"Neutrals" view on Craig Whyte Documentary

http://www.newsnetscotland.com/inde...s-the-bbcs-getting-too-big-for-its-boots.html

"Threats of court action from Glasgow Rangers new owner and demands for apologies from the European Commission, the BBC it seems doesn’t have to look for its troubles these days.

The demands for an apology from the EC follow a quite unbelievable display of arrogance and indeed rudeness on the part of Jeremy Paxman and a studio guest (Peter Oborne) who both decided it would be good fun to lampoon and generally insult an EC representative on Newsnight.

The gentleman on the end of the gratuitous slights, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, was in a Brussels studio in order to give UK viewers a European viewpoint on the debt crisis currently engulfing the Eurozone.

“Mr Idiot” was the term adopted by Paxman and Oborne in order to address the European gentleman who sat through the proceedings with admirable restraint until he could take no more of the repeated insults and promptly walked out.

European Commissioner Olli Rehn has now written a letter to BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten, himself a former commissioner, demanding an “unqualified apology” for the disgraceful treatment of Mr Tardio.

It’s Paxo’s trademark apparently, being rude and dismissive to guests. However on this occasion it went beyond rudeness and has to be said verged on xenophobic.

Demanding apologies is one thing, the threat of litigation is quite another and that’s what the BBC’s northern outpost, BBC Scotland, is facing after someone decided to run a hatchet job on Sir David Murray’s Rangers replacement Craig Whyte.

The Ibrox club had already announced that it would no longer cooperate with the BBC prior to last Thursday’s documentary detailing the business history of the club’s new owner. Radio Scotland has an over reliance on football to fill its increasingly low brow schedules, so it will be interesting to see how the station will cope with losing fifty per cent of its required old firm soundbites

But what of the Rangers ‘documentary’?

The programme was heavily trailed under the guise of ‘news’ on various BBC Scotland TV and radio news programmes, it was clear that BBC Scotland felt that they had a big story.

As a result of this I, and probably many others not steeped in matters Old Firm, watched the broadcast. My thoughts after watching the documentary were that it amounted to no more than a hatchet job on Mr Whyte.

I’m still trying to work out exactly how some disgruntled ex-Rangers board members managed to persuade the publicly owned broadcaster to use scarce resources in order to smear the club’s new owner.

The clip of one ex-director uttering the phrase “no surrender” when describing his response to being asked to step down was bizarre and, it has to be said, did nothing for the image of either him or the old board.

But it was the subject matter that had me scratching my head; questionable business dealings. If the BBC really wanted to pursue questionable corporate practices and possible institutionalised corruption then surely the place to look would have been the local authority formerly headed by one Steven Purcell.

It isn’t as though Mr Whyte was a former cocaine user with a drink problem who fled the country after being visited by police in council chambers and who set up arms-length companies using public cash and staffed them with party colleagues paying them generous salaries.

The BBC could have investigated dear old Glasgow Council where contracts were awarded to Labour party donors and public funds were used in order to promote Labour and attack the SNP.

But no, BBC Scotland decided to spend public cash ‘investigating’ Craig Whyte for the sole reason that he has, what can best be described as, an up-and-down corporate C.V. and now controls one half of the Old Firm.

The broadcast came only weeks after the corporation was forced to issue a grovelling apology to Rangers after a quite disgraceful attempt to portray the club’s manager Ally McCoist as having a flippant attitude to sectarianism. One would have thought that a period of silent humility ought to have followed such a dangerously reckless manipulation of video.

But what is it about the BBC that leads it to believe that everything it does is beyond reproach, that smear campaigns and gratuitous insults are what we, the public, pay our licence fee for? We have tabloid newspapers and commercial TV stations to satisfy those societal cravings.

One answer lies in the fact that the BBC is a law unto itself. Complain about a broadcast and if you are fortunate enough to have the complaint acknowledged then more often than not you will receive a generic conveyor belt statement that patronisingly dismisses your concerns.

Approach Ofcom and they will politely inform you that the BBC is none of their business, and by extension none of yours. In short there is nobody that will listen – the BBC behaves with impunity.

And please don’t suggest that the Audience Council have any real inclination to hold the BBC to account. A body that believes Scottish traffic reports should be included when quantifying current affairs output deserves to be ignored.

Thus, the corporation doesn’t have to worry how many viewers it angers or alienates; funding – notwithstanding the freeze to the licence fee – is guaranteed. This unaccountability married to a guarantee of income is why the BBC is fast losing credibility amongst many viewers the length of the UK.

It’s worse in Scotland where we have a setup that is very clearly not equipped to deal with and reflect the rapidly changing Scottish political and cultural landscape. The SNP conference should have been a major political event for BBC Scotland, who instead provided an insulting tokenistic glimpse of the Inverness proceedings.

