Thread by @fascinatorfun

Channel 4 News boss says media have right to call politicians 'liars' - BBC News

Not suggest that a suggestion is “strange” or even “wrong”, but when it is known by the teller to be wrong or fantastical call them lies.

Brilliant. bbc.com/news/entertain…

The whole written text of this excoriating and refreshing speech is here

docs.google.com/document/d/1Nl…

Not just politicians get it in the ear.

Celebrating being the first OLD woman to be invited as a McTaggart Speaker she casts an eye down the list of previous speakers.

Kevin Spacey. Oooops.

THREE Murdochs. James Murdoch gets it in the ear too.

3/. “Elsewhere on the list, I spotted 1 name among my predecessors who has not yet had the comeuppance he deserves for his assaults on women.
That’s one of the things about being an old lady, you gather a lot of information over the years.

4/. ”To men who have behaved badly in the past, I say this: you know who you are. And so do I.”

.....”A quick tip for men. Don’t take your trousers off unless specifically invited to do so.

6/. searching for alternative ways of seeing the world and for answers to major issues like climate change and the viability of our current financial systems.
A great Tedtalk gets millions of views. We have to stop being afraid of serious analysis authored by big brainy people.

7/. “My vision of empowered and daring producers and commissioning editors who want to shape society for the better doesn’t work if all those empowered people are just a bunch of posh boys.”

Reflection on how unrepresentative of BME & women the make up of TV media really is.

8/ At Granada, I was the union equality officer when ACTT asked us to do a survey of the number of black people working there.
I didn’t need to do a survey, I personally knew all five black people– out of a workforce of around 1,600.

9/. “When I reported this back to the joint union committee, one of the ‘brothers’ said, ‘That’s five too many.’
And another chipped in, a la Trump, that they should all go back home.”

10/. “Look at Dominic Cummings and Seumas Milne, the Svengalis of our two main parties. One went to Durham School and Exeter College, Oxford, the other to Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. That’s what counts as diversity in British politics.”

11/. Don’t believe politicians when they say that the public doesn’t trust the so-called mainstream media in the UK. They trust TV. Remember, terrestrial television has huge levels of trust: 71 %

It’s politicians who are not trusted – they have a trust rate of 19%

12/. “And news on the internet – the medium politicians are increasingly using to bypass us – has, according recent Reuters Institute figures, a trust level of only 22 percent with a mere 10 percent for news on social.

13/. “Our investigations and those of other news organisations have also exposed the ways in which news on social platforms is used by those outside the UK to attempt to influence voting.
It has never been more essential that politicians should use the most trusted medium.”

14/. “In the past, our politicians accepted that they had to be held accountable on television.
But in recent years, there has been a dramatic fall in politicians holding themselves up to proper scrutiny on TV. “

15/. “in recent months and even weeks, that decline has, in my view, become critical for our democracy.

We have a new Prime Minister who hasn’t held one major press conference or given one major television interview since he came to power.”

16/. Where are they all?

She reviews past scrutiny comparing it to the present

“What are they going to do then? I genuinely fear that in the next election campaign there will be too little proper democratic debate and scrutiny to enable voters to make informed decisions”

18/. Robbie Gibbs gets it in the neck too, hurrah!

“When we were trying to get that interview, Robbie Gibb, May’s press supremo, said to us, ‘What’s in it for us?’ As if interviews were purely for the benefit of politicians and not the public.”

19/. May, Corbyn and Johnson’s failures to expose themselves to in depth scrutiny are examined

20/. “The leader of the opposition is rarely to be heard in any significant television interview. It’s not so much, ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ as No Jeremy Corbyn.
The other day John McDonnell said he was going to put Jeremy Corbyn in a taxi and send him off to see the Queen.”

21/. That befuddled me as I’ve been able to get in taxis by myself since I was about twelve.

22/. “ I had the wild idea of sending the queen – a fellow old lady after all - a camera so that if she was lucky enough to meet Mr Corbyn she could ask him some questions on behalf of the British people. Because few of us get to do that.”

23/. “Jeremy Corbyn gave the alternative MacTaggart last year and some of you may remember that he said, ‘At their best, journalists challenge accountable power.‘
Yes, Jeremy but we need the chance to question accountable power.”

