This year, instead of the most-read articles of the year, the team have picked their favourites of the 1,500 or so we have published in 2024. They will appear in no particular order until New Year’s Eve. Why we’re so wonderful – the BBC’s love letter to itself – The Conservative Woman.
SOMETIMES you see things that make you laugh, others that make you gasp in disbelief. It’s not often the two collide, but we have just witnessed two events which have left even a cynic like me clutching my sides and simultaneously shaking my head in disbelief.
First out of the blocks was a promotional piece which has been running on BBC television for a couple of weeks. I have seen it a few times and it bears all the hallmarks associated with the BBC – smug, self-regarding, pompous and disingenuous.
Fronted by Clive Myrie and featuring well-known presenters such as Fiona Bruce and Orla Guerin, it imparts to the audience the extraordinary lengths to which BBC journalists go to obtain The Truth and fight the threat of disinformation.
While the 90-second puff piece is risible, it is the accompanying press release that encapsulates the hermetically sealed bubble that these people work in. For aficionados of left-wing cant, a hotly contested field, the BBC press office has excelled in smothering itself in ectoplasmic quantities of claptrap.
Here are a few morsels to illustrate just what a malign, self-centred organisation the state broadcaster is. First prize must go to Deborah Turner, whose portentous job title is Chief Executive Officer BBC News. Showing not a hint of self-awareness, she loftily informs us that: ‘At BBC News we are leading the global fight against disinformation. This film captures the lengths we go to in “The Pursuit of Truth” – from difficult and dangerous environments to deploying tools and technology that help us verify the facts.’
Bravo, Deborah, you must be referring to the 765 BBC staff who went to cover the Paris Olympics – more people than the UK could muster as competing athletes.
But why restrict yourself to one superior and self-satisfied bon mot when there are dozens of others that you can hose down your fans with. Enjoy if you will this snippet taken directly from their blurb.
‘The film speaks directly to those spreading disinformation and unfolds in three distinct sections. Opening with a portrayal of the chaos and confusion sown by disinformation, moving on to the efforts of BBC journalists navigating the struggles caused by this, finally concluding on a steely tone of defiance. “Disinformation, you think you’re winning”.
‘Shifting from images of AI deepfakes and footage of climate change and Covid-19 deniers to scenes from the Southport riots and speculation surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the film captures the widespread nature of the problem. “The more you try to drown out reality, the harder we’ll work to establish the facts”.’
If you weren’t convinced of the the BBC’s unyielding determination to combat misinformation via painstaking and dangerous work the whole nauseating video culminates in the following proclamation: ‘It is the pursuit of truth that gives us our calling.’
Maybe Fake or Fortune presenter Fiona Bruce’s £409,000 salary goes some way to compensating for her gruelling workload in her ‘pursuit of truth’ or possibly Mastermind host Clive Myrie’s paltry £315,000 helps in his quest to establish the facts and the exacting toll of his work.
Second item of the week, not surprisingly, relates to the US presidential election. While many may have watched the unfolding results with indifference, there were talking heads aplenty on all channels to prognosticate and predict what would happen in the event of Saint Kamala not sashaying off with the glittering prize.
If, like me, you woke up the following morning and switched on the TV, it was like the death of Diana all over again. All we heard was a succession of ill-informed boobies warning us, Cassandra-like, of what was in store. If these modern-day haruspices were to be believed, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had just galloped into the TV studio. Commentators vied with one another in forecasting the Armageddon that was about to befall humanity courtesy of a brash man with a David Dickinson tan and a dodgy comb-over.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the left was, to most grounded individuals, totally incomprehensible. It was a democratic election where one person clearly set out a better and more appealing stall.
But in Guardianland the result was a crushing and unexpected blow. It must have been rather like when an elephant dies and the herd gather round, heads bowed, trying to comprehend what has happened. The all-engulfing desolation and despondency reached stratospheric levels that could not be ameliorated simply by a cup of coffee, a doughnut and a good chinwag.
Unbelievably, it required the email intervention of Guardian editor Kath Viner to remind her staff that counselling was available to them after this ‘upsetting victory’.
Crikey, I wouldn’t like to be at their editorial conference after something really bad happened. Would their HR department be able to handle the stampede of journalists seeking solace and a lie-down?
Happily, I would imagine that for TCW readers last week’s election result put a spring in their step, and the antics of the BBC and Guardian a smile on their faces.