"a problem of culture within the BBC"

Has there been a wider cultural change over the last 40 years? I think so. Link

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The Jimmy Savile case has highlighted how much the culture of child protection has changed in the last 40 years. But what was behind the transformation?

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One of the extraordinary things about the Jimmy Savile case is the level of regular, easy access he appears to have had to vulnerable children in institutions such as care homes, schools, hospitals and the BBC.

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It has emerged Savile had a room at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, keys to doors at Broadmoor secure hospital and a caravan he often parked on BBC premises.

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Victims from Duncroft children's home have said there was a sense of it being an "honour" to get a visit - or allegedly, even get taken on a day trip, unsupervised - by someone so famous.

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In an age of criminal records checks and children's rights, it seems almost inconceivable that someone would be allowed such unfettered access

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The main difference between now and the 1970s is arguably the level of vigilance. Inappropriate behaviour towards children rapidly raises alarm bells today. And what is deemed inappropriate has changed.

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There is a culture of hypervigilance.

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Grooming by paedophiles - the process of winning the trust of victims - is better understood. This in contrast to the 1980s and before.

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"It wouldn't have occurred to us to think people wanted to harm children," says Sue Palmer, a former primary headteacher and author. "If we went on school trips, we'd often get parents involved. If a child was sent to the head teacher, it would be normal to shut the door."

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There was generally "open access" to schools, she recalls.

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Now any institution that deals regularly with children in the UK will have a child protection policy in place - churches and broadcasters among them.

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Child abuse is now a national obsession, but in the 1960s it scarcely came up as a subject of public concern.

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The 1980s, with some notable child abuse scandals, was in many ways the decade that child sexual abuse was "discovered". The Children Act 1989 became a massive landmark in child protection.

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Sheesh, after 44 posts, you finally agree to discuss the OP. I've hooked marlins with less resistance. Of course, that is why I previously stated: "If you like, we can re-visit this thread in a year's time to see what actually pans out." Unlike your first careless reply in this thread, don't you think this reply is a more rational and thoughtful reply to my original post? 44 replies late, but thanks. Again, I am merely passing along Director Entwistle's words. You seem to have an ongoing block about this. Chuckle. "Those times"? I think your avoidance of my OP shows that there still may be a cultural problem that allows this type of abuse to happen. The amount of people systematically abusing children in the catholic church is also extremely small in comparison to its members. I don't know, if there are BBC arrests in the future, then it seems that comparisons between the BBC and the catholic church aren't THAT absurd.

heheDid you really think dronester would answer that question?

No. I didn't. But I'm going to try again.

Both the Catholic church and the BBC have been found to have employed people who we now know engaged in child abuse whilst in the employ of said institutions. This much at least is utterly indisputable.But beyond that - Can you explicitly and specifically state in what ways you deem the BBC and the Catholic church to have approached this issue in the same way such that your comparison here is valid? So the only replies acceptable to you are those which assume about the BBC that which you want to be true. ANY organisation which is condoning, facilitating or encouraging paedophile activity and protecting known paedophiles should be distrusted and condemned.I barely thought this needed pointing out. He never said that the "BBC was harboring a paedophile ring". That is your accusation. Can you support it?

Of course, the same evidence that leads us to conclude that Savile was operating at all, leads us to conclude there were others involved in one way or another. From what I have read, it's believed to be both, in one degree or another. It's not clear what he means by 'harbouring a paedophile ring' - there is a way of reading it as an insinuation, possibly of institutional support/defence in place.On the other hand Harbouring could be translated as 'giving a safe haven' - which doesn't necessarily mean some kind of knowing and active participation, but it could mean 'having lax procedures of reporting and vigilance'. From that point of view, the BBC may well be guilty.I don't know much about criminal law. Most of what I know is in regards to financial crime (as that is the area I work with). All the laws I've read on the subject can hold someone liable for not reporting suspicions, or for not following adequate procedures for detecting crimes that one should be detecting.Child safety laws came later, so its doubtful whether the BBC can be held criminally liable for anything - but morally is another matter. And that life was not without the consequences, as is being claimed about the case of Claire McAlpine at the moment.But still, I could understand, in the context of the times, the underage sex culture with an attitude to sex of 'don't ask; don't tell', as exploitative as that probably was in many if not all cases. I understand how that could thrive in the culture of the 70s - not condone. But some of the allegations that have come out so far have been coercive in nature (for example using a combination of bribery and threats), which I think makes it even more morally concerning.Of course the problem is defining at what point the BBC as an institution can be held morally accountable to this problem and when it can just be dismissed as 'a handful of bad eggs'. As I said - these days the BBC could be held to be accountable if they didn't do enough to safeguard against it.

