What is going on at the BBC right now?

[LookItsMeAgain]

What with the news breaking today ( 10/03/23) that Lineker is to step back from presenting Match of the Day and now Ian Wright is also not going to appear on the show in solidarity. They also have said that they will not air a David Attenborough (what the hell did he do/say that pushed their buttons) episode due to fears of a right-wing backlash. On top of that, Fiona Bruce has said that Stanley Johnson 'only' broke his wife's nose once (I mean just how many times is too many, I ask ye).

What the hell is going on at the BBC right now????

Sources:
David Attenborough being cancelled
Gary Lineker stepping back from MotD
Ian Wright standing by Gary
Fiona Bruce story

Just wondering if anyone can make sense of what is going on in the BBC at the moment.

Gary Lineker is a pain in the neck. He should not be using his high profile in order to promote his political views. So full of himself and totalky unrepentant i'm glad he is gone. Hope he dodoesn't ome back. He has been on the gravy train for far too long.

Absolutely. I hope that others will follow suit.

Good for Gary Lineker and Ian Wright. I dont watch them at all but admire their stance.

The ‘gravy train’....haha. Talk about hypocritical.

Not Sharpe or Boris then....

news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-bbc-chair-richard-sharp-made-significant-errors-of-judgement-over-800-000-loan-12808390

Why? Because you don’t agree with him?

I'm not a TV watcher (another one) but when I read the thread title, and not knowing why GL and DA etc. have backed off, I thought they said that transwomen are men.

I absolutely agree that news and current affairs presenters should be impartial. I couldn't care less if "personalities" like Lineker have political opinions. It's different.

The BBC seems to have lost its dictionary.

"Impartial" doesn't mean "Agreeing with everything the Government says and does".

It is turning into Fox News really.

He's not been on any "gravy train", ever. He's a hard working, informed and skilful professional sports presenter after a successful career as a top -class footballer.

I don't agree with him either

Nothing like Nazi Germany, insulting to Jewish people

It's easy to have these opinions when you are very wealthy and you are not affected

He can say whatever he wants to.

What he said was absolutely not insulting.

Go home, BBC.
You're drunk.

You weren’t hearing both sides of the story before. The BBC has been biased for years, you all just didn’t mind when it was biased your way. Standard. Cancel Culture comes for all positions in the end, you only have to wait.

This type of thing has been happening a while, especially when you look at shows that have been cancelled. Such as The Mash Report and Mock the Week.

I said at the time it was only a matter of time before they start changing the rules about what people who freelance for the BBC can say.

Its not about being impartial, its about not agreeing with the government.

What has happened is that the BBC has finally started to take impartiality seriously.
The result of the Brexit referendum, and the deep social & cultural divides between London & England outside the M25 which it exposed, stunned the broadcaster. It simply didn’t see Brexit coming, and didn’t understand it. Brexit forced the BBC to question & challenge its default metropolitan liberal mindset in ways it had never done before.
The Tory government spotted this and decided to apply pressure on the BBC to get more balanced coverage of the views of its voters on sensitive, divisive issues such as immigration.
All governments do likewise, of course. Remember the Labour government’s outrage at the BBC’s coverage of Iraq?

Remind us how many times was Farage on QT before (and since) Brexit ?

Exactly…everyone else very busy tomorrow!

Indeed. Shame he never used all those skills, expertise and high profile to speak out on issues such as men invading women’s sports isn’t it? After all, who would know better? Gary, like most multi millionaire celebrities needs “a cause” to cling to - see also Leonardo DiCaprio and climate change - so that people don’t just dismiss him for the wealthy, out of touch, privileged man that he is - see also Prince Harry 😁

They broadcast thousands of personalities a year. Only political journalists are required to be impartial by contract. Anything else would be unreasonable. Lord Sugar has never been punished for openly telling people to vote Conservative.

So, Gary hasn't done anything wrong, and they are wrong to attempt to censor him.

Gary Lineker is not a political reporter or commentator. He has every right to speak out about issues that are important to him.

I hope the BBC will be unable to find anyone to fill his MOTD slot tomorrow.

As for David Attenborough's programme being cancelled - what the actual f*ck!!

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves - I think that “should” be the case but when you get to Lineker’s status people do tend to think that he represents the BBC, not just himself.

“Impartiality” is an incredibly difficult line to walk as it means different things to different people. For some it means never expressing an opinion. For others it means you can be very partial one way one week, but you have to counter that by being very partial the other way the following week. Others will be outraged if you do that!

someone referenced Fox News as a comparison which is so absurd as to be almost obscene as a comparison.

The US has insanely partisan tv, but a relatively restrained print press.

The UK has insanely partisan newspapers but restrained tv.

The BBC is a key reason why our tv is so restrained compared to the US - it sets a standard that others here have to live up to.

The difference with the US is night and day and personally I hope that that never changes. We live in horribly polarised times - there are organisations that would love our tv to go the way of the US, and they see the BBC as an irritating barrier preventing that from happening - but one which is vulnerable to attack.

long may that barrier remain in place!

Totally support lineker. Hopefully nobody will do MOTD now. I was initially a bit taken aback when I heard what he had said but have read plenty of factual Twitter threads basically showing it to be true.

shocked by the Fiona Bruce comment

and not airing DA’s last episode is awful - that said with attention now drawn to it more people might actually watch on iplayer q

It's a complete shitshow, the appointment of their chairman being the start.

At least some of their presenters have morals.