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BBC - at it again

Friday, 7th September 2007

When I go into a supermarket I always like to sneak something home with me - I hide it under my sweater. Why shouldn't I? Everyone does it where I come from.

Nonsense, of course, but it's exactly the same argument used to defend the latest piece of BBC manipulation of the truth to emerge:

The BBC has admitted that Alan Yentob, the corporation's creative director, has performed "noddy shots" on interviews that he did not personally conduct for his arts series Imagine.
In the first instance of a senior BBC executive being drawn into the TV trust issue, a senior corporation source admitted to MediaGuardian.co.uk that Mr Yentob often does not conduct all the interviews on Imagine - even though he appears nodding or reacting to them.
...[I]t is understood that scenes featuring Mr Yentob reacting to some of the more peripheral figures and experts featured in his programmes were edited in even though he was not actually present. Editing work on the programme later gave the impression that he was present.
...A senior BBC source admitted that Mr Yentob had engaged in so-called "noddy" shots for interviews he did not conduct but declined to name which instances.
The source robustly defended the practice, insisting that Yentob was unable to attend every interview that appears on his show because of his workload.
"Everybody does it - it is a universal technique," he said.

Now the BBC itself, one should make clear, hasn't reacted to this story, but one can reasonably assume that it defends the practice and agrees with this defence since the man exposed for faking his interviews is, after all, the BBC's Creative Director.

"Everybody does it" is simply a pathetic excuse.

It's not that it really matters that Mr Yentob was off somewhere else while the interviews he purported to have conducted were being filmed by an underling. It's that it seems all too typical of an organisation for which facts and the truth are sometimes an inconvenient obstacle to progamme makers.

On reflection, Mr Yentob's title of Creative Director is entirely appropriate.

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Joshua

September 7th, 2007 3:53pm

Things not to buy Sir Stephen for a wedding present: the two documentaries (1987 and 2004) Yentob made about Arthur Miller's life, a portrait of Neil Clark and his wife, a season ticket to Arsenal, a keffiyeh.

HJ

September 7th, 2007 5:54pm

When it comes to manipulation of the truth, the BBC are rank amateurs cmpared to Pollard.

Se his comments below about Christine Ohuruogu.

Lee Jakeman

September 8th, 2007 10:02am

HJ - I've read quite a few of your posts and have come to the conclusion that you're very self-opinionated and have a rather nasty streak. It comes across in little things like your use of "Pollard" instead of "Stephen" or "Mr. Pollard". Civility costs nothing.

JJ

September 8th, 2007 12:47pm

I always thought that the Blessed John Peel of happy memory (or his producer) used to re-record someone else's questions and splice them into the replies on some of his Home Truths interviews for Radio 4. Sometimes it just didn't sound right. Don't suppose we'll ever know, now. That said, JP was marvellous and is greatly missed.

HJ

September 8th, 2007 8:20pm

Leee Jakeman - using the surname is simply shorthand, in exactly the same way as the pundits on TV were calling Emile heskey just "Heskey" earlier.

However, (Mr) Pollard lacks civility when he accuses, without any evidence, a lady (Christine Ohuruogu) of being a cheat when she has expressly been cleared of any such thing by two independent legal tribunals.

You don't have to know much about (Mr) Pollard's career to know that civility has never been his strong point.

JohnH

September 9th, 2007 12:12pm

The quote from the original article that SP inserted above continues: "Everybody does it - it is a universal technique," he said. "The important point is to ask - does this change the meaning of what you are doing and the answer is no it does not." You could ask, "If it doesn't matter who conducts the interviews, why pay Yentob megabucks to do them?" I'd do them for half the price. In fact,I think it matters a great deal who conducts the interviews. How the interviewee relates to his/her interrogator will significantly colour the nature of the answers