Graham Norton Reprimanded for Wearing Charity Badge on Show

[bb21]

Journalistic principles or self-importance by Auntie Beeb?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25317116

Graham Norton and his production company So Television have been reprimanded by the BBC after he wore a World Aids Day ribbon on air.

The presenter and his guests all sported the charity emblem for his BBC One chat show broadcast on 29 November.

BBC entertainment controller Mark Linsey said although it was a cause Norton "cares passionately about", he was "in breach of BBC guidelines".

Wearing poppies in support of the Royal British Legion is the one exception.

...

Can someone enlighten me as to why the Royal British Legion enjoys an advantage over other charities.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I am in full support of the poppy appeal. The situation just seems bizarre.

 

[PG]

I could be wrong but I'd surmise that the beeb, by and large, is going down the 80's/90's middle England line of 'Aids is a thing of the gays' and 'being gay is wrong' so therefore anyone showing support for this should be 'brought down a peg or two' ?!!

Its the kind of attitude you, sadly, expect from the Daily Fail but then the beeb does seem to be getting more and more that way :roll:

BTW I've nothing against the Royal British Legion either but it does seem curious how come they get a special exemption...

 

[Zoidberg]

I could be wrong but I'd surmise that the beeb, by and large, is going down the 80's/90's middle England line of 'Aids is a thing of the gays' and 'being gay is wrong' so therefore anyone showing support for this should be 'brought down a peg or two' ?!!

...

I think you are wrong. I don't think it's a down on supporting an AIDS charity. It's simply that there is a ban on showing any symbol of support for a charity, except for the wearing of a poppy.

From the article:

Editorial guidelines state: "The BBC must remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas, no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial."

 

[wbbminerals]

"The BBC must remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas, no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial."

Why do all their presenters wear poppies in November then? A classic case of double standards it seems. This isn't surprising really as the BBC aren't exactly impartial anyway.

 

[table38]

Editorial guidelines state: "The BBC must remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas, no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial."

Hmm... presumably apart from Children in Need and Comic Relief.

Oh, and the BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal.

And the BBC Performing Arts Fund, the BBC Wildlife Fund, The Grace Wyndham Goldie (BBC) Trust Fund...

 

[Kingsbury Jn.]

I could be wrong ops...

I think you are. The BBC would be the last institution to think that way! And what has the Daily Mail got to do with this? :roll:

 

[meridian2]

It's quite simple.

Norton is a World AIDS supporter; the BBC is not. Norton is also a BBC TV presenter.

The BBC supports other charities like Children In Need or Comic Relief.

If it's not on their 'supported' list, it doesn't sanction any advertisement of other charities in any form, whether a full blown ad or simple product placement.

People who say they cannot be seen actively promoting one charity over another are merely being polite. The non polite version being: 'get lost we support x not y'. The BBC, on the other hand, take it to a whole new level.

 

[table38]

Do we mere licence payers have any say into which charities the BBC supports with our money?

(Actually, I think I already know the answer to that )

 

[Nym]

Do we mere licence payers have any say into which charities the BBC supports with our money?

(Actually, I think I already know the answer to that )

Remember this is the same BBC that has a £1bn office it has retained to appeise it's posh daily mail (times) reading staff in London...

Words can't express just how ****ed off I am about this...

 

[Butts]

Remember this is the same BBC that has a £1bn office it has retained to appeise it's posh daily mail (times) reading staff in London...

Words can't express just how ****ed off I am about this...

All of it should have remained in London....and I say that from Scotland.

 

[tbtc]

I think that "Poppy Day" (and the general "Remembrance" movement) are unique in the world of charity.

As for the rest of the fuss, is this the politically correct liberal bias of the BBC I see here? Oh, wait, no... I've not found a Daily Mail article about this "censure" - they'll have twisted themselves into knots "its political correctness gone sane" etc etc.

Poor old Beeb - can't win - either criticised for one thing or the other (much like when they were criticised for both censoring Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead and criticised for playing it at the same time) - everyone thinks that they are biased against them...

 

[table38]

Also odd that all of the guests on the show - Colin Farrell, Sharon Osbourne, Jo Brand and (shock horror probe) Jeremy Clarkson (FPM) wore Aids awareness ribbons

See picture and article here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/10/graham-norton-bbc-aids-ribbon-jeremy-clarkson in the Grauniad

 

[bb21]

I think that "Poppy Day" (and the general "Remembrance" movement) are unique in the world of charity.

It may be, but what about those charities mentioned by table38 here? Are they also "unique" in the same way the remembrance movement is?

As for the rest of the fuss, is this the politically correct liberal bias of the BBC I see here? Oh, wait, no... I've not found a Daily Mail article about this "censure" - they'll have twisted themselves into knots "its political correctness gone sane" etc etc.

You've lost me.

