Rona Fairhead - new BBC Trust Chair Speaks

[Gordon]

Posters may be interested in her speech, her first since taking on the job, at the Royal Television Society last night. Link to it here:

http://www.rts.org.uk/bbc-trust-chair-rona-fairhead-calls-confident-and-connected-bbc-fit-future

[french frank]

Thanks, Gordon. The news story is on the website (or rather on Ariel):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/31113260

[DracoM]

Highly instructive is The Media Show on R4 right now.
Speakers on the show are baffled about Rona Fairhead's position and role as Chair of Trust.

[french frank]

Highly instructive is The Media Show on R4 right now.
Speakers on the show are baffled about Rona Fairhead's position and role as Chair of Trust.

Aren't the position and role the same those of M'lord Patten, and Sir M. Lyons before him, and M'lord Grade before him (and probably not that different from what all the various BBC chairmen of the Board of Governors have been doing since the year dot)?

Speech rather bland, but what else does one expect?

[aeolium]

RF's previous experience does not inspire great confidence:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...iss-subsidiary

[Bax-of-Delights]

One assumes she will be getting the same remuneration as Patten? £110,000 for a part-time job.
Plus she remains an exec director of er....HSBC and a non-exec of Pepsi-Cola.
So no conflict of interest then with the developing scandal over HSBC's laundering of drug money and hiding of taxable income in Swiss bank accounts.

Just what we need.

(Edited to add: Peter Oborne's resignation letter highlights the undue influence HSBC had over the Daily Telegraph's owners and editors. The threat to pull advertising from the paper if it continued with investigations or comment on them finally led to Oborne's decision to leave.)

[french frank]

Though on the Oborn matter, he did claim that the Telegraph didn't cover the BBC Panorama programme with anything like the coverage that other papers did.

There would be an internal (and external?) row if anyone on the BBC Trust attempted to influence management or editorial decisions. They would have to get past Tony Hall who, before his ROH job, was a newsman at the BBC.

One assumes she will be getting the same remuneration as Patten? £110,000 for a part-time job.
Plus she remains an exec director of er....HSBC and a non-exec of Pepsi-Cola.
So no conflict of interest then with the developing scandal over HSBC's laundering of drug money and hiding of taxable income in Swiss bank accounts.

Just what we need.

(Edited to add: Peter Oborne's resignation letter highlights the undue influence HSBC had over the Daily Telegraph's owners and editors. The threat to pull advertising from the paper if it continued with investigations or comment on them finally led to Oborne's decision to leave.)