The petition to sack Tory propagandist Laura Kuenssberg from her role as BBC Political Editor has been scrapped by 38 Degrees after it gained over 35,000 signatures. The reason given is sexist comments and tweets.
Having both signed and endorsed the petition myself, I was taken aback by this. I had personally read through every single one of the comments on the 38 Degrees site, when 26,000 people had signed the petition. I was intending to publish a selection of comments on this blog, as many of them were really quite elegant, and some moving in expressing the loss some people felt in their disillusion with the BBC.
Of the many scores, possibly hundreds (there is no counter) of comments I read through, only one was sexist. That one was very unpleasant, but totally unrepresentative. I can see no reason why they could not just delete any such stupid comments. Everywhere on the internet gets them, including this blog.
It seems to me astonishing that a tiny and unrepresentative number of people can get a petition scrapped which had been signed by many thousands of genuine people. I therefore today phoned 38 Degrees to uncover both the policy and the sequence of events.
What happened first was an article in the Guardian alleging the petition was linked to sexist abuse. Needless to say, the Guardian referred to alleged sexist abuse, by Jeremy Corbyn supporters, of Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips (in the case of Stella Creasy this was proven to be almost complete fabrication. I have not looked into the Phillips case). I have both phoned and emailed the Guardian to ask them on what evidence their story of sexist abuse of Kuenssberg was based, but they have not responded.
I asked the 38 Degrees spokesman whether they had personally seen the evidence of this sexist abuse. Their spokesman Adam said that they had seen it. I asked whether they would send me the evidence so I could check it. He said they would consider this. They have not done so. I asked him how many sexist comments there were? 2, 3, 10, 100? He said they had not looked through everything and would not give even a ballpark figure. I asked what impact their junking of the petition would have on the tens of thousands of non sexist people who had signed it, and why they felt able to slander those people as sexist. He replied this was not intended and they were still thinking about it. I asked why people opposed to a petition could not get anything taken down by adding a few nasty comments pretending to support. He said this had occurred to them as a problem too.
38 Degrees said that the petition originator had agreed to it being taken down, but I clarified they had contacted him to ask for his agreement. Whether he was shown the “evidence” or browbeaten I do not know.
So there we are. The petition has been binned and the people who supported it have all been libelled in the media as sexists. It is not apparently concern about a rampantly biased political editor, it is obvious sexism. Yet the only people who claim to have the actual evidence of this sexism – 38 Degrees and the Guardian – have not produced the evidence and refuse to produce the evidence when I ask.
Laura Kuenssberg is I think the most openly biased journalist I have ever seen on the BBC, particularly in her very obvious vindictive hatred of Jeremy Corbyn and of Scottish Independence. She does not in the least pretend impartiality. But she is by no means alone. Of course by targeting her we are only drawing attention to a particularly egregious symptom of the terrible disease of a rampantly right wing corporate and state media. Nobody believes that removing her would solve the problem. Nobody seriously believes the BBC actually would remove her even if the petition reached a million. It is purely a campaigning tool to highlight the injustice of media control, access and bias.
The fact we are denied even this tool of protest is deeply troubling. The continued process of stigmatisation of decent dissidents as “anti-Semitic” or “misogynist” is characteristic of a society in which deviating from the political line is rewarded with social stigma and exclusion. This poisonous climate should be seen as a reaction to the challenge the elite is currently facing to its neo-liberal certainties.
I see that Change.org has a petition along a similar line.
“We ask that the BBC review the current political editor; Laura Kuenssberg’s position” In the petition’s opening argument it states:
“For many years we have enjoyed a relatively impartial BBC, a report in 2013 titled; BBC Breadth of Opinion Review Content Analysis alerted the BBC to a potential shift with regards to impartiality in favour of the Conservative Government (attachment below).
The appointment of Laura Kuenssberg has not redressed the balance and improved impartiality, there are many examples of this. Under Laura Kuenssberg’s editorial lead we have seen far more attention and criticism levelled at the opposition than we have the scrutiny of the government.”
