Newsnight Reports Valentine's Day Market Massacre
(That Never Happened)
Newsnight just doesn't do business reporting very well. Guido suspects this is because they are neither interested in, or sympathetic to business. They would much rather review some new feminist state-subsidised play than the FTSE 100's profitability. The saga of the BBC's flagship current affairs programme being repeatedly unable even to report the market closing price correctly has been pointed out by Guido before. Peter Barron told us after the last multi-day FTSE fiasco "I despair! We are having a complete revision of the way we collect and check the markets information."
On Valentines Day Newsnight reported (above) another bad day in the markets, off 80 points or nearly one and half percent down. Time for a stiff whiskey nightcap before examining your stock portfolio in the morning?No. It was down 0.8 points, some 0.0136%, which is what market experts call "flat". Stephanie Flanders, Newsnight's economics editor, said after the last time this happened that it was "unforgivable and embarrassing". Clearly it was forgivable because it was announced yesterday that she has been promoted and will now be the BBC's chief economics editor. Jeff Randall is on Sky...
Hat-tip : Musing Markets
58 comments:
The phrase "not fit for purpose" comes to mind.
Still, it's only license payers money.
Clearly this was a transcription error, but it does show that not a single journalist or editor follows the markets through the day. Someone should have realised and said "err, it was a sideways day today, are you sure that number is right?"
That they repeatedly haven't got a clue about the market direction or even know if the market is open or closed (they have reported market moves on days when the market was shut, not reported on days when the market is open and once claimed the FX market was closed - there is no single FX marketplace as such).
They just don't have the foggiest idea. CBNC or Bloomberg TV if you really need to know. Randall on Sky is at least pro-business, the BBC culture is anti-business, that is why their business reporting is so crap and ill-informed.
.....And that's why the BBC employs Mr Evanomics!
Their business reporting is 'crap and ill-informed' because that is what they want the average viewer's understanding of the issues to be.
Look, what else do you expect?
The BBC is a taxpayer subsidised cash hole where no one has to face up to the real world.
It really should be thrown in the deep end without any licence income and forced to either sink or swim.
The BBC news website is just as bad - it gleefully headlines market falls, and doesn't even bother to keep the schadenfreude tone out of its reporting - but recoveries go unremarked. Just reflective of the un- (anti-?)commercial culture of the whole organisation, I guess.
....And that's why the BBC employs Mr Evanomics!
Soon to be replaced by Stepanie Flanders.
I have nothing against homosexualists per se, but that baldy little chimp-faced wanker really gives me the creeps.
I remember when Evan covered the introduction of a particularly pernicious piece tax law that was slipped in under the radar (IR35).
Evan's piece was so pro-treasury it as laughable, as well as wholly inaccurate.
There were so many complaints that the hapless Even had to appologise on NN and correct his 'facts'.
Oh! How we laughed!
@ Billy Buckets 12.22pm.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds Mr Evanomics creepy.
For me his sexual orientation isn't an issue. He's a smarmy slimeball regardless of his choices in the bedroom department.
And I don't trust a word that falls out of his mouth in regard to economics either....
I don't watch 'newsshite' since it became the 'Paxman doing a bad Anne Robinson impression' show. We KNOW the BBC is run and staffed by a bunch of 'pinko, wet, euro-loving, PC wankers'. But to force Mr Evanwhatever's haircut on the public is quite frankly unforgivable. Why don't they go the whole hog and have him dress in bondage gear and having a sniff of Paxo's string y-fronts? Or at the very least let him get the kareoke kit out to sing 'relax'.
I can just about bear to watch Paxman, but the Wark woman is a real turn off.
Just thinking about what the Archbishop was saying the other day about ' facing up to the fact that some citizens do not relate to the British legal system'.
I missed the start but I assume he was talking about , Hain, Harman, Alexander, Jasper, Brown , Blair, Levy etc?
Kirsty Wark gives the impression of being inebriated much of the time. Does she like a snifter?
