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Saturday 16 February 2013

Teflon BBC



I was thinking about the Jimmy Savile scandal the other day, wondering if the BBC is faring better than the Catholic Church in terms of vilification over sexual predators within its institutional ranks.

I know the comparison is complex and problematic to say the least, but is it the case that the BBC is so firmly wedged up the establishment arse that no revelation will cause it any real harm?

Is it also the case that this level of immunity is not available to the Catholic Church?

I don’t know if it’s even a useful or valid question because I feel it's too complex to answer without going astray, but it’s one I can’t quite drop.

My intuition, an intuition I can't robustly defend, is that the BBC will continue to be treated more sympathetically than it deserves and certainly more sympathetically than the Catholic Church.

8 comments:

Mark In Mayenne said...

If I understand things correctly, the Catholic church claims to be God's representative here on earth. The BBC does not.

I'm quite happy for the organisation claiming the highest moral ground to be the most castigated.

Sam Vega said...

Mark in Mayenne

"the Catholic church claims to be God's representative here on earth. The BBC does not."

True, but we don't know with absolute certainty that the central truth-claim of the Catholic Church is wrong, whereas the BBC is patently very poor value for money in the here and now.

Mark In Mayenne said...

Ah, yes, the possible culpability of the BBC and the value for money they represent, were not addressed by my comment.

None the less, simply by claiming to be God's representative on Earth, whether they are or not, the church is mandating for itself the most exacting standards of behavior, and consequently, willful failure to meet those standards deserves the highest appropriate penalty.

Sam Vega said...

Mark in Mayenne

"willful failure"

They wanted to fail?

A K Haart said...

Mark and Sam - whose turn is it?

Sam Vega said...

Sorry, boss. You weren't here, and I got carried away.

Yvonne said...

Or perhaps it is that the MSM, particularly the BBC, will not let up about the rogue priests within the Catholic Church, whereas the BBC will gladly put the Savile affair to bed?

A K Haart said...

Yvonne - yes, the Savile story is of the media world and they don't really want it kept alive.