Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 18, 2014 12:09:01 GMT
Given that in nearly every statement made by the BBC to try and convince the public that they are trustworthy they speak of 'open and transparent', how is it then that they needed to pay one of their ex-presenters of Newsnight a £200,000 pay off to ensure her silence?
Could it be that she had threatened to take them to a tribunal over certain matters, and they didn't want it coming out?
'Trustworthy' is a contradiction in terms in relation to the BBC.
Could it be that she had threatened to take them to a tribunal over certain matters, and they didn't want it coming out?
'Trustworthy' is a contradiction in terms in relation to the BBC.
SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Newsnight's £200,000 gag for axed reporter Susan Watts
By Sebastian Shakespeare
Since the BBC recruited the Guardian’s deputy editor Ian Katz to be the new boss of Newsnight last year, he has presided over the departure of its star presenter Jeremy Paxman and been assailed by viewers’ protests after the introduction of a string of gimmicks.
Now hard-pressed licence fee payers have been forced to foot the bill for a £200,000 pay-off to one of the distinguished reporters whom Katz made redundant.
Long-serving science editor Susan Watts is understood to have received the huge sum after she agreed to sign a ‘gagging clause’ preventing her from discussing the circumstances of her exit from the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme.
After the 52-year-old journalist was made redundant last year, Watts hinted she would be taking the Corporation to an employment tribunal. Watts, who had worked on Newsnight since 1995, said on a website that there was ‘more to come out’ about her dismissal.
‘It is disappointing, professionally and personally,’ she said.
Katz, 47, angered BBC staff when he lured reporter Laura Kuenssberg, 37, from ITV on a rumoured salary of almost £200,000 as Newsnight’s average audience slipped to just 600,000.
Another prominent age discrimination case would have been highly embarrassing for the BBC three years after Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly’s claims were upheld by a tribunal. She said she was the victim of age discrimination and victimisation when she was sacked in 2009 at the age of 52.
Watts was a key figure in the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly after it emerged the weapons inspector had been one of her contacts.
The BBC confirmed she had a tape of a conversation with Dr Kelly, which corroborated the claim of reporter Andrew Gilligan that Tony Blair’s government had ‘sexed up’ its dossier on Saddam’s weapons in Iraq.
Last week, Paxman was criticised by Katz, who said the presenter thought ‘almost everything’ he suggested was ‘preposterous or infantile or an otherwise completely lamentable idea’.
Former BBC news chief Roger Mosey said this month that Katz was ‘flogging a dying horse’ with Newsnight. ‘Jeremy Paxman’s ability to create a sense of theatre even on a dull night is missed,’ he said.
‘Unless the programme is re-imagined, and radically, it will merely lurk as the ghost of glories past.’
A BBC spokesman says: ‘We don’t comment on staffing matters.’
By Sebastian Shakespeare
Since the BBC recruited the Guardian’s deputy editor Ian Katz to be the new boss of Newsnight last year, he has presided over the departure of its star presenter Jeremy Paxman and been assailed by viewers’ protests after the introduction of a string of gimmicks.
Now hard-pressed licence fee payers have been forced to foot the bill for a £200,000 pay-off to one of the distinguished reporters whom Katz made redundant.
Long-serving science editor Susan Watts is understood to have received the huge sum after she agreed to sign a ‘gagging clause’ preventing her from discussing the circumstances of her exit from the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme.
After the 52-year-old journalist was made redundant last year, Watts hinted she would be taking the Corporation to an employment tribunal. Watts, who had worked on Newsnight since 1995, said on a website that there was ‘more to come out’ about her dismissal.
‘It is disappointing, professionally and personally,’ she said.
Katz, 47, angered BBC staff when he lured reporter Laura Kuenssberg, 37, from ITV on a rumoured salary of almost £200,000 as Newsnight’s average audience slipped to just 600,000.
Another prominent age discrimination case would have been highly embarrassing for the BBC three years after Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly’s claims were upheld by a tribunal. She said she was the victim of age discrimination and victimisation when she was sacked in 2009 at the age of 52.
Watts was a key figure in the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly after it emerged the weapons inspector had been one of her contacts.
The BBC confirmed she had a tape of a conversation with Dr Kelly, which corroborated the claim of reporter Andrew Gilligan that Tony Blair’s government had ‘sexed up’ its dossier on Saddam’s weapons in Iraq.
Last week, Paxman was criticised by Katz, who said the presenter thought ‘almost everything’ he suggested was ‘preposterous or infantile or an otherwise completely lamentable idea’.
Former BBC news chief Roger Mosey said this month that Katz was ‘flogging a dying horse’ with Newsnight. ‘Jeremy Paxman’s ability to create a sense of theatre even on a dull night is missed,’ he said.
‘Unless the programme is re-imagined, and radically, it will merely lurk as the ghost of glories past.’
A BBC spokesman says: ‘We don’t comment on staffing matters.’