I've noticed Stephen Lowe the Bishop of Hulme on the BBC a lot recently including Newsnight.
What an odious fellow he is, pompous, belligerent, dishonest, and deeply unpleasant. He also appears to be a shill for the Labour government and for the increasingly powerful muslim lobby.
No wonder the Church of England is in rapid decline with senior representatives like him.
I know CNBC is a dedicated business channel but it still puts the BBC to shame. Look at R5Live's early morning business show: only half an hour which includes 2 general news and sport bulletins, usuall one soft consumer item, 5 minutes of badinage with Micky Clark about golf or holidays. Then an expert from the stockmarket - cut short to make way for Nicky Campbell.
'...the Wark woman is a real turn off.'
And for us arty farties, why do they get that bloody Wark woman to host Newsnight Review? Forever interrupting the guests with her own shrill, inane opinions on whatever short-stories collection by a Peruvian mystic they happen to be discussing. Bloody irritating!
Kirsty Wark is probably hyper due to her completely platonic non-sexual friendship with ex-Scottish First Minister Jack Mc...thingy. It gives me such a warm glow seeing such friendship shown in public.
Devastatingly, the death knell of BBC news broadcasting was sounded a few days ago when it was announced that the unsurpassable Guto Harri is leaving the corporation. I have written a moving ode to this exceptional journalist and man which I would urge everyone to read and absorb.
Must be the same work experience person who mixed up Newcastle UNDER LYME with Newcastle ON TYNE - those decimal points and longtitude/latitude "thingys" are a really difficult !
Guido, are you not rolling on your Wilton at the spectacle of Dearheart Darling castigating the City for paying money to people who don't appear to have done anything to deserve it? "it can be extremely frustrating" he opines.
WTF does this cretinous apparatchik think of the frustration the taxpayers feel at the sort of return they get from the money "invested" in the likes of him, Harbint, Tangoman, Bendy, Gorbals, Kinnochio-familia, Hewitt, Jowell-Mills-Jowell-um et al?
Wotta twat.
Who'll be the first
Minister (or Tory, for that matter, I'm not fussy) who, when being the hairdryer treatment from paxman, retorts by saying: "Can you swear that you paid NI for those Romanians, Jeremy?" - you know, when he says "Come on, just answer yes or no!"
I would love it - love it, as Kevin Keegan might say - for someone to stick it up him, on air.
Perhaps you can it on your next appearance, Guido?
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty Newsnight anchor.
I enjoy this website a lot but many of the people who comment here are deeply unpleasant homophobic tossers obsessed with leftist conspiracy theories.
Its embarrassing to read the comments at times, its like a talksport radio phone-in.
I grew up enjoying greatly Flanders and Swann.
Flander's offspring is a nasty feminist of the worst kind..She will upset more than she thrills!
The BBC should be sold off to virgin --after all he is the only one that would buy it!
The person who dealt beautifully with Paxman was Anne Coulter. He appeared not to notice her first rapier thrust and offered himself as a target for more, until she finished him off.
an bit disingenuous if I may say guido.
I frequently here soft interviews with business people on bbc radio concerning monopolies and other business matters.
surely many bbc staff have shares, so talking up or down the markets and keeping things nice and vague with the odd mistake thrown in might not hurt their own speculations, no?
anyone who reads too much into this is giving the bbc far more credence than it deserves. lighten up guys. you investers will give yourselves a fucking heart attack!
Curiously, if you want Economists then you need go no further than the BBC's 'The Daily Politics'.
There we have "Little Jenny" who read Economics at King's college Cambridge - a genuine 'Kingswoman';
and Andrew Neil who also read Economics but at Edinburgh University.
So for 'Economics' go to the 'Politics' programme! - A good allocation of talent??
In 1997 when Gordon Brown introduced his £5 billion a year raid on private pensions, Evan Davies described it as "a good idea because it will encourage people to save more for their old age".
Blatant Labour bias combined with financial illiteracy. It could only come from someone in a cushy public sector job with a cushy public sector pension.