If you have any faith in petitions then consider this one. https://www.change.org/p/james-harding-director-of-news-and-current-affairs-we-ask-that-the-bbc-review-the-current-political-editor-laura-kuenssberg-s-position
38 degrees has done itself serious damage with this craven climb down and it they don’t sort it out they will be finished. The Guardian is now and has been for some time irrelevant it sold it’s soul a long time ago.
I do not believe it was just an attempt to have Laura Kuenssberg sacked because she is a journalist reporting the news; it is because she was/is reporting it with her own personal slant. Reporters ( “A writer, investigator, or presenter of news stories.”), are employed to report the news, neutrally and without bias: This is something this particular ‘reporter’ appears incapable of doing. I personally signed the petition as I wanted to see both Laura Kuenssberg at the very least heavily censured. I wanted the BBC to also be heavily censured for allowing the bias to not only occur but to continue to do so.
I have to add that this has given me food for thought regarding my trust in 38 Degrees and whether I will sign / subscribe to any further petitions if they can so easily be made to withdraw from a frontline!
But she isn’t a reporter. She’s more senior than that. She’s the Political Editor. You can find the Job Description on the internet and it includes analysis and setting things in context. She is definitely not there just to report the news: there are news readers for that. All BBC Political Editors have had the same brief. Some of you will be old enough to have enjoyed John Cole’s views and thoughts about the time of the downfall of Thatcher in 1990, for example. She’s not exceeding her brief when she provides her personal commentary on the news.
She represents the BBC; it is not a question of personal comments. The BBC is not meant to be so overtly biased and pro-Tory.
I remember John Cole, John Sargent, Nick Robinson, John Simpson, Faisal Islam, Robert Peston, Adam Boulton, Andrew Marr, and probably quite a few more. All great, honest, professional Political Editors for various channels. They all had their own Political leanings, but were scrupulously fair and unbiased in their presentation.
Laura Kuenssberg is not of the same ilk. Ms Kuenssberg is unprofessional, inaccurate and completely biased in her musings. Every little spat in the Labour Party is a disaster. Every last tweet by any Labour back bencher is the death knell for Jeremy Corbyn.
Ms Kuenssberg engineers her own News. When Stephen Doughty let slip he was going to resign before an episode of the Daily Politics, the BBC presenter, Andrew Neil and Ms Kuenssberg arranged for Mr Doughty to resign on air, just before then going to watch PMQs in the House of Commons.
I find it very difficult to understand how some people are seemingly ok with this behaviour. This is a Senior BBC Journalist admitting that he “arranged” a News event! Her explanation was that it fitted into the News cycle and that it was an “opportunity”? Political Editors are NOT supposed to create the News.
Can anyone imagine John Simpson, John Cole or Nick Robinson suggesting that they help orchestrate an on-air resignation? Even if, as some suggest, Ms Kuenssberg was being criticised in a sexist way, this does not hold up under investigation. Would Kate Adie or Lyse Doucet have behaved in the same way as Ms Kuenssberg? I very much doubt it. Both are extremely experienced Journalists used to reporting in a balanced and straight forward way from war zones, rather than a comfortable studio.
Even the article by David Babbs, Co-Founder of 38 Degrees, in the Guardian today, has had its Comments locked out, on the same day it was published!
It seems any criticism of the way Ms Kuenssberg does her “job” is not permissible.
If 35,000 peoples criticism of the BBCs Political Editor can be brushed away so very easily, what is the point of signing Petitions? I think 38 Degrees has made a very expensive mistake that will come back to haunt it. What is the point of a Petition Website that crumbles over outside pressure?
I do remember ‘Hondootedly’ John Cole. An amiable, leftish reporter ( his NI accent a source of great delight to Private Eye) whose standards were high if uncontroversial. He was a master of summary, if not always of intelligibility to the chattering classes.
I posted this earlier – as the link it gives has now been consigned to the memory hole (so much for Google’s cache) I can’t support it. However, I don’t think Cole would have indulged in what’s alleged here. Even with Thatcher in mind.
