies.

No, you are not. Or, failing that, he should have borrowed the last leg's b.llsh.t buzzer.

I like both these ideas.