Enjoy bloodsorts? The Coulter/Paxman confontation's here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7AABT6zsSQ
Harriet Harman is on NuLab-Beeb web-site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7248010.stm
talking about the Tories being the 'Nasty' Party. On her logic this must make the Labour Party the 'Bent' party then.
How can anyone take Even Davies seriously when he is a well know devotee of Prince Albert?
Anyone who delights in putting a big brass curtain ring through his bell-end has got to be fairly suspect, eh?
I watched what used to be called the money programe last night about fake goods.
I had to turn it off as the presentation was just so childish. It must have been made for morons. The BBC is just past its sell by date it has just gone down and down.
Newsnight and Paxman are hopeless shallow and and pro Labour.
lefties are innumerate, that is what empowers them to believe shite.
We need the International Baccalaureate to remove these halfwits from the educational food chain.
A few years ago I told a TV journalist friend that she should focus on making herself into a really good business reporter and she would have a job for life.
She insisted that she wanted to concentrate on 'lifestyle' issues as she wanted her own day time TV show - where the real money was.
She told me that the truth is no one in TV journalsism sees business as interesting and that editors really see it as something that will cause people to switch off.
I really think that business and econonomics is something that the BBC can do well and should do well as a public service broadcaster. We all work and have a personal interest in the future economic well being fo the country. Look at how people reacted to Northern Rock and the potential impact on house prices!
I really hate the way the BBc always crams the FTSE numbers in at the end of the news or even Newsnight.
Stephanie Flanders is really very good and yet I get the feeling that she is almost having to apologise about having to talk about something 'complicated' such as money supply and GDP on Newsnight over the last few months.
She should not have to feel that way - she is bright, intelligent aqd presents complex issues very well - exactly the sort of role that we should see more women presenters getting involved with.
As for getting the FTSE numbers wrong - its really a product of no one at the BBc really being at all intereted in business. Not at all surprising really when so few senior people at the BBC have worked in business.
I really want the BBC to do better on business and economics and politics issues. It just needs to stop chasing ratings and be what it should be - a proper public service broadcaster and then it would be worth every penny of the license fee.
The Guardian couldn't wait to gild that Flanders Lily when reporting on Flanders promotion gushing tributes they paid
Newsnight is a joke these days
The rumour circulated within the BBC that Peter Barron was off to join his mate Tim Hincks responsible for ENDEMOL UK’s programmes-that was October but he never went and the out-put of the programme and presenters reflects a very dismal show
You watch the BBC and expect unvarnished fact? Really?
Ref Anon 2:57, Harperson's cosy chat to the Blodwyns of Llandudno about the "nasty" Tories. From Beeb report:
Ms Harman also said Labour challenges included doing more to help women into work, whatever their circumstances.
"We can expose the duplicity and opportunism of the Tories."
Ms Harman also said that helping women back to work, without fearing that it could affect their families, was among challenges facing the party.
"How can we ensure that when the stay at home mother becomes the working mother, and the stay at home daughter becomes the working daughter, that there is still enough time to bring up the children and care for older relatives?"
Aaah, there's lovely. I wonder if she also promised them each a crisp 20 for voting Labour, just to prove how nasty the Tories are.
I think Jeremy Paxman is now like Desert Orchid, was a winner once but now needs to pasture for the good of everyone, even the servants !
an error which may be allowed perhaps.
however quite why the bbc should pay top dollar for evanomics spiel is beyond me , what on earth is so full of public broadcast insight as "it may go up or it may go down"
yeah thanks a lot i feel that my contribution to your 45k slary was worth every penny , the money program has picked up a bit , but its been woeful under this gov .
i appreciate they have to becareful what they say , but partisan and protectionist to the current gov , by broadcasting dumbed down tripe is not on at all, no is too much brown speak .
doesnt his city addresses look like a con now , it was double speak even then
Anonymous said...
A few years ago I told a TV journalist friend that she should focus on making herself into a really good business reporter and she would have a job for life.