I agreed with your previous post Message 46, cultures in both the US and Britain, especially in the past, made it easier to commit crimes against children and then cover them up. However, since there are a very few organizations that have actually done that, there seems to be something more sinister at work at Penn State College, The catholic church, the boy scouts of america, and now ALLEGEDLY, the BBC. Until more facts are known, we cannot CONFIRM what specific comparisons are apt. If this wasn't true, you would have a list of thousandS of more organizations that also succumbed to this weak culture. Do you? "which you want to be true." , yeah Straggler, there is nothing more I want to be true then having hundreds of children abused so that I could win an online debate. What is wrong with you? Uhhh, you want to play definition-games with "harboring"?Really Stragg?At this point of our debate, you really neeeed to play the definition game? Really? Are you really that desperate to score a point here? Out of a threadful of posts, you want to make a major issue out of one word's defintion in one sentence? Please see mod's post above Message 51 (thanks Mod)

Are you still promoting paedophilia? Of course it depends what one means by "promoting" doesn't it? I want to know what you mean by "harboring" - Yes. Because if you simply mean that there were paedophiles working at the BBC then this seems to be an indisputable fact. Given that I work in a company of several thousand employees I would imagine it quite possible that there are paedophiles who work here too. Are we therefore potentially unwittingly harboring paedophiles?If you are using "harboring" to mean something more that involves facilitating or condoning paedophilia it would help if you explicitly said what you mean. So your specific accusation is that the BBC as an organisation committed crimes against children and then covered them up?Is that correct?

That is what he seems to be alluding to without the bollocks to actually come out and say it. I'm not sure why he is being so coy. It may well be guilty in the sense that we now expect these things to be in place in our public institutions and find it unacceptable that they ever were not in place.But if, for example, I rented a flat out and it later became apparent that my tenant had been using the premises to run a paedophile ring and abuse children would I have been "harboring a paedophile ring" simply by being his landlord? If accused of such I would deny it vehemently. Because "harboring" strongly implies I had actively and knowingly sought to provide a safe haven for paedophiles. I have little doubt that the BBC was as morally naive and culpable as all of the other institutions Savile infiltrated and, more generally, British society as a whole was about these issues. In fact I would suggest that levels of naivety and ignorance about child abuse issues (which would probably qualify as almost wilfully complicit in today's climate) extend well beyond Britain to Western society as a whole. I absolutely agree that this is the question and have little doubt that the protections in place back then would warrant a giant fail in today's terms.I also agree that it is the extent of institutional culpability that needs to be investigated. An independent inquiry seems necessary to me to do this.But at the same time we have to recognise that failing to meet today's standards of vigilance in previous decades is not so much a sign of specific BBC culpability but more a sign of social attitudes in general. The BBC is as culpable of this as everyone else. As the most accessed new website in the world the BBC is widely hated by many private news organisations who want to put their own web material behind paywalls and profit from selling their unashamedly biased information. A free respected and trusted news source flies in the face of all they believe in and acts as a barrier to them achieving their aims.They will seek to have the BBC judged and condemned by today's standards of vigilance because it suits them to have the BBC diminished. To be morally culpable in the way Drone is strongly implying I think it would need to be shown that the BBC as an organisation was actually facilitating or condoning paedophilia in a way that goes beyond the head-in-the-sand approach that was entirely prevalent in society as a whole at that time.I think it would need to be shown that there was an institutional-wide coverup of the sort that was discovered in the Catholic church. So far I haven't seen that.

