Summary: As another example of bias in the press, new appointments shed light on the intersection between commerce and supposedly-independent reporting

SOME TIME ago we showed how the likes of Ashley Highfield and Erik Huggers help Microsoft control the BBC.

Last year we showed that BBC Worldwide was a similar story. "End the pretence of independence now," writes Glyn Moody, who shows that "BBC Worldwide [may be] merging with Microsoft."

Against this background:

BBC Worldwide’s digital sales and business development head Peter Mercier is leaving to be Microsoft’s content acquisitions and strategy senior director - the latest in the revolving HR door between the two companies.

...

BBCWW hired Mercier from MobiTV as head of mobile in 2007 before he got a wider digital role in ‘08. Ashley Highfield left as CEO of BBCWW’s Kangaroo JV last year. Microsoft’s UK online services group VP Chris Dobson went the other way to be BBCWW’s WVP and GM of global ad sales, leading BBC.com ad sales in particular; he later took two BBCWWers with him.

Rather than try to cover up the symbiotic relationship between the two organisations, wouldn't it just be simpler if they merged them together now? At least then there wouldn't be any pretensions of independence by the BBC Worldwide...

It cannot be stressed strongly enough that companies like Microsoft control (and sometimes own) the press, even if it's funded by taxpayers. Microsoft is also pressuring journalists who do not comply although their publications are in no way funded by Microsoft. In the following video with Andrew Marr, a point is being made that even well-known journalists are secretly very cynical about the way the press really works, in practice. ⬆

“The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others”

--Friedrich Nietzsche