Reporting on Bill Cosby’s shock prison release, presenter Michelle Fleury made an embarrassing blunder by confusing the disgraced comedian with former President Bill Clinton, live on air. Viewers were told:
“For the last two years this has been where Bill Clinton has called home. Tonight he will sleep in his own bed following the bombshell decision by the Pennsylvanian Supreme Court to overturn his conviction of sexual assault.”
Presenter Huw Edwards quickly apologised for the BBC’s gaffe. Freudian slip perhaps…
The BBC has shown off how organised they are by already announcing their election night presenter plans. Guido’s still in the process of sorting out drinks…
The announcement confirms that Dimbleby will be stepping down from presenting their coverage after 40 years and 10 elections, to be replaced by Huw Edwards. Huw got his work experience in by covering the last set of EU election results…
Edwards will present the BBC’s main election night coverage alongside Reeta Chakrabarti, Andrew Neil, Tina Daheley and Jeremy Vine, with the usual reporters (including Laura K).
Most excitingly for political nerds, the BBC has revamped the traditional ‘Arthur’ theme tune – used by the BBC for generations and scrapped in 2010.
We’ve announced the first details of the BBC #Election2019 coverage, led by @huwbbc. #GE2019 pic.twitter.com/lx29Eq9z6M
— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) November 4, 2019
Depending on how Boris’s campaign goes, it could be the only thing we’re left looking forward to on election night.
The 10pm BBC News with Huw Edwards just began with a couple of minutes of silence. I was on the edge of my seat! pic.twitter.com/VjjpSNOP1c
— Hammad Khan (@HammadKhanFilm) June 20, 2017
Someone’s getting fired…
The BBC’s Huw Edwards has been dragged into the growing NUJ row over calling Charlie Hebdo racist. The London Welsh Centre, of which he is president, has agreed to host a controversial debate tonight organised by a bunch of extreme-leftist Socialist Workers Party hippies, who claim that French satirical magazine is evil.
The organisers of the public meeting from the London Magazine Branch of the National Union of Journalists have already been told that they cannot hold the meeting in the union’s own offices due to ‘security worries’. The topic of discussion, written by the branch chair Alan Gibson, states: “Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons lampooning Islam, and particularly the depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, have been racist”.
Gibson, a long-time SWP loon, has already faced the wrath of his members who do not wish the meeting to go ahead – with many poised to resign from the union. In an email announcing the new venue, unrepentant Gibson criticised his union again for not organising such a meeting itself and said: “I make no apologies for my motivation.”
Regular readers will remember that the SWP has faced criticism in the past for courting the Muslim Brotherhood. The Stop The War Coalition, for example, which is dominated by the SWP, has held sexually segregated meetings in an attempt to bolster its alliance with the Muslim-Brotherhood-affiliated Muslim Association of Britain. Wrong-uns.
At a time when the journalistic world seem united in defence of free speech, Edwards is unlikely to be grateful to be dragged into to this row – not least as he is understood to be an NUJ member himself. Over to you, Huw.