Poor old Beeb - can't win - either criticised for one thing or the other (much like when they were criticised for both censoring Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead and criticised for playing it at the same time) - everyone thinks that they are biased against them...

Well, if their policy means that people doing good things can get in trouble for them, then they should expect to be questioned. That comes with being in the public eye.

I am not having a dig at the remembrance movement. I just find it odd that such discrepancies exist.

 

[swj99]

I'm sure with the amount of money Norton, Clarkson and the other guests earn, they won't be too upset about this. And anyway, who gives a fiddler's pluck what the BBC thinks anymore, discredited as it is ?

 

[tbtc]

As for the rest of the fuss, is this the politically correct liberal bias of the BBC I see here? Oh, wait, no... I've not found a Daily Mail article about this "censure" - they'll have twisted themselves into knots "its political correctness gone sane" etc etc

You've lost me

Sorry.

The point I was trying to make is that there's a general opinion (esp in the right wing sections of the media, which lets face it is most of the media) that the BBC is some wooly pinko conspiracy hellbent on forcing their politically correct agenda down our throat, staffed by liberally minded staff who all hate Britain (etc etc).

Then a story like this comes along, where the BBC aren't allowing an AIDS charity ribbon to be worn by a presenter, which goes against the "BBC = political correctness gone mad" agenda.

TBH, my Twitter feed is full of people on the left complaining about the BBC being right wing (e.g. ignoring protests about the NHS, ignoring deaths caused by benefit cuts, employing Jeremy Clarkson, censoring that Thatcher song) and full of people on the right complaining about the BBC being left wing (e.g. apparently hating the royal family, playing that song to glorify the death of Thatcher, sending thousands of staff to South Africa to cover the death of a Terrorist subversive - plus I think there was something about BBC staff not wearing poppies on a programme IN OCTOBER - gosh, they must hate Britain)... they must be doing something right if everyone hates them!

There's a more serious point to be made about the number of charities to support nowadays, the number of wristbands/ ribbons/ badges that people want you to wear (and "twibbons" on Twitter... don't get me started) - I can see why the BBC has tried to draw a line on this and only "support" the Poppy appeal (a national "institution") and BBC Charities (Children in Need, Comic Relief) - otherwise do we accept that anything goes and allow presenters to show a degree of bias? Tricky one.

 

[table38]

The point I was trying to make is that there's a general opinion (esp in the right wing sections of the media, which lets face it is most of the media) ...

Even that is debatable (and I don't expect everyone will agree!)

When you say "most of the media", presumably you mean newspapers, which people are free to choose to buy, or to not buy, according to their taste. If they don't like a particular newspaper, they can "vote with their feet" as it were and not buy it.

But if you include the BBC (for whom most people do not have a choice whether to pay or not), and you look at the dominance the BBC has over the way people get their news (from OFCOM's own figures), and the way the BBC can compete unfairly with other media outlets who do not get a guaranteed source of income, any "right wing bias" pales into insignificance.

The problem with the BBC is that, because of the liberal/left-wing culture at the BBC and the way it recruits it's staff through the job section of the Guardian, it genuinely thinks it is impartial.

Someone described this once as similar to the way a goldfish doesn't know it's wet - because it has no frame of reference outside it's own "bubble"

 

[tbtc]

Even that is debatable (and I don't expect everyone will agree!)

When you say "most of the media", presumably you mean newspapers, which people are free to choose to buy, or to not buy, according to their taste. If they don't like a particular newspaper, they can "vote with their feet" as it were and not buy it.

But if you include the BBC (for whom most people do not have a choice whether to pay or not), and you look at the dominance the BBC has over the way people get their news (from OFCOM's own figures), and the way the BBC can compete unfairly with other media outlets who do not get a guaranteed source of income, any "right wing bias" pales into insignificance.

The problem with the BBC is that, because of the liberal/left-wing culture at the BBC and the way it recruits it's staff through the job section of the Guardian, it genuinely thinks it is impartial.

Someone described this once as similar to the way a goldfish doesn't know it's wet - because it has no frame of reference outside it's own "bubble"

That would make sense if all BBC employees only ever worked for the BBC and had no other media career.

The fact that the Chairman of the BBC Trust is a former Tory cabinet member (and Tory representative on the European Commission), and he's never complained about the "liberal/left-wing culture" that you've identified suggests that maybe the bias isn't quite as bad as you think it is?

As I said previously on this thread, I see plenty of examples of those on the left complaining about the BBC's right wing bias and plenty of examples of those on the right complaining about the BBC's left wing bias. They can't win.

PS: Maybe the reason that the BBC has such "dominance" in where people get their news is because its a lot more trusted (than a newspaper with an agenda)? In this age of media plurality, where people can "vote with their feet" (as you suggest) then the fact that so many people do rely on the Beeb as a trusted source of news seems to say a lot.

 

[meridian2]

That would make sense if all BBC employees only ever worked for the BBC and had no other media career.

