Paxman tells it like it is...

[Gob]

Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman caused unintentional offence when referring to those who believe in the Old Testament as "stupid", the BBC Trust has ruled.

During a interview with atheist author Richard Dawkins, the presenter also used the term "religious hogwash" when introducing the story of Genesis.

A complainant also accused Mr Paxman of bias against religious belief.

But the BBC said Newsnight welcomed the finding that the piece "achieved due impartiality".

The Trust's editorial standards committee ruled that Mr Paxman was not deliberately offensive and said it did not believe the Newsnight item was biased.

But it recognised some viewers "were unlikely to have expected Jeremy Paxman's typically robust and confrontational interviewing style to extend to the use of the terms 'religious hogwash' and 'stupid people'".

The committee said it regretted the offence caused to some viewers by the use of the terms in question on the programme, broadcast on BBC Two on 13 September 2011

The committee partly upheld the complaint regarding offence.

A BBC spokesperson said: "Newsnight notes the Trust's finding that viewers may have found some of the comments offensive but also welcomes the finding that the piece achieved due impartiality."

[Lord Jim]

The Trust's editorial standards committee ruled that Mr Paxman was not deliberately offensive and said it did not believe the Newsnight item was biased.

Well, that's just stupid hogwash.....

By what imaginative standard is calling people who believe something "stupid people" or referring to beliefs held by hundreds of millions of people "hogwash" not "deliberately offensive"? Did he mean "stupid" and "hogwash" in a good way?

It would be one thing for the BBC to say that the man has a perfect right to say things that are "deliberately offensive" and they stand by his right to do so, but to try to claim that referring to a group of people as "stupid people" isn't deliberately offensive is laughably absurd....

Yet another example of how the BBC has gone downhill, and another blow to its long lost gold standard of credibility....

And I can't help but wonder if the reaction of "the BBC Trust" might have been different if this Paxman fellow had called those who believe in the Koran "stupid people" or referred to some portion of that book as "religious hogwash"....

(Assuming of course that he actually had the stones to say something like that....)

[loCAtek]

Jeremy Paxman religious comments were offensive, rules BBC Trust

Editorial standards committee says comments made in discussion with Richard Dawkins had no clear editorial purpose

"Although the committee did not agree with the complainant that Mr Paxman's use of the terms 'religious hogwash' and 'stupid people' were intended to cause deliberate offence, particularly to those with religious views and beliefs, it nevertheless agreed that they were offensive to some of the audience and that there was no clear editorial purpose for their use in the context of this Newsnight item, taking account of generally accepted standards.

"The committee therefore concluded that the item breached the editorial guidelines on harm and offence. It added that it regretted the offence caused to some viewers by the use of the terms 'religious hogwash' and 'stupid people' on this occasion."



The Guardian

A regret is as good as an apology, thX BBC for telling it like it is.

[Gob]

I though most modern Christians had given up the OT, apart from those bits which support their prejudices that is.

[loCAtek]

I dunno, after watching the interview; if Dawkins thinks 'fairy stories' AKA imagination or wonder, should be replaced with cold, hard facts; then why is he, an evolutionary biologist, ignoring the physical evidence that war/conflict began with the apes, and not with religion?

Why, hypocritically, try to create a myth that in ending religion, that will halt or reduce extreme aggression?

[dales]

I though most modern Christians had given up the OT, apart from those bits which support their prejudices that is.

Any 'Christian' who has "given up" on the O. T. isn't.

[Gob]

I dunno, after watching the interview; if Dawkins thinks 'fairy stories' AKA imagination or wonder, should be replaced with cold, hard facts; then why is he, an evolutionary biologist, ignoring the physical evidence that war/conflict began with the apes, and not with religion?

Why, hypocritically, try to create a myth that in ending religion, that will halt or reduce extreme aggression?

What the fuck are you babbling about now?

[Sean]

I dunno, after watching the interview; if Dawkins thinks 'fairy stories' AKA imagination or wonder, should be replaced with cold, hard facts; then why is he, an evolutionary biologist, ignoring the physical evidence that war/conflict began with the apes, and not with religion?

Why, hypocritically, try to create a myth that in ending religion, that will halt or reduce extreme aggression?

That post makes about as much sense as Belgium.

[dgs49]

I'm not sure what a "modern Christian" is, but most educated Christians consider that Genesis is allegorical, and not intended as a literal historical record of the origin of Homo Sapiens or the contemporary Jewish people.

I have never heard of this Paxman person, but I would bet I could deduce a lot about his regular listening audience if this is his schtick. They would be very comparable to people who listen to Ed Schultz in this country.

[Gob]

If this Ed Shultsz is a clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit, truth seeker, then yes.

Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English journalist, author and broadcaster. He has worked for the BBC since 1977. He is noted for a forthright and abrasive interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians. His regular appearances on the BBC2's Newsnight programme have been criticised as aggressive, intimidating and condescending, and also applauded as tough and incisive. He is also the question master of University Challenge, succeeding Bamber Gascoigne when the programme was revived in 1994.

In 1996 Paxman received BAFTA's Richard Dimbleby Award for "outstanding presenter in the factual arena." Two years later he won the Royal Television Society's Interviewer of the Year Award for his somewhat notorious Newsnight interview with Michael Howard, as well as the Broadcasting Press Guild's award for best "non-acting" performer. He got another Richard Dimbleby Award in 2000 and was nominated for the award in 2001 and 2002. He won the Royal Television Society TV journalism presenter of the year award in 2002 and 2007.

