It’s awards season in TV luvvie land. In particular, The Royal Television Society Awards have become a point of obsession for the execs who run television newsrooms—a glittering distraction from deeper issues of the waning relevance of legacy media and steadily declining audiences. Naturally, the RTS judging panel—meeting this week—is populated by dinner party mates and even family members of newsroom bosses…
At the centre of the controversy is BBC News head honcho Deborah Turness, whose staff are approaching mutiny over various internal gripes. BBC sources claim she commissioned the broadcaster’s recent high-profile global investigation into migration with the specific intention of winning awards, seeing the journalism as a casual byproduct. Fronted by war correspondent Andrew Harding, the series cost an estimated £200,000 in licence fee payers’ money…
Resources from the BBC’s vast global network of journalists were diverted from news reporting to ensure the project appeared as a singular achievement by Harding—a move insiders claim was choreographed to dazzle the awards juries. Staff complain the true motive was less about public service journalism and more about securing a trophy for Turness. As RTS juries deliberate this week, perhaps it’s time for BBC Verify to turn its scrutiny inward and examine whether this awards fixation is about celebrating success—or masking a deeper decline…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”