The fact that the Chairman of the BBC Trust is a former Tory cabinet member (and Tory representative on the European Commission), and he's never complained about the "liberal/left-wing culture" that you've identified suggests that maybe the bias isn't quite as bad as you think it is?

As I said previously on this thread, I see plenty of examples of those on the left complaining about the BBC's right wing bias and plenty of examples of those on the right complaining about the BBC's left wing bias. They can't win.

PS: Maybe the reason that the BBC has such "dominance" in where people get their news is because its a lot more trusted (than a newspaper with an agenda)? In this age of media plurality, where people can "vote with their feet" (as you suggest) then the fact that so many people do rely on the Beeb as a trusted source of news seems to say a lot.

It's not about 'winning', it's about being an 'impartial' and 'informed' source of information and current affairs, everything that the BBC is not. You said it yourself: those on the right complain that it's left and vice versa. How can it possibly be called anything but 'biased' if one side is determined to say it's left/right?

 

[table38]

That would make sense if all BBC employees only ever worked for the BBC and had no other media career.

From my experience of working with the BBC (as a supplier), I disagree; the whole culture at the BBC is somewhat divorced from reality. But as already noted, they are not exposed the same market forces as other media.

The fact that the Chairman of the BBC Trust is a former Tory cabinet member (and Tory representative on the European Commission), and he's never complained about the "liberal/left-wing culture" that you've identified suggests that maybe the bias isn't quite as bad as you think it is?

I actually think the Chairman of any organisation would only report "on message". Look what happened to Gerald Ratner!

As I said previously on this thread, I see plenty of examples of those on the left complaining about the BBC's right wing bias and plenty of examples of those on the right complaining about the BBC's left wing bias. They can't win.

But the BBC rely on this - "look how balanced we are", they say "because we have people complaining for and against". Not very objective, maybe those against have given up complaining; maybe there are a thousand complaints one way versus a few hundred the other way. I'm also not convined that Twitter is any sort of representative sample.

PS: Maybe the reason that the BBC has such "dominance" in where people get their news is because its a lot more trusted (than a newspaper with an agenda)? In this age of media plurality, where people can "vote with their feet" (as you suggest) then the fact that so many people do rely on the Beeb as a trusted source of news seems to say a lot.

Or maybe (as I suggested earlier) they are dominant because of "the unique way in which they are funded". If the BBC had to compete for its audience share on a level playing field, I suspect we would see a different picture.

 

[TheKnightWho]

It's not about 'winning', it's about being an 'impartial' and 'informed' source of information and current affairs, everything that the BBC is not. You said it yourself: those on the right complain that it's left and vice versa. How can it possibly be called anything but 'biased' if one side is determined to say it's left/right?

Well I'm curious as to what exactly you think its bias is if it manages to get the left and the right to think its biased against them.

I think the point being made is that people tend to think that outlets that don't always support them are biased against them, and the phenomenon of confirmation bias would support this, to be honest. People only remember the instances that support what they think, and dismiss/explain away/don't notice/forget the others; this is almost certainly what happens with the right and the left with regards to the Beeb, where people only think that the BBC has a bias against them when it reports on something that they don't think fits their world-view.

 

[meridian2]

Well I'm curious as to what exactly you think its bias is if it manages to get the left and the right to think its biased against them.

I think the point being made is that people tend to think that outlets that don't always support them are biased against them, and the phenomenon of confirmation bias would support this, to be honest. People only remember the instances that support what they think, and dismiss/explain away/don't notice/forget the others; this is almost certainly what happens with the right and the left with regards to the Beeb, where people only think that the BBC has a bias against them when it reports on something that they don't think fits their world-view.

Well that's only natural when you listen to an 'outlet' that you don't support you naturally think it's biased against you. The Beeb, on the other hand, runs stories which sometimes the left agrees with/right disagrees with and vice versa. That is not a reliable, much less impartial, source of news and current affairs. It's the same with the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph. It's only natural that you're going to find a slant on a story which you agree/disagree with but when the BBC do it deliberately, either in this instance or the QT show with Nick Griffin, it ceases to become a 'news anchor' and more like an MP at the despatch box of the Commons ranting about a leftist/rightist agenda.

 

[Daimler]

The problem with the BBC is that, because of the liberal/left-wing culture at the BBC and the way it recruits it's staff through the job section of the Guardian, it genuinely thinks it is impartial.

I'm curious as to how you draw the conclusion from the above link that the BBC displays a 'liberal/left-wing culture'. As I see it, the BBC takes 119,444 copies of overtly 'right-wing' newspapers (I've included the Express, the Mail, and the Telegraph in this calculation - many would argue the Sun, Times, and Financial Times could also be included), and 95,585 copies of 'liberal/left-wing papers (the Guardian and the Mirror - though equally some might argue the Independent could be included).

That doesn't seem to be much evidence of bias to me - though I'm not convinced this is the most useful of measures anyway.