More like this
Jeremy Paxman drops a clanger at the BBC
What is with the C-word at the Beeb? After Naughtie, Paxman’s at it
Just what is going on at the BBC? There haven’t been this many slipped tongues at the corporation since they aired their controversial lesbian drama Tipping the Velvet back in 2002.
The latest broadcaster to provoke an outcry with his solecist shenanigans is Newsnight’s esteemed presenter Jeremy Paxman. Introducing a segment on government tax plans, ‘Paxo’ said: “Supposing, though, some of the people who ought to be paying taxes so the cunts, cuts aren't so bad aren't actually doing so.”
Paxman took the gaffe in his stride, merely raising an eyebrow and suppressing a smile before, in time-honoured television fashion, moving swiftly on.
But while the BBC braces itself for a Daily Mail diatribe, listeners are entitled to ask if they’re putting something in the tea at Broadcasting House.
Back in December, James Naughtie, the venerable presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, referred to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt as Jeremy Cunt, an understandable error in many respects, and one that was repeated later that same day by Andrew Marr on Radio 4’s Start the Week programme.
Just a fortnight later, it was the turn of Eric Cantona to have his credentials called into question. In an item about the former French footballer-turned-actor, sports presenter Olly Foster told BBC 24 News viewers: “Great to see Eric Cunt... Cantona.”
It’s not the first time Paxo has upset viewers with his salty language. During the BBC’s coverage of last year’s general election, he described the hung parliament as ‘bollocks’, for which his employers later apologised, and the Beeb was at it again this morning with a spokesman saying: "This was an unfortunate slip of the tongue and we apologise for any offence caused."
The Guardian has leapt to the defence of Paxman, blaming his blunder on the fact that the news item he was presenting concerned a tongue-twisting direct action group called UK Uncut - an excuse that many people, to take a leaf out of Paxman’s lexicon, will view as bollocks. ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
michael jose claims "we like Sky" channels and a soap whilst informing us he got rid of his TV over 10 years ago.....and I doubt he views online!
Jim Blake is shortly to join him, but that may be because he resents the digital switchover.
Both blame the BBC, but in the former's case it is just seems to be a Daily Mail style rant borne of ignorance: ex- presenter Robin Aitkin, whose name michael jose mis-spells and invokes to support his argument, has said that the scrapping of an institution like the BBC would be an act of cultural vandalism.
Well, as for the idea that the BBC are there to provide [Derek Hopgood]="relatively objective reportage and counter to the media manipulation", that is like putting a drunk in charge of the punch bowl. Some of the senior staff of the BBC, Peter Sissons and Robin Aiken to name but two of many over the years, have spoken out against BBC left wing bias and been vilified or ignored since for their pains. And to imagine that they produce comedies, drama, or news, or documentaries or ANYTHING, of good quality, and THAT be a good reason to have them, well...with GBP3.5 billion of the public money in licence tax fees, I could produce that much good output and have a fortune to spare. I got rid of my TV over 10 years ago. No licence tax for me!
I'll answer the comments above by simply stating that the present dependance on TV is excessive, and I for one shall be giving it up. It's become too powerful, and too too controlling. I don't bat for Murdoch, OR the BBC; to my mind, they are both feeding pap to a dependent and trusting populace for their own (and in the case of the BBC, the government's benefit.
"Why have the BBC?" writes my namesake, disregarding the great classic series, brilliant recent drama series like 'The Accused' and 'The Streets' which consistently hoover up awards at The BAFTAs and at international festivals; oh, and then there's the small question of fair news reporting, free from proprietorial influence.
[THAT WAS A PARTY POLITICAL BROADCAST ON BEHALF OF RUPERT MURDOCH AND THE NEWS CORPORATION]
"Why have the BBC?" is precisely what I have been asking myself for such a long time. The output is patchy, repeated, and dumbed down. Certainly not worth the cost. And the cost is not just the Pounds that the TV Licence Tax costs, its the cost in wasted time and lowered standards. As the delivery mechanism has got slicker and better, so the content has got worse, and the use of once-prohibited words has been eased into general usage, apparently to try to make poor productions "gritty and realistic". Its not working. The BBC is not working. I have an analogue TV, so I have little choice but admit I have receiver equipment and pay the tax. When they switch off analogue next year, I shall not purchase digital reception equipment, I shall go and do something more useful, like reading a book, or talking to my family, and certainly not exposing my home and family to crude attempts to engineer the British population into receptive sheep.
Why? So that we can have a relatively objective reportage and counter to the media manipulation of those who would keep us in the dark and feed us lies. Socialism of itself does not "rot brains and moral fibre", an excessive diet of trash TV is far more likely to! I only need to think of one justification for the BBC and the licence fee - Rupert Murdoch. That one person should have such power to make or break governments should be abhorrent to any person professing to love freedom and democracy. If you doubt that he agitates for the administrations of his choice, witness the propaganda peddled in the Times/Sun/Sky output, not to mention the rabid Fox and Newscorp excuses for journalism in the US. Newscorp information is NOT objective, it has an agenda, and the agenda is Murdoch's. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There MUST be a counterpoint to check and balance Newscorp - that is why the BBC and therefore licence fee are essential, for our freedom.
Let us be reasonable. Even those who work at the BBC are only human, mostly, anyway. The fact that they are socialists slowly rots their brains and moral fibre, but that is just a hazard of the profession. What all this begs is the question: "Why have the BBC?" And why do we have a TV licence tax anyway? We pay for the privilige to watch the TV, even if we do not watch the BBC because we like Sky Movies, Sky Sport, and Coronation Street? Why? C'mon...why?