Savile and the BBC crisis

[Ed209]

A grim topic I know, but this is surely the BBC's biggest ever crisis. Can't remember anything like this, except may be the sexed up dossier, but this is far wider reaching for the organisation itself

The fallout from this is going to massive, and its only just begun. Appears as though there were some seriously bad things going on at the BBC. I'm sure the Beeb will recover from this, but its in for a very tough time. And deservedly so. A watershed moment in their history for sure and will be a better organisation for it when it comes out the otherside. Can't see this ending any time soon. The press really have their teeth into this and so do the public. This is going to run and run.

Necrophilia claims the other day. Hospitals who did "charity" work at saying they allowed him unattended visits to the morgue.

Tabloids claiming this morning that there will multiple celebrity arrests in the coming days. Expect some big names to making the news shortly.

There will be good that comes out of this. All big organisations will be taking a long hard look at themselves, organisational changes will be made and child protection awareness will increase. There has been a massive increase in abuse victims coming forward as well.

Just a shame the piece of shit will never face his allegations.

[The Nal]

Bound to be so many people who knew and helped cover it up. No way he was that fucked up and doing all that fucked up stuff without somebody knowing, apart from the victims.

[Kowalski]

I just hope that those in power at other institutions that placed Saville in positions where he could take advantage of vulnerable people get as much scrutiny and indignation as the BBC has received this week.

For me, some of the BBC-bashing is clouding the story.

It's highly unlikely the BBC as an organisation covered up what was going on (although there must be some individuals that did), but they are certainly guilty of ignorance.

If only all this had come to light while he was still alive.

[eFestivals]

Anything that might have been going on at the BBC will have been going on at ITV too. The issue is one of deference to 'stars' and nothing to do with any single organisation, as the same problems at various NHS sites and schools gets to show.

It's also an issue of the culture at the time and the very different culture nowadays towards sexual abuse. Looking back 40 years and being shocked that there was sexual abuse is just like looking back 200 years to the time of slavery and being shocked that there was slavery.

The print media are loving stirring it up, as tho that justifies them being w*nkers to celebrities - but they forget to mention that they never went after the good target of Savile. And they also fail to tell you is that every single one of them published words from Saviles own mouth where he admitted what he was doing. Savile even admitted it to Prince Charles in about 1990, and that convo with his admission was printed on one of the papers.

It is no major crisis of anything. There are a bunch of valid victims - but just as there is at all points in time - and the same old bollocks from the Murdoch press who want to convince everyone it's all the BBC's fault. It doesn't take a genius to realise why.

We will not get anywhere good towards stopping abuse via the hype and bollocks that is being spouted.

[Kowalski]

Anything that might have been going on at the BBC will have been going on at ITV too. The issue is one of deference to 'stars' and nothing to do with any single organisation, as the same problems at various NHS sites and schools gets to show.

It's also an issue of the culture at the time and the very different culture nowadays towards sexual abuse. Looking back 40 years and being shocked that there was sexual abuse is just like looking back 200 years to the time of slavery and being shocked that there was slavery.

The print media are loving stirring it up, as tho that justifies them being w*nkers to celebrities - but they forget to mention that they never went after the good target of Savile. And they also fail to tell you is that every single one of them published words from Saviles own mouth where he admitted what he was doing. Savile even admitted it to Prince Charles in about 1990, and that convo with his admission was printed on one of the papers.

It is no major crisis of anything. There are a bunch of valid victims - but just as there is at all points in time - and the same old bollocks from the Murdoch press who want to convince everyone it's all the BBC's fault. It doesn't take a genius to realise why.

We will not get anywhere good towards stopping abuse via the hype and bollocks that is being spouted.

[eFestivals]

Bound to be so many people who knew and helped cover it up.

In 1975 there was an organisation freely operating - including adverts in the national press - called the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

PIE members exchanged the names and addresses of easy victims between each other. It did eventually become a scandal but not a very big one.