But the so-called ‘revenge reshuffle’ has led to a shocking revelation, that BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Daily Politics presenter Andrew Neil and so-called ‘moderate’ Labour MP Stephen Doughty planned his live resignation on their program hours before it even began. The admission from an ‘output editor’ of the Daily Politics was made on a BBC blog but was shortly taken down afterwards (the cached version is available here*). In this blog, they let slip that Andrew Neil floated the idea to Kuenssberg, who was reported to have thought “it was a great idea”. Knowing full well it would inflict maximum damage on the Labour leader resigning five minutes before Prime Minister’s Questions, both Kuenssberg and Stephen Doughty, MP for Cardiff South & Penarth, seemed more than happy to oblige.
http://evolvepolitics.com/bbc-admit-intentionally-damaging-corbyn-leadership-contrived-live-resignation/
*Link, in the original: it isn’t, though.
Ba’al
Isn’t that precisely the point. The revelation required the explicit co-operation of the MP himself.
Start another petition and leave out the Comment boxes, they add little.
Well, quite.
It’s a natural response to say sack the person who is being partisan as opposed to impartial as per the job description, but this is the wrong approach because the partisan reporter can then portray you as extreme for wanting to sack a reporter for views you don’t like, and this muddies the water.
Better to just call for impartial reporting at the BBC and also extend your own enquiry into “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party to include an enquiry into “anti-Semitism” at the BBC, because bearing false witness is hardly good for community relations! Of course the only problem with this is, you will be accused of “anti-Semitism for calling for an enquiry into “anti-Semitism”!
Dave
Can you explain why you believe Ms Kuenssberg was “partisan” in her presentation of last weeks English Local Election results?
Her comments could have been made by a disillusioned Labour member of the Public, either to the Right, or to the Left of Mr Corbyn.
Labour’s performance in the Local Elections were not those of a party that is about to “break the mould” of British politics.
This puts 38 degrees into a new category,imho, was this a case of being slightly bent when it comes to the powerful BBC, or have 38deg. come too close to the power brokers, what have they been threatened with/ promised to back down from this at a time when the BBC is in dire need of reform. The still unheard scandals surrounding child abuse in their midst, their entanglement with the MI’s, their lacklustre reporting when it comes to EU partners, visa vis the glowing depiction and focus on US politics, their warm regards for corporations/politicians with money, all very far removed from the public broadcasting brief.
And I have no even started on their electoral bias in every election. I shall unsubscribe from 38 degrees as they, sadly, can’t be trusted anymore, are part of the problem now.
Craig An interesting take. So, when the much maligned Ms Kuenssberg said, in her summary, “by one measure Labour are actually ahead of the Conservatives”, was she lying? We will all hear what we want to here, I guess. I think Ms Kuenssberg’s analysis was pretty fair to be honest. I suppose it might be argued that, in England, Labour did brilliantly, for a party with no agreed policies. Unless you are privy to some very secret information I am unaware that Labour will have any agreed Party Policies until they are ratified by the membership in October at the Party Conference. Finally, perhaps you can confirm the present membership of the Labour Party, and compare it to the number of Labour voters, in 2015, who voted for a Manifesto that “promised” Austerity and Discrimination. Mr Jeremy Corbyn did, I seem to recall, stand for re-election as an MP on the basis of the 2015 Labour Manifesto, did he not?
38 Degrees is no longer an organisation that I feel I can trust.
My own first thoughts at hearing this yesterday were similar to those of the author of this piece.
I thought –
1 Present the petition without the comments.
2 Remove the offending ‘votes’.
3 Show the evidence so the we (the people who signed and didn’t leave derisory comments) could see for ourselves.
38 Degrees has done none of these, and as someone who signed this petition I feel they have been holed below the waterline. I will never sign anything from 38 degrees again as they have shown a flagrant disregard for the thousands of people who signed this petition believing that Laura Kunessberg is unsuited to a prominent role in reporting for the BBC.