I was in the US in the early 90's when Maria Bartiromo, AKA "The Money Honey", became a national figure on the strength of her daily reports from the floor of the NYSE.
This would never happen here because nobody working in the media thinks money is a "respectable" topic (apart, of course, from their own salary negotiations). This is compounded at the BBC because they're all leeching off the taxpayer anyway.
Americans at all levels are interested in finance because they rely on economic growth, rather than government handouts for their living.
LIBS FACE WIPE OUT IN SCOTLAND!
Two most recent Scots elections:-
From the Elgin South by-election ;- Peter Horton (Liberal Democrats) 53 votes On top of their 17 votes in Kilsyth N stephens must be feeling pretty chipper right now
GOODBYE NICOL STEPHEN!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I HATE Nicol Stephen with a passion. A totally talentless f'kwit with zero charisma and the intellectual capacity of a whelk (sorry- Whelks). Glad the tossers are on course for a wipeout. In the PR Jock elections i sure as s*it made sure i voted for everybody else- apart from the LD's. A problem for next genelec- SNP or Tory? I'll probably go SNP! F'k, i'll be wearing a kilt next!
Couldn't agree more Simon-as a Scot, I am ashamed that N Stephen was born in the same country!
But it must say something for the other libdum tossers who voted him as leader in the first place!
Don't you dare diss Stephanie Flanders !
You're talking about the girl I love !
I just heard Evan Davies host a R4 programme called, errr, Bottom Line.
Disappointingly, the love that dares not speak its name ... dared not speak its name.
Presumably it was all in code for the cognoscenti.
Mr Lee Jasper left school with no qualifications and went on to obtain a degree in social sciences.
I believe this points to a man of vast intellectual ability who has selflessly fought for the right of others to be like him.
One look at his portrait will give you a sense of his serenity, his wisdom, intelligence and honesty.
http://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/02/15/Jasper460x276.jpg
ALEX WIPES FLOOR WITH NICOL STEPHEN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh2c4rDJ9A4
Wok experince trypist. Savs mony.
Doze it bullocks.
Incidentally my favourite balls-up of this type was when a US news reader read an urgent new flash: "And an update on that automobile accident. Five people were killed, two seriously."
Now Speaker Martin gets caught up in the sleaze, according to the Sunday Mirror tomorrow!
COMMONS SPEAKER 'USED TAXPAYERS' AIR MILES'
By Andrew Woodcock, PA Chief Political Correspondent
House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin used air miles earned on official business to fly members of his family business-class from Glasgow to London for a New Year break, it was revealed today.
Use of the air miles for family flights goes against official guidelines that MPs should use them to reduce the cost of future business travel paid for from the public purse.
Mr Martin chairs the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee, which oversees MPs' expenses. He is also heading the parliamentary inquiry into MPs' expenses in the wake of the furore over former Tory MP Derek Conway's employment of his sons.
The Sunday Mirror revealed that the return flights were worth a total of £3,090.50, but the family saved around £360 a head by using Mr Martin's air miles.
A spokesman for the Speaker said that his son Paul paid £309 and his daughter Mary Ann £230.50 towards the total flight costs.
Mr Martin last year clocked up £10,587 in parliamentary allowances to cover air travel on official business - much of it covering his journeys with wife Mary between Westminster and their Scottish home.
According to the Sunday Mirror, he has amassed more than 1 million air miles, and cashed in 54,000 of them for the New Year trip by his children's families.
Mary Ann flew with her husband and son from Glasgow to London on December 28, returning on January 6, while Paul travelled with his wife and two daughters on December 30, returning January 2.
Ministers are banned from using air miles for personal use but MPs, including Mr Martin, are not covered by the same rules. Instead advice from Commons officials is that they should be used only for business.
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has called for reform of Westminster perks, said: "This will further damage public confidence in the system of parliamentary expenses. A benefit which is accrued because of spending by the taxpayer should be returned to the taxpayer."
