JK Rowling Debate Broke BBC Rules After Author Was Accused Of Being “Nasty” Transphobe

[IwantToRetire]

In a ruling on Thursday, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said the radio show “did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards of impartiality.” The ECU considered the matter resolved, however, as the BBC and Davis had already publicly acknowledged the Rowling debate’s shortcomings

JK Rowling Debate Broke BBC Rules After Author Was Accused Of Being “Nasty” Transphobe (yahoo.com)

ie no talk about directing staff to not abuse their position to promote the trans agenda at the expense of women's rights

Right wing is the Conservative Party, who are currently the party of government. Right wing is also the democratic and republican parties in USA - there are no major left wing parties in the states. For the BBC to dismiss criticism because it is right wing says something worrying and telling about any pretence to political neutrality there.

The thing that struck me the most about the James Clayton car crash was the utter confidence he had to go and interview Elon Musk (a man with quite literally the biggest global platform to broadcast this interview in real time, so no hiding in the edit) utterly unprepared, assuming he could present his own poorly hidden agenda as a factual gotcha, and be unable to provide any evidence when pulled up on it.

James was an embarrassment to genuine journalism. Wearing his 'BBC' employee status like it will hide his mediocre talent or exempt him from professional standards.

The final absurdity was Clayton ending the interview early himself as he had no more questions for Musk! Who could not think of hundreds of questions to put to the worlds richest man, about Space X and going to Mars, about the future of Tesla and electric transport and renewables, his early investment in AI technologies that he's now concerned about, where social media goes next, his views on population growth, the exodus of Tech firms and business from San Francisco, so many possibilities .

Where was his journalistic curiosity? His appetite for a scoop? Given unprecedented access to one of the most famous men in the world right now and you walk away early?!

I think the Claytons astonishing confidence in the face of his own failure stems from the standard of BBC journalism now. Their own reporting on this interview has been presented in edits that ignore James' poor performance, and disregards the immediate critical reaction from thousands of commentators on Twitter, on other media platforms, or Musk himself.

But why does Clayton need to be embarrassed, or do better, when his employer seem to set the bar so low for him. And even when he failed to meet even that low bar they simply report something that suggests he did.

James Clayton: the poor man's Ben Hunte.

This is SO spot on.

And what is wrong with so much.

Thank you very much for that post - it is so clear and gets to the heart of it.

I do not understand the hold Davies has on the BBC.

He really is not fit for purpose.

His "hail fellow, well met!" style, the "let's all have a chat" is bloody awful. He has turned what used to be a great show into a knitting circle of like minded people.

James Clayton: the poor man's Ben Hunte

Love it

Brilliant.

All of it - so sopt on and so well expressed.

If you stop the license fee who will pay for the Promenade Concerts, the largest festival of classical music in the world? Influence the BBC to be factual rather than destroy it, please.

I stopped paying mine license fee last year. No regrets. And I used to have a really deep, patriotic affection for the BBC. But it's shit now. I can't even use the BBC news website because of the ridiculous number of spelling and punctuation errors; I switched to the sky news website instead, which makes the occasional one but nothing like the BBC error rate.

I don't think Musk is regarded by those who have interviewed him as 'hard work' as that colloquially means. It's hard work to get one over on him, so someone like James Clayton who was trying to own him and get one up on him couldn't do that. But by all accounts, people who interview Elon in good faith say he's actually quite charming, friendly, willing to be very open and honest about most subjects and self-depreciating about his bad decisions (as evidenced when Clayton smugly asked him if he only bought Twitter in order to avoid being sued, and he frankly answered yes, then laughed at himself).

Musk is just very, very smart and not willing to play along with the stupidness that is modern journalism. He's not trying to get one over on the interviewer but he's not willing to just let them adhere to set narratives and just quote press releases at each other. An interviewer needs to be aware that he can say something utterly unexpected and you have to be on your toes, ready for that. And that he will be immensely prepared for whatever you throw at him, so if you are planning to throw anything, you need be able to back up everything you say.

Musk is just very, very smart and not willing to play along with the stupidness that is modern journalism. He's not trying to get one over on the interviewer but he's not willing to just let them adhere to set narratives and just quote press releases at each other. An interviewer needs to be aware that he can say something utterly unexpected and you have to be on your toes, ready for that. And that he will be immensely prepared for whatever you throw at him, so if you are planning to throw anything, you need be able to back up everything you say.