I thought 38 Degress was different. I was clearly wrong.
I am stunned at this ridiculous decision!
This demonstrates what is wrong with Politics in this country today; there is clearly a belief that certain Journalists and Political editors are extremely Biased, but if we, the common peoples raise the subject, we are smacked down with a foolish accusation.
I read a tweet from a Lady who stated she had been an active feminist all her adult life and she was clearly insulted that she had been labeled sexist in this manner.
Will someone please start another petition, one that states that sexist, racist, or any other discriminatory comments would result in their vote being removed?
Lets show the Establishment we will not be bullied, and lets see if the 35,000 people will still feel as strongly and re-sign.
Richard there are numerous requests to start a new petition and numerous links to another one on change.or, i.e. see last post on page 2 with a link to it.
I have just signed Change.org petition.
I will now be seriously considering whether or not I continue to support 38 degrees. This is something they should have battled so that not only their own integrity and honesty was defended but that of all the people who put their trust in them and put their names to the document. It is a disgrace and something 38 degrees will find almost impossible to recover from. You cannot discard a persons trust and good name like this. It seems they are as biased as those they purport to fight against. To say I almost small disgusted by this is a huge understatement.
This is deeply troubling. How can an organisation like 38 degrees whose whole remit is to lend a voice to the unrepresented masses and challenge the position on the clearly biased mainstream media, suddenly take it apon themselves to decide who gets the right to have a voice and who does not. I’m an out and out feminist and would be the first person to speak out if I felt there was a case to argue but simply wanting to remove a figure of authority and influence because of their extreme political bias does not qualify this campaign as sexist. Furthermore, it’s completely wrong to use the sexism argument without good cause. Crying sexism when a women is challenged on a poor political track record is not sexist and calling it such only serves to undermine the feminist cause.
So what are we to draw from this?
Does it mean that if I’m someone named in a petition – like Ms Kuenssberg- and I want the petition scrapped, all I have to do is get a few friends to write some ugly sexist, racist or perhaps ageist comments, and then a naive or cowardly moderator will then take down the story and kill the petition?
Not saying that’s what happened. That would suggest she has a degree of nous not evident in her journalism.
But that would appear to be a useful formula.
False anger is a tactic used by those in the establishment to avoid accountability (used to great effect by Mr Cameron himself) and has now overflowed in to everyday life. It devalues proper debate and generates bulling from both sides. I signed a petition setup on change.org (which I believe is still running) which was calling for a review of Kuenssberg’s reports rather than demanding the sack which I was more comfortable with. To label this petition as sexist fails to recognise the weekly decent on social media Marr, Neil, Dimbleby, etc and is in itself a sexist attitude.
I have had dealings with 38 degrees: in a word – ‘FLAKY’.
38 degrees will not be getting any more support from me.
Do we see an extension of ‘false flag’ principles to petitioning, such that, if I want to get rid of a petition of 26,000 or 35,000 petitioners, all I have to do is to send a ‘false flag’ signature with sufficiently sexist/racist/anything else-ist comments (will 1 do?), and it will be taken down?
The authorities have great expertise and resources for such ‘false flag’ ventures: it looks as though 38 degrees have nobackbone
Never mind.
At least we know the Guardian are likewise, an establishment fig leaf.
That is entirely plausible. Surely the solution is that 38 degrees removes such posters and bans the users from all future petitions
As Craig points out such petitions can be useful campaigning tools but rarely result in direct change. I would like to suggest another possible use. One that I admit I have zero evidence for, merely tingling in my spider senses (fuelled partly by the funding such sites receive from organisations which themselves have some dubious connections … e.g. Avaaz and democracy now and Soros Foundation). That is that campaign/petition sites (especially those requiring evidence that you are a real person and that you are who you say you are) are being used to collect the personal details of activists and peaceful opponents of the state.
