Famous past appearances suggest Harry and Meghan should be wary of opening up to Oprah
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are due to give a “wide-ranging” interview with Oprah Winfrey next month, and according to a source the couple will not want to say anything to undermine their love and respect for the Queen. However, when royals face TV interviewers, it doesn’t always go to plan, as previous examples illustrate.
Continue reading...China has been critical of BBC reports on Xinjiang, while Ofcom recently revoked CGTN licence
BBC World News has been banned from airing in China, a week after Beijing threatened to retaliate for the recent revocation of the British broadcasting licence for China’s state-owned CGTN.
In a statement published at midnight Beijing time on Friday, China’s National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News’s coverage of China had violated requirements that news reporting be true and impartial and undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.
Continue reading...Boys State, MLK/FBI and Crip Camp among contenders as categories announced include best documentary and best international film
Shortlists for nine Oscar categories have been unveiled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas), an intermediate stage in the thinning-out of films that have qualified for consideration for the Academy Awards. The categories include best documentary, best international film and best song, as well as best live action and documentary shorts.
The rules for each voting process vary, but in most categories a preliminary vote from industry specialists in each field is employed to create the shortlist and then the final five nominations, with the full membership of the Academy invited to vote on the winner.
Continue reading...Medic at heart of original outbreak tells BBC documentary staff were not allowed to wear masks despite concern about human transmission
A doctor from the Wuhan hospital hit hardest by the Covid-19 epidemic has said he and colleagues suspected the virus was highly transmissible in early January last year, weeks before Chinese authorities admitted it, but were prevented from warning anyone.
The doctor’s testimony – in a new BBC documentary on the 54 days between the first known case of coronavirus and the Wuhan lockdown – adds to mounting evidence of Beijing’s early attempts to cover up the virus outbreak, and intimidate healthworkers into staying quiet.
Continue reading...She was one of television’s biggest names, before giving it all up to live on a farm. She talks about her friendship with Princess Diana, the horror of tabloid harassment – and the extraordinary sexism she faced
Selina Scott has come in from the cold. She lights a fire and makes herself a cup of tea – black, no sugar. The former “golden girl” of the BBC lives on a farm in North Yorkshire with a couple of dogs, a handful of rare belted galloway cattle, a waddle of ducks and swans, and the odd otter. The room looks dark and bleak, and the internet isn’t working well, so we struggle to Zoom. “I’m going to move you into another room.” Scott still pronounces room aristocratically as “rum”, but her voice is different from the old days. Back then, it was more of a stately caress, offset by a youthful giggle. Today, her voice is deeper, more flinty, though still with a hint of grandeur. The Yorkshire roots of her childhood have re-emerged and planted themselves firmly in the peaty soil.
It’s 40 years since she made her name presenting News at 10, followed by BBC Breakfast Time, The Clothes Show, The Selina Scott Show for NBC, the magazine show West 57th for CBS and a brief stint at Sky. Scott wasn’t any old presenter. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Princess Diana (or, as she prefers it, the younger Diana bore an uncanny resemblance to her) and, like Diana, she became the nation’s sweetheart. Like Diana, she was hounded by the press – in a way that no other journalist has been. And like Diana she decided to walk away from it all at the peak of her fame. Unlike Diana, she lived to tell the tale.
Continue reading...A biologist and composer have turned the aurora borealis into sound to create a magic melding of art and nature
There’s a hypnotic crackle before a whoosh of sound flies from ear to ear. It’s followed by a heavenly chorus that might be whales whistling, frogs calling or the chirping of an alien bird. It sounds celestial because that’s what it is. The noise is the aurora borealis: the northern lights.
The vivid green lights that trace across the Arctic sky emit electromagnetic waves when the solar shower meets the Earth’s magnetic field, and these can be translated into sounds that are made audible to human ears by a small machine.
Continue reading...Parents in Canberra were unaware daughter had allegedly paid substantial sum to purported hitman
A tip-off from a British journalist working for the BBC led to the arrest of an Australian woman who allegedly used the dark web to hire a contract killer to murder her parents, police say.
The 26-year-old Canberra woman is accused of agreeing to pay $20,000 to kill her parents, who are reportedly prominent businesspeople in the Australian Capital Territory.
Continue reading...The Strictly Come Dancing judge reveals which contestant surprised him the most and why he’s looking forward to getting booed twice a day in Robin Hood
You’re a panto regular – what do you enjoy most about it?
I love live theatre – it’s where I started my career back home in Australia and I got into it as soon as I arrived in the UK. As much as I love my screen career, you simply can’t beat helping an audience to suspend their disbelief for a few hours and enjoy a shared experience live and in real time. While we all take it seriously and it’s hard work, panto is fun, festive and lets me show audiences what I can do when I’m not sitting behind my Strictly desk.
Panto has never fully been exported to Australia. When did you first see one?
The first ever pantomime I was in! Our producers, Qdos Entertainment, once called offering me the job of directing one of their productions, but due to filming commitments I couldn’t make it work. They called back five minutes later and asked me if I wanted to be in the panto instead and I jumped at the chance. It was a baptism of fire – wearing a dress, ridiculously high heels and getting booed twice a day. But I loved it, and I still do.
Princess’s brother says investigation should be free to examine every aspect of 1995 Martin Bashir interview
Earl Spencer has said he is “not at all satisfied” with the scope of the BBC’s investigation into the 1995 Panorama interview with his sister Princess Diana.
The news came as a source close to Prince Harry said he is “getting regular updates” about the inquiry into journalist Martin Bashir’s conduct in arranging the landmark show.