24/. “He also said that, ‘fearless journalists and those who support them and their work are some of the heroes of our time.’
Go on Jeremy, be a hero, come on [C4) go on the Today programme or Newsnight. You can do it.”

25/. “You can even get in a taxi by yourself and do it. It’s easy. You just hail them on the street and they stop.”

26/. ”Corbyn did do an interview on Channel Four News at the Labour Party Conference in 2017 but then didn’t do another until the same time in 2018. And he hasn’t done one since. So annual appearances. What does he think he is? My birthday?”

27/. “Of course, Dominic Cummings, allegedly the most important political figure in this country at present, has never done a television interview as far as I know.

28/. “And indeed has such respect for our democratic system that he was held to be in contempt of it when he refused to appear in front of the parliamentary committee investigating fake news”

29/ “Boris Johnson has been proclaimed by Downing Street as the first social media PM.

On taking office, he recorded a jolly statement – so much more fun than being grilled by Emily Maitlis or Jon Snow. It reminded me of something and at first I couldn’t think what it was.”

30/ “And then it came to me. This great flagbearer for democracy Vladimir Putin who also likes to talk directly to the nation. “

She reminds us of how he is utilising propaganda techniques to avoid proper scrutiny.

31/. “his Facebook Live Q&As. We were told it was ‘unpasteurised and unmediated.’ Of course, it was also unregulated and therefore under no duty to be duly impartial. We did not show that propaganda exercise. And we should not show this propaganda as a matter of course. “

32/. “What would Margaret Thatcher have thought of these two mighty leaders who avoid the regular grillings she accepted?

I would never have thought I would say these words: I believe that Mrs Thatcher would agree with me; Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are cowards.”

33/. “She had a word for men like them – ‘frit’.

If they really believe in the policies they promote, they should come onto television to explain them, to allow them to be scrutinised and to justify them. “

34/.”And just this weekend we read that these cowardy-cats in the Tory party may stop junior ministers from going onto the Today programme. I have previously described listening to Today as like accidentally walking into a knitting shop in Bournemouth.”

👏👏👏

35/. “But even I accept that millions listen to it and they have a right to hear from their political leaders on it. ...

Where did Boris Johnson get his great idea about not having to bother with people like us?

Yes, it’s Mr Chlorinated Chicken himself, Donald Trump. “

36/. Recently, he repeated a claim that his father was a German, born in a lovely little village. It’s an easy mistake to make isn’t it? I used to find myself saying to my own father of a morning....

37/. , ‘Guten Morgen PAPI Wie geht’s DIE (dier).’ He’d look confused. He came from Craigellachie.

It’s unfortunate that Trump’s father ISN’T German because it means that if his great new idea of people being ‘sent back’ catches on, my country, Scotland, would get Donald Trump

38/
“I’m not feeling Nicola Sturgeon would be pleased. Trump’s mother came from the Outer Hebrides. I’ve got bad news for you Donald, I asked around on your behalf during my recent Hebridean journey. I couldn’t find anybody who wanted you.”

39/ “Time for a fish! In honour of Scotland, I’ve brought along a herring to rival the kipper Boris Johnson produced in the leadership election. He said that Brussels bureaucrats had demanded that each kipper had to be accompanied by a plastic ice pillow. That was simply untrue”

40/. She itemises Johnson’s lies.

The reflects on journalist unwilling to use that term.

41/ “Gove! He has launched a rapid rebuttal unit to give instant responses to ‘media myths & half-truths’ to ensure that we the people ‘are not being alarmed by scare stories or falsehoods’.

Now I don’t like to be a snitch, but there’s someone Mr Gove should keep an eye on.

42/. “Yes, the UK’s most famous recipient of EU farming subsidies, Dominic Cummings. Let’s remind ourselves of just a few Vote Leave messages.

43/. “We showed 1,700 people six stories and asked them to judge which were true and which false.

Only 4% of people got all the answers right. And why should they? They are not in a position to research the truth of stories. That’s what journalists are there for.”

FASCINATING,

44/. She ends with a poem she wrote

My TV dream

Magic!

@Darrylxxx has provided a link to the live speech. Thank you!

I still like it in writing in tweets when it is this good. Easier to find the Bon mots!