However valid, it's wearying that there are resignations over allegations of left-wing bias when so many of us despair every time BBC News drops everything to livestream a speech by Nigel Farage. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

Statement by Tim Davie:

I can't imagine a job i'd like to do less. Managing an organisation held to a ludicrous standard by roaring idiots on a daily basis, while the main mediums it uses are all in decline and it's starved of resources.

Just to reiterate my view, having studied the history of the BBC for over a quarter of a century - as well as having worked there for several years as a journalist: Robbie Gibb should have absolutely no role whatsoever in the governance of the Corporation.

Tim Davie expected to resign as BBC DG. The person who SHOULD go is Robbie Gibb. His presence is a poison in the bloodstream of the national broadcaster.

‘…. the worst pollution event I have ever seen.’

Just to reiterate my view, having studied the history of the BBC for over a quarter of a century - as well as having worked there for several years as a journalist: Robbie Gibb should have absolutely no role whatsoever in the governance of the Corporation.

Not enough attention is being paid to the effective closure of the bulk of one of the 2 or 3 most important public archives for modern British history. A terrible own goal for the BBC as a public-service agency.

‘Who, bluntly, would you trust more to be impartial on the Middle East—Robbie Gibb, Michael Prescott or Lyse Doucet?’

BBC really burying the lede there

Still recruiting PhD students for our Media Studies Department! Please see link below for more info @joshshepperd.bsky.social @stevenfrost.bsky.social @cumediastudies.bsky.social

Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!

Turns out he was allergic to tacky decor. (Photo by @andyharnik /@GettyImages)

The BBC’s continued use of X is indefensible

🎧: On Media Confidential, @arusbridger.bsky.social and the FT’s @janinegibson.ft.com discuss the media response to the train stabbing in Huntingdon and the Telegraph’s attacks on the BBC.

Horrific, stupid news from @uniofnottingham.bsky.social — they are closing their music department. Apparently they all found out suddently in a meeting yesterday. It is one of the best music departments in the country — solidarity with my colleagues and their students www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The BBC’s continued use of X is indefensible

Humanities where the cool jobs at

'Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible' The rare appearance of a NO STARS review - this time, of 'All's Fair'

A rail worker credited with saving multiple lives during a mass stabbing on a train has been named as Samir Zitouni. The 48-year-old's actions on the Doncaster to London King's Cross service on Saturday evening were described as "nothing short of heroic

How lovely would it be if just one reporter asked about manifesto pledges related to spending on public services instead of the ‘threat’ of tax rises?

I think its now got to be the case that respectable people should just refuse to appear on panels with Goodwin, even if that means cancelling on the BBC at short notice.

Update: AI is still flawed.

We're now at "black people aren't British". Open sewer racism. Look forward to seeing him on QT again soon.

Extract from more recent Goodwin post. He really should never be allowed on the BBC - or any other reputable broadcaster - again.

Sunday walk, South Downs

Great investigation of the Nazis, racists and criminals mobilising the flag-on-lamp-posts movement. This is the kind of journalism that the national media could and should have conducted: manchestermill.co.uk/the-men-who-...

Farage’s claim that flag mania was down to ordinary citizens couldn’t be further from the truth. Brilliant expose via @manchestermill.bsky.social. manchestermill.co.uk/the-men-who-...

On this day in 1936: The start of the BBC’s regular TV service from Alexandra Palace. See programme archive, oral history interviews - and some amazing images from those pioneering days:

How can we use SOUND to enhance story-telling? A date for your diary if you're anywhere near the delightful @gladlib.bsky.social on Saturday 17th January and you're interested in writing for either books or radio. To kick off my time as writer-in-residence, I'm doing a day-long 'masterclass':

The Guardian not pulling its punches: '... leak loads of fat and slurry, leaving dark brown, wrinkled, rubbery sticks. Intensely artificial flavour with an aftertaste that haunted me. Zero points for texture, with an unappetising, bitty mouthfeel of separate rubbery particles ... repulsive.'

How can we use SOUND to enhance story-telling? A date for your diary if you're anywhere near the delightful @gladlib.bsky.social on Saturday 17th January and you're interested in writing for either books or radio. To kick off my time as writer-in-residence, I'm doing a day-long 'masterclass':

Some encouraging news on #LongCovid

⚫ L’acteur français Tchéky Karyo, vu dans « L’Ours » ou encore « Nikita », est mort à l’âge de 72 ans ➡️ https://l.leparisien.fr/2EE1

Why the BBC WAC should remain bigger on the inside. An absolutely boffo column from Doctor Who mensch @tobyhadoke.bsky.social about the very silly decision by the BBC to cut off independent and exploratory research at its Written Archives Centre. cstonline.net/defending-th...

Some background to Peter Watkin's extraordinary 'The War Game' ... ... as revealed through oral history interviews with senior BBC figures - including Huw Wheldon and Hugh Carleton Greene - as well as Tony Benn. Part of the @sussex.ac.uk research project 'Connected Histories of the BBC'

Peter Watkins obituary

Yes, because Badenoch’s was a criminal offence carrying a custodial sentence, whereas Reeves’ was not.

Wow - those are quite phenomenal headlines given the details of the story. Ahh look, he’s just a ‘nerdy’ guy. No harm done. You need to scroll down to paragraph 13 of the Sky piece to find the full story! 🧵 1/9

For 61 years the #BBCWorldService has been broadcasting the latest in science via its weekly Science in Action programme. That dies in the next half hour, with this final edition, reflecting on the fall in trust in expertise driven by malign interests over recent years.

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term www.gov.uk/government/p...

I've submitted a formal complaint to the BBC about Question Time's misleading description of Matt Goodwin as an 'academic'. If anyone else wants to do this, too, this is the BBC webpage where you can do it. Just takes a few minutes:

Wikipedia says Shaheen is an academic. BBCQT implies you can’t trust what she says b/c she’s an ‘activist’. Someone who Wikipedia calls ‘a former academic’ who now campaigns for Reform & wants to be its first Home Secretary is an ‘academic & author’ who you can trust. Maybe they use Grokipedia now.

Minority representation on TV causes outrage From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

Another example of the government’s lurch to the populist right. By most measures, four-day week trials have shown positive results

‘What ails the British state is that it has built, and is building, what it cannot seem to maintain … investment without maintenance is just decay.’

Nazipedia.

Here's Nick Griffin - British National Party leader in 2009 - complaining that the BBC Question Time audience he faced was "dominated by ethnic minorities." He was criticised at the time by just about everyone. Nowadays they'd be discussing what he meant on #R4today

It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that large parts of Westminster remaining on X - a platform that tolerates and amplifies extremism and racism - has led a great many people to normalise what previously was unacceptable.

Waking up, again, to the sound of two white men on the radio arguing about whether it is ok to be made "mad" by the very sight of black and Asian people on TV. 😒