Danny Baker sacked
Comments
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no. a clarkson moment is chinning someone.
this was full blown racism by a racist.Postby team47b » Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:53 am
De Sisti wrote:
This is one of the silliest threads I've come across.
Recognition at last Matthew, well done!, a justified honoursmithy21 wrote:
He's right you know.0 -
amrushton wrote:This was a 'Clarkson' moment imo. Expect Baker to be hired by an independent on more money in the next few weeks.
Not sure sure. Anyone who hires him that quickly would basically be admitting that they thought the tweet was ok. He may emerge in a year or so's time on something similar to the legendary North Norfolk Digital, but my guess is that he is basically done..0 -
He posts/deletes the tweet, tweets an apology/mea culpa but gets sacked. On the doorstep admits his mistake and issues formal apology. He is now free to accept any offers his agent gets. I'll say 3 months max before he is on-air again and on TV on a panel show in 2 months. Media world loves some scandal and his listeners will tune in to his new show when it goes on-air. Clarkson 'staged' a fight to make the move to Amazon and was on the BBC within a few months as a guest host(?)0
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amrushton wrote:He posts/deletes the tweet, tweets an apology/mea culpa but gets sacked. On the doorstep admits his mistake and issues formal apology. He is now free to accept any offers his agent gets. I'll say 3 months max before he is on-air again and on TV on a panel show in 2 months. Media world loves some scandal and his listeners will tune in to his new show when it goes on-air. Clarkson 'staged' a fight to make the move to Amazon and was on the BBC within a few months as a guest host(?)
Baker is in his 60s and doesn't have the cult following Clarkson does (did) so there's not much to attract others to take that risk. As others have pointed out the punishment on these things is often inversely proportional to the financial worth you have to an employer.0 -
clarkson also didn't get sacked for racism just loutism.Postby team47b » Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:53 am
De Sisti wrote:
This is one of the silliest threads I've come across.
Recognition at last Matthew, well done!, a justified honoursmithy21 wrote:
He's right you know.0 -
Tangled Metal wrote:As a kid my dad worked away for 4 months helping to build a large scale dam and hydroelectric scheme. Living in the middle of knowhere in an armed guard protected compound he really only met a relatively small cross section of local Nigerian population.
What I remember about his conversations with locals was the story he gave about his discussion on evolution with some of them. Discussions about humans being evolved from apes. The locals completely accepted that the white, ex pats were evolved from apes but wouldn't accept that they were.
White man ape, black man is man.
No doubt things are different now, probably 25 years on. However it makes me wonder about the black man, monkey trope. Is it solely a European and North American thing? What is the equivalent in other parts of the world?
Was that the Oyo water project - with Costain?0 -
Just happened to be discussing evolution with them.
It’s a discussion I often get into while away on business
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For anyone in any doubt that 'celebrities' who get sacked can quickly find redemption if deemed to have sufficient financial worth to their employers take a look at last night's BAFTAs where Ant & Dec were nominated for an award and Ant even went up on stage for I'm A Celebrity's victory even though he wasn't involved. As I've said before though I doubt Baker has that sort of clout so other than maybe a minor commercial radio station I doubt he'll get work again.0
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He'll be on talksport before the end of the year! you heard it here first!www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0
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Chris Bass wrote:He'll be on talksport before the end of the year! you heard it here first!
Not a bad shout, they like 'controversial' presenters (read gobshites who like to give their opinion as loudly as possible) so he might be a good fit. I just can't bring myself to listen to that station.0 -
Pross wrote:Chris Bass wrote:He'll be on talksport before the end of the year! you heard it here first!
Not a bad shout, they like 'controversial' presenters (read gobshites who like to give their opinion as loudly as possible) so he might be a good fit. I just can't bring myself to listen to that station.
plus Danny Kelly is on most days and those two had a football show on BT sport not too long ago and have been friends for many years.www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
No idea I wasn't interested. I was a teenager!Lagrange wrote:Tangled Metal wrote:As a kid my dad worked away for 4 months helping to build a large scale dam and hydroelectric scheme. Living in the middle of knowhere in an armed guard protected compound he really only met a relatively small cross section of local Nigerian population.
