BBC? Bemused By Cockup...
Over on Thumping The Tub our friend Michael runs regular polls on various topical events. His current open musings ask what we think of the BBC - something I briefly touch on in this ancient post. And the reason I mention that?Well, it seems that in its efforts to reach out to the common man the BBC has adopted the unusual approach of asking ordinary folk for expert opinions. For example, in debating the pros and cons of the Apple .v. Apple case BBC 24 opted to seek out the views of... a cabbie. Well, I suppose anyone who has travelled in a London cab before will know that the drivers aren't short of an opinion or two...
In this case, however, it was an almighty cock up. The intended interviewee was an expert named Guy Kewney. The bloke brought out on international TV? The cabbie who had come to pick him up after the interview whose name just so happens to also be Guy. Taxi for Auntie Beeb...
But at least the BBC are having a sense of humour about it - you can read the story on their own site, which will also let you watch the baffled driver gamely attempt to answer the questions posed to him...
Cheers m'dears!
Update: It appears that early reports that the Guy (ahem) was a cabbie were incorrect. He was, in fact, at the BBC for a job interview and had assumed that this was all part of the interview process, not realising he was live on air!
Labels: Other bloggers, Strange news, Television
posted by Binty McShae @ 11:19 am
18 Comments:
Whatever you say about the BBC, it's better than most of the networks over here.
and nice to see you back in the present.
Guy may have lost the first round but he sure seems to be winning all the rest.
Wow, wouldn't that just make you hope you used Dial and brushed your teeth, never know WHAT those big companies might pull~ ;-D
Back from your time travels then Binty?
What grabs me most is the way that the BBC use this cock-up as an excuse to be f-ing lazy. Instead of bothering to go collect some news they make a big thing out of it and, get this, re-interview him to ask him about his experience!
Now, call me post-modern, but so far as I can see that is taking the self-referentially-indulgent licence-fee-wasting piss.
grrrr
we just ran this story tonight as a kicker.. the look on Guy's face as she asked him.. and the realisation dawned.
priceless.
and about fucking time you wrote something new. i've read all this old drivel.
now.. speak scottish to me. i need to rub one out.
MacBean, it doesn't take much to be better than Fux News or CuNNt. Did I tell you I once applied for a job with Al Jazeerah? That would have been interesting...
Justin, 15 minutes and all that...
Red, if it had been me you can guarrantee I would have forgotten to trim my nasal hair or something!
Dr Mc, they probably think it makes them look even more charming and trustworthy if they are able to take the piss out of themselves...
Sarah, this isn't the first time... I think you get your kicker stories form me. I want commission! And I'm sorry, I don't have an eraser for you to borrow. Although by the look of your shrunken blog you don't need one anyway...
Why, thank you! It's a little fatter than I'd like it to be, and a bit hairier too, but it's comfortable to sit on!
I heard the story yesterday on NPR. They played the audio of the remarkably resourceful Congolese lad responding in serviceable genericisms to the two or three questions posed by the BBC interviewee.
I think he deserves a lot of credit for not putting the BBC on the spot right then.
By the time we got the story, it already included the fact that the fellow was a job applicant.
Binty McShae at Al Jazeerah? That takes terror to a new level!
could be worse.. could be flat, like mine.
it's a reasonably unattractive ass.
good thing i've the personality and intellect to out match any physical flaws that i have. we all lose it when we're old anyway.
Hey Binty! Just swinging by!
happened in the tragedy of 1977.. that's old, for an ass.
hello again!
new labour kneecapped the BBC at the time of hutton and all that.
i don't think they were great before that either but an interesting comment came out the newsrroom att that time which was something along the lines of...
"investigative reporting at the BBC is not dead but investigative reporting into the government is dead"
since then their reporting (or lack of it) in iraq, specifically fallujah, Depleted uranium weapons and private military contractors has been an absolute disgrace
From my fourth ever post....
"...if I wanted news I always took to Auntie Beeb.... okay, still not completely independent and influence free, but at least you got the feeling that they tried - or at least you did until Blair's spin machine castrated them after the David Kelly suicide..."
That was the moment any vaguely remote idea of a 'free' media died in the UK. We should fucking mourn it...
Oh, and nice to see you back Tubbie!
Thank you Hobbs, you're a gentleman.
....unless that was a dig at me not having posted anything new in a couple of days?
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