That shows very clearly the culture of the time. Looking at it in today's terms tells you nothing useful, it merely allows people to hype it up into something it never was at the time (to anyone but the victims, anyway).

[Ed209]

Anything that might have been going on at the BBC will have been going on at ITV too. The issue is one of deference to 'stars' and nothing to do with any single organisation, as the same problems at various NHS sites and schools gets to show.

It's also an issue of the culture at the time and the very different culture nowadays towards sexual abuse. Looking back 40 years and being shocked that there was sexual abuse is just like looking back 200 years to the time of slavery and being shocked that there was slavery.

The print media are loving stirring it up, as tho that justifies them being w*nkers to celebrities - but they forget to mention that they never went after the good target of Savile. And they also fail to tell you is that every single one of them published words from Saviles own mouth where he admitted what he was doing. Savile even admitted it to Prince Charles in about 1990, and that convo with his admission was printed on one of the papers.

It is no major crisis of anything. There are a bunch of valid victims - but just as there is at all points in time - and the same old bollocks from the Murdoch press who want to convince everyone it's all the BBC's fault. It doesn't take a genius to realise why.

We will not get anywhere good towards stopping abuse via the hype and bollocks that is being spouted.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Ed209

[feral chile]

In 1975 there was an organisation freely operating - including adverts in the national press - called the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

PIE members exchanged the names and addresses of easy victims between each other. It did eventually become a scandal but not a very big one.

That shows very clearly the culture of the time. Looking at it in today's terms tells you nothing useful, it merely allows people to hype it up into something it never was at the time (to anyone but the victims, anyway).

Edited October 26, 2012 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

Even if its the press going OTT on the BBC that doesn't stop it being any less of a crisis for the organisation.

It's not a crisis. It's history.

Someone might as well start a campaign against Barclays and Lloyds for having been slave traders.

And just because it was all too common in those times shouldn't be a reason to not consider this as serious as it actually was.

There's victims, and for those victims it's of course as serious as it gets. I have no problems with their anguish being considered in and dealt with within today's terms. I hope they get the help and support they need to get thru what is no doubt a very traumatic time for them - both at the time, and right now.

The perpetrators of those crimes and those covering it up are just as guilty of their crimes then as they would be now

Nope, completely wrong.

The laws are different now. But much more importantly, the public attitudes towards any similarities in laws then and now is absolutely massively different.

That's not me saying that their doings can be excused in any way, but that's me saying how it looks now is not how it looked at the time.

Today it is rightly considered to be everyone's duty to report any suspicion of abuse, but that wasn't the case back then. And particularly for a 'star' of Savile's stature, he would have been given the benefit of any doubt - as it appears that he was.

[TheGayTent]

Saville was doing no different in the 70s to what many rock stars were doing at the same time. I'm sure various members of various bands have admitted shagging underage groupies. Or at least not knowing whether they were 13, 16, or 21.

That 'fake' HIGNFY transcript has been doing the rounds on the Internet as long as I can remember using the Internet.

Edit after re-reading - I'm in no way condoning paedophilia (sp?) - just that Saville was by no means the only perpetrator.

Seems Ben Mitchell is up to no good in real life as well as in Walford...

Edited October 26, 2012 by TheGayTent

[zahidf]

I think the BBC are in trouble because of that newsnight report being pulled. If they hadn't done that, they wouldn't be in as much of mess, and it could have been historical.

[eFestivals]

Saville was doing no different in the 70s to what many rock stars were doing at the same time. I'm sure various members of various bands have admitted shagging underage groupies. Or at least not knowing whether they were 13, 16, or 21.

yup. I think that John Peel's public admissions at various times thru his life gets to show how the attitudes have changed so very hugely. If having sex with 13 year olds had been considered in the past by the public in the same way as it's considered now he would never have become the 'music-culture hero' that he was.

That's not me saying that it was ever right, but it very definitely wasn't viewed by society as being as wrong as it is today.