What I remember about his conversations with locals was the story he gave about his discussion on evolution with some of them. Discussions about humans being evolved from apes. The locals completely accepted that the white, ex pats were evolved from apes but wouldn't accept that they were.
White man ape, black man is man.
No doubt things are different now, probably 25 years on. However it makes me wonder about the black man, monkey trope. Is it solely a European and North American thing? What is the equivalent in other parts of the world?
Was that the Oyo water project - with Costain?
All I remember was the armed guards. Day shift had AK47s but they took them home with them. That left the lower paid night security with flintlock muskets! If you're local terrorists night attack was probably a good bet. Plus the monkey evolution thing, photographs steal the soul and other stories that made the locals seem backwards but probably just expat superiority. Although knowing how my dad was truly hard on us if we copied racist language, learnt from kids at school, at home makes me think some of them are probably true.
It was a day's drive from the capital if that sounds familiar. My dad and the guys he flew out with got a police escort out of the city because their vehicles had the wrong registration number for the day they picked us up. Something about odd and even numbers on alternate days. Of course police and especially traffic police were expected to supplement their pay with bribes. They really were cheap!0 -
Tangled Metal wrote:
No idea I wasn't interested. I was a teenager!Lagrange wrote:Tangled Metal wrote:As a kid my dad worked away for 4 months helping to build a large scale dam and hydroelectric scheme. Living in the middle of knowhere in an armed guard protected compound he really only met a relatively small cross section of local Nigerian population.
What I remember about his conversations with locals was the story he gave about his discussion on evolution with some of them. Discussions about humans being evolved from apes. The locals completely accepted that the white, ex pats were evolved from apes but wouldn't accept that they were.
White man ape, black man is man.
No doubt things are different now, probably 25 years on. However it makes me wonder about the black man, monkey trope. Is it solely a European and North American thing? What is the equivalent in other parts of the world?
Was that the Oyo water project - with Costain?
All I remember was the armed guards. Day shift had AK47s but they took them home with them. That left the lower paid night security with flintlock muskets! If you're local terrorists night attack was probably a good bet. Plus the monkey evolution thing, photographs steal the soul and other stories that made the locals seem backwards but probably just expat superiority. Although knowing how my dad was truly hard on us if we copied racist language, learnt from kids at school, at home makes me think some of them are probably true.
It was a day's drive from the capital if that sounds familiar. My dad and the guys he flew out with got a police escort out of the city because their vehicles had the wrong registration number for the day they picked us up. Something about odd and even numbers on alternate days. Of course police and especially traffic police were expected to supplement their pay with bribes. They really were cheap!
Biros and cassette tapes.0 -
Chris Bass wrote:Pross wrote:Chris Bass wrote:He'll be on talksport before the end of the year! you heard it here first!
Not a bad shout, they like 'controversial' presenters (read gobshites who like to give their opinion as loudly as possible) so he might be a good fit. I just can't bring myself to listen to that station.
plus Danny Kelly is on most days and those two had a football show on BT sport not too long ago and have been friends for many years.
they were both on Radio 5 together long before Baker was sacked the last time from the Beeb.0 -
Alejandrosdog wrote:the guy works in the media
for the bbc
he is not an idiot
it is inconceivable that he isnt aware that megan is mixed race
is it inconceivable that posting a picture of a mixed race baby as a Chimp is not offensive.
He's been fired and his excuses actually undermine his excuses.
Ive been accused of being a racist on this very forum for LOT less and actually I haven't made racist comments just some have decided that I have. I dont believe for a minute that someone in his position wasnt aware what he was doing.
If he genuinely wasn't aware then he should be binned for being a retard anyway.
Hmmm.
I'm quite bothered by his sacking & public disgrace. He's been a media personality for about 40 years; not growing up in London I only saw his 6 O'Clock Show stuff quite recently as YT clips, but it looks like light frothy stuff and was in the 70s & 80s apparently.