That is one possibility. How about these . . .1. I've already quoted the allegations numerous times, so I am suspecting that you are being an obstinate arse. Even the likes of jar and CS got my gist after only the original post.2. Why should I suffer insults?: - I paraphrased the allegations by Director General Entwistle with the word "harbor", meaning to condone. Go back and re-read ALL of Entwistle's allegations, I posted them repeatedly. What is wrong with you? To repeat . . . again: - You mean you don't WANT to see it. Note:The highly respected and esteemed BBC: a JOURNALISTIC organization uncovering stories from all around the world can't even sniff out the ALLEGED 50 years of abuse by their own staff. Doesn't that say SOMETHING about the BBC's integrity OR their competence?The catholic church: an organization where ignorance, misogyny, and strict authoritarian behavior is promoted. It's taken for granted they would cover up any internal abuse.The two are direct opposites, but you are trying to smear both with the same "naive culture" justification for both. You are weighing their actions EQUALLY. Instead, you SHOULD be comparing their actions FAIRLY? Off-topic and certainly questionable now. More about Savile huh? Has he recently become undead? Evidence? OK, keep comparing the BBC and the catholic church EQUALLY. Whatever let's you sleep.

So - to be absolutely clear here - You think the BBC as an organisation condones paedophilia?Is that correct? So - To be absolutely clear here - You think the BBC should be compared to the Catholic church because it inherently has higher standards of self-analysis......Huh?

So far as I remember, when you last brought up the BBC, it was because a billboard advertisement had appeared prominently in one of their camera angles in the Olympic coverage, and they had changed the angle when viewers had pointed this out. What I asked you was whether there was any evidence that the advertisement was shown with intent. For example, a camera crew or director might have been bribed by the company concerned to do this. I asked because, if there was evidence for this then, as a sort of part owner of the BBC, I would want to see an investigation, and to see heads roll if there actually had been any corruption. There could be. It can happen anywhere.As it was, there didn't seem to be any evidence of intent at all.I don't remember using the word "admiration", but I'll take your first question to mean: "has my attitude to the BBC significantly changed?", or indeed, as you use the phrase "exact same", "has my attitude changed at all"? It's a slightly odd question from your point of view, as you've no idea how critical I was of the BBC before this story broke.But the answer is "no". To explain that, I know that (1)amongst any group of people numbering 22,000, there will be paedophiles, especially when teenagers are considered to be children; (2) I've known the rumours about Jimmy Savile for some years (long before the last time we discussed the BBC) and (3) I first heard these rumours from journalists/news producers, and I know very well that they could not actually pin enough evidence on him at the time to break the story otherwise they would have done it. I knew some of this particular group very well.That point in italics is important to understand. Only one of the people I was discussing this with worked for the BBC. News people hang about together, and they switch companies that they work for, so other T.V. companies and the print media were in the same position as the BBC. One of the group I was discussing this with was an ITV news producer, for example. It's a big tempting news story from their POV, but they have to be sure of their ground to accuse him directly.Then the second question: Are you silly for comparing the BBC to the Catholic Church?The answer is "yes". You would need to know of a whole lot of BBC employees who had been positively established to be paedophiles by the organisation, including (non-statutory) rapists, who had then been moved around the company, for example from one city to another, in order to cover up local incidents, and who had not been reported to the police when the severity of many of the offenses would have made that a near certainty in other organisations.But I'd say that you wouldn't be being silly if you were to compare "celebrity" culture and the special "magic" that surrounds "celebrities" in some people's minds to the special "magic" that surrounds the clergy in some people's minds.That's a more general problem. Is it easier for some well known people, like some priests, to get away with stuff that the rest of us wouldn't get away with? Edited by bluegenes, : spellin