BBC Director General - George Entwistle -RESIGNS

Just a further note, Ken McQuarrie's report on the McAlpine fiasco is due out tomorrow, not today as initially announced. Could we see another wave of resignations?

With all that's going on, will the Pollard review be pushed back?

BTW, is this George Entwistle's Twitter? https://twitter.com/EntwistleGeorge. If it is no wonder he didn't see the tweets when he logged in, he only follows a handful of people.

I've just listened to the BBC Radio 4 interview with George Entwistle.

"Clicky" (Go to 01:32:00)

He was indeed ravaged by John Humphrys at times, but also stood his ground when faced with other allegations of incompetence.

However much I can understand his willingness not to micro-manage a large organisation, my feelings must sway towards questioning why he wasn't aware of the seriousness of the Newsnight programme before transmission.

Even I knew that something 'big' was going to happen that night: and I don't have twitter. The BBC DG has a flurry of flunkies to keep him abreast of current events affecting his position, so if they failed in that task then they also need to go.

Tossing the Captain of a ship overboard isn't the solution if the lower decks are in a state of disarray, panic and confusion. I admire his 'honourable' decision to go: but wonder who is now going to sort out the immediate mess, otherwise it will look as though he's simply running away from a bad situation.

Perhaps it would've been better for Entwistle to stay to see though the investigative process he started (albeit without the DG responsibility) and then resign when a proper successor was found for the job.

Some tit-for-tat going on here between various personnel on Twitter...

https://twitter.com/TimGattITV
https://twitter.com/lucymanning/stat...31830330191873
https://twitter.com/lucymanning/stat...46194928021504

Tim Gatt (ITV) - Seriously, BBC. You can't keep letting your bosses do interviews with the BBC only. Why cancel the Sky interview?
Phil Taylor - Can u list the interviews done by ITV bosses since the company named 4 politicians as paedophiles without evidence? Missed them.
Tim Gatt (ITV) - have a look at Lucy Manning's tweet yesterday.
Phil Taylor - first she tweeted ITV managers refusing interviews, then corrected her tweet to say they were considering. So which is it?
Tim Gatt (ITV) - no. She has renewed bid. Still being considered - according to last update I saw. But I haven't been in work so don't know
Phil Taylor - right. So ITV journalists are attacking BBC boss for only doing 1 interview. No criticism of own bosses for doing zero. Ok fine.

Says it all really. Where's the ITV journalist and boss coming out apologising for Philip Schofield waving a list of names in front of Cameron on This Morning?

Edit: the tweets have now mysteriously disappeared.

I presumed at the time that it was a journalist's mobile phone going off.

The Sky situation was rather odd. Throughout yesterday the BBC was refusing to let anyone speak to Sky News, a fact that Sky did point out on air, and then this morning Lord Patten was going to speak to Sky and then it was cancelled and then fifteen minutes later he was interviewed.

All rather chaotic and rather shambolic. A good point was made Stuart above, Entwistle was forced to resign because he didn't know about the Newsnight story. Are/have the people who failed to notify him of it being sacked as well? Because surely he has a team around him that should know if something controversial is going to go on air.

There was a V sign, a 'finger' a 'thumbs up' and a 'thumbs down' at random intervals. Not a coutdown, seemed more like someone twatting around to me.



Yes, that would make perfect sense. In view of current events perhaps they should install a facilities wallbox (aka Collage Green) outside NBH, it would seem it might be set to get rather a lot of use !

Could the thumbs up and down be responses to talkback?

There seems to be quite a few nerves behind the scenes at the News channel (or at least that's how it looks) today when covering the Entwistle story. On a couple of occasions when Simon has crossed back to the studio, Maxine pops up for a second, only for the shot to go back to Simon at NBH.

The 5pm TOTH didn't fair too well either, with the above happening and the static overhead shot over NBH getting stuck on our screens while Simon was talking out of the titles (unless it was supposed to be like that?).

You'd think they'd want to get it right though, in the current climate - and everyone peering down upon the BBC?

Yes quite possibly, and the V sign a response to an outragous request. The point is, why is it considered acceptable to have rough 'set up' pictures broadcast. I don't understand it. Some people on here get very upset when the wrong font is used on a caption, yet are equally oblivious to random crash zooms and panning deliberately making it to air !!

Two reasons: One - lack of information from the site on when the action is going to start. Especially with pooled news conferences where the person involved could just walk out at any second and start speaking and you have nobody on site able to pester their press contact to give you a few seconds warning.

Two - a producer thinks the unfinished pictures somehow fit the story. Good for giving a sense of an unorganised chaotic organisation who don't know how to call a proper press release.

In this case I would imagine a combination of both no Sky personnel on site, and Sky wanting the BBC to look like they don't know what they're doing.



Probably mostly because the same people want more of the unfinished pictures broadcast.

Well, a disorganised press conference is one thing, and there's nothing wrong in showing that, but disorganised coverage of a disorganised conference is not good form (IMHO).

In any case, it wasn't a conference anyway, it was a statement with no Q&A, so the Beeb should have just sat the two of them in a studio, and feed the output to the 'press pool'. After all the Beeb's stock in trade is supposed to be the production of professional and polished broadcast material !

On a slightly different note I couldn't help noticing this article which has recently been added to BBC News site...
Newsnight: Who reported to whom? : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20287691
...I can't help wondering whether it's in part also a subtle dig about the layers of management.