His radio output over the years has been quite near the knuckle occasionally but never the slightest whiff of racism. His books, the same. He covers some dodgy stuff in early 70s S London and the docks and his after-school activities but there's no hint of racism. The tv prog Cradle To Grave based on the books was a straight lift and as a BBC production wouldn't have made it if there was racist stuff to edit out. I've seen his stage show (twice, it changed a lot between first & subsequent runs). Still not a sniff of racism that I can recall.
From this I draw two conclusions - one is that he actually isn't racist, and b that he knows enough not drop the R bomb into his humour.
The anger towards him & justification for his sacking is that he must have known Ms Markle is mixed race, and that as a football fan he would know that monkeys (+ bananas) are the most racist thing going. This is where it goes wrong for me, joining those two ideas together. Unless any picture of a monkey is an absolute offence and is always racist, he hasn't broken any law just by posting it. It only becomes wrong in the context that caused this kerfuffle.
First up, it's v easy to not care about the royals. Just because DB works for an org that has a 24 hour news output doesn't mean he has to follow it. He's famous for showing up for his Saturday show at 5 to 9 and on air at 9:05 after the top of the hour stuff, and he's on his way home at 11:05. He doesn't have a mobile phone, he famously goes on Twitter only when he's at home. Most evenings he posts a Good Evening tweet of himself with a glass of wine and his music collection. He rarely references tv other than whichever live football is on at the time. It would be easy to be aware that Prince H is married, and unaware that it's to a woman of mixed background. It wouldn't be that difficult to know that a new royal baby had been born. I find it quite easy to accept that he didn't make the link between Ms Markel, the baby, and its mixed race heritage.
The official pictures released to the media and which conceivably DB saw don't shout mixed race at all. Take a look - https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/48204168 - pink baby, pink hands. Nothing about it says mixed race, unless you start to examine Meghan's chest and make the jump from that.
And then there's his immediate reaction. As soon as he posted it he started getting feedback, all of it -ve, so he instantly deleted it and apologised quite fully, all from the position of not knowing the context. As earlier, a picture of a monkey isn't wrong unless it fits a context. DB is adamant that he didn't realise and fwiw I believe that. Why? The alternative is that for 40 years DB has been a closet racist and managed to hide that from everybody with the clever trick of 40 years in the media never giving a hint of these suppressed racist attitudes. Some trick. And to compound it, why on earth would he post an image that even that Tommy Robinson of the EDL would have second thoughts about posting. Seriously. You think DB decided he couldn't hide it any longer and in one swift move last Wednesday he decided to out himself as a twunt and in doing so destroy his career with one simple tweet?
It's not difficult to avoid the royal family or to hear stuff and then let it go if it's of no interest. It's easy to use a photo that in another context is quite fine and fits in with a lot of his humour (Monkeys Dressed As Famous People...?). It's fine to post a picture that without knowing a linked set of facts is actually just a joke against the media circus and the posh end of society, and if the links that join those facts together aren't present his football interest and being a Millwall fan is completely irrelevant.
Seems to me that a lot of people are ever so keen for him to be shown to be racist, and are using some assumptions about what he should have known or leaps of logic that don't stand up, to make the point. I'll go with what I know of him from 30 years of being aware of him across the media, and that his reaction seemed genuine, and that it doesn't make sense to throw a life away like that, but mainly that it just doesn't fit.0 -
It's not about what you think, CiB, it's what you do.
Even if he didn't know, as a national broadcaster, he ought to have.
I'll keep asking the question - why didn't he make the same joke for the other royal babies?
I had a colleague who made an inappropriate joke about a disability towards the firm's main client. He was sacked a week later. The guy obviously doesn't have it in for disabilities. But was he right to be sacked? I'd say so, as he showed a level of misjudgement which is unacceptable in that type of job.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:It's not about what you think, CiB, it's what you do.
Even if he didn't know, as a national broadcaster, he ought to have.
I'll keep asking the question - why didn't he make the same joke for the other royal babies?