Paxman was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Leeds in the summer of 1999 and in December that year received an honorary degree from the University of Bradford. In 2006 he received an honorary doctorate from the Open University. Among those at the ceremony were three members of the Open University's 1999 University Challenge team. Paxman is a Fellow by special election of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and an Honorary Fellow of his alma mater, St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.

[Lord Jim]

a clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit, truth seeker,

Personally, I'll be a lot more impressed with Mr. Paxman's claims as a "clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit truth seeker" the day he has an Imam on his show and declares passages of the Koran to be hogwash only believed by stupid people.....

To me he looks more like a sneering, self-righteous, mean-mouthed attention seeking bully who bravely takes on easy targets and pokes them in the eye in order to gain publicity and increase his ratings.....

That does not mean however, that I think he should be off the air....

We certainly have our share of those over here, on both sides of the political spectrum....

I'm not comfortable with this whole "BBC Trust" system where apparently a body connected to the state is supposed to determine when someone on the air has been "deliberately offensive" in expressing their opinion, (as opposed to maybe doing something...like dropping trou' and taking a crap on the set, for example) and is then empowered to sanction them in someway if it makes such a finding.....

I for one would not care to have the government in the business of determining when speech is "deliberately offensive" to somebody and then being able to punish those who they have decided are guilty of such a "transgression".

[rubato]

He's a very good interviewer.

Wish we had more like him and less of the Russert "softball" school. (yes, I know, he's physically dead now. Not just morally dead like when he let Cheney lie his head off on air or when he was revealed as a 30-year source for syndicated columnist Robert Novak.[2])


yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

a clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit, truth seeker,

Personally, I'll be a lot more impressed with Mr. Paxman's claims as a "clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit truth seeker" the day he has an Imam on his show and declares passages of the Koran to be hogwash only believed by stupid people.....

I'm betting that Paxman is much more familiar with the Bible than he is with the Koran. That's probably why he hasn't had a go at the Koran. And to be fair Jim, he didn't exactly have an Archbishop on the show when he made those remarks so he shouldn't really have to make similar remarks to an Imam to even the score...

[Big RR]

Well rubato, to each his own, but obnoxious loudmouths posing as journalists, people who live just to make another inane sound bite, bore me whatever their politics. Reducing meaningful political discussion to a bunch of idiotic quotes serves only to terminate the discussion and stoke the brainless idiots on the speaker's "side" of the discussion. We all lose.

[Crackpot]

a clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit, truth seeker,

Personally, I'll be a lot more impressed with Mr. Paxman's claims as a "clear thinking, aggressive, no bullshit truth seeker" the day he has an Imam on his show and declares passages of the Koran to be hogwash only believed by stupid people.....

I'm betting that Paxman is much more familiar with the Bible than he is with the Koran. That's probably why he hasn't had a go at the Koran. And to be fair Jim, he didn't exactly have an Archbishop on the show when he made those remarks so he shouldn't really have to make similar remarks to an Imam to even the score...

I'd bet he's nowhere near as familiar with it as he thinks.

[Lord Jim]

Well rubato, to each his own, but obnoxious loudmouths posing as journalists, people who live just to make another inane sound bite, bore me whatever their politics. Reducing meaningful political discussion to a bunch of idiotic quotes serves only to terminate the discussion and stoke the brainless idiots on the speaker's "side" of the discussion. We all lose.

[rubato]

Well rubato, to each his own, but obnoxious loudmouths posing as journalists, people who live just to make another inane sound bite, bore me whatever their politics. Reducing meaningful political discussion to a bunch of idiotic quotes serves only to terminate the discussion and stoke the brainless idiots on the speaker's "side" of the discussion. We all lose.

Did you actually play the interview and watch all of it?

I doubt it.

If you did, show me the "idiotic quotes" you mention.

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

I'm betting that Paxman is much more familiar with the Bible than he is with the Koran. That's probably why he hasn't had a go at the Koran. And to be fair Jim, he didn't exactly have an Archbishop on the show when he made those remarks so he shouldn't really have to make similar remarks to an Imam to even the score...

I'd bet he's nowhere near as familiar with it as he thinks.

And what makes you say that CP?

It seems to me that some people are getting very protective of a section of a book that on any other day they would describe as allegory which was not meant to be taken literally. Are you guys now saying that the Book of Genisis (and the rest of the Old Testament for that matter) is to be believed as written?

If not, I'm struggling to see why this man's opinion has got your knickers' in such a twist...

[Crackpot]

the OT is far more than Genesis or even the Pentateuch for that matter. I've yet to see someone who is familiar with the Wisdom literature describe it as "stupid".

I'd recommend Ecclesiastes and Proverbs to anyone regardless of religious bent.

[Sean]

But for all you know you have just seen somebody who is very familiar with the Bible describe Genesis* as stupid*.

People do have varying opinions on this you know... I feel that they are perfectly entitled to them.

TBH, the reaction from some of you here is what I would expect from my 6 yr old if I dared to describe Buzz Lightyear as stupid (or indeed, hogwash).




*He only described Genesis thus. He didn't offer an opinion on Ecclesiastes or Proverbs.

*The word he used was hogwash but I don't think that's worth quibbling about. I just wanted to clarify.