The BBC needs to be shaken up, lest the dissatisfaction manifests itself into something other than angry complaints. It needs a body with teeth, both in Scotland and the rest of the UK, to ensure that the arrogance that very clearly pervades the corporation doesn’t erode what’s left of its good name.

Until then Paxman will continue to ridicule and berate people from beyond England’s borders. Question Time host David Dimbleby will continue to treat ‘regional’ guests from those same areas with contempt and BBC Scotland will continue to act as a broadcast equivalent of the Daily Record and keep the Old Firm ‘troubles’ as prominent in the public consciousness as it can."

 

What is this ****e? What has Paxman, a man well known for his rudeness, arrogance and echinated character got to do with a documentary about Craig Whyte?

A documentary in which Craig Whyte was asked several times to take part in to give his side of the story but refused to do so. It reads to me like it's been written by an individual with a real bone to pick with the BBC and is using the Craig Whyte documentary and the behaviour of Jeremy Paxman as a way to vent his or her spleen.

 

By A "newsnet reporter"????

How exactly do you know this person is "Neutral"?

For all you know it could have been written by someone from Follow Follow or Rangers Media.

Fail

 

Oh deary me Ghapist, you always fail to see the bigger picture.

The BBC flew the documentary team all over the Northern hemisphere at license fee payers expense for what?

Mark Daly flew to Monaco to stand on a balcony that Craig Whyte stood on 20 years ago, he then flew to LA to speak to Alistair Johnstone which amounted to 120seconds of TV footage.

How did the show educate us?

We all knew Whytey had a few skeletons in his closet, who doesn't?

 

That article completely misrepresents the Paxman interview. While Peter Oborne was indeed a **** and was repeatedly rude to the EC guy, Paxman wasn't. He did refer to him once as 'Mr. Idiot in Brussels', but he did it in ironic form after Oborne had done it. He later told Oborne to cut it out.

 

unreal

 

Sure EDGE. You (or the author of the above screed) can't criticise the documentary on it's content so attack it on costs etc. It's a feeble argument and frankly, I expected better.

As I said, it comes across as nothing more than the bitter rantings of someone who has a clear dislike of the BBC and is using the two examples cited as a way of having a right good go at them.

 

Well, it's on an SNP biased site and the guy says he's not interested in football, but you're right, it was written by a guy on Follow Follow.

Regardless if it was or wasn't a neutral, the points still stand alone. The BBC needs reigned in

 

I thought that was obvious - to stitch up Rangers at the behest of the Celtic FC/Catholic Illuminati that controls all aspects of the media, and the scottish, european and world footballing hierarchy

 

Shhh...

Craig Whyte is a great bloke

Please let him strip rangers in peace

Stop telling the natives they are in trouble

They might eventually listen

 

The mad ramblings of some SNP loony

Do yourself a favour EDGE and read things properly before posting them on here. ****ing load of ****e.

 

Some of the comments left on Newsnet:

This is all about pique at Pacific Quay and nothing at all about the public interest. What multi millionaire has an absolutely clean sheet? The boards of Hearts & Celtic wouldn't stand public scrutiny for a minute. I await with interest a BBC Scotland expose of John Reid but won't be holding my breath.

----------------------------
I have heard that many of those involved in the production of the Rangers/Whyte 'documentary' are season ticket holders at rivals Celtic. If that is the case (and I welcome any proof either way) this raises the issue of individuals using public funds to carry out a hatchet job on a rival.



Oh dear lord

 

Exactly.

 

I read it and I was inclined to agree with his views on the Craig Whyte documentary, like I stated earlier.

The programme played no part in pursuing the public interest, it was a hatchet job, pyoor and simple.

 

How come everyone is out to get wee craigy anyway? I've never seen a witch hunt like this for any football chairman. not even romanov or abramovich. It's actually working in his favour kind of because the rangers fans are getting behind him (which is strange because he's not done a ****ing thing) because we see it as an attack on our club. I dont think he'd have many gers fans backing him if he wasnt being hunted the way he is. I wanted him out before all this carry on, well I never wanted him in in the first place but now I'm finding myself getting behind him <suityousir> and I would love nothing more than for him to beat this case and win the league.

 

Craig wHyte is a Papal Spy

 

That's called "Siege Mentality". When Neil Lennon called for some of that he was ridiculed.

 

Well, what does it have to do with Rangers? That our owner done a few dodgy deals 10 years ago when he was not associated with Rangers at any point.

Why not do a documentary on the ****s who tried to avoid paying taxes on the clubs behalf which now threatens the existence of the club? You know, the same fanny's who have frozen £3m of the clubs money.

The same fanny who says "I tried to get David Murray to stop the sale, but he said it was too late, and then I spoke with Lloyds and they said that they were going to cut off Rangers credit if the sale never went through"

The simple truth of the matter is that we are in a better position now than we were under Murray, and only time will tell if we avoid the HMRC bill and avoid Administration.

 

If rangers go bust....it still works out on Cardinal Whytes favour....