Maybe one for Film+TV, kinda Convo-ish too....
The following is a leaked series of e-mails conducted between Jeremy Paxman and Anthony Massey (the BBC World duty editor) about Mark Thompson, the director General of the BBC.
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Massey
Sent: 09 February 2005 15:45
To: Virginia Eastman
Subject: FW:
This may amuse you. It's an e-mail exchange between me and Jeremy
Paxman, on the subject of Mark Thompson. It started when Jeremy was
planning his interview with Thompson for the News Festival, which I
missed. To be read from the bottom up, of course.
A
=========
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Paxman
Sent: 31 January 2005 15:00
To: Anthony Massey
Subject: RE:
Bloody hell. If any of this came out, he'd be toast.
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Massey
Sent: 28 January 2005 08:39
To: Jeremy Paxman
Subject: RE:
He certainly is. Here's the subbed down version of the strangling
story, which I hasten to add I got at second hand and did not witness
personally:
The Nine, with Thompson editing, were leading with the death of some
famous British actor like Gielgud or Ralph Richardson. At two minutes
to nine a picture editor dubbed the obit to get a perfect sound balance.
As it was four minutes long and this was the pre-digital age, this
wasn't very bright, and the story missed its slot as the lead. After
the Nine was over Thompson stormed down to VTs in search of the culprit
and tried to throttle him. He had both hands round the man's throat and
had to be dragged off. All this might have been forgotten but for the
fact that the picture editor, according to the story, had a nervous
breakdown, left the BBC and never worked again. They still talk about it
in RCR.
So I got off lightly really.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Paxman
Sent: 24 January 2005 14:37
To: Anthony Massey
Subject: RE:
Gosh! I wish I'd got this earlier, although it would have been hard to
know precisely how to play it, I think. The bloke is quite clearly
insane.
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Massey
Sent: 23 January 2005 08:50
To: Jeremy Paxman
Subject: RE:
Sorry I didn't reply in time, I've been away from the office for the
last week, and I missed the News Festival or I could have offered this
from the audience!
It is absolutely true. It was late summer or early autumn of 1988, when
he was the newly appointed editor of the Nine O'Clock News, and I was a
Home News Organiser. It was 9.15 in the morning, in the middle of the
old sixth floor newsroom. I went up to his desk to talk about some
story after the 9.00 meeting we used to have then. I was standing next
to him on his right, and he was sitting reading his horoscope in the
Daily Star (I always remember that detail). Before I could say a word
he suddenly turned, snarled, and sank his teeth into my left upper arm
(leaving marks through the shirt, but not drawing blood). It hurt. I
pulled my arm out of his jaws, like a stick out of the jaws of a
labrador. The key thing is, we didn't have a row first, or even speak,
and I had never had any dispute with him before. He was recently
arrived in the newsroom, and I hardly knew him. He just bit me in the
arm for no reason without any warning or preamble. I don't think it was
personal. Something turned in his brain, and anyone who had been
standing there at that moment would have been bitten, Linda from the
teabar, the BBC Chairman, Keith Graves, anyone. It just happened to be
me.
Thompson didn't apologise or explain, so I went to complain to my then
boss, Chris Cramer. All Cramer said was "This whole place is full of
fucking headbangers", which was a fair point and indeed is still true,
but didn't help somehow. I wanted to bring the whole BBC disciplinary
process down on Thompson's head, and get the NUJ involved, but Cramer
was desperate for that not to happen. So I got sent abroad on some
story for a month or so, and when I came back it had lost momentum, and
I never pursued it. Also I was on attachment and applying for a
permanent job, so I didn't want to rock the boat. And in those days
dinosaurs ruled the earth, and it seemed quite acceptable for senior
people to bite junior colleagues. But several times since Mark Damazer,
who was one of many witnesses, has said to me "You could have ended Mark
Thompson's career with a single word, and you never did." He sounded
as though he wished I had, though I thought he was meant to be a friend
of Thompson's.
Thompson stayed in the newsroom for several months until he became
Editor of Panorama, and we have met a number of times since then. But
in a very British way, neither of us has ever mentioned it. But when he
became DG several people who were in the newsroom at the time reminded
me of this incident (as if I might have forgotten it) and it went all
round the building. To my knowledge the only time it's appeared in
print was shortly afterwards, when a brief item appeared in the
Londoner's Diary in the Evening Standard. This was nothing whatever to
do with me, though I was not sorry to see it. My name wasn't mentioned,
which was good. But the story did go round the world, and when I was in
Kuwait just after the end of the Gulf War in 1991, an NBC producer said
"Are you the person Mark Thompson bit?" Fame of a sort.
Now Thompson is DG, the story is probably more valuable. The joke in
the newsroom is that if ever they make me redundant, I'll be off to the
Daily Mail or the Sun with my arm in a sling. There are several other
good Thompson stories. I know two more. He has a bit of a reputation
for mindless violence against innocent bystanders (ask the old hands in
RCR about the strangling incident). But he's only attacked me once.
I last saw Thompson just after he was made DG, at the BBC News 50th
anniversary party in TC1 in May. He saw me across the room and went
white. I don't know why. He shouldn't be afraid of me, I don't bite.
Anthony
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Paxman
Sent: 18 January 2005 15:50
To: Anthony Massey
Subject:
I've got to interview Mark Thompson tomorrow. Is it true that he once
bit you? |