Continue reading...Broadcaster claimed document proved royal was not coerced into doing 1995 interview
The BBC says it has found the handwritten note from Princess Diana that it claimed clears Martin Bashir of wrongdoing in relation to his landmark 1995 interview with the royal.
The broadcaster had previously said it had lost the crucial piece of paper, which it used to explain away Bashir’s use of fake bank statements to gain an introduction to Diana.
Continue reading...Diana’s brother Earl Spencer claims journalist produced fake documents to win trust of family
The BBC has pledged to hold a full independent investigation into how Martin Bashir obtained his career-defining interview with Princess Diana in 1995, following fresh claims that he produced fake documents and used other deceitful tactics to win the trust of her family.
Tim Davie, the corporation’s director general, confirmed that the terms of the investigation would be announced in the coming days: “The BBC is taking this very seriously and we want to get to the truth. We are in the process of commissioning a robust and independent investigation.”
Continue reading...Diana’s revelations to Panorama 25 years ago rocked the royal family. Now the BBC is being accused of setting her up
Confidence is crucial. It has to be established to entice a big name to give a candid TV interview. It is also, of course, the basis of many a scam. Pulling off a confidence trick commonly involves first offering your “mark”, or target, something useful, in an open-handed way, to build up trust, before going in for the kill.
The BBC and its journalist Martin Bashir now both stand accused, once again, of perpetrating this kind of con on Diana, Princess of Wales and her brother, Charles Spencer, to set up Bashir’s sensational Panorama interview in 1995: the programme that fully exposed the discord at the heart of the most famous marriage in the world.
Continue reading...Story of BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s dealings with Princess of Wales is of searing public interest
It was just six days before transmission that Buckingham Palace learned that the BBC’s Panorama programme was to broadcast Martin Bashir’s compelling, explosive – and now highly controversial – interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.
In the palace press office, there was dismay and resignation. “Then everybody looked at each other and said: ‘Martin who?’” recalled Dickie Arbiter, then an assistant palace press secretary.
Continue reading...Charles Spencer says BBC used ‘sheer dishonesty’ to secure interview with princess
Princess Diana’s brother has accused the BBC of a “whitewash” over faked bank statements that allegedly helped to secure a historic Panorama interview with his sister, and called on the corporation to carry out a formal inquiry.
Charles Spencer said the BBC had used “sheer dishonesty” to win the trust of Diana, Princess of Wales, for the interview with Martin Bashir.
Continue reading...John Bolton, a former national security adviser to the Trump administration, gets into heated exchanges with BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis over why he did not appear at Donald Trump's impeachment trial. He repeatedly tells Maitlis to 'let him finish', and blames House Democrats for empowering Trump when they failed to convict him during the impeachment trial. Maitlis also pressed Bolton on why he worked alongside Trump despite admitting he saw him as corrupt and a threat to American security
Continue reading...Danish film-maker Mads Brügger’s latest documentary is an absurdly brave look at Kim Jong-un’s regime that has all the intrigue of a spy thriller
Physically, Ulrich Larsen doesn’t stand out. Polite, unassuming, his unmemorable 44-year-old face is how I imagine an efit template might be, what you start with before you add distinguishing features. You get to decide who he is. Perfect for blending in. Or infiltrating the world’s most secretive regime perhaps, which, as it happens, is what he did. Larsen is “the Mole”.
Jim Latrache-Qvortrup is the opposite. Forty-eight, big, bold, bearded, inked, with an expensive-looking set of teeth and an explosive laugh. Ex-military? Better still, he joined the French Foreign Legion at 19. Crime? Tick; he spent eight years in jail for drug dealing. International arms dealer, buying stinger missiles from North Korea for anyone who will have them? Actually no, but he does a very good job of pretending to be one, hardly has to act at all in fact. Latrache-Qvortrup is “Mr James”.
Continue reading...Issues of bigotry, belonging, race and redemption and are unpicked in this majestic biopic of police officer Leroy Logan
Steve McQueen’s five-movie series for the BBC, Small Axe, only gets more thrilling and captivating with the appearance of this new episode at the New York film festival. He is setting new gold standard for drama – and cinema – on screens of any size.
Related: Lovers Rock review – Steve McQueen throws the best party ever
Continue reading...Benjamin Thomas pleaded guilty to 40 offences over 30 years, mainly against teenage boys
A former pastor and BBC television presenter has been jailed for 10 years and four months after he admitted abusing boys and men over almost three decades.
Ben Thomas, 44, carried out many of his attacks while his victims were sleeping at Christian camps and conferences, Mold crown court in north Wales heard.
Continue reading...Former Daily Mail editor could head Ofcom, while ex-Daily Telegraph editor considers BBC chairman job
Boris Johnson is reported to have offered jobs at the head of two of Britain’s most important media organisations to two outspoken critics of the BBC.
Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, has been asked to run the national broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is believed to be considering accepting the role of chairman of the BBC.
Continue reading...Critics fear end of an era because of plans to make audio journalists work across media platforms
BBC radio voices have described and defined modern British history. Live reports from inside a British bomber over Germany during the second world war, or with the British troops invading Iraq in 2003, or more recently from the frontline of the parent boycott of a Birmingham school over LGBT lessons have also shaped the news agenda.
But now the BBC plans to axe all its national radio reporters and ask them to reapply for a smaller number of jobs as television, radio and digital reporters, rather than as dedicated audio journalists. Many fear it is not just the end of their careers but the premature end of an era for the BBC.
Continue reading...