Now I’m sure such paranoid musings can be explained by this ground breaking ‘research’ that shows that if you are stressed out, narcissistic and have low self-esteem you are more likely to believe conspiracies.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3584589/Believe-conspiracy-theories-probably-just-suffering-stress-People-doubt-moon-landings-likely-worry-feel-pressure.html
The State control and influence of media approaches Stalinist proportions.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3583252/Campaign-sack-BBC-political-editor-Laura-Kuenssberg-scrapped-sexist-abuse.html
Not just 38 degrees and the Guardian
I agree,the BBC has lost any crediblity it may have had.The charter is up for renewal,John Wittingdale has been up to very dirty tricks,even tory Chris Patten has been on radio 4’s media show complaining about Whittingdale’s bringing the BBC into disrepute.This once highly regarded institution is now an international laughing stock.
Never mind.
At least we know the Guardian are likewise, an establishment fig leaf.
On their Facebook page in response to complaints from petition signers , 38 Degrees admitted “The sexist tweets were sent straight to Laura, rather than on the petition”.
So why did they remove the petition?
I have read this blog and am dismayed by the role of 38 Degrees. I declined to sign the petition for the sacking of Keunssberg, as I do not think people should be subjected to kangaroo court judgement; I rather supported the commentary on how biased she and others working for the BBC have been, and challenging the BBC to repute the allegations or go through “due process.
I have to wonder who is leaning on 38 Degrees? What kind of threats (or inducements) are being made that they have suddenly become “opaque” on the issue of BBC bias.
I have a standing order payment to 38 Degrees, because I like what they do and I felt that they championed principled stands: but not on this occasion: I am now considering my position.
Whatever the whys & wherefores of Laura Kuenssberg’s behaviour
I WILL NEVER use/sign/trust 38 Degrees again.
They shout about people power/ democracy – they have been lent on a gave way.
All they needed to do was to remove offensive comments.
REPEAT
I WILL NEVER use/sign/trust 38 Degrees again.
Was it that the person who had issued the petition who decided to withdraw it because of the accusation of sexism? Jesse Phillips initiated the idea that it was sexist in one of her Tweets. The person who left an offensive comment is to blame not the 35,000 plus concerned people who signed the petition. I hope in future that 38 Degrees will moderate petitions & report any abuse to avoid a repeat.
As I understand it,it was withdrawn because some people comments were sexist.We all signed for bias reporting.Surely 30% could have removed the comments,as the petition stated the complaint.This leaves all petitions open to sabotage,38% should have shown some balls.
Forget about 38 degrees. Start another one.
I do agree and have been growing more and more disenchanted with the very evident bias of Laura Kuenssberg and have found her comments against Tory opponents verging on the spiteful on occasions. This doesn’t do the BBC any good since it calls into question what should be balanced and unbiased reporting.
Totally agree; I’ve decided to withdraw my support for 38 degrees on this point! I’m not sexist, my grandma was a suffragette and I have 2 daughters who I have brought up to fight for equality. I bitterly resent that these points haven’t been addressed and we are all labelled by a BBC slur; in defence of the indefensible.
Laura Kuenssberg is clearly biased. She is no more than the Tory propaganda-ist. This view is NOT sexist – o would hold this view if she was Laurence Kuenssberg
And, indeed, I am beginning to form a similar opinion about John Pienaar – and I regret that very much as, up until Jeremy Corbyn came to be the Labour leader, I would never have felt this about him.
38 degrees – please do not ask me to sign any more petitions if this is the way you treat us
Laura Kuenssberg is clearly biased. She is no more than the Tory propaganda-ist. This view is NOT sexist – o would hold this view if she was Laurence Kuenssberg
And, indeed, I am beginning to form a similar opinion about John Pienaar – and I regret that very much as, up until Jeremy Corbyn came to be the Labour leader, I would never have felt this about him.
38 degrees – please do not ask me to sign any more petitions if this is the way you treat us
You can see all of the comments here… https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/e83cce2f-9558-4947-b971-3374d1dc1190/BBC-Laura-Kuenssberg-38-degrees-petition-comments.html
Well, I just speed-read those comments. Couldn’t find any which were sexist. What on earth are 38 degrees on about?