Funnily enough I could not track down any reference to the details of this story on the website of the Department of Communities & Local Government, which was cited as the source.
Instead the trail seemed to lead to the BBC’s Open Secrets blog, which had obtained figures under the Freedom of Information Act.
More irony; this blog itself provides a link to a Times Leader: “The BBC's website contains a section called Open Secrets - A Blog About Freedom of Information. Very good it is, too. It makes freedom of information requests and reports on those made by others. And yet here is the BBC itself spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of licence-payers' money in the courts resisting the very Act it uses every day.”
That was an old story – but, again last week we have the astonishing assertion of Jana Bennett that “the BBC will not disclose the salaries of its top stars” because “the public could not fully comprehend the complexities of the television industry or contribute to the debate”
Ms Bennett would do well to remember that “The BBC’s original mission as set out by Lord Reith was to inform, educate and entertain, in that order.” [My emphasis]. But then she must be perfectly well aware of this: “Jana first joined the BBC in 1979 as a news trainee and worked on Panorama, Nationwide, The Money Programme and Newsnight.”
Actually, it ought not to be too difficult to set out on a mission to educate the public on the complexities of what performers are worth. There is a lively debate practically every day of the week about what footballers are paid, for their activities both on & off the pitch.
Others have already seized on this handy comparator, for example on the question of how much a university professor is worth.
The BBC is not short of experts in the business of explaining statistics of pay – Home Editor Mark Easton, for example writes regularly on the question of equal pay for men & women.
So , come on, it really is not beyond all those powerful intellects to explain to us poor idiots why Jonathan Ross is worth it.
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