He ought to have known. An easy thing to write, but it's meaningless. He didn't know [apparently]. If the start point was his desire to make a quick gag about society and the news media and he quickly found a stock photo in his Funny Photos folder [he's reported that as being what happened], if he doesn't know that there's a link why would he think to go and find one? It's what Twitter is for him - throwaway gags, jokes, puns, witty references. I hate the phrase ' he should have known'. It's the most 20/20 Hindsight thing ever. Not knowing what you don't know is a perfectly good reason for doing something.
Did he make the same joke for other royal babies? I don't know; it doesn't matter. Unless he has a checklist of subjects and suitable responses to make jokes about that he consults every time he settles down in front of his laptop it's irrelevant. He was doing what a lot of us were doing last Wednesday; watching Spurs being beaten (they were at the time), drinking wine, idly leafing through twitter. Difference is is he's a Blue Tick + Content Producer, I'm a consumer.0 -
His job is to be a national broadcaster, so what they do in Twitter falls under the responsibilities in their job.
His misjudgment reflects on his judgment in his job for what is and isn’t appropriate.
The fact we all know what he’s referring to shows he ought to have. It’s literally his job to appeal to wide audiences.
I ought to know the ins and outs of my business. That’s why I get paid. So should he.
Do you all work in jobs where you can’t get tinned or something?0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:His job is to be a national broadcaster, so what they do in Twitter falls under the responsibilities in their job.
His misjudgment reflects on his judgment in his job for what is and isn’t appropriate.
His job is to be a scriptwriter, author, stage show performer and present a 2 hour slot on Saturday mornings. He's not Richard Dimbleby. His Twitter account is separate from the DB account that the 5L show uses; it's a very clear distinction. Lineker makes the same point; his Twitter account is his not BT's or the BBC's, and his numerous employers are quite happy to go with that. The BBC have defended him many times in the past for his political views on Twitter. Maybe it works differently if tweets align with the BBC's position on matters.
His misjudgement - as you define it - is not to follow the royals closely enough and to see a photo of a pink baby surrounded by pink hands and not instantly investigate the racial background of the parents.
My points were cumulative; if you wish to pick bits out one by one and argue them outside of the bigger context you're missing my point in a big way.0 -
This is the modern world of work.
F@ck up, get tinned. Happens all the time.
Plenty of people around to take your place.
The solution is to not f@ck up in your job.0 -
My take on the matter:
The guy isn't a racist. However, he screwed up at work and has been dismissed as a result. If I screwed up, no matter if it was intentional or not I would expect to be disciplined, even sacked.
His employer happens to be for a publicly funded, national broadcaster. Given the circumstances I feel it's reasonable for him to be dismissed (again).
The guy can lay low and do the TV writing stuff he's always done, he'll be fine in terms of employment. Just a shame though he doesn't save his money and spends it as he earns it, he could have done with some savings right now.0 -
CiB wrote:First up, it's v easy to not care about the royals. Just because DB works for an org that has a 24 hour news output doesn't mean he has to follow it. He's famous for showing up for his Saturday show at 5 to 9 and on air at 9:05 after the top of the hour stuff, and he's on his way home at 11:05. He doesn't have a mobile phone, he famously goes on Twitter only when he's at home. Most evenings he posts a Good Evening tweet of himself with a glass of wine and his music collection. He rarely references tv other than whichever live football is on at the time. It would be easy to be aware that Prince H is married, and unaware that it's to a woman of mixed background. It wouldn't be that difficult to know that a new royal baby had been born. I find it quite easy to accept that he didn't make the link between Ms Markel, the baby, and its mixed race heritage.
Whilst I suspect it was just an off-the-cuff quip without enough thought and not intended to be racist I still find it very hard to believe he wouldn't be aware that Markel was mixed race. I really don't see how anyone in the country can be unaware given the amount of coverage it had when they met, when they got married and when the pregnancy was announced. I've listened to enough of his phone in topics to know his sphere of knowledge extends beyond football and music. Then again I frequently under-estimate the ignorance of parts of the population which gets demonstrated when watching Pointless and cast iron 'surely 100% knew that' answers end up down in the 60s or 70s!0 -
Pross wrote:I still find it very hard to believe he wouldn't be aware that Markel was mixed race. I really don't see how anyone in the country can be unaware given the amount of coverage it had when they met, when they got married and when the pregnancy was announced.