[Kowalski]

Saville was doing no different in the 70s to what many rock stars were doing at the same time

[The Nal]

That's not me saying that it was ever right, but it very definitely wasn't viewed by society as being as wrong as it is today.

[Ed209]

It's not a crisis. It's history.

Someone might as well start a campaign against Barclays and Lloyds for having been slave traders.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Ed209

[5co77ie]

Savile is not one of those endemic of the climate and attitudes towards sex at the time, his necrophiliac tendencies, and his liking for disabled sex, make him one of the UK's most prevalent sex offenders who used his position to prey on the vulnerable. What he was doing at the time - shagging corpses was not what many of the stars of the time were doing - if it was that's news to me.

[eFestivals]

The press have decided it is one, and therefore it is one because the press are going to twist the knife until they get every last drop of blood out.

Only if people like you let them. I'm not letting them, so it's no crisis to me, and there's no crisis at the BBC to me.

The choice is to ride the media bandwagon, or to think for yourself.

[5co77ie]

Personally I don't think it's the BBC's problem. It's not like Millwards Merchandising got any stick for their workforce is it? Remember Frank Bough, was that the BBC's fault? - no, it's the employees. You surely can't hold an employer at fault for the behaviour when 'off the job' of their employees. We start going down that route again and we'll got arrested for going to those hedonistic hippy festivals (again).

As Neil says his underage sexual proclavities were a symptom of the times, and pretty much the norm, we going to try every rockl star who got his end away with an underage groupie? Surely, we can't use our attitudes today to impinge on those 4 decades ago. As I said having a room in the morgue to say "special goodbyes" to the dead is a bit above and beyond that but it seems the BBC were not aware of that.

Surely the fact it was reported to the police in the late Seventies makes this one they should have handled, not his employers. In a worst case the Wests were reported to the police in the 1970's and the police did nothing but fine (yup fine them), who was culpible then?

[Ed209]

well maybe its my age. I've never lived through a time when these things were acceptable so I would like any BBC staff, past or present who were involved in child abuse to be dealt with

[eFestivals]

well maybe its my age. I've never lived through a time when these things were acceptable ....

I'd have thought that you have, tho you might not have realised it. Then again, perhaps you're younger than I'd been thinking.

To try and illustrate the sorts of things that have changed massively, it wasn't illegal for a teacher to have a relationship with a pupil until somewhere around the mid-80s I think (it was certainly still permissible in the late 70s, a girl in the class of a friend at a Catholic school got knocked up by her teacher and he kept his job).

[LondonTom]

well maybe its my age. I've never lived through a time when these things were acceptable so I would like any BBC staff, past or present who were involved in child abuse to be dealt with

[Ed209]

I'd have thought that you have, tho you might not have realised it. Then again, perhaps you're younger than I'd been thinking.

To try and illustrate the sorts of things that have changed massively, it wasn't illegal for a teacher to have a relationship with a pupil until somewhere around the mid-80s I think (it was certainly still permissible in the late 70s, a girl in the class of a friend at a Catholic school got knocked up by her teacher and he kept his job).

[Ed209]

I'd like the other people in the hospitals and care homes who were involved to be prosecuted to... (Saying BBC staff, just makes it sound like the press who are using this as a great reason to beat the BBC up over it...)

[feral chile]

yup. I think that John Peel's public admissions at various times thru his life gets to show how the attitudes have changed so very hugely. If having sex with 13 year olds had been considered in the past by the public in the same way as it's considered now he would never have become the 'music-culture hero' that he was.

That's not me saying that it was ever right, but it very definitely wasn't viewed by society as being as wrong as it is today.

Edited October 26, 2012 by feral chile

[feral chile]

isn't this the best thing that can come out of this, that people still suffering as victims will be able to at least talk about it..?

one of things that baffles me is how people, some people, are saying that anyone who didn't speak up about it at the time is as bad as Savile (or anyone else who was doing it). Really...?

Edited October 26, 2012 by feral chile