The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul
Dacre is generally at the front of the queue when there is BBC bashing to be
done. And, if there are also accusations of covert surveillance and dirty
tricks levelled against the Corporation’s management, one might expect the Mail to be in there like a shot. But on
this occasion, the paper has been rather selective in its coverage.
What we know, and what is not controversial, is that the
Beeb’s head of
Human Resources Lucy Adams is to leave next March, after five years’
service. As she is departing of her own accord, no severance payment will be
due (the Mail erroneously leers “she won’t get a golden goodbye”). What
is also known is that Ms Adams has been involved in controversy with the NUJ.
And it is here that coverage of the story varies, depending
on the paper concerned. Both the deeply subversive Guardian, and the Maily
Telegraph, have
told that there are allegations that a staff member who was also an NUJ
representative had
their emails “monitored” during a
dispute over changes to the staff pension scheme. The Union is taking the
matter to law.
The BBC hotly disputes the allegations, and Ms Adams is also
instructing lawyers, so the whole thing could drag on for some time. But why
has the Daily Mail – which normally
would be all over anything that could be used to paint the Corporation in a bad
light – not
mentioned the alleged email surveillance? Well, anyone who has been given
access to those systems in large corporate may have a good idea why.
When you sign up to using corporate email systems, and
perhaps even at login time, notices will be displayed prominently telling users
of the various terms and conditions to which they must adhere – on pain,
generally, of disciplinary action. Nothing that could reflect badly on the host
organisation, nothing that could be classed as bullying or harassment, and
nothing for personal gain can be sent.
And users are also notified that emails may be monitored. It’s
the company’s system: they don’t need to get a warrant or call the cops, they
can just decide to check what you’re sending and receiving. Having observed
this in action over the years – including seeing people sent down the road for
misuse – I can confirm that monitoring does go on. So I am not surprised at
what happened at the BBC.
Equally, I would not be surprised if the reason the Mail was so coy in its reporting of this
story was because the Dacre empire uses that kind of practice to keep tabs on
the inhabitants of Northcliffe House. I make no accusation here, but can
remember what one Mail staffer told
Nick Davies: “It’s fear versus good money”.
If there is a better reason for not kicking the Beeb, I’d love to hear it.
But be careful which
email system you use to contact me, mind.
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