Dyke Fingered
‘THE advice to talk softly and carry a big stick had been sexed up, down and sideways by the time it reached Greg Dykes ears.
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| BBC campaign for yet more repeats |
The cover of the Guardian has a photograph of the now former director-general of the BBC delivering his parting message through a large megaphone.
There can be no more telling image of how the BBC has been castrated by the Government, Lord Hutton and its own lapses in its normally high standards than seeing the severed head of the countrys biggest broadcaster shouting in the streets.
So much for the digital revolution – broadcasting your message to the masses has gone back to basics.
Indeed, the overriding consensus of both the newspapers and staff at the BBC is that the corporation has taken a retrograde step in saying goodbye to Dyke.
This is the BBC, announces the Independent on its front page, in received English, its leaders gone, its staff up in arms.
And in those arms, the people who bring you DIY SOS, Red Cap and Mad About Alice carry signs beseeching Greg and whoever are the powers that be to BRING BACK GREG.
(Perhaps these creatives can make a TV series out of the event, with Paul Ross travelling the country asking TV executives if theyve ever had plastic surgery or need a loft conversion?)
But whos listening? Well, for starters, the common man is Dyke was ever a populist broadcasting man.
The Telegraph says that a YouGov poll has found that 56% of us consider the Hutton Reports a whitewash.
More than one in two of us think Lord Hutton is a member of the Establishment and therefore too ready to sympathise with the Government.
But, then again, Hutton did blame the BBC for much apparent wrongdoing. And ask yourself this: would Paul Ross have done a better job?
And surely the Beeb is also a member of the ruling elite, one of the established forces that prop up the rest of society.
Well, it is and it might not be. It is if you consider its unique position in British life; and it might not be if you are a rival broadcaster and want a slice of the pie.
Just listen to what the Guardian says on the matter: At the heart of it: a triangle that links Dyke to Blair to Murdoch.
Thats Rupert Murdoch, a man who, it seems, would like to remodel the so-called Establishment with his own corporation at its head, and, quite probably, he and his wife on a throne of sorts.
And hes just moved a little step closer to getting his way…’
Posted: 30th, January 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
