BBC Newsnightmare: Opera chief brought in as new DG The BBC has brought in its one-time head of news to succeed George Entwistle as the Corporation's new director-general, after the previous incumbent lasted just 54 days in the job. Tony Hall, who is currently the boss of the Royal Opera House, has been hired for the £450,000 per year gig, the BBC Trust confirmed in a statement …
"you forgot his two months paypacket at around 60k so total for two months was £510k."
I think that you haven't put yourself in his shoes. Imagine you get promoted at work, in your large conglomerate, and get the top job. Obviously you've not been the public face of Bigcorp before, so that's all a bit new to you. There's an onging scandal rumbling on, driven by events that happened two decades earlier, and the decision to shelve a product (the sort of decision being made all the time in any such business).
Then, somewhere in the bowels of the large and complex business you work for, a junior employee fucks up, and a gasket blows, causing mucho damage. You're barely eight weeks into the job, and you are pressured to resign, before you've even left a buttock impression in the leather chair. Now, would you think, "Ooh yes, I'll resign without compensation, for something that I certainly am accountable for, even if I've not been truly responsible for, and haven't had the chance to address". I don't think you would. I think you'd be going (like I would) "Whine, whine, whine, it's so not fair!" and you'd want to get some form of compensation for being hounded out of an office you've not yet made your own.
Possibly he'll walk into another job, but he's not going to walk into anything as majestic as the DG role, and it is possible that he may never get another senior job because he is (for the most part) unfairly tainted.
My personal views are not terribly supportive of the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation, but Entwhistle walked into a shit storm, was not allowed the opportunity to address it, and that's his career mangled. I've worked with somebody who had something like an "Entwhistle" experience, and five years after the event they've still not worked, and probably will never work again in a normal salaried job.
If they didn't want to pay him off, then they should have required him to stay and made him sort it out.
One day perhaps we'll find this kind of establishment post occupied by a man or woman whose background is not a single sex private school, someone who has grown up somewhere closer to the real world than so many of these characters have experienced in their eary years. Hey but at least its not another Etonian appointment.
Why is a school's sexual orientation grounds for discrimination?
What is it about where school funding comes from (given neither state nor public schools are funded by the students) which disqualifies students from holding particular jobs many, many years after they have left?
Have we really relapsed into 70's-style class war?
He's the Chair of the trust and he 'wasn't around' for interviewing to the post of DG?
is it now compulsory at the BBC for everyone to explain how they are not responsible for the things they are paid to be responsible for?
He should be the next one out the door along with the rest of the trust. The arse-covering, whitewashing responsibility dodging management culture always devolves downwards and this lot are the top of the pile.
"Patten explained that he hadn't been available during the previous round of interviews that eventually landed Entwistle the job"
I actually didn't misread that - I read exactly what was written and it is not even ambiguous - the only possible meaning of the sentence is that Patten wasn't available.
Back to writing school for you Fiveash.
> the only possible meaning of the sentence is that Patten wasn't available.
Not so.
You're interpreting "he" as a reflexive. That is one possible meaning, or else it could refer to someone referred to in the previous sentence - namely "the peer", meaning Lord Hall.
> Back to writing school for you Fiveash
Back to reading school for you, Millar.
Vic.
Yes - so long as "Patten" hadn't been mentioned between "the peer" and "he". You should only use a pronoun to refer to a previous sentence or clause if there isn't a subject in the current sentence or clause which could be the target.
Back to grammar school for you Vic.
A Post Modern Aida for the Virtually Real Making, Mr Hall? With NEUKlearer Direction in SMARTR Applications with AIMaster Pilots in Prepared Programs and Planned Projects Prevented Piss Poor Performance.
Quite necessary for Prima Donna Satisfaction and Joy ....... XSSXXXXTC. Now that is a LOVE dDrug and SuperBug which aint got Enemies and therefore has Hosts of Anonymous Friends and Real Lovers/IMPerfect Angels.
A Proposal to Energise IntelAIgent Novelty Edutainment via Subliminal Broadbandcast Means and Memes to Present, with a whole new series of platforms for showing alternate realities, the Future in whatever Phorm is to be thought worthy of Virtual Realisation, is a rough first day in the office, Mr Hall. Sorry about that, but you understand. Que Sera, Sera
Registered Post XSSXXXX121122
I hope he does something about the appalling quality of the news feeds coming out of BBC news now. I tend to read the BBC on their iOS app, and there are so many missing words, misspelled words, truncated paragraphs etc. And it didn't used to be like that 6 months ago.
I'll take this opportunity to make my own comments about the awful state of journaism at the BBC.
No in-depth reporting, and when the 24 hour channel came in, I thought that's what it would do.
Very little quality news reporting from overseas - maybe that's down to the johnny foreigner attitudes that infest London and the southeast nowadays. Unless it's stories from the USA - then they get the full red carpet treatment, hour after hour, day after day.
Lots of people see bias in their reporting, political bias. Far be it from me to suggest they employ people on the basis of "who you know" - but if the hat fits ....
The BBC spends a fortune on celebrities and broadcasting that commercial channels do very well - entertainment, sports - and also a fortune on the "period drama" no doubt hugely beneficial to the luvvies who would not get employment anywhere else.
But what they were set up to do - inform, be a pillar of light and all that - they have forgotten about in recent years.
Root and branch overhaul, weed out the hangers on, slim down the management, get back to basics. And bring in some professionalism and honesty amongst their workers.
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