Yes, exactly. It was the smug lack of preparation that was so unbelievable. Musk is obviously really bloody clever - why did he think he could get away with it?

Spot on. I heard a significant part of this interview live and it was woeful. It would unfairly diminish the competence of student journalists to describe it as a student interview, as I’m sure most would have made a better job of it. Musk was much more polite than he could have been. I commented on how poor it was to DH as we were listening & he mentioned the lack of notice. If this journalist was this poorly prepared he should have handed it to a more experienced colleague. His ego got in the way of a potentially great interview. Agree about the lack of curiosity too. Dismal.

There are plenty of potential other funding sources for that. It’s not necessarily a defence of the bbc funding model.

Lack of time is really not an excuse for a journalist. Seizing opportunities and being generally knowledgeable and prepared is basically the job.

As @Fluffymule says, a big part of the problem seemed to be the total lack of actual curiosity - there are loads of things you could ask Elon musk about. It would be really easy to produce a genuinely informative interview that many people would enjoy watching.

But more than that, the journalist seemed to take the adversarial attitude that his job was to hold musk to account and ‘win’ the interview. That is a really stupid approach to take without being really well prepared, especially when your ‘target’ is someone like musk.

It came across as total arrogance - like a foolish child who thinks he’s much cleverer than he is, and who simply has no grasp of what he might be able to achieve in the situation. The fact he thinks he did well is only an indication of how limited his understanding actually is.

I recently interviewed someone for a job who was really focused on promoting themselves. They were just so inexperienced and had such limited understanding of the industry that they hadn’t appreciated that the claims they were making were so laughably improbable. No, you didn’t devise a strategy for two enormous (global brand) clients and brief the CEO on it in your couple of weeks as an intern during the university summer holidays.

This interview reminds me of that. James Clayton seems to be so poor at his job that he probably does think that he did an amazing job and everyone should be immensely grateful to him. Ending the interview early is indicative of just how poorly he understood the situation he was in - and the opportunity he had.

This is such a great post and clearly unpicks the problem with so many poorly trained journalists that we're subjected to. Full of self importance while being empty vessels.

I haven't had a TV licence for years. Don't miss it at all. The Proms aren't really my bag.

Fair enough. I basically saw the ralk up on Breakfast that morning but had gone no deeper.

Thanks for the reminder about The Proms @Grammarnut. It's reminded me that it's time for the season to be announced, and that will be happening this Thursday.

Cannot bear Evan Davies. Actually stopped listening to it now and in the evening I listen to WATO.

James Clayton was shite. I actually think what he meant in the clip was - I've seen things on Twitter page that were framed against my viewpoint but I'm not allowed viewpoints at the BBC so I cant say due to impartiality. And then realised that just because he didnt like them meant he couldn't directly call them hateful (for example pro Brexit or pro Trans or tweets from Lee Anderson or Suella Braverman)

A better journalist would have then explained that it was probably fairer to say that TikTok was pushing narratives at users that oppose their own views which appears to be creating toxic debate. He could then have listed examples.

He couldn't say "I saw a KJK tweet and she's a hateful bitch." But I reckon that's what he meant.

@blort it was pretty obvious that’s what he meant. It was a how dare twitter impinge upon the purity of my moral universe in any way.

The bit where he said, "well actually, I don't use the for you feed anymore because it got so hateful.' Was so smug and self righteous, it really seemed like he thought that was an epic own, rather than further proof of his peevish agenda and lack of preparation.

And then Elon said, 'ok, so give me an example of what made you stop looking at it. '

If we only pay for things which are 'our bag' then we will be in great trouble e.g. no NHS, no defence forces, no free at point of access education, no maternity services, etc. The Proms are not particularly my bag either, though I listen/watch occasionally, but I can see that this festival is worthy of support by me and others, and I doubt a commercial broadcaster would pay for it. So I support the licence fee and would not commercialise the BBC in the UK.

man alive

how is that person employed as a journalist? what a plank

I've been reading the BBC articles abut twitter with increasing disbelief, this explains a lot

What on earth are you on about? Both James Clayton and Evan Davis are upper middle class white males coming from backgrounds of undeniable social privilege. No doubt you claim to be vehemently against identity politics, yet your silly remark is merely the other side of the same prejudice coin.

I honestly don't require a lecture. The BBC is rubbish and it was behind the Saville scandal and other egregious stuff and as this thread shows, is pathetically poor quality, woke, middle class and smug. I have zero interest in supporting it.