Anonymous 4.18
Knew a tax bod at the Brown Broadcasting Corporation and he accidently let slip (under duress!)who the 2 highest paid journalists were at the Beeb.
1) Jeff Randell (so how much does he earn at SKY????)
2) I'll leave that to the viewers - first correct answer.....
Interesting (and accurate) portrayal of Britain today on www.news-365.com
titled "What Great Britain?" made me depressed reading it..
Interesting poll in tomorrows Times Guido seems on the non-dom issue your way out of line with the rest of the country.
The criticise darling for not toughening up the rules.
According to the poll, he should not have done so, with 60% saying he should have toughened up his proposals to tax nondoms more rather than relax the rules. Only one in five, 21%, think it is right for nondoms to pay less tax because of the jobs they generate in this country.
NICOL Stephen, was found guilty of breaking Holyrood's expenses rules while he was claiming thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to buy a flat in Edinburgh.
The mortgage on Mr Stephen's home in one of the Capital's most sought-after areas was held jointly with his wife, Caris Doig - a clear breach of Holyrood's regulations, parliamentary authorities ruled yesterday
Mr Stephen, who has risen to power on the back of a squeaky-clean image, admitted that he regretted the "error" but stressed that the investigation by Holyrood's governing body had found that neither he nor his wife had gained from the arrangement.
HAHAHA-YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP!
I have never liked "Tinsel Tits" as he likes to be known, Evan Davies.
He reminds me of that Aussie idiot Steve Irwin, who finally got his cum uppance from a sting ray.
Both of them talked to the viewer as though they were addressing a class of five year olds. Unable to just present financial news in a normal way Davies seems to be preening himself in front of the camera.
Hope the retard now pisses off into obscurity.
anon @ 10.17 - are these the same bright sparks who have voted in the current shower of shite three times running? If so I am very pleased that my opinion is diametrically opposed to these know-nothing fuckwits.
Bogeyman @ 5:25
Harperson has a plan to send every woman a Dromey, based on the house elf Dobby in Harry Potter. She saw it in the cinema, so it must be possible. Also, it worked for her.
Scrapings from Jack's cheeks are being cloned in massive bottles, provided by Tuscan Tony, who found a supply of containers and flogged them on at enormous profit as gene sequencing flasks.
So far all they've got are enormous hairy cheeks like a cross between a duvet and a coconut doormat, but soon they hope to make fully-functioning Dromeys for the homeys.
A leaked dossier contains a post-it note: "Haze, poppet, get this picture over to Good Housekeeping and see if the customer demand is for the jumbo version, or it it has to fit under the stairs, ta, xx H"
The dossier also contains an ancient Betamax video tape and a futher note in the same hand:
"Schtum. We need to get the biometrics systems in place and a complete hosepipe ban, pronto. We can't have this again.
You know I watched Andrew Marr today and I thought what an utter waste of space and I thought back to Jeff Randall who once said BBC Management needed a good clear-out or words to that effect and how right he is :
Paxman
Marr
Flanders et al
All high earners but clueless about the real world and even if they fuck up - it's just treated as a joke and they earn a promotion or get another programme to front to top up their inflated salaries and massive ego in case they jump ship.
Jeff Randall spoke sense
I will not hear a word against Stephanie Flanders - she is seriously top totty, in a blue-stockinged, english "tennis girl" sort of way, and with brains to match. She appears to have to rein herself in to make her reports more "accessible" and "inclusive", i.e. understandable to a cretin, and I cringe each time Paxo's eyes glaze over when she tries to explain to him some important detail. My dream would be having a serious discussion with her on the medium term future of the economy and then rolling around on the Wilton.
I posted my correction of your figure to embarrass you not to help you (so you ought to have published the comment). Next time I'll just send it to Recess Monkey.
Flanders to be BBC economics editor? Just what BBC One viewers need – a posh-voiced oxbridge bird telling them why they are so poor. At least she should get on with Robert Peston (they both went to Balliol College, Oxford). Small world innit?
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