DB himself acknowledged that he fully understood why he was being sacked.
You find it hard to believe he was unaware, ergo he's a closet racist and deserves what he gets. For all the cumulative reasons I posted I believe the opposite, that he didn't know at the time. Have you never forgotten something that you once knew because you're just not interested enough? Maybe he did know once but it's gone from his mind. He said he hadn't made the link between royal baby and Ms Markel. Understandable if you're just knocking out a quick gag and don't care one jot about who's who in the firm and who's the latest to be knocking out another member of it, and the media picture is of a pink baby surrounded by pink hands?
The clincher still for me - as already stated - is just why would he do that? He knows how the world works. Why drop yourself in it up to the eyebrows for a silly gag? The obvious answer is often the best one. Given his response and his apologies I still opt for it being a simple lack of awareness and of failing to join up some facts that he probably didn't have in the forefront of his mind at the time.0 -
So in what way isn’t it something that you can get sacked for?
People lose their jobs all the time for mistakes.0 -
CiB wrote:Pross wrote:I still find it very hard to believe he wouldn't be aware that Markel was mixed race. I really don't see how anyone in the country can be unaware given the amount of coverage it had when they met, when they got married and when the pregnancy was announced.
DB himself acknowledged that he fully understood why he was being sacked.
You find it hard to believe he was unaware, ergo he's a closet racist and deserves what he gets. For all the cumulative reasons I posted I believe the opposite, that he didn't know at the time. Have you never forgotten something that you once knew because you're just not interested enough? Maybe he did know once but it's gone from his mind. He said he hadn't made the link between royal baby and Ms Markel. Understandable if you're just knocking out a quick gag and don't care one jot about who's who in the firm and who's the latest to be knocking out another member of it, and the media picture is of a pink baby surrounded by pink hands?
The clincher still for me - as already stated - is just why would he do that? He knows how the world works. Why drop yourself in it up to the eyebrows for a silly gag? The obvious answer is often the best one. Given his response and his apologies I still opt for it being a simple lack of awareness and of failing to join up some facts that he probably didn't have in the forefront of his mind at the time.
Re-read the whole of my post before making comments like that. I specifically said, in the part you cut, I suspect it was an off-the-cuff quip without enough thought and wasn't intended to be racist. I'm unsure of whether he deserved to be sacked but ultimately it is one of the downsides of life in the public eye that you have to be even more careful on social media than the rest of us. Personally I feel Ant McPartlin's behaviour a few months back was worse as it endangered life but as I've said above he seems to have been deemed to have served his time and is back in the good boy's club being nominated for BAFTAs.0 -
Sacking is an overreaction. Someone earlier posted a good list of alternatives like public apology & training, a few weeks off etc.
My beef with all this is that too many people who obviously don't like him anyway are using this to mark him out as a racist, when he clearly isn't.0 -
That was my own sarcastic 'oh right' leap of judgement that's coming across in the debate, not specifically a response to what you said. Apologies, I should have worded it better but when I read it back in my mind it ran fine. Sorry about that.Pross wrote:Re-read the whole of my post before making comments like that.0 -
CiB wrote:Sacking is an overreaction. Someone earlier posted a good list of alternatives like public apology & training, a few weeks off etc.
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So your beef is partly with HR?
I have a slight horse in this to make a point.
I am pretty convinced the older generation don’t really understand how fickle employers are nowadays and they don’t appreciate that nowadays jobs and people are expendable and if not, firms work towards that aim, so people get let go much more quickly than they used to.
This to me seems fairly standard practice for someone who’s job it is to know what his (public) audiences want.0 -
CiB wrote:Sacking is an overreaction. Someone earlier posted a good list of alternatives like public apology & training, a few weeks off etc.
My beef with all this is that too many people who obviously don't like him anyway are using this to mark him out as a racist, when he clearly isn't.
He's was sacked previously by the BBC for inciting threatening behaviour though so how many chances do you give someone for acting without thinking? You could argue that them taking him back once was his chance at redemption.0
