Outraged at a distance

Many at the BBC will be enjoying Kevin Bakhurst's principled stand on BBC complaints. Kevin, former editor of the BBC News Channel, is now Group Director of Content at Ofcom - and Ofcom wants the BBC to publish the number of complaints it gets on various programmes, as Ofcom requires of other broadcasters.

The weekly list simply accumulates numbers (when there are more than ten complaints on a programme); the BBC argues that bald numbers are no guide to whether or not content is dodgy, and often, fuelled by opponents of the BBC, there's a herd mentality producing letters and emails from people outraged even though they didn't see the programme in question.

Our Kev knows that the BBC internally tots up complaints received on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis, and has got heavy with former colleague, David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards.

Meanwhile, back at the re-imagined BBC Board, there's a new guide to the Complaints Framework and Procedures - but the link is broken.  Better fix it before Witchfinder Kev notices....